2nd Trump Senate Trial and the January 6 commission

[jimmy olsen]

Disagree with both options.

The 2nd impeachment should not have been delayed. There was more than enough for any reasonable person to convict. That GOP senators are simply not reasonable and would not convict no matter what.

The Jan. 6 commission has uncovered lots of relevant evidence against Trump and his complicity in 1/6

[jimmy olsen]

The main reason for not holding the trial in February was that whatever the purpose of the trial, it would not be served in holding a trial in an extremely rushed manner and it certainly was bad optics to do so before covid relief or getting key cabinet officials in place.

If you wanted to hold republican senators accountable for voting not to convict someone obviously guilty, you could have done that a lot better with the witnesses the house managers were planning to call up vs. cutting the trial short so the new administration could be put in place.

I'm sorry I think history has born out the importance of a quick trial.

In February 2021 you had Republicans vote against removal, but they were at least sheepish and still denounced Jan 6 itself.

If you were to hold a vote on barring Trump from office Summer 2022 half the Republican senators would be lauding the rioters as freedom fighters.

Agreed. Schummer should have literally held the trial the next day while the GOP senators were still shook up. If he had, they would have probably gotten a few more votes.

[Berkut]

Well, so far the poll, as far as I can tell, is 100% rejecting of the Mitch/AR narrative.

Hardly surprising.

And hardly surprising that his response is to double down on how they definitely should have done as Moscow Mitch told them to....

[alfred russel]

Agreed. Schummer should have literally held the trial the next day while the GOP senators were still shook up. If he had, they would have probably gotten a few more votes.

You are a dumbass. Schumer wasn't majority leader then, McConnell was, and regardless, the house hadn't put through impeachment.

[Berkut]

I am sure McConnel would have just done whatever the minority leader told him. I've been told that is how it works.

[alfred russel]

Berkut, because you don't seem to understand how this works. This is just an example of what happened.

Gina Raimondo was nominated to be Commerce Secretary. Hearings were held by the commerce committee of the senate on February 3. The vote was 21-3..she had majority republican support. She was also governor of Rhode Island. An full senate confirmation vote was scheduled a few days later.

Just before the vote, Ted Cruz put a hold on her nomination because of some stupid China thing. So to break the hold, the Senate had to convene and vote to begin debate on her nomination. But before that there had to be a period of floor time to debate the hold. So to debate the hold, vote to break the hold, debate the nomination, and then vote to nominate would take almost a day of senate floor time. There were only 15 days of senate floor time for all of February and 10 of those were for impeachment trial. Covid relief took up several of the rest. Because a senator from Rhode Island was screaming about delays leaving Rhode Island with a lame duck governor, she got moved to the front of the list and was confirmed on March 1 by a vote of 84-15. The attorney general didn't get confirmed until March 11.

In the end she was approved 84-15 on March 1.

Does it matter that there wasn't a commerce secretary until March 1 or that Rhode Island had a lame duck governor? Not in the grand scheme of things, but it also doesn't matter that trump wasn't convicted in a short trial in February vs. not convicted in a more thorough trial in March.

[The Minsky Moment]

The problem there is not the timely impeachment of criminal President.

The problem is:
(1) the asinine rule that permits a single Senator to place a hold and bring business on a matter to a screeching halt.
(2) some voters in Texas had the idiotic idea of making Ted Cruz a Senator

[Valmy]

As I said it seemed like a good idea at the time. His opponent, David Dewhurst, was a notoriously corrupt politician. As it turns out we probably should have just elected the corrupt guy. Another example of selecting the unknown outsider blowing up in your face.

As for why he was selected a second time, well he has a R by his name. I don't know if he had any serious challenge in the 2018 Primary. I guess we will see if any Republicans want to challenge him in 2024, but if there are I suspect they will not be better than Cruz 

[Berkut]

Does it matter that there wasn't a commerce secretary until March 1 or that Rhode Island had a lame duck governor? Not in the grand scheme of things, but it also doesn't matter that trump wasn't convicted in a short trial in February vs. not convicted in a more thorough trial in March.

I think it very much mattered that the GOP be forced to support Trump and refuse to convict him versus Mitch and you allowing them to avoid having to do so, knowing perfectly well that there would be no trial in March if everyone agreed that Mitch McConnell should get to direct the Senate from is minority position and "delay" the trial in January.

You don't seem to get how this works. You don't let the opposition, minority party dictate the Senate schedule in order to protect their political party from themselves and their corrupt President.

The idea that there is fucking ANYTHING the Senate could be doing that is more important then addressing the fact that the President tried to enact a fucking coup is just hilarious. And the idea that the threat of not getting a cabinet position through should be enough to allow the President a pass on trying to overthrow the government should have convinced the Democrats to let Mitch tell them what they can and cannot do is not ignorant - it cannot possibly be the case that anyone could be that obtuse. So it has to be something else. 

You seem to think that just because the GOP can gum up the works, then the Dems should just bend over and let them dictate the schedule. You might as well say that since the GOP can make sure Trump is not convicted, they should not have a trial. Yes, we know that they won't convict. And yes, we know that Mitch and Ted will try to gum up the works. So what? That is part of the process. And the idea that any of the negatives you keep harping about actually mattered compared to the President trying overthrow and election is just preposterous. I don't fucking care if the Senate accomplished NOTHING during that month if that is what it took to hold the President and the GOP accountable.

But of course the reality is that absent Mitch and Ted throwing in bullshit to gum up the works, they could have had the trial AND still gotten things done that needed to get done. Of course, if the GOP were the kind of people to govern in good faith, it probably would have never gotten as fucked up as it did to begin with, but whatever.

You believe that the response to them not governing in good faith ought to be the Dems surrendering to their blackmail. I think that would be a very bad idea. 

[alfred russel]

I'm really fascinated by what you think my thought process is Berkut...

I think I've been fairly clear that I think Trump is the most corrupt and useless person to ever hold the office. Do you think I am saying that just to get an in with you guys who hate Trump, and I want to convince you to really love Trump? And to do that, I'm focused on arguing that Schumer should have delayed the Senate trial of Trump until after Biden's cabinet was more in place and covid relief was passed? Because if those arguments are accepted, I will have convinced you to agree with McConnell, who was actually arguing that the whole trial was unconstitutional, but that is close enough because in spirit being against the trial being held if February is similar.

And then if I've convinced you that McConnell was right about something, you will think, "he is probably right about everything", and by extension, "republicans are right about everything" and by extension "trump was a great president" and then you will join MAGA nation?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Honestly this smacks of something where AR found a position a lot of people disagrees with, and he just wants to argue about it. None of his arguments have had much merit. A valid position would be to argue for not doing the impeachment trial at all, but the argument that doing it in February was a disaster is just really dumb.

Even bringing up delayed cabinet appointments is also very dumb. They don't really matter. Outside of the big four (AG, SecTreas, SecDef, SecState), the rest of the cabinet are literally political sinecures designed to either be gifts for political supporters who are nearing an end to their time in government or gifts to a supporter who wants to try and run for higher office later. The big four are important, but luckily they have something in common with all cabinet seats--the political appointees aren't that important, during vacancies in the top spot typically extremely experienced civil servants essentially run the department--which is also what happens the entire rest of the year too.

The main reason there is some level of urgency to get the Big Four confirmed is having the cabinet secretary in place typically means whatever new agendas and priorities the new President wants pushed, can start being pushed by their person, but in terms of just keeping the government functioning, they really are not that important. And in terms of getting policy changes started--a Presidency is four years long, a few weeks delay just is not that big of a deal.

[alfred russel]

but the argument that doing it in February was a disaster is just really dumb.

A disaster? No. A mistake? Yes.

I've not let it go because when i said so at the time i got accused of being a brown shirt, and it is so transparently obvious I was right. They actually did have to rush the trial, there actually was relevant evidence that was not presented and the confirmation of the Biden cabinet was delayed. It also set up terrible optics with the priority of prosecuting Trump being a higher priority than putting in place the government and passing covid relief (while I don't think they did hold up the covid relief bill because it was back to the House during the trial, the trial did happen before its signage into law).

[OttoVonBismarck]

Except you are not obviously right--this is a circumstance where you are clearly wrong as evidenced by literally everyone telling you that, and because you just like to stir up interminable arguments you are fighting the point--to the point that you literally resurrected a dead argument from over a year ago just to engage in more arguing with someone like Berkut who lacks the capacity to just ignore you when you act like this.

There was no messaging problem, and the idea that making Merrick Garland's term as AG a few weeks longer or a non-material delay to a covid package (that in fact never got delayed) is less important than addressing a President who may have tried to overthrow our democratic government is absurd.

[grumbler]

Contrarians will be contrary. 

They will also claim things like "it is so transparently obvious I was right." 

[The Minsky Moment]

Honestly this smacks of something where AR found a position a lot of people disagrees withlost a bet on the timing on appointments on a silly political wagering site, and he just wants to argue about itjust can't let it go.

FYP

Seriously if one is going to gamble you can't keep relitigating your losses.