Tag Archives: impeachment

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House managers might as well talk to the furniture

I cannot shake the belief that House of Representatives managers seeking to persuade U.S. senators to allow additional witnesses in the trial of Donald John Trump must be feeling an unbearable sense of frustration.

Surely they know that the Republican-led Senate has dug in to oppose any witness testimony and to likely acquit the president of high crimes and misdemeanors.

Yet the managers, led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, are slogging forward with their arguments to allow “fact witnesses” to tell senators what they know about Trump’s soliciting a foreign government for political help.

They are better men and women than I would be were I put into that position.

These individuals might as well be talking to the furniture arrayed before them in the Senate chamber. Most of the individuals who are sitting in their chairs are conducting a shameful sham that they are presenting to us as a trial.

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Impeachment drama set to end quietly, quickly

Is it just me or does the Donald John Trump impeachment saga, the one that seemed headed for a dramatic crescendo, now appears headed for a relatively quiet — but rapid-fire — finish?

John Bolton, the current president’s former national security adviser, emerged as a key potential witness, who would offer first-hand testimony to what he reportedly has written in his soon-to-be-published book that Trump offered a quid pro quo to Ukraine: a political favor in return for a military aid package.

Then just like that, the air left the room. U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, the lame-duck Tennessee Republican, announced he would vote against allowing Bolton to testify. The Senate trial appears headed for a conclusion later today and a vote on whether to convict or acquit Trump will seal the deal. Alexander’s statement seemed a bit quizzical. He said the House managers have “proved their case,” but that the charges leveled against Trump don’t “rise to the level of impeachment.”

So, POTUS stays put, doing even more damage to the country.

Damn! But … I won’t cry in my brew over it. The deal was done from the get-go, or so it appears. GOP senators — along with their House colleagues — seem to owe more loyalty to Donald Trump than to the Constitution.

Whatever. We have an election tap.

I am prepared to do whatever I can from my measly little perch out here in Trump Country to seek the ballot-box ouster of the most unfit, unqualified man ever to hold the presidency.

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About to throw in the towel on impeachment

As an interested American observer of this impeachment trial, I am afraid my impeachment fatigue has reached critical mass.

I am officially ready for it to end. It’s not that I want it to end. It’s just that the finish line is appearing out there and we all know the outcome that the end of this grueling event will produce.

Donald John Trump is going to survive this trial. The U.S. House of Representatives sought to make the case that Trump abused the power of his office and obstructed Congress. The House trial managers’ message has fallen on deaf ears. The Senate Republican majority is hearing none of it.

I do have some hope that former national security adviser John Bolton will be able to testify, telling senators what he heard — that Trump sought a foreign government to interfere in our upcoming presidential election. It won’t matter. Bolton’s testimony won’t sway enough Republican senators to convict Trump; he might not sway any of ’em! They’re wedded to the president, ignoring what I believe is an obvious violation of his oath of office.

I am worn out. I am whipped, man! I am ready now to get on with the next phase in what I hope is a concerted effort to get rid of the man I deem to be unfit for the office of president.

The election is coming on.

Let’s get busy. Shall we?

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Dershowitz does it! He turns the trial discussion onto himself!

I had this nagging rumble in the pit of my gut that Alan Dershowitz might end up hogging the limelight at the U.S. Senate trial of Donald John Trump.

I did not anticipate him doing so in the manner that he did.

Dershowitz took the floor this week in defense of Trump, who is standing trial after the House impeached him on abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

The esteemed Harvard law professor, Dershowitz, long has been known as a grandstander, a fellow known to call attention to himself. Well, he did so during the Senate trial by positing what many observers believe is a preposterous notion.

It is that the president can do anything he needs to do to help his re-election if he deems it in the national interest. Anything at all! That includes seeking foreign government help in digging up dirt on a U.S. citizen who happens to be a potential opponent in the next presidential election.

Professor Dershowitz is now the talk of the town. Hey, he’s the talk of the nation!

I cannot pretend to know more about the U.S. Constitution than the distinguished legal professor. However, it seems to me that his idea borders on the idiotic.

The framers could not possibly have written anything into the Constitution that allows for a president to do what Trump has done. He called the Ukrainian president; he took some expressions of gratitude from his colleague for all the support the United States has given Ukraine; he asks for more military aid; Trump says, “sure,” but then says he would like to ask Ukraine for a “favor, though.”

Trump said he would hold up the aid until Ukraine announced an investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden.

Professor Dershowitz said in defense of Donald Trump that it’s OK for the president to do that?

I do not think that is right. Not … at all!

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Obstruction robs Congress of its constitutional duty

The Senate trial of Donald John Trump has produced many disappointments for me, but one of them stands front and center as the Senate fast-tracks this trial toward a probable acquittal for the current president of the United States.

It is the way senators appear ready to surrender their constitutional duty of oversight of the executive branch.

The House of Representatives impeached Trump on two counts, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. It’s the obstruction article that has baffled me.

Congress sought to subpoena key White House aides to testify during its impeachment inquiry. The Constitution gives the legislative — and “co-equal” — branch of government the authority to do so. Trump’s response? He said “no.” He barred aides from answering the summons. He told Congress, in effect, you cannot — and I will forbid it — perform your duty of oversight.

What is stunning to me is how the Senate majority appears set to roll over on that one. By voting to acquit Trump on the obstruction allegation, senators will concede that it’s all right for the government’s chief executive to stiff the legislative branch, to tell legislators to take a hike.

I won’t engage in the “both sides” argument, presuming what the response would be if a Democratic president would do the same thing. History tells us that Trump is the first president in history to issue blanket orders to obstruct Congress in this shameful manner. President Clinton didn’t do so when the House was inquiring whether to impeach him; nor did President Nixon.

Donald Trump’s dismissal of congressional oversight is frightening on its face. Even more terrifying is the GOP’s willingness to accept it, to say it’s OK for the president to kick Congress in the teeth.

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Say this about Bolton: He tells the truth

(Photo by Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)

The chances of U.S. Senate Democrats being able to call witnesses in the trial of Donald John Trump seem to be vanishing.

It’s a shame. One of the witnesses, ex-national security adviser John Bolton, has first-hand knowledge of what Trump said to the Ukrainian president on that fateful July 25, 2019 phone call.

He has expressed concern about the nature of the request Trump made to his Ukrainian colleague: the favor of political help, a request to Trump dig up dirt on Joe Biden, a potential 2020 campaign foe. I consider that an abuse of power. So did most of the House of Representatives when it voted to impeach Trump.

Well, if the Senate Republican leadership has its way and the Senate proceeds without hearing from Bolton and others who were in the room that day, then the impeachment “trial” will need a historical asterisk as we refer to it in the future.

I do not consider John Bolton to be a liar. He is a man of principle. He is too hawkish for my taste, but I tend to believe him over anything that comes forth from his former boss, the current president.

Accordingly, I wish we could hear from him.

But … it likely won’t occur. Too bad. The nation will likely suffer the consequence of the absence of this man’s Senate testimony.

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Prepare for ‘unity’ campaign for POTUS

Once we get past this impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, the current president of the United States, we should steel ourselves for a presidential campaign that well might focus on “unity.”

And that brings me right to the point: The incumbent president is not equipped in any sense to provide anything close to “unity” as he seeks re-election to the office he won after a scorched-Earth campaign in 2016.

Sure, he vowed to unify the nation. He pledged to work across the aisle. He said he would be the president of “all Americans.”

Has he delivered the goods? Well, you know how I feel about that.

Indeed, the president has been campaigning for re-election almost from the moment his smaller-than-boasted inaugural crowd dispersed from in front of the U.S. Capitol.

He has been speaking almost exclusively to the base of supporters who have stuck with him throughout his presidential term. He does, after all, demand unfettered loyalty among those who work with and for him, isn’t that right? That demand has been pretty well proven.

The unity mantra, therefore, is going to fall as well on whoever emerges from the Democratic Party field to challenge the president …. presuming, as virtually all observers have done, that he survives the impeachment trial that is underway in the U.S. Senate.

The way I see the fall campaign matching up — Trump vs. Any Democrat — the burden of unifying the country is going to fall on whoever challenges the president, given that Trump is incapable of unifying anyone.

I am one American patriot who yearns for a return of the “one nation under God” we all cherish.

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Senate trial Q&A: exercise in efficiency

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

I want to say a word of praise for the way the Senate leadership has organized the Senate trial of Donald John Trump, the nation’s current president.

I am not thrilled that the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, has continued to resist the calling of witnesses to testify before the Senate.

However, today’s question-and-answer period has been scintillating, interesting and educational. What’s more, it has been done without allowing senators to bloviate, pontificate and make endless speeches.

Chief Justice John Roberts gets the questions in writing from senators. The questions are written on small cards, which cannot possibly contain too much text.

Moreover, the House managers who are prosecuting the case and the president’s lawyers who are defending him are given just five minutes to respond. Those who run over that time are shut down on the spot by the chief justice.

I also want to toss a bouquet to the House managers and to the president’s legal team for the direct answers they are giving in response to the questions.

I realize that the House managers are getting questions mostly from Democratic senators and that POTUS’s team is being quizzed mostly by Republican senators. However, at times they field tough queries from the “other side.”

I find this element of the Senate trial to be the most satisfying to date. My own mind hasn’t changed. I doubt others will change, either. All Americans who have an interest in watching the U.S. Constitution at work, though, should be pleased at what they are witnessing.

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Feeling oddly dirty backing Bolton these days

I am going to admit something of which I am not proud.

It is that I am feeling a bit dirty in backing the word of former national security adviser John Bolton, who suddenly has become the potentially star witness in the Senate impeachment trial of Donald John Trump, the nation’s current president.

Bolton was in the room when Trump made that infamous July 25 phone call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zellenskiy, the one when he asked Zellenskiy for a personal political favor. He has plenty to tell the Senate in its trial to determine whether Trump should remain president.

Why the dirty feeling? I have long opposed Bolton’s uber-hawkish world view. He once served as United Nations ambassador and said one could knock the top 10 floors off the U.N. building and not miss a lick.

However, he is a man of principle. He said he heard something in that Trump-Zellenskiy phone call that disturbed him. He reportedly told Trump at the time of his concern. Bolton now has written a book in which he details his alarm that Trump sought a political favor in exchange for sending military aid to Ukraine, which is in the midst of an all-out war with Russia-back rebels.

You’ve heard the phrase that “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” I don’t consider Donald Trump to be my “enemy.” Yes, I believe he is unfit for the office he occupies. I believe the phone call he made to Zellenskiy is just one of many examples he has provided to demonstrate his unfitness.

Bolton, who’s been scorned by many of us over the years, now has become a friend, an ally, someone of historic value.

Weird, huh?

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Bring on John Bolton!

Here we are. The House of Representatives impeachment managers have made their case. Donald John Trump’s legal team has made its case.

Now come the questions and answers, the back and forth in Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.

I just want to make this request as clearly as I can: Senators need to summon former national security adviser John Bolton to tell them what he heard on July 25 when the president made that infamous phone call to the president of Ukraine.

And no, there need not be a sideshow witness called to counter Bolton’s appearance. Bolton is a material fact witness. He has first-hand knowledge of what transpired during that phone call. Republicans are making noises about summoning Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president, who went to work for a Ukraine energy company. Yeah, he got a lot of money. Prosecutors have said, however, that there was no “corruption” involved.

Hunter Biden profited from being the son of a prominent U.S. politician. So … what? Does the GOP defense of Trump actually want to play that card, given the nepotism that runs rampant throughout the West Wing of the White House?

Bolton needs to be heard. So does White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney. If they are able to defend what Trump did, then let ’em do it! If they have something else to say, let ’em say that, too!