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

Brethren, make you case FOR or AGAINST Mr. Trump to be impeached. His behavior can't go unaddressed. To help you make a decision, please read Elizabeth Drews' article: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/opinion/trump-impeachment.html

The Dems can't ignore Trump's disregard for his crimes, congress, and the law. For those of you think Trump should not be impeached, on what basis you say such and how would you make your case?

The Mueller Report proved Trump did with the Russians or at least, tried. Could this be a starting point?

Either case, lay out in simple points, contrasting the two positions. CM

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Comments

  • @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 ....

  • C Mc
    C Mc Posts: 4,463

    @Wolfgang said"

    "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..."

    @CM said:

    Thanks for your response, Wolfgang. Let's deal with what's in front of us. Hillary nor previous presidents are currently in Mueller's Report or facing the possibility of impeachment . Let's deal with what is, and not what you think it should be. The obsession with Hillary is not this OP's focus. I know it may be what you and Mr. Trump can't let go, but Hillary is not facing impeachment, even if you think so. Donald J. Trump is! His dirty sins, crimes, obstruction of Justice, and disregard for the rule of law and Congress must be dealt with for the interests and safety of all.

    Hillary has been investigated and cleared. Trump has been investigated and found "weighted in the balances and found wanting." This is a very weak case (if any at all) for not, impeaching Trump. For a man of your intellect, I really expected you to produce a better case. CM

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

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

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

    His dirty sins, crimes, obstruction of Justice, and disregard for the rule of law and Congress must be dealt with for the interests and safety of all.

    Please, why don't you outline the crimes. Where was the obstruction? Show it. Disregard for the rule of law? Proof? Disregard for Congress? Where? How?

  • Bill_Coley
    Bill_Coley Posts: 2,675

    @reformed posted:

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

    Please, why don't you outline the crimes. Where was the obstruction? Show it. Disregard for the rule of law? Proof? Disregard for Congress? Where? How?

    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?

  • C Mc
    C Mc Posts: 4,463

    AND NOW, WE HAVE THE ANSWER, IMPEACH!

    The Dems can't ignore Trump's disregard for his crimes, congress, and the law. CM

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

    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.

  • C Mc
    C Mc Posts: 4,463

    You will eat those words later. CM

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

    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
    Bill_Coley Posts: 2,675

    @reformed posted:

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

    First, your standard misguided. Impeachment is a political proceeding, not a criminal one. As Gerald Ford said when he served as House minority leader back in the 1970's, "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." So what is "impeachable" to you might not be impeachable to me, and vice versa.

    That said, here are three lines from the transcript that to me are impeachable:

    "The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me."

    Why are those lines impeachable? Because they're proof that the president of the United States asked a foreign leader to investigate a domestic political rival, which is an obvious abuse of his office.

    But he was only asking the Ukranian president to root out corruption!!... And the ONLY two examples of "corruption" Trump raised had as their subjects his domestic political rivals - Hillary Clinton, via the long-debunked conspiracy theory about the DNC email server purportedly in Ukraine, and Joe Biden, via a request to investigate Biden's son.

    An abuse of power/office of that magnitude - just three years after Russia invaded our elections in a systematic manner with the intention of helping elect Mr Trump - to me is impeachable. (As is what we learned Friday night from the Washington Post, that in the spring of 2017, just a day or so after firing James Comey, the president told the Russian Foreign Minister that he wasn't bothered by the Russian intervention in the American elections, and surrendered highly classified to his Russian guests. So appalling was the president's actions, that White House officials secreted the summary of the conversation to reduce the chances of its becoming public. THAT'S impeachable, too, because it effectively gave a green light to the Russians to repeat their election interference. That was another abuse of his office, and a failure to faithfully execute the laws of the United States, BOTH of which are impeachable offenses.)



    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.

    What of what Schiff said during the intel hearing was a lie? Please point out the direct quote of Schiff's lie. Not the reading between the lines; the actual quote.

  • [Deleted User]
    [Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited September 2019

    @Bill_Coley wrote

    First, your standard misguided. Impeachment is a political proceeding, not a criminal one. As Gerald Ford said when he served as House minority leader back in the 1970's, "An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." So what is "impeachable" to you might not be impeachable to me, and vice versa.

    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?

    "The other thing, There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me."

    Why are those lines impeachable? Because they're proof that the president of the United States asked a foreign leader to investigate a domestic political rival, which is an obvious abuse of his office.

    But he was only asking the Ukranian president to root out corruption!!... And the ONLY two examples of "corruption" Trump raised had as their subjects his domestic political rivals - Hillary Clinton, via the long-debunked conspiracy theory about the DNC email server purportedly in Ukraine, and Joe Biden, via a request to investigate Biden's son.

    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 add a thought to the last post ..... It looks very much like a leftist coup attempt by promoting twisted and fake info and putting the blame away from the actual culprits (Obama, Biden, Clinton) to the one having a closer look into the matter and possibly revealing things which would - rightfully so - cause a proper investigation and prosecution of these evildoers.

  • Bill_Coley
    Bill_Coley Posts: 2,675

    @Wolfgang posted:

    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?

    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.


    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?


    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.


    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!!

    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.


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

    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.


    To add a thought to the last post ..... It looks very much like a leftist coup attempt by promoting twisted and fake info and putting the blame away from the actual culprits (Obama, Biden, Clinton) to the one having a closer look into the matter and possibly revealing things which would - rightfully so - cause a proper investigation and prosecution of these evildoers.

    Another false and baseless claim.

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

    You keep saying impeachment is political but that's not what the Constitution says.

  • Bill_Coley
    Bill_Coley Posts: 2,675

    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.

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

    You said what the process IS, not what Congress actually does. Those are not always the same. According to the Constitution a President can only be impeached for High CRIMES and Misdemeanors. Those are not political.

  • Bill_Coley
    Bill_Coley Posts: 2,675

    @reformed posted:

    You said what the process IS, not what Congress actually does. Those are not always the same. According to the Constitution a President can only be impeached for High CRIMES and Misdemeanors. Those are not political.

    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?

  • Here's an article with the sworn statement of the former General Prosecutor of Ukraine detailing that it was the USA VP Biden, who threatened the President of Ukraine, Poroshenko, and released one billion dollars to Poroshenko when he did Biden’s will and stopped the investigation of a firm in which Biden’s son had substantial interests. 

    As mentioned before, the real problem here is not Trump, but the Obama, Biden, H. Clinton regime with its dealings in Ukraine.

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

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

  • Bill_Coley
    Bill_Coley Posts: 2,675



    The problems with this "sworn statement" are many, first and least among which is the fact that it's not a "sworn" statement. Shokin promises that his statements are true, but a sworn statement is one in which the one swearing is under both an oath and some penalty of perjury, neither of which is true in this case.

    Issue two with the statement is that its author is the person who was dismissed by the Ukranian parliament, the former prosecutor who is at the center of the allegations against Joe Biden's son Hunter. Does any of us believe that Mr Shokin is an objective source of information about his own dismissal or the Biden matter? I don't. His statement reads to me like a grievance complaint lodged with local media.

    Issue three with the statement is that it contains outright falsehoods. Shokin, for example, claims the Burisma investigation was active and ongoing when he was dismissed. But as Bloomberg reported (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-07/timeline-in-ukraine-probe-casts-doubt-on-giuliani-s-biden-claim), official government documents proved that investigation had been dormant for a year when he was dismissed.

    Issue four with the statement is that Shokin ignores, surely intentionally, the intense international pressure that was a major factor in his dismissal (though the parliament's ouster vote offered a glimpse into the domestic pressure to force him from his post). Why did the international community want him out? Because he wasn't prosecuting corruption. (https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2019/may/07/viral-image/fact-checking-joe-biden-hunter-biden-and-ukraine/)

    The truth remains that there is NO substantive objective evidence that Shokin was dismissed because Joe Biden wanted the investigation into his son stopped. The overwhelming evidence is that said investigation had been dormant for about a year at the time Biden threatened to hold up the release of the billion dollars in loan guarantees (pressure the Obama administration writ large supported, as you will find out from the articles to which I provide links). In fact, as you will also discover, one of the reasons the Obama administration sought Shokin's dismissal was precisely because he had NOT pursued the Burisma investigation.


    @reformed posted:

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

    You're right, of course. We liberals are dishonest.... But wait! If we're dishonest, then that means I was being dishonest when I said we liberals are dishonest... which means we liberals AREN'T dishonest!

    Dishonesty is SO confusing... honestly.

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

    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.

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

    Also @Bill_Coley Clinton did lie under oath about acts he had done as President. That isn't partisan either. That's fact. Perjury is a big deal don't you think?

  • C Mc
    C Mc Posts: 4,463
    edited January 2020

    The answer to the OP is clear. The articles to impeach was sent to the Senate. Trump will be impeached. He is as dirty as "sin"! Start the countdown. CM


  • Bill_Coley
    Bill_Coley Posts: 2,675


    @reformed posted:

    And what is his impeachable offense?

    If you haven't done so yet, I encourage you to watch part 1 of Rachel Maddow's interview with Lev Parnas, which aired Wednesday night on MSNBC. I'm a person who follows developments in this matter very closely, and I found that interview to be among the most, perhaps THE most, compelling proof yet of Mr Trump's guilt.

    Parnas implicated the president, Vice President Pence, Attorney General Barr, and Rep. Devin Nunes (ranking member of House Intel, who had an epiphany on Fox News last night, suddenly remembering that he HAD spoken with Parnas - funny how Nunes couldn't remember ever speaking to the man...until Parnas appeared in VERY believable fashion on national TV!)

    Parna has corroborating text messages, voice mails, emails, and other documents, ALL of which he has turned over to the House Intel committee (with the approval of a federal judge) and is willing to present under oath to the Senate's trial. Among his documents is a May 2019 letter from Rudy Giuliani to Ukrainian president Zelenskyy in which Mr Giuliani asks for a meeting to talk about a "specific request" (the Biden investigations) and says he's making the request in his role as Mr Trump's personal attorney, with the president's knowledge and consent. Remember when Mr Trump told us (a paraphrase) "I don't know what Rudy was doing over in Ukraine. You'd have to ask him. He's a real corruption fighter! But you'd have to ask him"?

    What was a private attorney doing asking a foreign government to investigate an American president's political rival?

    One moment from last night's Parnas interview that stands out for me this morning. Parnas said he tried to impress a Zelenskky aide about the importance of Ukraine's making an announcement of investigations into the Bidens in order for Vice President Pence to attend Zelenskyy's then-upcoming inauguration. When Parnas informed Giuliani that the Zelenskky aide had blocked him on WhatsApp during an exchange of text messages on the subject, and therefore it seemed that the Ukrainians weren't going to announce the Biden investigations, Giuliani said "He'll see." The NEXT DAY, Vice President Pence's trip to the Zelenskyy inauguration was called off.

    Have you noticed that EVERY time there is new evidence in this case - EVERY TIME - it inculpates the president? that basically NO new evidence - no new witness; no new document - ever exculpates him? I think that's the single most damning aspect of the case against Mr Trump. Almost EVERY major witness and document supports the view that the president sought foreign assistance against his domestic political rival, and that he was willing to use his power and authority as president to pressure foreign governments to help. In my view, THAT'S an impeachable offense, one for which the appropriate consequence is removal from office.


    Republicans in the Senate most likely won't due their duty to the nation and give the evidence they're about to hear the impartial review it deserves. The Senate, therefore, is highly unlikely to remove Mr Trump from office. But the evidence of his guilt - his impeachable offenses worthy of removal from office - is overwhelming.

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

    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.

  • reformed
    reformed Posts: 3,176

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

  • Strangely, some folks here are all in favor of getting rid of Trump over little in regards to Ukraine. but they seem totally ignorant or even silently condoning/applauding the BIG of Mr. Biden and Obama regime in regards to Ukraine.

    Bu then, such procedure seems typical for USA morals in many affairs .... cp. the imprisonment of whistleblowers while the criminals go free ...

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