True, but he evoked executive privilege, something many presidents have done. It is a check on the power of congress.

I'm not sure how this applies to impeachment proceedings, if at all???

I think the relevant code here is U.S.C. 192. I suspect the defense will be the separation of powers, and that congress has no such authority over the executive branch.

When in doubt, simply repeat it. At what point does this become a mantra?

Yes, as the Justice Dept. iterates, “The United States Supreme Court appears to favor a broad reading of the omnibus clause.”. That’s the highest court in the land.

True, I meant the relevant clause is in bold. It must be done “corruptly”.

The scope of the omnibus clause has been a subject of dispute among the United States Courts of Appeals. Some courts have taken the position that the clause should be read broadly to include any conduct interfering with the fair administration of justice if that conduct was undertaken with a corrupt motive. United States v. Saget, 991 F.2d 702 (11th Cir.), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 950 (1993); United States v. Rasheed, 663 F.2d 843 (9th Cir. 1981), cert. denied, sub. nom. Phillips v. United States, 454 U.S. 1157 (1982); United States v. Ogle, 613 F.2d 233 (10th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 825 (1980); United States v. Baker, 611 F.2d 964 (4th Cir. 1979); United States v. Howard, 569 F.2d 1331, 1333-36 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 834 (1978); United States v. Walasek, 527 F.2d 676 (3d Cir. 1975); United States v. Cioffi, 493 F.2d 1111 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 419 U.S. 417 (1974). Others have construed the clause more narrowly, holding that the omnibus clause proscribes only conduct identical or similar to the types of conduct described in the earlier two clauses of section 1503. United States v. Ryan, 455 F.2d 728 (9th Cir. 1972); United States v. Essex, 407 F.2d 214 (6th Cir. 1969); Haili v. United States, 260 F.2d 744, 746 (9th Cir. 1958).

The United States Supreme Court appears to favor a broad reading of the omnibus clause. In United States v. Aguilar, ___ U.S. ___, 115 S.Ct. 2357 (1995), the defendant was charged with and convicted of endeavoring to obstruct and impede a grand jury investigation in violation of section 1503 by lying to agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Although the Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court's reversal of a conviction under the omnibus clause, its decision did not turn on a narrow reading of the clause. Instead the Supreme Court focused on the government's failure to show that the defendant knew his actions were likely to affect a judicial proceeding. The Court observed that making false statements to an investigating agent who might or might not testify before a grand jury was not sufficient to make out a violation of the omnibus provision of section 1503 since such conduct could not be said to have the "natural and probable effect" of interfering with the due administration of justice. In other words, there was not a sufficient nexus between the defendant's conduct, i.e., lying to the investigating agents, and the grand jury proceeding. Id. See also United States v. Tham, 960 F.2d 1391 (9th Cir. 1991).

https://www.justice.gov/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1724-protection-government-processes-omnibus-clause-18-usc-1503

Whoever . . . corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence...

The omnibus clause is in bold.

Mueller was not investigating the investigators, so it's irrelevant that he didn't uncover the FISA errors. Sure, the FBI placed more credibility on Steele's information than was warrranted, but it's false to claim it was "utterly false", since much of it has been substantiated. Your claim that "the special counsel team had to know the truth about the Steele dossier" sounds like something taken from the script of Mark Levin or Sean Hannity- negative speculation based on zero evidence.

Most significantly, it's the same old crap even bringing this up in the context of what Trump did - as I pointed out, two wrongs do not make a right. I pointed this out in my post, and you repeat the same absurdity. No errors made by the FBI or Mueller comprise an excuse for Trump to do something wrong.

It is completely relevant that your coveted Mueller report is as dodgy as the dossier many have pinned their conspiracy theories on. Of course, the scope of the investigation involved “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation”. FBI malfeasance and corruption.

My claim that “the special counsel team had to know the truth about the Steele dossier” sounds like the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who made the exact same argument, not Levin or Hannity, neither of whom I have ever watched. But routine fantasy is the going rate here so it’s no surprise you would reach for it when you couldn’t find anything else.

LOL! You're ignoring the Trump quote I have you in which he ADMITTED he expected Zelensky to open an investigation!

Because it’s a stupid angle. He said that Zelensky (and China) should open investigations into the Biden’s possible corruption, and he’s right. But given that you had to find quotes to journalists, and not Trump asking Zelensky to open investigations, doesn’t do your case any favors. He never told Zelensky that he should do investigations. He never told Zelensky that he “expected” him to do investigations.

You're denying the obvious. Apply the epistemological process of Inference to the Best Explanation: there are two possible explanations (primary motive) for the available facts: political motivation or a motivation to address general corruption. Which of the two explanations is a better fit for the facts? If you're just going to emulate Congressional Republicans and duck the facts, then you aren't engaging in an honest debate.

I’m denying the obvious? Nonsense. You’re making things up, or worse, passing off DNC propaganda as your own thinking. Your little false dichotomy is also piffle. You have zero evidence of motive save for the screams of career Democrat politicians.

The President bears responsibility - ignorance of the law is not an excuse; he has White House Counsel to advise him. I see you have no rebuttal to the points I made about his indifference to the law.

He didn’t do anything wrong. He broke no law. He committed no crime. Your eschewing of the presumption of innocence and due process is laughable, especially when you cry about Biden’s due process out of the other side of your mouth.

What would obstruction look like to you? What would count as Trump obstructing and/or impeding the investigations into himself?

:brow:

You claim that nothing has been done. What would have to be?

The omnibus clause is the factor. If that’s proven one is guilty of obstruction of justice.

Where is NOS4A2? Oh that's right, I've noticed that NOS tends to take the weekends and holidays off from his job.

I’m your huckleberry.

That's the "two wrongs make a right" defense, which is ludicrous.

The IG ruled that there was probable cause to initiate the investigation, and no errors by Mueller have been identified. There was indeed malfeasance in the renewals of FISA applications for Carter Page, perhaps rising to the level of criminality - and if so, the responsible parties should be charged. Nevertheless, the IG did not find a political motivation for these. How widespread is the abuse of FISA warrants? Is it common, or was this the first time? Time will tell, but even if it does turn out to be something unique to investigating people associated with Trump (a big IF), that will not excuse Trump committing such errors.

The IG report revealed vast, systematic errors, and found the explanations for them to be inefficient. Mueller, with his vast investigative powers, found no such errors or malfeasance. He never mentioned that the Steele dossier was utterly false. The special counsel team had to know the truth about the Steele dossier and false FBI claims to the FISA court, but they chose to look the other way and keep us in the dark about it. Why?

According to the memorandum documenting Trump's call with Zelensky, Trump said, "There's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great.Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it... It sounds horrible to me.

According to the transcript he never asked Zelensky to open any investigations into the Bidens, nor did he tie any such investigations to the aid, which was released anyways. He specifically referred to the 2016 election and Ukraine’s involvement, and suggested Zelensky speak to Barr about it. In the end Barr never made that call but Durham travelled there and currently doing that investigation. It was Zelensky who brought up Guiliani and his investigation.

Here's some, off the top of my head:

1) Trump named the Bidens in his conversation with Zelensky
2) Trump did not discuss corruption in general with Zelensky, in either of their phone calls.
3) Biden is a key political rival and therefore Trump stands to gain politically by a public declaration of an investigation into the Bidens
4) Among the public facts, there is a lack of probable cause to investigate either of the BIdens. There is also no evidence to suggest Trump has non-public knowledge about either of the Bidens that implicate their involvement in corrupt acts in Ukraine.
5) According to Sondland, Trump wanted Zelensky to publicly declare an investigation into the Bidens - a political benefit to Trump, but of no positive benefit toward exposing corruption
6) The Defense Department certified to congressional committees on May 23 that Ukraine had met established benchmarks toward reducing corruption.
7) The Trump administration had approved sending aid to Ukraine nearly 50 times without holding it because of corruption concerns.
8) Testimony by David Holmes, and confirmed by Sondland that in a call between Trump and Sondland, Trump said, "So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” Ambassador Sondland replied that “he’s gonna do it,” adding that President Zelenskyy will do “anything you ask him to.” and in response to a question about the call, Sondland noted that Trump only cares about "big stuff" - which means things that affect him personally.

None of those points give evidence to political motivations regarding seeking dirt or influencing the 2020 elections. I’m looking for a statement or any expression of motives, that he wants dirt so it can help him in an election.. anything but guesswork and mind-reading. And it’s absurd to suggest someone cannot be investigated for possible corruption because he is Trump’s possible opponent in the 2020 election.

Trump never told them NOT to break any laws. Trump appears unconcerned about what the laws are nor about breaking them (consider Rex Tillerson's comment about his interactions with Trump: “So often, the president would say here’s what I want to do and here’s how I want to do it and I would have to say to him, ‘Mr. President I understand what you want to do but you can’t do it that way. It violates the law,’" and Tillerson indicated that this frustrated Trump).

Mueller's investigation also supports this tendency of Trump's:
The President 's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.

Both of these are suggestive of Trump's general disregard for the law.

Sure, the OMB people didn't want to break laws, so they looked for legal ways to implement Trump's desires - at this point, it's not completely clear if they were successful. It would be great to get testimony and documents that would help us know.

Of course Trump doesn’t know about the obscure impounding Act. That’s why he has the OMB, the general counsel, advisors and others. They are tasked with following through on Trump’s policies in a legal fashion. And, according to them, they did so.

The mere "potential" that there is wrongdoing is not probable cause to investigate. Furthermore, the evidence points toward this being politically motivated, not a virtuous act to uncover corruption. We could review the available facts, if you like.

I’m glad you say this because this statement accurately describes crossfire hurricane and the Mueller investigation. Except Trump did not ask Zelensky to investigate anything, only to speak with the Attorney General and Rudy Giuliani, both of whom are doing investigations.

As for it being politically motivated, I would love to see those facts.

The evidence points toward this being directed by Trump.

At minimum, a preponderance of evidence supports the hypothesis that Trump engaged in wrongdoing. Do you deny that? If so, then we should definitely review the evidence. It seems to me that arguing for Trump's innocence depends on assuming the biggest conspiracy since O.J. Simpson was framed for murdering Nicole. ;=)

Trump never told them to break any laws. In fact it appears they were trying to do everything by the book, as emails suggest, and not engaging in any efforts to break the law.

“ People familiar with the Office of Management and Budget’s handling of the holdup in aid acknowledged the internal discussions going on during August, but characterized the conversations as calm, routine and focused on the legal question of how to comply with the congressional Budget and Impoundment Act, which requires the executive branch to spend congressionally appropriated funds unless Congress agrees they can be rescinded.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-review-turns-up-emails-showing-extensive-effort-to-justify-trumps-decision-to-block-ukraine-military-aid/2019/11/24/2121cf98-0d57-11ea-bd9d-c628fd48b3a0_story.html

No, zero evidence supports the hypothesis that trump corruptly sought dirt on his political opponent to influence the 2020 election. But I’m open to hearing it.

So you finally accept that word crimes really are actual crimes? And, do you see that it was inevitable that president Trump would get impeached for word crimes, because he is a criminal?

No. This was my argument.

“It was only a matter of time before they impeached Trump for word crimes. It was too difficult for them to find actual crimes, so they reduced themselves to scouring his statements for transgressions of speech, and then lying about them to make them seem worse than they are.”

By “word crimes” I meant transgressions of speech. No, he is not being impeached for any crime.

The request to investigate is wrong when the request is made; it does not magically become wrong only after the request is executed. It's wrong irrespective of whether it was tied to aid; that's a separate issue that makes it even worse - but again here, it's wrong to have ordered it and does not become virtuous when he's caught and releases it.

I had mentioned the impoundment act, which allows delays only for certain specific reasons, which must be documented. This is still under investigation, but preliminary reports indicate the letter of the law may have been broken.

Why is a request to investigate potential corruption wrong?

Trump is not the OMB. If the OMB violates the impound act, they should have been taken to court. They weren’t.

Irrelevant to this situation. Red herring.

Even if they ought, it does not fucking matter here. In fact, if they ought to have been but were not, then we certainly ought to follow the rules now, for that has been part of the problem... if they ought to have been, that is.

It’s completely relevant. Executives exercising executive privilege is a matter of course, not an impeachable offence.

Again, you cannot provide evidence that Trump “sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the President’s 2020 reelection bid”.

I was concerned with your claim that "word crimes" are not "actual crimes".

Only selectively. He does not have absolute immunity from subpoena, as he claims. Do you sincerely believe that would hold up in court? Past precedent even shows that executive privilege is applicable most narrowly when there is an impeachment investigation.

I’m not sure it will hold up in court, but Obama, Bush and Clinton all evoked executive privilege to stonewall congressional investigations. Should they be impeached?

Did I say anything about the Constitution? No, I was concerned with your claim that "word crimes" are not "actual crimes".

Do you see that you are undeniably wrong? Word crimes are actual crimes. Therefore, If president Trump was involved in word crimes, as you said he was, he is a criminal.

I never made such a claim.

A guilty person denying a crime is not exculpatory evidence. Exculpatory evidence is evidence that is inconsistent with guilt. For that matter, the corruption of Trump's act is not contingent upon there being a direct quid pro quo.

The Dems called no fact-witnesses. There was no investigations. There was no cnn interview. The aid was released. There was no pressure.

What bad reporting? It was his mouth saying those words.

What words give evidence that Trump “sought to pressure the Ukrainian leader to take actions to help the President’s 2020 reelection bid”?

That they explicitly said, not least in the person of statements by Mulvaney.

That is, your "not anything [they] said" is countered with what they exactly and explicitly said. Hmm. what does that make you, nose4?

That’s right, people were easily misled by bad reporting and using that bad reporting as evidence. You’re in that camp too, Tim.

That’s right.

A president does not have the privilege of obstructing an investigation into his behaviour...

More Fox rhetorical drivel.

Yes he does have executive privilege, which includes denying congressional subpoenas.

Off the top of my head

According to testimony two of the three direct conversations with Trump contained explicit denials of a quid pro quo, including one in August, before the whistleblower complaint was sent to Congress.

The supposed victim, president Zelensky, has denied being pressured on countless occasions.

Andre Yermak, a close aid to Zelensky, denied discussing quid pro quo with Sondland.

The idea that Trump was pressuring Zelensky for political gain was siphoned from the presumptions of a NYT article, and not anything Trump or his administration said.

Trump ordered different people to not honor the subpoena to testify.

That is obstruction.

Trump has executive privilege.

Executive privilege is the right of the president of the United States and other members of the executive branch to maintain confidential communications under certain circumstances within the executive branch and to resist some subpoenas and other oversight by the legislative and judicial branches of government in pursuit of particular information or personnel relating to those confidential communications.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_privilege

To anyone interested, creative soul reiterates Democrat talking and the arguments of Democrat, anti-Trump professors while dismissing the exculpatory and contrary evidence provided by the opposition.

Perjury is a crime.

It's not about democrat talking points... the irony... as I said... listen to the relevant testimony, particularly the testimony of the professors of Constitutional law and how they explain the interpretation of "high crimes and misdemeanors"...

I have listened to the testimonies. Not sure what your point here is.

The (accused) constitutional violations are that of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. The House has decided that they are examples of high crimes and misdemeanors.

It is the weakest impeachment case in American history. It’s a dangerous precedent. This will be an indelible stain on the Democrats for years to come.

He was violating due process by asking for an investigation without probable cause.

Taking the action of initiating an investigation is wrong. It doesn't just become wrong when the next step in the chain is executed.

The United States has a mutual legal assistance treaty with Ukraine.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/12978-Ukraine-Law-Enforcement-MLAT-7.22.1998.pdf

As for due process, there has been no investigation, and therefor no due process has been violated.

High crimes and misdemeanors are mentioned in the Constitution. I'm just saying that you have to look at something other than the Constitution to learn what "high crimes and misdemeanors" means.

I’m aware of and agree that one needn’t commit any crimes to be impeached, but because there is no apparent crime nor constitutional violation we have entered the court of opinion.

The evidence for obstruction is overwhelming in both this impeachment proceeding and the Mueller investigation. Watch the congressional hearing testimony concerning it and what counts as high crimes and misdemeanors. Or keep on sticking your head in the Fox news sand...

Repeating the Democrat’s talking points doesn’t make them any more true.

By acting contrary to his Constitutional duties. Investigating a US citizen without due cause violates due process.

Trump also seems to have violated the Impoundment Act, and to have done so for corrupt purposes, which violates faithfully executing the laws. For that matter, he violates faithful execution of the law whenever he proclaims the legal guilt of a political opponent.

He never investigated any US citizen. The hold on aid was lifted before the expiry date.

The Constitution doesn’t specify what counts as high crimes and misdemeanours. You’ll have to look outside the Constitution to understand what the framers meant by the phrase.

So not only are they not crimes, they are not even mentioned in the constitution. This is really all we need to know about the whole affair.

How did he violate the constitution?

You seem a like a pantywaist. Neither are high or low crimes or misdemeanors. Neither are mentioned in the Constitution.

Impeachment is not just for violations of statutes, as you seem to imply. In Federalist 65, Hamilton discusses impeachment and refers to "offenses which proceed from the conduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse of violation of some public trust."

Violating the Constitution certainly qualifies as an abuse of the public trust: the President is Constitutionally required to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed".

The person I was responding to implied Trump committed actual crimes. He didn’t.

Which part of the constitution did he violate?

It was you who said that Trump committed "word crimes", and you implied that word crimes are distinct from and therefore not "actual crimes". This is false, as hate speech laws clearly demonstrate, word crimes are actual crimes. If you accept that Trump committed "word crimes", as you said, why not accept that Trump ought to be punished for such word crimes?

Hate speech? Sorry, bub, not in America.

Sorry, but word crimes are actual crimes, especially when you're the president of the United States of America, because your words actually have power.

What “actual crime” did Trump commit? First it was bribery, extortion, “a classic Mafia-like shakedown” as Schiff called It, and of course the media’s obsequious base followed right along. Now it’s...obstruction of congress? Sorry, but there never was any actual crime to begin with, just a snivelling, well funded political corporation known as the DNC living out its fantasies.

The suggestion that Trump has not really been impeached because the articles haven’t been sent to the Senate is just another of the lies being told by the GoP.

The man who made the claim was one of the Democrat’s witnesses, Noah Feldman. The republican witness disputed his claims. Don’t you have news media where you live?