Posted on 12/18/2019 3:38:59 AM PST by Kaslin
With a House impeachment vote a foregone conclusion, the battle to remove President Trump from office has moved to the Senate. Minority Leader Charles Schumer grabbed control of the debate Monday with demands for what he called "fairness" in the president's trial.
Schumer wants the Senate to allow testimony from four witnesses the House did not interview: former national security adviser John Bolton; acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; key Mulvaney aide Robert Blair; and Office of Management and Budget official Michael Duffey. House Democratic impeachers wanted the men to testify, but after the White House, claiming privilege, refused, House leaders chose not to try to force them to appear. Going to court to compel their testimony, Democrats said, would take too much time.
Now Schumer wants the witnesses simply to forget about privilege questions and testify in the Senate trial.
"How, on such a weighty matter, could we avoid hearing this, could we go forward without hearing it?" Schumer asked at a news conference Monday. "I haven't seen a single good argument about why these witnesses shouldn't testify -- unless the president has something to hide and his supporters want that information hidden."
Republicans will respond that the Senate is not the place for fact-finding -- that is, for senators to become investigators and do what the House declined to do.
Some will also note that the House chose not to seek the appointment of an outside investigator -- a special counsel -- to establish what happened in the Trump-Ukraine matter, and the Senate is ill-equipped to play that role. CARTOONS | Chip Bok View Cartoon
Many will also argue that the facts of the case do not align with the Democratic accusation of bribery, and more testimony will not change that. Others will argue that they don't believe what the president did rises to the level of an impeachable offense.
In other words, they will come up with a number of good arguments -- perhaps not good arguments to Charles Schumer, but good arguments to Republicans -- not to have any more witnesses.
Schumer is not trying to convince all 53 Senate Republicans to support his proposal. He just needs four. There are 47 Democrats in the Senate. If Schumer can persuade four GOP senators to join Democrats, they'll have a majority of 51 and can force the calling of new witnesses. (Of course, Schumer is counting on Democrats voting as a bloc against the president, which is probably a good bet.)
If Schumer gets what he wants, it seems hard to believe that will be the end of it. The request for more witnesses appears designed to lead not to closure, but to re-opening the case against Trump in this way: If Democrats can introduce new testimony in the trial, they can say the new testimony has raised new questions that will require new investigation. And new investigation will require more new witnesses, which will surely lead to more new questions, which ...
Call it the Brett Kavanaugh model of impeachment. During the Supreme Court justice's confirmation process, a hearing had already been held and Kavanaugh appeared on the way to joining the court. Then, up popped a new allegation -- the Christine Blasey-Ford story -- and Democrats demanded the case be re-opened, witnesses be interviewed, evidence be gathered, time be taken for more investigation. Republicans acceded to those demands, and the Kavanaugh confirmation careened off course for a while before GOP lawmakers finally got it back on track.
It is not beyond imagination that a Senate impeachment trial, were it controlled by Schumer and his Democratic colleagues, might take a similarly unforeseen course. Beyond new witnesses, there are plenty of ways that could happen.
For example: On Monday, lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee told a federal court it is essential that grand-jury materials from special counsel Robert Mueller's Trump-Russia investigation be given to House investigators. Why? Because it might help the impeachment effort. "If the House approves articles of impeachment," the lawyers argued, "relevant grand-jury material that the committee obtains in this litigation could be used during the subsequent Senate proceedings."
If the Judiciary Committee receives the information, there is little doubt its leaders will work with Senate Democrats to create the impression that there is new evidence so compelling that it absolutely must be included in the impeachment trial. And if Republicans disagree -- what are they trying to hide?
Indeed, Schumer and his colleagues have prepared the way to characterize any move to limit the trial's scope as an effort to hide wrongdoing from the American people. "To engage in a trial without the facts coming out is to engage in a cover-up," he said Monday.
The bottom line is, Republicans should not believe for one minute that the campaign to remove the president will rely only on the case Democrats have built in the House. Schumer and other party leaders will scramble for new information to throw at the president, and at Republicans, until it is over. The GOP, and the White House, need to be ready.
Schumer reminds me of a snake.
And since Bolton has left the administration, I'm not even sure if he can even be called.
I also believe that any testimony by any member of this group would totally and without a doubt vindicate the President....which is why they were not called.
“Schumer reminds me of a snake.”
As an attorney representing snakes, we may be asking for an apology.
What's that old saying about cutting off the head of the snake? This is never going to end without vast casualties on both sides and the Administrative civil war goes hot.
Schumer and other party leaders will scramble for new information to throw at the president, and at Republicans, until it is over.
It is never over.
Not just any snake, the snake in the Garden of Eden.
It will *take too long* to involve the courts and do this the legal way? Is the goal here to save time or to serve justice? Rhetorical question.
That comment spoke volumes.
GMTA.
It stands to reason that an attorney would be extra sensitive to any affronts to the snake-American community.
Schumer has a frankly evil look in his eyes. I would not want to be in the same room with him.
I am reminded of a scientist I heard about a few years ago. He came up with a hypothesis (as scientists are trained to do) and set about testing it. The experimental data did not support the hypothesis. So he designed a new set of experiments to test it. They also failed.
So far, nothing is remarkable about this. If one kind of experiment fails to support a hypothesis, there is always the possibility that the wrong test was applied, and it is acceptable to use a different approach.
But this guy did not give up. He kept devising new ways to test the hypothesis, and moved from testing it to trying to prove it. At the time I heard about it, he had already wasted ten years and who knows how much money trying to prove something that was not true.
This is what the DemocRATs and their desperation to find something, anything, the President has done wrong, are doing. They have failed to find anything, but obsessively keep at it. Meanwhile, they have not been doing their actual job as outlined in the Constitution.
They need to be impeached.
The Shampeachment will continue until it sticks
Democrats have a scorched earth policy
“A FRIVOLOUS impeachment vote is a SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY”
The Senate shouldn’t even take it up. Ignore it. What are the Dems gonna do? stamp their feet?
Only in the ground, my FRiend. Not a moment before.
It’s probably better to let the Senate take it up. Turtle has made his position clear. Let’s get some very public finality when the grownups take control.
Say what we will about the guy, when he is unleashed in the right direction, like slamming federal judges through, he is as tough, crafty, and cunning as they come.
Mitch is quite familiar with the term *coattailing* and he knows exactly how to make sure every GOP Senator is knows the definition as well.
And if he has anything else on anyone, he knows how and when to deploy.
CNN NEWSBREAK: It stands to reason that an attorney would be extra sensitive to any affronts to the snake-American community.
Our reporters have discovered the father of this aforementioned snake was albino, therefore, it was a WHITE SNAKE-AMERICAN.
In many ways, He makes me think of Frank Burns
Schumer reminds me of a snake.
Agreed! I have also noted in the past that I’ve seen snakes that have a more sincere smile than Schumer.....
Note the requirement of “force”.
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title18/part1/chapter115&edition=prelim
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