Trump Impeached and Democrats Hold Last 2019 Debate

This week, with just 318 days till the 2020 U.S. presidential election, President Donald J. Trump was impeached. On Wednesday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted 230 to 197 on the first of two articles of impeachment, abuse of power; and 229 to 198 on the second article, obstruction of Congress. Trump joins a select club of three U.S. presidents who have been impeached.

The votes on both articles of impeachment were split down partisan lines, with all Republicans voting against impeachment; two Democrats (two different ones for each article) voting with them; the remaining Democrats and the lone independent voting in support of impeachment; and one Democrat, Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, voting “Present” instead of choosing either side.

“I could not in good conscience vote against impeachment because I believe President Trump is guilty of wrongdoing. I also could not in good conscience vote for impeachment because removal of a sitting President must not be the culmination of a partisan process, fueled by tribal animosities that have so gravely divided our country.”

Some praise Gabbard’s courage, while others question it. Several Democrats who won their seats in Trump-supporting districts stuck their necks out and voted in favor of impeachment, despite the risk to their jobs come next election.

Tulsi Gabbard is right about the extreme and divisive partisanship of this impeachment process, however.

Weeks of heated debate did little or nothing to change anyone’s mind regarding whether Donald Trump committed impeachable offenses. Unlike with the previous two U.S. presidential impeachment proceedings, opinions were almost completely split down party lines.

Despite sworn testimony by reliable witnesses that Trump withheld military funds from Ukraine for a personal political favor, and despite the fact that Trump openly prevented the release of requested documents and blocked the testimony of White House staff who had firsthand knowledge of Trump’s conversation with Ukraine, all Republicans maintained that the impeachment inquiry was a “sham,” and that Trump did nothing wrong.

One must speculate as to why, if Trump “did nothing wrong,” he wouldn’t be glad to bring witnesses to testify that the conversation was “perfect,” as he claims. And with no real defense of Trump but flimsy, repetitive pseudo-defenses (“You just don’t like him” was one GOP refrain), as well as a battery of distraction techniques, one has wonder what’s keeping every last GOP lawmaker in such a lock step of loyalty to Trump and falsehood.

Following Trump’s impeachment in the House, the two articles will be sent to the Senate, who will hold a trial for Trump’s possible removal from office. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has already openly stated that he would not be impartial. As a result, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has announced that she will delay sending the articles to the Senate until the Senate will promise a fair trial.

Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, spoke out in support of Trump and criticized the Democrats for their acts of impeachment. “This is just the continuation of the internal political battle, one party that lost the elections, the Democrats, and are now trying to find new ways by accusing Trump of collusion with Russia. But then it turned out there was no collusion, this can’t be the basis for impeachment.”

Perhaps the Republican lawmakers in the House got their instructions and speaker notes from Putin.

Impeachment dominated the week, but this week also brought the final Democratic presidential debate of 2019. The list of candidates has been whittled down from the original 24 in the first debate to just seven who qualified for this one. Candidates who were onstage Thursday evening were Vice President Joe Biden; Senator Elizabeth Warren; Senator Bernie Sanders; South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg; U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar; and businessmen Andrew Yang and Tom Steyer.

Assuming the Senate does not remove him from office, Donald Trump plans to run for re-election. With each demonstration of how deep Trump’s lack of integrity goes, his base seems to dig in their heels a little more in support of him. The rest of the world, however (except, perhaps, for Vladimir Putin), holds out hope that one of the Democratic presidential candidates will claim presidential victory in 2020.
Trump impeached in historic House vote | CBS This Morning [2019-12-19]

White House ready for ‘fair shot’ on impeachment in Senate: ‘We will prevail’ | Fox News [2019-12-19]

From NATO Antics to a Pelosi Rebuff: Highlights of This Week

As of this post, only 332 days remain until the 2020 Election. Almost certainly, the days and weeks leading up to it will be filled with eyebrow-raisers that far overshadow the fundraisers. Here are just a few of the events that happened this week.

On Monday, in retaliation against France’s new digital services tax, the Trump Administration announced a proposal to levy tariffs on up to $2.4 billion worth of French imports. The French tax is aimed at preventing tech giants from avoiding taxes when they place their headquarters in low-tax countries in Europe. It would impact companies whose yearly global sales exceed 750 million Euros ($830 million) and French earnings over 25 million Euros. Such American companies as Facebook, Google, and Amazon, would be affected, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative called it “discrimination” against American companies.

Trump also attended the NATO summit this week, and what stands out most, at least for Tuesday, is not the official discussions or negotiations, but an informal chat. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was caught on video mocking Trump in an exchange with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and French President Emmanuel Macron.

Later, during a press conference, Trudeau didn’t comment directly on whether he had mocked Trump, but tried to explain that he had been making a reference to the fact that “there was an unscheduled press conference (for Trump)” before his meeting with Trump.

Trump responded to Trudeau’s remarks about him with, “Well, he’s two faced.”

Also on Tuesday, Democratic presidential hopeful Senator Kamala Harris announced that she was ending her campaign for the 2020 election.

“I’m not a billionaire,” Harris said, explaining her decision to withdraw. “I can’t fund my own campaign. And as the campaign has gone on, it has become harder and harder to raise the money we need to compete. In good faith, I can’t tell you, my supporters and volunteers, that I have a path forward if I don’t believe I do.”

On Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee held an 8 1/2-hour public hearing featuring three legal scholars and one Constitutional expert, each of whom provided testimony as to whether Trump committed bribery and other impeachable offenses by allegedly conditioning military aid to Ukraine, as well as a White House visit, on a public announcement by Ukraine’s new President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, of investigations into Trump’s political rivals.

The three legal scholars, Stanford University professor Pamela S. Karlan, Harvard Law School professor Noah Feldman, and University of North Carolina law professor Michael Gerhardt, all chosen by Democrats, testified that, yes, Trump had committed impeachable offenses, and that he had obstructed Congress.

Constitutional expert Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University professor called by the GOP (though he noted that he had not voted for Trump), disagreed, saying that if impeachment were to take place in this case, it “would stand out among modern impeachments as the shortest proceeding, with the thinnest evidentiary record, and the narrowest grounds ever used to impeach a president.”

Gerhard, however, testified, “If what we’re talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable.”

On Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that House committee chairs will begin drafting articles of impeachment against President Trump.

“The president’s actions have seriously violated the Constitution, especially when he says and acts upon the belief, Article II says I can do whatever I want. No, his wrongdoing strikes at the very heart of our Constitution, a separation of powers, three co-equal branches, each a check and balance on the other,” said Pelosi.

Many believe that impeachment is almost certain, though a vote to remove Trump from office is unlikely in the Republican-led Senate.

Republicans hold that Democrats want to impeach Trump simply because they “hate” him. When asked by a journalist if she hated Trump, Nancy Pelosi responded, “As a Catholic I resent your using the word hate in a sentence that addresses me … So don’t mess with me when it comes to words like that.”

Trump calls Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “two-faced” after NATO hot mic gaffe | CBS News [2019-12-04]

Rep. Biggs pushes back on Pelosi’s impeachment announcement |
Fox News [2019-12-05]