Posted on 01/29/2020 11:13:47 PM PST by knighthawk
After sitting on their hands and listening to arguments for a week in President Trump’s impeachment trial, senators were finally allowed to pose their own questions Wednesday. It proved to be illuminating.
As is often the case, the first question was the most penetrating and important one. It got to the heart of the Democrats’ principal accusation regarding why they contend the president should be removed from office.
Democrats claim that when Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into what Trump called troubling actions by former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter, Trump was seeking a political advantage against a prospective opponent in the November presidential election. This, argue Democrats, was an impeachable “abuse of power,” and was the basis of the first article of impeachment approved by House Democrats in December.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
First question a good one. There were 93 questions Wednesday. Another 93 Thursday?
“Where is the crime?”
Maybe they’ll bring Ballsy Ford out of mothballs.
Reasonable people will agree everything the House Democrats have said is true.
However, that’s still not a crime or an impeachable offense. On those grounds, we don’t think they have made their case or met their burden of proof.
Alan Dershowitz said something very important last night. When you impeach and remove a judge, you’re not crippling the entire judicial branch or striking its ability to do its work.
When you impeach and remove a President, you’re creating a vacuum at the heart of the executive branch and impairing its ability to do its work.
A judge is replaceable. A President isn’t and that’s why one will never be removed from office. The damage to the country just wouldn’t be worth it.
Now there may be a situation when a President has performed an act of such an intolerable nature that every one agrees he can’t be allowed to remain in office.
That’s when impeachment is an appropriate remedy. It isn’t appropriate today and not within the context of a partisan impeachment.
As regards to this impeachment ... Reasonable people will agree everything [of factual and legal significance] that the House [demokraps] have said is [untrue].
Otherwise, you sumed it up quite well.
The “abuse of Congress” article is the most bothersome. If allowed to stand, the impeachment bar is set so low as to allow Congress to impeach a President for vetoing a bill!
“Reasonable people will agree everything the House Democrats have said is true.”
Wrong on two counts. Reasonable people have no grounds to believe what democrats ever say, and there are no reasonable grounds to believe what the democrats say about that phone call. You have to believe that democrats can, from a great distance and complete ignorance, read a person’s inner, hidden thoughts.
At worst, it’s a policy disagreement. You can say its wrong but its not a crime.
And the Democrats aren’t even alleging one in either article of impeachment.
I see absolutely no grounds for removing the President even if all the facts are true.
“The only question that needs to be asked in this pathetic circus:”
I would have asked why the House Democrats didn’t allow the Republicans to call their own witnesses.
By this logic of seeking a political advantage four Dem senators campaigning to face President Trump ought to be compelled to recuse themselves from voting on whether to remove.
They did not prove that Trump threatened Zelinsky to withhold aid unless they investigate the Bidens. Quid Pro Quo or something for something didn’t happen because where is the quo? No investigation was done in exchange for the release of aid. Zelinsky didn’t even know there was a delay in the aid until he saw it in Politico. Zelinsky himself said there was no such exchange and no pressure. They say Trump asked just to affect the election. Well Trump didn’t receive any data and if he did you can’t prove what he planned to use the data for. Election was affected so again no quo. They have Bolton a former employee that Trump fired saying that Trump said he was witholding aid unless They investigate. That’s a he said she said because Trump says he never said that. Besides why should we believe Bolton more than Zelinsky. Bolton has a motive to lie: he was fired. A video was found of a interview by the Ukraine news of what Bolton said about the Trump Zelinsky call. Bolton said the meeting was warm and cordial and that corruption was very important to this administration.
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