DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Palus Politicus Trump Impeachment 2.0

I understand the outrage of young people. At your age you should have outgrown that by now.

You're the one who agreed that there were "more important things" than holding accountable the man who orchestrated an attempted takeover of our government, not me. Step up and own it instead of pointing the finger at someone else.

For the first time in the history of the USA there was not a peaceful transition of power. Whether folks want to get on board with the insurrection verbiage or not, protesters gathered under the fake premise that the election had been stolen and tried to stop the process of Biden being confirmed as the winner of the election. Protesters - fueled by Trump's lies and tweets - ran through the Capitol Building screaming to Hang Mike Pence.

Posters can brush that off as the new norm and nothing to worry about if they want. Those that want to think critically (as one poster has mentioned recently) will think it's worth trying to ensure this never happens again instead of looking the other way.

...and you'd be wrong, imo.

These proceedings are driven by far more than simple animus for a single person. Evidence shows us that this individual fomented a deadly insurrection that led frenzied citizens to directly attack the very heart of our government and democracy. There is no issue more important than that.

This trial not only promotes accountability, it also sets precedent, and establishes a standard under which future presidents will be held. A mob of rioters attacked the Capitol, stormed through its hallways coming within yards of targeted legislators in an attempt to overthrow those who would certify the election. They erected a gallows on the steps of the US seat of government with the full intent of stretching the necks of anyone they deemed to be a foe of the outgoing POTUS.

This must be done, it must be done now, and it must be done for the future of our nation. And here's why: we barely survived this presidential term because the architect was so stunningly stupid. The next would-be demagogue will most likely be more intelligent, disciplined and tactical than this one... and America would not survive another term such as this.

Those people you are so concerned with have a much better chance of getting help in a democracy than a dictatorship. So, first things first: stabilize the country, hold the criminals accountable, and display for all Americans the willingness to stand up against tyrants. If this individual is held responsible in the court of public opinion, it will act as a deterrent for future aspirants.

Besides, there is nothing that says America can't help those in need and punish wrongdoers at the same time. She has been doing it since 1776.

.02

Well said. Now all you need to do is believe that then President Trump directed their actions.

With all of the evidence you would have to convince yourself that he didn't.

Legit question for you:

If - through witness testimony it is shown that Trump heard about the violence and storming of the Capitol Building. Was asked by Trump allies and Republicans to [A] Send support & the National Guard [B] Directly address the insurgents and tell them to stand down/stop [C] Tweet the same ..... but instead he did nothing by watched the process AND had himself or Rudy and/or others reach out to Republican Allies and asked them to use the occupation to delay and not to certify State votes for Biden ....

What is your opinion at that point? I mean we KNNOW there was no protest without Trump's lies and fake claims of a stolen election which he began MONTHS AGO. We know they were gahtered specifically at that time and day because of Trump.... That's fact.

What happens in the scenario where witnesses testify that Trump did nothing to stop the occupation for 3 hours or more, and used that time to ask others to continue the delay?

I mean you can always wimp out and say you don't want to answer a hypothetical question if it means you have to say he's guilty, right?

After Nov. 3 2020 we don't know what this illegitimate government is capable of.

You are a laugh a minute. Bless. But I think it's time for you to go on ignore. Hopefully one of the rationale Trump supporters can walk you back at some point.

JC

Well, today is the day that killed our country as today is the day that Republicans set the precedent that a president can do whatever they want at the end of their term as there isn’t time to impeach them in time and hold them accountable.

I find it hilarious that their main argument is that this was both “rushed” and at the same time “illegitimate because he’s out of office”

Future presidents all get a get out of jail free card at the end of their terms and that is very dangerous, for both Democrats and Republicans.

SDNY says otherwise.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/georgia-district-attorney-starts-circling-152016982.html



The New York Times
In Georgia, a New District Attorney Starts Circling Trump and His Allies

After six weeks as a district attorney, Fani T. Willis is taking on a former president.

And not just that. In an interview about her newly announced criminal investigation into election interference in Georgia, Willis, the district attorney of Fulton County, made it clear that the scope of her inquiry would encompass the pressure campaign on state officials by former President Donald Trump as well as the activities of his allies.

“An investigation is like an onion,” she said. “You never know. You pull something back, and then you find something else.”

Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times

She added, “Anything that is relevant to attempts to interfere with the Georgia election will be subject to review.”

Willis, whose jurisdiction encompasses much of Atlanta, has suddenly become a new player in the post-presidency of Trump. She will decide whether to bring criminal charges over Trump’s phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” votes to erase the former president’s loss there, and other efforts by Trump allies to overturn the election results. The severity of the legal threat to Trump is not yet clear, but Willis has started laying out some details about the inquiry.

She and her office have indicated that the investigation will include Sen. Lindsey Graham’s phone call to Raffensperger in November about mail-in ballots; the abrupt removal last month of Byung J. Pak, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, who earned Trump’s enmity for not advancing his debunked assertions about election fraud; and the false claims that Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, made before state legislative committees.

She laid out an array of possible criminal charges in letters sent to state officials and agencies asking them to preserve documents, providing a partial map of the potential exposure of Trump and his allies. Trump’s calls to state officials urging them to subvert the election, for instance, could run afoul of a Georgia statute dealing with “criminal solicitation to commit election fraud,” one of the charges outlined in the letters, which if prosecuted as a felony is punishable by at least a year in prison.

The misinformation spread by Giuliani could prove problematic, as Willis said in her letters that she would review “the making of false statements to state and local governmental bodies.” Georgia law bars “any false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement” within “the jurisdiction of any department or agency of state government.”

Willis is also open to considering not just conspiracy but racketeering charges. As she put it in the interview, racketeering could apply to anyone who uses a legal entity — presumably anything from a government agency to that person’s own public office — to conduct overt acts for an illegal purpose. In this case, it applies to the pressure the president and his allies exerted on Georgia officials to overturn the election.

Willis has brought a novel racketeering case before. In 2014, as an assistant district attorney, she helped lead a high-profile criminal trial against a group of educators in the Atlanta public school system who had been involved in a widespread cheating scandal.

Racketeering cases tend to make people think of mob bosses, who have often been targets of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, known as RICO, since it was enacted in 1970. Asked how racketeering applied in the cheating scandal and in an election case, Willis said, “I always tell people when they hear the word racketeering, they think of ‘The Godfather,’” but she noted that it could also extend to otherwise lawful organizations that are used to break the law.

“If you have various overt acts for an illegal purpose, I think you can — you may — get there,” she said.

Willis, 49, who easily won election last year, is the daughter of an activist defense lawyer who was a member of the Black Panthers, and she is also a veteran prosecutor who has carved out a centrist record. She views the case before her as a critical task.

“It is really not a choice — to me, it’s an obligation,” she said. “Each DA in the country has a certain jurisdiction that they’re responsible for. If alleged crime happens within their jurisdiction, I think they have a duty to investigate it.”

For their part, Trump and his allies are girding for a second criminal investigation, alongside an ongoing fraud inquiry before a grand jury in Manhattan. This past week, Jason Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, called the Georgia investigation “simply the Democrats’ latest attempt to score political points by continuing their witch hunt against President Trump, and everybody sees through it.”

Willis has many challenges before her, and not just relating to this inquiry. She replaced a controversial prosecutor who faced lawsuits accusing him of sexual harassment. In an overhaul of her office’s anti-corruption unit, which will handle the Trump investigation, she removed all eight lawyers and has since hired four, with a fifth on the way. The police in Atlanta, as elsewhere, are both maligned and demoralized, and 2020 was one of Atlanta’s deadliest years in decades. She must also decide how to proceed with the case of Rayshard Brooks, a Black man fatally shot by a white police officer last year.

“I have 182 open, unindicted homicides involving 222 defendants,” she said. “I have a sex crime unit that is backed up. But I am very capable of identifying great people to work in this office who are dedicated to the cause of making this county safer, and I do not get to be derelict in my duty, because I have other responsibilities.”

Clark D. Cunningham, a law professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, said it appeared that Willis might be “pulling out all the stops” for the Trump case, “because of the range of the types of crimes that are mentioned in that letter,” he said, adding, “and particularly the talk about racketeering and conspiracy.”

The pressure campaign to overturn the Georgia election results began on Nov. 13, when Graham, a Trump ally from South Carolina, made a phone call to Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state. Raffensperger, a Republican, later said that Graham had asked him if he had the authority to throw out all mail-in votes from particular counties, a suggestion the secretary of state rebuffed. (Graham disputed Raffensperger’s account.)

On Dec. 3, Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, made an appearance before a Georgia state Senate committee, saying that “there’s more than ample evidence to conclude this election was a sham,” and laid out a number of false claims. Two days later, Trump called Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, to press him to call a special session of the legislature to overturn the election. Trump then called Georgia’s Republican attorney general, Chris Carr, and pressured him not to oppose a legal attempt to challenge the elections results in Georgia and other swing states.

Because of the flurry of Trump calls, Willis said she believes that she is the only official with jurisdiction who does not have a conflict of interest. As she wrote in her letters to other public officials, “this office is the one agency with jurisdiction that is not a witness to the conduct that is the subject of the investigation.”

Even after Raffensperger recertified the election results on Dec. 7, Trump’s efforts intensified. Three days later, Giuliani testified virtually before a state House committee, repeating false claims that poll workers at an Atlanta arena had counted improper ballots stuffed in suitcases, when they were simply using the normal storage containers. “They look like they’re passing out dope,” he said during the hearing.

Gabriel Sterling, a top aide to Raffensperger, has derided the claims as a ridiculous, “‘Oceans 11’ type scheme,” adding, “This has been thoroughly debunked.”

Giuliani returned on Dec. 30, telling a Senate committee, “You had 10,315 people that we can determine from obituaries were dead when they voted,” and adding: “So, right away, that number you submitted to Washington is a lie. It’s not true! It’s false!” The numbers, however, were farcical; state officials have found only two instances in which votes were cast in the names of people who had died.

The pressure campaign culminated when Trump himself called Raffensperger on Jan. 2. “I just want to find 11,780 votes,” Trump said on the call, fruitlessly searching for ways to reverse his election loss.

Willis is also reviewing the departure of Pak, a Trump appointee. Shortly before Pak’s resignation, Trump’s acting deputy attorney general, Richard Donoghue, told Pak that the president was unhappy that he wasn’t pursuing voter fraud cases.

Willis has said that her office would request subpoenas “as necessary” when the next Fulton County grand jury convenes in March.

She appears undaunted. As she put it, “this is not a 9-to-5 job.” For her, lawyering is a family calling. Her father is John Clifford Floyd III, a longtime civil rights activist and defense lawyer.

“My dad was a single father that raised me,” she said. When she was a young girl in Washington, D.C., she said, her father would take her to court with him on Saturday mornings as he took on new clients who had been arrested the previous night.

“There was an old white Irish judge,” she recalled. “He would let me come sit up on the bench with him,” she recalled. While she was on his lap, the judge would ask her, “should we send them home, or are they going to the back?”

She decided then that she wanted to be a judge, but her father explained that she had to be a lawyer first. So her career ambition was set. While she embraces some of the prosecutorial reform efforts favored by the left, including diversion programs that keep some offenders out of jail, Willis has also said that she has a “conservative side” that separates her from the new wave of progressive prosecutors.

Heretofore, she has been best known for the Atlanta school case, in which 11 educators were convicted of racketeering and other crimes. The case drew criticism in some quarters for overreach.

“I’ve been criticized a lot for that case, but I’m going to tell you what I tell people if I’m taking criticism for defending poor Black children, because that’s mainly what we were talking about,” she said. The only chance many such children have to get ahead is through the public education system, she said, adding, “So if what I am being criticized for is doing something to protect people that did not have a voice for themselves, I sit in that criticism, and y’all can put it in my obituary.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

https://twitter.com/seungminkim/status/1360692207079022594/photo/1

This is a link to Senator Burr's letter on why he voted to convict trump
Sorry I don't know how to post a tweet - this was my 1st attempt and I failed miserably

0, yet they won't stop, for anything.

Hatred gets you no where.

This government is more interested in personal agendas and hate then finding solutions for the
Betterment of the nation

Glad you're down with not holding people accountable.

trumps own impeachment attorneys said he should be taken to court over this.

The problem is, I'm not 'down' with that. The issue is, regardless of what the libs said, Trump did nothing wrong. I'm sorry you're 'down with' convicting someone using only half truths, and lies. And the garbage msm presents you.

This from the same guy that thought the Jussie Smollett punishment was fine.

Acquitted.

LOLOLOLOLOL

Today may very well be the day that American Democracy fell. I'm not interested in what trumpian sycophants have to say anymore. Just take your scarlet T on the way out the door and try to avoid "Cancel Culture" from here on out... I'd wish you good luck with that but I really just don't care what happens to you. The cult of Trump and their leader are the antithesis of traditional American values, especially patriotism.

Seems like many Republican Senators, even those that votes to acquit, disagree with you.


Senate acquits Trump for 2nd time, as 7 Republicans join Democrats in guilty vote
Jon Ward·Senior Political Correspondent
Sat, February 13, 2021, 4:12 PM


The U.S. Senate voted Saturday to acquit former President Trump on a charge of “incitement of insurrection” in connection with the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol by his supporters, concluding the second impeachment trial of his term in office. A majority of senators found Trump guilty, but the vote fell short of the two-thirds margin required to convict.

A total of 57 Senators voted to convict Trump of the impeachment article brought by the U.S. House of Representatives, with seven Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in the chamber. It was the most bipartisan impeachment vote of the five in the nation’s history. Trump claimed in a statement that it was “the greatest witch hunt in the history of our country.”

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, issued a blistering speech on the Senate floor just after the vote in which he lashed Trump and said he held him directly and uniquely responsible for the riotous insurrection.

“There is no question — none — that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day. No question about it,” McConnell said. “The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their president. And having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories and reckless hyperbole which the defeated president kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet earth.”

And McConnell went through the defenses mounted by Trump’s attorneys, dismissing each. He expressed agreement with many of the House manager’s arguments.

McConnell also dismissed the Trump attorney’s claim that impeachment was an attempt “to disenfranchise 74 million-plus American voters” who voted for Trump in the 2020 election.

“That’s an absurd deflection,” McConnell said. “74 million americans did not invade the Capitol. Hundreds of rioters did. 74 million americans did not engineer the campaign of disinformation and rage ... One person did. Just one.”

But in the end, after “intense reflection,” McConnell said he ended up concluding the Constitution did not allow the Senate to convict a former president. The irony is that McConnell on Jan. 13 rejected talk of beginning the Senate trial immediately while Trump was still president.

Sen. Ben Sasse, R-NE, one of the seven Republicans who voted to convict, addressed this Constitutional question directly in a statement.

"This trial is constitutional because the president abused his power while in office and the House of Representatives impeached him while he was still in office," Sasse said. "If Congress cannot forcefully respond to an intimidation attack on Article I instigated by the head of Article II, our constitutional balance will be permanently tilted. A weak and timid Congress will increasingly submit to an emboldened and empowered presidency. That’s unacceptable."

McConnell was not the only Republican who cast a "not guilty" vote who then issued statements condemning Trump's actions and holding him responsible for the insurrection.

"The actions and reactions of President Trump were disgraceful, and history will judge him harshly," said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-WV.

Minority Whip John Thune, R-SD, said: “My vote to acquit should not be viewed as exoneration for [Trump’s conduct on January 6, 2021, or in the days and weeks leading up to it. What former President Trump did to undermine faith in our election system and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power is inexcusable.

Saturday’s vote marked the second time Trump was both impeached in the House and then acquitted in the Senate, with the first coming one year and one week ago.

A month ago, however, Congress had moved ahead with the second impeachment on the assumption that there was a real possibility the Senate would convict him and bar him from holding future office. The events of Jan. 6 were unspeakably horrific, and many Republicans openly blamed Trump for sparking the insurrection.

At that time, McConnell signaled he wanted an impeachment and that he was open to voting to convict. McConnell was one of just many Republicans who minced no words in holding Trump directly responsible for the violent and deadly attack that left 5 dead, including one police officer, and injured scores, including around 150 police.

Trump lied for months to his supporters that the election was stolen, disregarding over 60 court cases that found no evidence of cheating, and summoned his supporters on Jan. 6

But within days, political considerations began to push their way back into the minds of many Republican members of Congress. And it dawned on many of them that Trump and right-wing media organs that support him still controlled how many Republican voters view reality. The conclusion: many of them would lose their jobs if they voted to hold Trump accountable.

And so just a week after the vicious and unprecedented assault on democracy, only 10 House Republicans voted to impeach Trump, rather than the flood that appeared ready to do so in the hours after Jan. 6, when lawmakers of both parties feared for their lives as the mob ransacked the Capitol.

McConnell, who holds significant sway over other Senate Republicans, began to waffle, and on Jan. 26 he voted that it was unconstitutional for the Senate to hold a trial for a former president.

Still, other Republicans and the public remained in suspense over what McConnell might do, even if it appeared increasingly unlikely he would vote to convict. And then on Saturday morning, the Kentucky Republican confirmed it: he would vote to acquit, even though he did say it was a “close call.”

For roughly two hours on Saturday morning, it appeared that the trial would extend for more than one day, and possibly for weeks or longer. House managers proposed calling witnesses, and the Senate approved the request by a vote of 55-to-45.

But after it became clear that it would require 60 votes to actually approve the rules for calling witnesses, the managers backed off. Hardline Trump loyalists such as Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, had made it clear they would seek to bog the Senate down to a grinding halt and not allow the Senate to do any other business other than the trial, turning it into a partisan circus and blocking progress on a COVID relief bill.

During closing arguments, Rep. Joe Neguse, D-Colo., gave a stirring speech in which he dismissed the defense of Trump’s attorneys as a collection of “distractions and excuses” and pleaded with Republican senators to put the country’s welfare above their own political interests.

“The consequence of not doing so is just too great,” Neguse said.

He also responded to the barrage of accusations from Trump’s attorneys that the impeachment was motivated by irrational animus for Trump.

“This trial was not born from hatred. Far from it. It is born from love of country,” Neguse said. “It is our desire to maintain it, our desire to see America at its best.”

And he warned the senators that if they did not repudiate Trump and hold him accountable, the horrors of January 6 could be repeated.

“The cold hard truth as to what happened on January 6 can happen again. I fear, like many of you do, that the violence that we saw on that terrible day may be just the beginning,” Neguse said. “We have shown you the ongoing risks and the extremist groups that grow more emboldened every day. Senators, this could not be the beginning. It can't be the new normal. It has to be the end, and that decision is in your hands.”

The Republican senators who found Trump guilty were Richard Burr of North Carolina, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, Sasse of Nebraska and Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania.

Burr and Cassidy were the big surprises. Burr, who is retiring in 2022, voted that the trial was unconstitutional but voted guilty anyway. Cassidy was the surprise Republican vote in favor of constitutionality, but then earlier this week he was photographed with notes suggesting he was leaning toward a not guilty vote.

The guilty vote was the biggest political risk for Cassidy, Sasse and Romney, who all represent conservative states and have not indicated any intent to resign. But Cassidy and Sasse were just reelected last fall, and will not be up for reelection until 2026.

Cassidy’s statement explaining his vote was just two sentences.
“Our Constitution and our country is more important than any one person. I voted to convict President Trump because he is guilty,” he said.


https://www.yahoo.com/news/senate-acquit...-211230767.html

As I've told others who want to throw off a barb, bring the receipts, please.

Oh, the drama of it all. You've had him impeached for over 4 years. Impeached AND convicted.

Hasn't happened.

Hey, would you want me on a jury for your possible, doubtful accusations?

So, I actually saved you the work.

I've only commented once on Smollet. Smollet is like James O'Keefe.

Here's a screenshot of my reference.

Link to the post as well

If you understand how analogies work, you should know how I feel. I'm not going to do the work for you.

Now here's an L. It's yours to keep.

I seriously doubt that!





Trump Lawyer Van Der Veen: ‘My Home Was Attacked,’ ‘My Entire Family, My Business, My Law Firm Are Under Siege Right Now’

Jeff Poor

13 Feb 2021


Following former President Donald Trump’s acquittal on Saturday, defense attorney Michael Van Der Veen relayed his own personal situation for having taken the case during an appearance on FNC’s “America’s News HQ.

Van Der Veen revealed it has come at a cost but would not elaborate beyond personal property damage and threats to his family and well-being.

“My home was attacked,” he said. “I’d rather not go into that. To answer your question, my entire family, my business, my law firm are under siege right now. I don’t really want to go into that, though. What I’d really like to do is talk about the merits of the case.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/02/...iege-right-now/

Have you ever seen the rain, coming down on a Sunny Day.

Recently, someone on one of those Sunday shows asked a question of the celebrated conservative columnist George Will.

If you know of him, then you'll know that he is as erudite and intellectually accomplished as the best of them, and his gift as a wordsmith is unmatched. When he gives an answer to a question in an interview, his word choice in speech is exactly what you'd read in his columns. His mind just works differently than most.

The question: "Why are Republican officials so unwilling to stand up to President Trump?"

Will: "Because they're invertebrate."

Notice how he dropped the "s" that usually hangs off the end of that word. That was on purpose.
The absence of that "s" changed the word from plural noun ("spiders and squid are invertebrates")...

-to an adjective.


And that made all the difference in what he was saying.

invertebrate: adjective
1. having no spine or backbone.
2. lacking resolution; weak and purposeless.
"a spineless coward"

Will used a terse, 3-word sentence to describe, denounce and decry the entire lot of them. That is prodigious talent and mastery.

George Will is at the vanguard of conservative intellectuals who have been warning America about this alarming trend within the Republican party for more than 20 years. I've been reading him since I was a young man, and he's been remarkably (sometimes maddeningly) consistent over all those decades. His adherence to bedrock conservative principles has pissed me off more than once, but I'll also say this: that same stalwart consistency of his has now placed him in total lockstep with my own views about the GOP's current direction. The irony is thick.

Will is at the vanguard of that conservative voice, but he's certainly not alone.

When I keep reading terms like "internal rot," "existential crisis," and "internal civil war" from these same pundits whom I've read for years, it makes me take notice. These are people whose traditional political leanings are in direct opposition to mine, but are also people whose patriotism and sincerity I've never once questioned.

They, like I are concerned with the path that the current GOP leadership is walking.
They, like I loathe Donald Trump... for a shared, lengthy list of reasons.


I am quite comfortable with the company I keep.



.02,
clem