[GT] US election - It's 2020, what could possibly go wrong?

[Barnet Flame]

And he’s impeached.

Millions of impeaches, impeaches for free.

[Senator Clay Davis]

He's got enough days left to have as many impeachments as bankruptcies. Give it a go Donnie!

[Muta]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1349470097656709120

This should be fun!

[GordonBlue]

here's the Republicans that voted to impeach.

Rep. Dan Newhouse of Washington
Rep. John Katko of New York
Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington
Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois
Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan
Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming
Rep. Peter Meijer of Michigan
Rep. Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio
Rep. Tom Rice of South Carolina
Rep. David Valadao of California

[Looch City]

Haha can't wait to watch and laugh. What a ####ing loser. GIANT LOSER.

[troutman]

[dobbles]

For all the talk of this impeachment being bipartisan, it was still under 5% of republicans that voted in favor. If that percentage carried through to the senate side that's only 2 or 3 votes for impeachment to go with the dems. I don't think there is any chance of this succeeding in the long run.

[Dion]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1348116533738840064

[dobbles]

nm

[Dion]

Originally Posted by dobbles

nm

Fixed, works now.

[Kidder]

Originally Posted by dobbles

For all the talk of this impeachment being bipartisan, it was still under 5% of republicans that voted in favor. If that percentage carried through to the senate side that's only 2 or 3 votes for impeachment to go with the dems. I don't think there is any chance of this succeeding in the long run.

It succeeds in making him the only President in American history impeached twice. Remember that now for future trivial pursuit games!

Senate won’t hold any hearings until he’s out of office anyway. But the barred from future office should appeal to Republicans no matter where they sit on the trump debate.

Dislike where Trump led the party? Now’s your chance to break free of his grasp.

In favour of Trumpism? Well now’s the chance to remove the central figure and scoop up his braindead followers. Anyone with Presidential aspirations, their chances increase with Trump removed. And we all know how power hungry these people are.

[FlameOn]

Originally Posted by troutman

"No one has been more impeached than me, I'm the most impeached president, and by a lot." -DJT, probably

[Dion]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1346948583006773249

[Minnie]

Originally Posted by dobbles

For all the talk of this impeachment being bipartisan, it was still under 5% of republicans that voted in favor. If that percentage carried through to the senate side that's only 2 or 3 votes for impeachment to go with the dems. I don't think there is any chance of this succeeding in the long run.

That is the highest percentage of Republican support for impeachment, ever. In Clinton's impeachment, only 5 Dems voted for his impeachment. Donald doubled that (winning, I guess).

They are holding off on the Senate trial until after the inauguration. This is an interesting article about that - Tampa Bay Times article

What is the purpose of impeaching him so close to his departure from office? Why bother?

Numerous arguments can be made for impeachment this late in a term.

One is practical. James Robenalt, a lawyer with expertise in political crises, and John Dean, former White House counsel for President Richard Nixon, told PolitiFact that the most important reason would be members of Congress “perceive that Trump intends to continue to incite insurrection, which could become an armed insurrection. That threat, or the threat he might use military force at home or abroad as a pretext to stay in power, could cause them to act.”

Along the same lines, they said, is the possibility that “Trump might pardon those who engaged in insurrection, or himself, or both,” they said by email. “Those kinds of pardons would be unacceptable to the American people, but difficult to litigate in the courts because the pardon power is so broad and unlimited.”

A second reason is for accountability. “There needs to be some official response, even if it’s in a symbolic way — not just for what happened on Jan. 6, but essentially for the prolonged effort by the president to overturn a valid election,” such as a call to Georgia’s secretary of state to “find” enough ballots to overturn the state’s result, Bowman said.

“Treason, sedition, insurrection — all fit the classic definition of ‘high crimes,’ or crimes against the state,” Robenalt said. “This cannot go without response.”

A third reason is deterrence of future actions of this sort. And a fourth reason is that impeachment, followed by a Senate conviction, is a necessary step to barring Trump from holding public office again.

Senate rules prescribe a more formal and time-intensive process for removal following an impeachment. “But a determined supermajority could change that in a morning,” Bowman said. In other words, if two-thirds of the senators were ready to convict Trump and remove him from office, they could overcome other procedural obstacles quickly.

If Trump is impeached by the House, does the Senate need to start the trial immediately?

The relevant factor is not when the impeachment vote in the House occurs, but when the official paperwork is forwarded to the Senate. So the speaker could decide to delay transmission of the paperwork, and in fact may want to do so in order not to overload the Senate with extra business as it ponders confirming the cabinet picks of incoming President Joe Biden.

Another factor is that the Democrats are on track to claim the powers of the Senate majority after Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris are sworn in. Once the elections of Georgia Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are certified and they are both sworn in, the chamber will be tied, allowing Harris, as Senate president, to break ties in the Democrats’ favor. This is relevant because the House’s decision to impeach may receive a more favorable response in a Democratic-controlled chamber than one held by Republicans, as is currently the case.


Can the Senate start an impeachment trial after Trump leaves office?

The permissibility of a “late impeachment” isn’t a slam dunk, but there’s historical precedent and a credible legal argument for it, experts say.

While the constitutional text “is unclear, the history underlying it is not,” Brian Kalt, a law professor at Michigan State University, wrote in a 2001 paper on the subject. “Late impeachment was practiced in England and, unlike other aspects of English impeachment, was never explicitly ruled out in America.”

In fact, at the time of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, “a late impeachment was raging in London, and state constitutions addressed the issue and allowed them,” Robenalt said.

In addition, Kalt wrote, “if the only purpose for impeachment were removal, then there would be no reason to conduct a late impeachment. But removal is not the only purpose of impeachment. Impeachment is designed as a deterrent to prevent offenses from occurring in the first place. and this deterrent effect would be severely undermined if it faded away near the end of a term.”

The precedent involves a case from 1876, when Secretary of War William W. Belknap resigned just hours before the House impeached him on bribery charges. The Senate went ahead with the trial anyway and acquitted him on Aug. 1, 1876.

There’s also a practical reason for holding a trial of an impeached former official: The Senate can, and often has, taken a second vote after conviction on barring the individual from ever again holding public office. A trial and conviction would need to be held before that second — and, for a former official, more consequential — vote could be held.

“In the spirit of the impeachment clause, late impeachment provides a way to punish wrong-doing by an officer late in his or her term of office,” despite some constitutional uncertainty, said Steven Smith, a Washington University in St. Louis political scientist.


What would have to be done to keep Trump from holding office in the future?

First, the Senate would have to convict him by a two-thirds vote. After that, there would be a separate vote on disqualification from future federal offices. Experts agree this second vote would only require a simple majority.

In the past, the Senate has used a simple majority vote to bar three people, all federal judges, from holding office.

[Minnie]

Originally Posted by Kidder

It succeeds in making him the only President in American history impeached twice. Remember that now for future trivial pursuit games!

Senate won’t hold any hearings until he’s out of office anyway. But the barred from future office should appeal to Republicans no matter where they sit on the trump debate.

Dislike where Trump led the party? Now’s your chance to break free of his grasp.

In favour of Trumpism? Well now’s the chance to remove the central figure and scoop up his braindead followers. Anyone with Presidential aspirations, their chances increase with Trump removed. And we all know how power hungry these people are.

The amount of big money/big business support the GOP is hemorrhaging right now may also hold a LOT of sway. The GOP can't afford to lose even more support. The big money support disappearing unless they make some changes, could turn the tide in the Senate.

[KootenayFlamesFan]

From 2016:

https://twitter.com/user/status/774741598311776256

[PsYcNeT]

https://twitter.com/user/status/1349512652565917696

[Ped]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

https://twitter.com/user/status/1349512652565917696

How can you possibly impeach someone who's been president for one day? Will he even have had time to do anything impeach-worthy? Or is this the Republican version of Driving While Black? Impeaching While Democrat?

[afc wimbledon]

Originally Posted by nik-

Show your work.

sorry, the dog ate it

[ResAlien]

Originally Posted by Ped

How can you possibly impeach someone who's been president for one day? Will he even have had time to do anything impeach-worthy?

This is what we in the biz call a partisan political stunt. Clown shoes and what they’re going to do for a bit. If they get control of Congress in 2022 bookmark this post, I guarantee they’ll impeach Biden just to do it.