Republicans Block Subpoenas for New Evidence as Impeachment Trial Begins

Moot said:

I'm not so sure...but it wouldn't surprise me if he did.

McConnell may win the trial but he'll lose a lot of Senators if he doesn't allow witnesses according to the rules they all voted on.

Click to expand...

Im really very curious how this plays out. Theres a few different scenerios that i think are possible.
There may be a split between republicans over witnesses but there may slso be that same split among democrats. Everyone is assuming the democrats are united and the republicans are not. That may not be true.

If republicans are split on the issue it may be because they want to parade a whole host of witnesses that the democrats dont particularly want to hear from and they may be the only ones the republicans allow.
Maybe they allow the ones democrats want called and the whitehouse lawyers advise them to not answer any questions via executive privilege.

Theres a plethra of ways this could play out. It will be interesting to see how the republicans decide to handle this.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

trouble13 said:

Whos fault is it that House democrats are negligent in their responsibility to challenge him in a court of law?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Trump way overreached in his application of executive privilege. Unfortunately the courts are not sufficiently responsive to handle these issues in a timely manner. Trump knows that, which is way he made that play.

Since the issue is about election tampering, time is of the essence. So, instead, Trump gets to face Obstruction of Congress charges. Meanwhile, the Senate gets to decide if they want to render judgement on the whole truth or just what is in front of them. Let's face it, if there were exculpatory evidence, it would have been released. Whatever the White House is holding is damning. Rest assured, it will all come out evidentially. If we swap out Presidents, we may see it all a year from now.

Trump did the deed. No one is arguing otherwise. Does it rise to the level of removal? That is the real question. If not removed now, will Trump be spending his post-Presidency in court defending his crimes?

upsideguy said:

"several house democrats" is not "house democrats"..... there are always democrats or republicans that advocate the impeachment of the then sitting President.

The opinions of the few to not speak for the party. Moot is correct. There has be no serious impeachment effort until Trump compelled such a thing with his actions of this year.

Trump could have well been impeached over the Mueller findings, but the Democrats showed restraint.

Click to expand...

I think thats fair to say. That said i think its also fair to say it was more than a few that have been calling for his impeachment from day 1. They just didnt have enough votes till now.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

upsideguy said:

Trump way overreached in his application of executive privilege. Unfortunately the courts are not sufficiently responsive to handle these issues in a timely manner. Trump knows that, which is way he made that play.

Since the issue is about election tampering, time is of the essence. So, instead, Trump gets to face Obstruction of Congress charges. Meanwhile, the Senate gets to decide if they want to render judgement on the whole truth or just what is in front of them. Let's face, if there were exculpatory evidence, it would have been released. Whatever the White House is holding is damning.

Trump did the deed. No one is arguing otherwise. Does it rise to the level of removal? That is the real question.

Click to expand...

Theres no question that Trump tried leverage aid to try to get the the Ukrainian government to assist him in investigating something. Did he do it for personal reasons is undetermined. If it can be probed he did then the question becomes does it justify removing him from office. The house is in the process of making that case.

What i find interesting about your post is that you seem to be saying that when the investigstion was in the house it was the courts fault that the democrats did not challenge trump because they are too slow snd now that its in the senates hands its the republicans fault for not doing what the democrats wouldnt do either. At what point do the democrats take responsibility for not fighting for something they claim they need?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

trouble13 said:

I think thats fair to say. That said i think its also say it was more than a few that have been calling for his impeachment from day 1. They just didnt have enough votes till now.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Was it a ‘perfect’ phone call?

Drawdown said:

You would still be in court because the issue is not settled. That the issue was not settled by the court if proof positive of why the second impeachment count is completely baseless and purely political.

Click to expand...

How long would you have liked trump to hide behind the courts, since McGahn is 10 months in?

trouble13 said:

If democrats have laid out more than enough evidence to convict him then additional evidence should not be needed. They should present their evidence and rest the case.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

I suspect they'll rest their case at the end of their presentation or maybe at the end of the trial. The trial hasn't even gotten to the presentation stage, yet.

But if it's not a fair trial they may never rest their case.

trouble13 said:

Im npt sure why the administrations position matters at all. The correct remedy is for the judical branch to make a ruling. The court could even tell them they are not getting involved, work it out yourselves. Its still the correct course of action.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

The correct course of action is to release the documents. Trump works for us. The American people need to see the evidence; from this self-proclaimed "most transparent administration in history."

trouble13 said:

Theres no question that Trump tried leverage aid to try to get the the Ukrainian government to assist him in investigating something. Did he do it for personal reasons is undetermined. If it can be probed he did then the question becomes does it justify removing him from office. The house is in the process of making that case.

What i find interesting about your post is that you seem to be saying that when the investigstion was in the house it was the courts fault that the democrats did not challenge trump because they are too slow snd now that its in the senates hands its the republicans fault for not doing what the democrats wouldnt do either. At what point do the democrats take responsibility for not fighting for something they claim they need?

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Thus far, the defense has made nothing but process arguments. They are not challenging the notion that Trump did this for his personal (re-election) benefit. The Democrats are making that case; the Republicans are responding with process arguments.

The Trump administration took a extreme position that they have blanket executive privilege. They are doing this to tie it up in the courts. There is nothing the House could have done to expedite the documents and witnesses. The Senate is now in position to "weigh-in" on this. Trump could well tell the Senate the same thing. What the House is fundamentally doing, however, is asking the Senate to leverage its clout as judges in the impeachment. We do know that John Bolton would testify if asked by the Senate.

The case is very compelling without the additional evidence. The additional material, however, would help us better understand the complete truth. It is logical, however, to conclude that the White House has no exculpatory material or we would have heard about it.

Again, the real issue here whether this rises to the level of removal.

Taylor said:

We have all of the evidence and witness testimony that the House viewed as sufficient for impeachment. Are you saying that Trump was impeached unfairly?

Click to expand...

Of course Trump was impeached unfairly. What crime was committed? Where is the abuse of power to order an investigation into corruption before giving a country $391 million in aid?

see The ‘Corrupt Purposes’ Impeachment - WSJ

from the Wall St. Journal: "House Democrats are going much further and declaring that Mr. Trump’s acts are impeachable because he did them for “personal political benefit.” He isn’t accused of corruption per se. His Ukraine interventions are said to be corrupt because he intended them to help him win re-election this year. In other words, his actions were impeachable only because his motives were self-serving.

Think about this in the context of history and as a precedent. Every President has made foreign-policy decisions that he thinks may help his re-election. That’s what President Obama did in 2012 when he asked Dmitry Medvedev to tell Vladimir Putin to ease up on missile defense until after the election. Mitt Romney was criticizing Mr. Obama for being soft on Mr. Putin, and Mr. Obama wanted a political favor from the dictator to help him win re-election. "

As 21 Republican state attorneys general explained in an important letter to the Senate on Wednesday, “It cannot be a legitimate basis to impeach a President for acting in a legal manner that may also be politically advantageous. Such a standard would be cause for the impeachment of virtually every President, past, present, and future.”

What crime did Trump commit? Did he finally give the aid to Ukraine? Did he get the investigation he asked for ? NO.

Drawdown said:

You would still be in court because the issue is not settled. That the issue was not settled by the court if proof positive of why the second impeachment count is completely baseless and purely political.

Click to expand...

So, do you believe the president has absolute immunity?

All the evidence will be made public, anyway. Through books, other media and FOIA requests.

trouble13 said:

Im really very curious how this plays out. Theres a few different scenerios that i think are possible.
There may be a split between republicans over witnesses but there may slso be that same split among democrats. Everyone is assuming the democrats are united and the republicans are not. That may not be true.

If republicans are split on the issue it may be because they want to parade a whole host of witnesses that the democrats dont particularly want to hear from and they may be the only ones the republicans allow.
Maybe they allow the ones democrats want called and the whitehouse lawyers advise them to not answer any questions via executive privilege.

Theres a plethra of ways this could play out. It will be interesting to see how the republicans decide to handle this.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Some republicans don't seem too keen on calling Hunter Biden as a witness because it could backfire on them. He's not a fact witness in the Ukraine scandal..and nothing he did for Burisma has been proven illegal or Trump would've had the DoJ investigate him. So what could Hunter possibly tell them about Trump's illegal conspiracy to pressure Ukraine or the withholding of military funds or the removal of the ambassador? He wasn't involved in any of that and the only reason to call him as a witness would be to muddy the water and try to make the trial about him instead of Trump. At that point, I would think the Chief Justice might have something to say about 'material' witnesses and relevance to the trial.

Executive privilege does not mean a witness can't answer any questions. EP is decided on a question by question basis

Moot said:

I suspect they'll rest their case at the end of their presentation or maybe at the end of the trial. The trial hasn't even gotten to the presentation stage, yet.

But if it's not a fair trial they may never rest their case.

Click to expand...

They dont hsve a choice. They get 24hrs over 3 days and its over

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

JacksinPA said:

Republicans Block Subpoenas for New Evidence as Impeachment Trial Begins - The New York Times

Republicans made last-minute changes to their proposed rules to placate moderates, but they held together to turn back Democratic efforts to subpoena documents.

WASHINGTON — A divided Senate began the impeachment trial of President Trump on Tuesday in utter acrimony, as Republicans blocked Democrats’ efforts to subpoena witnesses and documents related to Ukraine and moderate Republicans forced last-minute changes to rules that had been tailored to the president’s wishes.

In a series of party-line votes punctuating 12 hours of debate, Senate Republicans turned back every attempt by Democrats to subpoena documents from the White House, State Department and other agencies, as well as testimony from White House officials that could shed light on the core charges against Mr. Trump.
====================================================================
How can you have a fair trial when the defendant's lawyers won't permit evidence or witness testimony? This makes the Republicans as well as Trump look more like the crooks they really are?
[paywall - I have a NYT account]

Click to expand...

Dummass democrats have the gall to accuse republicans in the Senate of not having a fair trial. Schittf and his goons in the Hoiuse basement systematically shut out republicans, refused to allow them to call their own witnesses or to cross-examine democrat witnesses, and refused to subpoena other witnesses they wanted because they knew if they went to court to try to overturn Trump's right to a fair trial and his right to invoke executive privilege they would lose - badly. So their latest trick is to try to shame the Senate for not ignoring executive privilege and subpoena the witnesses for them.

The House is the prosecution. The house condemned Trump without due process, without a trial, without credible witnesses, without cross-examination and without honor. The Senate is not the prosecution. It is the jury. It is not the jury's job to assemble the facts and make the case and if the House has failed to make the case before presenting it to the jury then they are going to do very badly when the jury begins asking questions about their crappy case.

Michael Cole said:

The correct course of action is to release the documents. Trump works for us. The American people need to see the evidence; from this self-proclaimed "most transparent administration in history."

Click to expand...

If you dont like the job he is doing, dont vote for him. Stop pretending like any potus is a subordinate to anyone. He holds the highest office of the land. You dont have to like him but you should respect the office.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

JacksinPA said:

Republicans Block Subpoenas for New Evidence as Impeachment Trial Begins - The New York Times

Republicans made last-minute changes to their proposed rules to placate moderates, but they held together to turn back Democratic efforts to subpoena documents.

WASHINGTON — A divided Senate began the impeachment trial of President Trump on Tuesday in utter acrimony, as Republicans blocked Democrats’ efforts to subpoena witnesses and documents related to Ukraine and moderate Republicans forced last-minute changes to rules that had been tailored to the president’s wishes.

In a series of party-line votes punctuating 12 hours of debate, Senate Republicans turned back every attempt by Democrats to subpoena documents from the White House, State Department and other agencies, as well as testimony from White House officials that could shed light on the core charges against Mr. Trump.
====================================================================
How can you have a fair trial when the defendant's lawyers won't permit evidence or witness testimony? This makes the Republicans as well as Trump look more like the crooks they really are?
[paywall - I have a NYT account]

Click to expand...

ROTFLOL...

The House is supposed to investigate?

Did the Goebbels Media fail to inform you yet again?

Oh well.

It’s been one catastrophic **** up by the Goebbels Media and Democrats since Trump descended the escalator in 2015... the total body skin burns certainly must ache... LOL...

ROTFLOL... Must try harder... LOL...

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww...

marke said:

Dummass democrats have the gall to accuse republicans in the Senate of not having a fair trial. Schittf and his goons in the Hoiuse basement systematically shut out republicans, refused to allow them to call their own witnesses or to cross-examine democrat witnesses, and refused to subpoena other witnesses they wanted because they knew if they went to court to try to overturn Trump's right to a fair trial and his right to invoke executive privilege they would lose - badly. So their latest trick is to try to shame the Senate for not ignoring executive privilege and subpoena the witnesses for them.

The House is the prosecution. The house condemned Trump without due process, without a trial, without credible witnesses, without cross-examination and without honor. The Senate is not the prosecution. It is the jury. It is not the jury's job to assemble the facts and make the case and if the House has failed to make the case before presenting it to the jury then they are going to do very badly when the jury begins asking questions about their crappy case.

Click to expand...

That's a lie...republicans were not shut out of the basement inquiry and they had the same opportunity and the same amount of time to call and question witnesses as the Democrats did.

The court is still out on Trump's executive privilege but so far, it doesn't look promising for Trump's defense.

The House conducts the investigation and impeachment...and the Senate holds the trial where the prosecution and due process take place. The House managers act as the prosecutors in the trial...and the Senate acts as both the judge and jury. The due process is basically the trial itself because thats where the president presents his defense.

The Senate rules say all the House evidence presented to the Senate prior to and during presentation phase of the trial will be considered and go on the trial records. Any evidence presented during or after the question and debate period will be considered new evidence and that includes witnesses would need a motion to consider by the senate. I'm guessing that's when and if they call Bolton as a witness.

trouble13 said:

If you dont like the job he is doing, dont vote for him. Stop pretending like any potus is a subordinate to anyone. He holds the highest office of the land. You dont have to like him but you should respect the office.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

Don't know how this refutes anything I wrote. Indeed, your response is what I'm talking about. He's the president, not a dictator or a monarch. He works for us. He is subordinate to us. Our government is supposed to be open, not secretive.

trouble13 said:

If you dont like the job he is doing, dont vote for him. Stop pretending like any potus is a subordinate to anyone. He holds the highest office of the land. You dont have to like him but you should respect the office.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

The president makes it difficult to respect the office that he himself doesn't respect.

upsideguy said:

Thus far, the defense has made nothing but process arguments. They are not challenging the notion that Trump did this for his personal (re-election) benefit. The Democrats are making that case; the Republicans are responding with process arguments.

Click to expand...

This is a tactical choice by both sides. The prosecution decided to inject their opening arguments into what should only be process arguments in the first stage of arguing over process rules. The defense could of reasonably objected to that but they chose not to. They chose to only argue why the procedures should not be amended without arguing the merits of the case. Its debatable if this was a mistake or not. Lots of people have argued that it was.

The Trump administration took a extreme position that they have blanket executive privilege.

Click to expand...

Thats not the position they are taking. They are saying that the house is asking for things that they are not entitled to. Its specific what they are claiming falls under immunity.

They are doing this to tie it up in the courts. There is nothing the House could have done to expedite the documents and witnesses.

Click to expand...

Your opinion is they doing it to delay things. Trumps position is that he is protecting the powers of the office. If congress disagree the recourse is to challenge that in court. I get thats frustrating but its how our system functions.

The Senate is now in position to "weigh-in" on this. Trump could well tell the Senate the same thing. What the House is fundamentally doing, however, is asking the Senate to leverage its clout as judges in the impeachment.

Click to expand...

I would say they are demanding it more than asking them to do it. Either way its entirely up to the senate to decide that for themselves.

We do know that John Bolton would testify if asked by the Senate.

Click to expand...

Ok so Bolton shows up and the WH lawyers show up and everytime he is asked a question they stop him from answering it because it ciolates the oresidents right of executive privilege. Now what? Do you expect the senate to take on a court fight that the house didnt tske when they had the chance. Why should the senate fight the houses battle for them?

The case is very compelling without the additional evidence.

Click to expand...

I would hope so since they felt they had enough evidence to impeach him without the additional evidence. How do you say we had enough yo impeach but we need more to argue for removing him. Its contradictory.

The additional material, however, would help us better understand the complete truth.

Click to expand...

On this point i agree and i would personally prefer to know everything.

It is logical, however, to conclude that the White House has no exculpatory material or we would have heard about it.

Click to expand...

They have not been allowed to participate so far. Its been a very one sided situtation. The house only wanted what it wanted snd it made no effort to allow Trump to put on a defense. For all we know when the defense is given the opprotunity to defend themselves in open court they may be planning on releasing a mountain of exculpatory evidence. Its unfair to codemn them for not defending themselves when they have been shut out of the process. Democrats have only offered Trump the option of compliance to their demands and they got an answer from him that they dont like.

Again, the real issue here whether this rises to the level of removal.

Click to expand...

No, because that assumes he did something wrong. That has not yet been established. First they need to establish that and then and only then can we conclude an appropiate sanction.



Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Moot said:

Some republicans don't seem too keen on calling Hunter Biden as a witness because it could backfire on them. He's not a fact witness in the Ukraine scandal..and nothing he did for Burisma has been proven illegal or Trump would've had the DoJ investigate him. So what could Hunter possibly tell them about Trump's illegal conspiracy to pressure Ukraine or the withholding of military funds or the removal of the ambassador? He wasn't involved in any of that and the only reason to call him as a witness would be to muddy the water and try to make the trial about him instead of Trump. At that point, I would think the Chief Justice might have something to say about 'material' witnesses and relevance to the trial.

Click to expand...

It really depends on what Trumps argument is. If he is arguing that hunter was involved in suspicious activity then his activity becomes relevant to the extent that he can show reasonable cause for requesting the investigation.
I think the WB is possibly another relevant witness and Schiff may be a material witness if it turns out there was cordination going on between him and the WB.
Seems like nobody is after the whole truth. They only want the truth that leads to the desired outcome they want.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Michael Cole said:

Don't know how this refutes anything I wrote. Indeed, your response is what I'm talking about. He's the president, not a dictator or a monarch. He works for us. He is subordinate to us. Our government is supposed to be open, not secretive.

Click to expand...

Sorry but you are making a fallacious argument. Trump is elected by the people but he is a represenitive of our constitutional republic. He is not your subordinate.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

Moot said:

The president makes it difficult to respect the office that he himself doesn't respect.

Click to expand...

The system sint perfect but its what we have. Dont throw the baby out with the bathwater

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk