EmilyD

The words are yours, not mine: "If that's the case, why didn't Trump allow his folks to testify to prove his innocence? That's what anyone with a logical brain would do..."

It wasn't about proving his innocence in the House - he is not guilty of anything. It is the Senate's job to pronounce him guilty or not.

The House had hearings and ample opportunity to gather evidence. If they needed more evidence, they should have waited on the floor v**e to impeach, but no, it was "urgent" (Pelosi's word) to finish up because Trump was a threat to national security. (We now know that wasn't the case.) Trump's lawyers argued that the witnesses that the House wanted to call would NOT give evidence on his behalf. The witnesses that they DID want to call (i.e., the "whistleblower") were rejected by Schiff and Nadler. Pat Cipollone, White House Counsel, sent a letter explaining why they would not participate - it is very clear about why:

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/472550-read-white-houses-letter-to-nadler-saying-it-wont-participate-in

Pariahjf

So if he's not guilty, why WOULDN'T they give evidence on his behalf?

Seth

Where is Democrats' evidence that President Trump "abused or violated" some public trust or "injured society?"

Also, though Hamilton signed the Constitution, the Federalist Papers and the Constitution are completely different entities, one essentially opinion, the other a legal document.

Pariahjf

And your 'not guilty' comments are clearly is in opposition to what Hamilton wrote in the Federalist....

Pariahjf

Correct. So who would know better on the opinion of "impeachable conduct" than a person that actually signed the Constitution?

EmilyD

So, then, what IS he guilty of???? How can he be guilty without a trial????

Seth

When you have been falsely accused and have submitted the only two necessary pieces of evidence to prove it, in this case the call transcript and the word of the Ukranian president that he was under no duress, that's all -- now it's up to the accusers to prove their case.

So far, it's "he said", "she said", "In my opinion,..." and the "Whistleblower," whom Mr. Schitt claims started the whole thing, has yet to be heard from.

Before v****g to impeach, the Democrats were supposed to have ironclad evidence, not the tepid stuff they showed as grounds for impeachment.

For an "independent," you sure come off as just as unreasonably accepting of the Democrats' highly "original" method of conducting an impeachment as any of the "get Trump at any cost" crowd.

I wonder how you'd respond if you were charged with a serious felony you didn't commit and the court system allowed the DA's office to proceed the same way the Democrats are doing against Trump.

Oh, wait. That's "different," right?

Pariahjf

That is what the Senate is for...

Pariahjf

Show me the rules for impeachment.

Seth

Look 'em up yourself -- surely you have a copy, e or paper, of the Constitution in your possession. Or look back through the threads, there have been links already posted.

To summarize, though: the House investigates to ascertain that the subject has actually committed the offenses of which he is accused. That is not intended to be a political maneuver, rather it is to be a bipartisan investigative procedure to determine whether there is actual evidence to support the accusations.

You are either burying your head in the sand or you know there was nothing bipartisan about Adam Schitt's quasi- investigation. He was pretty footloose and fancy free with his gavel whenever any Republicans began a line of questioning that didn't complement the narrative he wished to maintain, there were behind closed doors Democrats-only pre-testimony briefings of those testifying and even so, the closest any "witnesses" came to delivering impeachable evidence was "I had heard that..." or "so and so's impression was that..."

Compounding that, they completely changed the charges a couple of times, tailoring them to fit an impeachment rather than prove the accusations they purportedly set out to prove to begin with.

Now, I don't have a clue as to how much experience you have in the field of investigation, but it has been a part of my profession for a very long time and I'm very good at it. I would venture to guess, assuming that you actually believe what you post, that you have zero experience in the field, because the "investigative" product that produced the Articles of Impeachment in this case would never meet the standards of any legitimate court of law outside a despot-run banana republic, and even then that court would easily rate a marsupial designation, if you get my drift.

The long and short of it is that the impeachment product the Democrats have delivered to the Senate is a whole bag of nothing -- Schitt didn't do his job, and the Senate is in no way obligated to do it for him. If they so desired, they could Constitutionally "try" the president on the "evidence" presented and toss out the entire thing without missing a coffee break.

In short, even if President Trump was guilty as sin, there wasn't enough evidence delivered to warrant any articles of impeachment or even anything more than a yawn and a dismissal from the Senate.

The entire thing is so obviously a purely politically partisan bit of amateurish nothing that even a preadolescent of passable intelligence could be forgiven for laughing it off, and I can't help but speculate that anyone who does take it seriously is simply guilty of the wishful thinking produced by the presence of more personal bias than good old common sense.

I can also promise you that any professional investigator who took his or her job seriously would rather eat a bullet than sign his or her name to the pile of garbage the House has submitted to the Senate.

Had I been the Senate majority leader, Democrat or Republican, I can assure you that the shoddy excuse the House delivered to the Senate would have taken less than ten minutes to find its way into a waste paper basket.

Pariahjf

The House makes the rules-----there are NO clear-cut procedural rules for impeachment in the Constitution. And there are no rules for the Senate, as far as impeachment goes, either. A lot of what you say IS correct, but let's just see what they have for evidence, is all I am saying. That's only fair to the American people.

Seth

Stay tuned...