Posted on 12/22/2019 7:01:08 PM PST by bitt
The House of Representatives impeached President Bill Clinton on Dec. 19, 1998. It was a Saturday. The votes, in which two articles of impeachment passed, were held around midday. By 3 p.m., the House had passed a resolution naming its impeachment managers, and those managers had physically delivered the articles to the Senate for trial.
Impeachment was on. The House, controlled by a Republican majority, was serious about its ultimately failed effort to remove Clinton from office.
Contrast that to today. On Wednesday, Dec. 18, at around 8 p.m., the Democratic-controlled House passed two articles of impeachment against President Trump. Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately announced that the House would not appoint managers, and the articles would not be delivered to the Senate. The next day, Pelosi told reporters she did not want to talk any more about it, and the House went into recess until Jan. 7.
Impeachment was not on, or at least a Senate trial was not on. Pelosi was holding out, apparently, for better terms in a Senate trial.
That is where events stand today.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
P
Pelosi will cave. Trump will win. Steaming hot cups of schadenfreude will be served all around!
The old dingbat will hold onto the articles of impeachment and this will fade.
LOL
So true.
Yea! 16 more years!
“As Pelosi plays games with impeachment, what next for GOP?”
doing nothing except watching when it comes to impeachment, because:
“When your enemy is in the process of destroying himself, stay out of his way.”
I pray you are right. I want this crap done!
Um no.This has been her endgame for impeachment all along.
For Pelosi, there is no upside for transmitting the articles to the Senate, and no downside for not doing so ...
It cannot work like that. What you are suggesting is that the House can try POTUS for impeachment, offer the Prez no opportunity to face his accusers or defend his innocence, hold secret hearings where only one party can submit evidence..... Then the House can just hold the Articles of Impeachment indefinitely thus declaring POTUS guilty and continuing to deny him a venue to defend himself.
GUILTY FOR ALL OF HISTORY!
No fair system of justice could accept that outcome - although the Demo'rats could.
In my view the White House should bypass the Senate and go directly to SCOTUS to declare the House process and the Articles null and void. That unimpeaches the president and discourages the Dem House of further planned destructive actions.
What does cave mean, in this case? I would not overlook the remote possibility that the House may actually vote to rescind its own articles of impeachment to avoid an embarrassing trial, avoid an acquittal, and protect some vulnerable Senate Democrats facing re-election in 2020.
The President should NOT bypass the Senate here. The Supreme Court might not even take the case at all, since the Senates role is clearly spelled out in the Constitution. A better approach would be to have the Senate give the House a deadline to submit the articles of impeachment, and then schedule a trial/dismissal without any House involvement if the deadline is not met.
Nothing lost if that is so; however, they have good reason to take the case since Article II denies SCOTUS the right to consider the WH appeal on grounds of the Constitutional principle of separation of powers - which the Court just accepted.
But more than that I fear people fail to see the potential Dem ploy here to ensnare the president, any president, in to becoming a servant to the majority party in the House: do our will or be impeached. IOW, the Dems would fulfill their century-long dream of overthrowing our democratic Republic and turning it in to a parliamentary system - where the center of power is with the House majority party.
If you listen carefully to Nancy Pelosi she has been saying that... That the Speaker of the House is as powerful as the President.
We face an insidious powerful opposition who is demonstrating that they will stop at nothing to get their way; they show little interest in respecting constitutional provisions. Sooner or later it will come down to this - beware.
I would also point out that putting an issue like this in the hands of the Supreme Court both sets a bad precedent and risks an even worse outcome if the Court makes an outlandish ruling.
You must face the fact that the Republic is under attack. The battle to preserve it has to start with SCOTUS, not Mitch McConnell and Mitt Romney.
ditto
Caving. It’s what they do.
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