The Democrats in the House have decided to advance with articles of impeachment against President Trump as I am writing this. Although they could change one, both, or add to them prior to the formal presentation for a vote in the House chamber; the two at this time are: (note: these are NOT to be considered legal presentations or arguments - these are simplifications that are factually presented - as I know them - they are not meant to offer all the complexity or nuances of the actual legal issues)
1) Abuse of Power by the President.
This is related to the call and the claim that President Trump threatened, bribed, or otherwise pressured the President of Ukraine to "dig up dirt" by an investigation into former Vice-President Joe Biden and his son's actions relating to a job his son took in Ukraine. Now, as presented so far, the words - bribed/bribery or threatened/threat do not appear in the written charges. I am using those words based on the numerous press conferences and comments in chamber by the House Democrats
2) Obstruction of Congress
This is related to the fact that President Trump (and his team) have refused to allow current Executive branch employees to respond to subpoenas calling for testimony and documents from them. This is presented as a disregard for the oversight powers of the Legislative branch over the Executive Branch.
If you have been watching, listening, or reading the main-stream media's reporting on this issue and these points, you may think they are a "slam dunk" so to speak. Let's see what we have here:
As to the abuse of power, here are the facts -
1) the transcript of the call was released well before the hearings started. Unless mind-reading is a skill of the House Democrats, fact gathered by mind-reading are admissible evidence, and President Trump was trying to coerce actions out of the Ukrainian President; the transcript took this one out of play. If you read it (versus reading or listening to what the anti-Trump folks say was in the call) there is at no time a threat, nor anything like a threat used. There was no mention of the aid that was supposedly being used as the threat. Nor was there any request to "dig up dirt" on anyone. Here is a portion of the transcript where the "favor" was asked:
President Trump: "I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike...I guess you have one of your wealthy people...the server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you're surrounding yourself with some of the same people.I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller (my note: this was in July just after the Mueller appearance before the House), an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it if that's possible."
You can easily find this transcript many places online. I would ask you to check multiple places as there are some outlets that are showing edited versions (even beyond the redacted formal version). Omission of certain parts makes others seem much different in intent that when read in its entirety.
The answer by the President of Ukraine was that he would like to help and appreciated the support of the United States. You can read it and I hope you do.
2) The fact remains that there was no investigation announced by Ukraine, nor any findings.
3) The aid money was released to Ukraine.
4) The Ukrainian President and the equivalent of their Secretary of State have both said they felt no pressure from the US or any person representing the US to do anything for Trump or the US.
5) The Ukrainian officials have it on record that they were not even aware the aid was being held up.
I do not see how this can be construed by anyone as an abuse of power.
As to the obstruction of Congress:
1) Congress does not have subpoena power over the Executive branch. The three branches have oversight over each other, but the Judicial branch is the source of enforceable subpoenas. If President Trump or other Executive branch employees were to not honor a subpoena produced by the Judicial branch (probably the Supremes, but it could be the 10th Circuit Court) that would be obstruction. Actually, the Executive branch (in the form of Trump or others) wanting to go to the Judicial branch to rule on a Congressional subpoena issue is actually an abuse of power of Congress/the Legislative branch.
2) Nancy Pelosi (the leader of the House as the Speaker) said in public many times that this was not an impeachment, when referring to the Intelligence Committee hearings. That reduced any legitimacy of the requests for information from witnesses in general. If they had made a formal declaration and taken a vote to open a formal impeachment hearing, that would have changed the entire legal standing. I am not learned enough to know what that change would have meant but I know it would have.
The entire undertaking by the Democrats, especially the House Democrats, has been a sham from the beginning. The issue has been the coverage by the press and the guarded way the hearings were conducted. Now, I do know that as the majority party, the Democrats had the authority to set the rules and pretty much run the investigation as they wished. However, with very little research an interested party could have discovered that this has been a plan since prior to Trump even being sworn in as President. The Justice Department's Inspector General's report shows a pattern of cooperation and coordination between key Obama administration players and Washington bureaucrats is almost Machiavellian in its machinations and deceit. Again, I ask you to do some research. Read the actual report versus reading or listening to the talking heads give you their version of it.
End of Civics Lesson 2. Independent study is your assignment.
Comments