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

[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).