Cable Forum - U.S Election 2020

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Re: U.S Election 2020

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36066592)

It will fire up his core support for sure. However the Republican Party is split down the middle and the non-Trump half now has an opportunity to ensure he can’t run in 2024 - can’t even promote speculation about running in fact, because he will be barred. If there are enough anti-Trump republicans in the Senate, they may well feel their best chance of taking the White House in 2024 is to Lance the Trump boil now and hope the party moves on.

The Republican party is not split down the middle at all Chris.

And from all indications - I count just 7 Republican Senators that might go all in for conviction, that isn't anywhere near half, only 10 House Republicans sided with the Dems, 197 or so voted nay. This is not a party split in the middle by any means.

Re: U.S Election 2020

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mick (Post 36066593)

This Republican pollster says it is:

Quote:

Republican pollster Frank Luntz says the most "amazing statistic" to him is the fact that half of Trump's voters want him to keep fighting over election 2020.

"They want him to continue to fight right up to the inauguration," he told the BBC.

He says this passion, even in the face of evidence, explains what happened during the riot last week.

Luntz also warns that "there's a danger that the Republican party actually splits in half" post-Trump - and as things stands, at the moment, "there are more people who'd go with Trump".

From BBC live, at 22:46.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/worl...anada-55645957

Granted he thinks the Trump supporting half is bigger, but he clearly sees a risk in the party splitting “in half”.

Re: U.S Election 2020

Most interestingly and this is in the Washingtonpost of all places, a legal expert opinion says once Trump leaves office his Senate trial cannot continue because doing so would be Unconstitutional.

Quote:

Opinion by J. Michael Luttig
Jan. 12, 2021 at 10:42 p.m. GMT
J. Michael Luttig served as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit from 1991 to 2006.

It appears that even if the House of Representatives impeaches President Trump this week, the Senate trial on that impeachment will not begin until after Trump has left office and President-Elect Biden has become president on Jan. 20. That Senate trial would be unconstitutional.

On Sunday, House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) said that, while House Democrats would take up articles of impeachment this week against President Trump, the House might delay sending to the Senate any articles passed by the House until after President-elect Biden’s first 100 days in office. Biden proposed an alternative, under which the new Senate would immediately begin working on his legislative agenda and confirming his Cabinet appointments in the mornings and conduct the impeachment trial in the afternoon.

The sequencing of the House impeachment proceedings before Trump’s departure from office and the inauguration of the new president, followed by a Senate impeachment trial, perhaps months later, raises the question of whether a former president can be impeached after he leaves office.

The Constitution itself answers this question clearly: No, he cannot be. Once Trump’s term ends on Jan. 20, Congress loses its constitutional authority to continue impeachment proceedings against him — even if the House has already approved articles of impeachment.

Therefore, if the House of Representatives were to impeach the president before he leaves office, the Senate could not thereafter convict the former president and disqualify him under the Constitution from future public office.

The reason for this is found in the Constitution itself. Trump would no longer be incumbent in the Office of the President at the time of the delayed Senate proceeding and would no longer be subject to “impeachment conviction” by the Senate, under the Constitution’s Impeachment Clauses. Which is to say that the Senate’s only power under the Constitution is to convict — or not — an incumbent president.

The purpose, text and structure of the Constitution’s Impeachment Clauses confirm this intuitive and common-sense understanding.

The very concept of constitutional impeachment presupposes the impeachment, conviction and removal of a president who is, at the time of his impeachment, an incumbent in the office from which he is removed. Indeed, that was the purpose of the impeachment power, to remove from office a president or other “civil official” before he could further harm the nation from the office he then occupies.

The plain text of the Constitution’s several Impeachment Clauses confirms this understanding of this limit on Congress’ impeachment power. For example, Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution reads, “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In the same constitutional vein, Article I, Section 3 provides in relevant part: “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States.”

It has been suggested that the Senate could proceed to try the former president and convict him in an effort to disqualify him from holding public office in the future. This is incorrect because it is a constitutional impeachment of a president that authorizes his constitutional disqualification. If a president has not been constitutionally impeached, then the Senate is without the constitutional power to disqualify him from future office.

Some constitutional scholars take support for their view that the Congress can impeach a former president from two instances in which early Congresses impeached “civil officials” after they had resigned their public offices — the impeachments of Sen. William Blount in 1797 and the impeachment of Secretary of War William Belknap in 1876.

These congressional impeachment cases provide some backing for the argument that Congress can conclude that it has the power under the Constitution to impeach a former president. And Congress’s understanding of its constitutional powers would be a weighty consideration in the ultimate determination whether the Congress does possess such authority. When and if the former president goes to court to challenge his impeachment trial as unconstitutional, Congress is sure to make its argument based on these congressional precedents, as well as others, a case that would almost certainly make its way to the Supreme Court.

In the end, though, only the Supreme Court can answer the question of whether Congress can impeach a president who has left office prior to its attempted impeachment of him. It is highly unlikely the Supreme Court would yield to Congress’s view that it has the power to impeach a president who is no longer in office when the Constitution itself is so clear that it does not.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...achment-trial/

Re: U.S Election 2020

There’s no doubt it would end up in the Supreme Court regardless. The Trump campaign has not been shy of pursuing legal action since November. Without being a constitutional expert however, I’m not convinced by the retired judge’s argument even based on the parts he quotes.

Trump has already been constitutionally impeached, within the last 24 hours, while still in office. If the only judgment then available was removal from office then proceedings would by definition have to end when he leaves office anyway, but the constitution doesn’t limit judgment to that. Disqualification is also provided for.

The judge’s argument amounts to word play - effectively, “aaah, but these clauses apply to the president, and he’s not the president any more, is he?” He appeals to the “plain reading” of the text but that’s not the reading he’s offering. The two legal precedents for officials being barred from future office after already having left it, will be significant should this get to the Supreme Court.

Re: U.S Election 2020

National Guard on high alert for Biden's inauguration.

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...2&d=1610616679

:D

Attachment 28852

Re: U.S Election 2020

Quote:

Originally Posted by heero_yuy (Post 36066607)

National Guard on high alert for Biden's inauguration.

https://www.cableforum.uk/board/atta...2&d=1610616679

:D

Attachment 28852

they are resting, the rest are outside with M16s waitng for armed troublemakers

Re: U.S Election 2020

On that point...

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/n...iden-df8spwvld

Quote:

The US army and secret service is carrying out background checks on the national guard troops due to protect Washington during Joe Biden’s inauguration next Wednesday.

The forces, alarmed by reports that active-duty and reserve military personnel may have been involved in the assault on the Capitol last week, have begun a combined inspection of the 15,000 part-time soldiers.

Any hint that a national guardsman has political sympathies for the rioters is likely to mean an immediate withdrawal from the force, which is being prepared to line the capital city’s streets on January 20.

Re: U.S Election 2020

John Sopel on the BBC made a point that there are currently more soldiers in Washington DC right now than in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yikes!

Re: U.S Election 2020

The idea seems to be to persuade anyone thinking about a repeat performance to stop even thinking about it. There's also a fairly obvious intended symbolism in having that many guardsmen camping inside the Capitol, and reminding everyone that the last time soldiers were billeted inside the building was to protect it during the civil war.

Re: U.S Election 2020

The House Resolution to force Vice President, Mike Pence to invoke 25th Amendment was unconstitutional as is the 1st and Second impeachment of Donald Trump. That’s not me saying it, it’s a Constitutional expert, Alan Dershowitz, he is no political supporter of President Trump, he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In his show, he explains at length his arguments. I trust his views over anyone else’s here because every one on here, is not a Constitutional expert and has not put any viewpoints across which validates, what congress has done is Constitutional, they have argued a plenty that Trump is not above the law, well, neither is Congress....

Re: U.S Election 2020

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mick (Post 36066622)

None of what this hard-working octogenarian Democrat says is going to change the two successful impeachments, though is it?

Re: U.S Election 2020

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mick (Post 36066622)

The House Resolution to force Vice President, Mike Pence to invoke 25th Amendment was unconstitutional as is the 1st and Second impeachment of Donald Trump. That’s not me saying it, it’s a Constitutional expert, Alan Dershowitz, he is no political supporter of President Trump, he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In his show, he explains at length his arguments. I trust his views over anyone else’s here because every one on here, is not a Constitutional expert and has not put any viewpoints across which validates, what congress has done is Constitutional, they have argued a plenty that Trump is not above the law, well, neither is Congress....

He was however Trump's lawyer during the last impeachment.

Although I largely agree I don't think the 25th Amendment was there for that cause. More of a moral observation than a legal one.

---------- Post added at 13:00 ---------- Previous post was at 12:58 ----------

I think with Trump, it's less than a week now, just let it be. This time next week he'll no longer be President.

If he has done anything he is legally at risk for then let that play out in the courts as it should.

Re: U.S Election 2020

Being his lawyer does not equal political support.

Re: U.S Election 2020

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris (Post 36066620)

Trojan horse?

Re: U.S Election 2020

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sephiroth (Post 36066627)

Trojan horse?

Highly unlikely. The troops mobilised for this operation are coming from almost all the states - they're not the DC ones who are under Trump's direct control (I doubt they'd obey an order to rebel anyway). The only ones allowed to be armed are MPs or others with police experience. The operation is being run by the Pentagon which has already put out a letter reminding personnel what oath they've sworn. Plus the FBI and the Secret Service are vetting all those deployed to make sure none of them frequent the sort of websites that have been fuelling the unrest.

https://www.npr.org/sections/congres...=1610632644814