We're in a Permanent Coup
taibbi.substack.com
taibbi.substack.com
Given my biases this leaves me suspecting that this is one corrupt faction trying to oust the other corrupt faction.
A significant amount of how we got into this situation is because the institutions of our republic have become far too tolerant of rule-bending in favor of those who hold positions.
What I'm seeing though is a pattern of flexibility that benefits the institution over individuals. This is horrifying at the local police department level, where we time and again bad actors protected to protect the department, or police union. Same thing with prosecutors offices, etc. Seeing that pattern targeting the executive of our country is worrying.
I'm also really sympathetic to the argument that the white house has advanced about due process. This is particularly important precisely because Trump is so obviously corrupt and self-serving. If we can't do it right when it's obvious how can we do it right against someone sneaker?
A vote before the full House is literally part of the process for submitting articles of impeachment to the Senate.
> He’s guilty, but the issue is how guilty, in comparison to his accusers.
The fact that the White House doesn't seem to have advanced that argument is confusing to me.
More confusing is that a situation with such an obvious defense is what has triggered this instead of the mountain of other issues.
Abuse of state apparatus for partisan political purposes has been a major tripwire in modern US politics. It was a central reason in why Watergate became an an issue of impeachment (though resignation stopped the impeachment from preceding), and also why a number of other post-Nixon reforms, including FISA (the criminal limits on domestic surveillance, not the weakening of them that some people now associate the name with in the post-9/11 FISA Amendments Act), were adopted.
The fact that there is an obvious defense which, if true, would justify the conduct does not mean that the defense seems likely to be true and the conduct thereby justified.
Ok.
The procedure they're using is irregular, and doesn't match the rules they passed for themselves. Least they could do when accusing the President of a host of irregularities is follow their own procedures regularly.
I am quite sure about the rule, but I am not in a position to cite it at a moments notice on a random online discussion board.
New York Times reports [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/12/us/politics/fact-check-im...] that statement is misleading; the Congressional Research Service [https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R45769.pdf] has noted "In the past, House committees, under their general investigatory authority, have sometimes sought information and researched charges against officers prior to the adoption of a resolution to authorize an impeachment investigation."
It's not improper to pursue the facts that would underpin impeachment before bringing articles to bear. How would one draft the articles in an information vacuum?
Then maybe you ought to grab a copy and find the violation, if it's existence is the entire premise of your argumwnt.
> but as I recall impeachment hearings are dependent on a vote to begin the process.
“Impeachment hearings” usually refers to hearings on one or more drafted articles of impeachment conducted by a Committee (usually, the Judiciary Committee, though historically there have been some exceptions, and the only reason the Judiciary Committee gets this role is that most impeachments are of federal judges since they are both the vast majority of impeachable officials and the only officials that cannot be involuntarily removed by any other means short of death.) The House rules, however, have no special requirement for a vote to begin impeachment or other hearings (“impeachment” does not appear in the House Rules at all, nor is there any general requirement to vote before holding hearings; there is a requirement for hearings before certain matters go to a vote of the full house, but that's only for bills and joint resolution, and adopting articles of impeachment is neither, so neither is a vote required for impeachment hearings by house rules nor are impeachment hearings required for impeachment by house rules.)
What is presently occuring is inquiries by various Committees on subjects within their jurisdiction which will refer any findings relating to impeachable conduct to the Judiciary Committee.
> Unless I missed a news story there hasn't been a vote of the house to begin impeachment.
The only vote the House seems to be required to take on impeachment would be on whether to adopt articles of impeachment, which is the end, not the start, of the process in the House.
As a matter of practicality, there would almost certainly be votes in various committees and possibly the whole House on other steps before that. But that's not a matter of requirements in the rules.
They have.
> The procedure they're using is irregular
Impeachment of a President is irregular, but committees of the House conducting inquiries within their established field of competence and forwarding findings that bear on impeachment to the Judiciary Committee is not. It is unprecedent to have remotely supported claims bearing on serious Presidential crimes and abuses of power within the jurisdiction of many different House Committees simultaneously, but you go into impeachment inquiries with the President you have, not the President you wish you had (otherwise, there'd never be any impeachment inquiries.)
> and doesn't match the rules they passed for themselves.
While the Trump camp is claiming that, there are no actual rules they can point to to support that claim, because it's completely false.
> Least they could do when accusing the President of a host of irregularities is follow their own procedures regularly.
They aren't accusing the President of mere “irregularities”, though that's the kind of minimizing spin that defenders of the President who can't manage a direct defense with a straight face seem to be resorting to.
Some of the argument is better explained in his latest Rolling Stone article "The ‘Whistleblower’ Probably Isn’t":
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/w...
That's a pretty strong accusation, and one he doesn't really present sufficient evidence to support here. He claims a "government-in-exile" situation without explaining who that benefits (who's in charge of the government-in-exile? Certainly not Clinton. Apparently not the Democratic party).
In essence, he appears to be buying into an illuminati-grade conspiracy that "they" don't want a Trump Presidency without a lot of support for why or how the alternative benefits them, which is irresponsible and sad coming from Taibbi. Especially since the simpler explanation - the guy with a history of corruption has done something corrupt - is at least as plausible and would necessitate the intelligence community to respond in some way (while still doing their damnedest to maintain their oaths of office in light of the Commander-in-Chief being someone they know is a crook).
He does mention the Russiagate as a phony accusation
The fact it proved untrue doesn't imply bad faith on the part of the intelligence community, however; it's their job to run leads to ground and determine their veracity.
One example: "Those abuses, the ones he's outraged about? With very few exceptions, they all happened in 2017, under Trump. There's good reason to suspect one of them came bc Trump demanded FBI crack down on leaks (a crackdown Taibbi pretends to be ignorant about)."
"Instead, it was a story about an infamously corrupt individual, Donald Trump, a pussy-grabbing scammer who bragged about using bankruptcy to escape debt and publicly praised Vladimir Putin. Audiences believed the allegations against this person and saw the intelligence/counterintelligence community as acting patriotically, doing their best to keep us informed about a still-breaking investigation of a rogue president."
and
"Trump stands accused of using the office of the presidency to advance political aims, in particular pressuring Ukraine to investigate potential campaign rival Joe Biden. He’s guilty, but the issue is how guilty, in comparison to his accusers."
However I disagree with the idea that Trump should be left alone and that any investigations into his many flaws resembles a coup. The message is clear though - the intelligence services are not your friends, and they're not on your side even if you share a common enemy for the time being. That part is not indulging in conspiracy theory, it is common sense.