To impeach or not to impeach, that is the question

There are some who argue that, if the circumstances and evidence warrants it, it is the Constitutional duty of the House to impeach the President.

That is true. If the situation calls for it, it is the Constitutional duty of the House of Representatives to impeach the President. However, according to our Constitution, Congress has many Constitutional duties and sometimes they conflict with one another.

That is the case here. The ultimate purpose of impeaching the President is his removal from office. Impeachment is merely an indictment against the President. The trial to determine his removal from office takes place in the Senate with the chief justice presiding.

Therein lies the problem. As matters stand now, the 67 votes needed to remove Trump from office simply won't happen.

Indeed, the very opposite is likely to happen. When the Senate exonerates Trump, the sympathy vote could easily propel Trump toward another four years in office.

In terms of the purpose of impeachment, the very opposite result could happen, and it is extremely likely, as matters stand now, that Trump would not be removed from office.

Congress has another Constitutional duty. Through its oversight responsibilities, Congress has the Constitutional duty to keep Americans informed of the very bad judgments and the false statements of a very bad President to enable Americans to remove the very bad President from office in the next election.

In the opinion of many, including the leadership in the House, the Constitutional duty to keep Americans informed has a higher calling than the Constitutional duty to impeach. Why? Because the former will achieve the desired result while the latter is likely to cause unwelcome, unintended consequences.

 

We have DirtyDonalds attorney claiming that he Trump could shoot someone and the law cannot touch him while he is in office.If that is truly the case that stupid damn law needs to be changed IMMEDIATELY!!!NO MAN OR WROMAN SHOULD BE ABOVE THE LAW!!!!

 

Yes let's change it now since it isn't working out for you. Should we change the Electoral College as well?

 

Stand by, it's working out for us.

 

It is not a law. It is guidance, a set of rules within the DOJ from its Office of Legal Counsel (OLC).

 

Translation: OMG damned if we do, damned if we don't. We are so ****ed LOL

But what about your leftist base? LOL

 

Just hurry up and vote to impeach already so it can move up to the Senate and McConnell can be in charge of the process.

 

Well, it seems the democrat's attempt at impeachment is just another popcorn fart. Awww, and once again the Trump haters hopes and dreams are dashed.....

 

In the OP: Keep Americans informed

So why is everything being kept secret?

 

1st there is no crime for which evidence exist in the real world, what ever exist purely in the minds of some leftist and neocons being immaterial. Therefore some time back Pelosi and the Dem leadership came to the conclusion that in order to get the more insane portions of their base to turn out at the pols they had to at least pretend to go through the process of impeachment.

I did not think a month ago, and I've seen little or no reason to change that opinion, that the Dem leadership in spite of it's pretenses to the contrary has no intention what ever to bring impeachment charges before the election.

 

Respectfully, I disagree. Other than the requirement for a State of the Union message, I know of no Constitutional clause to "keep Americans informed." The media, defined by the First Amendment, outlines the main method for keeping Americans informed and it is up to our media and individual Americans to bulwark our democracy.

Given our current state of intellectual progress, printed media, long the bedrock of keeping America informed has become a secondary (at best) source of information. The information stream has gone electronic through the Internet and cable outlets. That is America today. The media's need to pass information now uses different channels. In order to keep Americans informed, these are the preferred sources of transmitting news and opinion. That separates the fourth estate separate from our system of laws and the Constitution.

Therefore, in order to inform our citizens of the law and the current situation, the electronic media is the preferred method of transmission. It is the Constitutional duty of Congress to act in matters of transgression against our Constitution and our laws, then to inform the public of such violations. This is the current process, of which you are aware.

First, Congress is to investigate possible violations to our laws and if substantiated, hold public hearings to reveal the charges using witnesses in a bi-partisan, public forum. If the charges are proven true, Articles of Impeachment are sent to the Senate where they receive another bi-partisan public trial and hearing. This keeps Constitutional enforcement of our laws in full public view.

 

Because every time they let this **** out into the open they look like drooling idiots.

 

Is Senator Lindsey Graham stupid? Does Graham think the American people are stupid?

I ask these questions because, in his presentation today, he didn't know the difference between an impeachment inquiry and articles of impeachment.

He said the full House voted down an impeachment inquiry in July. Then he put up a poster to proves his point. The poster showed clearly that the full House voted down Al Green's Articles of Impeachment of Trump. That has happened a few times in the House. Green is premature, to say the least.

Urging that the full House vote on an impeachment inquiry, he proudly displayed the fact that was done in the case of Bill Clinton. He even had another poster to prove it. Problem is, his poster showed the vote on the Articles of Impeachment of Clinton, not an impeachment inquiry.

Then Graham argued that Trump is being denied his rights of due process, failing to mention 47 Republicans and their staffs are in those closed door meetings defending Trump all they want. Graham failed to mention that it is Trump stonewalling the House, not the other way around. He also failed to mention that what the House is doing right now is the investigation stage. To impeach a President, evidence has to be gathered. Graham failed to mention that Ken Starr, as the independent prosecutor, took five years of secret meetings to gather evidence to impeach Clinton. We no longer have an independent prosecutor. Graham didn't mention that, either. The House has to do the investigating.

Then to prove his point that Trump was denied due process, Graham came up with still another poster. Here it is:



Please note the poster says, "All the rights given to Clinton DURING IMPEACHMENT."

Not during the impeachment inquiry, the investigative stage. Trump will have every one of those rights when the Articles of Impeachment are debated and in his Senate trial IF he is impeached.

Trump is going down and he is going to take the Republicans with him. Graham's presentation was childlike in its performance. It as as if he was speaking to the intellectually challenged. Maybe he was.

This presentation along with Republicans storming the secure room in the capitol yesterday shows that they are making complete fools of themselves. Graham bragged he had 41 Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who had approved his resolution.

Just the idea that Republicans in the Senate wish to pass a resolution that censures the House of Representatives gives some idea how chaotic the Trump government is.

Senator Graham is not stupid. But he is very afraid. He should be. Americans will have their say about all this, and he may become one of the casualties.

 

I fully agree. That is why I said Constitutional duty, not clause. Congress has considerably more Constitutional duties than there are clauses.

The media provides the news, and they do a great job, but they are not the source of the news. In this case, Congress is.

Excellent post.

 

It was as if he was speaking to the intellectually challenged. Maybe he was.

Why only 15 minutes? Why not an hour? Is that so hard?

 

The office of the president has to be in certain circumstances "beyond the law". Otherwise you would be allowing a judge, a prosecutor, and 12 jurors the ability to thwart the will of 60 million American voters (or more).

 

How to remove Trump from office without having to put his lying accusers under oath...

That is quite a conundrum. So sad...

Wait! I know! We'll hold 'inquiries' where we pretend to impeach but never formalize anything so the lies won't be purjury!

 

The House is not constitutionally obligated to impeach anybody as the Senate is not constitutionally obligated to try any impeachment received from the House. The house has the sole power to impeach, meaning no other body politic can impeach, but they are not obligated to.

I think the chances are nil that the house will impeach Trump. When reality won't go away they (most of them) know there are no impeachable offenses. In any case their 2020 campaign strategy is to keep impeachment talk going on for public consumption, so they will keep pounding away but will never get around to actual impeaching because they can't nor do they want to.

Congress has no constitutional authority of oversight. The do have legal authority that does not violate the constitution of oversight of the executive branch of the government to assure their legislation and laws are being properly followed. They have no oversight authority of the president himself, and in fact it would be (is) unconstitutional. They are allowed of course to speak their mind on the president but they have no authority for formal investigation of the president.

 

Ya mean like pursuing civil suits for things that happened years before he is President?

Ya know...stuff that you support....but only if it's a Dem President....

 

There is no "Law" stating or even indicating this. There is a memo and massive talking point campaign and nothing else.

 

This is merely a diversion. If Trump is impeached, it will have nothing to do with the courts or breaking our laws.

You knew that. You were a teacher once.

 

Every president save Donald Trump was a full participant in the impeachment process beginning to end. Please note the impeachment process is entirely a House affair. You are confusing the preliminaries before the house starts for instance the Starr Investigation and the Mueller investigation.

 

Nice to see House Democrats pissing away taxpayer dollars on something which, frankly, is going to end in failure for them. They want Trump out of office (because they know they can't beat him in an election), but the Senate will never vote to remove him...

 

Did you even read the post you are responding to? Or, did you read it and decide, much like Trump and other Trumpets, to deny the truth? Or are you wasting my time and yours?

I said, "He also failed to mention that what the House is doing right now is the investigation stage. To impeach a President, evidence has to be gathered. Graham failed to mention that Ken Starr, as the independent prosecutor, took five years of secret meetings to gather evidence to impeach Clinton. We no longer have an independent prosecutor. Graham didn't mention that, either. The House has to do the investigating."

Is there any part of that statement you don't understand?

 

I read it, I find it specious at best, vacuous at worst.