Pelosi on impeachment: if the Senate exonerates Trump

[ehrnst]

143. I don't think that she was saying that it was an iron clad truism, etched in stone.

I think that she is stating that "the school of thought" is out there, and needs to be taken into consideration and neutralized.

I don't think that anyone thinks a "100%" ironclad case is possible or necessary. I think that you read that into what she said. There are standards of evidence, and if the evidence meets those standards, that is what "ironclad" means. Emails, bank records, tax returns, depositions from witnesses, phone and travel records - all of those need to be in place and verified prior to making the case. That's just responsible investigating, and that's not going to happen overnight. Remember the woman who approached WAPO with a false story about Roy Moore molesting her in order to discredit WAPO's reporting on him? They didn't say "Well, there is no 100% ironclad way to prove someone is telling the truth if we weren't there to see it, so just go to press with this. Roy Moore is a bad guy, he needs to be stopped and that's the point." Instead, they did their due dillegence, checked out the woman's credibility, didn't rush to press, and that is what saved them from playing into the hands of bad actors. I expect no less from the House commitees doing their investigations, which we know are going to be targeted.

The opposite of "not having enough ironclad evidence" isn't "having 100% ironclad evidence." That's a false dichotomy, and I didn't see Pelosi stating that perfection must be reached, just that it be ironclad verified.

I also stand by my positing that a purely political trial will have, at the end of the day, much of a lessening force on any future-forward prosecutions once Rump is out of office.

I'll leave that determination to one who knows far more than I do about proceedure, the possibility of the DOJ responding in that way, and that's Pelosi.