Revised 6:30am. Articles of Impeachment have been drafted and released. The charges are abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. A vote should come within days.
We're getting closer to impeaching the 45th president* of the United States for inviting foreign interference in our elections.
Things are moving fast. The past week has accelerated impeachment to almost certainly a vote before Christmas (which is a mere 15 days away!)
Congress took a Thanksgiving week break and then came back running. In just one week, we received a 300-page report, heard a day-long hearing with Constitutional scholars, and watched a day-long fireworks-filled hearing with majority and minority counsel justifying their positions. And here is LSR, trying to keep up with all of it while maintaining a busy schedule.
Last Tuesday, the Intelligence Committee delivered a 300-page report to the Judiciary Committee outlining the evidence. I haven't had a chance to read it, but our free press has. You can see the full report here or summaries from the New York Times here and Politico here.
The blockbuster revelations included details about Rep. Devin Nunes's involvement, as well as new information about a bunch o' phone calls. The Committee has phone records of the principals, and it shows frequent communication, and one surmises, coordination between Rudy Giuliani and others. From Politico:
Schiff and his top aide on the Intelligence panel, Daniel Goldman, are former federal prosecutors. So it makes some sense that they’d ask for phone records from AT&T and Verizon in their Ukraine investigation.
And by the looks of their report, they hit the jackpot. Call logs cited by the House reference numerous contacts among the many players in this saga, down to the minute and second. There are 16 calls, for example, between Giuliani and Parnas between April 1 and April 7 as the Trump associates worked to undermine Yovanovitch. In the same time period, Parnas and Solomon have 10 calls. The House report also describes multiple calls between Toensing, Giuliani and Parnas; Giuliani and Nunes; Giuliani and the White House (followed by one that came soon after, lasting 8 minutes and 28 seconds, with an unidentified number); Giuliani and OMB; and even a 48-second call between Giuliani and a number associated with then-national security adviser John Bolton.
The report set up a road map for the next phase, much of which we have barreled through already.
The very next day after the report was released, four Constitutional scholars appeared before the Judiciary Committee for testimony. They testified all day and I was able to watch and listen to parts of it. It was a good lesson in the Constitution and the state of mind of our founders as they drafted it.
We heard from three Constitutional law scholars that the Democrats called: Noah Feldman of Harvard, Pamela Karlan of Stanford, and Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina, and one that the Republicans called, Jonathan Turley of George Washington University. A couple things I found noteworthy.
The three Democrat-invited scholars all agreed that the offenses that TRUMP committed were impeachable, and should be acted upon urgently. But the Republican-invited professor, Professor Turley was a bit more skeptical. He seemed to make a main point that the investigation should slow down and they should wait for the courts to decide if the blocked witnesses can be compelled to testify. He said:
"...impeachments require a certain period of saturation and maturation. That is the public has to catch up. I’m not prejudging what your record would show, but if you rush this impeachment, you’re going to leave half the country behind, and certainly that’s not what the framers wanted. You have to give the time to build a record. This isn’t an impulse buy item.
You’re trying to remove a duly elected president of the United States and that takes time. It takes work. But at the end, if you look at Nixon, which was the gold standard in this respect, the public did catch up. They originally did not support impeachment, but they changed their mind. You changed their mind and so did, by the way, the courts, because you allow these issues to be heard in the courts."What was interesting was that he wasn't saying the 45's transgressions aren't impeachable, but entreated to gather more evidence. It's a fair point. But the difference is, we have ample evidence without those witnesses. We really don't need to wait, and we really shouldn't wait, because the fate of our next election is at stake.
I also heard the portion where Turley went into the minutiae about "bribery" and what it means in criminal law. Interesting information, but not relevant to an impeachment. The framers did not have specific statutes regarding "high crimes and misdemeanors" in mind when they crafted the Constitution. They left it broadly defined for a reason. They couldn't imagine future laws that would apply. The laws on the books will not help; the Constitution is the law.
Professor Turley wasn't a great witness for the GOP, I thought. He again talked mostly about the process and did not dispute the facts that warrant impeachment. And given his floppy-floppy views when it was Democrat Bill Clinton who was facing impeachment, he wasn't a great witness in my view.
The other three were in lock step about the urgency for impeachment. Mr Feldman issued a dire warning: "If we cannot impeach a president who abused his office for personal advantage, we no longer live in a democracy.”
We had to again endure Jim Jordan's and Matt Gaetz's screeching. Ugh. These two drama queens are getting so tiresome. They just look like idiots with their bullying tactics. Seriously, who admires this behavior? If you endorse their tactics, then you are part of the problem.
Overall, the hearing was an interesting lesson in Constitutional law and the impeachment clause, as well as the historical context of the worries that the framers had. They had our exact situation in mind when they wrote the section about impeachment. The founding fathers were quite worried about foreign interference in our elections. Here is a little tutorial about it from NPR.
Here's the whole transcript from the hearing. Here is a summary from the New York Times, another one from the New York Times looking specifically at the opening statements, and here is one from Reuters. Cool stuff, that Constitution!
And yesterday, we had a Judiciary Committee hearing with the staff attorneys, Steve Castor for the GOP and Barry Burke and Daniel Goldman for the Dems. It got sparky at times, mostly from Repugs interrupting and showing their frustration. Chairman Nadler's gavel sure got warm.
There wasn't much new. The same talking points from the GOP -- trying to muddy the waters and attacking the process. Claiming that 45 was oh-so-worried about corruption. If he was so worried about Hunter Biden, why didn't he start investigating right away? Hunter Biden was on that board for years before this incident. And Mr. Castor was laughable at times -- slimily discrediting the well-known facts as "ambiguous."
The Democrat lawyers set out the facts of the scheme and gave an outline about what articles of impeachment might look like.
Here are some takeaways from the New York Times, and here is a summary from The Atlantic.
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| Bill Bramhall |
So now, it's up to the Judiciary Committee to draft the articles of impeachment. It appears that there will be an article for abuse of power and one for obstruction. I think they'll fold in some of the Mueller findings to demonstrate a pattern, but not make the Russia actions their own articles. We shall see, very soon, possibly as early as this week.
In the end, we must impeach. We must protect our republic and our elections. Yes, it would be easier to wait until the 2020 election, just 11 months away, to remove him. But there are two reasons: one, it is the absolute duty of Congress to defend the Constitution. This includes impeaching a dangerous president. Each member of Congress took a sacred oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic." They have no choice but to honor that oath, especially if that enemy is, sadly, domestic. And two, if we do nothing, 45 will be emboldened, and he may do even worse. We simply cannot let the behaviors go unchecked.
In other news, the Inspector General report regarding the oranges (hee hee) of the Russia investigation was released. I'll let Stephen Colbert tell ya about that.
There's lots of non-impeachment stuff happening, too, and soon I'll dive into those.
Thanks for reading. Stay tuned.
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