And why is it stalled? Because they are arguing over executive privilege. Executive privilege goes away with impeachment proceedings.
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Following the result of the court proceedings, that may still happen. But, following the legal process is important. That it moves slower than we would like is unfortunate in this instance.
Without following the legal process, itâs just a coup.
@Ryuthrowsstuff said it better than I would have.
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As pointed out, using that to side step the current challenges doesnât solve them, and probably makes it worse in the long run.
Everything forever more will need to be part of an impeachment hearing to ever get any information.
Itâs a process that leads to an eventual vote and trial. If youâre not confident in the outcome of the trial, and losing it carries a huge negative, why start before you have to.
You keep referring to starting impeachment proceedings as clearing all obstacles. It doesnât do that at all.
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Jailing someone for contempt of Congress is not some legality-skirting coup against the co-equal executive branch, nor is initiating impeachment proceedings. Both are well-established (if little-used) powers granted to Congress, the latter directly by the Constitution, and the former upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court. Subpoena -> refusal -> contempt vote -> contempt charge -> jail is a legal process. House leadership is just more interested in looking like theyâre doing something than actually doing something, so theyâre letting this crap wend its way through the Republican-packed court system instead of actually exercising their own broad oversight and enforcement authorities.
How much faster do you think these fights would get resolved if someone held in contempt was getting fined hundreds (or maybe thousands) of dollars every day they refused to comply with a subpoena (a thing that is, again, perfectly legal and within Congressâs power to enforce)?
Further to the point, who gives a shit about the âopticsâ? Republicans are running around doing their damndest to convince people to stop calling our âmigrant detainment facilitiesâ concentration camps (which is what they literally are). Meanwhile Dems are hand-wringing about whether they might look mean if they enforce the law.
And spare me any retorts of âbut what if Republicans ever get full control of Congress again?â. Republicans are already the party willfully distorting and exploiting their power to corrupt the democratic process and shut out Democratic initiatives by any means necessary. Democrats playing nice when it comes to Trumpâs laundry list of impeachable offenses will not somehow magically convince Mitch McConnell to abandon his authoritarian party-first power trips if a Democrat wins in 2020. It doesnât matter how deferential Democrats act, how civilly they present themselves, how meekly they make their arguments. Republicans will. not. care. And theyâll do whatever they want anyway. Remember when they launched a select committee to investigate Hilary Clintonâs email habits after eight other separate Congressional investigations had failed to reveal any sort of criminal wrongdoing, and then explicitly stated that the intention was to tank her electability? That was an unheard-of escalation for purely political purposes, taking advantage of a tool of government that had only previously been used for things like Watergate and the 9/11 investigation.
You keep acting like both sides are playing fair and respecting the process, but theyâre not. And Democrats have a huge number of tools in their arsenal that they could use while still playing fair that theyâre inexplicably refusing to contemplate.
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Feel free to ignore that impeachment proceedings include the investigation.
How would you know the outcome of a trial before youâve investigated the crime?
And, we mostly know the outcome of the trial will be acquittal. And yet the Constitution puts two separate, formal steps in place to remove a sitting president. Huh?
No. I specifically state, every time this subject comes up, that it clears up three specific things:
- Legislative purpose: check; itâs right in the Constitution,
- Privacy: nope, significantly curtailed when youâre being investigated for a crime,
- Executive Privilege: nope, significantly limited in the context of impeachment (legal precedent)
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Believing Pelosi is loyal to the voter is like believing corporations are loyal to the worker.
This country will be better off when both political sides are sent to the gallows.
she didnât even bother to make it rhyme - some âspeakerâ 
Trump is currently fighting previous subpoenas using a legal theory that congress can only issue subpoenas if they serve a direct legislative purpose. First they argued that these subpoenas, in total, are invalid because they arenât legislative in nature. Hinting at impeachment and arguing against congressâs general investigative powers and ability to check the executive. They lost. So now theyâre arguing that theyâre invalid because the only legitimate investigative power congress has in impeachment. Which also claims that congresses general investigative powers donât exist. Impeaching to side step that argument risks ceding said congressional powers.
Executive privilege does not allow them to refuse to comply at all, with or without impeachment. It privileges certain information during testimony. Invoking it this way, and this expansively is unprecedented and should probably be challenged in Court to prevent it from becoming legally valid. Skipping that step with impeachment could validate that particular abuse of power.
In both cases the Trump administration is using legal theories that assault the established constitutional order. And if they arenât fought down in court they remain available for use against other subpoenas and actions in other contexts. Hampering congressâs ability to check the executive, or throwing delays on each subpoena. Those state investigations. Those private civil suits.
Trump is basically throwing wild, likely to lose legal theories at these things in sequence and theyâre getting knocked down in sequence. Thereâs little point in knocking down each one, for each subpoena, concurrently. When you can focus on getting a few through and clear the way for all or most of them. Until youâve gotten a court to enforce one of the subpoenas, you have not established that you need the court to enforce the subpoenas. So far as Iâm aware its well established that the courts can, but I would expect Trump to challenge that at some point.
And if you donât think Trump is going to escalate a legal fight over impeachment powers, or claim executive privilege still applies in some fashion. Or challenge the validity of an impeachment, even if forced to acknowledge impeachment as a general concept is valid.Then you havenât been paying attention. One way or the other theyâre going to need to spend time establishing the validity of their actions. Because Trump does not believe in limits to his personal power, and is going to challenge.
They arenât arguing over executive privilege for shits and giggles. Its because Trump is claiming executive privilege in ways it doesnât apply. Thinking he wouldnât do that in slightly different circumstances, or with higher stakes is wishful thinking. Thereâs no move here that doesnât involve lengthy legal fights. Nor one that will suddenly see Trump accept political and legal norms.
I wouldnât say probably. Any court embracing one of these theories is unlikely, that decision living past the next level is less likely. The side step might make it a bit more likely, and its particularly risky because it might give an excuse to certain political hacks in the Supreme Court.
The bigger problem is that it leaves unanswered questions and unchallenged arguments that can still be used to delay in different situations. Which means impeachment proceedings might not get you there any faster.
The other thing is the courts wonât generally accept multiple, concurrently running cases on the same subject dealing with the same issue. Lower courts will wait on rulings from higher courts or earlier cases. Higher courts will punt till lower courts weigh in or a decision that countermands precedent turns up.
Fighting out each subpoena each time you issue one would slow it down a lot. You have to push through specific cases covering different details and it can be done in an order where one bolsters the next. Once subpoenas make it through and courts start agreeing to enforce them either they just start complying (unlikely). Or the courts start tossing out their arguments and enforcing subpoenas because the objections will be raising settled questions.
What makes you think that approach wouldnât also be subject to delay tactics and court challenges?
Inherent Contempt is not immune to challenge. This will not move any faster if the court fight is over the ins and outs of inherent contempt. It hasnât been used since 1934, and was rare for a while before that because we passed a law creating statutory pathways specifically to avoid the complications of using it.
People subject to fines and jailing arenât going to sit there racking up billion dollar fines. Theyâre going to file civil rights and due process suits separate from any fight with the white house. More over one of the reasons we stopped using inherent contempt is because it canât really be enforced passed the current congressional term. Inside of 2 years a none of it counts, and a different congress can simply decline to re-institute it all. Its never been applied in these circumstances and there are potential conflicts of interest in having congress apply this to other branches unilaterally. Similar to those with asking the executive to enforce contempt on itself, which is where the court enforcement pathway comes from.
Doesnât matter if said challenges are valid. Doesnât matter if they work. Just as Trumpâs current challenges to the validity of any subpoenas are weak as hell. Itâd still be spooling through one court or another. And ultimately there are very good reasons to run with enforcement through the courts. Successful challenge might put it there anyway for one, coercion applied from courts is much easier to enforce. And there isnât the expo date linked to a the congressional term.
We just watched Paul Manafort attempt to manipulate witnesses even though he knew he was being surveilled. And tank a plea deal by misleading federal investigators even though he knew his closest associate was cooperating. These are not people who comply in good faith, or get concerned about consequences when their shit doesnât work.
Expecting inherent consent to some how just work without the same delays and complications as whatâs already going on is assuming that the GOP and Trump White House will respect the process if we just pick a different process.
All of that is also the case without impeachment. Congress has specific investigation powers separate from legislation activities. Investigation of a crime, including by Congress does not which they have the right to do in itself, do not require impeachment so the privacy things right out. And executive privilege doesnât work the way Trump has claimed, it does not allow blanket refusal to comply with any subpoenas from any source.
Heâs not gonna to stop making bullshit legal arguments just because impeachment is invoked. Heâs not even going to stop making those bullshit legal arguments.
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There are many people who think they are more politically cunning than Nancy Pelosi. Some of them spend their time backseat quarterbacking and quoting each other on social media. The others all help keep Pelosi alive and vigorous, as she eats them for lunch.
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Well, shit. Tell the President he doesnât need to fund the wall; you built it for him.
(Stretches scrolling finger due to fatigue)
Congress has specific powers to investigate, in general. The Constitution lays out a separate, specific set of powers for when it is investigating the president for a crime. You know, Impeachment.
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That doesnât mean impeachment is necessary to investigate a president. Thatâs close to Trumpâs argument for why the subpoenas are invalid (currently). Its also a really bad precedent to set. How many investigations into presidents have we conducted that werenât directly part of impeachment proceedings? LOTS. How many investigations into other elected officials? Too many to count. Guess what weâre doing right now? Investigating a president through Congressâs normal investigative role, sans impeachment!
And as I said there is nothing special about impeachment that will suddenly make Trump stop fighting. It will only conveniently side step one particular way he is fighting one particular thing. At some point you still need to firmly establish a way to actually enforce shit like subpoenas and contempt findings. Heâs not going to magically stop stamping his feet and saying âNoâ last week because you went with a different process and set of norms for him to spit on.
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Fuck precedent. Letâs deal with the problem in front of us, a dictator-in-waiting, before weâre all in concentration camps.
If you donât think thatâs the GOPâs endgame, you havenât been paying attention.
How?
Seriously. What is the process that you think will fix this that quickly. Prevent Trump from doing anything to stall or use entirely routine court procedures to challenge actions on legal grounds? What investigative tactic is going to get Congress access to information when the other side just refuses? What processes can they use to get at it anyway when the other side just says ânoâ? How can they publicly post information they donât have?
At a certain point youâre either just blaming Democrats for what others are doing. Trump fighting it, the GOP refusing to help. Or bitching that they havenât marched into the White House rifles in hand. This is due process weâre talking about. Absent stepping out of our legal framework further than Trump has so far they arenât going to be able to skip this shit. Impeachment is loaded with this shit and the steps theyâre taking now are part and parcel of that. Regardless of process. Regardless of timing.
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Impeachment IS the process.
By any other name, it only lacks legitimacy.
Here is the difference:
Without impeachment, the House is investigating a sitting president. Anyone who has information, who leaks it or provides it against the explicit order of the Executive, risks prosecution. Someone like McGahn, who has tangible evidence of wrongdoing, has no protection if they go to Congress with confidential information.
With impeachment, those bounds go away. Anyone who provides information to Congress about the president is clearly following the law. They are protected. Moreover, they have a mandate to provide that information.
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Right. If Obama says âRadical Islamic Terroristsâ Isis will be defeated.
Part of what Iâm pointing out is that weâre pretty obviously working towards impeachment. Doing the things done to get to impeachment. Nothing happens with a snap of the fingers. Its only been 2 months since the Mueller Report, the full thing and its evidence hasnât been handed over. Its only been 6 months since this congress took office. And theyâve been doing things since pretty early on to lay ground work. To say theyâve been doing nothing is a lie. To say any and all prep work for impeachment is meaningless because impeachment hasnât yet happened is insane.
Yeah and thatâs important. But it doesnât neccisarily make the DOJ hand over the Mueller files, and it doesnât prevent Trump from using other approaches and justifications to prevent it. It doesnât even preventing him from challenging those basic tenets. If he can get a court to take it up he can challenge that executive privilege doesnât apply, as an example, and keep that argument bullshitting for months. In short impeachment doesnât just magically turn it into a smooth and easy pathway to every scrap of info and charge theyâd like to get at.
And I suspect if we were already in the formal impeachment process youâd be complaining about the routine delays and legal fights that are going to come with it. This is not fast or easy, and its not going to be fast or easy however they go about it. Its entirely possible that even if they were being as aggressive and fast moving on this front as was possible that theyâd still get bogged down and not cross the finish line before election day. They can attempt to do it properly. And they seem to be, though I do not think theyâre being as aggressive as they should be. Or they can do it last Tuesday and fuck it up 3 weeks ago. Because they have a time machine.
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And Iâm saying and expecting nothing you attribute to me in your post. They should take their time and do it right. They should follow the process. I even think Pelosi is the right person to take the lead. But deferring it because the Senate wonât convict? Bullshit.
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Okay, this will be a bit rambling and tangential, so please forgive me.
But: this comparision hits a point Iâve been noticing, and being bothered about, for a while now. Namely, how similar the reactions of many American leftists to Trump seem to be to the reactions of the US right wing to Obama. Now, the anger about Trump is mostly well-founded, while the anger about Obama mostly wasnât, so Iâm not making any moral equivalency argument here.
What I am concerned with is that thereâs an impatient desire for flashy, dramatic, âsilver bulletâ solutions on the left. Thatâs problematic for a lot of reasons. For starters, those solutions rarely if ever exist, and pursuing them is usually a waste of time and energy. And pursuing such unlikely goals, people end up doubly disappointed; first, in the slower, by-the-rules processes for being slow and not dramatic, and secondly in their own pursuit, when it ends up failing to achieve anything.
Part of this is the obvious desire for Big Symbolic Action. Impeachment for the sake of being able to say âWe impeached Trump, as was Right and Just!â is the biggest issue here. Yes, Trump is a shitbag and completely unfit for the presidency, in terms of morality and competence alike. But for all that people here on BB cry about moral victories and how they want to start actually winning, theyâre awfully keen to have a moral victory here even if it ruins the chances of actual win against Trump.
Because letâs face it: short of Trump choking on his own lies and keeling over dead, or quitting the presidency in a temper tantrum because someone said mean things about him, heâs going to stay in the White House until the 2020 election is done. Any halfway competently done impeachment process will take time, and in politics, things move slowly.
So impeachment must be seen in terms of how much it would help, or hinder, getting Trump out of the White House via election; and equally importantly, how much it would help or hinder winning the Senate and keeping the House. And crying that this is putting the party over the country displays stunning naivete or bad faith. Because right now, the Senate will not vote to remove Trump. Period. So the way forward is to vote out Trump, and vote in enough Democrats that they have a Senate majority at the minimum (ideally, enough for a solid supermajority so they could simply stomp over GOP attempts at obstruction). Because thatâs the way back to anything resembling sanity and morality and responsibility in American politics.
Tl;dr from European perspective: Do not let your sense of morality get in the way of doing whatâs right. In this case, stop crying for an impeachment for impeachmentâs sake and because itâs the âmoral thing to doâ; a failed impeachment wonât achieve anything and the warm fuzzy feeling of moral superiority will fade quickly.
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While I appreciate your chiming in, I must say Iâm talking about repealing Citizenâs United and having transparency for donations; anytime someone says âgallowsâ in the context of democratic reforms, it makes me think that the person recommending judicial execution may not be on the same vibe I am. And really, do you think that moves the conversation?
But what if impeachment is the best way to beat him politically and also regain the Senate? One of the ways in which he is unfit for the presidency is that heâs terrible under pressure. When his image is on the line, double that. Frankly, one of the only ways to get a conviction in the Senate is to provoke him to try something that even the middle-of-the-road GOP senators canât countenance. Itâs a long shot, but itâs not impossible, especially as he fights with even the GOP senate over SA/Yemen.
And why on earth does anyone think that impeachment without removal is a political triumph for the GOP. Heâs never going to lose his base, but voting against removal despite obvious evidence of wrongdoing will get a lot of GOP senators voted out. The Democratic base is bigger than the GOPâs, and itâs the kind of thing that will get independent voters out in numbers.
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