Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues The Trump Administration The Impeachment of Donald trump

I think your obsession with partisanship as being the root of all disagreements is a result of seeing the world through a "partisan-colored" monocle.

Well yes.

The Trump Base would not convict him of he [you fill in the blank with the most heinous crimes imaginable] if you had the crimes on video with a million eyewitnesses. That is public opinion. What place does that have in a Senate impeachment trial? I am not saying the Trump Base or the anti-Trumpers do not have some influence on Senatorial opinions, what I am saying is we as a country have abdicated all sense of justice especially at the highest levels to the rabble rousing opinions of a ignorant mobs. This is precisely the argument the Founders had against Democracy.

The ignorant may prevail. and you are OK with that.

OK

So in your opinion Hunter Biden was which participant in the Trump Ukraine Conspiracy? The answer is, he was not a member of the conspiracy, so why would anyone want to call him as a witness for anything? It would be the same if someone called you to testify to a crime of which you had no knowledge. And that is why Democrats refused approval of the Republican witness list.

Now if you have some information which I have not seen which even intimates the Bidens were participants in the conspiracy, I am all ears.

Now about Rep Schiff. Republicans suggest he in some way concocted a false report about a call by finding a "whistleblower" to report the false story, and I suppose in some way that exonerates Mr Trump.

Suppose it is true. The whistleblower complaint was first investigated by the ICIG, who found the complaint credible and urgent to report. We have all read the complaint and heard witnesses who were on the call. It is clear if Rep Schiff, using a crystal ball, wrote a false complaint, he has a great crystal ball. Almost all elements of the complaint have been corroborated and verified. So even if Rep Schiff fabricated a false, it is spot on and irrelevant. Or do you have information Re Schiff was involved in the Ukraine Conspiracy?

The Whistleblower. He has been accused of submitting a false complaint created by Rep Schiff to damage Mr Trump. Unfortunately the complaint has been verified. Further the whistleblower had no 1st hand knowledge of the call. His complaint was based on hearsay. All he can do is testify that people told him of the call. What Republicans really want in this witness if for him to name the people who told him of the call. They want retribution for disloyalty to Mr Trump. Retribution for exposing a criminal conspiracy concocted in the Oval Office by the current occupant of the WH.

Sec Pompeo ... Adv Mulvaney ... Att Guiliani ... all active willing participants in the conspiracy and yet none were called because the crime boss forbade them to testify.

So which Republican witnesses could be called to exonerate Mr Trump? Hunter Biden? A whistleblower?

This has nothing to do with partisan politics but everything to do with finding the truth. Based on the evidence I have seen, I believe there was a criminal conspiracy led by Mr Trump involving a number of people from the highest levels of government. However, I would like to see more than a circumstantial case. I want to hear Bolton/Mulvaney/Pompeo or anyone else who had 1st hand knowledge of what was going on to testify. Now if you think that is partisan, we are using different definitions of the word.

On the subject of controlling the calling of witnesses, let's take a look at the facts:

The witnesses that the R's wanted to call were not relevant to the impeachment charges. Biden, Biden, and Schiff were not witnesses, either direct or indirect, to the charges that Trump blocked a military aid payment and the coverup of it. The R's wanted to rant and rave and misdirect, distract, and deflect, even to the point of accusing the D's of not calling "direct" witnesses, whom Trump had blocked (with the full-throated approval of the R's) in an act of obstruction.

Now, the witnesses the D's want to call in the Senate trial are the "direct" witnesses that the R's so woefully lamented as being necessary, but missing, from the House hearings. This amounts to continued obstruction - even witness tampering - because why? Because they all know that the direct witnesses will be so damning that all of the previous deflection and distraction to save Trump will be for nought.

Honestly, is this just a matter of "partisanship"? If you believe that there is not a serious false equivalence in that, then what do you believe reality to be? Are "both sides" in every dispute always equally right and wrong?

I have heard that many judges adopt the notion that the only fair judgment is one that neither side is happy with, which I see as a cop out from performing due diligence in their sworn duty to uphold the law. I think it is more rational to expect that one side is almost always more right than the other. And that matters.

Agreeing with the fact that Biden has absolutely nothing to do with this trial, and calling him serves no purpose.

As far as the Senate trial goes the calling of any witnesses would serve no purpose. The acquittal is guaranteed.

That there is partisanship.

True, dat. It might even qualify as corrupt partisanship.

Well, that gambit didn't work very well:

Clinton Investigation Finds Nothing:

Not that anybody familiar with reality thought it would. If Hillary had a dollar for every time she has been investigated (all with similar results) she would a lot richer.

Speaker Pelosi is not playing for the trial, though a win there would be nice, she is playing for the election.

Absolutely: How best to weaponize Trump's and the Republican's behavior for a tidal wave in 2020.

This I agree totally with. Every senator with the exception of a handful are entering the trial with their minds made up, with no witnesses or evidence presented. Their vote either guilty or not guilty is set in stone basically decided by the letter behind their name. You do have two Democrats that may vote not guilty, maybe as many 3-4 Republican that might vote vote guilty.

The end result is totally partisan, totally bias, totally known since the day after the election. Any one with a lick of political sense knew the Democrats would impeach Trump if they gained control of the house. Everyone knows the results in the senate. Everyone knew since the day after the election that 67 senators was an impossibility. Not in today's political era of polarization, ultra high partisanship, each major party viewing the other party as this nations number one enemy and each party viewing the other out to destroy this country while their party is out to save it.

I do long for simpler times.