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Thursday, December 19, 2019

UPDATED: The Delayed Impeachment Ploy Is A Loser

Thomas Lifson has another seven reasons blog--this time on the delayed impeachment ploy, and why it's a loser: Pelosi threatens to withhold articles of impeachment from Senate.

As I wrote last night, and as several sharp commenters (among them Yancey Ward) pointed out,

"The Constitution doesn't specify procedures. It seems to me, therefore, that ... [t]he vote having been taken in the House, the Senate may not have to wait."

Meaning, the Constitution simply says that the House votes articles of impeachment and the Senate has the sole power to try the case. Nothing about formalities before a trial can begin. If the managers (prosecutors) fail to show, the senators (jurors) can still decide based on the articles themselves. In regard to the question of what the Senate will do, "sources" maintain that the Senate GOP wants an acquittal vote rather than a procedural dismissal, which makes sense. We'll see. That's a question that will depend on questions that may to a great extent be peculiar to the Senate.

On the other hand, the big picture of what we're seeing is clear enough: it's an attempt, one more attempt, by the Resistance Dems to hold the entire government hostage to a partisan majority in the House. Pelosi has openly called the House a "superior branch" to the Executive, and she now seems to believe the House is the lead member of the Legislative branch as well. Cocaine Mitch is sure to differ and will carry the day on that. The courts will also ultimately side with the Constitution, if for no other reason than that the SCOTUS knows if Pelosi and the Radical Resistance Dems get their way impeachments and removals of SCOTUS justices will be the order of the day, starting with Brett Kavanaugh.

Lifson's seven reasons why this ploy are losers right from the get go are excellent. They mostly boil down to what we discussed yesterday--the rules of fair play, as embodied in the Constitution. That is exactly what the Dems ignored in the earlier stages of their Impeachment Theater, and are now trying to coerce the Senate to ignore. The ploy won't work, to begin with, and will backfire badly. Lifson's sixth and seventh reasons point to the certain political impact:

Sixth, the longer a standoff continues, the weaker Pelosi’s bargaining position becomes. She is obstructing the constitutional process.
Seventh, President Trump fights back, and she is handing him the best ammo he could wish for to castigate the entire impeachment fiasco, and to claim he is being denied his right to defend himself.

 The strong suspicion is that this is a ploy born of desperation. To engage in this doomed battle surely tells us all we need to know about how much Dems fear the Barr/Durham investigation.

UPDATE 1:


UPDATE 2: Somewhat informative interview toward the end:




UPDATE 3: Cocaine Mitch Speaks: The full half hour speech is in the second video. You can find the transcript at CTH:





32 comments:

  1. can the Senate just ignore the impeachment?

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    1. McConnell's stated position is that it can't--so it won't.

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    2. Set a date for the trial. If managers don't show up, dismiss the case. I don't see why they need the actual articles to start the trial. Get er done.


      Rob S

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  2. Well, so much for my 60/40 feeling against impeachment happening ;^> (Though if it doesn't go to the Senate, did it really happen?)

    Great article by Lifson, BTW. Bottom line: Article 5, aka "the Senate can do with impeachment whatever it da*n well pleases."

    On a not unrelated note, this 2017 Ron Coleman twitter thread is wonderful and very much on topic: bit.ly/2Q7MFpE

    Coleman comments on how Dems saw way back when the writing on the democratic (small "d") wall, and how they concluded the only way they could hold on to power was committed exploitation of undemocratic and non-democratic institutions.

    A great, short read.

    Cheers to all - I'm energized!

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  3. MW wrote: >> "The strong suspicion is that this is a ploy born of desperation. To engage in this doomed battle surely tells us all we need to know about how much Dems fear the Barr/Durham investigation. " <<

    Of course this is desperation. The entire Impeachment Circus is an act of desperation. But what you must remember is this is about Theatrics, and not about trying to achieve a legitimate Senate conviction/removal of a POTUS.

    There are two concurrent public relations objectives being served by Pelosi's Impeachment Circus -- the first being to placate the Dem base voters, which is all important if the Dems are to have a prayer of a chance of holding control of the House (and Governorships, and legislatures) in November. The base went bonkers when the the Mueller report failed to deliver the promised Trump head-on-a-platter, and the Dems have been trying to figure out how to win them back; Impeachment is effective tool, and one of the only tools in their political armamentarium.

    The second objective is to create both a distraction from the IG report/Barr/Durham investigation revelations about the truth about the Russia Trump Collusion Hoax of 2016, and to create a narrative that allows them to characterize anything forthcoming from those investigations (or out of Ukraine corruption) -- especially indictments of high ranking Obama Admin officials -- as an illegitimate partisan effort to deflect from IMPEACHMENT NOW!

    When viewed from that theatrical perspective, the things Pelosi is doing make sense, including withholding the Impeachment from the Senate.

    IF the Senate clears Trump anyway, Pelosi will declare the GOP Controlled Senate is AFRAID of evidence that would be forthcoming at a legitimate Impeachment trial, and exonerated a guilty man for purely partisan reasons.

    If the Senate refuses to agree to the terms she an Schumer attempt to dictate to the Senate GOP majority, the will say the same thing.

    And because this is all about theatrics, Pelosi and Schumer will continue to make demands they KNOW the Senate GOP will never agree to -- demands for new witnesses, new whistleblowers.... like "Marvin the Martian" who will allege Trump is colluding with the Martian Military to obtain an Illudium Q-36 Space Modulator to hypnotize voters into voting for him, so he can steal the 2020 election with the help of Extraterrestrial Alien technology. Similarly, they will demand a new Article of Impeachment be included, for the impeachable act of Trump sapping and impurifying the precious bodily fluids of the American people.

    The point it to prevent a real trial from taking place in the Senate, because if it does, the entire sham Impeachment foisted on us by Pelosi and her fellow travelers Schiff and Nadler will be laid bare before the American people on live TV. Pelosi can't let that happen, so that's why she's going to play the game and never deliver the Impeachment to the Senate, IMHO.

    She will simply use it as a tool for the theatrical value it provides to achieve the two stated objectives above.

    (My assumption is the Dems have already written off the WH in 2020, and thus the do not care that the Impeachment Sham is driving up support for Trump. As long as the base turns out, and traditional Dem voters come back to the fold DOWN TICKET from the presidential vote to prevent a complete wipeout of Congressional seats, Governorships, and legislatures, they are willing to live with that. My hunch is it won't work, but it the only play they have.)

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    1. Having voted impeachment articles, the CAN'T prevent the Senate from taking up those articles.

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    2. "to create both a distraction from the IG report/Barr/Durham investigation revelations, about the truth about the Russia Trump Collusion Hoax of 2016, and to create a narrative".

      Yeah, a narrative aiming to arouse the Left to a fever pitch of hysteria, to move them to deploy "civil disobedience" to intimidate Barr into flinching, from bringing the Big Ugly perps to trial.

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  4. I agree that the Senate cannot ignore a Bill of Impeachment; however, I also do not believe the Senate can simply "take it up" without it being formally sent over. Can they do that with ordinary legislation? Has the House ever passed legislation of any sort and then the Speaker simply refused to send it over? It seems questionable that the Speaker possesses the power to "pocket veto" legislation (not to mention the horrendous political optics of one member holding "good Governance" hostage). What is the longest delay recorded of a bill passed in the House before being formally forwarded to the Senate?
    Not to mention that Pelosi sets herself up for attacks from the rabid left that she is protecting Trump from actual impeachment. It may be political kabuki to her but she isn't playing to an audience of sophisticated Zen/tradition immersed elites. She is playing to the crudest, most ill educated, loutish audience imaginable; and people outside of the MSM-Hollywood-Academic axis of stupidity are watching as well.
    Tom S.

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    1. Impeachment isn't legislation--not ordinary, not extraordinary. Apples and oranges. There's nothing in the Constitution about "sending over," either. The vote is the act.

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    2. The only require, Anon, is that the two houses pass legislation with the exact same language. Mark is correct- the vote is the act itself. Now, the two houses have their long standing rules about how the procedures work between the two, but those rules are established by each house individually.

      Just to give you an example- appropriation bills start in the House as per the Constitution, and any number of bills sent to the Senate by the House have languished without debate or consideration from the very beginning of the republic. The reverse would be case here by a simple rule change by only the Senate- they would take up a measure from the House without a formal "sending".

      What Pelosi is attempting is to make the rule for the Senate- that the Senate has to wait- they don't.

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    3. Oops! I meant to say *Section 5* (Article 1) above - "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings."

      So Section 5 makes me totally agree with Mark and Yancey. (While I don't see where the Constitution or precedent mandates the Senate must take impeachment up in some fashion once articles are sent over, I'm willing to assume I'm just not looking hard enough.)

      If articles are not sent over, however, the Senate is certainly free either to take up the impeachment or ignore it. Section 5. Their rules. It's whatever they decide.

      And even if articles *were* formally sent over and the Senate totally ignored it and the Supreme Court ruled they can't ignore it, realistically there's not a thing anyone could do to make them take it up. (Would 50 or more Senators, and maybe a Vice-President, be held in contempt and jailed? And how would impeachment then proceed?) Totally a separation of powers issue, no?

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    4. Graham has already rebuked her along those lines: You Don’t Get To Be House Speaker And Senate Majority Leader At Same Time.

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    5. Nancy is on a (temporary) Power High. Someone needs to let the air out of her balloon and get her back to earth. Mitch McConnell, already angry with her, is the man for the job. She’s charging into his territory...

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  5. No matter what the Senate does, Pelosi won't stop the impeachment charade. She'll just do another one, with another stern lecture for the Senate. The Dems learned from Obama to always double-down on failure. That keeps their plantation satisfied.

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    1. That's part of why I'm inclined toward an outright rejection of these articles as constitutionally insufficient.

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    2. The business about flouting House committee subpoenas. I thought they were not able to issue legal subpoenas, could only send “requests” threatening subpoenas. And I don’t recall their traipsing into court to get legal ones. ???

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  6. As far as I can tell, there is no law dictating that the House must submit to the Senate for the Senate to take up trial. That is the way it had been done since the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson, but this appears to be rules and practices of the House and Senate, not formal law.

    Moreover, the rules state impeachment occurs with the successful vote of a simple majority in the House. The custom is to have the House managers to present the articles to Congress, but, again, that does not look like law. Presenting to the Senate is not found in the Constitution. I find no reference in US Code. Moreover, the fact that the Articles of Impeachment and the votes for are in Congressional Record and found by online make such a practice moot.

    https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-HPRACTICE-112/html/GPO-HPRACTICE-112-28.htm

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    1. Per my post re SOTU, I'd like very much for the Senate to deal with this BS now.

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    2. Note, the only reference to law is the Constitution.

      The Deschler, Cannon, and Hinds references are compilations of past practices.

      The Manual, of course, is not law.

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    3. Also, note that the House never created impeachment managers and with the fact that the House never created lawful subpoenas, but requests that appeared to be subpoenas, my assertion is that they never intended this to be an actual impeachment.

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    4. That's a good argument and could come up in those subpoena cases. They need to have some sort of judicial proceeding, and if it's just a fake ...

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    5. Impeachment managers and presenting to the Senate date to the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

      That is how far back, to our very first impeachment of anyone, that the Democrats today have refused to follow.

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    6. TD, but all custom. How it was done before with no guidance from the Constitution. Not cast in bronze.

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    7. Yep, bebe, and that's my point.

      The law governing is the Constitution and Pelosi cannot hold the Senate hostage now.

      We are not a Parliament and Pelosi is not a Prime Minister. Heck, even with that system you have 2 houses of government.

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  7. The Constitution is pretty much mum on process. Thus Nancy is relying on being able to veer away from custom and make all of the rules - not just for the House, but for the Senate as well. McConnell can claim the Senate, having the sole authority to actually go forward with an impeachment, can go by its own rules, which are outside her purview, and dismiss or move forward. The Articles themselves have been published and the vote in the House has been counted and published. That is a matter of record. The rest is just process…in the Senate. That is the way I see it.

    I’d love to see where anyone can find where the Constitution says that, after the house vote for impeachment, the Senate must be on hold until the Speaker decides to formally deliver the Articles.

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    1. I agree, but for now McConnell is saying he'll wait for the House. Possibly a good tactic for the time being.

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    2. Possibly, but why and what's the point?

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    3. Simply to gauge where public opinion is going--a wet finger in the wind, to help decide the next step. The Christmas recess may be the perfect time to do that.

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    4. Essentially, we are in the "Sitzkrieg" phase of the Impeachment process, in which Pelosi/Schumer and McConnell taunt each other, and wait to see who blinks first, before making the next move.

      Pelosi/Schumer want to play the "victim card" -- so, to the extent they can bait McConnell to make the first move, they can claim they and "justice" are victims, and run to the courts for relief, creating a Constitutional crisis and political gridlock, while the MSM sycophants carry their water excoriating the Senate GOP.

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  8. Schiff just set his gaze upon Pence.

    It will not stop.

    They said so. Why should we believe otherwise?

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