President Trump has been impeached

[conuly]

But I don't know the odds of him being removed. I'd better ask a bookie, they'd have some idea.

Comments

[calimac]

These people say "1 percent: very small, but not super-duper small."

[conuly]

:(

[jessie_c]

It's looking like Nancy is going to sit on the articles until the Senate guarantees a fair trial. And since Moscow Mitch is on record as saying that he's not going to do that, they're at an impasse.
Trump can't get his propaganda victory, and nobody can erase the fact that he's been impeached.
I can't wait until his aneurysm.

[conuly]

If he hasn't had one yet, I don't think it's gonna happen.

[swingandswirl]

I feel like him having an aneurysm would require a brain be in his skull rather than a shrivelled walnut.

But good on Pelosi. Hold Turtle's feet to the fire.

[cynthia1960]

I'm good with Pelosi not hurrying to send this to trial. I want it laid out for all to see what the Senate Republicans are trying to do.

[dewline]

Can McConnell be impeached, and if so, what would be the most viable charges to set into Articles?

[elf]

Impeaching a Senator has the same process as impeaching a president: House has a vote, then it passes to the Senate for a trial.

In addition, each branch has the ability to kick out members they don't like with a 2/3 vote, but I can't see the Senate voting to remove McConnell no matter where that process starts.

[jessie_c]

Dereliction of duty is a biggie, as is violation of his oath of office.

[poliphilo]

The issue has been prejudged. The lawgivers have split along party lines and since the Republicans control the Senate the chance of him being removed are vanishingly small.

The real scandal to my way of thinking is that everyone is hollering for their team and nobody is thinking independently.

[elf]

There's some talk about holding on to the articles for a while - not sending them to the Senate for a quick "nah, not guilty" trial.

[nodrog]

I like your icon!

[l33tminion]

It's a smart move, I think. No reason to cooperate in a sham trial. That gives the Senate Republicans three options:

1. Argue that they don't need the House to participate at all, that they can dispense with witnesses and prosecutors. But that maybe looks too bad.

2. Agree to have a real trial with witnesses and hope the witnesses they call won't make it too awkward to acquit the guy at the end.

3. Wait patiently. This would be a reasonable strategy, except Trump is not patient or calm at all and really is going to dislike having this hanging over his head. And he doesn't see how any of the criminal stuff he did is bad at all.

Controlling the Senate still gives McConnell and the Republicans a fairly decisive advantage in this matter, but it's rather remarkable how relatively bad their position is, given that.

[elf]

The legal structure seems to require House participation. It looks like the House needs to assign managers to present the evidence against the accused - without those, the Senate has no grounds to hold a trial, since no accusations have been brought to them.

I've seen some talk about how to leverage the demand for a fair trial, including withholding the budget. I'm not sure if they'll bother doing that, because no matter what the terms of a fair trial are, they won't be enough to persuade 20+ Republican senators to vote "throw the bastard out." Short of every Senator who's announced bias recusing themselves - and that number somehow not counting against the 2/3 majority needed - I don't see any value in submitting the articles.

I expect Pelosi to hold this one until after the 2020 election, unless by some miracle McConnell gets outed before then. Maybe there'll be some value in it that I'm not seeing (like, public release of evidence that will effect elections, or Trump testifying under oath, which is a nice easy perjury charge for the House later).

I wonder what happens if it gets brought up post-election and pre-turnover. Or if it gets submitted in the last few days before turnover to a D-majority Senate - do the articles just... wait... until someone submits them to the Senate? I haven't looked to see if they expire at the end of a congressional term the way legislation does. (Oh wow... I suppose they could hold an impeachment trial after he's left office, to guarantee he can't run for office again. And anything turned up in that, could be turned over to the relevant criminal authorities.)

[l33tminion]

A trial in which Giuliani or Trump testifies isn't necessarily an advantage for the Republicans, even if it ends in acquittal. Republican witnesses may end up saying disturbingly true things if their membership on Team Trump doesn't go so far as maybe going to jail for the guy (e.g. Sondland) or they're so far in alternate reality that they have no sense that there are things they maybe shouldn't say.

My bet is that a Senate trial will proceed before the election. But there's still time to wait, especially to see if the courts reject the administration's "absolute immunity" claims, or if they can get their hands on Trump's tax returns or some of those Muller grand jury materials (in particular, there are no other ongoing investigations according to the DOJ once the Roger Stone stuff is over).

[author_by_night]

Yeah, I'm in an odd place about this. I don't think we had any choice, but I worry that it's going to blow up in our faces.

[low_delta]

After the vote in the Senate fails, many Americans will be vindicated in their belief that their President did nothing wrong, and will be angry that Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats wasted our time.

[hudebnik]

There's some chance that two or three self-styled "moderate" or "independent" Republican Senators could vote to convict, which would perhaps provide the moral victory of a majority for conviction, but wouldn't have any real-world effect.

But a factor I haven't seen anybody address is Senators who are close to retirement and don't have much to fear from either Trumpist voters or Trump supporting their opponents in a primary, so they could vote to convict. These are also the oldest Senators and therefore the ones most likely to believe in the Senate as an institution. I should do some research and see how many such Republican Senators there are....

[silveradept]

Removal would require a fair trial where each senator was able to consider the evidence and vote based on that, rather than the political ramifications what would come from them. If impeachment were a trial, rather than a political process, there would be a bigger opportunity for the trial to succeed, but as it will be something where political consequence is inevitable, there's no way that removal will happen. There are too many voters who are completely happy with the "win at any cost" politics and especially the politics of "hurt the people who aren't me, because I am scared" for enough Senators to vote to convict, no matter what evidence is presented.