Posted: 13 February 2021 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | 4
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I read the case, and some of the excellent information provided by Michael Penn. You've convinced me. I think the trial was constitutional, but I disagree with Mark Haslett that you could impeach a president after he leaves office. The key thing for me here is that the house filed the articles while he was still President of the United States.
"Your claim to be musing philosophically is typical of the see-nothing do-nothing GOP which has let this monster drag our government to its knees."
Mark, I didn't make that claim. These are real procedural questions that I think are important to ask. I agree that the senate can decide whether it has the authority to conduct a trial, but I don't see a problem with pondering whether the decision they make is the correct one. Government should be questioned.
"I'm offended as an American by the idea anyone would suggest letting the man responsible for this rampage go unpunished."
I didn't suggest that. I questioned whether impeachment was the appropriate punishment as opposed to charging him with a crime.
I see that the senate has just acquitted Trump, so now the discussion will inevitably turn to whether that was the right thing to do.
Personally, I'm undecided. I recorded all of the hearings, but haven't had a chance to see them yet. I was able to catch a little bit of the opening statements from both sides at work, and based on those here are my initial impressions:
In order to convict Trump for inciting a resurrection I would want to see evidence that directly linked Trump's actions or words to the violence that occurred. Dems may have done that (I plan to watch the hearings this weekend to see for myself), but I think it was an uphill battle for them, because in the Jan 6 speech, Trump expressly stated that people should protest "peacefully" and I think there is some evidence that the riot was pre planned. For example, I saw video of people using ropes and grappling hooks to scale one of the walls at the capital. So I'd go into this leaning towards acquittal.
Since we've concluded that a president can be impeached for gross malfeasance, I'm surprised that this was the only article of impeachment presented by the trial managers.
Trump undermined confidence in the election by repeating false statements about election fraud long after those statements were proven false. Furthermore, there are recorded phone calls to state election officials in some of the swing states where he tried to upend the results of the election, and in one case asked the secretary of state to "find votes."
I think there should have been an article of impeachment related to those acts, and if there had been, I would have been inclined to vote in favor of convicting him.
Edited by John Wickett on 13 February 2021 at 3:42pm
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