Trump impeachment status?

by philg

Although the New York Times and CNN bravely spoke truth to power in China by covering the Trump impeachment intensively (not leaving any space in their respective China editions for coverage of unrest in Hong Kong, for example), the stories that they ran assumed that the reader already knew the crimes of which the hated dictator was guilty.

Now that I’m back from China…. what is the status of the Trump impeachment? (now in its fourth year as measured by the time that my Facebook friends first began discussing the process as it applied to Donald Trump)

For voters whose interests Trump represents (i.e., the people who actually did vote for him), has anything been uncovered in this process that would give them a reason to prefer a Democrat as President?

[Separately, some business people in China told me that they thought Trump was pursuing the correct (for Americans) trade policy on China: “The tariffs were long overdue and China had it coming,” one said. They shared the perspective of the European multinational business executives we met on our Northwest Passage cruise, i.e., that China had been maintaining unfair trade barriers and policies for decades.]

17 thoughts on “Trump impeachment status?”

  1. With the stock market crossing 30,000 in a couple days, absolutely no-one cares. There are still more people worried about paying the rent than social justice & only Trump would have jawboned the fed into quantitative easing during an economic boom. They used to say quantitative easing this year would make the economy take off like a rocket & that’s what they got.

  2. Very little movement. They had a bunch of public hearings that not many people watched, less than 5 million. These were designed to sway public opinion but were a failure in that regard. The liberals will still most likely vote on impeachment probably before the year ends. The senate still will not remove him from office. The biggest development is that the democrats realize they have no candidate who is able to beat trump. They have recruited yet another candidate from New York who is richer older and whiter (less orange) than Trump. My prediction is still trump will win re-election against a Biden/Harris ticket.

  3. I wish i could help, Phil, but I can’t figure out what is going on. Seems that there is someone called “the whistle blower,” who hasn’t been identified but seems to be a low level government official who overheard the President on a telephone call and did not like what the President said. A transcript of the call has been released so you would think that would be the end of it — that anyone could read the transcript and make his or her decision as to what it means — but instead there has been a long parade of low level government employees who feel it is their duty to tell the American public that they don’t like the way their boss is running things. They are typically not witnesses in a legal sense, i.e., someone who saw or heard something that would make the fact in dispute more or less probative. They typically give opinions. “Opinion testimony” is not typically permitted in American courts. There is no real cross examination and the accuser has not even been identified much less cross examined. Seems that any time one of the representative tries to stray from scrip he or she is smacked down. So the impeachment hearings are probably a lot like a legal proceeding in China — you might run that by one of your friends in China. That’s the best I can do.

    • You probably can’t figure out what’s going on because you’re watching Fox news, or some similar arm of the Trump propaganda machine. Just about every statement in your summary is incorrect. The whistle blower didn’t hear Trump, nor were they on the call. That’s irrelevant anyway. As for there not being any “witnesses in a legal sense…that heard or saw something…” there were at least three who testified under oath as to what they heard President Trump say. They also testified as to what cabinet members told them(since everyone else is a “low-level” employee in your estimation). They are fact witnesses, not “opinion witnesses.” The lack of cross examination substantiates that the facts are damming and so the republicans often filibustered–opinions, not under oath.

  4. The Congressional hearing has showed something beyond reasonable doubt (where the reason is to be defined by Hon. Adam Schiff). While we are still waiting for CNN to define what something was, but it currently looks like bribery.
    Specifically, Trump is accused of trying to bribe the President of Ukraine with the money procured by the US Congress. If this is confirmed, I would expect the Congressional leaders charged with embezzlement and funding a bribery scheme.
    Can you imagine: Trump and his nemesis, Nancy Pelosi, in adjacent cells? and him telling her casually, You can do anything Nancy! Grab them by the pussy!
    In other news, numerous professionals from the State Department and related agencies have testified that they strongly disapprove of Trump and his policies. Why let the President define a foreign policy that most (unelected) professionals don’t believe in? The US policy towards Ukraine must be shaped by an expert in the field, such as Fiona Hill, whom you surely met and personally approved. Right?

  5. Congress is in recess this week for Thanksgiving. Case has been referred to the Judiciary subcommittee who has to decide if he goes on trail or not. Needs a 2/3 vote to impeach, not gonna get it. This is political theatre designed to bring out a lot of dirt on Trump before the election. I personally despise the man as I believe he’s about as decent as a NJ Mafia boss (Tony Soprano). More than likely, the guys I want on the Democratic side won’t get the Nomination, so I’ll probably hold my nose and vote for him. So, I’m voting for Yang or Bloomberg or some other moderate in the Democratic Primary and just pray.

    • So… the U.S. is being run by a criminal who needs to be impeached. In response to this emergency situation, the members of Congress that are working to remove the criminal have decided to take a week off?

      Trump is completely unfit to occupy the White House, but an extra week being in charge of an enterprise that spends $100 billion per week won’t do any harm?

  6. Why are Republicans so against impeachment?

    If the President has committed crimes, why is it a debate if they should stay in office?

    Its not like the Democrats get to become President. Republicans still maintain power, and could uphold their “law and order” image, versus admitting they don’t care about rule of law at all.

    • What is the “crime” that Trump is alleged to have committed? Most voters are aware of crimes such as robbery, theft, murder, etc. But is there an allegation that Trump has committed a crime that a layperson can understand is, in fact, a crime? Most voters aren’t aware that almost anything can be considered criminal. Saying “I didn’t do it” to a federal agent, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brogan_v._United_States (the denial is a separate offense, for which a multi-year prison sentence can be assigned, if a judge or jury later does not believe the denial).

  7. There’s one guy who definitely won’t be voting for Trump – or anyone else – again.

    Thomas Bowers, the onetime head of Deutsche Bank’s American wealth-management division, where he oversaw Trump’s private banker, committed suicide by hanging, according to Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner’s office. Bowers was 55.

    https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/deutsche-bank-death/

    He must have taken this week’s hearings very hard.

  8. And this doesn’t concern the hearings per se, but it was interesting that Trump apparently sought to distance himself from Rudy Giuliani and his doings in Ukraine on Bill O’Reilly’s radio program yesterday. Giuliani may be another Trump voter whose interests no longer align with those of the President. We’ll see.

    “That thumping sound that you just heard was Donald Trump tossing his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, under the wheels of the presidential limo. Yesterday, the president denied that Giuliani was working in Ukraine on his behalf.”

    https://theresurgent.com/2019/11/27/trump-just-threw-giuliani-under-the-bus/

  9. All politician are “criminals” and they make sure their self interest is also served but Joe six-pack-the-voter doesn’t see it that way. Joe six-pack either likes or disk-likes a politician because they don’t have enough brain cells to process all this.

    What Trump did is no difference from what Obama did, looking for self interest [1], [2]. This is just one example from one president.

    So Philip, to answer your question, no nothing has been uncovered in this process that’s not already know other than giving the democratic candidates some ammunition to make their case against Trump.

    And yes, Trump is spot on to call out China, Europe and other nations for their continues ripping us up all those years. This is way over due. Unfortunately, once he leaves office none of this will matter.

    Happy Thanksgiving!

    [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNxEDomUlXw
    [2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-tells-medvedev-solution-on-missile-defense-is-unlikely-before-elections/2012/03/26/gIQASoblbS_story.html

  10. The question of whether China’s trade policies are fair or not doesn’t depend as much on the policies themselves as much as on whether you believe China is still a developing country or not. The Chinese government say they are, and they deserve it to enact all kinds of restrictions on foreign investors and trade. Ordinary people probably want to think of themselves as being on par with the US, so they’ll say no.

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