The decision to block Gordon D. Sondland, the United States ambassador to the European Union, from speaking with investigators is certain to provoke an immediate conflict with potentially profound consequences for the White House and President Trump.
LOL I’m sure the letters will be super duper profound.
I want to make a meta-point regarding the discussion around impeachment. I think it’s a pretty fundamental mistake for people to keep making the cynical argument that the Senate won’t convict Trump, even if you think it’s true, if you think Trump should be impeached. As everyone points out, impeachment is a political process, so the things that are said in public matter more than in a judicial proceeding. If a portion of the public who ostensibly support removal from office are constantly talking about how it won’t happen rather than that it should happen, that will affect the public narrative in a way that undercuts impeachment, imo. We should all be talking about how Trump SHOULD be impeached for he open and obvious abuse of power, obstruction of justice, and probable criminal activity while in office. That’s it. If someone says he will get impeached, don’t laugh and mock or get into an argument about how it won’t happen. Just say something to the effect of I hope you’re right, he definitely should be impeached and talk about the reasons why. I know this is just a small message board, but I hear the same shit in my day to day interactions with people. How about using this board to practice how we should behave in our other interactions with people regarding Trump.
… Nothing will happen until after the 2020 election for sure.With the DOJ actively playing for the other team there’s no way to actually enforce anything. The Dems need to just stack obstruction charges on and proceed with impeachment full speed ahead.
The only goal here is to put the GOP Senators to a tough vote, where they will leave him in office… thus making them own every single shitty thing he does for the rest of his time in office.
After we get Trump out of office the DOJ needs to go after all of these people using every trick in the book up to and including the super bullshit ones we usually reserve for brown people and political dissidents.
I also think it’s highly likely than at least 3 GOP senators vote to convict. Romney, Collins, and one of a larger group of less likely conviction votes probably. If Collins doesn’t vote to convict her chances of being re-elected approach 0% so I’m actually fine with being wrong about her vote.
So the right way to handle them blocking Sondland from testifying is just to publicly say “So they won’t let Sondland testify so we can all assume that this means the worst possible things about the incredibly obvious quid pro quo arrangement between Trump and the Ukraine are all true and there is nothing that even mitigates those things that Sondland could testify to under oath… furthermore we’re going to be adding a count of obstruction to our impeachment because of this incredibly obvious act of obstruction.” Then move on as though nothing happened.
Of course? Everyone is!
In some ways yes, in some ways no. It looks bad, and he’s already pushing 58% in favor of impeachment. Maybe this gets it to 63% and then purple state senators have a serious problem. I suspect it looks quite bad to most people. Also, it adds another article of impeachment (though not that big of a deal). Also, the House can subpoena and then move to compel in court. This is hardly ideal, and it’s a longer term issue, but being ordered to turn over the tapes ultimately killed Nixon, and there seem to be some signals that it’s time for the GOP to abandon Trump. However, the House doesn’t seem to want a six month court fight to do the investigation. They’ll have to depend on whistleblowers and those who quit the administration (like Volker), who can’t be directed not to testify.
If the Senate actually holds a trial, Trump could likely not prevent anyone from testifying. At best, the witness will be sworn in and ask questions, and Chief Judge Roberts would have to rule on the sort whether an asserted privilege applies to each specific question. How do you think the optics of that will go? If it happens, Trump’s dead, either through removal or winning 33% in the election.
Finally, the House could actually exercise its inherent contempt powers, but that seem unlikely (and would likely result in a court battle).
All, I can say about Trump is that he has a masterful ability to delay and retreat, almost always placing himself in a worse position, but almost always staving off the inevitable as his hand grows weaker. (Or, as with Mueller interview, until his opponent decides to give up instead of force Trump to comply.) This is actually kind of impressive in a perverse way.
[I recently had a case where the opposing party was feeding us a bunch of bullshit. I finally just noticed the deposition of a third party ex-employee, to which the other side objected (on lousy grounds) but did not file a motion to quash (which they would have lost). Well, the ex-employee turned out to be quite cooperative and testified that what the defendant was saying (that he was operating pursuant to the ex-employee’s contractors license) was BS, and that the employee was no longer working there when the relevant events took place. We settled on quite favorable terms the following week. Trump is similar, but he appeals every loss, typically on poor, and sometimes absurd, grounds.]
LOL!
These kinds of legal tactics have probably served Trump quite well in his business career where every single step costs the other side money and makes them more likely to just settle and call it a day. Unfortunately the people he’s fighting now have unlimited legal funds and are just going to keep coming, so all he gets is time and a weakened position. He’s probably super confused by the fact that they haven’t given up or settled yet because he’s a moron and doesn’t understand how lawsuits at the national political level would be different than lawsuits with vendors he stiffed in New Jersey.
They can’t. Or at least they can’t enforce anything.
The executive branch isn’t honoring the power of either the legislative or the judicial branch right now as far as I can tell. I wouldn’t rely on the DOJ to enforce court orders any more than they have enforced anything else. This is the reason why people going to jail after the fat lady sings on this whole thing is basically a foregone conclusion. There are GOP members of both the legislative branch and the judicial branch who have more to lose from the precedent of just ignoring their power being fine than they do from the precedent of ‘if you do something super obviously illegal you go to jail’.
There are no establishment figures who are even a little OK with any of this behind closed doors. Even Mitch McConnell probably has real concerns about the long term implications of this… but he gets to have his cake and eat it too by just gently protesting to the Trumpists going to jail and not doing anything about it.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1181560708808486914
So there you go, he’s declared the inquiry a kangaroo court.
They can get a court order compelling to the witness to appear and testify at a time certain, and the judge can even rule on each objection during the testimony. Now, the witness may not appear, and he will be held in criminal contempt. Barr may not enforce the contempt, but 1) it would look REALLY bad to violate a court order to testify in the context of impeachment and 2) Barr ain’t always gonna be AG and criminal charges can be bought later.
Your pony took a hard look & confirmed the accuracy of the complaint
Did you miss the Lewandowski clownshow? Dems have no intention of enforcing anything. Nancy doesn’t have any handcuffs.
