President Trump: To Impeach or NOT to Impeach? That's the Question

@C_M_

thank you for the link to that article ... I suppose it depends on the mindset with which one reads it and on the background of knowing other articles from different perspectives on the same matter. The article described -- most likely without wanting to do so? or but perhaps actually wanting to give that impression? -- the rather desolate state of the Democratic party and its Hilary obsession (btw, she recently advocated such impeachment steps).

Have you taken a look at all the crimes comitted (but of course not investigated and brought to justice) by previous administrations and their presidents? How many recent USA presidents and vice presidents plus head neocon falcon secretaries promoted and committed war crimes and crimes against humanity (in accordance with USA set standards after WWII)? Someone having a tax crime from years before is "a nothing" compared to the millions of civilians killed in recent and current USA war crimes ....

There is nothing in the Mueller Report that even comes close to an impeachable offense.

Volume II of the Mueller report teems with documented assertions of conduct that easily "come close" to impeachable offenses. A few examples (an "executive summary" of these and analogous assertions of fact are found on pp.3-6 of the Special Counsel's report)

1) The president asked then-White House Counsel, Don McGahn, to see to the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller.

2) The president later asked McGahn to lie as to whether the president had asked him to have Mueller fired.

3) The president dictated to Corey Lewandowski a message for delivery to recused Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a message that directed the AG to announce a change in the focus of the special counsel's probe away from the previous election and toward future elections.

There are others - such as the firing of the FBI director with "Russia" on his mind - but those three, in the minds of many former federal prosecutors, reflect clear and demonstrable acts of obstruction of justice. Given that impeachment is at its core a political act - an "impeachable offense" being whatever a majority of the members of the House believe it to be - it's not at all hard to believe that Mr Trump could be impeached on these items. Could ANY article of impeachment result in a conviction in the GOP-controlled Senate? No. Not even were the president on tape with the AG drawing up a plan to have the special counsel assassinated. But you asked about impeachable offenses, not convictable ones.

A simple question: Had a President Hillary Clinton been shown by a special counsel to have taken those three specific actions while she was under criminal investigation, would YOU believe those actions were "impeachable offenses," or in your view would those three actions reflect appropriate presidential conduct on her part?

What crimes? What disregard for the law. There is nothing that has been done that is impeachable that we have actual evidence for. Just the imaginations of the lunatic left.

You mean the facts? What in that transcript was impeachable? Please point out the direct quote that was impeachable. Not the reading between the lines, the actual quote.

If anyone should be harmed by this fiasco it should be the liar Adam Schiff. He flat out lied to the American people in a Intel hearing yesterday. It was disgusting. He is the one that is TRULY not fit for office.

@Bill_Coley wrote

that's why now the Democrats are trying this procedure for impeachment for political tactics to influence the election campaign 2020. Is such the purpose for impeachment? I suppose Clinton's b*j affair with an employee in the oval office was apparently something the Democrats as majority at the time deemed fine and proper for a US President not worthy of impeachment?

Seems like now the corruption affairs of Obama and his representatives Biden and H.Clinton are beginning to show up in all their "glory" .... the scandal at hand is not about Trump, it is about Obama, Biden and H.Clinton!!

Just some common sense considerations from the perspective of someone not directly affected by the parties involved 😉

To say that impeachment is a "political" matter means to distinguish it from "criminal" matters, in which burdens of proof and requirements of evidence are laid out as matters of law. The only stated requirements for impeachment are found in the US Constitution as "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." Impeachment is a "political" matter because there are no statutory guidelines as to what constitutes bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. (Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution defines treason as "levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.") Therefore, House members have considerable more leeway in deciding what's impeachable than do jurors in criminal cases governed by detailed statutes and evidentiary requirements.

The purpose of impeachment as a process of our government is to hold officeholders accountable for conduct while in office that the Congress believes renders them unfit for the positions to which they were elected or appointed (even Supreme Court justices and cabinet officers - who are appointed, not elected - can be impeached and removed from office). The current move to impeach president Trump centers on profoundly important matters of state such as inviting foreign government involvement in our elections, obstruction of justice, and abusing the power of his office.

Because facts matter: Throughout the Clinton impeachment and trial proceedings, which began in October 1998 and ended in February 1999, the Democrats were in the minority in both the House and Senate, not the majority.

As to the two articles of impeachment against Clinton approved by the Republican-controlled House, ten Republican Senators voted with the 45 Democrats to acquit on one of the two articles, which produced a 55-45 vote in favor of acquittal, while five GOP Senators voted with the Democrats on the other article, which produced a 50-50 vote, far from the 2/3 needed to convict.

A brief American civics lesson: In the U.S. impeachment is NOT removal from office. Impeachment is akin to a grand jury indictment in that it proposes specific charges against an officeholder, the reason(s) the officeholder should be removed from office. It is up to the U.S. Senate to decide whether the officeholder should be removed from office, via what is commonly referred to as a "trial" that produces either a "conviction" or "acquittal" on impeachment articles passed by the House (though those words are NOT criminal justice words either!) Articles of impeachment are approved by a simple majority vote, while two-thirds of the Senate must approve an article before an officeholder is removed because of it. Bill Clinton was impeached on two counts, then acquitted of both by the Senate.

That the vast majority of House Democrats voted against the two articles of impeachment, and all Senate Democrats voted to acquit on the two approved counts does NOT necessarily mean those Democrats "deemed" the president's conduct "fine and proper." As a person who paid considerable attention to those impeachment proceedings, I can tell you that I don't recall ANY member of Congress of EITHER party condoning the president's conduct.

Your claim is false and baseless. The "scandal at hand" is in fact about President Trump's conduct in office - his abuse of power, his obstruction of justice, his inviting foreign government intervention in American elections, his pressuring a foreign leader to look for dirt on a domestic political rival, and White House staffers' efforts to secrete documentation of the president's conduct away from others' review and oversight.

The Clinton email server matter is, as I reported previously, a totally debunked conspiracy theory, which means there is NO TRUTH to it. In these forums you've made no secret of your personal affinity for conspiracy theories, Wolfgang, but that has no bearing on the truth or falsehood of the email server claim. It is completely, totally false.

Two Ukranian prosecutors looked at the allegations against Hunter Biden and found nothing there. Your personal regard for allegations for which there is no factual basis notwithstanding, the findings of those prosecutors matter and are at present both controlling and decisive.

With due respect, Wolfgang, I can't find the "common sense" in "considerations" that are either factually wrong (your assertion that the Democrats were in control of Congress during the Clinton impeachment) or baseless and false (most every other assertion you made in your post). Whether we are "directly affected" by a matter has no bearing on the truth or falsehood of the assertions of fact we make. Facts are facts; conspiracy theories are not.

Another false and baseless claim.

As I asserted in my previous post, calling impeachment a political process differentiates it from legal processes, which are much more guided and directed by statutes, process, rules of evidence, etc. In addition, when we note the partisan divide both in the Clinton impeachment votes and the current Trump controversies, the political character of the process is even clearer.

I don't understand your reply. You claim I described "what the process IS," but not what the Congress always "does"? What specifically does the Congress sometimes do in impeachment/trial proceedings that isn't possible in my description of them in my posts in this thread?

The Constitutional provisions themselves aren't political, but the impeachment process does not rely solely on the provisions themselves. It relies on members of Congress who decide whether given presidential conduct rises to the standard established by those provisions, and must do so without the legal framework common to legal cases. THAT'S what makes the process political. Did you review the partisan votes in Clinton proceedings? How was that NOT a political process?

When criminal case juries deliberate, a judge has given them specific instructions as to the governing law(s). A judge has instructed them as to what evidence they may and may not consider, as well as what they must believe to be true in order to find the defendant guilty of each of the charged crimes. Jury verdicts that violate the applicable legal standards can be nullified (overturned) by the judge. That does not and cannot happen in impeachment proceedings where members of the House are free to decide what is a "high" crime or misdemeanor, and their decisions are final and cannot be overturned by a judge or even the Supreme Court. The same is true of Senate trials of impeachment articles. The senators are free to vote based on their own standards of whether the articles before them are "high crimes and misdemeanors," and their final verdict cannot be appealed. THAT makes impeachment a political process (politicians governed by personal standards, not legal definitions, rendering decisions that cannot be appealed).

The U.S. Constitution has specific provisions for the process by which the Congress shall make laws. Since those provisions themselves aren't "political," in your view does that mean Congress is not a political body, and legislating is not a political process?

Any honest person knows this. Of course, liberals know this too but they are dishonest.

The Constitution decides what a process is, not Congress (unless of course they Amend it.) In other words, the impeachment should be challenged.

As far as Clinton, it depends on what the morality laws were governing DC at the time. I don't know what they were. But some intimate acts are actually illegal in many parts of the country still.

Lev Parnas. You mean the guy facing federal charges of fraud? Oh yeah, that is credible. And awful convenient he shows up right when the impeachment trial is about to begin. This is Christine Liar Ford all over again.

On the contrary, I can handle real truth and not made up fantasy.