If you fart and no one smells it?
And so on.
Posted on 12/19/2019 9:15:42 PM PST by SeekAndFind
It’s hard to believe the Speaker’s latest stunt will go on for very long. I’ll confess: Last night, when I was first told that Speaker Nancy Pelosi was toying with the idea of not delivering the two articles of impeachment voted by the House against President Trump, I assumed it was a joke.
For these last weeks, the Democrat-dominated chamber has been in a mad rush to impeach the president. Democrats even tacked on article two — “obstruction of Congress” — because, they told us, time could not be wasted engaging in the usual negotiation and litigation over legislative demands for executive branch information. Trump is a clear and present threat to “continue” undermining our elections, we were admonished. That’s why he needs to be impeached right now. That’s why the political class cannot responsibly leave his fate up to the sovereign, the People, who will vote in November.
But now that the deed is done, it’s . . . hey, not so fast.
Pelosi and Democratic leadership have convinced themselves there may be advantage in delaying the formal, ministerial delivery of the impeachment articles — as if Mitch McConnell were in as much a hurry to receive them as Democrats were to conjure them up. The thought is that this latest strategic petulance might pressure Senator McConnell into promising a full-blown trial, including summoning as witnesses top aides of the president whom the House didn’t bother to summon because tangling over privilege issues would have slowed up the works.
So it’s not a joke, but I still have to laugh. When I was a prosecutor negotiating plea deals, I always found the most pathetic defense lawyers were the ones who acted like they were playing with the House money when, in stark reality, it was they who needed something from me. Now here’s Pelosi trying to play hard to get with McConnell who, I imagine, couldn’t care less how long Democrats want to dither.
What we’ve just seen is the most partisan impeachment in American history, every step of it politically calculated. Obviously, if Democrats perceived advantage in stretching the process out, it would still be going on. There would be more witnesses; more 300- or 600-page committee reports to try to add heft and gravity to vague allegations of inchoate misconduct; more speeches about Trump as a threat to democracy and life as we know it; etc., etc.
To the contrary, Pelosi & Co. want this train wreck in the rearview mirror ASAP. The public is indifferent and polls are edging in Trump’s favor. On our local news this morning, the third impeachment of a president of the United States in American history couldn’t crack the top stories — it came in behind cold weather (in December) and the rescue of an elderly man in a gym by a couple of off-duty cops.
No one, of course, has to explain this to McConnell. In public, at least, he’s not a laughing-his-head-off kinda guy, but if he were, he would be.
It’s hard to believe the Speaker’s latest stunt will go on for very long. In the Senate this morning, the Democrats’ minority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer, renewed his demands about trial procedures, discovery, and witness testimony. There was no discernible hint of doubt that the House would soon deliver its impeachment articles, such as they are.
But since we’ll be playing trivial pursuit for a more few hours (days?), we might as well ask: As long as the House withholds the impeachment articles from the Senate, has Trump been impeached?
In the law, there are many situations in which an outcome is known, but it is not a formal outcome until some ministerial act is taken. A grand jury can vote an indictment, for example, but the defendant is not considered indicted until the charges are filed with the clerk of the court. A defendant can be found guilty by a jury, but there is technically no conviction until the judgment is “entered” by the trial court, usually months later when sentence is imposed. An appellate court can issue a ruling that orders a lower court to take some action, but the lower court has no jurisdiction to act in the case until issuance of the appellate court’s “mandate” — the document that formally transfers jurisdiction.
Plainly, Congress has similar ministerial acts of transference that must occur in order for legislation to pass. Were that not the case, Speaker Pelosi would not be talking about delaying the transfer of impeachment articles.
So it’s all well and good for the Speaker to hold up the works that Democrats, five minutes ago, were breathlessly telling us had to be carried out with all due haste. But many scholars take the position that the Constitution requires a trial if there has been an impeachment. If such a trial cannot properly occur unless and until articles of impeachment have been transferred from the House to the Senate, and Speaker Pelosi won’t transfer them, has President Trump actually been impeached?
Sure, it’s a stupid question . . . but we’re living in stupid times.
I assume that if they do not send over the Articles to the Senate, and if some have speculated, try to hold them over in hopes of the Dems winning back the Senate in 2020 and take control in 2021 ... that the Articles would expire with the seating of the new Congress in 2021.
Then they would have to redo the Impeachment process all over again.
If you fart and no one smells it?
And so on.
51 to change rules.
Dems seem stuck. They are not walking it over or walking it back. They are the deer frozen in the headlights.
If Impeachment Articles Are Not Delivered to Senate, Did Impeachment Happen?>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
When a tree falls in the woods with no witness present, does it make a sound?
Interesting that we are reduced to koans on Impeachment.
What happened is that a collective of hysterical politicians conducted a pseudo impeachment.
Question: What is making these Dems so hysterical?
What really DID happen in the Ukraine? We are abiout to find out. Therefore Pelosi has put the entire vehicle of the Dem party into a skid that cannot stop. You can smell the burning rubber all the way to Kiev.
___________
Personally, I heard overnight from a few sources that they do need to be delivered. It is an essential part of the House's obligation. But ...... there are a lot of opinions on this. And I am just (mostly) listening.
You want a glass of milk.... you must first get it from the cow.
Articles were passed to impeach the President. But if not taken to the Senate the impeachment articles should be dismissed with prejudice.
Also the dem lawyer who testified for the dems last week in the judiciary committee. He agrees with you. A guy named Feldman. Not charged until charges pressed. Not impeached until impeachment pressed
As is always the case when we are dealing with a Constitutional matter, we should start with the Constitution. It says. (commas count) - “The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”.
From this wording we see distinctly highlighted the two processes, the objective being removal from office. So, clearly there is an ‘impeachment,’ which has occurred and a ‘conviction,’ which has not.
What is more important in the clause is the wording which requires BOTH impeachment and conviction to be based on “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Obviously Nancy’s articles fail the Constitutional test miserably. That is why POTUS needs to take these articles to the U.S. Supreme Court immediately. To quote the Maestro, what the hell has he got to lose?
Council on Foreign Relations a George Soros organization Ukrainian-born oligarch Len Blavatnik has been making large donations to the CFR.
A really fat lady Babushka is about to sing IMHO.
I believe they will never stop coming up with new reasons to impeach.
BRILLIANT!
Impeachus Inturuptus.
7
“Obstruction of Congress” is not a crime. Every time a President vetoes a bill, he is obstructing Congress. If it were a crime, then any President could be impeached the moment he vetoes his first bill.
Since the House socialists could not come up with a crime to include in the articles of shampeachment, is the shampeachment even a legal maneuvre? If a prosecutor tries to bring a case before a judge that is only hearsay and innuendo, but which does not contain any mention of a crime as defined by law, does the judge not throw the case out?
I would love to see the Senate throw out the shampeachment on the basis that it contains no mention of a crime or even a misdemeanor as defined by law.
There’s no role for the Supreme Court in “settling this issue.” In fact, I’m trying to figure out who could possibly have the legal standing to even file a case in the Supreme Court to “settle” anything here.
I’m not sure that’s true. Bill Clinton was impeached by the House in December 1998, and the trial was held in the next session of Congress in January 1999.
Maybe no one wants to be a manager?
That’s the same Noah Feldman who is also a big fan of sharia law, so I would consider his opinion to be as useful as a pile of sh!t in Nancy Pelosi’s district.
Are you sure that isn’t Photoshopped? While it is clear the DemocRAT socialist party is moving on a trajectory similar to the one the National socialist party took in the 1930s, I don’t think they feel comfortable enough yet with their power grab to openly wear the symbolism. That will come later.
I have never seen that word before. But that is apt: a government run on the principle that reason must be avoided can only be a tyranny. And Nancy is an unreasoning tyrant, trying to grab more power than the Constitution allows.
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