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Trump lawyer says a president cannot be impeached for abusing his power

Ringo Stalin said:
One of Trump's center defenders at the impeachment trial was asked when he was wrong: when, while drowning Clinton, he claimed that there was no need for a crime to be impeached, or now, when he is building all the defense that is needed. Answer:" I was right then,and now I'm even more right"... High class lawyering for you!
Open the little secret. If you change the entire capitalist elite on the globe, the new ones will not stop stealing, killing millions, and raping children.
"Little golden coins" is stronger than all captains America. And in the black soul of Capital, only loot matters. He who has it most is Right and Holy
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I bet this is what reading Das Kapital on meth feels like.



Я Баба Яга [emoji328]
 
jpn said:
What's with you conservatives and projection? I'm always about serious conversations, until I run up to someone like you who just can't bring themselves to say, "yeah, that's true," even with a snopes web page right in front of their faces, and Wikipages, and everything available to them on the internet because...well, I don't know. Why can't you just admit something that sounds bad to conservative ears?

Like: This snopes page. Do you disagree? Show some actual evidence why not?

Tell you what. Show me that you have at least a modicum of intellectual integrity. Tell me the story that Joe Biden tried to pressure the Ukraine government stop the investigation into Burisma in 2015 is not true. To the best of your knowledge, based on all the evidence you've seen to date.

Can you do that?
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You are using snopes to fact check? You cannot be serious.

We have a sworn affidavit from Shokin, describing the reason he was fired. And in his opinion, it was because he was getting closer to investigating Hunter Biden. I think his father was afraid that some of their coordinated corruption would be exposed, so Joe Biden leveraged the 1.2B loan guarantee to have the attorney general of Ukraine fired.

And really, this is no way to run a nation... but it is a good way to run it into the ground. Remember Trump is getting impeached for looking into corruption. Trump is doing his job, and that includes weeding out corruption.

So indeed, Trump was right to bring that line of questioning to the surface. Here is the kicker:

If Joe Biden is corrupt, wouldn't you want to know that? Shouldn't the American people get a say in all this?

Wouldn't this exonerate Trump?
 
Oborosen said:
So, do I have to sit here and tell you how the law operates in such cases? So long as he isn't making them disregard a strict court order, he can thump his chest all he wants.
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What Trump is doing is illegal, and I think it's a not okay for you to minimize his actions as merely chest-thumping. Time and time again I see Trump supporters making the same anti-Constitutional, fascist sorts of arguments. You are no exception.

Trump is already acting against the Constitution. Trump is already forcing his aides to not testify contrary to the logic of the previous rulings on the matter. Yes, he is also responding in court to the House's lawsuit that he has the power to prevent his senior aides from appearing before Congress, but he is wrong and the courts will most likely rule against him in substance and declare what he is doing to be unconstitutional. And when that happens the Court will have declared his actions, his obstruction of Congress in contradiction to the Constitution, to be illegal.

And if you doubt me read the Miers case, read Jackson's recent ruling regarding the McGahn case.

Trump is not asserting executing privilege as it is traditionally known. He is claiming for himself new rights previous Presidents never had:

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthe...subpo/92d4672db63b5cac498d/optimized/full.pdf

First, DOJ argued that a duly authorized committee of Congress acting on behalf of the House of Representatives cannot invoke judicial process to compel the appearance of senior-level aides of the President for the purpose of receiving sworn testimony. See id. at 66–67, 78. Second, DOJ maintained that a President can demand that his aides (both current and former) ignore a subpoena that Congress issues, on the basis of alleged absolute testimonial immunity. See id. at 100. And, third, DOJ asserted that the federal courts cannot exercise subject-matter jurisdiction over any such subpoena-related stalemate between the Legislature and the Executive branch, on separation of powers grounds.
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--

The current state of the law of presidential privilege, described more fully below, may be briefly summarized as follows:

The constitutionally based presidential communications privilege is presumptively valid when asserted.

There is no requirement that the president must have seen or even been aware of the documents over which he or she claims privilege.

The communication(s) in question must relate to a “quintessential and non-delegable presidential power” that requires direct presidential decision-making. The privilege is limited to the core constitutional powers of the president, such as the power to appoint and remove executive officials, the commander-in-chief power, the sole authority to receive ambassadors and other public ministers, and the pardon power. The privilege does not cover matters handled within the broader executive branch beyond the Executive Office of the President. Thus, it does not cover decision-making regarding the implementation of laws that delegate

policymaking authority to the heads of departments and agencies, or which allow presidential delegations of authority.

The subject communication must be authored or “solicited and received” by the president or a close White House adviser. The adviser must be in “operational proximity” to the president, which effectively limits coverage of the privilege to the administrative boundaries of the Executive Office of the President and the White House.

The privilege remains a qualified privilege that may be overcome by a showing that the information sought “likely contains important evidence” and is unavailable elsewhere to an appropriate investigatory authority. The president may not prevent such a showing of need by granting absolute immunity to witnesses who would otherwise provide the information necessary to show that “important” evidence exists.
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The Limits of Executive Privilege


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The Executive cannot identify a single judicial opinion that recognizes absolute immunity for senior presidential advisors in this or any other context. That simple yet critical fact bears repeating: the asserted absolute immunity claim here is entirely unsupported by existing case law. In fact, there is Supreme Court authority that is all but conclusive on this question and that powerfully suggests that such advisors do not enjoy absolute immunity. The Court therefore rejects the Executive's claim of absolute immunity for senior presidential aides.
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COMMITTEE ON JUD., US HOUSE OF REPRES. v. Miers, 558 F. Supp. 2d 53 – CourtListener.com
 
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bongsaway said:
Let's hear from all the players around trump, those with firsthand info, then I'll make up my mind. If the whole purpose is to find the truth, how does having no witnesses or documents presented help?

Hell no the charges are not bogus. He's lucky there were only two charges.
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He was lucky? You think any partisan group, Republicans or Democrats, have the legal right to determine what abuse of power is? This has been a partisan witch hunt since the beginning and claiming that Trump is lucky to only have two articles of impeachment after over a month of testimony and years of the Mueller investigation is laughable.

It is so sad that politics are at play here certainly not the rule of law. Courts decide abuse of power, not partisan political hacks on both sides
 
W_Heisenberg said:
What Trump is doing is illegal, and I think it's a not okay for you to minimize his actions as merely chest-thumping. Time and time again I see Trump supporters making the same anti-Constitutional, fascist sorts of arguments. You are no exception.

Trump is already acting against the Constitution. Trump is already forcing his aides to not testify contrary to the logic of the previous rulings on the matter. Yes, he is also responding in court to the House's lawsuit that he has the power to prevent his senior aides from appearing before Congress, but he is wrong and the courts will most likely rule against him in substance and declare what he is doing to be unconstitutional. And when that happens the Court will have declared his actions, his obstruction of Congress in contradiction to the Constitution, to be illegal.

And if you doubt me read the Miers case, read Jackson's recent ruling regarding the McGahn case.

Trump is not asserting executing privilege as it is traditionally known. He is claiming for himself new rights previous Presidents never had:

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthe...subpo/92d4672db63b5cac498d/optimized/full.pdf



--

The current state of the law of presidential privilege, described more fully below, may be briefly summarized as follows:



The Limits of Executive Privilege


--




COMMITTEE ON JUD., US HOUSE OF REPRES. v. Miers, 558 F. Supp. 2d 53 – CourtListener.com
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You really have a passion for this issue or is this just a political stunt for some college course? Interesting how the Clinton impeachment apparently didn't happen according to people like you as the same arguments were made then by the Democrats as they are now by the Republicans. Now it is different because this is an action you support, Executive Privilege was legal during the Clinton term but not now?? Is that liberal logic?

what you continue to ignore is that impeachment was rushed through the House because "Trump was a danger to the country" yet now the Democrats want amendments and more witnesses. Why didn't Democrats go to court first to seek approval for those so called abuse of power charges?

This is just another opportunity to show your partisanship and inability to be impartial in any opinions on the charges none of which have been ruled on by the courts thus aren't illegal as you and radicals want to believe
 
Moderate Right said:
There is some truth to that. With the checks and balances, it is rather difficult for a president to actually abuse his power. If he is able to do something then he apparently had the power to do it or he wouldn't have been able to do it.
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The check on the president's power is Congress and the Senate.

But, if the Senate, by majority, is complicit with the accused, justice is lost, and the country drifts further towards tyranny.


Having the power to do something wrong is one thing, enabling the president to have the power to do something wrong, is another.
 
Rexedgar said:
Alan Dershowitz: Trump Could Give Away Alaska And Be Protected By SCOTUS |
HillReporter.com


“ Assume Putin decides to ‘retake’ Alaska, the way he ‘retook’ Crimea. Assume further that a president allows him to do it, because he believed that Russia has a legitimate claim to ‘its’ original territory… That would be terrible, but would it be impeachable? Not under the text of the Constitution.”

“That would be terrible, but would it be impeachable?”

I’m no legal scholar, but these two scenarios are troubling.

Aside: Dershowitz has distanced himself from the legal team of POTUS, saying he is arguing the Constitution, wouldn’t that put Dershowitz in the ‘witness’ category.
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'high crimes and misdemeanors' is whatever Congress says it is.

Senator Moynihan explained this to his then aid, Lawrence McDonald, with three words 'no judicial review'.

The fact of the matter is that there is no judicial review on 'high crimes and misdemeanors'. There is no asking SCOTUS to rule on the validity of articles of impeachment, So, therefore, what it is and is not is entirely up to Congress.


The other glaring fact of which Dershowitz is astonishingly ignorant of his his assertion that 'high crimes and misdemeanors' must be about 'crime', was the fact that at the writing of those words in the Constitution, there was no federal book of criminal codes.
 
vesper said:
In your own words you just decimated yourself when you make the claim that Trump was attempting to blackmail Ukraine. I don't know what rock you live under but even the NYT, Politico and other news sources were reporting on the Hunter Biden deal with a company that was known to be corrupt months before any of this erupted on the left. Ukraine has had a real corruption problem. Zelensky was elected because he promised to clean it up. The prior administration under Poroshenko were still continuing to give bad actors cover. Our ambassador Yovanovich was supporting Poroshenko in the election. What does that tell you if anything? Trump in one of his conversations told Zelensky that he was concerned that Zelensky was surrounding himself with the same bad actors that Poroshenko did. In other words those that were corrupt.
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Please provide cite for the bolded statement.
 
swing_voter said:
Attorney Alan Dershowitz said on Sunday the argument that a president cannot be impeached for abusing his power is a “strong one” that has been successful in the past.

Dershowitz, who's serving as legal counsel for President Trump's defense team in the Senate impeachment trial, told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” that he is following in the footsteps of Justice Benjamin Curtis who defended President Andrew Johnson. He said Curtis had argued that proof of a crime was necessary for a president to be removed from office.

“So I am making an argument much like the argument made by the great Justice Curtis,” he said. “And to call them absurdist is to, you know, insult one of the greatest jurists in American history. The argument is a strong one. The Senate should hear it.”

He said the constitutional framers worried about “giving Congress too much power” to weaponize impeachment on a partisan basis, adding that abuse of power is too “open-ended.”

Alan Dershowitz: Argument president cannot be impeached for abusing power a 'strong one' | TheHill



Alan Dershowitz is very left wing. He's defending Trump because he thinks the impeachment charges are 100% partisan and bogus.

Do you think the impeachment charges are bogus?
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Dershowitz is defending Trump because he was hired to do so...he is anything but left wing. The dude defended Epstein and lost. He defended Weinstein and lost...why is it this guy always defends sexual predators?
 
OscarLevant said:
The check on the president's power is Congress and the Senate.

But, if the Senate, by majority, is complicit with the accused, justice is lost, and the country drifts further towards tyranny.


Having the power to do something wrong is one thing, enabling the president to have the power to do something wrong, is another.
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I have answered your claims in previous posts in post 304. You tell me that partisans on either side are capable of being non partisan and determining what abuse of power is? We have a legal system that the Democrats circumvented yet you cannot seem to see that the same arguments were made by Republicans during the Clinton impeachment. Now somehow Democratic claims are valid. Why do you support such partisanship?
 
Conservative said:
He was lucky? You think any partisan group, Republicans or Democrats, have the legal right to determine what abuse of power is? This has been a partisan witch hunt since the beginning and claiming that Trump is lucky to only have two articles of impeachment after over a month of testimony and years of the Mueller investigation is laughable.

It is so sad that politics are at play here certainly not the rule of law. Courts decide abuse of power, not partisan political hacks on both sides
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Think it's time you went back for a refresher civics course. First courts decide matters of law. There is no federal statute entitled 'abuse of power'. Second the constitution gives the Senate the sole power to try impeachments. It does not share this power with the Chief Justice or the courts. If McConnell's defense of his party's President to tar the opposition party's pursuit of impeachment, whatever the merits isn't partisan politics than I don't know what is.
 
Atomic Kid said:
Think it's time you went back for a refresher civics course. First courts decide matters of law. There is no federal statute entitled 'abuse of power'. Second the constitution gives the Senate the sole power to try impeachments. It does not share this power with the Chief Justice or the courts. If McConnell's defense of his party's President to tar the opposition party's pursuit of impeachment, whatever the merits isn't partisan politics than I don't know what is.
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Still won't answer the question will you? You think partisans on either side are non partisan in determining abuse of power? The Democrats made the charge, not Republicans but the point remains this is a legal question not for the House or the Senate to decide but rather the courts. Partisan politics are the problem here as the same argument was made during the Clinton impeachment, what was your stance then?
 
swing_voter said:
Attorney Alan Dershowitz said on Sunday the argument that a president cannot be impeached for abusing his power is a “strong one” that has been successful in the past.

Dershowitz, who's serving as legal counsel for President Trump's defense team in the Senate impeachment trial, told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” that he is following in the footsteps of Justice Benjamin Curtis who defended President Andrew Johnson. He said Curtis had argued that proof of a crime was necessary for a president to be removed from office.

“So I am making an argument much like the argument made by the great Justice Curtis,” he said. “And to call them absurdist is to, you know, insult one of the greatest jurists in American history. The argument is a strong one. The Senate should hear it.”

He said the constitutional framers worried about “giving Congress too much power” to weaponize impeachment on a partisan basis, adding that abuse of power is too “open-ended.”

Alan Dershowitz: Argument president cannot be impeached for abusing power a 'strong one' | TheHill



Alan Dershowitz is very left wing. He's defending Trump because he thinks the impeachment charges are 100% partisan and bogus.

Do you think the impeachment charges are bogus?
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Dershowitz, Trump, Clinton etc.. are all pals of Epstein. Dershowitz has been very consistent.... not in his legal analysis, but in supporting everyone in Epstein's inner circle.
 
OpportunityCost said:
No I cant do that, because you don't get to insult me and in the same post try to get me to agree to let you make your case with my agreement. I don't have to show you jack ****, its implied in firing the prosecutor, which you well know, you are just trying to bull**** your way around it.

Now why don't you show a modicum of intellectual integrity and admit you have been stymied because you cannot prove what I asked you to and quit trying to shift the burden to me over and over. I'm guessing progressive ears can hear it, maybe.
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:lamo

Perfect. Good job. Donald Trump himself would be proud of you.

Public service announcement: For ongoing examples of similar belligerent obstinacy, tune into the Republican arguments in the Senate Impeachment Trial.
 
Atomic Kid said:
Think it's time you went back for a refresher civics course. First courts decide matters of law. There is no federal statute entitled 'abuse of power'. Second the constitution gives the Senate the sole power to try impeachments. It does not share this power with the Chief Justice or the courts. If McConnell's defense of his party's President to tar the opposition party's pursuit of impeachment, whatever the merits isn't partisan politics than I don't know what is.
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It really is time for adults to take over, incredible video that will explain it to partisans like you

YouTube
 
W_Heisenberg said:
What Trump is doing is illegal, and I think it's a not okay for you to minimize his actions as merely chest-thumping. Time and time again I see Trump supporters making the same anti-Constitutional, fascist sorts of arguments. You are no exception.

Trump is already acting against the Constitution. Trump is already forcing his aides to not testify contrary to the logic of the previous rulings on the matter. Yes, he is also responding in court to the House's lawsuit that he has the power to prevent his senior aides from appearing before Congress, but he is wrong and the courts will most likely rule against him in substance and declare what he is doing to be unconstitutional. And when that happens the Court will have declared his actions, his obstruction of Congress in contradiction to the Constitution, to be illegal.

And if you doubt me read the Miers case, read Jackson's recent ruling regarding the McGahn case.

Trump is not asserting executing privilege as it is traditionally known. He is claiming for himself new rights previous Presidents never had:

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthe...subpo/92d4672db63b5cac498d/optimized/full.pdf



--

The current state of the law of presidential privilege, described more fully below, may be briefly summarized as follows:



The Limits of Executive Privilege


--




COMMITTEE ON JUD., US HOUSE OF REPRES. v. Miers, 558 F. Supp. 2d 53 – CourtListener.com
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Amazing how 2:17 minute video destroys your hours and weeks of pontificating partisan views

YouTube
 
Condor060 said:
Well, He head of the DOJ and Muellers boss so theres that. Just because you don't like him doesn't mean anything.
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Being head of the DOJ means nothing. Trump is president, and he's a lying crook. His kids actually were ordered by a federal judge to take remedial classes on how not to be a crook like their dad. Seriously.
 
Conservative said:
Amazing how 2:17 minute video destroys your hours and weeks of pontificating partisan views

YouTube
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While the kids sat in detention with their glasses of milk. Trump in Davos.
Can you imagine what the congress could do if they focused this level of effort on, say, health care.



YouTube

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk
 
Eriech said:
While the kids sat in detention with their glasses of milk. Trump in Davos.
Can you imagine what the congress could do if they focused this level of effort on, say, health care.



YouTube

Sent from my SM-G892A using Tapatalk
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If what is going on in Congress today isn't enough to demand term limits nothing will ever improve Congressional credibility
 
jpn said:
Being head of the DOJ means nothing. Trump is president, and he's a lying crook. His kids actually were ordered by a federal judge to take remedial classes on how not to be a crook like their dad. Seriously.
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A lying crook? Doubt very seriously that you even know what lying really is as you obviously are biased in your opinions. Lying to you apparently is anything that doesn't support your ideology or anyone that disagrees with you. You focus way too much on personality and never on actual results. You want to focus on Trump's popularity why not Congress?

RealClearPolitics - Election Other - Congressional Job Approval
 
Night_Ranger said:
You are using snopes to fact check? You cannot be serious.
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The page uses something called hyperlinks. You click on the hyperlinks on the snopes page and you see what sources they are relying on. Try it.

Night_Ranger said:
We have a sworn affidavit from Shokin, describing the reason he was fired. And in his opinion, it was because he was getting closer to investigating Hunter Biden. I think his father was afraid that some of their coordinated corruption would be exposed, so Joe Biden leveraged the 1.2B loan guarantee to have the attorney general of Ukraine fired.
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Of course you'll rely on a corrupt, disgraced, fired prosecutor for your information. Relying on the heavily-sourced snopes page is not serious, but relying on a lying thug is totally serious.

Night_Ranger said:
And really, this is no way to run a nation... but it is a good way to run it into the ground. Remember Trump is getting impeached for looking into corruption. Trump is doing his job, and that includes weeding out corruption.
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Trump is not getting impeached for looking into corruption. Trump is getting impeached for corruption. Trump is corruption.

From Wikipedia (if you think it isn't serious, it also links to its sources):
In 2012, the Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Pshonka began investigating Ukrainian oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, owner of the natural gas company Burisma Holdings, over allegations of money laundering, tax evasion, and corruption during 2010-2012.[33][34]

In 2015, Shokin became the prosecutor general, inheriting the investigation. The Obama administration and other governments and non-governmental organizations soon became concerned that Shokin was not adequately pursuing corruption in Ukraine, was protecting the political elite, and was regarded as "an obstacle to anti-corruption efforts".[22] Among other issues, he was slow-walking the investigation into Zlochevsky and Burisma and using the threat of prosecution to try to solicit bribes from Mr. Zlochevsky and his team – to the extent that Obama officials were considering launching their own criminal investigation into the company for possible money laundering.[33]

While visiting Kiev in December 2015, then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden warned Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko that, if he did not fire Shokin, the Obama administration was prepared to withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees. Biden later said: "I looked at them and said, 'I'm leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you're not getting the money.' [...] He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time."[35][36] Shokin was dismissed by Parliament in late March 2016.

In a sworn affidavit dated 4 September 2019[37], for a European court, Shokin testified that "On several occasions President Poroshenko asked me to have a look at the criminal case against Burisma and consider the possibility of winding down the investigative actions in respect of this company, but I refused to close this investigation."[38] Shokin wrote the affidavit in support of Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro Firtash.[39] John Herbst, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine during the George W. Bush administration, said that Shokin's support of Firtash, who had been arrested for bribery in 2014, undercuts Shokin's claims to be motivated by transparency.[40][41]

Shokin claimed in May 2019 that he had been investigating Burisma Holdings.[29][42][43] However, Vitaly Kasko, who had been Shokin's deputy overseeing international cooperation before resigning in February 2016 citing corruption in the office, provided documents to Bloomberg News indicating that under Shokin, the investigation into Burisma had been dormant.[44][45]
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Night_Ranger said:
If Joe Biden is corrupt, wouldn't you want to know that? Shouldn't the American people get a say in all this?
Wouldn't this exonerate Trump?
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Yes, yes, and it depends. By all means, if anyone has evidence that Joe Biden is corrupt, do share. We're waiting. On the other hand, Trump's obvious and repeated corruption (Trump University? Seriously?) hasn't effected the likes of you, so who knows?
 
Conservative said:
Still won't answer the question will you? You think partisans on either side are non partisan in determining abuse of power? The Democrats made the charge, not Republicans but the point remains this is a legal question not for the House or the Senate to decide but rather the courts. Partisan politics are the problem here as the same argument was made during the Clinton impeachment, what was your stance then?
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This is not a completely legal process. This is a political quasi legal process. It’s a misconception that constitutionality is discussable or determinable only in the courts.” Congress bears the “responsibility to preserve the forms and precepts of the constitutionality is only determinable in the courts. Congress bears the “responsibility to preserve the forms and precepts of the Constitution when and where the judicial forum isn’t available. As the constitution deems here.
 
Atomic Kid said:
This is not a completely legal process. This is a political quasi legal process. It’s a misconception that constitutionality is discussable or determinable only in the courts.” Congress bears the “responsibility to preserve the forms and precepts of the constitutionality is only determinable in the courts. Congress bears the “responsibility to preserve the forms and precepts of the Constitution when and where the judicial forum isn’t available. As the constitution deems here.
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Political processes don't convict anyone, legal process does. You amazingly want the Democratic House today to enforce what the Democratic House didn't in the Clinton impeachment, that is partisanship which the courts do not tolerate
 
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