StarfishSaver
StarfishSaver's JournalAs a total political and news junkie, I am TOTALLY geeked right now. Anyone else?
WAPO: Trump ordered hold on military aid days before calling Ukrainian president
Officials at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) relayed Trump’s order to the State Department and the Pentagon during an interagency meeting in mid-July, according to officials who spoke on the condition on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. They explained that the president had “concerns” and wanted to analyze whether the money needed to be spent.
Administration officials were instructed to tell lawmakers that the delays were part of an “interagency process” but to give them no additional information — a pattern that continued for nearly two months, until the White House released the funds on the night of Sept. 11.
Trump’s order to withhold aid to Ukraine a week before his July 25 call with Volodymyr Zelensky is likely to raise questions about the motivation for his decision and fuel suspicions on Capitol Hill that Trump sought to leverage congressionally approved aid to damage a political rival. The revelation comes as lawmakers clash with the White House over a related whistleblower complaint made by an intelligence official alarmed by Trump’s actions. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/trump-ordered-hold-on-military-aid-days-before-calling-ukrainian-president-officials-say/2019/09/23/df93a6ca-de38-11e9-8dc8-498eabc129a0_story.html
They're starting to leak like sieves ...
I heard some Iowa voters say they love Warren's policies but her personality rubs them the wrong way
so they're not sure if they'll vote for her.
Seriously?
Would anyone ever say this about a male candidate?
And are they actually talking about a person who seeming to run against Donald Trump - the guy who became president notwithstanding having the foulest personality of any politician in modern American history?
I'm up to here with the "She needs to make me like her or else she hasn't earned my vote" double standard applied to women in politics (and most everywhere else). We need to call it out every time we see it, regardless who our favorite candidate is.
Let's hope the Ukraine smear on the Bidens finally puts to rest the bogus claim that Hillary
Clinton was a "flawed" candidate because she had too much "baggage" and if only another Democrat had been nominated, they wouldn't have been vulnerable to the same kind of attacks she was subjected to.
This should make clear that Trump and his henchmen play filthy and their willingness to slime an opponent - whoever that opponent may be -doesn't depend upon that opponent actually being "flawed" in any way.
Once and for all: A House resolution is NOT necessary for a "formal" impeachment inquiry to begin
There are at least three ways that an impeachment inquiry can be initiated - a House resolution is just one of the three.
https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R41110.html#_Toc301785618
To break it down. The House Judiciary Committee Chairman can undertake an impeachment inquiry pursuant to:
1) A House resolution authorizing the Judiciary Committee to open an inquiry, conduct hearings, subpoena witnesses, etc.
2) A resolution introduced on the floor by a Member and referred to the Judiciary Committee for consideration;
3) On his or her own initiative.
Each of these alternatives operate exactly the same. None has more or less validity or credibility. An impeachment inquiry conducted under any of these alternatives is just as "official" or "formal" as any conducted under the others.
In this instance, the Judiciary Committee's actions arguably fall under both 2) and 3). In opening an impeachment inquiry, the Chair has indicated that they are considering whether to approve the impeachment resolutions that have been referred to the Committee from the floor or to proceed with a draft new and/or additional articles of impeachment. Either and both are fully authorized approaches by the Committee.
The Judiciary Committee has broad standing investigatory powers - even broader than it had during Watergate - and therefore has the powers it needs to conduct an impeachment inquiry. In some instances, the House, though various resolutions, my expand or clarity those powers in order to streamline processes to make the investigation go smoother.
In this instance, for example, the House voted several months ago to give the chairs of key investigatory committees, including Judiciary, authority to go straight to court to enforce subpoenas without having to get a full House vote in advance. Normally, this is not an issue in impeachment proceedings, but the administration's stonewalling and obstruction made it advisable to allow the chairs to enforce subpoenas on a faster track.
So, in short, it is NOT necessary for the full House to authorize in advance an impeachment inquiry in order for it to be official and an impeachment inquiry initiated in committee has the same authority, powers, validity and legal standing as one initiated via House resolution.
I hope this is helpful and clears up any misunderstandings about the process.
If interested, here is a good explanation of the House impeachment process that provides more details: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45769.pdf
Too many expect the impeachment hearings to look like a highlight reel of the Watergate hearings
And that explains in large part why so many people have been disappointed with the hearings so far.
Most of what we remember from the 1973 Senate Watergate hearings are clips
of the important parts that we've seen over and over during the past 40+ years. We remember the pertinent parts of John Dean's testimony (but not the numeeoua other rather ponderous parts of his testimony), Alexander Butterfield's revelation of the tapes, and Senator Baker's now iconic "What did the president know and when did he know it?"
But we forget that those were just the highest of high points plucked and culled from hundreds of hours of hearings and testimony, most of which were boring, undramatic and very much in the weeds. I defy anyone here to watch the actual gavel-to-gavel coverage and, after they wake up and get their eyes to stop rolling back in their head, tell anyone with straight face that they were exciting or would have changed public opinion if they weren't analyzed an explained after the fact by the media covering them.
But today people seem to expect the Judiciary hearings to be one non-stop highlight reel of back-to-back dramatic, revelatory moments from riveting witnesses revealing earth-shaking revelations we never heard before and often use the Watergate hearings as an example of how that's done.
That's not going to happen. Congressional hearings of any sort, whether impeachment or anything else, rarely make for exciting television. If they're done right, they're pretty dull and we need to stop expecting these hearings to look like the Watergate hearings because even the Watergate hearings didn't look like what we think the Watergate looked like.
When you say "Impeachment should happen now," what do you actually mean?
This is a serious question. "Impeachment" seems to mean different things to different people. I'm trying to get a sense of what people hear mean when they say "The House should impeach now."
Do you mean the House should conduct an impeachment inquiry, that will likely lead to drafting and voting on Articles of Impeachment (the vote on the Articles being what actually impeaches him)?
Or do you mean the House should skip the inquiry and just draft and vote on Articles of Impeachment asap (for example, in the next week or two)?
If the House had tried to impeach Trump a month or two ago and failed
- either because the Senate refused to convict or because they couldn't even muster up the votes to impeach in the House -when this new information about Ukraine surfaced this week, where would we be now?
Do you think the House would be able to launch a new impeachment proceeding? Or would the press and public buy the Trump defense of "You had your shot and missed... Time to move on"?
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