Please, oh please, don’t make challenges like that. Someone will take it up.
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Probably not. But this isn’t going the GOP’s way polling wise. And the trial itself could potentially be used to force some of that evidence through all of that obstruction. The trial will be over seen by the Chief Justice and he’ll be able to rule on certain things immediately rather then letting them spool out in court forever.
So in so far as putting shit in front of the public has meaningfully shifted things. The trial might, even if the final vote is straight party line. And nothing prevents them from adding articles during the trial or even impeaching again if the right info gets out.
I think the idea is to use the trial to break the obstruction.
My dad thinks conviction is such a thin possibility that it’s sort of a poison pill. The trial will be quick and go the obvious way. The Republicans have been forced to go on record saying this is OK. Then they impeach again when the court deadlock clears. Or prosecute, if they win the election.
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Why would Mitch make it a long drawn out trial though? Much more expedient for him to just do an up or down vote and get that “total exoneration” soundbyte. The evidence isn’t helpful to him so there’s no point letting it be brought up.
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Because Trump wants a circus and McConnell is on record saying that he will do whatever the White House wants.
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Why is this not a legal issue? IANAL, but my understanding is that the Senate functions as the jury and the USSC as the judge. Having the jury collaborate with the accused seems… wrong?
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He isn’t totally in control. Cause the trial runs a lot like any other trial and is overseen by the Chief Justice. Whatever format the trial takes, since there doesn’t seem to be a fixed setup. The “prosecution” should be able to file motions, subpoenas whatever that’ll be decided on by Roberts rather than by senate votes.
So while McConnell has control of the senate, there should be some capacity for the Democrats to stretch things out or force rulings on things that could end round Trump’s obstruction.
Though I’m not sure on the hows, how much, and whether it’ll work. But McConnell is apparently spooked enough by the polling impacts that he’s openly promised not to do any of the obvious obstruction things that people have been speculating about.
For what that’s worth.
Yeah cause they’re real concerned about what seems wrong.
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Yes, McConnell is subverting the Constitution he has sworn to uphold, so there is no one to hold him, or the Republican Party, to account. But SCOTUS is not involved per se: it’s the Chief Justice who “presides” over the proceeding. Looks like McConnell is actually running the show, because he does not give a fuck about the Constitution.
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I agree. And the fact that every single a Senator, when asked about impeachment, refuses to comment because they are “a potential juror,” only makes McConnell’s proclamation that there’s “no chance” the president will be removed even more remarkable.
The Senate trial is going to turn into a weeks–long smear campaign of Joe and Hunter Biden.
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I think you are wrong. He has supporters that will be with him no matter what, but there are many more in the middle that voted for him and now are disillusioned. The impeachment forces the GOP and all their senators to climb on board the USS Shit Show and let trump off the hook. And they’ll pay a cost in the elections. Trump won by loosing the popular vote by a non-trivial margin. Undermine that a little and he will lose.
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The Republican narrative is “it’s not obstruction of justice if the investigation itself is illegal and unjust.”
This is, of course, utter nonsense since it’s clearly within the power of Congress to issue subpoenas in the course of investigating alleged wrongdoing by the executive branch. It’s also incredibly short-sighted for Republican legislators to limit their own branch’s authority in this way since they’ll almost certainly have reason to investigate some future Democratic administration.
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They’re going to argue that knocking the impeachment articles down is “patriotic”, which is preciously why I hate the term. I’d rather people deal in “right” or “wrong”.
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And Trump gets what he wanted all along. Damn, I hope you are wrong…
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we got him this time, for sure
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Every GOP Senator:
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A lot of the polling analysis I’ve seen lately there’s a bunch of smaller sorta gap groups in the polls. Like you poll people on how sure they are about their position and look at the percentage of Republicans. Or positions that seem conflicted, like people who believe Trump abused his power but shouldn’t be impeached for it. People answer undecided on things. People who say impeach but don’t remove from office. All sort of angles on getting at people who are unsure or less convinced.
And then viewed based on party affiliation, especially among independents. It looks like there’s a significant chunk of people who are movable on the subject. Including between 5 and 10 percent of Republicans, and 10 percent or more of independents. The few Democrat hold outs. Taken all together as much as 25% of the country who sit in an in between spot. Not sure, or otherwise not on board with impeachment but still not OK with what Trump’s done.
More realistically the number is probably a lot lower. But there still seems to be enough people who can be convinced to cause real problems for Republicans. It might just have bigger implications for the election than for the trial. Cause it’s down to whether the Democrats can reach them, how many, and how fast.
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The chief justice can be overruled by a majority of the senate,
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Well, that sucks.
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the current crop of republican leaders don’t care. look at @johnson’s quotes from above:
republicans don’t need to be logically consistent. they’ve never even bothered with that game.
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Understood, but I’m talking about legal and procedural precedent. Even if individual GOP legislators change their minds when a President of another party comes into power, any power they ceded to the Executive branch in the meantime is going to be that much harder to claw back.
That’s why Presidents of both parties pretty much get to wield military power any way they want to; after three generations of Congress abdicating their Constitutional responsibility to declare wars the structure of government has more or less evolved to leave the legislative branch out of the process entirely.
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