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© Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Trump impeachment vote underscores a harshly partisan era
By ALAN FRAM WASHINGTON©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
35 Comments
Chip Star
Donny will become the third president in history to be impeached. That will be his legacy. Every time he’s mentioned in history books, it’ll be noted that he was impeached.
Simon Foston
Burning BushToday 07:40 am JST
That would be because he will have been saved by spineless Republican lackeys in the Senate who weren't up for re-election when the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives.
Wolfpack
This is the only impeachment in history in which no statutory crime has been committed much less alleged. The #resistance has been trying to impeach Trump since day 1 of his administration.
Naturally this article was written from a Democrat perspective. Polarization worsened beginning with Nixon’s impeachment - not Clintons. Then there was the travesty of the Bork and Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings that were just the precursors to the Kavanaugh hit job. Partisan polarization is at a high not seen since the Civil War due solely to the Dems inability to accept the results of the 2016 election. They see the Supreme Court slipping from their control and will go all out next year to stop Trump. More deep state shenanigans will of course bubble up all while Federal Prosecutor Durham is handing down indictments from Hillary’s Steele Russian dossier scandal. It will be an eventful election year.
PTownsend
to Trump and his global elite backers attempts to undermine the democratic principles the republic was built on to further establish a system more akin to corporatist authoritarianism, one that lessens US sovereignty by allowing 'foreign' states greater access to US political systems.
bass4funk
It will also be the Democrats legacy how foolish they were to go down this route despite warnings from everyone including the GOP and Pelosi not to and having the tables turned on them in the Senate trial.
As well as bringing in a record economy, record unemployment, unifying the GOP, and how the President was acquitted as fast as he was impeached.
JJ Jetplane
@Burning Bush
These comments are clearly satirical. Trump took on the elite? When? He's only empowered them further. Vindication and exoneration from the people? He didn't win the popular vote and his behaviors in office has turned states that were once red into blue states. Reached out to the average Joe? All Presidential candidates do that. Doesn't mean their actions in office, as Trump and every lawmaker in history has shown, will be the same as their words. Politics versus policy.
Chip Star
Hahahaha. You make it sound as if presidents get impeached every three years. I know it’s near impossible for you Trumpophiles, but let’s try to have a modicum of intellectual honesty.
CrazyJoe
There was never any choice here. You are either with Trump or you are for truth, justice and the American way.
Chip Star
Okay, but no Democratic member of the House will have an asterisk by their name that denotes they took part in this impeachment. Only Donny will have that award hanging around his neck. ROFL!
Also, the senate abdicating it’s duty to try the president is not turning the tables in the Dems, it’s further evidence that the GOP cares more about power than our country.
Sure, if it makes you feel better thinking this. The unemployment and economy are partially due to Obama, so strike that from your analysis. The fact that the Senate won’t even bother to actually hear any evidence will demonstrate that the GOP is fine with Donny’s corruption.
Basically, any way you cut this, the GOP comes out like the losers they are.
Chip Star
Wolf: You’re a master at playing the victim card and using identity politics. Hilarious given you pillory liberals for allegedly doing this.
Chip Star
Nothing. Our intelligence agencies have already investigated the election interference and determined it was Russia. Donny is simply flailing about for distractions.
No. You don’t expect us rational adults to participate in your untethered conspiracy theories, do you?
SuperLib
The problem is that the GOP elected a documented scam artist to office.
Who runs the GOP like a dictatorship.
Laguna
Saudi Arabia and Israel are two of the greatest recipients of US foreign aid and also two very corrupt countries, yet Trump exhibits no concern. This is because doing so would not benefit him politically. Targeting Ukraine allowed him to kill two birds with one stone: deflect from the fact that he benefited from Russian interference in 2016 and manufacture manure on his likely opponent.
If Republicans are good with this, so be it. My guess is that most Americans will not.
Wolfpack
Apparently you missed the news over the past six months. Mueller found no evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia and the IG report released last week shows that the dossier Hillary paid for and which was the basis for investigating the Trump campaign was a fake - most likely Russian disinformation to sow unrest in the US.
The takeaway from these facts is that Hillary’s campaign was duped by Moscow into spreading lies that has led to over three years of polarization in the US. Stop whining Hillary- you cheated by playing footsie with Putin and still lost.
Did I mention that Hillary’s campaign paid for it? Don’t want to leave that important part out. Not only that but she paid a foreign intelligence officer who used his connections in Moscow to do her opposition research for her. Must be part of her Russian reset.
JJ Jetplane
@Wolfpack
Really? Obstruction and abuse of power are statutory laws. Extortion is also such a law.
Bill Clinton: perjury and obstruction over having an extramarital affair. That was why he was impeached. Something that many of those politicians are guilty of.
Serrano
Donny will become the third president in history to be impeached.
True! As is this: Oh my...
The Democratic Party will become the first party in history to impeach a president without any evidence of a crime being committed, let alone an impeachable crime.
Oh my...
DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz exposes the FBI's decision to use the discredited Steele dossier in order to seek a FISA warrant against the Trump campaign
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyUxGgDpoRE
Chip Star
An action being listed as a crime is not an element of impeachment, which is too bad for all you Trumpophiles.
This is not accurate. Donny’s campaign was not surveilled, Carter Page was. This won’t change no matter how many links to YouTube you post.
lincolnman
Average Joe Stalin...
Uh, who does Trump's Justice Dept have under criminal investigation right now for corruption in Ukraine - on 8 felonies? Hint, it's not Hunter...
https://fortune.com/2019/11/15/rudy-giuliani-ukraine-financial-dealings-feds-investigating-ukraine-scandal/
Wrong. What do you call Manafort sending campaign polling data to Russians?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-04-24/manafort-kilimnik-polling
That's not what the entire intel community and the Repub's own Senate Intel Committee chaired by Repub Bill Burr concluded.
https://www.vox.com/2019/10/8/20905160/senate-intelligence-russia-2016-election
Take your MAGA-vision goggles off Dude - Your IG Horowitz said the Steele dossier "played no role" in the FISA warrant request.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/11/ig-report-horowitz-testify-his-fisa-findings-russia-probe/4387545002/
All disproved by Trump and Barr's own IG. Welcome to today's excerpt from the "Russia Report" - all the fake news straight from Moscow... Read it with your MAGA-vision googles on for the best experience...
lincolnman
That's right - humiliating, isn't it Donnie...oh my...
Back to the daily "no crime" mantra again - I guess we have to keep posting this each day - Its evidently filtered out when wearing MAGA-vision googles...
52 U.S. Code 30121; Contributions and donations by foreign nationals, which prohibits "solicitation" a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election.
What a reality warp - Horowitz said just the exact alternate; Horowitz's report said Steele's research "played no role" in the broader decision to open the Russia probe, which began months before the FBI started monitoring Page.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/12/11/ig-report-horowitz-testify-his-fisa-findings-russia-probe/4387545002/
Keep beating that dead horse Serrano...
Serrano
This is not accurate. Donny’s campaign was not surveilled...,
Riiiiiiiight.
Carter Page was. This won’t change no matter how many links to YouTube you post.
You didn't bother to watch it, did you?
impeachment
Let's hear it for President Pence! Who will then pardon Trump and make him vice president, who will then resign, making Trump president again! :D
Really though, I can't believe they're going to put the president inside a peach. This is the pitts! :D
JJ Jetplane
@Serrano
You are aware that witness testimony and statements made under official capacity is considered evidence in a legal proceedings?
browny1
Some still believe that this is about the end result of a senate trial - no bad for the tubby one.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The end result is the act of impeachment itself. The stain will be indelible.
No amount of white-washing through media spins, electorate swings or future ballots - wins or losses by any members - will cleanse the wound.
The Democrats know of course they won't get the numbers, of course they know that, of course - but their goal is simply the aforementioned.
A record of impeachment to ensure that no-one thinks they are above & beyond. As determined so rightfully long ago by those who understood that leaders are fallible and can fall prey to their own self-glories.
So I'm assuming the record in this instance will show that for all eternity.
Serrano
This just in - just in case "abuse of power" and "obstructing Congress" goes the way of quid pro quo and bribery, we have a new reason now to impeach Trump - slavery! Oh my...
Candace Owens: Dems are playing 'mad libs’, say anything and blame Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EiIvxDdQY8
Blacklabel
A partisan impeachment is only a stain on the people who do it. Has no meaning otherwise. Especially when Trump wins again in 2020 which proves once and for all that the voters don’t support impeachment either.
Blacklabel
“FBI Lawyer Investigated for Allegedly Altering Document Related to 2016 Surveillance of Trump Adviser: Reports”
TIME magazine. The only issue now is whether the surveillance was legal. IG said it likely was not due to FISA process abuse.
Serrano
This is interesting -
Levin: Every president would be subject to impeachment under Dems' current articles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqVmwITucAA
JJ Jetplane
Impeachment is a stain on the country as a whole. It puts the electoral system in doubt because he wasn't the populous vote. Also, it makes both parties look ridiculous because the whole point of a checks and balances system is to prevent things like this. The people lose trust in both the Republican and Democratic parties and new faces tend to become popular. Impeachment lowers trust in the government as a whole.
Also, the parties will be futher divided and the vice president who will become the new President would be running damage control the entire time. So will the rest of the government. Nothing gets done.
Strangerland
Yep. It’s good to see Trumps legacy destroyed. Everyone will always know he’s a criminal that was only protected by hyper-partisanship.
Anytime impeach cement is ever mentioned in the future, his name will accompany it.
Talk about a loser.
stormcrow
Can't get over that this is a partisan issue. It's more like a stupid issue.
Why on earth would you want to approve of foreign meddling in your own elections?
Hopefully Trump'll lose in 2020.
Besides being impeached, the upcoming history books to be published are going to illustrate what a horrible president Trump was.
"Trump is an aberration!" . . . Joe Biden
lincolnman
Welcome to the daily dose of Trumpers posting far-right, nut-job hate monger links and expecting the rest of us to clink on them - and get a nasty Russian bot in the process....
All the while they ignore the real events going on;
1) Horowitz concluded that there was no political bias in the FBI investigation of Russian contacts with the Trump campaign.
2) The Steele Dossier (initially funded by Repubs) was not used to request the initial FISA warrants.
3) Page and Strzok had no impact on the investigation.
4) No spying on the campaign - no wire taps, no informants.
5) Giuliani is under criminal investigation by Barr's DOJ for corruption in Ukraine and two of his business partners have been arrested by Barr. One is cooperating and said he received $1 million payment from a Russian crony of Putin. Trump is in multiple pictures with them.
6) Donnie will be impeached - a stain and humiliation that will live with him just like "Stormy" and "Grab 'em".
7) He has to sweat out what Bolton will do after calling him a "disaster" - Bolton has already called the Ukraine shakedown a "drug deal".
8) He has to worry about Crazy Rudy going off script about his recent trip to Ukraine (the crook returning to the scene of the crime). Did Trump know about it? Rudy: "No" - 30 seconds later; "Of course".... And then there's Rudy's "insurance policy" he so explicitly mentioned.
9) He has to worry about Rick Perry and his soon to be investigation into Perry pressuring Ukraine to give big oil and gas deals to two of his buddies and donors.
10) He's losing every court case so far on keeping his financial records and taxes secret - we'll soon find out what Eric and Don Jr meant when they said; "We get all the money we need from Russia"...
Merry Christmas Donnie...
bass4funk
On the contrary, not only will they have an asterisk on their records, but they will go down for being the party that handed Trump a big 2nd term victory.
More like the Dems abusing their power in order to overturn an election by the people of a duly elected President.
Not only me, but it does indeed.
No one and I mean, no one is buying that garbage on Wall st. or any investor foreign or domestic that believes that a President that was not for lowering the corporate tax rate or giving small businesses tax break incentives.
Not according to the polls, the deal with China, the over 280 accomplishments of Trump, how the Dems screwed themselves with this impeachment farce and it’ll be an even greater crushing defeat once this sham gets to the Senate. Hunter, Schiff, Joe...you’re next.
lincolnman
Let's put on our MAGA-vision googles and look at what a post-Trump win in 2020 would look like...not that this is going to happen - just for academics sake...
Trump and his Repub cronies force thru a change to the Constitution that rolls back the two-term Presidential limit, just like Mike Huckabee is saying now...
Trump and Barr begin a criminal investigation of Zukerberg, coming up with some "trumped" up charges. Trump tells Zuckerberg he can sell Facebook to a Trump crony, or be prosecuted. Zuckerberg sells.
Trump and Barr then call in the heads of all the major TV networks, political websites, and major national newspapers - and tells them the same thing - sell to a Trump crony or face an investigation and jail.
Trump hires Erik Prince as a "Security Adviser" - Prince forms a government approved contract guard force. That force is used to confront those that spread in Trump's view "fake news". People are beaten, thrown out of windows, and are mysteriously poisoned.
Trump's media cronies post pictures of Trump's head on the body of Stallone and show him riding a horse shirtless.
What a future....