Posted on 01/28/2020 4:34:32 PM PST by Uncle Sham
The Constitution gives the power of impeachment solely to the House of Representatives. It means that only the House can do the discovery phase of gathering evidence and then putting together Articles of Impeachment to then present to the Senate for the Senate to judge. The Senate can ONLY judge that which the House has constructed and presented. Any witnesses can ONLY be from the witnesses who are included in the Articles presented by the House.
Asking the Senate to help the discovery phase by introducing new evidence at an impeachment trial is the same thing as asking a judge or jury to help the prosecution do it's job in the courtroom. It also would put the Senate in a position of being part of the evidence gathering phase of impeachment that our constitution clearly prohibits as this is only assigned to the House of Representatives. If the House wants new witness testimony, they have every opportunity to get it with the rules that are in place. They can call Bolton to testify IN THE HOUSE, then if they decide to incorporate his testimony into an Article of Impeachment, they are free to do so and then present THAT article of impeachment to the Senate.
In my opinion, if the Senate allows new testimony, Trump's legal team has grounds for getting the entire proceeding thrown out as being unconstitutional.
McConnell would not be the one to take it to the supreme court.
But if he lets the dims force a parade of witnesses through the senate deliberations, he will have clearly demonstrated a major violation of the Constitution.
I would expect the court to rule the process unconstitutional.
I am surprised that the Democrats would want witnesses to drag this out since that keeps Sanders and Warren off the campaign trail.
Alas, they do not.
The rats do not want Sanders or Warren on the ballot. They know either loses in a General so the witnesses is a win win.
And the Constitution also says:
"The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments."
Are you aware of other trials in our system that can't call witnesses?
Why would they? All that matters to them is Orange Man Bad and removing Trump from office. They'll never willingly take away their own vote for that.
No, it isn't.
You couldn't post this thought on one the existing threads?
Why give some black-robed tyrant that much power?
SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS
I'd love that, unfortunately you can't go to the USSC and ask them to rule on impeachment, it's strictly a matter for the House and Senate.
Plus, Roberts is the judge presiding over this circus so if he had any inclination towards declaring this mess unconstitutional he'd intervened when the democrats finished their jabbering and it was obvious there were neither high crimes or misdemeanors in what they presented.
If the situation was reversed you can be certain that the Dems would have found a way to force the recusal of the conflicted GOP senators. They would never have tolerated this obvious conflict of interest, and rightly so.
The Republicans have no spine.
The issue is due process, and the democrats are not arguing for due process, just a “fair trial”. Without due process there cannot be a fair trial. A fair trial requires vetting of both witnesses and documents. That should have happened in the House impeachment, but the democrats did not want a fair trial, just to repeat the mantras in the incurious media, after repeating things of dubious veracity or even outright lies.
Adam Schiff did not testify in front of Nadler’s committee for a reason. The questions would have been brutal. There is still outstanding secret testimony with the IG.
But the bottom line has nothing to do with a fair trial using vetted witnesses and documents.
DK
I didn't say that the Senate could not call witnesses. I said that the Senate cannot be part of a process that introduces NEW evidence/witnesses to an Article of impeachment being considered by the Senate. The Constitution gives this authority solely to the House of Representatives. They develop the evidence and put it before the Senate in the form of an Article of Impeachment. Period. The Senate is LIMITED to consideration of only that which comprises that article, not anything extraneous to it, which certainly any "new" testimony or evidence would be. The Senate is not allowed to help the House develop it's case and the House is not permitted to tell the Senate how to judge it's case. Allowing new testimony/witnesses would make both the House and the Senate co-developers of the evidence which the Constitution strictly prohibits.
.
They are rewarding the Whistleblower, the Never Trumper IG, and Schiff’s lies.
They are empowering the NSC and State Department to do nothing but sabotage Trump.
That’s the bottom line. If you think Schiff and Pelosi aren’t doing this again, then you’ve been doing Crack with the Biden clan.
.
They want this to drag out as long as possible. It is their campaign for the election cycle.
Can someone tally this listing up for us? This is an excellent point.
“Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings....”
The rules they develop apply to their portion of the impeachment process and whatever rules they develop must fit within the constitutional restraints placed upon them.
Actually, this view deserved it's own thread to be seen and properly debated. As to the debate part, tell me why I am incorrect.
OK, fair enough. Are you aware of other trials in our system where new evidence can't be introduced?
The Senate is LIMITED to consideration of only that which comprises that article, not anything extraneous to it, which certainly any "new" testimony or evidence would be.
I don't see where you get that from the Constitution, which is famously vague on the impeachment process.
Why would the sole right to try a case preclude new evidence? That's not how any other trials work.
The Constitution gives the power of impeachment SOLELY to the House of Representatives. To impeach, evidence and testimony is gathered, then formulated into an article of impeachment that the House must then present to the Senate for final judgement. "New" evidence would fall under the evidence/testimony gathering phase of an impeachment and not the final judgement phase that only occurs when the House presents an article of impeachment to the Senate. In this particular case, the House is the party responsible for developing any new evidence or testimony and formulating that into it's own article of impeachment. No one in the Senate can keep them from doing this just like no one in the house can force the Senate to do this. According to the roles of the impeachment process assigned to the House and Senate, the Senate cannot develop evidence, it can only judge an article of impeachment as delivered by the House. An impeachment is not like a normal trial.
No it didn't. It's an unfounded notion that could have been posted as part of existing discussions, if you were wondering about it. It doesn't merit a thread with a lot of debate.
"As to the debate part, tell me why I am incorrect."
To be unconstitutional there would have to be some provision in the constitution that means they can't do it. There isn't. In fact it says the Senate has the "sole power to try impeachments", as you know. The Senate has the right to do that how they like.
You're using a comparison to judicial process to argue they can't, but that's not a constitutional argument. And it's wrong in any case. The criminal courts routinely have witnesses, including witnesses that didn't come up during an initial investigation. There's absolutely no rule of law saying there can't be a new witness in a criminal trial.
The correct comparison to use would be comparing impeachment by the House to a grand jury indictment, not to discovery. Discovery is part of the trial process. And if the Senate wanted to engage in discovery, they are empowered to do so.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.