Turning The Ballot Box Against Republicans

What a bunch of bullshit. The Democrats are trying to destroy the president our democracy gave us because they do not like the results of an election they lost. Hands down, Dems are the ones who ignore our laws and traditions. This article is projection propaganda.

And you are a prime example of someone completely fooled by it.

Why is it there's a set of rules for Obama but when those same rules apply to Trump, you deflect? Security costs are security costs. The only difference is, Obama paid and Trump hasn't.

Yeah, that's right, it's all the Left's fault. No, no it isn't. Blame squarely pies on the President. Require him to pay.

Tthat was WaPo. Here's NPR> There are many many analyses online that say yes it's probably impeachable. Not just my opinion, and certainly not yours, but then yours so often are contrafactual.

rump's Actions Regarding Ukraine An Impeachable Offense?

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September 25, 20197:19 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition

NPR's Noel King talks to Nick Akerman, a member of the Watergate prosecution team investigating President Nixon, about the whistleblower complaint against Trump, and if it could lead to impeachment.

NOEL KING, HOST:
After Robert Mueller's testimony, it seemed like talk of impeaching President Trump had slowed down. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to even talk about it publicly until just a couple days ago. But now all of that has changed.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NANCY PELOSI: The president must be held accountable. No one is above the law.
KING: That was Speaker Pelosi talking yesterday. She announced she's opening an official impeachment inquiry into the president based on a July phone call that he made to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. President Trump admits that, in that call, he asked the Ukrainian president to investigate his political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden. Now, we have not seen a transcript of that call, but the White House says it will release it later this morning. So how will impeachment proceedings proceed?
Nick Ackerman served on the prosecution team that investigated President Richard Nixon during the Watergate scandal, which led to impeachment hearings and Nixon's resignation. Good morning.
NICK AKERMAN: Good morning. Thank you for having me.
KING: So in your capacity as a lawyer, let me ask you, is it illegal for a sitting president to pressure Ukraine's president to investigate a political rival?
AKERMAN: It certainly depends on all of the facts, but it would seem in this circumstance it wasn't only pressuring a foreign leader to investigate a rival, which probably could likely violate the campaign finance laws. It's seeking something of aid from a foreign person, which is against the law. But what makes it even more egregious here is the holding off of aid to Ukraine, which had been appropriated by Congress that was desperately needed for the government to fend off the Russian incursion into Ukraine. So it - the whole matter itself raises incredibly serious allegations.
KING: Well, President Trump has admitted that he held off the aid, but he hasn't yet said - he hasn't said, I should say, that he did it because Ukraine did not accede to his request. Right? So I guess what I'm pointing to is there are some facts that we know and there are some facts that we don't. At this point, at this moment, what are the facts that you would like to know before you can say openly the president's actions were an impeachable offense? What do you want to know, still?
AKERMAN: Well, I think what I'd want to know is how many calls were there? How many times did he speak to the Ukraine president? How many times did Rudy Giuliani make overtures to various people? Apparently, he met with people in Madrid. What was said there? What happened in those conversations, and why were they made? What was asked for? I'd want to be looking at exactly what the circumstances were on the withholding of the appropriated money to Ukraine. What was unusual? Why didn't it go over? What did the president say to various people?
There's also reports in the press that, apparently, a number of national security people were very nervous about the president speaking to the president of Ukraine for the very reason that we now find happened. You know, what was it that led them to believe in the first instance that President Trump would be making an overture to try and get the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden? I mean, I'd want to know all of those facts. There are lots of witnesses that would be involved in this.
All of these people have to be spoken to. It's not just the whistleblower that was involved. But it sounds like there are many, many people here who have relevant knowledge as to the circumstances surrounding this whole matter.
KING: Is the transcript enough, do you think? Or do you think we need the whistleblower's full complaint?
AKERMAN: I don't think the transcript comes close. I mean...
KING: OK.
AKERMAN: ...It's just one transcript of one conversation. Transcripts aren't always accurate. You really have to compare the transcript to the recording of the conversation, if there is such a recording. I mean, our experience in Watergate was that, you know, we had a situation where Nixon was trying to evade producing the tapes and giving us transcripts that were going to be listened to by then-Senator Stennis, who had a hearing problem because of his age. So you know, you've got to be very, very cautious of relying just on a transcript.
KING: What will investigators be looking for if they - if and when they get ahold of the whistleblower's complaint that will help them determine whether what happened is an impeachable offense? What's in that complaint that we really want to see?
AKERMAN: We want to know exactly what was said, what he based his knowledge on. Was it firsthand knowledge? Did he overhear the conversation? Did he just happen to see a transcript of the conversation afterwards? Who else did he speak to? What other evidence is out there that corroborates what he says? How specific is this complaint? How much detail is in there? These are all the kinds of things that we'll be looking for the moment that the whistleblower statement comes out.
KING: And do you expect it will come out?
AKERMAN: I think it's inevitable...
KING: OK.
AKERMAN: ...It's going to come out.
KING: OK.
AKERMAN: I mean, I think what we do know, though, is the inspector general basically said this was an urgent matter and was significant. So it's not like somebody who is in charge of this and is in charge of investigating this in the first instance is saying that this is not something that's credible. I mean, he's saying just the opposite. So that's what makes this so concerning.
KING: What happens next as we proceed along the path of this inquiry, this impeachment inquiry?
AKERMAN: I think what we're going to see is, with respect to this issue, which I think is really the prime issue at the front burner right now, we're going to see witnesses called in, people spoken to, more documents. I think they're going to have to really go back and retrace everything that occurred. I mean, this is going to be a very investigative, intensive matter, just like I said before. Because there are questions about why wasn't the money appropriated, what did Trump say to people, why did people go along with it? I just think there's just so many people to speak to. This is going to be a pretty intensive investigation.
KING: Very briefly, given your experience in Watergate, how does Congress keep this from becoming political theater? We just have a couple seconds, I'm afraid.
AKERMAN: I think what they really have to do is do a lot of this behind closed doors because a lot of this involves national security issues and classified information. So this has got to be held very close to the vest initially. And then Congress has to decide what it is they can reveal to the public.
KING: Sounds like a potential for a very frustrated or curious public, there, huh?
AKERMAN: (Laughter) For a while, anyway.
KING: For a while.
AKERMAN: I think eventually this will all come out.
KING: Nick Akerman is a former federal prosecutor who is a member of the Watergate prosecution team. Sir, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.
AKERMAN: Thank you.
Copyright © 2019 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
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Republicans hate the Constitution and the rule of law. Tou wanted expert opinion. I gave you expert opinion. Too bad it disagrees with you opinion. The Constitution gives us two totally constitutional ways to replace a prez who has lost the trust of the people. Impeachment is one of the. It's totally legal to impeach him. Couldn't happen t a more deserving person.

Sounds to me you are running out of things to whine about. This all recycled news it has been bought up before.

Lol! You're the one who brought up vacations. Stop stiffing the American public into believing bullshit.

Give me one example of that.

After you.

But how is this possible? He swore up and down that he would be much too busy working to ever have time to play golf.

Are you trying to tell me he is a prevaricator? Oh, heavens to Betsy, I am shocked. Shocked I tell you!

(nah, not really)

Democrats are the ones who try to violate people's constitutional rights simply because they think it is fun to do so.

Republicans are the ones who defend people's constitutional rights.



Republican senators are not about to go along with this witch hunt.

On the other hand, it's never too early to lay the groundwork for impeaching the next Democratic president. That way we can start impeachment proceedings against them as soon as they take office.

You're living in a pocket universe of alternate reality.

These are the Republicans who are against Trump and for impeachment
CNN Digital Expansion 2018 Harry Enten
Analysis by Harry Enten, CNN

Updated 7:48 AM ET, Tue October 1, 2019
CNN poll: Rising Republican support for impeaching Trump

(CNN)President Donald Trump is staring down possible impeachment. Fortunately for him, his base of very conservative Republicans in the Senate likely would save him from being removed from office.

But CNN/SSRS polling in September suggests that Trump should be more worried about a part of the Republican Party that gets less notoriety: the more moderate part. This part of the party won't play a large role in impeachment proceedings, but their feelings toward impeachment and Trump in general could hurt his re-election bid.

The yearning for impeachment and removing Trump from office has risen significantly among moderate and liberal potential Republicans (i.e. Republicans and Republican leaning independents). Nearly a third of moderate/liberal potential Republicans in our latest CNN poll said they wanted Trump impeached and removed last week, while about two-thirds didn't want that. Back in late May, the split was 16% for impeachment and removal and 81% against it. This is statistically significant movement.

The seeming shift of this moderate/liberal potential Republican bloc shouldn't be too surprising, given what a different CNN poll found in early September. In that poll, 25% of moderate/liberal potential Republicans disapproved of the job Trump was doing as president. Only 69% approved. Trump's job approval ratings with this moderate/liberal Republican bloc looks like the percentage who want him impeached and removed from office.

Now compare what's going on with the very conservative part of the Republican Party. Among those who are very conservative and can be classified as potential Republicans, Trump remains a very popular president. His approval rating in CNN's early September poll among very conservative potential Republicans was 94%, about 25 points higher than his rating with the moderate to liberal wing of the party.

Obviously, you shouldn't expect moderate and liberal Republicans to be as behind the President as very conservative Republicans. Those toward the center of the ideological spectrum are more likely to go against their party.
Still, this is an underperformance for Trump.

For perspective, 85% of moderate/conservative potential Democrats and 98% of very liberal potential Democrats disapproved of the job Trump was doing in our early September CNN poll. This is a 13-point gap going from left to right within the party. On the Republican side, the gap is about double that from left to right within the party.

Not surprisingly, very conservative potential Republicans have been far less likely to back impeachment than moderate/liberal potential Republicans. The trendline on impeachment is much different among very conservative potential Republicans and moderate/liberal potential Republicans as well. Back in May, 2% of them wanted Trump impeached and removed from office. Today, it's 1% of this bloc who want Trump impeached and removed from office.

In other words, Trump's base is intact and isn't really moving. The loudest part of his party is going to have his back -- and it's a group that now makes up a lot more of congressional Republicans than it used to. This is why the chance of Trump getting removed from office is minimal, and it may make Trump believe he can count on more Republicans in his re-election bid than he actually can.

The problem for the President is that in the actual electorate, moderate and liberal potential Republicans make up about the same 25%-30% of potential Republicans as very conservatives do. (The other about 40% of the party is made up of somewhat conservative voters.)

When you dig deeper into the crosstabs, you see moderate and liberal Republicans may even have more power than the national polls indicate. In a combined sample of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin Republicans in the 2018 midterm exit polls, about 40% call themselves either moderate or liberal. These, of course, were the big states that flipped the electoral college in 2016.

Now, I don't want to overplay the role of a group of voters who make up, at most, a third of the Republican Party. But when you look at the math, something's going to have to give for Trump: Either he's going to need to win a significantly larger chunk of moderate/liberal Republicans than these numbers suggest he's capable of winning, or the Democratic candidate will have to underperform among Democrats.

Because unless something happens, it's difficult to imagine Trump winning when only a little more than two-thirds of moderate/liberal potential Republicans approve of the job he's doing in office and nearly a third want him impeached and removed from office.

What would anyone expect CNN to say about Trump? Propaganda and opinion.

It's on par with the Fox News Poll that has impeachment in the majority.

I heard that poll was flawed. And Killary had an 84% chance of winning the day of the election. How did that work out?

She beat trump by nearly three million votes. the anti-democratic poison pill the founding fathers left us in the form of the electoral college fucked us up as it has done just about every time the country resorted to it. All the polls show trump behind and impeachment favored.. for once fox seems to have gotten their act together.

Anti-Democratic, pro Republic. Deal with it, the EC is here to stay.

Not if the National Popular Vote Compact passes. The Constitution provides a way to oust corrupt criminal presidents from office. The majority of the country wants Trump impeached. Deal with it.

You need an amendment to abolish the EC. Try again after your civics course.

It's not going to pass. And if it did pass, the Supreme Court would likely undermine it by striking down laws that prevent electors from voting as they choose.



Republican senators are not going to go along with this witch hunt and remove Trump from office.

But it's not too early to start making plans for impeaching the next Democratic president, so that we can begin impeachment proceedings as soon as they are sworn into office.