President Trump's Senate Impeachment Options - DISMISS or ACQUIT or FULL-BLOWN TRIAL.

a reply to: Goedhardt

Interestingly, dismissing the charges as Unconstitutional is what President Trump is leaning towards requesting now. Pelosi's lame-brain delay, has given White House attorney's time to do deep-digs into this option. It appears to be what Trump/McConnell going to attempt.

originally posted by: Xcalibur254
Rudy is spouting disinformation. Nixon v. United States established that the Supreme Court has no oversight over an impeachment trial. Furthermore, Abuse of Power is pretty much the prototypical high crime. So I fail to see how a charge of Abuse of Power does not meet the requirements laid out in the Constitution.

Obviously you know more about Constitutional Law (if that's what it's called) than most of us here on ATS. I'll just wait and see what Justice John Roberts says.

What's troubling about Roberts (for Republicans) is that he appointed Democrat-friendly judges to the FISA Court, and he tends to side with Democrats on the really important cases...like he did with keeping ObamaCare legal.

Regardless what option the senate chooses, the President will come out on top and the dEms will lose even more of their tiny support base

That much is undeniable

originally posted by: Breakthestreak
Regardless what option the senate chooses, the President will come out on top and the dEms will lose even more of their tiny support base
That much is undeniable

I would have thought the same thing until the FISA Court Revelation today. Justice Roberts picked Democrat-friendly justices. Justice Roberts will be issuing key rulings during the Senate's Impeachment Trial.

It can NOT be ignored that Roberts is potentially pro-corruption/anti-Trump.

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: Breakthestreak
Regardless what option the senate chooses, the President will come out on top and the dEms will lose even more of their tiny support base
That much is undeniable

I would have thought the same thing until the FISA Court Revelation today. Justice Roberts picked Democrat-friendly justices. Justice Roberts will be issuing key rulings during the Senate's Impeachment Trial.

It can NOT be ignored that Roberts is potentially pro-corruption/anti-Trump.

Yeah but still,

Even if he’s impeached he’s going to gain support and the left is going to lose support

The 2020 election, from my viewpoint, is still going to be a landslide

a reply to: carewemust

verdict.justia.com...

Is John Roberts a Closeted Never-Trumper? Reading Between the Lines of the Chief Justice’s Year-End Report

title of article and

Further Evidence from the Year-End Report The awkward fit between the Jay story and civic education is not the only piece of evidence that Roberts was aiming at the President. Surely Roberts knows of Trump’s use of Twitter to retweet conspiracy theories and falsehoods of his own invention. Anyone’s tweet or post has the potential to go viral, but the President’s own feed by definition spreads his views—and lies—on a “grand scale.” The Chief Justice must have known that others would read him to be criticizing the President and thus cannot be said to have unknowingly aimed at Trump. At the end of his report, Roberts returns to the Federalist Papers to celebrate but also to warn “we should also remember that justice is not inevitable. We,”—by which he means his judicial colleagues—“should reflect on our duty to judge without fear or favor, deciding each matter with humility, integrity, and dispatch.” In many contexts, such sentiments would be clichéd. But here too it is fairly easy to read between the lines and see a not-so-veiled critique of the President. Why isn’t justice inevitable? Whom do life-tenured judges have to fear? In our time, the answers to the second question and thus the first are clear: a President who demonizes and seeks to delegitimize all institutions and individuals who invoke laws and norms to block his own venal and fickle will. The Limits of Roberts as a Member of the Resistance In a column last month, I praised Chief Justice Roberts for pushing back against Trump’s effort to undercut the force of a ruling against him by describing it as coming from an “Obama judge.” Roberts responded that there are no “Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” If I am right in reading the year-end report as further, albeit tacit, resistance to Trump’s threat to the independent judiciary and other institutions of American democracy, then I would praise Roberts again.

so there is this to ponder

www.scotusblog.com... here is scotus blogs take on what powers roberts actually has and why he presides vs the vice president who is presiding officer of the senate technically while being next in line for presidency so the founders viewed it as a possible conflict of interest . this will be a long snippit but its all in context

Despite the formal powerlessness of the role, one could imagine a chief justice thrust into the presiding officer seat who wanted to make a principled statement about the constitutional merits of the case against the president, even if that statement flew in the face of the preferences of a senatorial majority. Such a chief justice might take every available opportunity to rule in favor of, for example, the issuance of subpoenas or the production of witnesses and documents by the president. It seems improbable that Roberts would take this course. Whatever his personal views about Trump, his most likely priority will be to avoid any appearance of partiality, which might imperil his own posture of judicial neutrality and with it the Supreme Court’s institutional legitimacy. Happily for the chief justice, the Senate rules give him an easy way of avoiding any expression of view on any difficult issue. Whenever presented with a question on the admissibility of evidence, the presiding officer need not even make a provisional ruling but instead can immediately “submit any such question to a vote of the Members of the Senate” (Rule VII). What little precedent we have in such cases suggests that chief justices keep their heads down and, so far as possible, defer assiduously to the will of the Senate majority. In the 1868 trial of President Andrew Johnson (which was a real trial, with extensive witness testimony and presentation of exhibits), Chief Justice Salmon Chase was consistently deferential to the Senate, often making provisional rulings and immediately inviting senators to register dissent. Chief Justice William Rehnquist was similarly meek during the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, although he was called upon to do less because the case was effectively submitted to the Senate on stipulated facts. The exceptional degree of partisanship that has characterized the Trump impeachment may counsel even greater caution from Roberts.

this is about a 1/3rd of the article but it has more stuff i sort of covered with my own words and more stuff below so basically roberts has almost no power and would do best to appear as non biased as possible for either side

a reply to: carewemust
every single of his rulings can be overruled by a simple majority vote by the senate, and unlike his tie breaker role pence will be needed so he too is kind of token in this situation least for removal BUT if there is a tie for weather or not to keep something in or not he will i THINK retain his tie breaker role in simple majority votes

www.elitedaily.com...

It's unclear how much leverage Democrats would actually gain by doing this, especially because McConnell has said that he is in no rush to conduct an impeachment trial. McConnell and other Republican leaders have been advocating for a brief trial without witnesses, on the basis that any witnesses called by Democrats could be damaging to Trump's case. Once the impeachment process moves to the Senate, Republican senators hope to move the trial along quickly and acquit Trump so that he can serve out the remainder of his term and continue his reelection bid.

the article only talks about how hes unlikely to be able to vote on impeachment for obvious reasons but leaves unclear my theory on him being able to be a tie breaker for majority votes which would require more defections then i think even possible for the republican senate

originally posted by: Breakthestreak

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: Breakthestreak
Regardless what option the senate chooses, the President will come out on top and the dEms will lose even more of their tiny support base
That much is undeniable

I would have thought the same thing until the FISA Court Revelation today. Justice Roberts picked Democrat-friendly justices. Justice Roberts will be issuing key rulings during the Senate's Impeachment Trial.

It can NOT be ignored that Roberts is potentially pro-corruption/anti-Trump.

Yeah but still,
Even if he’s impeached he’s going to gain support and the left is going to lose support
The 2020 election, from my viewpoint, is still going to be a landslide

I thought If the Senate concurs with the House, and Impeaches a President, that President is removed from office?

a reply to: carewemust

once the house sends the case to the senate he is impeached , the senate is the one that decides to either acquit ,remove from office, or censure(slap on the wrist basically) the president only removing him from office results in his removal

a reply to: RalagaNarHallas

Thank-you for the information about Robert's role. If he's not going to play an active role in decision making, he may as well not show up. Personally, I think John Roberts has a little of "show boat" James Comey in him. We'll know by the end of the week. Thanks again for the valuable insight!

a reply to: RalagaNarHallas

With Bill Clinton, did the Senate Acquit, or Censure him. We know he wasn't Removed.

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: Breakthestreak

originally posted by: carewemust

originally posted by: Breakthestreak
Regardless what option the senate chooses, the President will come out on top and the dEms will lose even more of their tiny support base
That much is undeniable

I would have thought the same thing until the FISA Court Revelation today. Justice Roberts picked Democrat-friendly justices. Justice Roberts will be issuing key rulings during the Senate's Impeachment Trial.

It can NOT be ignored that Roberts is potentially pro-corruption/anti-Trump.

Yeah but still,
Even if he’s impeached he’s going to gain support and the left is going to lose support
The 2020 election, from my viewpoint, is still going to be a landslide

I thought If the Senate concurs with the House, and Impeaches a President, that President is removed from office?

They can do

But they won’t remove a President for such a menial infringement

a reply to: carewemust

He was acquitted.

This was the final play for the Democrats and she played along even though she did not want to. However, there is a higher power that tells Ms. Pelosi how to vote and when to handle delicate things like this and the only reason was to prolong the news cycle. However, the news cycle grew tired and then Iran showed its ass.

While the world watched the POTUS did was he should and there was no escalation. Any other elected official right now would be praised for what happened and should be. Any one it is not just who is in office now. Judgement.

I have said it over and over. We had naval ships taken over by Iran and our SecState apologized...then we sent them the cash that continue fund what we just ended.

The days of apology should be behind the US at this point.

a reply to: carewemust

www.npr.org... from Clintons impeachment this was Rehnquist reaction when he found out he could not even turn his own mic on

Yet under Senate rules, it is the senators themselves who have the first and last word. They establish the procedures for the trial and can, by majority vote, overturn any of the chief justice's rulings. The extent of the chief's powerlessness was driven home to Chief Justice William Rehnquist at the beginning of President Bill Clinton's Senate impeachment trial in 1999.When Rehnquist asked Senate Sergeant at Arms James Ziglar how to turn on his microphone, Ziglar replied, "You don't. We control that." "I don't know if 'shock' is the right word," Ziglar recalls, but Rehnquist certainly had "a sense of dismay" that even though he was going to be the presiding officer at the trial, "he really had absolutely no control of his courtroom."

so its basically to have some one other preside over it who is Not in line of succession and who generally is regarded as one of the highest judges in the USA but more mostly a figure head role and second snippit mostly because of its historical irony Roberts clerked under Rehnquist who him self wrote a book on impeachment and apparently reveled (non biased) in being a part of history in the topic of impeachment

Rather, he is likely to use as his role model the man he once clerked for, Rehnquist. Rehnquist was no stranger to the subject of impeachment. He had written a book about the 1868 impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson, and just five years before presiding over the Clinton trial in the Senate, he had written the Supreme Court's decision declaring that under the Constitution, the courts have no power to dictate the Senate rules in an impeachment proceeding. As the presiding officer at the Clinton trial, Rehnquist relied heavily on the Senate parliamentarians for guidance. "I think he enjoyed sort of being part of history in that sense. But he understood he had a very limited role," says Robert Schaffer, one of Rehnquist's law clerks back then. Washington University law professor Neil Richards, another former clerk, recalls that "no matter how boring or tedious the proceedings," the chief justice knew that even that limited role was important.On a few occasions, Rehnquist did make rulings, none of them overturned by the senators. When Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa objected to one of the lawyers referring to the senators as jurors, Rehnquist replied this way: "The chair is of the view that the objection ... is well taken, that the Senate is not simply a jury; it is a court in this case. Therefore counsel should refrain from referring to the senators as jurors."

so he pretty much only had one objection to one of his rulings and it was a simple grammatical one do not call the senators Jurors for they they selves the court in this matter .

the article also goes on to a semi heartwarming part about when the senate Sargent at arms a former law clerk him self walked in on the chief justice of SCOTUS gambling with his four clerks and pointed out that it was Technically illegal for them to be gambling ,so he walked out and when he returned the pennies and nickles had been replaced with pieces of paper,i mean how many people get to lecture any SCOTUS justice let alone the Chief justice on law and actually be right and do so in a way that they didn't take offense and actually took the advice of some one far below there own station?

i end with one more tiny snippet just because it sums up my point the best

He likely will aspire to Rehnquist's puckish evaluation of his own role in the 1999 Senate trial. Borrowing a line from Gilbert and Sullivan's play Iolanthe, Rehnquist opined, "I did nothing in particular and did it very well."

so from what little i know about the former chief justice he seemed like a pretty chill and down to earth guy

a reply to: matafuchs

Now I'm starting to lean away from a full-trial, and more towards wanting a dismissal, based on the 2 petty impeachment articles not rising to the level of high-crimes or misdemeanors.

This would erase the House impeachment....like it never happened.

Want to see Pelosi, Schiff, 90% of the MSM do a total, complete MELT DOWN? A "dismissal" would be glorious for President Trump, and for those of us who would love seeing anti-Trump Democrats, and anti-Trump Media, babbling in disbelief.

A "trial" will just be more lies and the same old garbage we have all seen.

Have it dismissed outright or vote on it.

a reply to: carewemust

Its a puppet theatre

Since the recent picks of who's going to be running the show I don't know about the court thing. It seems pretty heavily Democrat again, and while I don't care much for either of the two parties I feel like there should be more of a balance.

originally posted by: Phoenix

originally posted by: chr0naut
a reply to: carewemust

It seems odd to me that someone thinks that what Biden did, could somehow excuse Trump from what he did.

If the Biden's and others were involved in laundering foreign aid to Ukraine it doesn't matter that Joe Biden is a Democrat party candidate who from my view choose to run as cover anyway knowing full well Ukraine would fast become an issue.

Holding foreign aid until sure U.S. taxpayer money not used for graft, corruption and backdoor party donation was in perfect order.

I personally think the stink from Ukraine will be found on most foreign aid money across the board and when that happens many heads will roll - why impeachment distraction. why TDS, why crazy level vehemence from certain politicians and department of government.

I firmly go with option three, blow the lid off this thing once and for all.

But surely if Joe Biden was doing that, then he was committing a crime in the US. So investigating him in the Ukraine would not show proper evidence of the US located crime. The evidence of the crime would be where it was committed. and would show his instructions to staff and the paper trail of its implementation.

We know Joe Biden threatened to hold up aid to the Ukraine, to pressure the Ukrainian authorities. but the evidence for that would be what Biden did and said in the US.

Joe Biden is a US citizen and was in the US at the time. It makes sense to investigate him there.

And then we have the issue of motive. Could Biden's strong-arming the Ukrainians have had the result of directly smearing
the reputation of a political opponent in the US, and therefore gaining political advantage through innuendo? How about with Trump? When he asked for the investigation, did he actually have evidence of wrongdoing and if so, surely there are avenues for investigation via the DOJ, which would actually be able to gather the relevant evidence and to prosecute a national.

originally posted by: TheRedneck
a reply to: chr0naut

You will ignore everything I say; I am aware of that. But I present this rebuttal for other readers.

It seems odd to me that someone thinks that what Biden did, could somehow excuse Trump from what he did.

You are ignoring some key aspects of the case against Trump. There is nothing illegal, immoral, of unconstitutional about a sitting President asking a foreign leader to assistance in an investigation, especially when a major aspect of that investigation is under their jurisdiction. It is actually the President's duty to do so. The claim being made by the House Democrats (and you) is that Trump's purpose was to interfere with the 2020 elections by investigating an opposing candidate for political reasons.

It therefore follows that if there were legitimate non-political reasons to investigate the Bidens, the case against Trump has no merit. One may refute a malicious prosecution case (which this is) by simply showing that the prosecution was legitimate.

Thus, whatever corruption there may be surrounding Joe and Hunter Biden is extremely relevant to the case. It is not a case of "what Joe Biden did doesn't affect what Trump did"... it's a case of "did Trump have reason to ask for assistance with an investigation into Hunter Biden's activities in Ukraine?"

1. If Bill Clinton's impeachment is valid, and he simply lied about sexual indiscretion, then there is precedent that defines what Trump has done as within the remit of high crimes AND misdemeanors (I have highlighted the word 'and' to emphasize that even a minor misdemeanor is included as grounds for impeachment under the Constitution). The implication that only a high crime is impeachable ignores what is plainly written in the Constitution. There is no such thing as a 'high misdemeanor', if one were to try and argue that point. A misdemeanor is, by definition, of less 'criminality' than a high crime.

Several points here. First, the qualifier "high" is not limited to the noun "crimes." It may be applied to both "crimes" and "misdemeanors," depending on one's interpretation. Documents from the Founding Fathers indicate that this is the correct interpretation, as does simple logic. Jaywalking is a misdemeanor... so under your interpretation, jaywalking is cause for impeachment.

Misdemeanors are not crimes in the wording used in the Constitution. This is apparent by the wording itself: if misdemeanors also mean "lesser crimes," then there would have been no need for the word "and." "High crimes" would have covered it. Thus, a misdemeanor meant an action that was not a crime, but which was morally reprehensible and harmful to society.

"High" as is used in this case does mean mean "serious." It means "by reason of high office." There are some things that a sitting President can do which may not even be crimes per se, but are highly damaging to the country by virtue of the fact that the President is doing them. It is not illegal to be sloppy, falling-down drunk, for instance, but being sloppy, falling-down drunk during a crisis could prove a danger to the country. There are also things that are crimes, but cannot be committed by people not in high office. I cannot promise a foreign leader foreign aid if I get a campaign contribution... well, if I did it would be laughable anyway... but a President or even a Congressman can. Thus, doing so while in office would be a "high crime" and being sloppy, falling-down drunk would be a "high misdemeanor."

Bill Clinton did not just lie; Bill Clinton lied under oath. There is a difference. I can be held criminally liable for lying under oath on a witness stand; I cannot be held criminally liable for lying while talking to an acquaintance (good thing for you or you would be facing life in prison for all the "misdemeanors" you have already racked up here).

Finally, if we are going by the Clinton case, then since Bil Clinton was acquitted, so should Donald Trump be acquitted.

2. The Senate must try the case. The Senate are not the judge but sit as jurors. They cannot simply throw out the trial in the same way that jurors cannot stop a trial.

The OP did not say the Senate should "throw out" the case or stop the trial. It said that the Senate should acquit. That is exactly what a jury does: they either convict or acquit.

The Senate also sets the rules of the trial within Constitutional bounds. These rules can state that the Senate may stop the trial and vote to acquit for lack of evidence when the defense has rested its case. This is a common tactic used in courtrooms.

3. The trial must be a full trial. It isn't a popularity vote and evidence must be presented and evaluated. Even if the Bidens had done something wrong, Trump was using a foreign national to attempt to interfere with the 2020 elections by discrediting his opponent.

It does have to be a full and fair trial. That means statements like the one you just made are not allowed. One cannot simply walk into a court and start tossing out accusations without evidence, and the defense always has the right to rebut any evidence presented. There is no evidence that Trump was attempting to investigate a political opponent. He was recommending an investigation into Hunter Biden, not Joe Biden. These are two different people. Joe Biden is also not Donald Trump's opposition in 2020. He may be, or he may not be... the Democratic primaries will tell us that, but they have not been held yet.

You discount evidence and facts that dispute your narrative, while trying to press a narrative that has no evidence of facts supporting it. Is that what you call a "fair trial" over there? If I were to base my opinion of your country on your posts and statements, I would consider New Zealand to be some crime-riddled, uber-corrupt example of a third-world hell hole... luckily, there are other posters on here that counter your attempts to make others believe that. You should realize the extreme disservice you do your countrymen.

TheRedneck

If some evidence of corruption directly involving Joe Biden was discovered in the Ukraine, do the Ukrainians have jurisdiction to prosecute?

Surely if Joe Biden did something against the law, the evidence and the prosecution of the case would best be done where the crime was committed and where there was evidence. What transpired in a country where he was not present is not going to deliver strong evidence, and where it could be discounted as hearsay.