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Dershowitz claims 'abuse of power' is not a 'high crime or misdemeanor' under US Constitution

ludin said:
you hot the nail on the head.
abuse of power is a catch all of we can't come up with anything serious.

i guess abuse of power got the highest rating from the focus groups. which is what democrats where basing the articles on. focus groups that is where these morons went to get the articles of impeachment. which tells you how stupid they were.
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Not true."Scholars" said abuse of power is impeachable. Then again, one of those same scholars said calling CNN "Fake News" was impeachable too. Another said she wouldn't walk anywhere near a Trump hotel. Just pointing out that these opinions are, of course, well thought out and non partisan.
 
apdst said:
Trump hasn't abused his power. An example of an abuse of power would be using a government agency to illegally target a certain group for political reasons.
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A wholesale edict to defy congressional subpoenas is an Obstruction Of Congress


To use an office of public trust for personal gain is an Abuse Of Power ( withholding military aid to a country who desperately needs it to save lives in order to get that country to act in a way that benefits the President's reelection campaign).


When The president withheld the aid, he broke two federal laws. 1. The Impound Control Act 2. Federal Election Law ( per Chair Ellen Weintraub who wrote in a June memorandum stating that it is illegal for anyone running for public office to solicit help from a foreign national.

The above are not the only laws Trump has broken. He broke FEC law in the Stormy Daniels Hush Money scandal, was named co-conspirator in the FEC felony for which Cohen is now serving jail time.

This is a lawless president, and to not remove him from office after impeachment will just empower him to do more of the same.


Those that do not vote to remove him from office are complicit in his crimes. History is watching.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Only if 67 US Senators say so will that matter.
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Nothing like having like having invertebrate Senators, over whom the President has tremendous sway, sitting in judgement of him.

So much for justice in this matter.
 
apdst said:
Desparaging Congress is literally protected speech. :lamo
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Defying ALL congressional subpoenas, as directed by the president to his staff and aids, is Obstruction Of Congress.
 
eman623 said:
Abuse of power is too subjective a standard to be meaningful. It just boils down to "I don't like his policies"
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That's absurd. That's something the right wingers toss out because they don't like the fact that Trump is being impeached.


If that were true, every republican whose policies democrats didn't like would have impeached, and they didn't.


Excuse me, I'm going to change my characterization of your comment. It's not absurd, it's just plain stupid.
 
ludin said:
according to them whatever they want it to be.

trump will be acquitted in the senate and leftist will have egg on their faces once again.

pelosi thinking it is funny that he was impeached shows how disgusting they were. unfortuantly for her the impeachment will be acquitted and trump will be in office.

her illegitimate impeachment will be memo as such as a partisan vote. it is a sad day for our county. we need to amend the constitution that unless there are 2/3rds vote is required in both houses to stop this abuse of power by congress.
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There is no such thing as an "illegitimate impeachment". Once done, it cannot be undone.

If there is anything that is illegitimate, it will be his acquittal. No witnesses? No documents? Republican acquiescence on his Obstruction Of Congress, when he clearly did this out in the open, no one can deny this fact, well...

History will not look kindly upon Trump on this issue.
 
Paradoxical said:
I dare say that it a president were impeached because of abuse of power, the SC would take the case up immediately and overturn it.
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SC cannot overrule a congressional impeachment.
 
OscarLevant said:
Scholars do disagree with each other.
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I understand. This is why Schiff and the others advising on the impeachment strategy told the Democrats which scholars to bring on board who would say that "abuse of power" was impeachable, so that they could make it into a meme like the Russian Collusion hoax and have people on TV repeating it AS IF it were a FACT.

It is scarily easy to indoctrinate the masses. This is how religion was promoted and really any idea, good or bad. You just have someone in a position f notoriety repeating something with passion and feeling, like a carnival barker on a wagon train saying "This snake oil cures all ailments" and you have shills (congress people and TV personalities) standing right next to you nodding their heads and shaking their fists saying "Me 'n my kinfolk were badly sick 'n we took this here stuff and it cured muh wief and chillen. This man right here saved our lives and you need to take this magic stuff. It works!"

So, like the carnival barkers on the wagon trains of old, you guys listened in rapt attention to those you perceive to be smotter n you because they be skolars by golly. And, and...those people on the train wid him? They be gubment officials 'n they don lie.
 
OscarLevant said:
I think he is wrong:

Per Hamilton's federalist paper #65, it's clear that abuse of power is, indeed, an impeachable offense:



Although Hamilton is arguing that such a charge is "political" and given to "one side or the other" based on partisan passions, he is not saying it's inappropriate to so charge a president. He is merely indicating that removing a president based on such a charge is not easy. No one ever said it was.

And, then there's precedent, whereas 'abuse of power' has been included in prior articles of impeachment, and were never stricken, right?


So, if (paraphrased) "abuse of public trust by public men" is NOT "abuse of power", I find that a rather silly argument.
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Douche-o-witz, who still claims "he knows for a fact" O.J. is innocent is not the best source for culpability on anyone's part!
 
Jetboogieman said:
I know we diverge on the more conspiracy theory side, however, I do not deny that.

What I would say, is that if the populace gave a ****, it’s actually never been harder to be a corrupt politician if people gave a ****, because at this point it’s so obvious and there’s so many simple ways to expose it with the way things are today, the issue is apathy.

And all Trumps done is shown clearly, by being so open, obvious and public about it that, that apathy extends to gross negligence on the part of voters, the amount of “do not give a ****” is troubling to say the least.
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I would argue that there is not apathy on the side of non-trump supporters. If there appears to be silence in response to the latest embarrassment or crime, it may actually be resoluteness to vote him out in November. I don’t take part in every thread that points out yet another instance of corruption. It’s not because I don’t care, but because there’s just nothing more to say or debate anymore.
 
OscarLevant said:
That's absurd. That's something the right wingers toss out because they don't like the fact that Trump is being impeached.

If that were true, every republican whose policies democrats didn't like would have impeached, and they didn't.

Excuse me, I'm going to change my characterization of your comment. It's not absurd, it's just plain stupid.
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LOL. Politically speaking I think it's great that Trump was impeached. The Dems made a huge unforced error.

We'll see how well that charge worked after the trial, while an acquitted Trump is off on his victory tour playing to packed rallies.
 
Paradoxical said:
I think they can rule on the constitutionality of one.
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Hasn’t happened yet, but in this climate who knows.

Nixon v. United States - Wikipedia

Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993), was a United States Supreme Court decision that determined that the question of whether the Senate had properly tried an impeachment was a political question and could not be resolved in the courts.- from the link
 
Jetboogieman said:
As you support people like Putin, I’m not surprised you don’t know.
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You’d literally have to support totalitarianism to not think abuse of power is a thing. There’s no way around it.
 
Cardinal said:
I would argue that there is not apathy on the side of non-trump supporters. If there appears to be silence in response to the latest embarrassment or crime, it may actually be resoluteness to vote him out in November. I don’t take part in every thread that points out yet another instance of corruption. It’s not because I don’t care, but because there’s just nothing more to say or debate anymore.
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If he’s not voted out in November that’ll be a relatively hollow statement and let me explain in a broader sense what I mean.

This current **** show I believe started during the Iraq War, an utter disaster by any measure and yet, Bush retained the Presidency anyway, the population, at large, was more concerned with Brangelina, then worrying about whether their president, along with others in the administration, had lead them into a disastrous war and compare what it was like during Vietnam to Iraq, yeah there were many anti war protests, but for the most part, people didn’t care as much imo.

The truth is most people don’t care as much as you and me, or worse, they actively excuse is and encourage further abuse, but whether you’re apathetic, or the latter, I don’t draw the distinction, Trump is a symptom and the culmination of the current system laid bare for all to see, obvious and public conflicts of interests, abuses of power, corruption, incompetency, mental breakdowns and most of those already exist in congress but the same politicians keep coming back and the system continues, that’s negligence on the part of voters, most of them.

And for the most part, my feeling is most don’t actually care that much... the vast majority should be against Trump, but they’re not, and Sanders, Warren and Biden can absolutely be out EC’d, if not, hey, happy days.

But man, for how bad and obviously bad Trump really is, on the whole, I see apathy and worse in most of the population and that’s ****ing scary.
 
Jetboogieman said:
If he’s not voted out in November that’ll be a relatively hollow statement and let me explain in a broader sense what I mean.
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Well if you want to be technical about it, every principled statement or belief will be hollow if he’s re-elected.

Jetboogieman said:
This current **** show I believe started during the Iraq War, an utter disaster by any measure and yet, Bush retained the Presidency anyway, the population, at large, was more concerned with Brangelina, then worrying about whether their president, along with others in the administration, had lead them into a disastrous war and compare what it was like during Vietnam to Iraq, yeah there were many anti war protests, but for the most part, people didn’t care as much imo.

The truth is most people don’t care as much as you and me, or worse, they actively excuse is and encourage further abuse, but whether you’re apathetic, or the latter, I don’t draw the distinction, Trump is a symptom and the culmination of the current system laid bare for all to see, obvious and public conflicts of interests, abuses of power, corruption, incompetency, mental breakdowns and most of those already exist in congress but the same politicians keep coming back and the system continues, that’s negligence on the part of voters, most of them.

And for the most part, my feeling is most don’t actually care that much... the vast majority should be against Trump, but they’re not, and Sanders, Warren and Biden can absolutely be out EC’d, if not, hey, happy days.

But man, for how bad and obviously bad Trump really is, on the whole, I see apathy and worse in most of the population and that’s ****ing scary.
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I disagree with your historical take on how we arrived here. It began in 1980 with the alliance that Ronald Reagan formed with the Christian Right. This was the start of the culture wars which created an ideological divide that groomed Republicans to see Democrats not as fellow Americans they disagreed with but as enemies of the state. Fast forward to the nineties with the creation of Fox News which was not only a mouthpiece for the GOP but also helped to mainstream conspiracy theory culture. By the time a black liberal was made President...twice...you had everything you needed for the pressure cooker to explode. And in 2012, Republicans put everything on red.

And through the past 40 years, Democrats never grasped what was bubbling under the surface. Not fully, at least. Sure, I was saying as far back as 2000 that Republicans understood we were at war with each other whereas Democrats acted as if this wasn’t the case at all, but I didn’t really believe that. Not 100%, I mean. I was sleepwalking all the way into the beginning of 2017 when I snapped awake and thought, “Holy ****, these people really, actually ****ing hate us.”

Well, it’s not 2016 anymore, as can be seen in the election results of 2018, Virginia and Kentucky. Democrats understand full well that Republicans hate us, and we’re going to act accordingly this November.
 
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Rexedgar said:
Hasn’t happened yet, but in this climate who knows.

Nixon v. United States - Wikipedia

Nixon v. United States, 506 U.S. 224 (1993), was a United States Supreme Court decision that determined that the question of whether the Senate had properly tried an impeachment was a political question and could not be resolved in the courts.- from the link
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It is moot point anyway. Trump will be acquitted.

What if a future congress impeaches AOC because she is n too "radical"?
 
Paradoxical said:
What is it though?
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This is what we are supposed to be doing:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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Anything else is misuse or abuse.
 
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