Now that U.S. Senate Republicans (with the notable exception of Mitt Romney) have voted to allow Our Treasonous, Tiny-Handed Orange Pretender to get away with soiling the Constitution and act not unlike a tin pot dictator (here), which is all he ever was and ever will be, leave it to his sycophants to try and gloss over their ignominy in Dear Leader’s service.
Which brings us to this screed from “No Corporate Tax” Pat Toomey (R-Mistake) of PA (here)…
“Do these actions rise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors necessary to justify the most obviously anti-democratic act the Senate can engage in — overturning an election by convicting the president?” In 1999, then-Sen. Joe Biden answered his own question by voting against removing President Bill Clinton from office.
It is this constitutionally grounded framework — articulated well by Biden — that guided my review of President Donald Trump’s impeachment and, ultimately, my decision to oppose his removal.
House Democrats’ impeachment articles allege that President Trump briefly paused aid, and withheld a White House meeting with Ukraine’s president, to pressure Ukraine into investigating two publicly reported corruption matters. The first matter was possible Ukrainian interference in our 2016 election. The second was Biden’s role in firing the controversial Ukrainian prosecutor investigating a company on whose board Biden’s son sat. When House Democrats demanded witnesses and documents concerning the president’s conduct, he invoked constitutional rights and resisted their demands.
The phrase “briefly paused” concerning the first matter is typically deceptive of course, because it implies that Trump would have released the aid anyway, and there is no indication that that would have happened; actually, all indications are that Trump would have continued sitting on it as long as possible.
And regarding the second matter, I give you this…
The release adds new documentation to the timeline of events in which Trump ordered the delay of military aid to Ukraine to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into investigating Biden and his son Hunter Biden, who sat on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, allegations that are central to the impeachment trial.
Also, as noted here…
“Public reporting shows how senior Ukrainian officials interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign in favor of Secretary Clinton and in opposition to then-candidate Trump,” Republicans wrote in a memo of “key points” distributed Tuesday ahead of the House impeachment inquiry’s first open hearings this week.
But behind closed doors, many of the witnesses who recently testified to House investigators balked at any such comparison to Russia’s efforts.
“We’re talking about a completely different scale of interference,” Army Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, a National Security Council expert on Ukraine, testified.
At the Kremlin’s direction, Russia’s intelligence services waged a pro-Trump disinformation campaign on social media and secretly stole tens of thousands of private emails from the Democratic National Committee, the U.S. intelligence community concluded.
That government-backed campaign was a “deep” and “insidious effort to undermine a foreign country’s elections,” Vindman said. In fact, last year the Justice Department indicted 25 Russian operatives for their alleged roles in election interference during the 2016 campaign – none has been taken into custody yet.
“What a couple of actors in Ukraine might do in order to tip the scales in one direction or another is very different,” Vindman noted.
Oh, and given this, the wingnuts absolutely had to find a way to try and destroy Lt. Col. Vindman (with help from #MoscowMarsha, as noted here). And as far as the Biden/Burisma allegations are concerned, I give you this.
Returning to Toomey…
The president’s actions were not “perfect.” Some were inappropriate. But the question before the Senate is not whether his actions were perfect. It is whether they constitute impeachable offenses that justify removing a sitting president from office for the first time and forbidding him from seeking office again.
Let’s consider the case against President Trump: obstruction of Congress and abuse of power. On obstruction, House Democrats allege the president lacked “lawful cause or excuse” to resist their subpoenas. This ignores that his resistance was based on constitutionally grounded legal defenses and immunities that are consistent with long-standing positions taken by administrations of both parties.
As far as Trump’s grounds for resisting subpoenas are concerned, I give you this.
Returning to Toomey…
Instead of negotiating a resolution or litigating in court, House Democrats rushed to impeach. But as House Democrats noted during the Clinton impeachment, a president’s defense of his legal and constitutional rights and responsibilities is not an impeachable offense.
I will grant Toomey a bit of a point on the timing of the impeachment inquiry and trial. However, the following should be noted here (namely, that the Democrats felt the timing was right for the impeachment given this year’s elections).
And I would be willing to go along with Toomey a bit if it weren’t for the fact that the U.S. Senate under #MidnightMitch has done NOTHING to improve the security of our election infrastructure in time for the fall (here).
Returning to Toomey…
House Democrats separately allege President Trump abused his power by conditioning a White House meeting, and the release of aid, on Ukraine agreeing to pursue corruption investigations. Their case rests entirely on the faulty claim that the only possible motive for his actions was his personal political gain. In fact, there are also legitimate national interests for seeking investigations into apparent corruption, especially when taxpayer dollars are involved.
Actually, the supposedly “faulty” claim rests on the testimony of Lt. Col. Vindman and Ambassadors Gordon Sondland and Bill Taylor, as noted here.
Returning to Toomey…
Here is what ultimately occurred: President Trump met with Ukraine’s president and the aid was released after a brief pause. These actions happened without Ukraine announcing or conducting investigations.
That’s right, but it happened only because of the whistle blower who filed the complaint against Trump, as noted here (the person that odious mongrel Rand Paul recently announced as noted here).
Returning to Toomey…
The idea that President Trump committed an impeachable offense by meeting with Ukraine’s president at the United Nations in New York instead of Washington, D.C. is absurd. Moreover, the pause in aid did not hinder Ukraine’s ability to combat Russia. In fact, as witnesses in the House stated, U.S. policy supporting Ukraine is stronger under President Trump than under President Barack Obama.
On the matter of Trump and Obama on military aid to Ukraine is concerned, I give you this. And as far as any further equivalency between Trump and Obama on Ukraine is concerned, I also give you this.
Returning to Toomey…
Even if House Democrats’ presumptions about President Trump’s motives are true, additional witnesses in the Senate, beyond the 17 who testified in the House, are unnecessary because the president’s actions do not rise to the level of removing him from office.
So, as far as Toomey is concerned, we have a “trial” that doesn’t need witnesses or testimony because he’s already made up his mind.
If you or I ever end up in a court of law, dear reader, I sincerely hope Toomey is a juror in our case, because he will no doubt attempt to bar witnesses or testimony against us also and thus work on our behalf for acquittal (snark mode off).
Toomey once more…
Nor do they warrant the societal upheaval that would result from his removal from office and the ballot months before an election. Our country is already far too divided, and this would only make matters worse.
As far as the “vox populi” stuff on Trump’s impeachment is concerned, it looks like 2/3rds of those polled wanted witnesses as his trial as noted here, though I will grant that you could go either way on the question of Trump’s removal. And besides, I’m old enough to remember the Clinton impeachment circus, and I don’t recall any concerns about “societal upheaval” at that time vs. now.
Returning to Toomey…
As Biden also stated during President Clinton’s trial, “the Constitution sets the bar for impeachment very high.” A president can only be impeached and removed for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” While there’s debate about the precise meaning of “other high Crimes and Misdemeanors,” it’s clear that impeachable conduct must be comparable to the serious offenses of treason and bribery.
Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a blow job. I don’t see any comparison between that and treason and bribery.
Toomey once more…
The Constitution sets the impeachment bar so high for good reasons. Removing a president from office, and forbidding him from seeking future office, overturns the results of the last election and denies Americans the right to vote for him in the next one. The Senate’s impeachment power essentially allows 67 senators to substitute their judgment for the judgment of millions of Americans.
Toomey really should give up this argument of raw numbers supporting Trump’s removal from office vs. opposing it, if for no other reason than this (another “vox populi” item – this too…as noted here, Mango Mussolini was acquitted, but not exonerated).
Toomey again…
The framework Biden articulated in 1999 for judging an impeachment was right then, and it is right now. President Trump’s conduct does not meet the very high bar required to justify overturning the election, removing him from office, and kicking him off the ballot in an election that has already begun. In November, the American people will decide for themselves whether President Trump should stay in office. In our democratic system, that’s the way it should be.
In response, I thought this Op-Ed from the Inquirer made some excellent points, including the following…
Sen. Toomey attempted to justify his vote by claiming that the president was simply invoking his constitutional rights in blocking testimony. His explanation ignores the fact that the witnesses have been blocked by an unprecedented and legally dubious blanket decree of absolute immunity that has already been resoundingly rejected by a federal judge. No defendant in America has the right to blatantly order witnesses not to testify in court, yet Sen. Toomey’s action sets a different standard for defendants who belong to one’s own political party.
To know Sen. Toomey’s true motivations, look no further than his own words: “We don’t need to drag this out any longer. … We should move as quickly as we can to get this thing over with.” His rationale for his vote to acquit is cut from the same self-serving cloth. The senator makes sweeping conclusions about the president’s other possible motives for withholding aid as witnesses with direct knowledge of such facts sit muzzled on the sidelines. The senator harps upon the potential damage to the country wrought by removing a president without stopping for even a moment to address the potential long-term damage done to our democracy by the president’s conduct.
Sen. Toomey’s collective responses are not those of a representative of the people looking to do impartial justice or seek the truth. They are the words of someone who voluntarily chose to put himself and his party above the people of Pennsylvania and his solemn duty to the Constitution.
I think it’s safe to say, based on this and Toomey’s votes, that he will also be bound to Generalissimo Trump by a “cord of steel,” as noted below. And that is exactly what Toomey deserves.
Update 2/8/20: Yeah, this sure was predicatable, wasn’t it?
Posted by doomsy 
The Liberal Doomsayer 