Public Impeachment Hearings

Temple wrote:

KK wrote:

so when you bring in a witness who says she hate trump so much she can't even walk past one of hotels without getting ill, it kind of ruins her credibility about being impartial.

Who said that and where reported.

Prof. Karlan, four days ago:

Trump impeachment: Democrats unveil formal charges
3 hours ago | BBC

The Democratic-controlled US House Judiciary Committee has unveiled charges against President Donald Trump, a key move in impeaching him.

The first article revealed by committee chief Jerry Nadler accuses Mr Trump of abuse of power and the second accuses him of obstructing Congress.

The Republican president is said to have withheld aid to Ukraine for domestic political reasons.

A defiant Mr Trump has urged the Senate to try him "sooner than later".

"The president wants a trial," White House spokesman Hogan Gidley told BBC News.

Mr Trump insists he has done "nothing wrong" and has dismissed the impeachment process as "madness".

If the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee votes to approve the articles later this week, they will then be submitted to the lower chamber for a full vote.

If, in turn, the articles are approved by the House - which is controlled by the Democrats - an impeachment trial in the Republican-held Senate will take place, possibly early in January.

The impeachment process was launched after an anonymous whistleblower complained to Congress in September about a July phone call by Mr Trump to the president of Ukraine.



We knew it was coming. The talk has been of little else, impeachment seems to be the only thing I've been reporting on for these past couple of months.

But when the chairman of the Judiciary Committee charged the president with "high crimes and misdemeanours", it still made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. For all the sound and fury of today's politics, this is not an everyday occurrence.

If the House of Representatives votes to impeach Donald J Trump, he will join Andrew Johnson (1868) and Bill Clinton (1998) as the only other presidents to be sanctioned in this way since American independence.

But that's for the history books. It's what happens next that matters. Will this be a grievous blow to Donald Trump winning a second term, or will the American people see this as a political hit job against their president?

The language is of upholding the Constitution, but don't be gulled. There is raw political calculation too.

What exactly is Mr Trump accused of?

He is alleged to have committed "high crimes and misdemeanours" (a phrase from the US Constitution) on two counts outlined by Mr Nadler:

The first allegation is that he exercised the powers of his public office to "obtain an improper personal benefit while ignoring or injuring the national interest", by allegedly putting pressure on Ukraine to interfere in the 2020 presidential election.

The second allegation is that "when he was caught, when the House investigated and opened an impeachment inquiry, President Trump engaged in unprecedented categorical and indiscriminate defiance of the impeachment inquiry", thereby obstructing Congress.

The charges are set out in detail in a Judiciary Committee document.

Mr Trump "sees himself as above the law", Mr Nadler said. "We must be clear, no-one, not even the president, is above the law."

In the July phone call to Ukraine's leader, Mr Trump appeared to tie US military assistance for Ukraine to its launching of investigations that could help him politically.

In return for those investigations, Democrats say Mr Trump offered two bargaining chips - $400m (£304m) of military aid that had already been allocated by Congress, and a White House meeting for President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Democrats say this pressure on a vulnerable US ally constitutes an abuse of power.

The first investigation Mr Trump wanted from Ukraine was into former Vice-President Joe Biden, his main Democratic challenger, and his son Hunter. Hunter Biden joined the board of a Ukrainian energy company when his father was President Barack Obama's deputy.

The second Trump demand was that Ukraine should try to corroborate a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, had interfered in the last US presidential election. This theory has been widely debunked, and US intelligence agencies are unanimous in saying Moscow was behind the hacking of Democratic Party emails in 2016.

How strong is the case for impeachment?

President Trump railed at the announcement of the charges, declaring again on Twitter that it was a "witch hunt".

"Nadler just said that I 'pressured Ukraine to interfere in our 2020 Election'," he wrote.

"Ridiculous, and he knows that is not true. Both the President & Foreign Minister of Ukraine said, many times, that there "WAS NO PRESSURE." Nadler and the Dems know this, but refuse to acknowledge!"

Law professor Jonathan Turley, who testified for Mr Trump's Republican Party before the House Judiciary Committee, told the BBC: "The problem is not with the legal basis for such impeachable offenses but the evidentiary record.

"This record remains both incomplete and conflicted. The Democrats have insisted on impeaching by Christmas rather than build a record to support such charges. This is now the fastest investigation with the thinnest record supporting the narrowest impeachment in modern history."

What legal scholars say about Trump conduct

Other constitutional lawyers have roundly endorsed the impeachment process. Pamela Karlan of Stanford Law School said: "Wouldn't you know in your gut that such a president had abused his office, betrayed the national interest and tried to corrupt the electoral process? I believe the evidentiary record shows wrongful acts on that scale here."

How much is this about politics?

Congress is certainly split along party lines. The Democrats argue that Mr Trump must be stopped from standing for re-election next year, not on political grounds but because he has committed an impeachable offence.

Adam Schiff, who oversaw congressional hearings into the allegations, said that not to act against President Trump now would mean allowing him to "cheat one more time" in 2020.

"To do nothing would make ourselves complicit" in Mr Trump's actions, he said.

However, Mr Trump's 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, accused the Democrats of trying to remove the Republican candidate now because they had nobody to defeat him next year.

"Americans don't agree with this rank partisanship, but Democrats are putting on this political theatre because they don't have a viable candidate," he said.

How does impeachment work?

Impeachment is the first part - the charges - of a two-stage political process by which Congress can remove a president from office.

If the House of Representatives votes to pass articles of impeachment, the Senate is forced to hold a trial.

A Senate vote requires a two-thirds majority to convict and remove the president - unlikely in this case, given that Mr Trump's party controls the chamber.

Only two US presidents in history - Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson - have been impeached, but neither was convicted.

President Richard Nixon resigned before he could be impeached.

Your ass suks canal water. The coup started the night of the last Presidential election, before Trump did a thing.
The only reason the left is hanging theys hat on this witch hunt impeachment, is they know not ONE of the clown show so-called candidates can beat Him.

Grackle wrote:

The impeachment isn't bipartisan .
[/b]

BWAA! as if the corrupt republicans would go against their king..
We are watching the birth of a dictator.
He most likely won't be impeached but people see and hear, its the election that might hold justice.
but- the republicans have everything so tightly gerrymandered in their favour, who knows..
anyways- no hair off my ass..
I simply want trump 6 ft under and a long line pissing on his grave.

An aerial shot of the impeachment hearings.

He won't resign, nor will he be made to leave, even if he has "impeached" on his record. And I for one don't want him to leave at this point. There's less than a year to go until the election. Let things go how they will. There are a lot of Republicans who don't like him, but they'd like Pence. Pence is better-spoken, doesn't seem to have anything bad in his past, etc. I don't like him (because of his attitude of religious superiority) but that's beside the point. Trump won't leave under his own volition, not now, not ever. He could get voted out by a 99% margin and he wouldn't go peacefully.

Sara wrote:

He won't resign, nor will he be made to leave, even if he has "impeached" on his record. And I for one don't want him to leave at this point. There's less than a year to go until the election. Let things go how they will. There are a lot of Republicans who don't like him, but they'd like Pence. Pence is better-spoken, doesn't seem to have anything bad in his past, etc. I don't like him (because of his attitude of religious superiority) but that's beside the point. Trump won't leave under his own volition, not now, not ever. He could get voted out by a 99% margin and he wouldn't go peacefully.

There are countries that would like to have trump dead..
trump is old and obese, and his snorting problem might end him..
He could stoke out any day..
his trip to Walter Reed most likely had something to do
with his ''snorting''..
I prefer trump dead and pissed on to anything else.

Grackle wrote:

Mosta the country simply doesn't care about the irrational hate from you lefties at this point ..It's become routine over the past 3 years[/b]

I'm not a leftie just a trump hater..
if he is president or not is no skin off my back..
trump is filth to be disposed of.

Temple wrote:

Grackle wrote:

Mosta the country simply doesn't care about the irrational hate from you lefties at this point ..It's become routine over the past 3 years

I'm not a leftie just a trump hater..
if he is president or not is no skin off my back..
trump is filth to be disposed of.

Just so you are made aware, Temple - based on IP addresses, three branches of the U.S. government lurk this forum, as do four U.S. based search engines, plus some foreign ones.

Your commentary therefore, is recorded for eternity.

Grackle wrote:

Temple attempts some kinda summation by repeating his usual drivel, but included this;

Quote :

the stain of impeachment burning his soul like the fires of hell

Ohh pleeezz ...Spare the drama forfuksake ...lol ...whatta tool

you're right, it is a ''lol''
it's highly questionable; that trump has a soul.

Trump impeachment: Schumer calls for White House witnesses at trial
3 hours ago

The top Democrat in the US Senate has called for current and former White House aides to give testimony at Donald Trump's expected impeachment trial.

Chuck Schumer said he wanted senior officials including White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney and ex-adviser John Bolton to be summoned.

But the Republicans, who control the Senate, have called for a short trial without witnesses.

A vote in the House to impeach Mr Trump is expected on Wednesday.

If a majority votes for impeachment, the case will then move to a trial in the Republican-controlled Senate.

The president is accused of soliciting a foreign country to help him politically, by trying to force Ukraine to launch a corruption investigation into Democratic rival Joe Biden.

Mr Trump is also accused of obstructing Congress. The White House refused to allow staff to testify during hearings in the House of Representatives in recent weeks.

Mr Trump denies wrongdoing. He has called the Democrat-led inquiry a "witch hunt" and predicted it will even benefit him in next year's presidential election.

What did Schumer say?

Mr Schumer made the appeal for witnesses in a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday.

In addition to Mr Mulvaney and Mr Bolton - a former National Security Adviser - he also called for Robert Blair, a top aide to Mr Mulvaney, and budget official Michael Duffey to give testimony at the expected Senate trial.

"All four of these witnesses were asked to testify in the House impeachment inquiry but did not appear," the letter says.

Mr Schumer said the trial must be one "that not only hears all the evidence and adjudicates the case fairly; it must also pass the fairness test with the American people".

He referred to the "bipartisan spirit" of the 1999 impeachment trial of then-President Bill Clinton in which witnesses were called.

"It is clear that the Senate should hear testimony of witnesses at this trial as well," he wrote, as he called for subpoenas to be issued for the four men.

Mr Schumer said he also wanted the Senate to issue subpoenas for a set of documents that Democrats believe "will shed additional light" on Mr Trump's dealings with Ukraine.

He also laid out a timetable for the expected Senate trial, suggesting that pre-trial proceedings take place on 6 January and that senators and US Chief Justice John Roberts, who will preside over the case, be sworn in the next day. In total, he suggested as many as 126 hours of proceedings.


Are the witnesses likely to be summoned?

Observers say the debate over the rules for the the trial is likely to be as divisive as the issue of impeachment itself.

Republicans have called for a trial without witnesses, limiting political fanfare.

Asked on Friday whether he wanted a long or short trial, Mr Trump said it "doesn't matter".

"I'll do whatever I want. We did nothing wrong. So I'll do long, or short," he told reporters.

However, he has also indicated that he would like to see witnesses called such as Joe Biden and his son.

The White House has not yet publicly commented on Mr Schumer's letter. A spokesman for Mr McConnell told Reuters news agency that he would meet Mr Schumer soon "to discuss the contours of a trial".

As majority leader, Mr McConnell has the final say over the format of the proceedings.

A Senate vote requires a two-thirds majority to convict the president - and, given that Republicans hold sway in that chamber, Mr Trump is widely expected to be acquitted.

It's a Trial..
The witness need to be called, it's a trial
and trials have witnesses when whoever has witnesses whatever.

trial and witnesses that's how it works..