NYT Editorial : Congressional Republicans Are Out Of Options On Impeachment Strategy
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
... as the evidence piles up, it gets harder to paint this as some groundless conspiracy. So Mr. Trump has resorted to the schoolyard taunt: You can’t get me!
Around 10 a.m. Wednesday, a gaggle of conservative House members on Capitol Hill staged a “protest,” barging into the secure room — called a SCIF — where members of three House committees were preparing to hear testimony from Laura Cooper, a deputy assistant secretary of defense.
Shepherding the demonstrators was Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, one of President Trump’s fiercest apologists, whose account live-tweeted the stunt: “BREAKING: I led over 30 of my colleagues into the SCIF where Adam Schiff is holding secret impeachment depositions. Still inside — more details to come.”
This was not a fringe move. Representative Steve Scalise, the minority whip, was among the sea of dark-blue suits that surged into the hearing room.
Chaos ensued. There were shouting matches. Some of the invading members brought along their cellphones, though they are prohibited inside the secure room. Ms. Cooper’s testimony was delayed, and Democrats called in the sergeant-at-arms for help restoring order.
Some time after 2 p.m., Mr. Scalise and several of his fellow protesters re-emerged to complain to the assembled media about the “Soviet-style tactics” of the inquiry.
The entire spectacle was a circus — which was the point. This was a publicity stunt aimed at delegitimizing the impeachment investigation that Mr. Trump and his defenders have portrayed as a partisan inquisition. If a few rules and national security precautions got violated along the way, so be it. Mr. Gaetz & Co. were happy to oblige a president who has demanded to be protected at all costs.
In fact, Mr. Trump is said to have given them a thumbs-up the day before. On Tuesday, he “met with about 30 House Republicans at the White House to talk about the situation in Syria and the impeachment inquiry,” at which time the members “shared their plans to storm into the secure room,” Bloomberg News reported. Mr. Trump told them he thought it was a good idea.
Why wouldn’t he? As more and more testimony is disclosed, it becomes clearer that the president’s only defense against impeachment is to distract from the facts and complain about how unfairly he’s being treated.
So many of the defenses he floated early on have crumbled under the weight of subsequent revelations.
He started out insisting that his July 25 phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, a central element of the impeachment inquiry, was “perfect” — only to have the notes on the conversation released by the White House reveal that he had told Mr. Zelensky to open a (baseless) investigation of a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, whose son had done business in Ukraine.
Mr. Trump has tried to spin what he did as a good thing. “As the President of the United States, I have an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate, or have investigated, CORRUPTION, and that would include asking, or suggesting, other Countries to help us out!” he tweeted on Oct. 3.
Except that, as members of his own administration continue to clarify, this wasn’t a broad effort to root out corruption. It was a targeted campaign to pressure a foreign government to interfere with an American election on Mr. Trump’s behalf — apparently by holding hostage nearly $400 million in military aid.
He and many of his defenders have clung to the idea that there was no “quid pro quo,” a position rebutted on Tuesday by the testimony of William Taylor, the top American diplomat in Ukraine.
Faced with this jaw-dropping account from the president’s own envoy, the White House press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, dismissed it as part of “a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution.”
On Wednesday the president went further. He called Mr. Taylor “Never Trumper Diplomat Bill Taylor” in one tweet and declared in another: “The Never Trumper Republicans, though on respirators with not many left, are in certain ways worse and more dangerous for our Country than the Do Nothing Democrats. Watch out for them, they are human scum!”
But as the evidence piles up, it gets harder to paint this as some groundless conspiracy. So Mr. Trump has resorted to the schoolyard taunt: You can’t get me!
In a Tuesday evening appearance on Fox News, Matt Whitaker, a former acting attorney general, asserted there were no grounds for impeachment because “abuse of power” — the essence of an impeachable offense — “is not a crime.”
That added to the uneasy sense that the president’s main impeachment defense may be that he is beyond the reach of the law.
On Monday, after a bipartisan outcry had prompted Mr. Trump to cancel plans to host the Group of 7 summit at his Miami golf resort next year, he griped to reporters about “this phony emoluments clause” — a reference to a part of the Constitution designed to limit corruption.
In federal court on Wednesday, his lawyer, while arguing that New York City prosecutors should not be allowed to obtain the president’s tax records, said that Mr. Trump cannot be prosecuted, or even investigated, for any offense — including shooting someone “in the middle of Fifth Avenue” — while in office.
Despite claims by the president and his die-hards, Democrats are not conducting “secret,” “Soviet-style” proceedings. At this stage, witness interviews are being conducted in private, with public hearings to be held later. This may not please Republicans, but it is not a sinister miscarriage of justice.
There are, in fact, plenty of good reasons Democrats are operating behind closed doors for now. The House’s impeachment inquiry is not a trial. It is more akin to a grand jury proceeding, where information is gathered and considered for the purposes of handing up an indictment. Any trial would be held in the Senate, with Mr. Trump represented by lawyers able to make all the substantive and process challenges he liked.
On Wednesday, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio complained that Republicans were demonstrating out of frustration “at the idea that they can’t be a part of this.” Nonsense. Republicans are in every hearing room that Democrats are in and able to ask their own questions. During Mr. Taylor’s testimony Tuesday, Mr. Jordan had praised the Republican lawyers for their questioning of the witness.
Accusing Democrats of mishandling the process certainly fits with Mr. Trump’s enduring sense of victimhood. The strategy also works to inflame the party’s base against the opposing team, while allowing Republican lawmakers to avoid defending Mr. Trump’s behavior.
But, mostly, it’s about all they’ve got.
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The Trumpster Republicans are using the "So What ?" defense. It is in the real world, an absolute admission of Trump's guilt.
You mean the Clinton defense. Sure Clinton perjured himself and obstructed justice, but so what?
Do you not remember 1999?
Over a fucking blow job.
Get the fuck over it.
You should be more concerned about the blow jobs tRump is giving to Putin and Erdogan
If it was such a minor thing, why did he perjure himself?
Think about that Jack for a moment as a married man (of course you might not be one, in which case, you may not get it). Sometime perjury is better than a woman scorned, especially in the public eye. Not an excuse, just an explanation.
Everyone who commits crimes has an explanation.
Are you trying to argue that Hillary didn’t know bill cheated on Her for decades before Monica? That’s something...
I've been married....faithfully....29 years.
It was certainly not Bill's first affair, and Hillary is anything but an idiot. She knew, and he knew she knew.
You're not suggesting that "my wife will be mad" is a reason to commit a crime, surely.
The sign of a quality person. I've been married 29 too, 30 this April.
That is an assumption. I would say probably, but who knows.
I think that is a lot more than "my wife will be mad"... I am a wife and I know how that could possibly end. And people do things without fleshing out the repercussions and for most other people, being asked about cheating isn't a crime. As I said it is not an excuse, just an explanation.
Congratulations.
In a marriage like yours or mine, it probably would be...but that's one reason we don't engage in that kind of behavior. In the Clinton's marriage, it was clearly not a deal killer.
Regardless...."my wife will divorce me" is still not an excuse to commit a crime.
We're talking about the President of the United States. The idea that he was unable or unwilling to flesh out the repercussions of his decisions is more than a little cause for concern. And yes...it still is cause for concern.
Good question. You are right to ask it.
Trump has 5 kids with three different women and you want to bring up Clinton? Who, BTW, left office 20 years ago?
Well...Clinton was the last president to be impeached, so comparisons seem perfectly legitimate. As do comparisons with Nixon, BTW.
Please address the seeded content of the NYT editorial. Any comments that do not address the subject of the seed may be removed.
Was there something in that biased left wing rags editorial that is actually true about our options?
Well gee Xx, why don't you spell out your options and we can review them.
Those are located within my own or a friends seeds elsewhere on the site.
Oh come on Xx. Just give me a quick list to start with. You should be able to do it off the top of your head.
NYT Editorial : Congressional Republicans Are Out Of Options On Impeachment Strategy
Really ?
NYT hasn't heard that there is a Republican run Senate yet ?
Are you telling us that Republicans cannot prove Trump is innocent?
Are "They" supposed to ?
I guess Trump could throw himself on the mercy of the court.
If they don't, Trump just calls them scum.
Republicans don't have to prove innocence.
Democrats MUST prove guilt.
THAT is how it works.
We have Trumps words on the phone call transcript. He will need to prove they were innocent because on their face they are not.
"Drain the Swamp" (No "R"....No "D" noted in that Campaign Promise)?
Democrats are "Working" on the "What Trump Really Meant" thingy. What he actually "Said" doesn't matter.
The latest defense being given on Trump's behalf is that the Ukranians did not know the aid was being withheld.
Does that sound like the defense of someone who didnt do it?
Pretty soon we will get a version of "it depends on what the definition of "is" is"
"it depends on what the definition of "withheld" is"
or "what the definition of "favor" is"
If they have everything they need, where is the impeachment then?
What's the hold-up NOW?
And no, Trump and the GOP don't need to prove anything. You really don't understand how defense works in a trial.
Which "Court" !
*facepalm*
Are you telling us you cannot prove Nany Pelosi doesn't run a human trafficking cartel?
Are you telling us you cannot prove that Barack Obama hasn't molested any kids this week?
I know....we'll tie them all up and throw them in the Potomac. If the water accepts their bodies, they must be innocent. If it rejects them, we'll know their guilty and we can burn them at the stake.
LOL. You have outdone yourself this time.
We have evidence of Trump's guilt. That is why, by the way, the Republicans "stormed" the hearing room . A massive distraction.
What evidence do you have that Pelosi traffics human beings or Obama molests children? I suppose there are probably far right conspiracy theories out there involving pizza parlors or hot dog stands or something, but what about evidence?
There is evidence of Trumps wrong doing, and if not, why did his former handpicked defender Matt Whitaker say the other day that "abuse of power is not a crime (impeachable).
It's quite obvious this administration and the gop have so much to fucking hide. Why else for all the obstruction?
Are you trying to tell us that the democrats have changed things so that that one is now guilty until proven innocent? And here all this time I thought our system was such that you needed to put prove guilt. Silly me. Guess that's why u am not a liberal democrat lemming.
"soon we will get a version of "it depends on what the definition of "is" "is""
Gee you accepted that when Clinton used it!
Oops! I forgot! Clinton is a fellow lemming and he gets a pass on everything.
Then why isn't there a measure on the House floor to impeach him?
Oh good grief. How do you not recognize a publicity stunt when you see one? It's not a distraction. It's attention getting behavior to campaign on next year.
I thought your new standard was that people have to prove their innocence.
Or is that only when it comes to batshit Trump fixations?
"There is evidence of Trumps wrong doing, "
Someone saying their wife's third cousins ex husband's sister's boyfriend told him that Trump did something is not not evidence.
"why did former hand picked defender Matt Whitaker say the other day that "abuse of power is not a crime (impeachable). "
You will have to ask Matt Whitaker about that. I don't read other people's minds.
Republicans don't have to prove innocence.
Democrats MUST prove guilt.
In all honesty, no one has to prove anything. All the House Judiciary Committee has to do is vote on the articles of impeachment, all the various things they think they can get a conviction on, and receive a simple majority to move forward to the full House to go over each of these articles of impeachment charges and then they vote on each one of them. All they have to do is receive a simple majority of votes on any one of them to send it to the Senate.
The Senate will basically hold a trial with the Chief Supreme Court Justice residing over it. It's basically like any other trial, but guilt is totally dependent on votes, not whether the President is innocent or guilty.and instead of a simple majority, the Senate has to receive 2/3 of the votes to convict the President, which would be 67 out of 100.
Now there are 53 Republicans and 45 Democrats. It's not unusual, as we know, for the votes to be along party lines. In order for the Democrats to fully impeach and remove the President they would have to get 22 Republicans to also vote along with them. This is very unlikely to happen, since all the House members who voted for impeachment and reside in Trump country will not win another election and the Republican Senators will be keenly aware of this fact.
There's also the nuclear option where McConnell can use it to override the 67 votes necessary to change the rule that says the Senate must take up the impeachment trial and only require a simple majority to throw that requirement out the window. Thank you Harry Reid.
Also, during the trial, any Senator running for President will not be able to campaign. Personally, I don't think they should be able to vote, either. That's like having your molester be able to vote on their innocence or the victim being able to vote on your guilt.
Talking about investigating your opponent, who has not been investigated, but a Ukrainian Court......
As Russia collusion fades, Ukrainian plot to help Clinton emerges
After nearly three years and millions of tax dollars, the Trump-Russia collusion probe is about to be resolved. Emerging in its place is newly unearthed evidence suggesting another foreign effort to influence the 2016 election — this time, in favor of the Democrats.
Ukraine’s top prosecutor divulged in an interview aired Wednesday on Hill.TV that he has opened an investigation into whether his country’s law enforcement apparatus intentionally leaked financial records during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign about then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort in an effort to sway the election in favor of Hillary Clinton .
The leak of the so-called black ledger files to U.S. media prompted Manafort’s resignation from the Trump campaign and gave rise to one of the key allegations in the Russia collusion probe that has dogged Trump for the last two and a half years.
Ukraine Prosecutor General Yurii Lutsenko’s probe was prompted by a Ukrainian parliamentarian's release of a tape recording purporting to quote a top law enforcement official as saying his agency leaked the Manafort financial records to help Clinton's campaign.
The parliamentarian also secured a court ruling that the leak amounted to “an illegal intrusion into the American election campaign,” Lutsenko told me. Lutsenko said the tape recording is a serious enough allegation to warrant opening a probe, and one of his concerns is that the Ukrainian law enforcement agency involved had frequent contact with the Obama administration’s U.S. Embassy in Kiev at the time.
“Today we will launch a criminal investigation about this and we will give legal assessment of this information,” Lutsenko told me.
Lutsenko, before becoming prosecutor general, was a major activist against Russia’s influence in his country during the tenure of Moscow-allied former President Viktor Yanukovych. He became chief prosecutor in 2016 as part of anti-corruption reforms instituted by current President Petro Poroshenko, an ally of the U.S. and Western countries.
Unlike the breathless start to the Russia collusion allegations — in which politicians and news media alike declared a Watergate-sized crisis before the evidence was fully investigated — the Ukraine revelations deserve to be investigated before being accepted.
There's more... Continue Reading
Great post. It’s right on. Thanks for putting it here for us all to read.
A ruling from a parliamentary court that was appealed and overturned.
So that the tape thingy happened in DECEMBER of 2018. Why took Lutsenko so fucking long to announce launching an investigation?
Could it be that he saw the writing on the wall and was trying to get the US to support him keeping his job after Zelensky won the election?
Because that is what Volker implied in his opening statement and he also said Giuliani knew that...
It is just another promise he never intended to keep.
Dulay, you know Biden wanted Shokin, the General Prosecutor fired, right? Supposedly because he wasn't pursuing the criminal charges against Zlochesky of Burisma fast enough. So Yury Lutsenko was appointed the new General Prosecutor. Tell me what Zlochesky was charged with and what he was convicted of after they got rid of Shokin? Let's just say they worked it out and Zlochesky was taken off the wanted list in 2016 after Shokin was fired.
There was so much money being passed around in Ukraine as payments on bribes, favors, protection, you name it. I guess that is why so many wanted to get in on the free money. A country with a GDP, microscopic in comparison to the USA attracted at least several US citizens, receiving unimaginable amounts of money if for only their link to influence in the USA. You know the names, starting with Hunter Biden.
You want to know why it took Lutsenko so long to announce an investigation, well, maybe it was because he was ordered to not do so, or he may have been paid enough to ignore it, but 50 to 85 thousand a month to be a board member in a country that pales in comparison to the USA, where the board members of the largest companies in this country fall way short of the same income for being on the board of much larger companies is a good question to ask and someone needs to find out. There has been no investigation and it's about time we started investigating those people who seem to be invisible to the MSM and the justice system in this country or at least have been for way too many years.
Top Ukrainian justice official says US ambassador gave him a do not prosecute list
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told Hill.TV's John Solomon in an interview that aired Wednesday that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch gave him a do not prosecute list during their first meeting.
“Unfortunately, from the first meeting with the U.S. ambassador in Kiev, [Yovanovitch] gave me a list of people whom we should not prosecute,” Lutsenko, who took his post in 2016, told Hill.TV last week.
“My response of that is it is inadmissible. Nobody in this country, neither our president nor our parliament nor our ambassador, will stop me from prosecuting whether there is a crime,” he continued.
The State Department called Lutsenko's claim of receiving a do not prosecute list, "an outright fabrication."
“We have seen reports of the allegations," a department spokesperson told Hill.TV. "The United States is not currently providing any assistance to the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO), but did previously attempt to support fundamental justice sector reform, including in the PGO, in the aftermath of the 2014 Revolution of Dignity. When the political will for genuine reform by successive Prosecutors General proved lacking, we exercised our fiduciary responsibility to the American taxpayer and redirected assistance to more productive projects."
Hill.TV has reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine for comment.
Lutsenko also said that he has not received funds amounting to nearly $4 million that the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine was supposed to allocate to his office, saying that "the situation was actually rather strange" and pointing to the fact that the funds were designated, but "never received."
“At that time we had a case for the embezzlement of the U.S. government technical assistance worth 4 million U.S. dollars, and in that regard, we had this dialogue,” he said. " At that time, [Yovanovitch] thought that our interviews of Ukrainian citizens, of Ukrainian civil servants, who were frequent visitors of the U.S. Embassy put a shadow on that anti-corruption policy."
“Actually, we got the letter from the U.S. Embassy, from the ambassador, that the money that we are speaking about [was] under full control of the U.S. Embassy, and that the U.S. Embassy did not require our legal assessment of these facts," he said. "The situation was actually rather strange because the funds we are talking about were designated for the prosecutor general's office also and we told [them] we have never seen those, and the U.S. Embassy replied there was no problem."
“The portion of the funds namely 4.4 million U.S. dollars were designated and were foreseen for the recipient Prosecutor General's office. But we have never received it,” he said.
Yovanovitch previously served as the U.S. ambassador to Armenia under former presidents Obama and George W. Bush, as well as ambassador to Kyrgyzstan under Bush. She also served as ambassador to Ukraine under Obama.
Former Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who was at the time House Rules Committee chairman, voiced concerns about Yovanovitch in a letter to the State Department last year in which he said he had proof the ambassador had spoken of her “disdain” for the Trump administration.
I know that the entire WEST including the IMF wanted Shokin out. Why try to pretend that it was only Biden?
So Burisma WAS investigated ALREADY. FINALLY someone admits that fact.
Why are you deflecting from the investigation into the Parliamentarian's tape to Hunter Biden? That gaslighting bullshit doesn't work on me.
Lutsenko admits not receiving "do not prosecute list" from US envoy
"I took a piece of paper and said: 'Dictate me the list." She said: "No, you got it wrong."
Butt haven't you heard? Half the damn goppers in the US Senate already have their knives drawn for El Trumpo! Trump should, "Beware The Ides of November", when it may be heard, "Et Tu Ted? Et Tu Marco? Et Tu Lindsey?" And then, when the coldest cut of all comes it will be, "Et Tu Mitch?" For, thus must be the ends of all tyrants...
Metaphorically, of course! The senate will convict!
Do remember that in the cold bitter end it was not Democrats who pushed Dick Nixon out. No, it was the damn gop trying to salvage what was left of their lousy careers and ruined reputations...
MAKE ELBA GREAT AGAIN - MEGA...
Senate will vote on Trump, the Same as they did on Bill Clinton.
The "Circus Show" will NOT-GO-ON when it gets to the Senate.
Which will put another nail or 2 into Republicans' re-election chances next year. Polls clearly show people are watching and understanding.
Polls have " Clearly " noted "other things", that really didn't work out the way they predicted.
I'll wait for the actual "Vote".
Are you already having doubts on how the Senate Republicans will vote?
Bill Clinton lied about an extramarital affair. Trump has been cold ass busted demanding that a foreign government illegally manufacture dirt on his main opponent in the 2020 Presidential election. That a future President would conspire with a foreign government to illegally interfer in our elections was the worst sort of high crime our Founders ever imagined and why there is a process to remove a disloyal President as Trump has proven himself to be...
Why do you keep making things up?
It speaks volumes that the advocates can't make an honest case for his impeachment but need to rely on falsehoods to do so.
Who am I gonna believe? You or my own eyes and ears?
Trump was cold ass busted this time illegally asking Ukraine to illegally interfere in our election. He was demanding that Ukraine manufacture dirt on Joe Biden to help Trump's reelection effort while he was holding back aid on the condition that Ukraine must do so before Trump would release the Congressionally approved urgent military aid...
No he did not ask them to manufacture anything. He told them that they should investigate the company that Biden's son worked for in order to see if it broke any Ukrainian laws.
Why are you giving Biden a pass when he admitted to using the threat of holding aid if the investigating of his son was not stopped and the prosecutor fired when Biden was VP.
Beside that I how come you give Biden a pass when I said Clinton was getting lynched when he was being investigated for impeachment yet are outraged when Trump says the same?
It's amazing how brazenly they just must things up.
He asked them to manufacture a scandal with Biden. He probably never expected anything to come of it, but it would give him something to try and hold over Biden's head during the election.
Why do you refuse to acknowledge that Biden was doing the bidding of multiple countries at that time, not making demands for himself. Also you are ignoring that they wanted the prosecutor out because he refused to prosecute corruption cases.
"He asked them to manufacture a scandal with Biden"
Do show where that happened. All I saw is where he said that a previously started investigation should be revisited. An investigation that Biden bragged that he stopped and got the prosecutor fired.
If you never get outside the conservative bubble you will remain uninformed and will continue to show yourself ignorant of the facts...
Your comment seems to prove that you didn't read the summary memo of the phone call. Trump never said anything about a 'previously started investigation'.
That is a lie.
Wow, the gaslighting in that comment is galactic.
Trump NEVER mentioned Burisma.
Biden NEVER demanded that ANY investigation be stopped. In fact, the West, including the US and the IMF, wanted investigations to be conducted and Burisma WAS investigated by the next Prosecutor General. THAT is a FACT.
Thank You!
You're welcome.
No, it is the flat out truth.
Prove it Xx. Quote Biden admitting that.
No more proclamations. Prove it.
"Swing and a miss".
The prosecutor that was fired refused to prosecute cases of corruption. Is that why the right wing is so up in arms about it?
That is a funny comment coming from someone who never leaves the liberal bubble.
Like this one?
The whole concept that we are out of options is a false premise. It is a lie by the fake news Times to try to sucker rino’s to turn tail and run, something they are quite accomplished at.
So basically, "TRUMP IS TOAST"...
Once the floodgate was opened witnesses to Trump's multitudinous crimes are lining up in the halls of Congress to testify against the now disgraced and soon to be impeached Criminal In Chief Donald J Trump!
A good start would be to Make Elba Great Again!
MEGA...
Republican leaders and anyone who supports this farce are traitors to this country. They should be stripped of their clearances, kicked out of government for actively working against the country and supporting those who violate our Constitution. I no longer consider them Americans.