David Leonhardt, one of the bright spots in the New York Times, wrote a brief on impeaching President Donald Trump. It’s very good – you should read it all.
Some highlights:
- We don’t need results from the Mueller investigation to impeach Trump – he has proved his unfitness for office in multiple ways.
- Now that moderating influences like James Mattis have left the administration, Trump’s rate of doing damage will increase.
- The greatest risk is an external event and Trump’s inability to respond, or to immediately reach for dictatorial powers.
He lists four areas in which Trump has broken his oath of office:
- Trump has used the presidency for personal enrichment.
- Trump has violated campaign finance law.
- Trump has obstructed justice.
- Trump has subverted democracy.
Bob Bauer provides a long explanation of how we get to an impeachment. The first step is for Congress to hold hearings on the various issues. This provides evidence for Trump’s malfeasance. Hearings also publicize that malfeasance to develop popular support for impeachment.
Nancy Pelosi has not been willing to talk about impeachment. This is a reasonable stand for now. She is not unhappy with other members of her caucus bringing it up, however. Her comment about Rashida Tlaib’s call for impeaching the mofo was carefully neutral. Representative Brad Sherman of California plans to introduce articles of impeachment against President Trump.
I believe that Pelosi is waiting for popular support to develop. Having other members of the caucus talk about impeachment and people like Leonhardt, outside the caucus, along with the effects of the government shutdown and other Trump actions, will develop that support. Pelosi is skilled at gauging support and will move when the time is right. That time may come when Trump provokes a constitutional crisis. Sherman’s articles of impeachment will be ready.
The support must be strong, for two reasons: First, there is only one chance to impeach, and it must succeed. Second, impeachment will be divisive, and strong support will mitigate that.
So yes, let’s keep talking about how to impeach the mofo.
schrodingers_cat
Related, how to pressure Traitor Turtle.
Kraux Pas
@schrodingers_cat:
Can Senators be impeached? Yes, I refuse to research this at this time.
clay
Ah, so two years ago.
Brachiator
May not be the same thing as “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Good stuff on impeachment, though. Of course, it doesn’t really matter since the Republicans in the Senate will never vote to remove Trump from office.
Sadly, the Republicans now clearly believe that “democracy” means government by Republicans.
This is why the 2020 elections will be incredibly important.
Mary G
RBG is missing the Supreme Court arguments for the first time.
Amir Khalid
@schrodingers_cat:
The Turtle, I am convinced, must face a stark choice between Trump’s downfall and his own. I do not believe he would abandon a Republican POTUS in any other circumstances.
PaulB
Yes, Senators can be impeached and it has been done. More here.
schrodingers_cat
@Amir Khalid:I agree.
Ohio Mom
@Brachiator: Clinton’s impeachment showed that the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” is pretty flexible.
I’ve long thought that all the skimming off the top Trump does (all the ways he makes money off the presidency) should be grounds enough for impeachment — in a sane world.
Ella in New Mexico
@Mary G: saw that and wonder why she can’t just Skype the damn thing? Or at least do an audio/phone conference participation?
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: You are correct, and he is up for reelection in 2020, IIRC. I sure hope the Dems are grooming a charismatic senate candidate and inciting libertarian spoilers.
piratedan
@Amir Khalid: i fully believe that Sen. McConnell was part and parcel to the Russian efforts to subvert the 2016 election, so much so that its a very possible explanation based on the choices and decisions made by him as far back as 2015. The decisions to NOT allow Obama to bring forth the information from the Intel community seems to play into that. Could it be that Mitch is simply a stone cold racist, sure that could explain it to a degree, but racist enough to subvert America itself, possibly true as well, but the amount of money dumped into GOP coffers by Russian oligarchs, and coordinating media smear campaigns that McConnell had to have consulted with makes me think that he’s part of the inner circle of the conspiracy regardless.
So my thoughts would be to impeach McConnell first and then see who the GOP replaces him with, if its someone like Cotton, then you know the entire hierarchy of the GOP is essentially complicit (which is what I think we’re going to have to really come to grips with).
Kraux Pas
@PaulB: Great, so McConnell could be impeached…theoretically. Unfortunately, though, his entire conference has been complicit in his treachery and would be unlikely to turn on him unless irrefutable evidence that he committed specific crimes emerged AND they thought supporting him would damage their electoral prospects at home.
Why does this sound familiar?
kindness
Mitch McConnell is a bane upon Democracy and will be until 2020. That is why Democrats can’t pull a Maine type LePage split like we did in 2016 with the Bernie factions.
The Dangerman
Pelosi 2019
I want to see RWNJ heads explode.
randy khan
@PaulB:
Since the Senate vote to convict in impeachment and the Senate vote to expel a Senator are the same, it’s easier to expel someone (as you don’t need the House to start the process).
randy khan
I agree that Pelosi is playing this right, as is Nadler. It doesn’t matter if there is a good case for impeachment and conviction, or even that Dems in Congress think there is a good case for impeachment and conviction. What matters is enough public pressure that Republicans will take it seriously. The only way to make that happen is to work methodically, through investigations and hearings, to show why Trump needs to be removed.
He won’t be removed, of course, absent a sea change in how Republican Senators think about him (that is, they need to think of having him in office as a liability that they need to address). As I’ve said before, I don’t think that will happen gradually; I think if it happens, it will be like Nixon in 1974 and will happen more or less all at once.
Kraux Pas
@randy khan:
And I’m sure McConnell will be quite eager to bring this motion to the floor without the House forcing the matter…
Gravenstone
@Betty Cracker: Indeed, McConnell is up in 2020. And clearly pointing out his role in continuing this farce shutdown will begin to apply needed pressure. Unfortunately, we’re far enough removed from 2020 that he is doubtless factoring in the rather brief attention span of his electorate in assuming that he personally will not pay a price for his current obstruction. Something he needs to be disabused of.
zhena gogolia
Leonhardt’s column was very prominently featured in the “Sunday Review” section — front page and entire second page, for those of us still reading dead trees. It elicited a huge number of comments, mostly supportive (the point of contention being he’s giving too much credit to the Republicans). I think it was an important event.
He also called upon people who have left the administration to go public with their accounts of Trump (he named Cohn and a few others, I can’t remember who). Not likely to happen, but it’s important that the NYT is calling for it.
Kraux Pas
@randy khan:
Exactly. This is why I think of it less like the sea and more like cracks in a dam. The Republicans are gonna soooooo regret putting off infrastructure week.
Yarrow
@piratedan:
Yep. In December 2016 when he suddenly changed his mind from not allowing Senate investigations into Russian involvement in the 2016 election to allowing them, he made a short speech announcing it. I have never seen him look as shaken as he was while he made that announcement. He looked like he was in a hostage video.
On that Friday he was still not going to allow investigations and by Monday he was. Something happened that weekend.I have been convinced since that time that someone has something on McConnell. They let him know what they had over that weekend and told him he would allow investigations. I’ve seen plenty of his speeches or statements to the press. I have never seen him look like that.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: Yeah. I think Turtle is dirty, dirty, dirty. Treason. He is propping up Trump to defend himself and probably more people than we think in his caucus.
This all has to come out. It must.
Which is why I am good with getting the ball rolling for impeachment, but keeping the powder dry. Why install another Republican? Let this play out. It’s possible it is far worse than we imagined.
Also possible that Mueller’s Grand Jury is for some charges against sitting Senators and politicos.
Face
Impeachment submission by the House will succeed. Conviction of impeachment issues by the Senate will never, ever happen. Ever, no matter what he does. Such a vote would indirectly indict all those Senators for their refusal to acknowledge his criminality. And that would cause them pain and electoral disaster.
Any crime(s) Mueller can prove will be swept away as “partisan” and “lies”. Mueller will be smeared as a Dem. In today’s climate, a (R) president will never be convicted by the Senate. Our gov’t long ago stopped functioning as it was designed, when one of the parties decided to stop living in the real world.
E.
I just keep coming back to the thought that if Clinton had been removed we would have gotten Gore, and Gore probably would have become the next president. In hindsight, Clinton’s removal might have been the best thing to have happened to us. That said, I deeply want to impeach the motherfucker.
randy khan
@Kraux Pas:
I mean, we’re in the realm of silly hypotheticals now, as there’s no chance the Senate would expel McConnell with a Republican majority in place, but so far as I know there’s no requirement that an impeachment trial be conducted at any specific time, so McConnell would have as much power over whether he was convicted as over whether he’d be expelled.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Ohio Mom:
The writers of the Constitution intentionally left “high crimes and misdemeanors” vague. It’s a political process, not a legal one.
@Brachiator:
It’s whatever the House says it is.
laura
I expect that the Mueller Report will reveal a web of corruption that will shock the conscious that even the Village will have to demand action -resignation and/or impeachment.
I hope that former administration employees will start telling the truth about the fundamental unfitness of this human stain, and that foreign Intel weighs in as well.
You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…..
Nicole
I so desperately want McConnell to get the Jane Mayer and Ronan Farrow treatment, it’s like a physical pain inside me. What will take? Change org petition? Go Fund Me? WHAT? WHAT????
A Ghost To Most
@piratedan: @Yarrow:
The complicity of the GOP starts at the top, and runs deep.
ETA this will end when 20 R senators break with Yertle and Mr. Creosote.
feebog
There is no reason the Judiciary Committee can’t start hearings on some of these other issues while the Mueller investigation continues. Despite reports to the contrary, Mueller is not ready to wrap this up. It will be months, likely going into late summer or fall before a report is ready. In the meantime, ducks on these other issues can be lined up. Then the numerous crimes spelled out in the Mueller investigation will have to be heard. It is going to be a fairly lengthy process, so let’s get started.
Elizabelle
@Nicole: Yes.
And Jane Mayer may very well be on it as we speak. She is big into Dark Money. This is among the darkest.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@randy khan: OTOH, as far as impeachment goes, it’s not the House’s job to divine how the Senate will vote. Their sole job is to determine if the office holder has committed “High Crimes or high crimes and Misdemeanors”. Trying to determine what the Senate will do is just like what the Turtle is doing WRT Trump and the shutdown.
Elizabelle
@laura: I would love if it becomes apparent how complicit some of the Villagers are. They are dangerous.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Kraux Pas:
Well, McConnell could be removed from the Senate via death. He is 76 years old and is no spring chicken.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: It’s not at all worse than I imagined. It’s pretty much what I expected.
McConnell took a lot of money from Len Blavatnik, as did other Senators (hello, Rubio). Blavatnik’s close relationship with Deripaska is something I’m sure Mueller knows all about.
Cheryl, asked you a few days ago if you’ve seen “Active Measures” and I didn’t see that you replied. I finally watched it several days ago. It’s very good at summarizing what Russia has been doing to undermine the US, Europe and our allies. I highly recommend it. Further to our discussion on your previous post about “The Trump Narrative,” the film comes at the issue from the same direction I was working to outline. It’s bigger than Trump, although his election plays a key part in their overall strategy.
catclub
@Yarrow: Yeah, right. This is why he remains fully cooperative on lots of issues. Somebody has serious dirt on him, which they have not bothered to use ever since that one day in December 2016.
This is why he has fully cooperated in making sure Mueller is protected by all sorts of laws he has brought to the floor of the Senate.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
In other words, stupidly surrendering your constitutional powers.
Brachiator
@randy khan:
Sadly, the Republicans learned the wrong lesson from Nixon. Right now, they think that they can safely back Trump no matter what. No Republican in office has publicly spoken out against Trump’s excesses or conflicts of interest. Republicans also believe that they are immune to being voted out of office wholesale.
@Ohio Mom:
It’s sad and ridiculous that the Republicans ignore Trump’s crimes, which are far more serious than anything that Clinton did.
Elizabelle
@The Dangerman:
I want to see us back under competent management. The heads’ exploding is just a side benefit.
They are not going to have an addled 2016 electorate. People are more woke, and more personally endangered now.
Kraux Pas
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
Tortoises live 150 years.
Jacel
Is that true? My understanding is that the House can vote to impeach a president any number of times, if the grounds raised each time are different. That might be necessary if the Pelosi’s house conducts a thorough and convincing impeachment proceeding, only to have McConnell’s Senate brush it away. Get Mitch and his buddies on the record, over and over, more and more visibly in support of an endless list of Trump’s crimes that can be drawn on.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Yes; but not just powers, but your obligations.
Kraux Pas
@Brachiator:
That they can have a thoroughly corrupt President and the American public will completely forget/ not care because ideology/ manage to convince themselves a new, sincere Republican party manifested from thin air within a few short years?
Kent
I’d love to see Trump impeached as much as the next person. But it seems to me that what is really all-important is 2020. Not just the 2020 presidential election but to hold the House, win back the Senate and win as many state races as possible. I have to wonder if that is going to be easier with Trump on the ballot in 2020 or with Pence (or another fresh face) on the ballot.
From my way of thinking and judging from 2018 I gotta think that a 2020 election in which every single GOP candidate from Senate down to local state house races is attached at the hip to Trump is going to be better for Dem chances than a 2020 election in which the GOP gets a “do-over” with the adults now in charge. My horror would be Pence or someone else getting a honeymoon period and lots of fawning by the media about a fresh start by the GOP and how Trump was just an aberration.
I see 5 possible endings…
1. Trump runs in 2020 and is defeated
2. Trump runs in 2020 and is re-elected
3. Trump pulls a Palin and resigns at the last minute leaving Pence in charge in exchange for pardons for the Trump family
4. Trump is actually impeached before the primaries and we have a robust GOP primary for a new candidate
5. Trump is impeached after the primaries and we are left with Pence.
I think #1 is the best case scenario and the way to make it a landslide across the board for Dems is to bleed him dry with endless investigations over the next 2 years and tie every GOP candidate to Trump, down to school board members.
What I don’t quite understand is the chain of events should Trump be impeached and removed from office or resign late in 2020 after the primary season and conventions have passed. I’m sure there must be some procedure. Would Pence or whoever the running mate is just step up and appoint a new running mate? Or would they try to re-do the primaries? Or would the GOP just pick someone new? Given that it is 50 state elections and not one national one I think it would be a complete mess.
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: Plenty of them are. Some at the reporter level but look higher into well-paid pundits, editors, managers and publishers.
I think of what the MeToo movement has revealed and how easily those men, prior to their abuse being made public and them losing their jobs, could have been blackmailed. “We know all about what you did to those women Mr. Lauer/Rose/Halperin (et al), and if you don’t want it to become public you’ll do _______.”
It’s also important to note that the men who lost their jobs almost all were horrible about Hillary Clinton and went easy on Trump. That dumb town hall with Matt Lauer immediately comes to mind but there are so many other examples. How much of that was their ingrained misogyny? Were they being told what to do? If so, by whom? Andy Lack, looking at you.
It’s so easy to lean a story in one direction or the other because if you do or don’t your job could be threatened, you worry your wife might divorce you, you’ll lose your kids, etc. Combine toxic masculinity with actual abusive acts and when an enemy knows about those actions you are ripe for blackmail. By anyone, even an enemy state.
Emerald
@Nicole: We haven’t heard from Ronan Farrow in awhile. He must be working on something. (Gawd, are we lucky to have him! We do need real journalists and he’s one of the last standing.)
Yarrow
@catclub: That’s exactly how it would work if the person or people who talked to him told him he would allow and then protect the investigation or his actions would be made public. Same reason Sessions recused himself and then never did anything to impede the investigation.
ET
I don’t disagree that he has done enough worthy of impeachment but for a grossly compliant Republican congressional caucus, but impeachment is also a political action and I think the case is likely to be stronger and more palatable to politicians and everyday folk when the Muller report comes out and puts all the pieces together.
I fell like this administration needs to be piled onto before some people (not is hard core base) abandon him. So you add more to the report with investigations led by a Democratically controlled Congress actually doing its job (particularly if they look at the administration beyond just what is likely to be part of report). We may or may not get to impeachment, but the report (and the investigations) do become part of the public record for this administration and tRump and Republicans have won’t have that much control about what people write about the history of this administration and that is very important.
Cheryl Rofer
For those of you who are convinced that Republicans will never, never go against their own, I submit that circumstances can change. Trump already gave them a disaster in the November election. They are processing that. If the House impeaches, that will also change circumstances. As I said above, Pelosi will bring impeachment to the floor when she feels there is popular support for it. That will also penetrate the Republican consciousness. At some point, their cost-benefit calculation will tip to impeachment and conviction. And, as someone said upthread, the public change will be sudden, although change is likely taking place already.
@Yarrow: I missed your comment on “Active Measures.” I did have a conversation via email with Adam over the weekend on that topic. I’m pretty well up on what the Russians have been doing. I know it’s bigger than Trump, but Trump is the immediate problem. The best countermeasure we’ve got to the Russian moves is to educate people and make Russian actions public. That’s happening, although not as quickly as any of us would prefer. And Russia has problems of its own, although Trump is doing what he can to help them out. Russia, for example, will now be supplying China with chicken and soybeans to fill in for American produce.
ETA: No, I haven’t seen “Active Measures.”
piratedan
@Yarrow: all of this comes around to the media component of what is going on here… while I know that the majority of the pundit class is still busy analyzing their own navel lint for signs and imports regarding what all of this means and whether or not Oxford commas need to be used, they main component to a LOT of this I fell are the news editors and directors that are busy “framing” all of these arguments and questions, which is why I believe that open hearings are an absolute must. Those that can and will tune in will hear just an incorrigible crew of criminals that are in place and setting policy and just how cheaply and easily they sold us and the country for without having a bunch of folks tell us what was “really said” or what it “really means”. That’s what happened with Watergate and the clippings from those hearings into instagram posts and twitter and you tube to get distributed to anyone who gives a shit will turn this around (I hope) to bring public opinion and outrage to a fever pitch.
WaterGirl
@ Cheryl, up top
That was one of Barack Obama’s keys to success.
Yarrow
@Cheryl Rofer: Yes, the one country Trump always seem to love to help is Russia.
I highly recommend “Active Measures” if you haven’t seen it. It’s well done and makes it easy to understand Russian interference in all sorts of places, not just the US. Since you mentioned educating people, the film is a great way to start. It’s easy to follow and shows the breadth of Russia’s work.
Mart
@Kent:
Maybe so, if we do not all die first.
laura
@Betty Cracker: @Elizabelle: yes, they are dangerous, self-serving, lazy, and, well, that’s Villago’s turf so I’ll turn to that resident expert.
Low tumbrel numbers for Zucker, Lack, Shine, Maggie, . . . .
MattF
@Yarrow: I have to admit that I was gobsmacked by Trump’s defense of the USSR invasion of Afghanistan. Maybe Putin blamed terrorists in one of their tete-a-tetes– but it was very weird.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yarrow:
I don’t disbelieve you, but why couldn’t these same individuals pressure McConnell with whatever they have on him to convict and remove Trump from office? Or at least do more to oppose him?
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yup. They shirk their obligations because that’s the only path they see forward with Trump and themselves staying in power.
Brachiator
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Impeachment is a political action as much as it is a legal one. The House should consider the political consequences to empty exercises in political theater.
WaterGirl
I am convinced this day will come:
Trump’s base will turn on him, but it will be for a reason that will make us all ask: This is what they find unacceptable??? Not Trump working for Russia, not the corruption, or babies being ripped from their parents, or condoning the murder and dismemberment of a journalist, or deserting our allies.
I just hope that day comes before too much more damage has been done.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: Cheryl, thanks for front-paging this – I was worried it had gotten lost in the thread below after I linked to it. (I swear, I think there might be only 5 of us on BJ who read the NYT, which, for all its Clinton-hating and ‘both-sides’ mentality, does do some pretty good overall reporting. And of course Leonhardt and Goldberg are awesome).
For this:
…I couldn’t agree more. People forget that none of this is static, that some of Trumpov’s support has already eroded, that the GOP did just in fact get shellacked in the midterms, and that the situation is much more likely to deteriorate further for both Trumpov and the GOP than improve. That’s why this stuff, the blessed absolute necessity of Biden to run in 2020
drives me nuts.
Ya think?!? There is NO NEED for a Dem candidate who “gets along with Mitch McConnell”; nothing could repel me more and it pisses me off just to think about it.
Fresh, progressive faces, Dems!!
Anyway, back to your point: yes, his support – even of his base – will indeed change. We are a whopping 2 years into this clown’s term and if nothing else changes, the GOP will get another shellacking in 2020. Surely some in his party will see that and make their move…and he’ll fire back…lather, rinse, repeat.
In the meantime, our guys should definitely be beating on Republican Senators to defend the Constitution, and we all should be beating on big business to say enough is enough with the damage to the economy (tariffs, shutdown, banging on the Fed)
rikyrah
I keep on seeing that the GOP is like, ‘ the Democrats will cave because they care’
The thing is, they don’t realize that the ground has shifted from under him. Used to be, it was true, Democrats actually cared.
Hell, we STILL CARE.
But, we have realized, quite frankly,
As it is put so well on another blog..
THE GOP IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION
And, what’s the first rule of negotiations?
You don’t negotiate with TERRORISTS.
We feel for those impacted, we really do. I honestly do, from the bottom of my heart.
But, no…not one muthaphuckin’ dollar for that wall.
And, the thing is…I’m the Democratic Base…
The days of us telling Democrats to ‘ find a compromise’ ARE DONE.
OVER.
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
Didn’t change anything with respect to Clinton.
Right now, the success of impeachment depends on the quality of the evidence brought against Trump, and the likelihood that there would be negative political consequences for Republican senators if they fail to act.
Right now, the GOP is solidly behind Trump, as is Fox News.
Jeffro
@WaterGirl:
Nah…it’ll be because Snoop got through to enough of them. ;)
Yarrow
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: Because they have an active investigation with a larger target than just Trump and they are working on the investigation. They take out too many people too soon and the larger investigation crumbles.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
Related to the thread below, I’m very worried that Trump, if feeling cornered before the 2020 election with polls showing him losing badly to a Dem, may decide to declare a national emergency and assume the presidency’s emergency powers, rendering the US a dictatorship.
I read an Atlantic article about it yesterday, and I was deeply disturbed. Like so many things in America, it has always been assumed that the president would use their emergency powers wisely. I never realized how easy it is for a US president to become a dictator, going so far as to alter the search results of search engines for example, using an obscure Roosevelt-era regulation against foreign propaganda, as well as deploying American troops domestically without real cause.
What the President Could Do If He Declares a State of Emergency
donnah
I emailed my Senator, Sherrod Brown, and told him explicitly that I do not want Democrats to fold, cave, give in, or compromise on their stance for no wall. I hope he gets that. And I hope all of the Democrats do, too.
Kent
I expect the GOP to finally turn against Trump (at least the political class) when they finally calculate that he is hurting them much more than helping them for their own re-elections in 2020 and beyond. If/when that finally happens I have to wonder if Dem chances up and down the ballot are going to be better if we let Trump stay on the ballot and tie him to every GOP candidate. Or if he is removed and they are all free to run as some sort of fresh start for the GOP.
If he does get re-elected then I’m there on day 1 with full bore impeachment in November 2020. But thinking strategically about things like the Maine Senate race with Collins I have to think that having Trump on the ballot in 2020 makes her prospects worse.
Martin
@Face:
People forget temporality in this analysis. The Senate is not voting on the information known when the House decides to begin impeachment proceedings. It’s easy to say ‘given what we know now, the Senate will not convict’. What we know now doesn’t matter. What we know when the Senate needs to vote is what matters. It’s easy for Senators to say ‘none of this rises to the level’ when almost none of the evidence is part of the public record. Once you go through 6 months of a House impeachment process, with live televised hearings every day, and all of the evidence laid out (that Congress has bent over backward to avoid learning about) then it gets a LOT harder for Senators to claim that ‘yeah, this is fine’.
The only calculation that really matters in the end is whether keeping Trump in office helps the GOP hold power, and helps Senators get re-elected, or not. Every piece of testimony to the House pushes that calculation toward conviction.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Brachiator:
So was the GOP with Nixon before 1974, until they weren’t. They aren’t invincible.
bmoak
When the House Dems start holding hearings, what will happen when Trump administration official just refuse to appear and testify? Didn’t that happen during the W Administration as well?
Kent
I doubt Trumps base will ever turn on him in large numbers. But GOP senators from states outside the deep Confederacy? Perhaps they might for their own survival and the survival of their party.
rikyrah
Cyntoia Brown got CLEMENCY IN TENNESSEE!!
YES YES YES !!
Citizen Alan
@WaterGirl:
I have often theorized that Dubya’s popularity collapsed because he couldn’t thread the needle on immigration. The two parts of his base were cheap-labor capitalists and xenophobic bigots. Whether he passed immigration reform or opposed it, he was going to piss off one of those groups.
Cheryl Rofer
@Jeffro: I had the Leonhardt and Bauer articles up in tabs all weekend and was planning to do a post on them. Your comment earlier this morning convinced me I should just write it. Now.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yarrow:
But couldn’t one make the calculation that Trump and his Republican enablers are already causing severe damage, damage that could derail the investigation anyway?
Yarrow
Related to Russia, has this been posted?
Link.
Seems like a listicle clickbait. “140 Things You Should NEVER Say About Julian Assange! Number 73 will shock you!”
PPCLI
@ET: The investigations are also crucial because, as Congressional Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated, investigations can be a tool for keeping things in the headlines. The news media are addicted to new things. Give the news one new tidbit every couple of days and you can keep something prominently in the headlines for months. To mention just one example: The Washington Post produces a couple of truly shocking articles on the self-dealing and fraudulence of the Trump foundation, and then it is gone from the news and forgotten. An investigation can ensure that new outrageous revelations are released daily, and Eric Trump will be forced to testify about them under oath.
Yarrow
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: You could. But do you just want to take out Trump and leave all the other Republicans and money-launderers and other people to go free? Or do you want to take out the organization?
In cases like this it’s a challenge to know when to offer a deal, when to bring someone in, when to leave someone doing bad things in place because to take them out would jeopardize the case, etc. Mueller is a master at managing difficult cases like this and he’s playing this one out similarly to the way he’s done various other mob takedowns. This time it’s the Russian mob, for a shorthand.
Mike in DC
I think there’s a relatively narrow window for the impeachment process, and it’s pretty much restricted to 2019. In 2020, the election itself becomes the impeachment trial.
The best thing is to lay down the groundwork via investigations and hearings, then wait for the Mueller report to drop. Ideally impeachment would happen in late summer, with the trial in the Senate in October 2019, just before off year elections.
Fair Economist
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: If President Trump tries to stage a coup, we will take to the streets, and we should also boycott EVERYTHING to crash the economy. If it happens, it happens, and we’ll do what we have to.
Frankensteinbeck
@Gravenstone:
McConnell is cynically and absolutely correctly factoring in that a large majority of Kentuckians care about nothing whatsoever more than racism. His last election against Grimes was nonstop ‘Obama and Mexicans’ and it worked very well. He isn’t liked by his constituents, but he knows that all he has to do is push the race button and they will stampede to vote for him. Kentucky is a Hellhole and I can’t wait to get a new publisher and move back to LA.
Gelfling 545
@rikyrah: Well thank gods for this. My heart broke for that young woman.
Barbara
@Jeffro: Obama said that one reason he ran when he did was that Teddy Kennedy told him that there would always be a reason not to run, but that for any given candidate there was probably only one real opportunity to make a successful run, and if you passed it by, it would not come back. You don’t get to choose the moment, so much as the moment chooses you. For Joe Biden, that was 2016. He didn’t want to run because of family issues — his son’s death, of course, but also what appears to have been some fairly heavy duty subsequent personal drama among his remaining son and his brother’s wife. Perhaps many people also put him off because they didn’t want Clinton to have competition, which, in my view was a huge mistake. But Biden has also run in the past and not won when the party itself was much more conducive to running someone like Biden.
cmorenc
Impeachment is not only a legal decision, but unavoidably a politically tactical one as well. All indications so far are that the Mueller investigation is building as solidly substantive a set of grounds against the Trump Administration as possible rather than constructing a dismissive whitewash (see, e.g. Devon Nunes’ misuse of the House Intelligence Committee “investigation”) – the House Democratic caucus would be tactically wise to concentrate on presenting an attractive, progressive-based agenda to the country, and wait for the Mueller report before commencing any actual impeachment proceedings.
Jeffro
@Cheryl Rofer: Well, I’m very glad you did – thank you! Nothing is more important than dealing with this clown and getting others to recognize the danger in letting him stay in office.
That’s why, while I understand the sentiment in wanting Trumpov to be a major drag on the GOP in 2020, we can’t try to game that stuff out or take the chance. He needs to go, like, yesterday. We’ve all – our democracy, minority groups, the economy, our national defense – been in a great deal of danger ever since he was sworn in. He’s a danger every day he’s still there. And justice for his many crimes, cover-ups/obstruction, must be served.
BC in Illinois
@rikyrah:
Cyntoia Brown clemency.
News conference going on right now.
Jeffro
@Barbara: Well-put. His moment has passed and I hope for the sake of the party that he doesn’t run.
Having said that, I will vote for the Dem in the general no matter who it is, provided that s/he is in fact a Dem, has provided the public with years’ worth of tax returns, and represents the party’s policies and constituencies well.
rikyrah
@piratedan:
believed this long ago
Jeffro
@Jeffro: (clarifying here – when I said ‘the sentiment’, I meant as expressed by many on the blog and not you specifically, Cheryl)
MCA1
@ET: I tend to feel that way, too. So long as Schiff and Nadler are running televised hearings without an independent actor stitching together all the things they’re digging up, it’s too easy for the GOP and Faux to just ignore it and/or hand wave it away as partisan vengeance, overreach, blah blah blah. That independent actor, in a functioning democracy, would be the media, but obviously outside of Rachel Maddow we don’t live in that timeline.
Dotard’s approval will continue to slowly erode, but you won’t see the sort of wake up call for the 70% of the country who can’t really be bothered to do their civic duty and pay attention to this stuff as it’s happening. And for that reason, all the House Intel reports in the world won’t be the impetus for elected Republicans to see their political lives flash before their eyes and do the right thing. For that, there needs to be a connective thread and something that blots out all the other squirrels the media chases for at least a couple weeks.
People who aren’t politics junkies have no idea how insanely corrupt this maladministration is, or how horribly incompetent, or how cruel, etc. They don’t dedicate the bandwidth and so they see as much circus as substance when they do take a look at the news, and it’s still filtered through both-sidesism (which most of the country has been deeply conditioned to accept uncritically, because it’s comfortable and allows them moral license to not pay attention). If they can’t see that shit clearly, they sure as hell can’t put together the entirety of the Russia story, which is stranger than fiction, more sprawling than Dostoevsky, and keeps coming in unconnected little drips. Even those of us here have trouble tracking all the moving pieces sometimes. The only thing that can change that is something that will saturate the landscape.
The problem is that producing that something (much less doing so in a specific timeframe) is not Mueller’s mandate. The only thing that gets peoples’ attention in the meantime is indictments and trials. When Jr. or Stone or whoever is next gets perpwalked, that’ll move the needle for a while.
Immanentize
I really like Pelosi’s framing. Stop talking about “investigations!” That sounds like political payback actions and is the Republican’s framing.
Madam Secretary said, there may be some investigations, but what the House is going to do is fulfill its constitutional duty to provide oversight of the executive branch.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Brachiator: While impeachment is a political action, not doing it when clearly warranted also carries a political message*. Also if the House carries out it’s obligations and the Senate refuses to act, that’s on those Senators.
*You can kill a guy on 5th Avenue and it’s OK.
Gex
@rikyrah: Amen.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: I have friends who have been working on this. It is a Big Biden Deal.
??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??
@Yarrow:
Well, I defer to you then. I hope Mueller and others know what they’re doing
catclub
@Immanentize: my first (correct!) thought was that he (Tenn Gov Bill Haslam) is just about to leave office.
I am sure no one knew about this the other 8 years he was in office.
Immanentize
@catclub: It was cruising through the courts, but the big change was the Tenn. Supreme Court recently saying that Cyntoia had to serve 51! years before she would first become parole eligible. That would put her at a minimum age of 68 (she was 17 when the crime occurred).
Ryan
“Now that moderating influences like James Mattis have left the administration, Trump’s rate of doing damage will increase.”
Apparently he wants to now address the nation. In primetime!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/07/us/politics/trump-address-border-visit.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage
...now I try to be amused
@WaterGirl:
The Pee Tape?
Whatever it is, I think it will reveal Trump as a weak loser, not the strong winner his base desperately want to believe he is. The base elected him to pwn the libs; if the libs pwn Trump then he will have outlived his usefulness to them. Transactional relationships go both ways.
Elizabelle
@cmorenc: Totally agree. In the end, we may have the Mueller report and the Democrats in the House working in tandem. And stronger for it.
Nancy Pelosi can see that.
Elizabelle
@…now I try to be amused: I would guess finding out that Trump is nothing more than a money launderer and blowhard. Not a (self-made) gazilionaire.
I think all the corruption and money for personal gain. That he is a fraud.
I could care less about any pee tape. If it exists. I am more concerned about longtime criminal acts and undermining our country. And having so much help to do so.
sukabi
@Kraux Pas: maybe not impeached, but possibly removed as maj leader by the repubs on a no confidence vote….he’s losing support.
Jeffro
J-Rubs making a good case t</ahat Biden running because "he's the only one who can beat Trumpov" doesn't take into account the very real possibility that one way or another, Trumpov won't be running in 2020. Then what?
Immanentize
Jeffro — You comment is interesting, but you didn’t close the link which is capturing the reply button….
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: Whatever works! I found Snoop rather compelling, but maybe that’s just me. :-)
Jeffro
@Immanentize: oopsie!!
sukabi
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??: the obvious reason would be that exposing drumpf would also expose McConnell.
Judging by statements and actions the 4 most compromised members of Congress are / were McConnell, Graham, Nunes and Ryan.
Immanentize
@Jeffro: I wanted to chime in — I’ve already set down my Presidential election marker. All presidential challengers run “change” elections, but I believe/predict that this will be a change + new generation election. Our very best bet will be someone who embodies the change people crave plus a whole new generational outlook. It’s funny, Warren is pretty down with the juvies, and seems young-ish compared to Biden and some others, but I think a really fresh face will be the best antidote to the current administration.
Think of it this way — in 2024, AOC will be old enough to be President.
sukabi
@Immanentize: for that matter I wouldn’t mind a hand off from Warren to AOC.
YMMD
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: I agree completely with your first paragraph.
But AOC won’t have nearly enough experience in 2024, and we don’t even begin to know enough about her to know whether she would ever be presidential material.
I love Joe Biden, but he missed his window to be President. I hope he leaves on a high note as a damn good VP for Obama, before he gets sullied in a presidential campaign that, for the good for the party, he shouldn’t win.
WaterGirl
@sukabi: I think all this talk of AOC as president at some point is foolish.
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: I wasn’t seriously suggesting AOC as a Presidential candidate — I was just pointing out that it is her generation, not mine, that really ought to be working toward leading us into the future. My Mom, now 88, thought both Trump and Clinton were too old as candidates in 2016. I am not really eager for even older candidates this go around (Trump, Sanders, Biden, etc.)
Mike in NC
We might find out via Muller that not only did Trump collect millions of dollars in illegal campaign contributions from the Russians, Saudis, and maybe even the Chinese, but so did dozens of Republicans in Congress and various state houses.
sukabi
@WaterGirl: no different than the Beto talk. Or for that matter the “too old, too young, not progressive enough, too progressive, blah, blah, blah.”
Yes, we don’t “know” that much about her right now, and she may prove to be a flash in the pan, or a very quick study that is a capable leader.
Everybody here is fantasizing about who they’d like to be President and how to make the necessary changes in the direction of the country. If you’re going to start your fantasy with what is barely beyond the status quo you’re not going to get very far.
Having 2 very articulate, progressive women in a row as president is my fantasy.
Joe Falco
The House is not a monolithic structure. It was made to handle all sorts at things at once through committees and sub-committees. Democrats can present a progressive agenda and still have committee hearings on the awfulness that is Trump and his vile horde. They should press the advantage they have at the moment and fill up so much air time that Trump will suffocate for want of it. Start the hearings, follow up with impeachment proceedings and energize the base.
Boehner and Ryan flooded the House with ACA repeal votes that went nowhere under Obama, but they kept going because it gave the base an issue to rile themselves up over. And the fools are still wanting to repeal ACA, no matter what good it does!
Make impeachment the goal until Trump is gone from office. Democrats should not let the Republicans dictate what is politically possible. Even if it never happens, the pursuit of throwing out Trump for his crimes against the Republic is a political win in my book, and it draws a line in the sand between those wanting to save our country and those who submit to petty authoritarianism.
Uncle Cosmo
@Kent:
Originally I thought this was obvious: Pence (or whoever is next in line if Mikey is gone) becomes President for the remainder of Twitler’s term. Which is true as far as it goes, but it may not go far enough.
Upon further reflection, a real issue arises if Trumpence have already been nominated for re-election. Article I, Section 3 indicates that once impeached & convicted, a former office-holder is “disqualifi[ed] to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States” – inter alia, no longer qualified to run for his/her old office. So presumably in the hypothetical instance the national Republican party (probably via the RNC) would have to select a replacement ticket (no idea how the RNC would do that) & then petition the various States (who control the mechanics of elections to Federal offices within their own jurisdictions) to substitute the replacement for the original in an eventuality like this. I would suspect the applicable laws are a crazyquilt amongst the several States. In many cases it might be simply to add a notice to the ballot to the effect that “All votes registered for Line 1B (‘Trump/Pence’) will be counted as cast for ‘Bozo/Clown’ by request of the Rethuglican National Committee.” But it’s an interesting question.
Jeffro
@Uncle Cosmo: No need to worry about it all – Trumpov won’t be renominated. Frankly, I don’t think he’ll even be in office in early 2020.
I have an outside hope that Pence is forced from office first, leaving the VP job vacant when Trumpov is forced to resign-or-be-RICO’d (meaning, President Pelosi not President Pence). It’s a shame that a ticket that so obviously broke campaign finance laws/conspired with a hostile foreign power gets to keep the office in any way. But whatever. By 2020 the GOP will be reeling, and because of the census/redistricting, we HAVE to sweep that year.
meander
Major investigations are a critical first step because the items laid out in Leonhardt’s piece won’t resonate with much of America. For example:
Obstruction of Justice = “fighting back”
Calling the press enemy of the people = “giving your opponents hell”
Subverting democracy: very subjective. What’s subverting / norm-breaking to one is just ‘hardball’ to another.
Personal enrichment might be another matter. And if / when money laundering can be proven, that might also capture the attention of many. As would major levels of tax evasion / fraud (like that shown in the NYT story: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-tax-schemes-fred-trump.html )
Arclite
I’m all for impeaching Trump as long as we impeach Pence at the same time.
trnc
@??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??:
That’s what it has become, but I would say that, even as damaged as our political system has become, it would still be a stretch for a president to be impeached and convicted if no actual law (or maybe even statute) has been broken. One of the reasons impeachment is an option available outside the court system is because evidence that a president has broken a law may be classified. Members of congress may be privy to information that cannot be disclosed to a jury.
On a related note, I believe a sitting president can be indicted and tried in court if non-classified evidence can be produced. There’s no reason for concern about the value of a president’s time because he or she can invoke the 25th amendment and have the VP take over for the duration of the trial.
LosGatosCA
Three reasons to impeach:
1. To save our country domestically
2. Restore our honor internationally
3. To discredit every act of this administration and especially the appointment of the ‘Russian judges’ as an absolute must for court packing