6 Jan 2021 U.S. Events (Split from A Deeply Fractured US)

[FJAG]

Hey. Mike Flynn used to be a Lieutenant General in the Defense Intelligence Agency. Why would it be hard to believe a former FBI agent is part of this crowd?

 

[Brad Sallows]

Considering the long list of names of people who were all-in on the Russian collusion conspiracy theory, one should expect to find some clinging to other conspiracy theories.

 

[ModlrMike]

Is anyone really surprised by the outcome?

Senate acquits Trump of inciting riot at U.S. Capitol, ending his 2nd impeachment trial​

Actually, I should day verdict. The outcome is yet to be determined.

 

[brihard]

Is anyone really surprised by the outcome?

Senate acquits Trump of inciting riot at U.S. Capitol, ending his 2nd impeachment trial​

Actually, I should day verdict. The outcome is yet to be determined.

Surprised? Not in the least. Really the most telling thing here is the seven republicans who did in fact vote to convict their own president of inciting insurrection.

The Republican Party has a ton of soul searching to do.

Meanwhile, Trump’s real legal battles are only just beginning, between the potential tax fraud prosecution, and the Georgia state investigation into his call to Raffensperger to ‘find’ votes. It will also be interesting to see what the IRS does with the massive refund he had claimed and which is being reviewed.

In the hands of real courts, conclusions will not be nearly so foregone.

 

[mariomike]

Is anyone really surprised by the outcome?

​

Not really.

Even though the Democratic half of the Senate represents 41,549,808 more Americans than the Republican half, that's only enough to get "the Dems" a 50-50 split.

So, it's pretty hard to imagine them ever achieving the two-thirds majority of Senate seats required for a conviction.

 

[Brad Sallows]

The Republican Party has a ton of soul searching to do.

Why? Trump's gone, and the question of whether what he did warranted impeachment was ultimately a matter of aesthetic preferences and interpreting what happened, in what order, and from what motivations, on 6 Jan. Republicans don't have to do any navel-gazing over telling the Democrats to go pound sand; nor do the non-establishment Republicans have to apologize to the establishment Republicans whose return to the trough has been delayed from about 12 years to between 16 and 20.

Also: in the hands of real courts, everything is going to be a lot harder to prove.

 

[brihard]

Not really.

Even though the Democratic half of the Senate represents 41,549,808 more Americans than the Republican half, that's only enough to get "the Dems" a 50-50 split.

So, it's pretty hard to imagine them ever achieving the two-thirds majority of Senate seats required for a conviction.

Indeed. The mechanism of impeachment has been proven essentially toothless and meaningless. Which of course ultimately reverts the matter back to the electoral process.

 

[mariomike]

Also: in the hands of real courts, everything is going to be a lot harder to prove.

How much more evidence would have been required for the Republicans to vote to convict?

 

[Brad Sallows]

The mechanism of impeachment wasn't properly used. They didn't even make a half-hearted effort. That's twice now that Pelosi's Democratic House has blundered by putting politics ahead of process. The House has to do a proper investigation, not limit itself to hearing what it wants in front of the cameras and then demand the Senate tie itself up in further investigations; and the House has to send over the materials without playing games.

 

[Brad Sallows]

How much more evidence would have been required for the Republicans to vote to convict?

More than what the snap shoot House proceeding provided.

 

[FJAG]

The mechanism of impeachment wasn't properly used. They didn't even make a half-hearted effort. That's twice now that Pelosi's Democratic House has blundered by putting politics ahead of process. The House has to do a proper investigation, not limit itself to hearing what it wants in front of the cameras and then demand the Senate tie itself up in further investigations; and the House has to send over the materials without playing games.

Just to get the sequence right:

1. The House moved to impeach Trump before his presidency ended;

2. McConnell refused to hear the case until after Biden was sworn in;

3. Republican Senators voted to dismiss the case because they were largely of the view that it was unconstitutional to convict a president after he's out of office (or at least were prepared to use that as their reason for voting the way they did); and

4. There is no amount of evidence on Earth that would have changed the outcome of this.

There are many states where Republican senators are no longer safe. They know that alienating Trumpists will lead to their downfall. They've been gaming this system since 2016 and won't stop anytime soon. McConnell summed it up clearly:

McConnell sharply criticized his former ally in a speech on the Senate floor shortly after Trump was cleared in a 57-43 vote, saying the rioters had been "fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth. Because he was angry he'd lost an election."

"Former President Trump's actions that preceded the riot were a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty," added McConnell. "Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day."

But McConnell -- who, as Senate majority leader last month, rejected calls by Senate Democrats for a speedy trial during Trump's final days in office -- said Trump was constitutionally ineligible for conviction since the punishment is removal, and Trump was already out of office. McConnell claimed that a verdict before Joe Biden's inauguration had been impossible.

 

[dimsum]

There are many states where Republican senators are no longer safe. They know that alienating Trumpists will lead to their downfall. They've been gaming this system since 2016 and won't stop anytime soon.

Bingo. They're on self-preservation mode.

 

[lenaitch]

How much more evidence would have been required for the Republicans to vote to convict?

Not so much 'more' evidence as better evidence. Every crime has a set of facts-in-issue that have to be ticked off, and the criminal burden of proof is much higher. A lot of straight lines were drawn between his speech and the riot. Criminally, they would need either direct evidence or enough circumstantial evidence that A caused B to convince a jury. There is also the issue of intent (or willful negligence). Criminal law is based on proving a specific crime in the face of precedent law. Impeachment was a political process with limited rules of engagement.

 

[FJAG]

Not so much 'more' evidence as better evidence. Every crime has a set of facts-in-issue that have to be ticked off, and the criminal burden of proof is much higher. A lot of straight lines were drawn between his speech and the riot. Criminally, they would need either direct evidence or enough circumstantial evidence that A caused B to convince a jury. There is also the issue of intent (or willful negligence). Criminal law is based on proving a specific crime in the face of precedent law. Impeachment was a political process with limited rules of engagement.

Impeachment isn't criminal law otherwise they would use impartial jurors, have rules of evidence, require a unanimous verdict and have penal consequences. None of that is involved. Impeachment, at least at the level of a presidency, is a political process. The evidentiary process is as the Senate decides it to be and they rejected the concept of calling witnesses. The nature of the evidence presented was up to their desired standards. The determination as to whether the evidence was adequate or not for conviction is highly subjective and tinged by political partiality.

You can argue all you want about the sufficiency of the evidence but that makes very little difference because the Senators who voted against conviction have all said over and over again that they did so because they were of the opinion that they couldn't convict a president who is already out of office. Evidence had no role in that.

The issue of the quality or sufficiency of the evidence is moot.

That said, it looks to me like seven Republican Senators found the evidence more than adequate as did McConnell notwithstanding his vote.

 

[Brad Sallows]

1. The House moved to impeach Trump before his presidency ended;

Yes. They spent almost a whole day listening to themselves talk.

2. McConnell refused to hear the case until after Biden was sworn in;

Nevertheless, Pelosi chose her own schedule for sending the articles over.

3. Republican Senators voted to dismiss the case because they were largely of the view that it was unconstitutional to convict a president after he's out of office (or at least were prepared to use that as their reason for voting the way they did); and

Short of asking each Senator and getting a reply on the record, there is no way of knowing what reasons each had: unconstitutionality, giving no countenance to an unserious effort with no proper investigation, didn't think impeachment was warranted, read the papers and realized that some of the activity was planned and that Trump had called for peaceful protest, etc.

4. There is no amount of evidence on Earth that would have changed the outcome of this.

Sure there is. Prove that without premeditation and on the basis of Trump's remarks, people took up weapons and marched with intent to occupy Congress, to harm politicians and staff, and to interfere to overthrow the election result. Prove that Trump explicitly called for such action and did not explicitly call for peaceful protest. If the case was strong and the evidence was gathered, it's conceivable more Republicans would have voted to convict. But that would have required time and effort and proper investigation, while the evidence emerging in the media demonstrated that the likelihood of proving something strong enough to warrant impeaching was highly improbable.

 

[mariomike]

The Republican Party has a ton of soul searching to do.

Based on what Mitch McConnell , leader of the Sedate Republicans, had to say about the events of that day, hopefully there will be lessons learned going forward.

"There is no question, none, that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day."

 

[Kat Stevens]

Funny how the US seems to delight in finding things to charge their presidents with, well at least the conservative ones, but our merry band of thieves gets rewarded with fat pensions and cushy gigs in perpetuity,

 

[PMedMoe]

Have to wonder how results would have been without death threats.

Death threats and intimidation of public officials signal Trump’s autocratic legacy

‘There will be folks who try to kill us,’ says Republican congressman on going against Trump

The Capitol Hill mob wanted to intimidate Congress. It’s working.

 

[mariomike]

Funny how the US seems to delight in finding things to charge their presidents with, well at least the conservative ones,

Only two presidents were impeached before Trump — Andrew Johnson in 1866 and Bill Clinton in 1998.

 

[Brad Sallows]

Have to wonder how results would have been without death threats.

Trump's lawyer Van der Veen did pretty well despite the death threats. Why would he have done poorly in the absence of threats?