The Trump Impeachment Thread

Quote: SOOPOO

It is quite AMAZING that the HOUSE MANAGERS cannot grasp this simple point!

One problem I have is this.... Does ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ include what I would call ‘dereliction of duty’? To me, if he did not act to end the insurrection as soon as he became aware of it, that is dereliction of duty, and SHOULD be impeachable.

On a separate issue, I am frankly stunned that there isn’t a system in place to marshall all necessary resources to quell an insurrection WITHOUT the need to call a President to ask for help. What if he was golfing and unavailable? But seriously.... it should be up to some law enforcement or security guy to have a system that just automatically gets put in place.

My understanding is that, Constitutionally speaking, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors," do not necessarily refer to actually codified crimes and misdemeanors under the law, even though they can. In the parlance of the times that the Constitution was authored a, "High Crime," simply meant an act that only a Government official could actually do owing to their unique position of power and responsibility. IOW, if you can make an argument that Trump abdicated his responsibility to do everything he could to protect the United States from an active insurrection, and you wanted to call it, "Dereliction of Duty," there's nothing that says you couldn't.

In the military sense, "Dereliction of Duty," typically refers to the failure to follow an order or regulation. This is perhaps still appropriate because Trump (at the time) was the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Given his position, there are no orders for him to follow, per se, because he is the one giving the orders. However, the POTUS takes an oath of office that states thus:

Quote:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

With that, the Constitution sets about the mechanism by which the Presidency is transferred from one person to another and by which the results of the Electoral College are certified. The Constitution actually sets about detailing (for a change) a specific procedure for this event. This procedure, by way of the insurrection and storming of the Capitol Building, was legitimately being threatened. In order for Donald Trump to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution, it was necessary for Donald Trump to use his capacity as Commander in Chief to take any action necessary to protect that event.

Because he did not, and for a time didn't even call his supporters off, Donald Trump was derelict in his duty with the violated regulation being his Oath of Office during which time he swore to protect the Constitution. Protecting the Constitution means protecting any Constitutional process, which the counting of Electoral Votes certainly was, despite the ridiculous claim of Trump (and some of his supporters) that he was voted out of office in an Unconstitutional way.

Anyway, "High crimes and misdemeanors," does not literally mean codified crimes and misdemeanors is the main point. In effect, you can kind of draft Articles of Impeachment (and the House vote on same to send to the Senate) for basically any reason you want to. The only real danger there is perhaps unintentionally creating a precedent that you might not want.

I think in order to use the Armed Forces to quell an insurrection there would have to be some sort of acknowledgment by whoever is in charge that there actually is an insurrection taking place. Trump wasn't golfing, he was in the White House and there's no reasonable way to believe he shouldn't have known what was going on...so it's kind of for him and him alone to make that call as he's, "On the job," for lack of a better term.

Mission... I like your take in the post above. Thus I now believe he should be impeached for the 'high crime' of dereliction of duty.

I haven't decided yet if JUST his continuous claims that we did not have a free and fair election would be a 'dereliction of duty'?

Quote: SOOPOO

Mission... I like your take in the post above. Thus I now believe he should be impeached for the 'high crime' of dereliction of duty.

I haven't decided yet if JUST his continuous claims that we did not have a free and fair election would be a 'dereliction of duty'?

Thanks for saying so, but it shouldn't be forgotten that you were the first one to come up with, "Dereliction of duty."

I wouldn't agree with the second statement simply because offering his opinion that the election was unfair (even for someone holding office) should be protected speech.

Quote: Mission146

It doesn't matter what they said it was for or why they said they were doing it. What matters is whether or not his speech was made, provably, with the intention of having his supporters storm the Capitol Building. If you can't prove that was the intent, and a literal interpretation of his words do not support that, then you don't have incitement.

I meant the preponderance of evidence being enough to convince juries to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, btw.

For instance, the behavior of a murderer after the event can certainly have consequences on his perceived guilt. He said he immediately called the police, but we find out he did nothing for 3 hours, stopped and had ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

Same with Trump. What other things indicate his intent or dispute his account.

Quote: rxwine

I meant the preponderance of evidence being enough to convince juries to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, btw.

For instance, the behavior of a murderer after the event can certainly have consequences on his perceived guilt. He said he immediately called the police, but we find out he did nothing for 3 hours, stopped and had ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

Same with Trump. What other things indicate his intent or dispute his account.

I'm not even watching. Got better things to do
Bottom line
Without Trump, there is no attack on the capitol

Mission should have been a mob lawyer
I can see it now
Sure my client was recorded saying whack him but he just meant slap, not kill. I can show all kinds of examples where the public uses whack to hit not kill

Quote: rxwine

I meant the preponderance of evidence being enough to convince juries to convict beyond a reasonable doubt, btw.

For instance, the behavior of a murderer after the event can certainly have consequences on his perceived guilt. He said he immediately called the police, but we find out he did nothing for 3 hours, stopped and had ice cream at Baskin Robbins.

Same with Trump. What other things indicate his intent or dispute his account.

IANAL, for the record, but I don't understand what you mean by the first sentence.

"Beyond a reasonable doubt," is the instruction given to juries for the purpose of conviction in a criminal proceeding. It's the criminal standard (hypothetically) that is necessary to overcome in order for a jury to convict. Granted, "Beyond a reasonable doubt," does not literally mean, "Beyond any possible doubt."

To my understanding, "Preponderance of the evidence," is the Civil standard required for a jury to be instructed that they should find in favor of the Plaintiff, whatever the particular case may be. "Preponderance of the evidence," is nothing more than a fancy way of saying, "More than 50% possible based on the evidence," or, "More likely than not based on the evidence."

Anyway, both of these are the standards for conviction, or in the case of a civil trial, a finding by the jury.

What you're talking about is simply evidence that has nothing to do with the actual standard for a criminal conviction. Obviously, a defendant lying during a criminal trial is not good. A jurist might reason, "The accused murderer claimed that he called the police immediately after discovering the body, however, he did not contact the police for three hours AFTER he discovered the body. This, along with other evidence presented, leads me to the conclusion that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the accused committed this murder."

Right or wrong, that has nothing to do with preponderance of the evidence, legally speaking. I will stipulate that, "Beyond a reasonable doubt," and, "Preponderance of the evidence," might mean the same thing to some people---but they shouldn't.

Anyway, the question is about incitement of insurrection. What he did after an insurrection was already in progress does nothing to prove or disprove whether or not he incited it.

I guess what I'm saying is that Trump could be dispassionate about the insurrection itself, perhaps even enjoyed the insurrection, without having incited it.

Quote: terapined

I'm not even watching. Got better things to do
Bottom line
Without Trump, there is no attack on the capitol

Mission should have been a mob lawyer
I can see it now
Sure my client was recorded saying whack him but he just meant slap, not kill. I can show all kinds of examples where the public uses whack to hit not kill

Without the Capitol Building itself there could have been no attack on the Capitol Building. Is the Capitol Building guilty of incitement of insurrection?

Actually, the mob was also incited (common usage) by the fact that the Electoral Votes were being counted and Trump was going to officially be declared the loser in the first place. Perhaps it was Congress itself, and the Constitution, who incited these folks.

The point is, the House of Representatives could have drafted an article for virtually any reason in the world, but they chose, "Incitement," because it sounds really dramatic and The Left is largely comprised of Middle School-aged girls who love drama...particularly the politicians...plays well with Generation Z and Millennials, you know. They totally love drama.

"Incitement," has a criminal definition, even though this is not a criminal trial. Incitement has no definition specific to Civil law that I'm aware of.

The point is I could VERY EASILY support an Impeachment of Trump and prohibition from him ever holding Federal office again...I really don't know how many times I have to say that...but in order for me to do that, they have to call Trump's acts a word that actually describes Trump's acts and declare that to be sufficient to impeach.

What a sad state of affairs. The TOTALLY incompetent Democrat Senate leadership (essentially Schumer) forces a vote on allowing witnesses to be called. And as soon as the vote is taken, they changed their minds and decided not to call witnesses! You can’t make this up!
These are the people we have entrusted to lead us. God help us. Or if you are an atheist, we need lots of positive variance!

Quote: Mission146

IANAL, for the record, but I don't understand what you mean by the first sentence.

"Beyond a reasonable doubt," is the instruction given to juries for the purpose of conviction in a criminal proceeding. It's the criminal standard (hypothetically) that is necessary to overcome in order for a jury to convict. Granted, "Beyond a reasonable doubt," does not literally mean, "Beyond any possible doubt."

To my understanding, "Preponderance of the evidence," is the Civil standard required for a jury to be instructed that they should find in favor of the Plaintiff, whatever the particular case may be. "Preponderance of the evidence," is nothing more than a fancy way of saying, "More than 50% possible based on the evidence," or, "More likely than not based on the evidence."

Anyway, both of these are the standards for conviction, or in the case of a civil trial, a finding by the jury.

What you're talking about is simply evidence that has nothing to do with the actual standard for a criminal conviction. Obviously, a defendant lying during a criminal trial is not good. A jurist might reason, "The accused murderer claimed that he called the police immediately after discovering the body, however, he did not contact the police for three hours AFTER he discovered the body. This, along with other evidence presented, leads me to the conclusion that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the accused committed this murder."

Right or wrong, that has nothing to do with preponderance of the evidence, legally speaking. I will stipulate that, "Beyond a reasonable doubt," and, "Preponderance of the evidence," might mean the same thing to some people---but they shouldn't.

Anyway, the question is about incitement of insurrection. What he did after an insurrection was already in progress does nothing to prove or disprove whether or not he incited it.

I guess what I'm saying is that Trump could be dispassionate about the insurrection itself, perhaps even enjoyed the insurrection, without having incited it.

I didn't know that expression was limited to civil cases. But hey, not a lawyer.

The only thing you need to blow the whole idea out of the water that Trump didn't incite insurrection is for instance a statement by Trump that that was what Trump meant to happen. That's why it matters what he did before and afterwards. And if you can show enough evidence that that was the intent you may convince a jury. But it doesn't have to be a statement, it could be other evidence.

Quote: SOOPOO

What a sad state of affairs. The TOTALLY incompetent Democrat Senate leadership (essentially Schumer) forces a vote on allowing witnesses to be called. And as soon as the vote is taken, they changed their minds and decided not to call witnesses! You can’t make this up!
These are the people we have entrusted to lead us. God help us. Or if you are an atheist, we need lots of positive variance!

Actually, one of them (after the vote) needed clarification on what they had just voted on. Lindsey Graham had to change his vote because he misunderstood what side of the vote he wanted to be on.

We are now on to closing arguments in which a solid five minutes were spent discussing, "Dereliction of duty," and how that constitutes evidence of the underlying charge (article) of incitement. First of all, it doesn't, other than the fact that both things are tied to the same event. Secondly, this is a concept known as, "Moving the goalposts," which is to say that they are arguing BECAUSE Trump was derelict in his duty to stop it, incitement is therefore proven. IOW, they're trying to argue that having demonstrated one thing is sufficient to have demonstrated the other.

In the meantime, even if they wanted to pursue an article for incitement of insurrection, they could have simultaneously had a separate article for dereliction of duty. There were two articles in question during the Senate trial in Trump's first impeachment, after all.

As far as the witnesses are concerned, it seems they wanted to get into the record the statement of Republican House Member Herrera Butler pertaining to Trump's phone call with Kevin McCarthy. That's obviously not going to change the final outcome, but they have their own reasons for doing things, I guess.