There's a difference between gathering evidence for impeachment and using it for an impeachment

Many people are pushing for impeachment hearings to begin immediately, but one of the reasons the various committees need to continue their investigations is that the gathering of the evidence is often tedious and messy. Hearings in this regard can be very informative, but won't necessarily tell the whole story because the House will still be digging for information and it won't all be tied together. The hearings will be interesting, but they won't always be good television. This also needs to be done by committees other than Judiciary since they involve different subject matter that isn't within Judiciary's purview (for example, intelligence, financial services, etc.)

However, once more evidence is gathered, the pieces can be pulled together and presented for impeachment in a much more coherent and cohesive manner that tells the story and makes the case.

That's what happened in Watergate. By the time the Judiciary Committee took up impeachment, the public was much better educated about the depth, breadth and nature of Nixon's wrongdoing. It was less a matter of the Judiciary Committee getting in the weeds in an effort to gather evidence, but more of doing a deep dive into the large volume of evidence that had already been gathered and then shaping it into a clear narrative that showed the public that impeachment was the only just result.

That's one of the reasons I'm glad that Pelosi and other House leadership are resisting the pressure to jump into impeachment hearings now before the various committees have done their investigations. They know that will help ensure that impeachment will be based on a solid foundation.

A few days ago, Nadler was being raked over the coals as too weak to do more than

"send another strongly-worded letter." Now, he's being hailed as a hero.

The reason Nadler and the other Judiciary Democrats were able to do what they did today is that they laid the appropriate, escalating groundwork (including strongly-worded letters) that provided the legal foundation for them to stomp the big foot today.

Can you imagine where we'd be if we hadn't taken back the House last November?

I don't even want to imagine it.

Senate Intel just subpoenaed Junior

This should be very interesting since: 1) It's a Republican-controlled Senate committee; and 2) He doesn't work for the Administration, so not even a remote executive privilege argument

https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/08/politics/trump-jr-subpoena-senate-intelligence/index.html

I really dislike the term "Rethuglican"

and other names some use to describe our political adversaries. It makes us sound childish to engage in the kind of petty name calling that they do.

It was funny to see in a other thread people complaining about "Rethuglicans" using the term "Democrat" as an adjective. If we're going to name-call, why do we complain when they do. (And "they did it first- we're just responding to them" isn't a sufficient justification).

We have big things to deal with. We shouldn't do it by making ourselves smaller.

Donald Trump's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Trump can tolerate and even revels in all manner of criticism.

But one thing he cannot stand is to be laughed at or mocked as a nothing, especially when it comes to his financial worth, which he sees as the only real proof of his manhood.

Today, he's being laughed at and mocked up one side and down the other after it was revealed to the world that the Little Emperor not only has no clothes, he's also a financial eunuch.

This one's gonna leave a mark.

I keep hearing pundits claim Dems say they're not impeaching because it .might hurt us in 2020

But I haven't heard any Democratic Member of Congress say this.

Where are they getting this - they never say who supposedly telling them this - and why do they keep saying it over and over?

What I hear - and agree with - is that impeachment can't be rushed into and must be done very strategically. And doing it right requires going through processes and that takes time.

But I'm not hearing any elected Democrat say that Trump shouldn't be impeached because it could negatively affect our electoral chances in 2020.

Great reporting by NY Times on Trump's finances. But it would have been nice

if the Times had put in even a fraction of this effort to investigating his finances a few years ago before they helped to promulgate the Trump myth.

I'm quite sure that if Hillary Clinton had gone around insisting that she was an expert pole vaulter, the media would have confirmed that she actually was before consistently referring to her in story as "Pole vaulter Hillary Clinton."

Yet they not only took Trump's word for it, they made "billionaire" his job description and virtually his first name.

So, while it's excellent they're exposing him, they are also cleaning up a mess they helped to create

My position is

that, at this point in time, impeachment confers nothing outside of what they can do through the oversight process and, in fact, could actually be less effective if launched right now.

While many of us are already convinced that we have more than enough to impeach, most of the country isn't there yet. Moreover, if impeachment started now, it would essentially "freeze" most of what we have in place and make it very difficult to gather any additional evidence that would sway the public and actually lead to potentially gathering enough votes to remove him. Impeachment inquiries are not investigatory processes that dig out new evidence. The last two impeachment proceedings worked with evidence that had been gathered by other entities and, for the most part, simply considered whether that evidence was sufficient to support impeachment.

Here, people are pushing for impeachment so that Congress can root out and gather evidence. And that's just what Congress is doing. The difference is that people seem to think that an impeachment inquiry makes it easier to gather find that evidence and that it confers upon the Judiciary Committee - which would be the entity responsible - to do so. But that's not the case. Not only do the other pertinent committees have just as much authority - if not moreso - to gather any evidence that the Judiciary Committee could do in an impeachment inquiry, they also have the resources, staff and expertise to do what the Judiciary Committee can't do alone. In fact, some Committees have the exclusive power to do certain things that other committees can't - for example, Ways and Means has the exclusive power to obtain tax returns. The Judiciary Committee has no such power (and neither does any other committee).

So, my position is that, while impeachment is warranted, it has to be done correctly and with the right timing. And now is not the time to launch a formal impeachment inquiry. Instead Congress must conduct the investigations and hearings that would be done as part of an impeachment inquiry AND go far beyond that in order to pull together additional evidence that will be needed to provide a solid foundation for impeachment, which doesn't exist yet, regardless how convinced you and I may be that this man must be impeached.

If impeachment is started right now, pretty much all the Judiciary Committee will have to work with is the Mueller Report (and not even all of that) and a lot of bits and pieces and suspicions and accusations that the public already knows about but haven't been enough to convince them that Trump must go. They can try to get additional information - the unredacted report, the grand jury material, the tax returns, etc. - but the administration will stonewall them exactly as they are now. The fact that these are being fought over in an impeachment process will have no effect on the likelihood that the Trump people will turn them over or whether a court will rule more quickly or in the House's favor. The result will be the same whether this is fought out in an impeachment inquiry or through the other committees.

Nothing is lost by continuing the investigations and hearings and putting the information out every single day to the American public. More evidence can be gathered, the public can be more easily convinced this way than if they're learning about it as part of an impeachment, which they'll more likely see as a craven political fight instead of a meaningful fight to save the country.

This is not a binary choice: impeachment or nothing. Continuing robust investigations doesn't take impeachment off the table. They just make it more likely that impeachment will succeed and that Trump is held accountable for many more of his crimes than if Congress allows themselves to be goaded into jumping the gun and starting proceedings before all of the ducks are in a row.

You and others may differ with my view, but my position is well-thought out and based on years of relevant legal and political experience. And, more important, the people in Congress who are strategizing this very complex situation know what they're doing and shouldn't be attacked and called cowards or clueless because they're not taking the approach that some people want them to take - especially since most of the people attacking them are on the outside looking in and don't have the experience or knowledge to fully understand all of the considerations that must be dealt with in this matter.

I hope this helps you better understand my position on this.

We're gonna see the tax returns sooner than later. And WHOO BOY, that's gonna be interesting!