Joe Bagadonuts
Well-Known Member
That's quite a list. Your thoughts are forcing me to reassess my thinking. I disagree with some of what you say but I can see your point on others. I'm still not on the impeachment train, though, probably largely because I am a political partisan. I am right of center, and to me there is a consistent and pervasive left of center bias in the reporting and in the way these issues tend to be dealt with. Trump is a reaction to the frustration with both the direction that leftists are trying to take our country, and to the leniency with which liberal politicians tend to be handled both by the media and within the halls of government/justice. I could give numerous examples of what I see as lax reaction to liberal wrongdoings, while I see the opposite on the conservative end of the spectrum.Your head is buried in the sand, then. Here are some that seem the most egregious to me:
1) Blatant violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. I've been complaining about that since day 1. People curry favor with him by spending money on his properties (Trump tower New York, Mar-a-lago, the Scotland property, etc.). And his business holdings very well might be impacting his policy decisions (Trump towers in Turkey, for example).
2) Violating campaign finance laws. Need I remind you that he is literally an "unindicted co-conspirator" in the case that sentenced Michael Cohen to jail. Anyone else in the country would also have gone to jail for that. And he still might when he is out of office.
3) Obstruction of justice. See the Mueller Report, volume 2, which details several episodes that almost certainly would have caused obstruction charges to be filed against anyone else in the country. Here's a summary of some of those items (from https://www.lawfareblog.com/so-you-want-impeach-president): "Even if one believes that firing FBI Director James Comey was a wholly legitimate move, the president didn’t stop there. He also attempted to dissuade witnesses, specifically Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and Michael Cohen, from cooperating with federal authorities. He attempted to corruptly persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions to limit the scope of the investigation and to reverse his decision to recuse himself from personal involvement in the face of conflicts. He attempted to limit the investigation by pressuring Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire the special counsel. And he endeavored to have White House Counsel Don McGahn create a false record regarding Trump’s actions with respect to efforts to fire Robert Mueller." One can add his statements about the whistleblower to those items.
4) Abuse of power, namely "his attempts to leverage the power of the presidency to cause investigation and prosecution of political opponents" (phrasing from lawfare). This includes involving Rudy Giuliani--who is NOT a US government employee but rather Trump's personal lawyer/campaign employee--in attempts to pressure foreign governments to dig up dirt on Hunter and Joe Biden. Giuliani literally admitted this on the air. And if, as you may be thinking, it's about exposing corruption in general, (a) why did the requests to investigate criminal activity not go through government channels? (b) why are the Bidens the ONLY individuals that Giuliani and Trump cared about? Where are any requests to invest any other potentially corrupt individuals?
5) More abuse of power, namely his withholding of the congressionally approved aid to Ukraine in order to pressure them, again about the Bidens. It is a crime to withhold funds like that. Again in the words of the lawfare article which states things better than I can, "[there was] “collusion” with a foreign power for purposes of electoral advantage, gross misuse of congressionally appropriated funds, and pressuring a foreign leader for reasons of personal gain rather than public concern."
6) Repeatedly and unabashedly lying to the public. While not illegal, this is still unpresidential and impeachable. It was in fact, one of the impeachment articles against Nixon. And the quantity of Trump's lies leave Nixon's lies in the dust.
7) Obstruction of Congress. Trump is telling government employees not to cooperate with the Houses's impeachment investigation, including directions telling people to ignore subpoenas. That's obstruction. Most recent example was the former Ukrainian ambassador, Marie Yovanovitch, who defied Trump's illegal order to testify on Friday, but there have been several others. The President's failure to cooperate with Congress was in fact one of the impeachment articles against Andrew Johnson--article 10 of that impeachment reads in part as follows (from https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Impeachment_Johnson.htm): "ARTICLE 10.That said Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, unmindful of the high duties of his high office and the dignity and proprieties thereof, and of the harmony and courtesies which ought to exist and be maintained between the executive and legislative branches of the Government of the United States, designing and intending to set aside the rightful authorities and powers of Congress, did attempt to bring into disgrace, ridicule, hatred, contempt and reproach, the Congress of the United States, and the several branches thereof, to impair and destroy the regard and respect of all the good people of the United States for the Congress and the legislative power thereof, which all officers of the government ought inviolably to preserve and maintain, and to excite the odium and resentment of all good people of the United States against Congress and the laws by it duly and constitutionally enacted"
I'm sure there's more that could be added to the list but I'll stop there. And I'll remind people of my sig quote: "There aren’t enough tax cuts and judges in the world to justify a president who stands on the stage with Vladimir Putin and sides against America’s intelligence community; who ignores, if not invites, foreign interference in our elections and normalizes unprecedented levels of corruption and incompetence; who abdicates moral leadership both at home and abroad; who lies and obstructs justice and then lies about obstructing justice."
And of course there's this list I made for post 3 of this thread--a myriad of items which include some of the above. Imo many of these are also impeachable, although not all of them are criminal (the racism, for example).
- racism
- sex crimes
- concentration camps
- corruption
- traitor
- obstruction of justice
- attacks on rule of law
- assault on freedom of the press
- pathological lying
- unfitness for office
- incompetence
- attacks on our most important allies and alliances
- systematic destruction of our environment
- violation of international treaties and agreements
- embrace of our enemies
- defense of murdering dictators
- serial undermining of our national security
- nepotism
- attacks on our federal law enforcement and intelligence communities
- fiscal recklessness
- degradation of the office and of public discourse in America
- support of Nazis and white supremacists
- the dead in Puerto Rico and the at the border
- turning the US government into a criminal conspiracy to empower and enrich the president and his supporters
- weaponization of politics in America to attack the weak
The bottom line is that if i believed that justice would be evenly administrated on both sides of the aisle my thinking on all of these issues would be changed. I wish I saw a presidential candidate on the horizon who I could believe in. Unfortunately I think that more and more we are becoming shackled with a system where only the worst breed of narcissists are attracted to our nation's highest office. Well, that's not entirely true. Warren doesn't seem to be a narcissist. She does seem to be an extreme leftist who would try to initiate policies that would wreck our country. And she is certainly challenged when it comes to telling the truth regarding her personal life. I'd still prefer a Trump presidency to a Warren one.