Is it time to impeach The Donald?

I can't speak for Chup, but given his knowledge of our legal proceedings is better than yours, I'll assume he's aware that impeachment is an entirely separate issue from the subsequent trial and removal from office.

I voted No. I’d rather see him voted out. The public needs to own their mistakes.

Nothing Trump did today was unpredictable or exceptional for him. Still people support him.

Wait a minute ... are you seriously arguing that Trump can't have committed treason because Trump hasn't designated Russia as an enemy?

That sounds an awful lot like "the president can't break the law, because he's the one who decides what the law is."

So, conspiring with foreign nationals to use stolen data to influence the election doesn't count as either a "high crime or misdemeanor" in your book?

No.

/thread

That's a worthwhile point. Removing Trump may address one particularly ugly symptom but it will do nothing to address the underlying sickness in American politics.
If he is replaced by someone who is more urbane and diplomatic but with broadly the same policies, then what is achieved other than saving face?

Exactly.

I'm not an accelerationist so would rather bad situations are avoided beforehand, but in this case tens of millions of American voters looked at Trump, bought into the "they're all as bad as each other and no one person can do too much damage" argument and said Trump was their man.

For those people impeaching Trump now will either outrage them, or if they have since stopped supporting him will merely have their view that the system is self correcting justified.

Impeach Trump now and you pretty much guarantee someone like him pops up again in 6 or 10 years. Let him continue like he is now until 2020 and there will be an entire generation of voters who will never again take their vote for granted.

you didn't list acts worthy of impeachment. You basically described the presidential job description!

going back through the thread, Anna pointed out that actual impeachment means jack shit - the president still isn't removed.
All it would mean is a strong display of protest - a strongly worded letter expressing discontent from the american people, kind of. Wasn't Bill Clinton impeached? The way I see it, if Trump were impeached today, by the time the entire process of finally ending his term (the whole process wrapped up) would take about as long as the rest of his term anyway. If he became so massively unpopular among all citizens across the board he probably would get elected for a second term anyway.

Of course, lots of people have a very hard time admitting that they were wrong, no matter how much evidence they're given.

His public siding yesterday with a hostile power over U.S. law enforcement is probably enough for Treason or, if you think that's a stretch, go for High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Failing that, you can easily just nail him for High Crimes and Misdemeanors for his past behaviour (there's no requirement that the offences be committed while sitting as president). I'd suggest you read the book, The Case for Impeachment by Allan Lichtman. It pretty much lists all the immoral and illegal shit Trump did before he was president.

Remember, impeachment is a political process. Don't look at it through the lens of your prior experience as a LE officer.

Jesus bloody Christ.

And you're a school teacher.

With morons like you "educating" Americans, no wonder a significant portion of them voted for Comrade Trump.

Honestly, at this point, if I worked for the RNC, I'd just be dumping every file I had access to in the various anonymous inboxes that news organizations have set up.

But his Praxis scores!

The problem with removing Trump from office right now is that we'd be stuck with Pence. Best to let the probe take its course as I'm pretty sure Pence is caught up in the whole thing as well, so maybe we can get both of of them out.

One possible angle is that the President swears to uphold the laws and institutions of the USA. By essentially saying he believes Putin over his own intelligence agencies when Congress AND the Senate agree there was Russian meddling, has he failed in that duty?

On Pence and a Trump impeachment, many argue impeachment would be bad because then we get a competent President whose agenda is basically a theocratic US - yes, Pence is more competent, but he has to rely on the Senate and Congressional GOP to back him. On the more religious stuff, I'm not convinced they would... they've gone against public opinion before because they were afraid of pissing off Trump's very vocal base, but would Pence necessarily retain that base?

Worse, Trump gets impeached, is removed from office, and Mike Pence takes over. Now there are people on the right, and a big helping of moderates saying "finally, someone sane!"

Pence is sane? He's a creationist! No creationist is sane.

How sad, Truckstop John and his running buddy Butthunter are more concerned with the prospect of a Christian as President than an incompetent, personality-disordered traitor.

I'm more concerned that your carers let you out unsupervised again. It's like all those times Murdock escaped the VA, except you really are completely batshit. And don't have a pilot's licence.

Pence fosters the appearance of normalcy. He's quieter, more "dignified," and next to Trump he's a statesman (by comparison only). He would experience a boost from Trump's fall.

"There’s no allegation in this indictment that any American citizen committed a crime. There’s no allegation that the conspiracy changed the vote count or affected any election result." - Rod Rosenstein, on charging those 12 Russians.

This is the signal that Mueller's investigation is done. There is no collusion between Trump, any other American, and the Russians.

Or is it now time to start hating Rosenstein and Mueller?

In addition to that:

#1 Sanctions applied against Russia in 2014 have not been lifted.

#2 Trump authorized selling weapons to Ukraine. Something that Obama refused to do.

#3 Ordered missile attacks against Syria while the Russians are in the country and working with the Syrians. Let the American military knowingly slaughter those Russian mercenaries that everyone knows where really working for Putin.

#4 New sanctions against Russia in April 2018. These sanctions prevent Putin's top circle from ever coming to the United States or doing business with the United States.

#5 New Sanctions against Russia in August 2017. These sanctions were against energy and defense industries in Russia.

#6 Trump ordered Russian diplomatic properties in San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York City, and Seattle closed.

#7 Trump expelled 60 diplomats over the Russian poison incident in the UK.

#8 Trump has lambasted Russia for trying to hold Eastern Europe hostage over oil.

#9 Trump just this week lambasted Germany for allowing itself to be held hostage by Russia. Seventy percent of your gas is coming from Russia? Yeah, you're a hostage to Russia. You can't act against Russia when Russia holds the levers to 70% of your gas coming into your country.

Yeah. Trump is not getting impeached over a press conference that could have gone better. I'll admit it wasn't Trumps best. Trump is not working for Russia. Trump is not colluding with Russia. Trump's actions against Russia clearly aren't in Russia's favor.

You guys are being lied to by the media. The media is going to report against Trump no matter what he does. If Trump had said Russia was an enemy and war would break out if Russia didn't stop "meddling" the media would be screaming that Trump wanted to start a nuclear war and all of you on this board would be screaming it too.

You should know better but you're letting your hatred of Trump get in the way of clear thinking. The more people like the ones on this board squeal like stuck pigs the more people you push into Trump's camp.

Please continue.

That's exactly it. Mike Pence is far more dangerous because he has diplomacy skills and people do genuinely like and respect him amongst the Evangelicals. Hell, I wouldn't be at surprised if a number of them grit their teeth at Trump specifically hoping for him to get kicked out and for Pence to send us back to the 1950s.

At this point, I'd far prefer for the both of them to get booted out on their ass.

Huh. Someone should tell Mueller he is done. He asked for 100 more blank subpoenas last Weds.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-...or-100-more-blank-subpoenas-ahead-of-manafort

This. Trump's danger is blatant, heavy handed, and obvious. Mike Pence's danger is more subtle, hidden behind a pious smile.

Assuming he doesn't blow up the country before then, the best case for America long term is for Trump to finish out his term, but then get primaried. That isn't likely but the odds of him getting a significant primary challenger (say a Kasich or Flake) are decent and in the modern era no pres who has faced a strong challenge (not just some wackaloon that throws his name in the hat) has gone on to win the general.

In losing, most of Trump's hardcore base (the white nationalist wing of the Republican party) would feel that the establishment Rs had stabbed them in the back and would abandon the party. That would free up the Republicans to try and put together a new electoral coalition not dependent on white nationalists.

The process would take a few cycles which would give the country some time for the Dems to fix the mess the Rs have driven us into.

This. Plus, someone like Kasich would go far after the damage Trump has caused. Kasich's been vocal about Trump's behavior from the start, and while he has serious flaws of his own, he's also far more moderate than either Trump or Pence in his policies, which isn't saying too much (he believes Roe v. Wade is settled law as well as Oberfell v. Hodges, and he also fought for the expansion of Medicaid), but does show that he would be a favorable pick for any conservative or moderate saying "holy shit, this has to stop, and we need someone more sane and centered to make it happen."

I'm pretty sure Congress would have to do that.

Right after that, Ukraine ended a criminal investigation into Manafort.

After warning the Russians to get their people out of the target area.

He "let" them?

That was congress, and Trump screamed bloody murder about it.

Congress

He didn't seem real happy about that, but he didn't really have a choice given the fact that Russia had just tried to assassinate someone inside a NATO country with a nerve agent.

Now that's a fair point.

That was an attack on Merkel, not Putin.

But yeah...I agree that Trump won't get impeached for this.

It’s funny you guys think Kasich has a chance.