What's the legal reasoning (if there's any) to keep her locked up and ruin her financially while not being able to swing the same punishment at all those people who refused to testify in the recent impeachment?
If the Congress really wants it can enforce its own subpoenas by putting anyone who refuses to testify in their own jail, without asking the DOJ for help. This is a power that hasn’t been used since 1934, and the current Congress has opted to work through the courts / make appeals to the electorate instead of applying it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/12/house-demo... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/democrats-...
Honestly though, I think the impeachment just pointed out the Ukraine stuff about as much as it pointed out Trump's phone call shenanigans, it wasn't good for them politically to keep at it, his approval rating was going up and he was raising tons of money during it. It was backfiring politically for them, the majority of the public wasn't interested (especially after the Russia thing coming up empty, you can only cry wolf so many times) and it brought their own misdealing to light so they didn't push it as they would if they really cared.
?
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-u...
Even if Biden didn't do anything wrong, in the public's eyes they see his son with no experience in that industry in a cushy, do nothing board position that pays in a month what the average American makes in a year. It smells like day old seafood.
- His son was never accused nor suspected of any crimes
- The prosecutor he asked to be removed had been in his position for 18 months and had made no progress pursuing burisma nor would he like his predecessor he was in bed with monied interests in the Ukraine. He as corrupt and everyone knew it.
If his son was guilty of anything beyond trading on his father's rep shaking up the status qou would be to his sons disadvantage.
- The president asked for a public announcement of an investigation on TV purely and only to solicit help to smear a political rival. There is no other narrative that makes any sense whatsoever.
Biden being involved in moving Ukrainian prosecutors around is evidence on the face of it of corruption at the highest levels.
2)
> There is no other narrative that makes any sense whatsoever.
There is a very sensible narrative - maybe the Biden family was getting borderline-legal kickbacks. Even if not true it is fundamentally plausible. It is definitely worth asking about for people who aren't Democrat aligned.
There exists no evidence of any kick backs nor any reason to suppose that burisma gained anything other than hunter Bidens services for their money despite this already being investigated and America having the most formidable intelligence service on earth. It was asked and answered. You are holding on to a conspiracy theory.
So if there is broad multinational agreement that a US judge is bad can China have him/her removed? That isn't how this stuff is meant to work.
> There exists no evidence of any kick backs nor any reason to suppose that burisma gained anything other than hunter Bidens services ...
You've just listed evidence and said you want to ignore it. That isn't a strong argument.
> ... despite this already being investigated and America having the most formidable intelligence service on earth.
And that is evidence that there was a reasonable alternative narrative of why there might be a problem.
And as almost an aside, maybe the circumstances should be investigated again when Biden isn't the nominal 2nd in the chain of command controlling the intelligence services? When he is being accused of essentially corruption? The situation seems a bit problematic.
You can disagree, but to pretend that there is no reasonable alternative where Biden is doing things that suggest corruption is an impressive work of mental gymnastics. If you are saying there already was an investigation then there is clearly enough here to justify an investigation, because someone justified it.
https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/americas-ukrain...
>Despite his leadership defects and character flaws, Yanukovych had been duly elected in balloting that international observers considered reasonably free and fair—about the best standard one can hope for outside the mature Western democracies. A decent respect for democratic institutions and procedures meant that he ought to be able to serve out his lawful term as president, which would end in 2016.
>Neither the domestic opposition nor Washington and its European Union allies behaved in that fashion. Instead, Western leaders made it clear that they supported the efforts of demonstrators to force Yanukovych to reverse course and approve the EU agreement or, if he would not do so, to remove the president before his term expired. Sen. John McCain (R‑AZ), the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, went to Kiev to show solidarity with the Euromaidan activists. McCain dined with opposition leaders, including members of the ultra right‐ wing Svoboda Party, and later appeared on stage in Maidan Square during a mass rally. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Svoboda leader Oleg Tyagnibok.
It seems like the Republican strategy both with Ukraine and Libya has been to talk about some obscure and distorted side-issue (Burisma and Benghazi respectively) which deprives the Democrats of a chance to respond substantively to the real issue, which was the foreign policy decisionmaking at the top that led to the greater situation becoming so dire in the first place.
In a way, it's a form of propaganda that uses disinformation to target well-informed people. It's kind of fun to think about when it's not pointed at you. (Republicans are hypocrites here -- nearly all of them supported Ukraine intervention at the time. But that didn't stop Democrats from running against the Iraq War in 2004 :p)
Nobody seriously found any evidence of collaboration between Trump and his "flunkys". That's the result of the Mueller Report.
Meanwhile... it's public knowledge that Democrats and the DNC paid foreigners for information from a discredited source to get an unproven Dossier to affect an American Election.
They are both conspiracy theories spread by the side that has proven evidence of worse crimes (IE: Email Servers, Joe's quid quo pro, children of elected officials getting kick backs from Burisma, etc)
Of course you should ask yourself what Russia and America are even doing in Ukraine in the first place, but that is probably a lot more comprehensive.
Some news papers argue Biden didn't pressure the public defender out of office, but that would be clearly fake news. As I said, there are people on record praising him for doing so.
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/09/world/europe/corruption-u...
The Mueller investigation turned up no evidence, that's pretty much proof the media and Congress chased a conspiracy theory for 2 years with no real evidence. There's hard evidence that Hunter was getting paid lots of money for a do nothing job he wasn't qualified for, and that Joe Biden did interfere at some point (for whatever reason, he did use his political power and got involved). That much isn't a conspiracy, his son got paid for a job everyone questions why he got it.
The real estate deals Trump Jr does now gets a fair pass because its the same thing, same as the $250k paid speaking engagements for Wall Street and corporations the Clinton's and Obama's get post Presidency. It's pretty obvious the pay off just comes afterwards.
People act sanctimonious about Trump, but they fail to realize Trump is a symptom, the cancer started from within.
[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/28/politics/mcgahn-testimony-rul...
A better system is a parliamentary system: in those, you don't have conflicts often between the branches, because the executive is chosen by parliament itself. And in the rare case there is a conflict, you can dissolve parliament, have a new election, then the new parliament can choose a new PM and life continues.
There's a reason every stable, advanced, democratic republic in the world has a parliamentary system instead of one like the US's. The US's system is more similar to those in Russia and Turkey.
There are many who hear me talk about such things and think I'm absolutely crazy, but I think people have such faith that things will always end up fine (because America has been stable for so long) that they will ignore every sign until it is all but complete. History may see this week as one of a select number or crises that lead to ... something.
I fully believe that Barr actually in his heart and mind wants and is acting to further it. Trump as well. The cowardice of the House and the politeness of the Senate are just as culpable.
The Democrats meanwhile now have a choice between an out of touch old man who was the conservative VP to make Obama a little more palatable and a near communist who promotes himself with plans which don't represent the interests, philosophies, or desires of a large majority of America and could never, ever pass into law.
If we are lucky, the current pandemic will infect the three of them before the election. If we are unlucky, I believe we are very close the American Republic on the path to fall within 40 years into... something.
"You know what else they say about my people? The polls, they say I have the most loyal people. Did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay? It’s like incredible,"
It's the party, it's the newly installed judges, it's his family and associates.
Trump won't topple the Republic. He will test every weakness of it and teach future iterations how to do it better. He is teaching adversaries how to manipulate and control this country better.
Rome didn't fall in a day. Neither the republic nor the empire.
The two men are figureheads for a whole system, some known, some not, which is dealing a serious blow to the institutions of the republic; damage that won't just be undone by a "good" election.
We need to elect a president that actively wants to limit the power of the presidency (not of the government, of the office and branch) and a Congress which is more interested in the individual representitives and their views than the parties. We have to have a voting republic that values these things instead of the mixture of team sport and religious crusade which American politics has become.
> Trump won't topple the Republic. He will test every weakness of it ...
Impeachment is pretty literally testing a weakness of the Republic, you know. There are lots of tests of the Republic; they happen regularly. America has passed an ungodly number of tests.
The tests, checks and balances a democracy throws at its opponents are only as powerful as the will of the public to defend it.
'n capital/power.
And as for near communist, am example among many:
>Sanders has recalled feeling “very excited” by Castro’s 1959 revolution, which played out during his teens. “It just seemed right and appropriate that poor people were rising up against rather ugly rich people,” he said in 1986.
He has a history of visiting and praising USSR and satellites with little open criticism of their atrocities.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/in-cold-war-travels-...
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba:
"Batista [..] Facing certain electoral defeat, he led a military coup [..] Back in power, and receiving financial, military, and logistical support from the United States government [..] suspended the 1940 Constitution and revoked most political liberties, including the right to strike. He then aligned with the wealthiest landowners who owned the largest sugar plantations [..]"
Anyway, the discussion should be about the policies to implement. Those are hardly communist policies.
"waiving your rights" is a very weird concept, particularly in the "land of the free".
Source: myself, a decade in the Marine Corps, witness in several Non Judicial Punishment cases, and one Courts Martial case.
> ...remember that the Uniform Code of Military Justice is established under the U.S. Constitution, because our framers knew that those we give weapons to in this country have to be governed by a different set of regulations than the population at large.
> And under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which was the latest in a history of these rules that came out in the late 1940s and modified often since then, the defense is actually stronger. The defendants' rights are actually stronger in a military court than in a civilian court. Just read F. Lee Bailey's book, "The Defense Never Rests." And as one of the most aggressive defense counsels in our history, he said he would rather a court--defend--defend in a military court than a civilian court in his book.
> And the reason is you have more rights in order to prevent the military court system becoming what you and I would call a "kangaroo court." So, you give the defense more rights. And when that court acts, you--for most of us in the military who have an intimate knowledge of it, we have a great deal of confidence that justice has been adhered to, in the true sense of what justice is all about toward a person accused of a crime by the government.
this is a good interview, worth reading in full:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/washington-post-live/2019/12/...
Here's a good overview of the context for limiting the rights of military personnel: https://mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1131/military-perso...
makes you wonder if the side that can do less damage (enlisted serviceman) require the more draconian agreement after all.
That's why it's super important to keep them aware that the little people are watching and taking notes; that's literally the only trump card we all have.
Context is a thing, and it is relevant here.
Yes, she was.
> I also refuse to testify, for example,
You can't refuse to testify if you haven't been called.
You might be inclined to refuse to testify, but that's not the same as actually refusing.
Congress can take the President to court and compel documents and testimony (or else face contempt of court and imprisonment like Manning). The House did exactly that for Nixon and Cliton.
For Trump, the House chose not to do that, because (I believe) it would slow them down, and that wasn't acceptable to them.
That said, I don't know what are they standing on to be able to do that without any court just sending them all to jail.
"The right of the president of the United States to withhold information from Congress or the courts."
The article you mentioned cites executive privilege multiple times, and describes how it is unclear what the boundaries are. Simply saying "The House issued a subpoena and therefore the executive branch must comply" is just as invalid as "The executive branch can ignore all subpoenas".
Can you help me find this thing please?
You said you didn't know what the DOJ/Trump administration was standing on to not comply with the congressional subpoenas. I explained they were standing on executive privilege.
As the article you linked described, the Trump administration was asserting executive privilege, and conflicts between congressional demands and executive privilege assertions need to be mediated by the courts ("But each of the emerging fights raises somewhat different legal questions that courts would have to sort through."). When the administration asserted privilege and declined to comply with House demands, the House chose proceed without court rulings, though courts probably would have compelled testimony about information previously revealed in the Mueller investigation.
For more authoritative sources than your NY Times article provides, executive privilege has been recognized in various supreme court decisions, particularly in military and diplomatic issues, even in cases where the court decided the privilege did not cover the material demanded (like U.S. v. Nixon https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/418/683/#tab-opi...).
Executive privilege began as early as 1792 in George Washington's first term, when he decided he had authority to withhold information demanded by congress. https://www.thoughtco.com/presidential-executive-privilege-3...
The ratified Articles of Impeachment were in fact (1) Perjury and (2) Obstruction of Justice (witness/evidence tampering).
I may have mistakenly characterized Clinton as explicitly withholding information by invoking executive privilege like Nixon and Trump, rather than deceptively doing so.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton#Ar...
I'm really curious about the actual legal reasoning behind this, it's got to be a fascinating read.
The full House has to authorize a committee to to conduct an impeachment investigation and to vest it with the proper authority before the subpoenas become enforceable. The Democrats never did this because in that case, the Republicans in the House would have been able to send out their own subpoenas.
See also:
https://www.scribd.com/document/443783939/OLC-Opinion-Judici...