Title: Indicted Oligarch Firtash praises Manafort, says Trump has third-grade smarts Source:
Daily Beast via Kyiv Post URL Source:https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-po ... mp-has-third-grade-smarts.html Published:Mar 19, 2019 Author:Betsy Swan Post Date:2019-12-08 14:11:55 by Judas Goat Keywords:Useful Idiot Trump Views:4265 Comments:30
An indicted Ukrainian oligarch who faces years in an American prison joked about President Donald Trump’s intellect and distanced himself from Paul Manafort’s business dealings in an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with The Daily Beast at his palatial corporate offices in Vienna.
Ah, yes. I remember now. Flirtash is your mother and Elton Jane is your father.
From Rules of Evidence in an Impeachment Trial:
2256. In the Belknap trial objection was successfully made to an opinion of a subordinate officer as to evidence of the character of respondent’s administration.—On July 12, 1876,1 in the Senate sitting for the impeachment trial of William W. Belknap, late Secretary of War, Nelson H. Davis, Inspector General of the Army, was examined as a witness on behalf of the respondent, and Mr. Matt. H. Carpenter, of counsel for the respondent, having ascertained that witness had been in the Army during respondent’s entire administration and had been holding constant official relations with him, asked:
From all you know of the subject, and from all you know of General Belknap, I ask you what has been the general character of his administration of the War Department?
Mr. Manager George A. Jenks at once objected:
The objection I make to that is that a witness must testify to character instead of to the specific acts of this man, or general acts. He must know what has been said by those who are familiar with his administration in that office, instead of how has he done the business.
Mr. Manager George F. Hoar said:
We understand also that it should be the opposite of the particular offense charged. If a man is charged with adultery, his reputation for chastity; if he is charged with perjury, his reputation for veracity. We suppose the question should be, ‘‘What is the reputation of the Secretary for official integrity?’’ * * * We do not understand that it is competent to prove by a subordinate officer in the Army, as an expert, the general character of the administration of a great officer of state. There is no such thing as an expert in such an administration. We object to the question unless it is limited to the reputation of the Secretary for official integrity.
Ah, yes. I remember now. Flirtash is your mother and Elton Jane is your father.
I think your last post was directed at peromischievous, not me.
In other news, do you expect that Nadler or Schiff will be the point man of the House managers and act as chief prosecutor in the Senate?
Or do you think this will all fizzle due to Pelosi deliberately scuttling the vote in the House to miss impeachment by a single vote?
I think Pelosi will arrange for impeachment to fail in the House.
I see no way for Pelosi to hope that they will reach the 2/3 of present senators to vote for impeachment. Abstentions for senators present are counted as no votes; only a senator's absence from the chamber will help lower the number of required votes.
If Pelosi were willing to try to trade her House majority for enough Senate seats to prevent Trump from appointing another Supreme without Dem consent, it could make some strategic sense. But that seems like a long and convoluted scheme even for Pelosi. The best outcome of such a scheme would likely be to defeat Collins in Maine and see Jones in AL defeated as well, a tie. I don't see many other GOP Senate seats within Dems' reach with a strong economy and full employment.
It is a long steep hill to climb to get 67 votes to convict in the Senate, only to elevate a President Pence into office in a good position to serve 8+ years as president. Removing Trump now would be the GOP's best chance to hold the WH for 12 years straight and remake the Court entirely by replacing both RBG and Breyer. Pelosi knows this as does Schumer. So what is their game? Just a little election year impeachment drama for the kiddies but without any serious intent of actually removing Trump? It seems that way to me.
I see no way for Pelosi to hope that they will reach the 2/3 of present senators to vote for impeachment.
That's not her intent. Her intent is to impeach, period, to satisfy the Trump haters and to influence the 2020 election. And as retaliation for Clinton and as insurance against future impeachment of a Democrat (It's payback for Trump!).
"Or do you think this will all fizzle due to Pelosi deliberately scuttling the vote in the House to miss impeachment by a single vote?"
Nah. That would leave all the yea voters hung out to dry -- the worst of both worlds. She'll simply say the votes aren't there and ask for censure instead.
If this goes to the Senate and all hearsay testimony is excluded -- as it should be -- the Democrats have nothing. Literally. What they do have is a series of events that they have interpreted as impeachable offenses.
Nah. That would leave all the yea voters hung out to dry -- the worst of both worlds. She'll simply say the votes aren't there and ask for censure instead.
That may be her plan all along, go for impeachment while ignoring all the impeachment precedents (as GOP House members have accused) and then go for censure at the last minute.
If this goes to the Senate and all hearsay testimony is excluded -- as it should be -- the Democrats have nothing. Literally. What they do have is a series of events that they have interpreted as impeachable offenses.
The chief justice has betrayed us before but I don't think he'll overturn all the impeachment precedents that are on the record. It would destroy his reputation entirely as a jurist. It's ragged enough after his votes/opinions on ObamaCare (a bizarre judicial act of legislating) and Obergefell (should have rejected the case entirely and/or recused since his own son is gay and the originating judge on the Ninth was a gay publicly in favor of gay marriage).
That may be her plan all along, go for impeachment while ignoring all the impeachment precedents (as GOP House members have accused) and then go for censure at the last minute.
The radicals have gone too far to stop at censure. That would be a sane course except that the candidates would have to answer why the Dems did not impeach the MFer if they had a solid case of treason, bribery and whatnot. Nancy lost control of the radicals, just as Lincoln lost control of the radicals.
why the Dems did not impeach the MFer if they had a solid case of treason, bribery and whatnot.
"Well, we believe we presented a solid case of treason, bribery and whatnot, but an insufficient number of House members were convinced those charges rose to the level of an impeachable offense."
Something like that. I don't think Pelosi thought through the ramifications of a Senate trial, which I believe will be fatal to Democrats.
