The Mock Trials of a Mockable Republican House

Update: Many thanks to driftglass for sharing this article to Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Please take a moment to read the blog, I have more articles to share (alas, I am out of punch and pie).

I've written before how the Republican Party has no issues to run on, just outrage... and much of that outrage manufactured by themselves in order to frame the debate on their terms and move the goalposts whenever they want.

For 2024 - desperate to make Joe Biden presidency look bad to both the Beltway media and the general voters - the Republicans are doing everything they can to raise the partisan specter of impeachment, even when they have nothing to go on. Not only at Biden himself, but at people in his administration, such as the Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas (via David A. Graham at the Atlantic):

The entire thing is a fantasy. The impeachment is based on differences in border policy, rather than any misconduct. Even as they move it forward, House Republicans are avoiding legislation on the matter, working to snuff out a bill that would actually affect the border. And if Mayorkas is impeached, he is all but certain to avoid conviction in the Senate.

No precedent exists for such an impeachment. In fact, only one Cabinet speaker has been impeached in American history. In 1876, War Secretary William Belknap was accused of accepting kickbacks in return for lucrative federal posts. Facing impeachment, he resigned. The House impeached him anyway, but the Senate didn’t convict, in part because some members felt the resignation removed Belknap from their jurisdiction...

The articles allege that Mayorkas “repeatedly violated laws enacted by Congress regarding immigration and border security. In large part because of his unlawful conduct, millions of aliens have illegally entered the United States on an annual basis with many unlawfully remaining in the United States.” But experts on both constitutional law and immigration have roundly criticized the move as overreach, noting that Mayorkas is under attack for using powers that administrations of both parties have employed legally for decades...

The charges themselves are a mess. David Bier, an immigration expert at the libertarian Cato Institute, has picked apart the articles of impeachment and found, for example, that Mayorkas is charged with failing to follow circuit-court decisions that were reversed by the Supreme Court. Another passage appears to charge Mayorkas with using a power granted to him by Congress.

If Congress doesn’t like the laws, it could change them. But in recent years, under both Democrats and Republicans, Congress has left more and more power to the executive branch. This is especially true in the area of immigration, where bipartisan attempts at overhauls keep falling short. Because neither party can get exactly what it wants, they’ve chosen to do nothing. That has left the system riddled with holes, often sloppily patched by successive administrations...

If the House Republicans are serious about fixing immigration - even if it's to pander to the racist demagoguery by making it harder for asylum seekers and gainfully employable to even apply for the paperwork - they'd be passing legislation. Instead, they're holding sham trials against their hated targets. Mayorkas is not the guilty party here: the House Republicans are.

If only there were a way for the Senate Democrats to flip any impeachment matter the House brings to them by charging the House Republicans over false allegations, manufactured evidence, and acts of perjury. Maybe then the Republicans will settle the fuck down and actually pass legislation to resolve the matter however possible.

Except they won't. donald trump openly doesn't want any immigration laws passed this year because it's the only means of stoking MAGA outrage he's got left.

(trump and his acolytes begin attacking Taylor Swift for being a fan of her boyfriend's football team)

Oh you gotta be fucking kidding me...

The GOP Shutdown Gambit (w/ Update)

(Update not more than six hours later): Goddammit I suck at predicting. Just as I figure the House Republicans would refuse to let even a Continuing Resolution pass, they get a Continuing Resolution passed and sent to the Senate for their vote. I swear, the GOP is doing this out of spite at me.

About half of what I wrote below isn't worth the paper it's printed on (...wait a second...) and the other half depends on how screwy the 45-day delay the CR bill is going to grant the Republicans another try at a Shutdown.

There may still be a Motion To Vacate next week, as Gaetz and his Freedom Caucus allies are going to look at ways to hurt McCarthy and stir the chaos they need to collapse the federal government. I have no idea now if they have a decent chance of pulling it off. I honestly shouldn't hazard any more guesses on that since after all I couldn't get this part right. This is why I've never won the Powerball lotto.

Read the below part to get a good laugh, thank you:

Several observations to make about the now-unavoidable Far Right Shutdown of the federal government as we head into yet another Long October of Republican destruction. 

This may be the clear effort of a small faction of hard-liners among the House Republicans, but you will notice the rest of House Republicans refuse to do anything to hold those extremists accountable. Whatever "moderate" factions there are among Republicans, forget it they are not really moderate. They are merely pursuing the same objectives - massive tax cuts for the wealthy, massive deregulation of business to make corporations richer at the expense of both workers and consumers, massive gutting of the social safety net (Social Security, Medicare, Food for poor families) to make the poor poorer - but would prefer doing so in more subtle fashion.

If you look closer - examine the game plan of the "Freedom Caucus" and the more radical elements of the GOP - you might notice what is actually at play here.

The Shutdown itself is merely the Far Right enjoying the cruelty of breaking the federal government, creating the self-fulfilling narrative that "government is bad" while ignoring the fact it's THEIR bad actions AND bad faith causing all this. Everything they're doing and plan to do is merely perpetuation of this primary objective.

At the next level of the wingnut game plan is their objective to make the House ungovernable no matter what, not only with their open effort to oust Speaker McCarthy - who had issues even getting that seat of power - but creating the kind of chaos that would make it impossible to allow a Republican Speaker a chance to lead. Jim Newell over at Slate can see part of what's happening and how messy it will get:

...Barring a quickie last-minute agreement between the House and Senate, by late Saturday night, to keep the government open for a week or a few days, the federal government will shut down at midnight. This is all happening because a small group of House Republicans, most notably Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, want to make McCarthy look bad and then attempt to overthrow him. If he keeps the government open with Democratic votes, they’ll try to oust him for that; if he lets the government shut down, they’ll try to oust him for failing to pass spending bills, which they didn’t support, in time. It’s a shell game, and Gaetz et al. are already putting out feelers for whom they’d like to nominate to replace McCarthy. The House has finally reached, if not exceeded, the level of ungovernability predicted when Republicans failed to get their “red wave” in the midterms and were left with a bare-bones majority. And it is an absolute sight.

Newell highlights the Damned Do/Don't scenario: McCarthy can't craft a deal with bipartisan Democratic support - something the Senate has done because they're playing the game differently - without risking his career (and place in the history books) as Speaker; and even if the government shuts down those same Freedom Caucus bomb-throwers will attempt to force him out anyway (and if he stays in office due to the sympathy of Democratic support, he'll be doomed as a "traitor" to the GOP and likely lose his congressional seat this 2024 primary/election).

Those extremists don't even really have a replacement Speaker in mind, because they have to know their own party is fractured enough to where no one plausible replacement will get enough votes to win it. Look what happened in January when none of the alternatives to McCarthy could even summon more than 20 votes to gain momentum. If McCarthy does get ousted, there is an expectation that he will still have enough supporters angry from the betrayal to block any Freedom Caucus candidate.

If the Freedom Caucus does prevail and put one of their own in the Speaker's seat, do expect that scapegoat to quickly understand how fucked he/she is. That replacement Speaker is not going to have his/her own power, as the Caucus can and will pull the trigger on them if they get out of line. So expect not only the harshest, most extremist ideology - stuff that would make MAGA squeal and the Beltway Media squirm - to get shoveled out of the Speaker's office on an hourly basis, but we should expect the clown show of fraudulent "Biden impeachment trials" to expand along with the push for an extremist - anti-abortion, anti-Social Security/Medicare, anti-Ukraine, anti-immigrant, anti-Woke - agenda that would even alienate most of the Republican Senators who can't support that shit.

In other words: A new Speaker - anointed by the GOP House wingnuts - will still have a shutdown going because the Senate (and Biden with his Veto stamp) will never agree to the wingnut budget proposals the GOP House insists on pushing. And so that primary objective - Shutdown - remains in play.

There's another level of the game to consider as well. IF McCarthy is able to survive the Vacate vote, or IF the remaining "Rational" (not "Moderate") factions of the House Republicans refuse to back the Freedom Caucus' replacement candidate, the Freedom Caucus will be able to play "the victim" of McCarthy's (or the Rational factions') "betrayal." After all, all TRUE Republicans want to see the federal government broken and shuttered. If there are factions opposed to THAT agenda, time to call them traitors and use the upcoming election cycle to either remove them through primarying or through a rogue "third-party" conservative agitator in November 2024.

This is all part of the ongoing "purity purge" of driving out RINOs - any Republican who dares deviate from the dogma of God, Guns, and Grover's Bathtub - so that the PURE Far Right Republican party can rule, thanks to gerrymandering and voter suppression even as they purge themselves into demographic minority status. 

Another possibility at this level of the game is that enough sitting House Republicans - especially the eight or so who are representing districts that heavily voted for Biden as President - would break ranks to get the Democratic bipartisan deal done to save their hides. But it won't save McCarthy's Speakership, as we could be looking at an open fracture where that faction of Republicans are publicly excommunicated from the party. It could create either a flip in House control to the Democrats outright - which would put Jeffries in as Speaker - or create a temporary "third party" (the No Labels organizers have to be salivating at the prospect) that would create a plurality-based "coalition" with Democratic control of the House.

This is where the Far Right would actually celebrate, because to them this "loss" will be for them a victory for their narrative of "libruls are stealing your power" fearmongering. It should be noted that the loss of political control will free them from the burdens of doing any (boring) legislative work and let them do what they truly enjoy doing (shouting at and demonizing other people).

The GOP House wingnuts can then sell their fantasy on their Fox Not-News talk-show invites that "they" were betrayed, and that this was all the fault of Biden (Hillary/Obama/Slick Willie/LBJ/JFK/FDR/insert other accused pinko commies here) manipulating the weak to his will.

You can see that narrative coming from how the House Republicans rushed their "impeachment inquiry" into Hunter Biden without credible witnesses or verified evidence this past Thursday. As much as the rest of the world - even fellow Republicans - saw that congressional inquiry as a disaster, there was a method to the wingnut madness that pushed that clown show into the spotlight.

This is the Freedom Caucus' fall-back plan: If their attempt at a Shutdown breaks their control of the House - if the Democrats or a Coalition government takes over the House - they have this "impeachment inquiry" sitting there like a chicken bone in the next leadership's throat. If the Democrats gain control and try to shut that inquiry down - even for the obvious reason that there's no impeachable crime proven - the Freedom Caucus and their wingnut media allies can scream "COVER-UP" and hurt Biden's re-election bid. If the Democrats gain control and then allow the Freedom Caucus to continue that inquiry in spite of the lack of evidence in order to avoid the appearance of "interfering", the wingnuts can then continue to use the cover of "inquiry" to repeat and spread baseless and outright false claims about Hunter Biden (and his father) in order to depress Democratic voter turnout the way their attacks on Hillary's emails/private server did in 2016.

There's a reason why donald trump is backing this shutdown. No matter what, he profits from it, even as the Republican Party pays the price.

These games after all do carry a lot of risk. The Freedom Caucus thinks they have a win-win scenario, but they are gambling on what the Democrats would do if they regain control of the House. For example, the Dems could retain that "impeachment inquiry" into Hunter Biden but then expand it to include all the impeachable things trump and his family - especially Jared Kushner - did violating the Emoluments Clause and other acts of profiteering from political nepotism. Instead of impeaching President Biden for what Hunter did, the Dem-controlled House could impeach trump a third time for what Jared did (and possibly open criminal investigations into Jared).

A fully Democratic Congress - considering the limits that rogue Senators like Manchin and Sinema could throw up as logjams - could also work with Biden to pass more aggressive reforms and inflation-cutting moves in spite of Republican outcry - such as bringing back the successful Child Tax Credits that reduced child poverty - that could bolster Biden's re-election chances and hurt Republican chances in battleground states like Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, and others.

This isn't going to be an easy win for the Freedom Caucus wingnuts, not like they thought. Then again, there's not a lot of thought to begin with. We're talking about a group so self-serving and conspiracy-driven and willfully ignorant that they believed they had a checkmate in 3D chess before the whole standing board collapses on them.

Even so, this Long October isn't going to be a lot of fun. Be ready for the wingnut game plan to get worse if they realize they're getting out-gambitted.

Punching Themselves Just a Little Bit More

Update: Thanks again to Driftglass over at Crooks & Liars to include this article at Mike's Blog Round-Up. Please give a chance to read the blog and leave suggestions for good book titles for the non-fiction novel project I'm working to complete ASAFP, thank ye.

Update 12/26/23: Many thanks to Batocchio at his blog Vagabond Scholar for hosting the annual Jon Swift Memorial roundup of political blogging! I want to thank the support of fellow bloggers like Batocchio and Driftglass and Tengrain who routinely share my articles at Crooks & Liars, and thanks to them I've been able to submit those articles for awards at the FWA Royal Palm. Good luck this coming year, everybody, 2024 is going to be a crazy-ass year.

When the Republicans gained a (slim) majority in the House of Representatives this 2022, a good number of pundits and bloggers saw this coming. Here's me, seeing it coming: 

The Republicans ought to be rejoicing in that they control the House, which they can use to investigate Biden's administration family for scandals every day they meet on the Hill, and file every impeachment complaint until all they do is vote on embarrassing Biden and Harris for the 2024 campaign (lacking control of the Senate, no impeachment will go their way: For the Republicans it's all about making the Democrats look corrupt and weak to their own voting base). They are openly planning repeated hearings over Russia's planted evidence Hunter Biden's laptop, as it's the only thing they can do other than force federal shutdowns to break the entire government...

And after eight months or so of staging congressional investigations that went nowhere, the Far Right factions of the House have gotten their lapdog Speaker to roll over and beg for his career (via Mary Yang at the Guardian):

Kevin McCarthy, the speaker of the US House, announced on Tuesday he is launching a formal impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden – despite resistance from Republicans in the House and Senate, where an impeachment vote would almost certainly fail.

The order comes as McCarthy faces mounting pressure from some far-right members of his chamber, who have threatened to tank his deal to avert a government shutdown by the end of the month if he does not meet their list of demands...

According to McCarthy, findings from Republican-led investigations over the summer recess revealed “a culture of corruption”, and that Biden lied about his lack of involvement and knowledge of his family’s overseas business dealings...

Here's the sticking point: The House Republicans could not find any credible witness or piece of evidence that tied Joe Biden to his son Hunter's questionable business activities.

Many of the allegations center on the president’s son, Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma, during his father’s term as vice-president. Republicans allege that Joe Biden improperly benefited from his son’s foreign connections but, after several months, have produced no evidence. Watchdog groups say Republicans do not actually have evidence to back up their claims.

One such watchdog group the Congressional Integrity Project issued a review of the Oversight Committee's - led by James Comer - failures to present witnesses or documentation that could have backed the House GOP claims. They provide examples such as their own witnesses from the IRS arguing that Biden never interfered in their investigations into Hunter Biden's taxes, and Comer claiming to have audiotape proof of Biden taking bribes before admitting he wasn't sure the tapes (and the source of those tapes) even existed. The nine regular followers of this blog might remember I wrote about some of this - especially Comer's screwups - a while back:

But if we're taking Comer's work seriously, then what Comer's admitting to is a terrible breach of investigatory procedures. One of the first things you gotta do when you're pulling witnesses together is that you gotta talk to them face-to-face as soon as possible, get their statements on record, verify the source(s), confirm they're in a position to know, etc. What Comer's admitting during that interview is that they didn't even have a handle on the informant to confirm the whistleblower was even real.

The House Republicans were charging ahead without having any evidence or witness to guide them. It's that whole "cart before the horse" and/or "get your damn ducks in a row" idiom (or metaphor, I'm not sure which) in real life.

As I concluded in the same article: At worst, the House Republicans honestly didn't care if they had a witness/whistleblower at all. All they really wanted was the illusion that they had dirt on Biden.

The House Republicans are screaming "Witch" in their witch hunt against President Joe, but that's not a real nose it's a false one. It doesn't matter to them. All they want is the appearance of Biden (and his administration) being corrupt so that they can bully and bluff the refs national media into perpetuating the Both Sides lazy narrative that would protect their banner carrier (trump) from the very real criminal indictments trump faces before the 2024 election. As Li Zhou notes over at Vox:

Republicans also hope to see their nominee, likely to be former President Donald Trump, retake the White House next year. But Trump is beset by many legal problems. The inquiry, and a possible impeachment, will allow the GOP to go on the offensive against Biden ahead of the presidential election in 2024 and defuse some of the attention on Trump’s legal baggage.

Zhou also notes how McCarthy's weakness has been exposed here: Pandering to an extremist Freedom Caucus that doesn't care how this impeachment will play in battleground districts against their narrow House majority:

As such, the inquiry appears driven more by the House GOP’s internal dynamics and political goals than the substance of the allegations. Earlier this year, McCarthy gave any member of his caucus the ability to call for a vote on his ouster in exchange for the speaker’s gavel. In recent weeks, some on his party’s right flank have threatened to oust him if he didn’t pursue an impeachment inquiry, putting pressure on him to take that step.

That’s not to say all Republicans are behind the move, a reflection of just how wide an ideological spectrum McCarthy needs to keep happy. Although more conservative Republicans like Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) have been urging an impeachment push for months, others including Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) have previously spoken out against it.

Even the way McCarthy decided to launch the inquiry — unilaterally instead of by a full vote, as he’d said ought to be the only way impeachment inquiries are authorized — is reflective of how big a tent the speaker needs to cater to. McCarthy’s majority depends on lawmakers who won in districts Biden carried; forcing them to vote yes on an inquiry would have been damaging to their reelection prospects next year, and could have put the GOP majority in jeopardy.

For all the damage Far Right Republicans hope to inflict on Biden here - both personally by attacking his family, and politically - they are not looking at the reality of how most voters won't be affected by the implications of impeachment.

Anyone who's been politically aware since the Clinton administration can tell you this. Back then, the Republicans who took Congress in 1994 promised the nation a thorough investigation into Bill Clinton's scandalous behavior involving Whitewater... and ended up impeaching him for lying under oath about an improper (but not criminal) affair with an intern. A sizable portion of the American population watched this political theater... and yawned a bit before going to the 1998 midterms and reduced Republican seats, a staggering loss that ended Newt Gingrich's Speakership and led to a nervous Republican Senate into refusing to reach even a simple majority vote to remove Clinton. It was as though most Americans knew the charges were a sham and punished the Republicans for wasting everyone's time.

It didn't affect American voters either when Republicans during Obama's presidency promised to impeach him for any number of alleged crimes (including his birth certificate) but noticeably never presented any factual evidence to justify those claims. As Jonathan Chait noted back in 2010 for the New Republic, it was all Scandal TBD (To Be Determined) and to hell with comity or bipartisanship, it was the GOP trying to drown Obama in mudslinging to discourage his supporters. Americans again yawned and voted Obama to a second term in 2012.

Impeach as a campaign weapon didn't even matter much when Democrats imposed it on donald trump and with actual evidence of misconduct in office to back it up. The impeachment over trump's extorting Ukraine into even faking a criminal investigation into Hunter Biden in 2019 may have had legitimate cause, but much like the Clinton impeachment years earlier it was going to end as a whimper in a Republican-controlled Senate that was never going to vote against their own criminal boss President. The second impeachment regarding trump's violent insurrection effort on January 6th to disrupt Congress's electoral certification was an attempt to have it on record of what trump did, but again a divided Senate did nothing to remove trump (even with good cause). And those impeachments did nothing to discourage 74 million Americans from voting for trump in 2020.

I've noticed this about impeachment before. It's a toothless mechanism in the Constitution designed before partisanship rewrote how our government works:

Looking back at the history of impeaching those who served as President, we can recognize the moments where the need for impeaching a corrupt President did not occur because that President's party also controlled enough of Congress to make the point moot. We can see the moments when impeachment was used as a partisan weapon instead of upholding the Constitution. We can remember how only once in our nation's history did impeachment seem likely - Nixon was facing that fate before he resigned - only because our political landscape was genuinely bipartisan enough to see the reality of how Nixon's acts threatened the public trust.

Impeachment is broken. Either it is too partisan a tool that threatens the independence of the Executive Branch, or the Legislative Branch is too partisan and corrupt to properly employ the impeachment process in any legal and just manner...

The Founding Fathers may have created the Impeachment process but did so in an era when partisanship had yet to form during our nation's infancy. They did it under assumptions that civic duty and personal honor would drive the individuals in Congress to value integrity over impulsive selfishness. They never considered the reality that Congresspersons - especially when one of their parties turned corrupt the way the modern Republicans have - would avoid their own accountability, that the entire elective process - bent and battered by decades of gerrymandering and false narratives - would fail to hold them accountable when they failed the people and themselves.

The kabuki dance we're about to see from the House Republicans isn't about accountability, as they themselves do not believe themselves accountable thanks to safe gerrymandered districts back home. This isn't about corruption because despite all their wailing and gnashing of teeth they haven't proven it. 

This is about embarrassing Biden and weakening him on the political stage in order to depress voter turnout in 2024. This is about making it easier to deflect or avoid the real corruption trump is confronting in multiple courtrooms over the next six months.

But it's not going to work. The Republicans keep tripping over themselves failing to find any "evidence" of Biden's alleged sins. Attempts to make Democratic or Center-Left voters worry about supporting an "impeached" President in Biden overlooks how the very partisanship that the Far Right uses to divide the nation will compel hardened liberal and progressive voters to support Biden even more. 

And it's not going to distract Americans from the reality that trump faces in each of the courtrooms where his criminal charges continue apace. Whether it's this November in Georgia or March 2024 in DC or Manhattan or May 2024 in South Florida, by the next Republican national convention we are dealing with the reality that trump is convicted on even one felony criminal charge. The courtrooms are not meant to be partisan, with cases determined by an American jury of our peers, and no amount of mudslinging thrown by Far Right Republicans will change those facts.

The Republicans are desperate. They can't run on issues, and yet they're driven to attack attack attack as the only way they can win elections.

Only now, the blows are hitting their own as they punch themselves in the collective face trying to defend the indefensible.

This would all be enjoyable to watch if it didn't threaten the fate of American democracy and upholding the rule of law.

The Self-Dug Graves of donald trump

A lot of holes in the desert, and a lot of problems are buried in those holes. But you gotta do it right. I mean, you gotta have the hole already dug before you show up with a package in the trunk. Otherwise, you're talking about a half-hour to forty-five minutes worth of digging. And who knows who's gonna come along in that time? Pretty soon, you gotta dig a few more holes. You could be there all fuckin' night.

-- Nicky, Casino

When I began writing this article on Saturday morning the impeachment trial was still ongoing. But then the day turned sideways, a vote on allowing witnesses turned into a debacle that I STILL can't figure out, and it ended with a vote in the U.S. that went 57-43 in favor of removing trump for his Incitement to Insurrection... which did not clear the 2/3rd supermajority needed to make it happen.

We knew it going in that the cowardly Republicans in the Senate would not rise above the gross partisanship of their own party's base, but there was still a slim hope that enough facts and evidence of trump's misdeeds would get out to convince enough Republicans to put country ahead of party. In the end only seven - Mitt Romney (UT) who had previously voted against trump over the Ukraine scandal, plus Richard Burr (NC), Susan Collins (ME), Bill Cassidy (LA), Lisa Murkowski (AK), Pat Toomey (PA), and Ben Sasse (NE) - realized the danger trump's riot posed to Congressional safety and our Constitution's integrity.

Mitch McConnell attempted to have it both ways: Blaming trump for causing an insurrection, but then voted to protect trump's ass from removal. Mitch's hypocrisy is damning and two-faced, and it will likely get more Americans killed as trump uses this as an excuse to continue his lying campaign to overturn an election he lost.

The only good news out of this day is threefold: One, it exposes how broken our Impeachment system is to where it needs to go away; Two, it proves we should hold sitting Presidents accountable to arrest on serious federal felony charges (so SCREW that OLC memo); and Three, it leaves trump still exposed to the civil and criminal charges he's facing already.

Let's go to Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

In case anyone forgot, the US attorneys’ office for the southern district of New York previously treated Trump aka “Individual-1” as un-indicted co-conspirator in Michael Cohen’s case. As a result, the confirmation hearings of Joe Biden’s pick for attorney general, Merrick Garland, will certainly be interesting.

Already, prosecutors in Manhattan have the Orange Don and his crew in their cross-hairs. According to court filings and published reports, Cyrus Vance Jr, Manhattan’s district attorney, is investigating the truthfulness of the Trump Organization’s financial reporting and the company’s relationship with Deutsche Bank...

In addition, Trump’s recent bouts of wrath have given lawyers in Washington and Georgia plenty to ponder. Local authorities in the Peach state are weighing a criminal investigation into his failed efforts to browbeat Brad Raffensperger, the state’s secretary of state, into submission. Trump telling Raffensperger to “find” 11,779 more votes and interfering with election certification may have been a step too far...

Green wrote that article back in January 20. That Georgia case just went to Hyperactive this week (via Stephen Fowler at NPR):

The Fulton County District Attorney's office has launched a criminal probe into former President Donald Trump's attempts to overturn Georgia's election results, including a call pressuring Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to "find" enough votes for him. The county includes Atlanta, Georgia's capital.

In a letter sent to state officials and obtained by Georgia Public Broadcasting, newly elected Democratic District Attorney Fani Willis said the investigation will look into several potential violations of state law, including "the solicitation of election fraud, the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies, conspiracy, racketeering, violation of oath of office and any involvement in violence or threats related to the election's administration..."

The letter from prosecutors asked several state officials to preserve all records from administering the 2020 election, with "particular care" given to those that "may be evidence of attempts to influence the actions of persons who were administering the election."

In the hourlong call obtained by Georgia Public Broadcasting, an angry Trump alternately cajoled and castigated Georgia's top elections official, seeking to have him toss out the November election results, which was counted three separate times, and "find 11,780 votes" to declare Trump the winner.

trump cannot accept the reality that he lost, he clings to his own lying narrative of "stolen ballots" to keep alive his slim hope of regaining political power, and worst of all he's got a literal mob of followers willing to riot for him to make those lies become a bloody "truth" at everyone else's expense. The cost of letting trump off the hook to keep these lies going will lead to more riots, more anger, more bullshit that won't go away until trump goes away.

This is the only hope for sanity our nation has left: That someone, either in Manhattan or Atlanta or DC, puts it on the line to file credible criminal charges that will convict trump for the damage he's done and remove him from the political stage for good.

There is, for example, the possibility that Biden's Justice Department could reopen the Mueller Report findings and use that to file Obstruction of Justice charges that Mueller determined could be done once trump is out of office. These are serious charges and everything about them should already be lined up and ready to go.

The civil courts are a different matter: trump was already facing a number of civil charges especially a sexual assault/defamation trial from E. Jean Carroll. Any damages, and loss of life, that happened during trump's Insurrection could be charged in civil courts as well. trump has been delaying these trials over and over as he usually does (it's the only true way he's ever won in court, outlast the plaintiff until they quit or take a lesser deal) but he's running out of room to dodge these cases. Sooner rather than later, trump's got to face his accusers before the law.

The legacy of the donald trump post-White House years will be spent in the courtrooms. he will be dealing in cases that won't settle out of court, that won't sign off on any plea deal where he walks away without admission of guilt.

trump does have a terrifying habit of wriggling his way out of ANY accountability, but for the LOVE OF GOD he's broken so many laws and ruined so many lives, the bill for his sins HAVE to come due now. The grave that needs to get dug now is for his future, a future that ought to be trump sitting in a SuperMax jail cell wondering if his con jobs were ever really worth it.  

The Second Impeachment of trump Began Today

...and I'm too busy at work during the day to watch it, and already utterly convinced that trump should be removed and blocked from running for future office, and also utterly convinced the godless and cowardly Republican Senate bloc will look the other way and let trump walk.

If the nine blog readers want to follow along, Balloon Juice already set aside some Impeachment threads you can follow on their site, for legal input I think Emptywheel's site might be helpful, and Digby is good to follow as well.

As far as I can tell, trump's main legal counsel Bruce Castor's opening arguments were so twisted they couldn't even count as a Chewbacca defense. It was so bad it cost the Republicans one of their Senators today (via Burgess Everett, Andrew DeSiderio, and Marianne Levine at Politico): 

“The House managers were focused. They were organized. They relied upon both precedent, the Constitution and legal scholars. They made a compelling argument. President Trump’s team were disorganized. They did everything they could but to talk about the question at hand,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.). “And when they talked about it, they kind of glided over, almost as if they were embarrassed of their arguments.”

Cassidy even voted with 55 other senators that the trial should go forward and was not unconstitutional, changing his position from last month. “If I’m an impartial juror and one side is doing a great job and the other job is doing a terrible job on the issue at hand? As an impartial juror, I’m going to vote for the side that did the good job.”

Cassidy’s shift was the most electric moment of the day and highlighted what could only be seen as an incoherent defense by Castor. The Trump lawyer singled out senators who are mulling conviction and conceded he had changed his entire presentation after three of the House impeachment managers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), made their opening arguments.

“I thought the first attorney for the president today did not present a case, which surprised me. Did not make any arguments,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who also voted to uphold the constitutionality of the trial. “The second attorney representing the president clearly did, and did a competent job. I’m puzzled by the presentation of the first attorney...”

trump's not working anymore with his "Best and Brightest" (cough Rudy cough) which wasn't all that great to begin with.

And the horrifying thing is that all this kabuki theater will still end with a "hung jury" of not enough Republican Senators choosing the Constitution and Rule of Law over their own unhinged, violent voting base.

Wake me when 17 Senate Republicans openly agree with the Democratic caucus that what trump did on January 6th was Incitement to Insurrection and riot. Until then, the only things we should be counting on are the state and federal criminal charges trump and his crooked circle of power still face.

Impeachment As a Toothless Law, As Partisanship Holds Sway

As we get set to watch donald trump get impeached for his involvement with the Insurrection riot of January 6, we need to consider how it's already a foregone conclusion that the Republicans in the Senate will not put country before corruption. It's not so much that they forgave his sins during the impeachment trial over his attempted extortion of foreign aid to scam the 2020 elections, it's that they're about to forgive the more violent act he attempted that threatened their very safety. Today's preliminary fight gives us an idea how the final vote is going to be (via Barbara Sprunt at NPR): 

After senators were sworn in Tuesday afternoon as jurors in the impeachment trial of former President Donald Trump, Sen. Rand Paul quickly pressed for a vote to force lawmakers on the record over the issue of the trial's constitutionality.

The Senate voted 55-45 to reject the Kentucky Republican's argument that the impeachment trial is unconstitutional because Trump is no longer in office.

Just five Republicans — Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Ben Sasse of Nebraska, Mitt Romney of Utah and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania — joined Democrats in voting to table the motion. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., notably voted with most of the GOP conference in support of Paul's motion.

A two-thirds majority is required for a Senate conviction. Paul's point of order likely foreshadows the intentions of most Republican senators during the trial and demonstrates how unlikely it is Democrats will garner the 17 Republican votes needed to convict Trump.

What is the use of a legal system when it has no means of enforcement? When the people entrusted to uphold the law and the Constitution itself refuse to do so? We saw the same thing last year when - in spite of all the evidence that trump abused our foreign relations with Ukraine in order to stage fake scandals to affect our own elections - a Republican-controlled Senate did the bare minimum to answer the House's impeachment charges and mocked the failed results.

Looking back at the history of impeaching those who served as President, we can recognize the moments where the need for impeaching a corrupt President did not occur because that President's party also controlled enough of Congress to make the point moot. We can see the moments when impeachment was used as a partisan weapon instead of upholding the Constitution. We can remember how only once in our nation's history did impeachment seem likely - Nixon was facing that fate before he resigned - only because our political landscape was genuinely bipartisan enough to see the reality of how Nixon's acts threatened the public trust.

Impeachment is broken. Either it is too partisan a tool that threatens the independence of the Executive Branch, or the Legislative Branch is too partisan and corrupt to properly employ the impeachment process in any legal and just manner.

trump's own regime is proof of that failure. When Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress, they refused to bring up the matter of impeachment when trump misbehaved and failed to adhere to policy, protocol, or the letter of the law. It took the Democrats - an opposition party - to win the House of Representatives to bring that threat of accountability to the table... and even then, the supermajority need from a nearly-split Senate made it impossible to follow through for removing trump for the crimes he'd committed.

The Founding Fathers may have created the Impeachment process but did so in an era when partisanship had yet to form during our nation's infancy. They did it under assumptions that civic duty and personal honor would drive the individuals in Congress to value integrity over impulsive selfishness. They never considered the reality that Congresspersons - especially when one of their parties turned corrupt the way the modern Republicans have - would avoid their own accountability, that the entire elective process - bent and battered by decades of gerrymandering and false narratives - would fail to hold them accountable when they failed the people and themselves.

The inability to use impeachment now creates ruptures in the entire legal system. One of the reasons Robert Mueller's investigation into the Russian interference with our 2016 elections cycle didn't go far enough was due to Mueller avoiding the implications of crossing a long-standing Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memo that sitting Presidents cannot be charged with crimes. Mueller was able to prove at one end that Russia DID meddle in the elections process and duly filed charges on culprits he uncovered. But any link that could have been proven from trump's end of things couldn't be proven because that memo prevented Mueller from digging deep enough to find proof that could stand in court.

That OLC memo has got to go. It shouldn't be upheld as legal precedent. Congress should pass legislation overriding that damn thing, and put in place the ability for a federal investigation/grand jury to file criminal charges on a President found to be breaking the law. It doesn't have to be everything under the sun, obviously: the argument against charging Presidents is to avoid them getting charged with petty-ante stuff every day by conspiracy nuts and partisan hacks. I understand that.

But there ARE certain crimes directly related to the powers of the office that CAN be investigated and charged. I'm talking acts of Obstruction - the one thing Mueller could prove trump had done, but had to leave to Congress to charge which they never did - and acts of Bribery and Extortion that are spelled out as impeachable offenses but are better resolved as criminal charges. I'm talking about serious felonies like Murder (personal cases of murdering individuals, not shipping soldiers off to war or anything), Sexual Assault/Rape, and/or Conspiracy to commit such crimes. We can't rely on a political method of accountability to play out on such crimes, because we're seeing that not enough politicians today will treat it seriously in a bipartisan manner.

trump's violations of the Emoluments Clause ended up going unpunished, because the Courts - now all happily aligned to the Far Right, protecting trump as best they can - kept redefining the line of who could file such complaints and delayed the result until it was too late. This is inexcusable. Congress needs to pass legislation spelling out exactly who can challenge such violations of our Constitution's ethics, and make sure it's something that any President who violates it gets charged and held right away. The Emoluments Clause is one of the few laws that relates directly to the President's misconduct, and it ought to be enforceable the second the corrupt Executive breaks that law. Impeaching him on Emoluments violations would never have passed the Republicans playing defense in the Senate.

Impeachment works great as a symbolic gesture, but it's become worthless when it can't be properly used. We need to move beyond this, we need to make the legal system understand the dangers of a corrupt monster sitting in the White House requires a more direct response. If you're worried about how criminal charges would disrupt the orderly workings of government, don't be. We have a 25th Amendment in place that can reasonably replace an arrested/detained President caught up in acts of provable corruption and allow for a smooth transition of power.

We have fallen too far within a partisan political landscape to allow criminal acts to go unpunished. Impeachment can't punish wrong-doers like trump: Federal felony charges are the only sane response left to us.

Down In the History Books

Nixon: Dare I ask, will I be remembered?

Eleventh Doctor: Oh, Dicky. Trick Dicky. They're never going to forget you.

-- "Day of the Moon"

Never happened to John Tyler, although Congress tried. Never happened to James Buchanan, although it almost came up in committee. Never happened to U.S. Grant. Never happened to Warren Harding, but shoulda.

It happened once to Andrew Johnson, who barely survived by one vote. It happened once to Bill Clinton, but the charges were so farcical he was never at any risk.

It almost happened to Richard Nixon, who was the most likely candidate to have actually lost the matter and would have been the first President removed via Impeachment, except that he resigned before a full vote in the House could send the matter to the Senate.

Most of those names are for men who went down in U.S. History - save for Clinton, who's generally packed in the middle of passable Presidents - as the Worst Presidents our nation have ever seen.

They are joined by one more, a man more divisive than inspiring, a man more con artist than competent, a man who was already making the Worst Of list during his own tenure by historians who didn't want to wait the customary 20 years before passing judgment.

Except that donald trump has now set a standard no other Worst President ever reached:

Getting impeached twice in a single term of office. 

To David A. Graham at The Atlantic (paywalled):

This afternoon, Donald Trump, the third president in American history to be impeached, became the first to be impeached twice. The House of Representatives voted 232–197 to impeach Trump for inciting the attempted coup on January 6 and for trying to overturn Joe Biden’s election as president. The matter now goes to the Senate, where a trial is unlikely before Biden’s January 20 inauguration. No president has ever been convicted and removed.

It takes effort to get impeached, and it must be doubly so to be double-impeached. And to think, trump's been the laziest least-working President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice! Oh hey, it's a trend) since Coolidge (and at least Coolidge had an excuse). Back to Graham:

No matter what happens now, Trump will leave the presidency by January 20. But the circumstances of his departure and his future in politics are up in the air, because we don’t yet know what will happen in the Senate. It is not clear where Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stands, nor how he might manage his caucus. It is not clear if GOP senators will break with Trump. It is not clear when a Senate trial will begin. It’s not clear who will defend Trump in a Senate trial or how the trial will run...

Yesterday evening, The New York Times reported that McConnell “has concluded that President Trump committed impeachable offenses and believes that Democrats’ move to impeach him will make it easier to purge Mr. Trump from the party.” Other outlets matched that reporting; Axios says McConnell is in fact leaning toward conviction. (His wife, former Department of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, resigned from the administration after the attempted coup.) In a letter to colleagues today, however, McConnell said he had not made a decision about how to vote.

Parsing these reports is difficult. Such stories don’t get out without McConnell and people around him wanting them out, for whatever reason. The powerful Republican leader is sending a message, but it isn’t clear what he’s signaling, or to whom. McConnell’s support for conviction would be essential to any effort to convict. While the past month has already shown the cracks in his normally rock-solid control, the 17 Republicans needed to convict will not break ranks without his go-ahead, but his support might encourage senators who have long disliked or even loathed Trump privately to turn on him publicly...

It is unlikely the Republican-led Senate - which will flip soon when the Democratic winners from Georgia take their seats - will risk party division by getting the two-thirds needed to convict and remove trump. Even if the Democrats hold a legitimate Senate trial if the process is delayed long enough for them to hold it, they'll need 17 Republican Senators to risk the wrath of trump's voting base.

However, the Republicans themselves are at a crisis point: The two major factions - divided between the Old School pro-business tax-cut deregulation types who don't want to break the nation, and the New Blood Anti-Government Rapture-seeking nihilists who want to watch the world burn - know that whatever happens to trump decides the near- AND long-term future of their own party.

The Senators are going to have to gamble on the possibility that if they impeach trump, they break his hold on the political reins of the Far Right fanbase, who might move on to the next demagogue who can promise them cruelty and pain upon their enemies that trump can no longer offer. But they risk the possibility that the rabid Far Righters are already too far gone, that they will still follow up on their attack of the Capitol and on Congress to continue their Anti-Government Crusade and unleash more violence across their homes as well as the liberals'.

The thing is: The Democrats tonight are more organized and outraged by trump's acts of sedition and lawlessness than the Republicans are trying to defend themselves or defend trump. The Republicans are finding a little too late they cannot defend both.

One week to go, before Biden gets sworn in.

One week to go, to see the Worst President Loser of the Popular Vote trump go down not only in the history books, but going down to the local precinct to get booked for his crimes against the United States.

Some Lovely Parting Gifts For trump's Train Wreck

If trump wanted to make the history books, he's definitely earned this distinction of being the ONLY President Loser of the Popular Vote (Twice) to get impeached TWICE in his one term of office. Let's take it to Andrew Prokop at Vox:

House Democrats claim to have already locked down nearly unanimous support for impeachment within their caucus, and if that’s true, that will make Trump the first president to be impeached on two separate occasions. House leaders are planning for a vote on Wednesday, January 13.

Trump has, of course, been here before. The House of Representatives impeached him for alleged abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December 2019, because of his efforts to pressure Ukraine’s government into investigating then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. But the Senate acquitted Trump on both counts in February 2020, falling well short of the two-thirds majority necessary to convict him and remove him from office. The verdict votes split almost entirely along party lines, with Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) being the sole Republican to vote to convict Trump on one count.

A major difference this time around, though, is that impeachment proceedings are happening mere days before Trump’s term in office expires. Though some Democrats have argued that Trump’s immediate removal is a necessity, it’s obviously less of one if he’s going to be gone in a week anyway. It’s also unclear if the Senate would hold a trial before Biden’s inauguration...

Yes, this all seems a bit "too little too late." trump is out the door anyway in a week, and it does not look like trump is able (or willing) to cause more damage - other than motivate his followers into another round of seditious rioting - before his time is up.

However, the principle of the thing matters. The reason for Impeachment - again - is to make this stick out to future generations that trump's actions must be held accountable no matter what. Back to Prokop:

If it goes forward, the main question would shift from whether Trump should be removed from office to whether he should be banned from holding future federal office, effectively blocking him from running for president again in 2024. But whenever a Senate trial might happen, getting two-thirds support in the Senate for conviction — which would require at least 17 Republican senators — remains a tall order...

The impeachment is a response to the attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters that took place last Wednesday.

Specifically, a resolution authored by Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) and other key members of Congress would impeach Trump on one count: incitement of insurrection.

The article of impeachment alleges that Trump incited violence against the government of the United States. It recounts how, as members of Congress gathered to count the electoral votes that would make Biden’s victory official, Trump spoke to a large crowd, made false claims that he was the true winner, and urged them to “fight like hell.”

“Thus incited by President Trump,” the article continues, “members of the crowd he had addressed... unlawfully breached and vandalized the Capitol, injured and killed law enforcement personnel, menaced Members of Congress, the Vice President, and Congressional personnel, and engaged in other violent, deadly, destructive, and seditious acts...”

We all saw what happened that day. Violence within the halls of Congress itself, something that both Democrat and Republican had to have seen with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, feared with their own lives at risk.

A number of Republicans are still out there, trying to shill to the public the same outrageous claims of mass voter fraud (that they can't prove) and the same excuses that the rioting was done by "Antifa" (even as too many of the rioters were proudly MAGA up to the moment the FBI and local police across the nation showed up at their doors to arrest them for the riots).

But a number of Congressional Republicans are refusing to play by trump's Narrative anymore. Liz Cheney of all people - her father Dick was a notoriously pro-authoritarian figure of his own - has gone public against trump and pledging her vote for the impeachment charge. Others are signaling they will follow suit. It arguably won't include the 140-odd Republicans who already doubled down on trump's plotting to overthrow a clean election, but this is a big sign that trump is not leaving on good terms with party leaders he'll need to deal with if he even thinks about returning in 2024.

trump's fate is now tied not to the past or the present, of what he can deliver to the Republican Party anymore. trump's fate is now tied to a future - of impending fraud lawsuits in New York, of criminal investigations involving his electoral interference and insurrection in Washington - that displays no mercy for him.

It'd be nice to say "Good Riddance" to the dumpster fire that has been the donald trump Era.

It's just there's still only one week left to go.

We Warned You. trump Is Getting Worse (w/ Update)

Update: Thanks again to Crooks & Liars promoting this blog via Mike's Blog Round Up, and many thanks to Tengrain choosing me for the Tuesday reads. Please take the time to read through here, and above all GET THE VOTE OUT FOR WARREN - yes, I chose a side - IN NEW HAMPSHIRE TODAY.

--

We knew the Republicans were going to "vindicate" trump's Impeachment with an unqualified acquittal. What we didn't expect was that a number of Senators - Maine's Susan Collins in particular - would go with the excuse that "trump will learn from the experience to not do it again," that he will somehow be humbled by the public scandal and behave himself onward.

Nope.

trump is raging against Mitt Romney - the only Republican to actually vote in favor of ONE of the Impeachment articles - and trump's lackeys are openly plotting ways to hurt Mitt for that vote.

And there's all the stuff happening this weekend, filed under #FridayNightMassacre as his wrath flows out towards anyone who crossed him over his Ukraine shakedown. Via Nancy LeTourneau at Washington Monthly:

One of the people who was most undermined by Trump’s remarks was Senator Susan Collins, who said previously that Trump had learned his lesson from the impeachment process. She had to walk that one back almost immediately...

Based on Trump’s remarks at his celebration and at Thursday’s prayer breakfast, it is clear that attacking Romney will be front and center for the foreseeable future...

But Romney isn’t the only one. Trump is also planning to go after the staff who had the courage to testify against him.

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman — a National Security Council aide who testified during House Democrats’ impeachment hearings — will be informed in the coming days, likely on Friday, by administration officials that he is being reassigned to a position at the Defense Department, taking a key figure from the investigation out of the White House.

Trump and his allies are considering doing more than just launching verbal fusillades at his perceived enemies over impeachment as the decision regarding Vindman shows. Some of the president’s aides are discussing whether to remove or reassign several administration officials who testified during the impeachment inquiry, according to aides and advisers who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the plans...

Just as CBS reported, the president is in the midst of putting heads on pikes to demonstrate what happens to those who cross him. The fact that so many Republican Senators caved to that kind of threat is shameful, but perhaps instructive of what the GOP has become...

Vindman was pushed out Friday... along with his twin brother who worked as a lawyer for the NSC, but who hadn't testified at all. Sondland, who had been a trump financial backer but testified about the Ukraine extortion to cover his own hide, is paying the price as well. And the reports are that half the NatSec staffing will get fired/removed because trump doesn't want to risk any further interference from them if he tries to extort more nations to help trump cheat at the 2020 elections.

In short: trump was always a vindictive prick, and remains so today.

The office of the Presidency never changes the character of the person entering that office: Professor Barber's work on that should be required reading for everyone in U.S. politics. trump's bullying narcissistic habits were not going to be moderated or tempered by the obligations of duty: If anything, those troubling traits are amplified past eleven on the dial.

The only way to stop trump's destructive habits is to vote him out of office.

It's up to us, America, to hold trump and the craven Republican lackeys to the rule of law in our nation.

We Knew The Republicans Have No Spine, No Love For Justice. Rise Up, Voters. This Is On You Now.

Their easy acquittal of trump - in the face of damning evidence, the Republicans in the Senate refused to even uphold their oath to fairly hear witnesses and review the paper trail - was unavoidable.

It's also horrific, a blatant slap in the face of the majority of Americans - some Republican voters included - who wanted a fair and just Impeachment.

This is now all on them, America. Every Republican who voted to acquit is an accomplice to trump's criminal ways.

The Republicans who gave trump a "Get Out of Jail Free Forever" card deserves the only remaining form of accountability left to us: Getting voted out of office forever.

To every registered voter out there: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HOLD REPUBLICANS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CRIMINAL MISDEEDS OF donald trump. The rot is not just at the top, America: The entire Republican Party was a cesspool long before trump announced his campaign, he's merely profiting from their greedy broken habits as well.

Fight back, America.

GET THE VOTE OUT, America.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DO NOT VOTE FOR ANY REPUBLICAN AT ANY LEVEL OF OFFICE.

Please.

We're barely surviving four years of this crap: Tariffs shredding our farms and manufacturers, massive income inequality in the face of questionable employment numbers, growing federal deficits as GOP tax cuts for the rich fail to pay themselves, an immigration system consumed by racism and an obsessive need to break families - WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN, STILL? - and a loss of global prestige from trump's temper tantrums against our own allies. Can you imagine another four years of trump, convinced by whatever corrupt method he's used to cheat another election - because he will get worse now that the Senate "vindicated him" - that he can break even more laws, violate more norms, destroy more lives? And never have to answer for any of it ever again?

For the Love of GOD, America. trump is destroying us. Throw him out before he can do any further damage to us.

All This Outrage Must Lead To Action Against Republican Corruption. IT MUST.

So as I recover from surgery, the rest of this week has mostly been watching the Republican-controlled Senate avoid even the pretense of holding a fair Impeachment hearing, which previous versions in 1868 and 1998 both allowed for witness testimony. This time around, Mitch McConnell has lined up enough of his fellow GOP buddies to ignore evidence and just vote on what will likely be a partisan acquittal over donald trump's attempt at extorting Ukraine into creating a fake investigation into Biden's family to hurt Joe Biden's 2020 chances in the general election.

All we can say for certain now is the Republicans are not interested in Truth.

The Republicans are not interested in Justice.

The Republicans are sure as hell not interested in the American Way (no, they are interested in the White Racist Greedhead Way).

All that remains now is the Voter Outrage towards Republican Corruption.

Because a vast majority of Americans wanted witnesses to be heard at the Impeachment trial. And when it came time to be a representative body towards the needs of the American majority... the Senate Republicans shrugged and said "so what."

This is what we are down to, fellow Americans.

Republican party leadership has made it very plain: They will side now and always with a corrupt trump who seeks to abuse the powers of the Presidency to achieve any crooked gain.

Republicans do not care for the rights and wishes of the nation's citizenry. They are kicking each concern to the curb, laughing to their cushy incumbent jobs in the belief that the voters back home will NEVER hold them accountable.

It is far past time to hold Republican officials accountable for the crimes they commit as well as the crimes they allow.

It is well now the time to find every Democratic challenger to every Republican Senator up for re-election this 2020 and it is damn well the time to support each Democrat to victory this November.

Find your Democratic Candidate for the Senate and aid them every way you can.

Update: Doug has added a weblink to the Indivisible's Payback Project.

Keep the House in Democratic hands, make sure the popular vote majority that fills that half of Congress remains Blue and Angry.

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SUPPORT THE DEMOCRATIC NOMINEE FOR PRESIDENT THIS 2020 AND VOTE THAT GODLESS SHITGIBBON OUT OF OUR WHITE HOUSE.

Nobody is coming to save us from the wingnuts, America. It's up to us. Make government accountable again. Make the Republican crooks flee for their lives.

Get the vote out this 2020.

What the Impeachment of donald trump Means

Tuesday - tomorrow - the Senate trial of donald j (aka The Shitgibbon) trump begins regarding two articles of Impeachment:

trump, of course, wants it all to go away and pretend he's vindicated (via Jessica Hullinger at The Week):

President Trump's lawyers filed a brief on Monday urging the Senate to dismiss the impeachment charges against him and calling the House's impeachment process a "perversion" of the Constitution, The Associated Press reports.

The 110-page brief calls the House's impeachment case "flimsy," insists Trump did "absolutely nothing wrong," and says he has "been the victim of an illegitimate partisan effort to take him down," The New York Times reports. The House filed two impeachment articles against Trump — abuse of power for withholding aid to Ukraine in order to pressure that country to investigate his political rivals, and obstruction of Congress for blocking the House's impeachment inquiry.

The brief "does not deny that Mr. Trump pressured Ukraine to open investigations into Democrats," the Times writes. Instead it argues that this was within Trump's rights as president. As to the obstruction of Congress article, the lawyers say the president has a right to confidential deliberations.

The "President Can Do What He Wants" defense is pretty much the only one trump and his lackeys have. Problem is, legal precedent says FCK all to that. Let's refer to Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine for more:

The first problem with this argument is that it rests on incorrect facts. At the time President Trump was withholding military aid to Ukraine, officials inside his administration worried that he was breaking the law by refusing to allocate spending that had been passed by Congress. But the legality had not been officially settled at the time, which is what allowed Trump’s supporters to insist that he had not broken any laws. But last Thursday, the Government Accountability Office formally ruled that withholding the aid did violate the law.

This ruling doesn’t mean Trump is a criminal who needs to be impeached. But given the weight his supporters have placed on the lack of a formal legal violation, it is quite significant. When you rest your defense upon a technicality, you’re in trouble when the technicality turns out to be technically wrong.

Second, as a historical matter, there is no evidence that impeachment was designed to deal solely with violations of federal law. The framers debated impeachment and the record suggests a broad range of concern, ultimately leaving the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors” to Congress to decide. Alexander Hamilton defined it as “the abuse or violation of some public trust.” Historically, less than one-third of impeachments of federal officials have charged a criminal violation.

Finally, as a constitutional principle, the notion that a president cannot be removed for abusing his power, but can be removed for a criminal violation, however small, would turn impeachment into a ludicrously ill-fitting solution for the problem it was designed to solve. It implies Trump could not be impeached for promising to pardon anybody who murdered his political rivals, but could be impeached if he resold a mattress that was missing its tags...

Simply put: trump and his legal puppies are trying to set up an environment where abuse of power isn't real unless a President commits a by-the-book crime except for the fact they're also arguing that no President can be charged with a crime so why even bother.

/headdesk

The thing is, Impeachment is now set to go in the Senate, and it's looking like Senate leader Mitch McConnell will try to do everything to block the proceedings from public view. Considering how the cable news channels - Fox and CNN - of the day covered Clinton's trial, this is hypocrisy of the highest order. Republicans are hoping to God that "Out of Sight" means "Out of Mind."

This is all part of McConnell's hopes to quickly kill the whole proceeding before enough damning testimony is allowed to air in the first place. There is a genuine fear that if enough critical information about trump's actions blocking Ukrainian aid and then covering up those attempts got out, it would make it harder for the Republican Senators to blithely vote Not Guilty and walk away.

Even with the slight majority the GOP has in the Senate, this IS an election year and a third of the Senate is under voter review: There's at least three Senators in the crosshairs of angry voters back home - Collins in Maine, Ernst in Iowa, Gardner in Colorado - that they could refuse to play Mitch's game. And there's a few more Senators - maybe Murkowski, maybe even Mitt Romney now in a Utah with his own base of support - who may be safe enough from any trumpian retaliation to deny McConnell an easy ride. Mitch can't afford to lose two of his coalition: three or more and the Democrats can vote to have every last document tracing trump's misdeeds and a column of witnesses testifying submitted as evidence.

Granted, there's a lot of hope riding on that last paragraph. We're still looking at the most obvious end of the Impeachment process: trump gets acquitted because there's not a two-thirds supermajority to find him guilty of even one charge for removal.

But accountability still matters: Voters are going to remember how the Republicans behaved during all this. The GOP brushes this off, gives trump an easy acquittal, and enough angry voters back home supporting Impeachment will blame the Senate for ignoring their duty. The Republicans are going to have to play this just right: Show enough concern and handle the process as serious as required, pretend to listen to enough evidence to convince the media they're not faking, and then acquit trump and have a huge party at his Doral resort.

But I doubt it. These Republicans have shown little care of how they're viewed by the American majority. They'll be sloppy and reckless with the rules like they've been for decades.

And the only way this ends well for the United States is that each Republican bastard failing in their oath of duty gets kicked out of power for good.

In the meantime, here's hoping for a big show of witnesses backstabbing each other in ways to make the surviving afternoon soaps look like Disney Junior cartoons.

#ImpeachTrump

A Brief History of Presidential Impeachments

Just for the record:

1842: John Tyler. The first attempt to remove a President via the Impeachment process. The Whigs controlling Congress were horrified after Tyler's promotion to the Oval Office after Harrison's death that Tyler was really a Democrat at heart, but could not offer a legal argument to remove him. They tried to impel him to resign using threat of impeaching, but he refused. The House ended up not having enough votes to carry the process over to the Senate.

1860: James Buchanan. This one I wasn't even aware of because it never got out of committee, but the Republicans in control of the House began a corruption probe of Buchanan's administration that had the authority to file impeachment articles if warranted. The Covode Committee reportedly found evidence of corruption but not enough to pursue impeaching.

1868: Andrew Johnson. The first President Impeached and the closest to getting removed from office, an attempt that failed by one vote. Like Tyler, an unwanted Vice President promoted up to the Presidency and fiercely opposed by a strong Republican Congress, Johnson only survived because the law used to trap him was rigged, because his lawyers were good (and the bribe money better), and because enough Senators were terrified of the replacement - Senate Pro Tem Benjamin Wade was too radical even for his own party - that they figured they could endure Johnson until the upcoming election that booted him out anyway.

1974: Richard Nixon. Watergate, bitches. When the smoking gun tape of Nixon ordering the cover-up got out, Republican Senators told Nixon he was "toast" and he resigned before the House Committee was able to get their three articles of Impeachment to the floor for a full vote.

1998: Bill Clinton. Blowjobs, bitches. While the House made the arguments that Clinton's behavior and deception was unethical, they couldn't convince Americans - especially the voters who sided with Clinton during the 1998 Midterms - that it rose to the level of Impeachment. He was the second President ever Impeached, but the Senate votes failed by such margins that Clinton was never at risk of removal.

2019: donald motherfucking trump. Impeached over charges of Abusing the Office to force a foreign power to intervene in our own elections, and with Obstructing the House investigations into that. From here, given the structure of the Republican-held Senate it seems unlikely that trump will face removal from office, but at least it's finally on record that the son-of-a-bitch has to answer for his sins.

It gets crazier from here, America. Gods help us.

trump Writes A Letter. It's Predictably Insane

trump, for some reason encouraged by people other than his lawyers, sent a six-page letter to Speaker Pelosi which can charitably be called an insane rant that's more unhinged than a barn door during a tornado. I'm not linking to it because I don't want to promote any further exposure to a plague of madness, but that Balloon Juice article I link to does have the link and you can risk it yourself.

In short, trump accused Pelosi of presiding over an Impeachment process he still publicly decries as a "Witch Hunt" (considering no one has dunked trump in water as a test nor pressed his chest with stones for a confession, is an insult to those who were officially tried and killed during the Salem Witch Trials). trump accused Pelosi of going after him in order to destroy trump's success with the economy, and also accused her of "attacking democracy" while trump and the Republicans themselves are pretty much openly voiding the 2020 elections as he wrote dictated this missive.

In a sane and logical world, Pelosi's response should be this:

I'm not even going to get into how the letter contains spelling and grammar errors.

If trump wanted to impress us with his epistolary skills, he could have simply typed up a one-page letter with a simple sentence "I donald j trump do hereby resign the office of President Loser of the Popular Vote effective immediately." A ton of Americans would be thrilled if he did.

Tomorrow is the offical Impeachment vote in the U.S. House. I doubt Pelosi will be bullied by trump's letter to cancel it. The only thing left after that is seeing how quickly McConnell violates his oath of office by refusing to hold a fair and impartial trial - oh wait he already has.

This still matters, America. We are witnessing trump and his Republican allies fall into hysterics and madness for all to see.

This is why every honest patriotic American needs to vote every Republican out of office in 2020. End the foolishness, end the madness.

Otherwise may God have mercy on our souls.

Accountability Moment 2019: trump and the Republicans Have to Answer for Their Sins

This is just one step, there are more to come, but the Democrats in the U.S. House announced two articles of Impeachment on President Loser of the Popular Vote donald trump. Via Andrew Prokop at Vox.com:

Both articles are based on the Ukraine scandal, meaning the party decided not to introduce any articles of impeachment solely based on the Mueller report, as some had pushed for...

Articles of impeachment are essentially the “charges” against the president that the House of Representatives is considering approving. The final House votes on impeachment will be a yes or no vote on each article. If even one is approved, Trump is impeached — and the Senate will then hold a trial to determine whether to remove him from office.

Article I, abuse of power, addresses Trump’s general underlying conduct in the Ukraine scandal. It alleges that Trump abused his power by trying to pressure Ukraine’s government into announcing an investigation into the Bidens by withholding both a White House meeting and military aid.

Article II, obstruction of Congress, is about how Trump responded to Democrats’ impeachment inquiry over the Ukraine scandal. It alleges that Trump obstructed the probe by urging witnesses not to cooperate and government agencies not to comply with subpoenas...

Some observations were made that Democrats left several other impeachable offenses - some related to Mueller's findings that are tangent to what trump did/is doing to Ukraine - off the table (for now), and that somehow these two articles may not be enough to sway Republicans either in the House or Senate. Which, of course, will never happen. The Republicans are too far gone into their sealed bubble of disinformation that all of them attack these proceedings as partisan and deny any merit to the facts at hand.

To anyone arguing that Democrats are doing this as a "coup attempt," trying to overturn the 2016 election results or subvert the coming 2020 election, I counter thus: Democrats could have done this to Bush the Lesser after 2006 over mismanagement of the War on Terror and his torture regime or even on mishandling the response to Hurricane Katrina... but they never did. Impeachment may be partisan but it has to be based on provable crimes. If Democrats are making official impeachment articles against trump, it's because trump IS GENUINELY BREAKING THE RULES AND ACTING AGAINST THE CONSTITUTION. Sheesh.

It's unlikely the wingnut Republican Senate will follow through on any impeachment and remove trump from office: They still have ways to profit from his misrule after all. Which is why this still feels like a half-accomplished thing. The best news about all of this is that it will be on the record: trump committed impeachable acts... and the Republicans refused to hold him accountable. The GOP is going to have to own this vote, and there are far too many people in favor of impeachment who will hold THEM accountable if they fail to hold trump accountable.

Get the goddamn vote out, America. The Republican party needs to answer for their sins.

This Week In Exposing Trump's Sins Part 146: The Quids And the Quos Meet the Pros

Update: A big hello again to everybody linking in from Crooks & Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Thank ye, Tengrain! Please take a moment to peruse, add a comment, and if you're having difficulty with the comment section you can tweet me @PaulWartenberg with suggestions. Also, good luck on NaNoWriMo this last week of writing!

How bad has trump's week been going so far?

His daily helicopter screamfest to the media had to come with notes handwritten in 60 point font size.

And oh GOD, someone put the lyrics to a Ramones backbeat.

It does not help trump or his Republican lackeys when it got out this week from key testimony on Tuesday - from Lt. Colonel Vindman, State Dept. official to the VP's office Williams, Special envoy to Ukraine Volker, and NSC advisor Morrison - that trump's dealings with Ukraine were to cut off aid to that nation in order to squeeze their newly elected President Zelensky into publicly announcing questionable investigations into the Biden family.

It especially hurt to have Volker - who Republicans hoped to be on trump's side of the investigation - confirm some of the details of the scandal and that trump's actions looked "inappropriate" and indefensible.

It really hurt because Volker provided more links to Gordon Sondland, supposedly the Ambassador to the EU but had been a major part of trump's outreach to Ukraine (nowhere near Sondland's orbit of responsibility). So with Sondland in the crosshairs, rather than take the fall into traffic Sondland took control of the dumptruck and proceeded to drive all over trump, Pence, Sec of State Pompeo, Rick Perry, Chief of Staff Mulvaney, Rudy Giuliani, and random Red Shirt guy who got beamed down to the planet to demonstrate how dangerous the episode was. To quote the Vox article from Zack Beauchamp:

Sondland’s testimony, which kicked off Wednesday’s impeachment hearings, lays out a clear timeline of Trump’s attempts to pressure Ukraine into investigating former Vice President Joe Biden. And it leaves absolutely no doubt as to what was going on.

“I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’” Sondland says. “The answer is yes...”

With just that one paragraph, Sondland gave evidence that confirmed the Quid (Ukraine military aid) and the Quo (sham investigations into Hunter Biden) had a Pro (everyone from trump on down was working the scam behind closed doors until the Whistleblower kicked them open). Back to Beauchamp:

Sondland’s testimony also makes clear this was not some kind of rogue operation masterminded by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani alone. He provides extensive documentation, including contemporary emails and text messages, showing that his own personal efforts in service of arranging the quid pro pro were authorized at the highest levels of the administration...

This is it. It’s the ballgame. Sondland’s testimony is the whole scandal in a nutshell: It makes clear that the president of the United States masterminded a conspiracy to use US foreign policy as a tool to cement his own hold on power...

The timeline of the scandal as described in Sondland’s testimony begins on May 23, three days after President Zelensky’s inauguration. Sondland had attended the inauguration in his official capacity and, on May 23, met with Trump to brief him on the new Ukrainian leadership.

The meeting, which included other US officials who worked on Ukraine, didn’t go as planned. Sondland and his team were attempting to arrange a meeting between Trump and Zelensky, which the latter badly wanted as a sign of his political strength. But Trump kept trying to force them to work with Rudy.

“President Trump directed us to ‘talk with Rudy.’ We understood that ‘talk with Rudy’ meant talk with Mr. Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer,” Sondland said. “We could abandon the efforts to schedule the White House phone call and White House visit between Presidents Trump and Zelensky, which was unquestionably in our foreign policy interest — or we could do as President Trump had directed and ‘talk with Rudy.’ We chose the latter course, not because we liked it, but because it was the only constructive path open to us...”

But the key issue here is not Sondland’s own culpability. It’s the president’s and the White House’s. And on that front, Sondland is relatively credible — he’s testifying against his own interest, as he’s still the US ambassador to the EU and thus serves at the pleasure of the president. What’s more, some of his testimony here is supported by email and text records.

So after meeting with Trump, Sondland’s testimony goes on to say, he began working with two other high-level US officials — Secretary of Energy Rick Perry and US Ambassador to Ukraine Kurt Volker — on coordinating the Trump-Zelensky meeting and other Ukraine issues. Perry and Volker were in charge of communicating directly with Giuliani, according to Sondland, but it becomes clear through these contacts that Giuliani is communicating the president’s desire for a meeting-for-investigations quid pro quo.

For example, in a July 10 White House meeting on Ukraine policy, Sondland testifies, “I recall mentioning the prerequisite of investigations before any White House call or meeting.” On July 19, Sondland sends an email to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, and other high-level officials in the Trump administration documenting his work in arranging a quid pro quo — an exchange of hosting Zelensky at the White House for the investigations Trump wanted...

The Ukrainians were fully aware of this. Sondland cites an August 10 text from Andriy Yermak, a high-ranking aide to Zelensky, as proof. In that message, Yermak commits to holding a press conference — a key demand of Giuliani and Trump’s — that would announce investigations into “Burisma and election meddling...”

Other witnesses on Wednesday confirmed the Ukrainians awareness: Contacts from both State and the Pentagon (DoD) testified to their Ukrainian connections asking repeatedly why their needed military aid against Russia's border war with them was being delayed so long.

Everything here is a Quid Pro Quo. Or, if you want to describe this in modern legal terms, bribery and extortion.

And yes, Laura Ingraham, bribery - and the punishment for it - is in the Constitution.

Granted, there's more testimony to come - there's a key one going on RIGHT NOW with Fiona Hill already tearing trump and his corrupt administration a new hole - but there's enough here already to begin straight-up impeachment counts in committee and passing it on for a floor vote in U.S. House. We impeached Clinton on less, for God's sake.

But let's be realistic as well. There is no Smoking Gun moment like in Watergate when Republican Senators went to Nixon and told him "It's over, we can't back you." Today's Republican party leadership is craven and greedy and amoral to the point of immorality. Given the option of removing trump to get Pence installed - even as Pence is facing impeachment charges as well - the GOP has instead double-downed on defending the Shitgibbon all the way... even as his leadership has them flying off the cliffs to rocky doom below.

The best thing about these impeachment hearings is the Truth: Real Truth as based on Fact. The facts are trump is corrupt, that he is using foreign policy to extort personal and political favors from allies, that he is coordinating ANOTHER campaign to subvert the 2020 elections with fake scandal and constant lies, that everything Mueller could prove in his Report was real (Mueller just couldn't find the Pro between the Quid and the Quo).

These Facts are out here now. Democrats know full well the demons they're up against and now there's documentation backing them up. Republicans have to defend an indefensible argument, and defend an openly corrupt regime.

This all matters in one way: The 2020 Elections. trump and the GOP can try to avoid accountability all they want, but they STILL have to convince voters to keep them in power. It's up to us, every American registered to vote, every American who NEED to vote, to go to the ballots in 2020 and KICK. EVERY. CORRUPT. REPUBLICAN BASTARD. OUT. OF. OFFICE.

Elections matter, America. PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, it is up to YOU to stop trump from dragging us deeper into Hell.