Tag Archives: impeachment inquiry

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Set to make impeachment history once again

Here we are, on the cusp of another politically historic event awaiting the U.S. House of Representatives.

The House Intelligence Committee is going to hand off to the Judiciary Committee, which then will decide whether to file articles of impeachment against Donald John Trump.

This shouldn’t be a close call. However, it’s likely to become a partisan vote, with Democrats voting to impeach the president and Republicans saying “no.”

I’m out here in the Peanut Gallery. What I have seen from the middle of Trump Country tells me that the president deserves to be impeached; he also deserves to be convicted in a U.S. Senate trial. The allegations leveled against him are far worse than anything that befell President Clinton in 1998 and rise at least to the level of what President Nixon faced in 1974 when he resigned.

House Republicans impeached Clinton for lying about an inappropriate relationship he had with a White House intern. Nixon quit before the House could impeach him for obstructing justice in the search for the truth behind the Watergate burglary in June 1972.

What does Donald Trump face? He is facing an accusation — which he more or less has admitted to doing — of soliciting a foreign government for a political favor. In exchange for the favor, which included digging up dirt on a potential political foe, the president would release weapons to Ukraine, which is fighting rebels backed by Russia.

The U.S. Constitution expressly forbids such activity. It cites “bribery” along with “treason” specifically as crimes for which a president can be removed from office. It isn’t treason, but it sure looks for all the world to me like bribery.

I fully expect to get some dipsh** responses from High Plains Blogger critics who think I’m whistlin’ Dixie with regard to the crimes I believe the president has committed. That’s fine. Let ’em gripe.

I stand by my assertion that Donald Trump has committed crimes that rise to the level of impeachment. They certainly are far more egregious than what ended up on President Clinton’s record.

The record as I’ve seen it pile up during the impeachment inquiry is replete with evidence of wrongdoing. The House and Senate Republican caucus, however, is equally replete with political cowardice among House members and senators who choose to stand with the president and refuse to stand for what they piously proclaim to be “the rule of law.”

And so, history is about to be made once again as one House panel passes the torch to another one. Let this lawful, constitutional and appropriate impeachment effort proceed.

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Why not hear GOP version of events, too?

I have this kooky notion I feel like sharing. The House Intelligence Committee is going to issue a draft report Monday on its findings regarding the impeachment inquiry hearing it conducted with regard to Donald Trump, Ukraine and the allegation of, um, “bribery.” 

It will be a partisan report, authored by Democratic members and staffers. Why not allow the Republicans to issue their own version of events? Why not put the GOP response out there alongside the Democrats’ response and let the public decide which party is speaking to the issues and which one is seeking to deflect attention from the cause of this inquiry in the first place: the behavior of the president of the United States?

I am all for hearing how the Intel Committee Republicans justify their badgering, their hectoring, their seeking to undermine the motives behind the inquiry. I want the public to be able to digest both versions in real time and to decide which side has the facts on its side and which side is trying to provide cover for POTUS’s backside.

The Intel Committee will hand this investigation off to the Judiciary Committee, which begins its own hearings on Wednesday. I don’t know how the Judiciary panel will take. I hope they can wrap this up quickly, decide whether to adopt articles of impeachment and then send this matter to the House floor, where the Democrats are likely to impeach this presidential imposter.

But first … let’s hear how the GOP defends this guy’s impeachable conduct. Hey, fair is fair!

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History about to be made … again!

The U.S. House Judiciary Committee is set now to pick up where the Intelligence Committee left off. It will finish the job that the Intel panel started with the inquiry into whether to impeach Donald J. Trump.

The House will convene its own public hearings and will hear witnesses confirm — and some will possibly contest — the allegations that have piled up around the president.

That he sought foreign help for a political favor; that he abused the power of his office; that he withheld military assistance in exchange for that political favor; that he obstructed the pursuit of the truth behind each of the allegations.

There might be multiple articles of impeachment filed by the Judiciary Committee. The House of Representatives will take a vote once the articles are approved by the Judiciary panel.

Then it goes to the Senate, where the president of the United States will be the third such individual to stand trial before the jury of 100 senators. And, yes, the likelihood of a conviction appears remote at this moment. But … one cannot take anything to the bank just yet.

It will be a historic hearing. It will be full of thrusts and parries. Democrats, in my view, hold the winning hand. Republicans are seeking to bluff their way past the opposition.

Both sides are dug in. However, I say all this in the moment. I maintain a glimmer — and that’s all it is — of hope that sanity and reason might prevail in the Senate, that senators on both sides of the great divide will realize what many millions of Americans have concluded already.

It is that Donald Trump’s ignorance, arrogance and narcissism make him unfit for high public office.

Let the proceedings continue with somber reflection and sober deliberation.

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Why do they deny hearing what the witnesses have said?

The much-anticipated public hearing on the impeachment inquiry being conducted by the House Intelligence Committee produced a serious exercise in frustration and futility.

At least for me it did.

The Intel Committee took into the public domain what it had heard in private about whether Donald Trump sought a “favor” from Ukrainian government officials who could dig up some dirt on Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. The term of art has become “quid pro quo,” the Latin phrase that translates to “something for something,” or “this for that.”

It is the basis for the pending impeachment of the president of the United States.

White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged in the press briefing room that there was a quid pro quo, and then he told us to “get over it.”

Then came the testimony before the House panel from Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, who said that “yes,” the president sought a quid pro quo. He heard him seek it in real time and told the committee what he heard from the president. He said everyone was “in the loop” regarding the quid pro quo.

The memo of Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president even mentions the “favor, though.”

Why, then, do Republicans on the House committee and others on Capitol Hill keep saying there was “no quid pro quo”? What are they not hearing? Did they cover their ears when Sondland testified to that knowledge at the House hearings? Did they not hear Mick Mulvaney’s assertion of a favor and his scolding us to “Get over it”?

I know these are rhetorical questions. They won’t produce any answers. They simply serve to symbolize the futility and frustration that this impeachment inquiry has produced … so far.

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Graham exhibits remarkable duplicity once more

Lindsey Graham may run out of ways to pi** me off, although it’s looking like he has a bottomless supply of duplicitous positions he can exploit.

The South Carolina Republican U.S. senator once said that Donald Trump was unfit for the presidency, that he is a shameless liar and that he was everything this side of being the Son of Satan. Now he is one of the president’s — yep, the same Donald Trump — most ardent Senate boosters.

He also said in 2016 that Joe Biden is the “nicest man God ever created.” He said that if you can’t admire Biden that “you’ve got a problem.” Biden, he said, “is the nicest man I’ve ever met in politics.”

What’s he saying now about the former vice president, who might challenge Donald Trump in 2020? Graham wants the Senate Judiciary Committee that he now chairs to examine whether Biden committed any crimes in Ukraine, or whether his son, Hunter, broke any laws while being paid by a natural gas company in Ukraine.

So, Graham wants to find dirt on the “nicest man” in the known universe? Is that what I understand?

The Bidens — father and son — have become the chief diversionary targets of Republicans seeking to shift the attention away from the president’s soliciting political favors from Ukraine; Trump asked Ukraine to look into the Bidens in exchange for the release of weapons the Ukrainians purchased to help in their fight against rebels backed by Russia. Ukrainian prosecutors, incidentally, have said the Bidens have done nothing illegal.

Can you say “quid pro quo,” which is fancy term for, oh, bribery or extortion?

I am left now to wonder which Graham view of Biden is the truth. The version he talked about in 2016 or the one he is tossing out there in defense of the individual he once derided as unfit for office?

I’ll go with the latter view, which confirms what I suspect about Sen. Graham, which is that he is utterly lacking in principle.

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Waiting for a response from my congressman

I did it. A little more than two weeks ago I sent a letter to my congressman, Van Taylor, a Plano Republican.

My letter was straightforward. I asked the young freshman lawmaker why he opposed the decision to make the impeachment inquiry public after he and other Republicans had called the private depositions a star chamber inquisition, or words to that effect.

I am sorry to report that I haven’t heard from Rep. Taylor, or anyone from his staff, or even from a gofer who works in his Third Congressional District office in Plano.

You may rest assured, if you’re inclined to be concerned about such things, that I’ll persist in seeking answers. I might write a second letter to Taylor.

Or … I might call his office some time next week. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do! I’ll call him. I don’t expect to get Van Taylor himself on the phone. I might get a district director or perhaps another staffer who could speak for the congressman, who was elected just this past year.

I’ve said before on this blog that I have met Van Taylor. I like him personally. I admire his military service as a Marine who has seen combat in Iraq; indeed, I am heartened to see more veterans from both political parties entering the halls of Congress.

My admiration for him and the level of personal regard I hold for him, though, does not excuse him — in my mind — from his decision to oppose sending the impeachment inquiry into the public domain.

I am quite certain he will vote “no” on impeachment articles when they are drafted and approved by the House Judiciary Committee and then sent to the full House.

I just want an answer to my question regarding the “no” vote on approving the impeachment inquiry. Hey, it’s a direct question. I expect a direct answer.

This fellow, after all, works for me … and not Donald J. Trump!

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Immigrant patriots get slimed by House GOP members

What do Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, Fiona Hill and Marie Yovanovitch have in common?

Two things: They all are naturalized U.S. citizens and they all have been smeared and slimed by congressional Republicans who have questioned their loyalty to the country they chose to call their home. Moreover, they all have chosen to serve their country with distinction, valor and heroism.

They all testified over the past two weeks before the House Intelligence Committee, which conducted its inquiry hearings into whether to impeach Donald J. Trump for high crimes and misdemeanors.

First up was Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine who Trump recalled earlier this year, citing his prerogative as president to do what he did. He smeared the decorated envoy prior to removing her and then afterward, even while she was testifying to the House panel about what she saw and heard regarding Trump’s asking the Ukrainian government for a personal political favor.

Then we heard from Lt. Col. Vindman, a Ukrainian immigrant who came to this country with his family when he was a toddler. The National Security Council adviser joined the Army and has served for two decades as an infantry officer, receiving the Purple Heart after he wounded in battle in Iraq. GOP lawmakers and their friends in the conservative media have questioned Vindman’s loyalty to the country, suggesting he was secretly more loyal to his native Ukraine than to the nation he has served heroically.

Finally, we had Fiona Hill, the British immigrant and former NSC adviser who testified this week about her concern over whether the nation was sacrificing national security for the sake of a “political errand” being run by European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland on behalf of the presidents of the United States and Ukraine. She, too, has been dismissed in some circles because she is, um, an immigrant.

These people all represent the best of this great nation. They are proud patriots who love this country deeply and have stepped forward to serve with the highest honor imaginable. They represent millions of Americans who are themselves immigrants or the direct descendants of immigrants who chose to venture many thousands of miles to build new lives.

That their loyalty would be questioned at any level by anyone is shameful on its face.

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‘Jury tampering’ mixes with political necessity

I have laid out already the notion that the president of the United States, while launching a charm offensive with potential U.S. Senate trial “jurors,” might have committed an act of jury tampering.

However, I also am enough of a realist to understand that presidents who seek to govern effectively need to talk to legislators about the enactment of bills that become the law of the land.

Thus, Donald Trump is facing a serious governance quandary as he awaits the near-certain impeachment of him by the U.S. House of Representatives. The House then would hand it off to the Senate, which will put the president on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors.

Trump met with GOP senators this week to talk about the impeachment trial that is sure to occur. What did he discuss? Did he seek to persuade them to stand by him? That sounds like jury tampering to me.

However, what about their legislative initiative? Or the president’s legislative agenda? Or the agendas awaiting action by Republicans and, oh yes, Democrats in the Senate?

Were the president to invite senators to the White House to discuss those issues — and stay far away from the impeachment trial that will be looming soon in the Senate — well, that would be OK with me.

That, of course, requires that the president understand how government works and how he must be able to compartmentalize the issues that lay before him. President Clinton was able to do that when the House impeached him in 1998. This president is consumed by the impeachment battle and it is getting in the way of him doing the job to which he was elected.

Sigh …

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Is this a case of ‘jury tampering’?

Hey, hold on for just a minute or maybe two!

The House of Representatives is getting ready to impeach the president of the United States in connection with allegations that he solicited a personal political favor from a foreign government. Once the House approves the impeachment articles, the matters goes to the Senate, which then will have a trial.

Why, then, is Donald Trump schmoozing with “jurors” who will have to weigh the evidence presented to them and decide whether to convict him of assorted high crimes and misdemeanors.

Trump launched a charm offensive by inviting some Republican senators to the White House. He talked with them — privately, of course. Some of those GOP lawmakers include at least a couple of them who might be inclined to want to convict the president. I refer to Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine. Hey, there might be a lame-duck GOP senator in the mix, too.

I know it’s not a fully legal proceeding that the Senate will launch. It’s a political one, steeped in partisanship. However, some legal principles are brought into play here. One of them surely must be this quaint idea that “defendants” shouldn’t “tamper” with the jury pool.

The Senate’s 100 members are going to serve as jurors in this upcoming trial. The Republican members need not hear sweet nothings whispered into their ears by the Republican president whose conduct in office has brought us to this sorry and sad chapter of our nation’s political life.

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Discussion and debate over Trump crimes has become futile

It is crystal clear to me that we have crossed a line as this saga over Donald Trump’s conduct as president of the United States is playing out.

The line defines the terms over which both sides can debate and discuss the merits of the argument over whether Trump should be impeached and removed from office.

I believe he has committed multiple impeachable offenses. I believe he deserves to be kicked out of office. However … I am not going to have a vote in either of those decisions, other than being able to vote for or against the elected representatives who will make that decision ostensibly on my behalf.

U.S. Rep. Van Taylor of Plano and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas are up for re-election in 2020. How I cast my vote in the election next year well might depend exclusively on how they vote on Trump’s impeachment and Senate trial. They’re both Republicans; they both have defended the president against the onslaught of the evidence.

Do you get my drift here?

But I am going to continue to speak out through this blog, which I distribute on various social media platforms. I likely won’t seek to change anyone’s mind. I realize at this point in this drama that folks’ minds are made up, they have dug in, they won’t be swayed to change by those on the other side of the great divide.

As I told a High Plains Blogger critic who challenged my lack of discussion on this impeachment matter, I already suffer from high blood pressure; I take a mild medicine to curb it. I do not need to t have my BP spike over angry exchanges.

I am not enjoying this process as it is.