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President Trump Is Impeached. Or Is He? No principled argument against a party-line acquittal.
Wall Street Journal ^ | December 22, 2019 | Alan Dershowitz

Posted on 12/22/2019 6:00:51 PM PST by billorites

Suddenly, impeachment can wait. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday she’ll delay transmitting the two House-approved articles to the Senate, in an obvious ploy for partisan advantage. For anti-Trump legal scholars Noah Feldman and Laurence Tribe, that has created a Schrödinger’s Cat scenario. They disagree on whether President Trump has been impeached at all.

Mr. Feldman says no: “If the House does not communicate its impeachment to the Senate, it hasn’t actually impeached the president.” Mr. Tribe says an affirmative vote on an article of impeachment is sufficient to impeach—but he also claims it’s proper to leave it at that. By declining to transmit the articles of impeachment, he argued in an op-ed that Mrs. Pelosi evidently found persuasive, the Democrats would get a win-win. Mr. Trump would carry the stigma of impeachment and be denied the opportunity to erase it via acquittal.

Messrs. Feldman and Tribe are both wrong. Mr. Tribe errs in asserting that the House can deny an impeached official a trial. Mr. Feldman errs in denying that the approval of articles of impeachment is sufficient to constitute an impeachment. The Senate need not wait for the articles to be “transmitted.” The Constitution grants the House the “sole power of impeachment,” and the Senate the “sole power to try all impeachments.” Now that the House’s job is done, it is up to the Senate to schedule a trial and make the rules for it.

My view—which I suspect much of the public shares—is that Mr. Trump was impeached by a partisan vote and deserves to be acquitted by a partisan vote. The representatives who impeached him along party lines after devising partisan rules of inquiry have no principled argument against a party-line acquittal.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: dershowitz
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1 posted on 12/22/2019 6:00:51 PM PST by billorites
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To: billorites

Reproduced in it’s entirety.


2 posted on 12/22/2019 6:01:39 PM PST by billorites (freepo ergo sum)
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To: billorites
Mr. Trump would carry the stigma of impeachment and be denied the opportunity to erase it via acquittal.

Sounds an awful lot like a bill of attainder.

3 posted on 12/22/2019 6:03:09 PM PST by 17th Miss Regt
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To: billorites
Is Trump Your President?
4 posted on 12/22/2019 6:05:19 PM PST by Bon mots
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To: billorites
Now that the House’s job is done,

Is the House's job done if the articles are not transmitted?

5 posted on 12/22/2019 6:05:44 PM PST by 17th Miss Regt
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To: billorites

He’s not impeached if the articles of impeachment are never delivered.


6 posted on 12/22/2019 6:05:48 PM PST by MrEdd (Caveat Emptor)
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To: billorites

7 posted on 12/22/2019 6:06:06 PM PST by Bon mots
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To: billorites

Might end up in the Supreme Court. Dan Pelosi and their ilk..


8 posted on 12/22/2019 6:06:28 PM PST by richardtavor
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To: MrEdd

Precisely. If there’s no paperwork, it never even happened. Anyone who has ever dealt with government at any level knows this.


9 posted on 12/22/2019 6:07:17 PM PST by abb
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To: billorites

The Dersh is a Democrat. But he’s been against this crazed insanity for nearly three years now.

And if the Senate wants to acquit the President on a party line vote, Democrats have no principled grounds for objecting to it.

Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler knew that before they rammed through impeachment oh a party line vote.

Sucks to be them.


10 posted on 12/22/2019 6:10:52 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: billorites

“Mr. Trump would carry the stigma of impeachment and be denied the opportunity to erase it via acquittal.”


Acquittal doesn’t erase the stigma. Clinton and Johnson were acquitted, but they still were impeached. In Trump’s case, since the impeachment was so partisan—no crimes listed and only dems voting for it—I don’t know if there’s going to be all that much stigma.


11 posted on 12/22/2019 6:15:34 PM PST by hanamizu
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To: billorites

In no way is a partisan impeachment a mark against Trump. If anything, it should tell the world he is doing the job he was elected to do.


12 posted on 12/22/2019 6:17:36 PM PST by bk1000 (Banned from Breitbart)
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To: hanamizu

The Democrats were never willing to take the time to build an ironclad, bipartisan case for impeachment.

They were in a rush to get it over and done with. And the result - their shoddy work product, has found no takers in the Senate.

This isn’t the way to do impeachment.


13 posted on 12/22/2019 6:20:29 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: billorites
The question should be resolved by the Supreme Court. The "impeachment" was unconstitutional, inasmuch as President Trump committed none of the misdeeds required by the constitution for impeachment, and the Supreme Court should declare it so.
14 posted on 12/22/2019 6:36:58 PM PST by Savage Beast (The curse of high intelligence: Having to watch the morons try everything that obviously won't work.)
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To: Savage Beast

The SCOTUS won’t take up the case.

Impeachment is a political matter under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress.

The courts have no say in it. If voters disagree with the judgment of Congress, they’re free to vote it out.


15 posted on 12/22/2019 6:48:40 PM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: goldstategop

“And if the Senate wants to acquit the President on a party line vote, Democrats have no principled grounds for objecting to it.”

Democrats have been promising to impeach President Trump since before he was sworn in, so I don’t see a problem with the Senate dismissing the allegations out of hand. In fact, the Republicans in the Senate have a better case, as the Senators already know from the House hearings what the testimony is.


16 posted on 12/22/2019 6:49:01 PM PST by MRadtke (Light a candle or curse the darkness?)
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To: billorites

Dershowitz has the typical liberal mind, it depends on the circumstances. He is quoted by many, including Levin, and a host of others, some to praise him, some to ridicule him. Here he is wrong, never mind his pedigree.


17 posted on 12/22/2019 6:49:31 PM PST by Fungi
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To: billorites

Soooooo pathetic. This is all a farce and not even worth analyzing but this may actually fulfill a coup because our society is stupid.


18 posted on 12/22/2019 6:52:34 PM PST by shanover (...To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.-S.Adams)
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To: 17th Miss Regt

Indictment that will never be tried...

WTF ever...


19 posted on 12/22/2019 6:53:09 PM PST by Vendome (I've Gotta Be Me https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB0ndRzaz2o)
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To: billorites

He has been impeached. Hundreds of sources. But let’s start with Trump and Pelosi who both say he is impeached. Are trump and his advisors stupid?

Then their Breitbart, WSJ, Limbaugh, Hannity and hundreds of others. Are they that ignorant.

There is no legal definition that the articles have to go to the setae to say he is impeached. The passing of the articles constitutes impeachment.

This started when professor from Harvard, who we all made fun of, said on Thursday, he’s not impeached. Some of the epode here who dismissed him out of hand during the hearings, then took his option as a cause celebrate and have become disruptors.

Search how many presidents have been impeached, this weeks articles. The answer will be 3.

When the articles were passed on clinton he wa immediately declared impeached. Bernard shaw and judy woodruff cried on CNN and the dems came out on the lawn of the wh and had a pity party, all this before anything went to the senate.


20 posted on 12/22/2019 6:54:53 PM PST by olesigh
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