A Missed Opportunity

Justin Amash should have been named a House impeachment manager.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi has now announced the slate of House managers who will prosecute the impeachment case before the Senate. Consistent with the Democratic approach to the impeachment process as a whole, there was no real effort to reach across the aisle and try to appeal to and persuade those on the political right who might be skeptical of Trump and sympathetic to his impeachment. The Democratic leadership failed to reach across the aisle in conducting the impeachment hearings, as Volokh co-blogger Jonathan Adler noted. They have now compounded that mistake.

Justin Amash would have made an excellent House manager. Amash has formally left the Republican Party but remains a vocal advocate of the classical liberal principles that once were understood to be at the heart of modern American conservatism. Amash broke from the GOP over the actions of President Trump and the complete inability of the party to tolerate any criticisms of the president. His appointment as a House manager would have been the obvious political play to make to signal that a presidential impeachment was in the nation's interest and not just the Democratic Party's interest.

For many months, Amash has been among the most eloquent critics of President Trump in the House of Representatives. He did a far better job than most Democrats in explaining the significance of the findings of the Mueller Report, and he has done a far better job than most Democrats in explaining the impeachment power and the reasons why the House needed to pursue an impeachment of the sitting president. He had served on the House Oversight Committee, one of the main committees investigating the administration, until he left the GOP.

An impeachment should not be a partisan affair. The Republicans in Congress have failed to take their constitutional duties seriously. The Democrats have made a hash of the process as well and made Trump's job easier as a result.

Comments

[Darth Chocolate]

"The Republicans in Congress have failed to take their constitutional duties seriously. The Democrats have made a hash of the process as well and made Trump's job easier as a result."

Just love how you have placed the blame for this fiasco at the feet of the Republicans, instead of where it truly belongs.

"Orange Man Bad" was never a valid reason for the Democrats to be pushing impeachment before Trump was sworn in. And, in the final analysis, that's all they got.

[Bob from Ohio]

Thinking that Dems have "taken their constitutional duties seriously" is seriously deranged.

[Kazinski]

I suppose a jury should also go ahead and convict when the prosecution fails to make his case, or go out and investigate on their own to see if the prosecution missed anything.

The bias should always be for aquittal. The prosecutor should also have a fairly high bar for when to charge, and should never charge just to be able to say "even if you get aquitted you will always have been indicted".

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Pointers on evidentiary standards from birthers and “lock her up” chanters?

Slack-jawed bigots and anti-social clingers seem impervious to self-awareness.

[Colossal Douchebag]

Get bent.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

He already is. You want more bent? He'd be a pretzel.

[MatthewSlyfield]

He's already too bent to be a pretzel.

[Dilan Esper]

This is not a judicial proceeding. It's a political proceeding, and effectively a job termination hearing. Burdens of proof have no application here. The Senate could convict based on totally unreliable evidence. They can also acquit for purely political reasons even if the President is guilty as sin.

There's no presumption of innocence here. You don't need one. The Republicans will protect their President, as the Democrats protected theirs.

[Bob from Ohio]

"The Republicans will protect their President, as the Democrats protected theirs."

Exactly, I don't see why people don't understand this.

[Brett Bellmore]

History does tell us that Democrats won't convict even given proof of genuine criminal conduct.

But history suggests that Republicans will not protect their President if actual criminality can be proven. Nixon didn't resign out of the expectation of being acquitted in an impeachment trial, after all. He resigned because he was told to expect to be convicted.

The reason Republicans are expected to protect Trump is that the Democrats have no evidence of crimes.

[Sarcastr0]

Not many to the left of Rush Limbaugh thought what Clinton did was worthy of impeachment. So maybe your test of only criminality is kinda bad.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"So maybe your test of only criminality is kinda bad."

Clinton, among other things, lied under oath to a grand jury. I'm pretty sure that's a crime.

[Sarcastr0]

So. Maybe. Your. Test. Of. Only. Criminality. Is. Kinda. Bad.

You: 'but what about the criminality though?'

[Bob from Ohio]

"The reason Republicans are expected to protect Trump is that the Democrats have no evidence of crimes."

Nixon was over 45 years ago, a totally different political world. Among other factors, Democrats were in the middle of their 40 year uninterrupted control of Congress so stated with a Senate majority.

Absent shooting an innocent on 5th Avenue, no way 20 GOPers vote to convict in the face of polling showing 90% GOP opposition to impeachment. Gallup in 1974 had only 59% of GOP opposing removal.

If it was only 59% now, Trump would likely be dead too.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, and the reason it's 90% opposition instead of 59%, is just exactly that the Democrats don't have any crimes to point to.

It doesn't take much of an excuse for Democrats and Democrat leaning 'independents' to support impeachment of a Republican. It just takes an R after their name.

It takes good cause for members of a party to support impeachment of a member of their own party.

[Krychek_2]

Brett, the Republican Party of today bears no resemblance to the Republican Party when Nixon was president. I started out as a Republican. I might still be one if it were still being run by honorable men like Everett Dirksen, Gerald Ford, Leverett Saltonstall and Mark Hatfield. None of them would have a home in today's GOP.

If Nixon had had Trump's Congress, he'd have finished his term. If Trump had had Nixon's Congress, he'd have been gone for two years already.

[Kazinski]

"run by honorable men like Everett Dirksen, Gerald Ford, Leverett Saltonstall and Mark Hatfield."

That's why the GOP went 40 years without control of Congress. We decided to ditch the failure theater strategy.

[Krychek_2]

You decided to trade honor for power. And you have not changed Washington nearly as much as Washington has changed you.

[Social Justice is neither]

Love how the political/not judicial excuse gets trotted out but somehow ONLY applies to Democrat abuses and actions. Republicans on the other hand must take this as a serious legal proceeding with Democrat assertions taken as fact.

[David Nieporent]

The adjective is "Democratic," not "Democrat." HTH.

[KHP54]

I think the author here is angling for a job with lawfare.com.

[Brett Bellmore]

Maybe Kris could hire him to help with reorganizing the FBI's FISA rubber stamp process.

[Michael W. Towns]

"He did a far better job than most Democrats in explaining the significance of the findings of the Mueller Report"

Haha. This canard has not aged well. The Mueller Report was a giant whoopee cushion on the seat of America. Nobody takes it seriously, because it's a joke of a report.

[Kazinski]

Anybody who thought that Trump should be impeached over the Mueller report actually just thinks Trump should be impeached on general principals.

But it's kind of funny, just about everyone who thinks there should be a very low bar for impeaching Trump, thinks there should have been a very high bar in killing Soleimani, who is complicit in thousands of murders. The contrast between thinking Soleimani should have had safe conduct in a war zone, and Trump should be impeached with out violation of any criminal statutes is striking.

[Dilan Esper]

I don't take any position on what the bar should be for impeaching Trump, but the positions you are talking about are not inconsistent. Of course there should be an extremely high burden of proof for an extrajudicial killing (indeed, it should not even be permissible under any circumstances absent a proper express Congressional declaration of war or perhaps a Pearl Harbor style "planes in the air" situation), whereas an employee can be fired on a much lower standard of proof.

[KHP54]

We have a declaration of war, you ****.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

No, we fucking do NOT have a Declaration of War with Iran.

Only the dumbest of dipshits would claim the 2002 AUMF against IRAQ has anything to do with assassinating a member of Iran's government.

Congratulations on your new title.

[awildseaking]

Yeah, killing an Iranian general (and known terrorist) in Iraq (which we have been at war with/within since early 2000s) meeting with Iraqi terrorists is extrajudicial...my ass.

[FlameCCT]

These dumbasses keep forgetting the Iranian terrorist was riding with an Iraqi terrorist when he was taken out in Iraq where the President does have Congressional approval to use military force against terrorists.

What really burns me is these same dumbasses said nothing when Obama took out US citizens based on the fact that they were terrorists!

[Dilan Esper]

Um, by the definition of "extrajudicial", yes it is.

[David Nieporent]

Kazinski thinks it shocking that people would impose a higher bar on killing someone than on firing someone?

[Joe_dallas]

"But it’s kind of funny, just about everyone who thinks there should be a very low bar for impeaching Trump, thinks there should have been a very high bar in killing Soleimani, who is complicit in thousands of murders."

A better example would be a low bar for withholding funds to restart an investigation into corrupution vs a very higher bar for withholding much larger amount of funds to stop an investigation of corruption.

[Bob from Ohio]

"classical liberal principles that once were understood to be at the heart of modern American conservatism"

Amash is a libertarian, not a conservative.

Thinking "classical liberal principles" equals "conservatism" is why "modern" conservatives have failed to conserve anything.

[M L]

There's no political right in this country, as someone I know put it:

"If there were an actual political right in America, there'd be no direct taxation, no taxes on property, the military would be limited strictly to a defensive role, government would not fund education and it would not regulate healthcare, manufacturing or production. Government would not be looked to as a creator of jobs and would have little to no role in overseeing the economy. There'd be no national standards for anything, no federal gun laws, no "war on drugs" and no Micro-management of the lives of individuals. Laws would be predominantly local and the only role of the general government would be to organize a common defense and protect the free flow of commerce among the States. Federal Courts would be prohibited from even hearing 99% of the cases that they now decide.

What voting the lesser of evils has accomplished has been to push us further and further to the left over the last several generations until we've accepted the majority of the liberal worldview and have been conned into actually believing it is "conservative". It isn't."

[CJColucci]

And that's why there's no "political right" in this country. Though not for lack of trying.

[M L]

This is simply how the United States was, and was intended to be, at its founding. America today scarcely resembles it at all, it seems like a stretch to even say this country we have today was even founded then, except in name. There's no serious conservative movement now, and there hasn't been one in my lifetime. There's no politician, nobody trying, as far as I can tell almost nobody can even conceive of this because virtually nobody understands history.

Planning to order this book, which includes an intro to the Vermont secession movement: "the US is no longer a self-governing republic responsive to the needs of its citizens but an uncontrollable Empire governed by an unholy alliance of corporations and the federal government."

[M L]

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1589809572/reasonmagazinea-20/

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

It's interesting comparing the Declaration of Independence's indictments of British policy to current policy.

[Brett Bellmore]

I do that frequently, and current policy comes off badly. But this is not unique to the Trump administration. Indeed, in some key respects the low mark was set during the Clinton administration, when Horiuchi was saved from prosecution.

[M L]

The Constitution was perhaps a hopelessly vague document, violated before the ink was dry. In hindsight were Patrick Henry and George Mason not right?

[bernard11]

This is simply how the United States was, and was intended to be, at its founding.

Huh. So the "right" you look to is pro-slavery. Unsurprising.

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, he does stan for the Confederacy, among other things. So an antebellum understanding of America is on brand.

[M L]

That's all you got? To raise the specter of slavery and level laughable accusations?

Slavery was always a blatant contradiction to the liberty-based principles of the U.S. founding.

[Pacific]

And if these conditions were present we would still be in the 19th Century.

[M L]

Nah. We'd be more free and more prosperous.

[Krychek_2]

ML, does it occur to you that most of those things on your list aren't the law because there's no public support for that being the law? The public likes social security, and medicare, and public schools, and expects the government to play a role in the economy. And the saner ones understand that somebody has to pay the taxes to support it.

Your vision of America isn't coming back, no matter which party is in power.

[M L]

This isn't my "vision" it's just the basics of the U.S. as it was founded. Of course this isn't "coming back, no matter which party is in power." That's kind of my point. In fact, it makes very little difference which party is in power, no matter where you stand. The U.S. is too large and fractious to be governed by a strong central government, while also having government that is remotely responsive to the people or remotely resembles the concept of self-governance that the U.S. was founded on. What interests me is understanding history and having an accurate historical perspective on this.

"does it occur to you that most of those things on your list aren’t the law because there’s no public support for that being the law?"

No, in fact it occurs to me that "public support" has little or nothing to do with it. The central government is a self-perpetuating spiral of never ending increase in power and size. For instance, once the government started taking your money for social security and medicare, you have little choice but to simply hope the Ponzi arrangement continues long enough for you to receive a benefit in return. The fact that you would have been better off without it from the start is now water under the bridge, as is the fact that all the money you paid was spent many times over on imperial wars on the other side of the globe. So "public support" has nothing to do with how things are, and there's a broad one-way trend of people being less and less satisfied and trusting in government. But public complacency and ignorance plays a role in ensuring that the cycle continues indefinitely, until it doesn't. When it comes to public opinion, a fact I find interesting is at the time of the revolutionary war, apparently there was about 1/3 public opinion in support of revolution, 1/3 against it, and 1/3 indifferent. And of course only a much tinier percentage actually took up arms to effect it.

[Krychek_2]

ML, I disagree almost entirely with your presuppositions (though I do agree with you we've had entirely too many imperial wars). But the central point is do the people have the right to self governance. The people have decided that the micro-government given to us by the framers no longer accomplishes what they want it to accomplish. Maybe that's a wise choice, maybe not. But it's a choice the people have the right to make.

And the anti-democratic measures in the Constitution have slowed down that process somewhat, but that barricade won't hold forever. To quote that great liberal John F. Kennedy, those who make peaceful change impossible will make violent change inevitable.

[M L]

"But the central point is do the people have the right to self governance. The people have decided that the micro-government given to us by the framers no longer accomplishes what they want it to accomplish. Maybe that’s a wise choice, maybe not. But it’s a choice the people have the right to make."

First, the people didn't make this choice. Never did. It was foisted upon them, primarily in great amounts at pivotal moments of upheaval in our short history, by cunning machinations of ambition, and in smaller amounts over time.

Second, there is no self-governance in big, centralized government. On Monday of this week, "thousands" showed up at the Virginia state capitol and it made a difference. Thousands showing up in DC means nothing. Once any issue is nationalized, you've lost your voice and your representation. Period. The more local and closer to home government is, the more it can be controlled by and responsive to the people.

At the founding, there were grave doubts that 2.5 million people in 13 colonies should be under a common government that was limited to the purposes of ensuring a common national defense and free interstate commerce. Now today that problem is infinitely worse, not just due to the size and scope of the nation and its territories and populations and worldwide omnipresent military operations, but due to the increasingly all-encompassing scope of government authority over all aspects of life and property.

And how is all this power wielded? An ever increasing lion's share accrues to a wholly extra-constitutional, permanent bureaucratic state, which typically observes only minor ripple effects from the vaunted elections through which the people are supposedly "self-governing" themselves.

If Congress and the President disappeared tomorrow, the other 99.9999% of the U.S. federal government (actually not an exaggeration) would hum right along without a hitch.

[M L]

"And the saner ones understand that somebody has to pay the taxes to support it."

You may want to look up what is meant by "direct taxation" if you think I was suggesting there would be no taxes at all.

[Michael Ejercito]

The Republicans in Congress have failed to take their constitutional duties seriously.

and which constitutional duties would they be?

[Darth Chocolate]

Bend over and take whatever the Democrats give them.
Oh, and like it.

[Jeff Walden]

"The Democrats have made a hash of the process as well"

But not a mash, apparently.

[Ben_]

Nobody:
KEW: Let me tell you my fan fiction about the impeachment trial.

[Brian Kennedy]

Do we know that Pelosi did not approach Amash privately and that he declined to accept an appointment?

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

My thoughts too. Just like every statist wet dream, this article assumes the powerful just wave their hand and the peasants obey ... "so let it be written, so let it be done."

Good grief. Not only is it silly to assume Pelosi should just wave her hand for Amash to obey, it assumes Whittington also knows what's best and Amash should just obey.

[David Nieporent]

We do not know that, but given Amash's position on the issue, I would find that unlikely.

[Brett Bellmore]

The Democrats couldn't reach across the aisle by selecting Amash, because Amash has already, for all practical purposes, walked across the aisle to their side.

There's no giving this effort a superficial appearance of bipartisanship, it's too late for that.

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

The world is not black and white. There are a lot of choices other than left or right.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, the impeachment process simply was not bipartisan. As demonstrated by the fact that the only non-Democrat they could get on board was somebody who'd already jumped ship from the Republican party. And who currently looks to have ended his career in the process.

Even Romney only gets away with his current level of hostility towards Trump because he just got elected, (With Trump's help, yet!) and doesn't have to face the voters for another 5 years.

Trump is just that popular with Republican voters.

And that's ironic, because Trump isn't really much of a Republican. He's more of an old style Democrat. But that makes him more of a Republican in practice than most of the 'Republican' federal officeholders we've seen in decades!

[Á àß äẞç ãþÇđ âÞ¢Đæ ǎB€Ðëf ảhf]

You write as if Amash's choices are friend or enemy, Republican or Democrat.

That's black and white, and wrong.

[Brett Bellmore]

His choices are voting yes, no, or present. I suppose you could call that trinary, but it's just binary and chickenshit.

[Kazinski]

No Amash didn't walk over to their side, it's just an allience of convenience.

The real calculus about not appointing Amash as a manager is because that could affect the outcome of the election for his seat in November. Amash is running as an independent, if he and the Democrat split the anti-Trump vote, and the Republican gets most of the pro-Trump vote then the GOP gets the seat back hands down. The only hope is not letting Amash get too firmly identified with the anti-Trump resistance, and hope the Dem keeps all the Dems, gets most of the anti-Trump independents

Shows you where Pelosi is at, any sort of forlorn hope at flipping that seat is a much higher priority than actually trying to move Trump's impeachment forward, forlorn hope as it too is.

[Brett Bellmore]

"His appointment as a House manager would have been the obvious political play to make to signal that a presidential impeachment was in the nation's interest and not just the Democratic Party's interest."

But the fact is, it IS just being done in the Democratic party's interest, it IS just a partisan affair. The few 'Republicans' who ever supported it are radically out of step with their own party.

To the limited extent there's a conservative case for impeaching Trump, (And there is, the problem is that it's a case for impeaching every President in my lifetime.) it's irrelevant to the Democrat's impeachment push, which was predicated not on misbehavior, but on Trump not being a Democrat, and then just went looking for a sort of plausible excuse. They literally started talking about impeaching him before he took office!

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

“ He did a far better job than most Democrats in explaining the significance of the findings of the Mueller Report,...”

The most significant finding was that Trump campaign collusion with Russia was a hoax.

The second most significant finding was the investigation’s turning a blind eye to Russian contributions to the Steele dossier.

[Joe_dallas]

"The most significant finding was that Trump campaign collusion with Russia was a hoax."

not only did mueller turn a blind eye to the source of the Steele Dossier, he barely know what it was.

Kinda hard to investigate the russian collusion if you dont even investigate the primary source document.

[Brett Bellmore]

Either Mueller was losing it, and his subordinates did all the work, or Mueller is aware that, when you're under oath, the only safe way to answer a question where an honest answer makes you look bad, is, "I don't remember."

I'm leaning towards the second explanation.

[Sarcastr0]

So it's like the IG report never happened for you, or what?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, it's like I don't buy Mueller's claim to be unaware of all the dirty deeds his subordinates were up to.

The IG report detailed plenty of dirty deeds, it's just that his threshold for declaring something was motivated by political bias was "I found a signed confession."

Literally, he found they'd been lying to the FISA court, by omission AND commission, and he found political bias against Trump, but he found no documentary proof that the bias caused the lies.

[Sarcastr0]

The IG report explicitly found they were not dirty deeds. Neither intentional nor politically motivated.

It's quantum of evidence was literally zero evidence. It found zero evidence of either intent or politics in the process.

It also found the FISA process was not materially burdened by the corner cutting.

But I suspect you know that; you just choose to reject that reality and replace with your own.

[Joe_dallas]

"The IG report explicitly found they were not dirty deeds. Neither intentional nor politically motivated."

that is BS & you know it is BS.

The implication that the IG fund no bias etc is due to his scope limitation.

[Sarcastr0]

It was a positive finding, Joe.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The IG report explicitly found they were not dirty deeds. Neither intentional nor politically motivated."

The IG report found that the FISA court had been fed altered evidence. How do you unintentionally alter evidence?

The IG report found that the FISA court had been denied exculpatory information which the FBI had, and was obligated to relay to the FISA court.

All Horowitz found was that nobody confessed in writing that they'd done it because of their political biases.

[Sarcastr0]

You cut corners, Brett. Oftentimes cops and prosecutors suck.

You and I agree the FISA process is awful both in practice and in policy and should be torn down.

Where we differ is that you think that in this case the usual shoddy process is actually proof of a plot against Trump. And that it also allows special pleading that Trump got railroaded.

The report didn't find no bias due to no confession, it found no bias due to a complete lack of evidence of bias after many interviews and exhaustive research into the documents.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Uh huh....

The agents on the case texting each other things like....
"Trump won't ever become president, right"?
"No, no he won't, we'll stop it"

Apparently isn't enough evidence for bias.

Instead, they ALSO needed to openly confess it to the IG or write down "We are doing these actions because we have a political bias against Trump".

[Sarcastr0]

Know how I know AL doesn’t even care what’s in the IG report?

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0....you seem to forget (or ignore) Horowitz's testimony to the Senate. He made it pretty clear what he thought and believed. He pointedly did not vouch for the veracity of the explanations of the FBI employees.

[Sarcastr0]

Come on, Commenter, that's a lame dodge. He wasn't looking for individual veracity so that doesn't matter.

[donojack]

This wasn't cutting corners, it wasn't sincere mistakes or even incompetence. It was coordinated lying, forgery and set-ups to get to do things that they were not legitimately allowed to do.

[Sarcastr0]

That’s cutting corners. It’s a thing police and investigators do far more than they should nationwide.
No one with any sense is surprised FISA is like that.

Tear down FISA. Reform law enforcement across the board.

But it was also found not to have altered the outcome of the Carter Page investigation.
It was also found not to have been an attempt to get Trump in particular.

So you are correct, but the narrative I suspect you want to hang on your point doesn’t scan.

[donojack]

Sarcastro,
The Carter Page investigation was bogus from the get go. They knew he was a CIA asset and not a Russian one. David's attempt to explain away the forgery by saying it occurred late in the process doesn't indicate that they weren't aware all along about Page's status.

Those doing the lying etc. (and it wasn't at a low level) weren't simply practicing their fraud-on-the-court skills, there was a purpose and that was to get enough dirt on Trump to either remove him or weaken him beyond the ability to function.

[David Nieporent]

They knew he was a CIA asset and not a Russian one. .

They knew, or should have known, that he had provided information to the CIA at one point. That's hardly the same thing as him being a "CIA asset,"¹ and it in no way proved that he was "not a Russian one."

David’s attempt to explain away the forgery by saying it occurred late in the process doesn’t indicate that they weren’t aware all along about Page’s status

It does indicate that the forgery did not and could not have played a role in beginning the investigation of Page.

¹I guess; it's not exactly clear what this term means, other than that one has watched too many movies. Trumpkins try to make it seem like he had gone undercover to help break up a Russian spy ring or something. Actually, he was happy to work with Russian agents, but then when the CIA approached him and questioned him about it he cooperated. Nothing terribly wrong with that, but it hardly precludes him dealing with Russians at a later date. The information should've been provided to the FISA court, but there's no indication that it would've changed the outcome of anything.

[donojack]

David Nieporent,

The IG report describes Page as a CIA "asset." Your attempt to define his status otherwise is not persuasive. The CIA was involved in the spying scheme and knew that revealing Page's work with the CIA would create problems even for the rubber-stamp FISC. The forgery was probably needed because Page was by then publicly proclaiming his status with the CIA.

As an aside you have spent a lot of time on this blog ridiculing people for using adolescent terms like "Democraps" or some such. Why don't you lay off the "Trumpkin" crap, it makes you seem like a pimply-faced fourteen year old.

[David Nieporent]

The IG report found that the FISA court had been fed altered evidence. How do you unintentionally alter evidence?

As I already explained to you, Brett, one single document was altered by one person, and only with respect to the third FISA renewal.

[Abdul Abulbul Amir]

My reading of the IG report is that the IG did not address motivation at all.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"It’s quantum of evidence was literally zero evidence. It found zero evidence of either intent or politics in the process."

No documentary or testimonial evidence in the scope of the audit. So nobody wrote or said that they were biased. There is plenty of circumstantial evidence of bias.

And they did find evidence of "intent", they made a criminal referral for a lawyer who intentionally altered a document.

[Sarcastr0]

There are other ways to find bias than confession TiP. Corroboration, patterns of action, etc. None were found. At all.
You know this. And are ignoring it.

[Joe_dallas]

Likewise Comey found no criminal intent in Hillary's bathroom server. - No objective analysis could conclude that Comey's explanation was anything but BS.

[donojack]

We are free to make our own judgments about bias from the mountain of evidence presented in the report. If the IG chooses not to see it or not to admit it that doesn't alter the truth of it. When I point to an object my dog looks at the object, but I have had other dogs that looked at my finger. If a person looks at the finger it's because he doesn't want to see the object not because he doesn't understand that an object is being pointed to.

The CIA was involved in all of this from the beginning. They of course knew Carter Page's status as a CIA asset but it was possible to make a case that he was a Russian asset because in his role at the CIA he had contacts with Russian agents. They didn't just cook this up for fun--it was done to spy on a political campaign and later administration. If you want to say this isn't bias then have at it.

[David Nieporent]

Weird how they decided to "spy" [sic] on a political campaign by investigating someone who wasn't even part of the campaign anymore.

[donojack]

David,

Does surveillance sound better to you? Makes it seem more legit I guess, but us Trumpkins like small words.

[TW]

Question – when a member of the House is acting as an impeachment manager in the Senate, is that considered “Speech or Debate in either House” for the purposes of being immune from Arrest? I'm wondering if Schiff, Nadler or one of the other five were to get caught lying during the impeachment or some other offense if they could face criminal prosecution for it.

[Kazinski]

If the speech and debate clause doesn't protect them as Congressmen, then that would make them prosecutors.

And if there is any class in America with more immunity from lying cheating and general underhandedness than Congressmen then it's prosecutors.

[Ben of Houston]

Yes, they would be immune to criminal prosecution. However, they are not immune to formal impeachment procedures of their own. It's probably not a good idea to lie through your teeth at the very people who have the power to throw you out on your rear.

[Toranth]

The Democrats control the House, and would never punish their "stars" just for lying in a legal proceeding.

[David Nieporent]

However, they are not immune to formal impeachment procedures of their own.

Except for they are because impeachment doesn't apply to members of Congress.

[Joe_dallas]

"...shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place."

The short answer is NO

[dwb68]

Pelosi selected partisans for an entirely partisan impeachment.

Gotta, lol at "An impeachment should not be a partisan affair." This one is. Clintons I thought was partisan as well.

But now the die is cast: everything becomes impeachable by a majority of the House (e.g. partisan) and so impeachment will come to mean exactly nothing. Pelosi has lowered it to a censure resolution.

[M L]

I agree with this.

Pelosi wouldn't do it because Amash would never toe anyone's line for partisan gamesmanship, which is what this impeachment farce is all about.

On impeachment, I think Amash is suffering from severe TDS, and Amash's legal reasoning isn't as good as he thinks. Nonetheless I know Amash and I generally like him and agree with him on many things.

[David Nieporent]

On impeachment, I think Amash is suffering from severe TDS,

Yes; everyone that criticizes Dear Leader is mentally ill. It's not that they're smarter and more principled than you are. Keep telling yourself that.

[M L]

Really? I actually thought you were smarter and more principled than this. I have a long list of Trump criticisms. First and foremost, he ran on leaving the Middle East, but after three years what do we have? A net increase in the number of troops over there, and probably a handful of miles of new border wall here in the U.S.

[Longtobefree]

"Amash has formally left the Republican Party - - - - - - -."
Therefore appointing him would not be bipartisan.
So far the only bipartisan thing was the "no" side of the impeachment floor vote.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"An impeachment should not be a partisan affair."

This marks the third impeachment of a US president. All three have been extremely partisan affairs.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Did anyone else notice the consistent theme of all the House managers? They are fugly. All of them fugly.

[Sarcastr0]

Jesus you’re weird.

[Commenter_XY]

Does anyone seriously think that history will treat any of these House managers kindly? Or this entire impeachment imbroglio? This is a moment of national dishonor and shame. And do you actually think that time will make this look better? No, time will not make this look any better. Quite the opposite.

I would not call this a missed opportunity. Were I Congressman Amash, I would silently be thanking the Fates that he was not chosen.

[Sarcastr0]

You're in deep.

Given the evidence on Trump, yeah, I think history is going to be fine with the side that didn't defend their guy right or wrong.

[jubulent]

This is why the anti-Trump zealots cannot be taken seriously. When their own (in this case ex post-facto) logic demands that they even partially defend President Trump, they twist their reality to reach the opposite conclusion.

[Sarcastr0]

This comment does not appear to have anything to do with the OP, or really anything at all.