Should Trump be impeached?

[ulmont]

Um. An impeachment includes investigation as I understand it.... It's the Grand Jury for Presidential concerns. The Senate is the actual jury.

By impeaching, the House will have the authority to demand certain figures be interviewed, like, say, Trump.

The House doesn't need to formally vote to impeach to subpoena people to testify about whether or not they should formally vote to impeach.  And formally voting to impeach - the Grand Jury returning a true bill, to use your analogy - would be the end of the investigative process.

[frunk]

Why would exposing actual wrongdoing by the president and the administration be any worse than the made up crimes of Obama and Clinton we've been hearing about for the past several years?  How many Benghazi investigations were there?  As far as I'm concerned Congress has a duty to expose any such activity.  The Senate not doing anything about it doesn't mean we should ignore it.

What such activity are you referring to?

Illegal activity.

[Berkut]

Impeachment and conviction are different things.

Recognizing that the Senate is so compromised that conviction is likely not possible should not, MUST NOT stop the House from doing its job and impeaching the President.

If they impeach him, that means something whether he is convicted or not.

Further, we keep hearing that perhaps there are some pseudo sane Republicans for whom, if public sentiment does turn enough, might stop supporting Der Leader. Well, how about we see if a successful impeachment does the trick?

Finally, if we accept that his re-election is a de facto exoneration in the eyes of the public, then surely the 2018 elections that saw that same public vote in a majority capable of exercising their Constitutional duty to impeach a grotesquely corrupt President is a de facto demand that they do just that.

Impeach the President, and see what happens. I don't believe that there is any significant number of people who are sitting on the fence about voting for Trump in 2020 who will be all "Well, I am definitely voting for him now that he has been impeached, but the Senate refused to convict!".

Impeach the Presient, and see what happens. I don't think there is a single current Trump lackey who won't vote for him no matter what the House does, so nothing lost there.

Impeach the President, because if you do not, and he IS re-elected, it will be seen as the greatest political mistake of the last century.

[dps]

What exactly do you mean by impeachment?

Should the House vote today to impeach and have the senate start the trial tomorrow? No, they should not.

Should the House open a formal investigation for impeachment, and start calling witness, issuing subpoenas, etc. They should.

Uncover as much dirt as possible, while parading his wrong doing in public, bait him to publicly react and generally make it as politically damaging as possible, then after you've done all that vote to impeach.

That makes it sound like they're holding impeachment hearings as a campaign tactic.  That would set a terrible precedent.

Why would exposing actual wrongdoing by the president and the administration be any worse than the made up crimes of Obama and Clinton we've been hearing about for the past several years?  How many Benghazi investigations were there?  As far as I'm concerned Congress has a duty to expose any such activity.  The Senate not doing anything about it doesn't mean we should ignore it.

Exposing actual wrongdoing I have no problem with.  But Timmay didn't say that, he was talking about digging up dirt, baiting Trump, and doing as much political damage as possible.

[Maximus]

If they don't impeach this president they set a precedent and we can kiss the concept of impeachment goodbye.

[Razgovory]

Beat him at the ballot box and smash Trumpism with an unambiguous victory, thereby avoiding Dolchstosslegenden.

If we defeated Trump in 2016 we wouldn't have avoided a Dolschstosslegend.  Trump was talking about it before the election.  Why would a defeat in 2020 be any different?

All but the nuttiest fringes will accept electoral defeat as legit.

In 2016 34% of likely voters believed the election was rigged.  Half of all Trump supporters believed that.  Bizarrely, they still believe it (I don't know how that works exactly, but I've seen plenty of conservatives claim that the election was rigged by Democrats and Trump still won).  There is no reason to believe that they would regard a Trump defeat as legitimate.

[Razgovory]

If they don't impeach this president they set a precedent and we can kiss the concept of impeachment goodbye.

I don't think impeachment has ever worked.  It's not a good system for the enforcement of laws.

[Admiral Yi]

If they don't impeach this president they set a precedent and we can kiss the concept of impeachment goodbye.

Why is that?

[break]

Trump has filed suit to block the House looking into his bank records.  Here we are discussing it, and it's almost like it's happening in real life!

[Oexmelin]

Impeachment and conviction are different things.

Recognizing that the Senate is so compromised that conviction is likely not possible should not, MUST NOT stop the House from doing its job and impeaching the President.

If they impeach him, that means something whether he is convicted or not.

This. The process of impeachment stands for something. It must continue to carry strong political symbolism.

[Ancient Demon]

I don't think there's a legitimate reason to impeach Trump. If the democrats do so anyway, hopefully it backfires.

[The Minsky Moment]

Impeachment is a political process.  Whether political support exists to sustain a conviction is a relevant consideration.  Whether an impeachment from the House helps or hurts the electoral prospects of the President is a relevant consideration.  Congress does not need to impeach to hold hearings on executive conduct, to investigate suspected misconduct, and to hold the Executive accountable for its conduct.

Sensible prosecutors do not bring cases if they do not think they can secure a conviction and the House should guide itself accordingly. 

[merithyn]

Impeachment and conviction are different things.

Recognizing that the Senate is so compromised that conviction is likely not possible should not, MUST NOT stop the House from doing its job and impeaching the President.

If they impeach him, that means something whether he is convicted or not.

Further, we keep hearing that perhaps there are some pseudo sane Republicans for whom, if public sentiment does turn enough, might stop supporting Der Leader. Well, how about we see if a successful impeachment does the trick?

Finally, if we accept that his re-election is a de facto exoneration in the eyes of the public, then surely the 2018 elections that saw that same public vote in a majority capable of exercising their Constitutional duty to impeach a grotesquely corrupt President is a de facto demand that they do just that.

Impeach the President, and see what happens. I don't believe that there is any significant number of people who are sitting on the fence about voting for Trump in 2020 who will be all "Well, I am definitely voting for him now that he has been impeached, but the Senate refused to convict!".

Impeach the Presient, and see what happens. I don't think there is a single current Trump lackey who won't vote for him no matter what the House does, so nothing lost there.

Impeach the President, because if you do not, and he IS re-elected, it will be seen as the greatest political mistake of the last century.

This.

[DGuller]

Impeachment is a political process.  Whether political support exists to sustain a conviction is a relevant consideration.  Whether an impeachment from the House helps or hurts the electoral prospects of the President is a relevant consideration.  Congress does not need to impeach to hold hearings on executive conduct, to investigate suspected misconduct, and to hold the Executive accountable for its conduct.

Sensible prosecutors do not bring cases if they do not think they can secure a conviction and the House should guide itself accordingly.

To argue for the other side, what if you're a prosecutor dealing with a lynching in Deep South during the Jim Crow era?  Obviously you're not getting a conviction, but shouldn't you at least go through the motions anyway?

[KRonn]

I don't think there's a legitimate reason to impeach Trump. If the democrats do so anyway, hopefully it backfires.

I agree, Impeachment in this is more political than anything else.

[Berkut]

I don't think there's a legitimate reason to impeach Trump. If the democrats do so anyway, hopefully it backfires.

I agree, Impeachment in this is more political than anything else.

Bullshit.

I think he should be impeached, and it has nothing to do with my politics.