The Impeachment of Donald Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

Also, the House is likely going to subpoena those witnesses regardless of the Senate (they didn't have them the first time around because it was working its way through the courts). So voters will still get to hear what the Senate tried to hide. Its not even out of the question that the House will approve additional articles of impeachment, though granted that's probably unlikely. The show trial hasn't made this go away- all it has done is utterly destroy the Senate's credibility.

We're going to hang this like an albatross around those fuckers' necks until it drags them down.

[bilateralrope]

Motion for witnesses fails, 51 to 49.

How the Republican party treats those Republicans that voted for witnesses can't look good for the party. Leave them alone and that angers off Trump supporters, punish them and is pisses off anyone who wanted a fair trial.

[The Romulan Republic]

Motion for witnesses fails, 51 to 49.

How the Republican party treats those Republicans that voted for witnesses can't look good for the party. Leave them alone and that angers off Trump supporters, punish them and is pisses off anyone who wanted a fair trial.

The one bit of comfort in all of this is that the Republicans basically walked into the no-win situation that the Democrats skillfully set up for them. The only question is whether that will ultimately matter enough in November.

[bilateralrope]

Motion for witnesses fails, 51 to 49.

How the Republican party treats those Republicans that voted for witnesses can't look good for the party. Leave them alone and that angers off Trump supporters, punish them and is pisses off anyone who wanted a fair trial.

The one bit of comfort in all of this is that the Republicans basically walked into the no-win situation that the Democrats skillfully set up for them. The only question is whether that will ultimately matter enough in November.

That's probably going to depend on what else comes out before the elections. Trump's taxes, the House subpoenaing witnesses the Senate refused to, etc.

I hope Pelosi has a plan.

[The Romulan Republic]

How the Republican party treats those Republicans that voted for witnesses can't look good for the party. Leave them alone and that angers off Trump supporters, punish them and is pisses off anyone who wanted a fair trial.

The one bit of comfort in all of this is that the Republicans basically walked into the no-win situation that the Democrats skillfully set up for them. The only question is whether that will ultimately matter enough in November.

That's probably going to depend on what else comes out before the elections. Trump's taxes, the House subpoenaing witnesses the Senate refused to, etc.

I hope Pelosi has a plan.

So far, there's been a pretty good drip-drip of information, with Bolton and Parnas.

The House will almost certainly subpoena Bolton and others that the Senate refused to call, and share in detail just what the Senate was trying to hide. Of course, the Republicans will say that the Democrats are trying to redo impeachment because they lost, that they should just let it go and get on with business, and a lot of Centrist media and some Centrist Democrats will likely echo that narrative. Whether it will work will depend on whether the anger of the voters (around 70% of whom wanted more witnesses and documents) will outweigh investigation fatigue. If the new revelations continue to be damaging, that will certainly help.

[The Romulan Republic]

A small loss for Trump, but one that will sting his ego- with the trial on hold until Monday, and closing arguments still to be made, the final vote won't be until Wednesday, which means that when Trump delivers the State of the Union on Tuesday, he won't be able to do so as an acquitted President, as he had hoped.

[Highlord Laan]

forcing the Republicans to show the American people exactly how corrupt they are on live television.

As if that will matter.

[The Romulan Republic]

forcing the Republicans to show the American people exactly how corrupt they are on live television.

As if that will matter.

Public opinion absolutely does matter. To some extent even in a dictatorship. Even if 95% of Americans are set in their views, that 5% could be the margin of victory or defeat.

Of course, you've made your support for mass bloodshed very clear before. So of course you will try to dismiss any other action as irrelevant.

[The Romulan Republic]

A number of Trump's lawyers are major donors to Republican Senators including Moscow Mitch:

https://salon.com/2020/01/29/trumps-leg ... ment-trial

President Trump's legal team made numerous campaign contributions to Republican senators overseeing the impeachment trial.

Former independent counsels Ken Starr and Robert Ray, who both investigated former President Bill Clinton ahead of his impeachment, contributed thousands of dollars to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last year before they joined the president's team, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics (CFPR).

Starr, who lamented that "we are living in … the age of impeachment" during the trial on Monday and accused Democrats of waging a "domestic war," gave $2,800 to McConnell in July 2019, according to CFPR.

Ray, who wanted to indict Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky affair but now claims Trump has been vindicated by the transcript of his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, contributed the maximum $5,600 to McConnell in September 2019, according to the report.

The contributions came months before McConnell bragged to Fox News host Sean Hannity that he would be in "total coordination with the White House counsel's office and the people who are representing the president in the well of the Senate."

"Everything I do during this, I'm coordinating with the White House counsel," he said. "There will be no difference between the president's position and our position as to how to handle this."

Starr also contributed $2,700 to Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., in 2017. Graham has been one of the most ardent Trump defenders in the Senate and previously pushed for Republicans to dismiss the impeachment charges against Trump without a trial.

Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow has contributed to multiple Republican senators over the last two decades, according to CFPR, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota. The right-wing Washington Times noted that "no Republican has been more active in defense of President Trump during the impeachment trial than Sen. Ted Cruz." Thune has accused Democrats of presenting an "especially partisan" case and rejected calls for new witnesses, arguing the record is "pretty complete."

Sekulow, White House counsel Pat Cipollone and deputy White House counsel Patrick Philbin all also gave thousands to Sen. Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign, according to CFPR. Ironically, Romney has been one of the most vocal Republicans pressing for former national security adviser John Bolton to testify after his leaked book manuscript blew up Trump's trial defense. Romney's comments drew criticism from fellow Republicans, like Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga., who accused him of trying to "appease the left" by "calling witnesses who will slander" Trump.

Trump himself came under fire after he launched a fundraising committee effort to raise money for vulnerable Republican senators ahead of his impeachment trial. Trump raised money for several vulnerable Republicans who expressed support for him ahead of the trial but snubbed others, including Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has said she may be open to witnesses.

Along with raising money for senators who will decide his fate, Trump has also been accused of threatening Republicans after a Trump confidant told CBS News that senators were warned: "vote against the president, and your head will be on a pike."

Senators like Collins vehemently denied that any Republican was threatened by Trump but Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., who is a member of Trump's defense team, confirmed to CBS News on Monday that any senator who votes against Trump may "face political repercussions."

"I mean listen, I don't want to speak for my Senate colleagues. But there are always political repercussions for every vote you take," Meadows said. "There is no vote that is higher profile than this."


IGOR DERYSH
Igor Derysh is a staff writer at Salon. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Boston Herald and Baltimore Sun.]

I guess because impeachment isn't a "real trial", flat-out bribing the jury is legal?

[The Romulan Republic]

Manchin is saying he's still "undecided"- my bet is he turns his coat again, same as he did on Kavanaugh. Which will let Trump crow about the "bipartisan support for acquittal".

https://cnn.com/2020/02/03/politics/joe ... index.html

I reiterate: if there is one case where I would say "Do not vote Democrat", it would be Manchin- not even if it costs us the Senate. I'd rather have a declared enemy in that seat than a turncoat wearing our colours, and discrediting us by the association. Most of the time I say let people vote as they please, don't demand absolute purity- but there are lines, and voting to put the President above the law for political reasons is one of them. Voting to make a perjurer and likely rapist the deciding vote on the Supreme Court is another.

However, he is advocating that the Senate censure Trump, saying he believes that would pass with a bipartisan majority.

I mean, its better than nothing, but its also a slap on the wrist compared to conviction.

[The Romulan Republic]

The mainstream has finally started to figure out, and acknowledge, that the goal of the Republican Party is dictatorship:

https://nytimes.com/2020/02/04/opinion/ ... hment.html

On Wednesday, the Senate will most likely vote to acquit President Trump. The vote should send shock waves through our democracy. It is not so much that the Senate is absolving him of all charges of obstruction of Congress and abuse of power; the shock waves should emanate from how his Republican allies go about it. By rejecting a conviction, the party will demonstrate that it believes anything goes in winning elections.

Most Republican senators have insisted that in pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, Mr. Trump did nothing wrong. A few say he crossed a line, but they have never explained why his actions fall short of conviction, or what it would take for them to consider a conviction.

Rather than reining in a president who clearly abused his power for personal gain, most Republicans have conceded to Mr. Trump’s overarching defense: that his re-election would serve the public interest. That argument was enough, for his Senate allies, to override campaign finance laws and the norms of governance that have prevailed in our country until this presidency.

This defense is a natural outgrowth of the unitary executive theory, a legal doctrine advanced by apologists for the imperial presidency, including Attorney General William Barr. It was Alan Dershowitz, the Harvard law professor representing Mr. Trump, who gave this idea its most outrageous frame: “Every public official that I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” he said. “And if a president does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment.”

If this were simply verbiage in service of his client, one might almost forgive Mr. Dershowitz for his claim. But Republican senators and other party leaders have embraced this theory as if our Constitution was in fact a pact to establish a monarchy. Roy Blunt of Missouri, a close ally of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, declared that Mr. Dershowitz had said the president’s actions were not impeachable, “and I don’t disagree with that.”

In other words, the core message from Senate Republicans is this: No matter how dangerous or incompetent any president might be, he or she has only to think that remaining in office serves our nation to justify any act to stay there.

Unlock more free articles.
Create an account or log in
This is a five-alarm fire for democracy. The Republican Party has aggressively sought to rig elections in its favor, including voter purging, vote suppression and gerrymandering. Paul Weyrich, co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Moral Majority, explained his support for vote suppression at an evangelical Christian campaign rally for Ronald Reagan in 1980. “Many of our Christians have what I call the ‘goo goo’ syndrome — good government,” he said. “They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people.”

That statement has been the foundation of the Republican approach to elections — ensure that only the people you want to vote can vote, and if you can’t win even with vote suppression, look the other way when Russians intervene. Mr. Trump’s defense in the Senate is in keeping with this no-holds-barred approach. Anything in service of victory is permissible.

This impeachment is as much about what happens in November as it is about Mr. Trump’s actions. With the Republicans in thrall to a demagogic leader, will it accept the results if Mr. Trump loses the election? Will Mr. Trump vacate the White House next Jan. 20, or will he claim that the election was a fraud?

Editors’ Picks
The Money Behind Trump’s Money
Mumbai Police Play a Trick on Honking Drivers
The Trans Actors Challenging Outmoded Ideas of Masculinity
Or even more likely, will allies in swing states like Florida, Ohio and Arizona contest results in favor of Mr. Trump’s opponent? We have already seen how Florida’s Republican governor and Legislature have thwarted the will of the voters, who last year approved a ballot initiative to allow former felons to vote: They enacted the equivalent of a poll tax, in defiance of the Constitution.

The time for those who believe in our Constitution and our democracy to act is now. We must prepare in every possible way to counter efforts by the Republicans and Mr. Trump to rig the coming election and to nullify it if they lose. While the statements during impeachment and the lock-step way the Republicans follow Mr. Trump might look like the temporary aberration of a party in the grip of a cult of personality, the roots of this anti-democratic impulse are much deeper. What Mr. Trump has laid bare is the true emptiness of the Republican Party’s commitment to fair elections and its antagonism to the rules of democracy.

If we don’t work now to prepare the public and the machinery of voting around the country for an end-run around our representative form of government, we shall be akin to nations like Russia, where elections are just cover for autocracy.

Caroline Fredrickson (@crfredrickson) is the author of “The Democracy Fix: How to Win the Fight for Fair Rules, Fair Courts and Fair Elections” and a senior fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.

[Dalton]

Mitt Romney has just announced that he will vote to CONVICT.

[EnterpriseSovereign]

Sadly it wasn't enough:

On the first count of impeachment, abuse of power, 52 Senators voted to acquit and 48 votes to convict.

Among those siding against the President on the first count was Republican Senator Mitt Romney, who said Trump was "guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust."

On the second count - obstruction of Congress - Senators voted 53 to 47 to acquit the President. Romney did not vote to convict on this count of impeachment.

Notably, Pelosi tore up her copy of Trump's State of the Union Address.

[Gandalf]

Romney's move is weird. Part of me thinks he's just gearing up for the party's eventual post Trump hangover, so he can jump into some plum role.

[Rogue 9]

Romney's move is weird. Part of me thinks he's just gearing up for the party's eventual post Trump hangover, so he can jump into some plum role.

Not likely. He was already disinvited from CPAC for voting to hear from witnesses. I think he was telling the truth when he said he took his oath of impartial justice seriously.

[The Romulan Republic]

Romney's a pretty old guy, and he's a failed Presidential candidate. I very much doubt he is ever going to rise above his current office. He's got a legacy to think of. He's also independently wealthy enough to fund his own campaign, and from a Republican state that has always been relatively cool on Trump. This is about as close as we'll get to a principled Republican Senator in this day and age.

I'm disgusted at the result, but we knew it was coming, and even in hindsight, I think we had to impeach. We had to send a message, to the voters and to posterity, that the rule of law matters. What matters now is getting the truth out and making sure the people know it come November. I'm glad Romney voted to convict on the first charge (though I'm disappointed by his voting to acquit on the second- it sends the message that the Congress is a subordinate branch of government, not an equal partner tasked with acting as a check on the executive). I'm also relieved that Manchin didn't turn his coat- that would have been a huge loss, as it would have let Trump claim a "bipartisan vote for acquittal", and been fuel for the "Democrats are just as bad as Republicans" narrative.

Sadly, this is probably pretty close to the best outcome we could have realistically hoped for at the outset. That every Democrat, even vulnerable red state Democrats, voted to convict (along with Romney on one count) speaks to the overwhelming strength of the House Democrats' case. That more Republicans didn't vote to convict speaks to the utter craven subservience of the party to Trump, and their contempt for democracy and the rule of law.

[The Romulan Republic]

From Robert Reich's Facebook page:

Minutes after Senate Republicans voted to acquit our lawless president, stamping out any illusion of checks and balances, the first impeached president in history to seek re-election just tweeted out a video showing him running for president indefinitely.

So, let’s review: An autocratic executive elected with a minority of the vote was just acquitted by a Senate also elected by a minority of the vote and a judiciary appointed by two presidents who, you guessed it, were elected by a minority of the vote. I think it’s safe to say the U.S. no longer qualifies as a democracy.

[gizmojumpjet]

Sadly, this is probably pretty close to the best outcome we could have realistically hoped for at the outset. That every Democrat, even vulnerable red state Democrats, voted to convict (along with Romney on one count) speaks to the overwhelming strength of the House Democrats' case. That more Republicans didn't vote to convict speaks to the utter craven subservience of the party to Trump, and their contempt for democracy and the rule of law.

Eye-watering levels of irony here lol.

[The Romulan Republic]

Sadly, this is probably pretty close to the best outcome we could have realistically hoped for at the outset. That every Democrat, even vulnerable red state Democrats, voted to convict (along with Romney on one count) speaks to the overwhelming strength of the House Democrats' case. That more Republicans didn't vote to convict speaks to the utter craven subservience of the party to Trump, and their contempt for democracy and the rule of law.

Eye-watering levels of irony here lol.

Your meaning?

[The Romulan Republic]

Republicans have announced their intent, in a move straight out of Soviet propaganda or 1984, to expunge the impeachment from the Congressional record if they regain the majority, despite it being flagrantly unconstitutional. They are also reportedly planning to impeach Joe Biden if he is elected President, presumably for the crime of Holding Office While a Democrat.

https://independent.co.uk/news/world/am ... 20291.html

Republicans are reportedly plotting a way to expunge Donald Trump’s impeachment should they regain control of the House of Representatives in 2020.

The idea comes on the heels of a months long process that Democrats began last year in the House, and has now led to the acquittal of Mr Trump after he became the third president to be impeached in US history.

Now, though, after being taunted by House speaker Nancy Pelosi that “impeachment lasts forever”, it appears that minority leader Kevin McCarthy wants to rewrite history should he take the gavel from the Democratic leader.

“This is the fastest, weakest, most political impeachment in history,” he told the New York Post, echoing a talking point he and other Republicans have used previously nearly word-for-word.

He continued: “I don’t think it should stay on the books.”

The comments came just before the Senate voted to acquit Mr Trump on both articles of impeachment he faced, with just one senator breaking ranks during the vote, Mitt Romney.

It is not clear that expunging Mr Trump’s impeachment will have much impact, according to constitutional law experts. While there may be some precedent — Republicans have noted that the House voted to expunge the censure of Andrew Jackson in 1837 — experts say any effort on that front would be largely symbolic.

“There’s nothing in the Constitution that provides for a procedure of expungement,” James Gardner, a law professor at the State University of New York at Buffalo, told The Independent.

“It would be of no significance. Certainly of no legal significance,” Mr Gardner said. “It might be of political significance.”

In an email, lawyer Jonathan Turley — the lone impeachment witness called by Republicans during the House trial last year — said a future expungement can only go so far.

"Expungement is more cathartic than constitutional. The President was impeached the minute a majority voted on Article I," he said. "Resurrection is a biblical not a constitutional concept. The House can express the view of that House as to the basis for impeachment, nothing more. It will create a record of its own but not alter the record of the prior Congress. "

Should the president’s record be expunged during the next Congress, it would likely mean that he also won re-election in the coming November elections.

Republicans have also promised to immediately begin impeachment proceedings against Joe Biden should be elected president.

In short, like all other Federal institutions, impeachment is now simply a tool to target the Dear Leader's enemies, and any record of a time when it was otherwise will be erased.

Only the removal of Trump from office, along with his collaborators in all levels of government, will avert this reality.