Title: Indicted Oligarch Firtash praises Manafort, says Trump has third-grade smarts Source:
Daily Beast via Kyiv Post URL Source:https://www.kyivpost.com/ukraine-po ... mp-has-third-grade-smarts.html Published:Mar 19, 2019 Author:Betsy Swan Post Date:2019-12-08 14:11:55 by Judas Goat Keywords:Useful Idiot Trump Views:4614 Comments:30
An indicted Ukrainian oligarch who faces years in an American prison joked about President Donald Trump’s intellect and distanced himself from Paul Manafort’s business dealings in an exclusive, wide-ranging interview with The Daily Beast at his palatial corporate offices in Vienna.
Ah, yes. I remember now. Flirtash is your mother and Elton Jane is your father.
From Rules of Evidence in an Impeachment Trial:
2256. In the Belknap trial objection was successfully made to an opinion of a subordinate officer as to evidence of the character of respondent’s administration.—On July 12, 1876,1 in the Senate sitting for the impeachment trial of William W. Belknap, late Secretary of War, Nelson H. Davis, Inspector General of the Army, was examined as a witness on behalf of the respondent, and Mr. Matt. H. Carpenter, of counsel for the respondent, having ascertained that witness had been in the Army during respondent’s entire administration and had been holding constant official relations with him, asked:
From all you know of the subject, and from all you know of General Belknap, I ask you what has been the general character of his administration of the War Department?
Mr. Manager George A. Jenks at once objected:
The objection I make to that is that a witness must testify to character instead of to the specific acts of this man, or general acts. He must know what has been said by those who are familiar with his administration in that office, instead of how has he done the business.
Mr. Manager George F. Hoar said:
We understand also that it should be the opposite of the particular offense charged. If a man is charged with adultery, his reputation for chastity; if he is charged with perjury, his reputation for veracity. We suppose the question should be, ‘‘What is the reputation of the Secretary for official integrity?’’ * * * We do not understand that it is competent to prove by a subordinate officer in the Army, as an expert, the general character of the administration of a great officer of state. There is no such thing as an expert in such an administration. We object to the question unless it is limited to the reputation of the Secretary for official integrity.
Ah, yes. I remember now. Flirtash is your mother and Elton Jane is your father.
I think your last post was directed at peromischievous, not me.
In other news, do you expect that Nadler or Schiff will be the point man of the House managers and act as chief prosecutor in the Senate?
Or do you think this will all fizzle due to Pelosi deliberately scuttling the vote in the House to miss impeachment by a single vote?
I think Pelosi will arrange for impeachment to fail in the House.
I see no way for Pelosi to hope that they will reach the 2/3 of present senators to vote for impeachment. Abstentions for senators present are counted as no votes; only a senator's absence from the chamber will help lower the number of required votes.
If Pelosi were willing to try to trade her House majority for enough Senate seats to prevent Trump from appointing another Supreme without Dem consent, it could make some strategic sense. But that seems like a long and convoluted scheme even for Pelosi. The best outcome of such a scheme would likely be to defeat Collins in Maine and see Jones in AL defeated as well, a tie. I don't see many other GOP Senate seats within Dems' reach with a strong economy and full employment.
It is a long steep hill to climb to get 67 votes to convict in the Senate, only to elevate a President Pence into office in a good position to serve 8+ years as president. Removing Trump now would be the GOP's best chance to hold the WH for 12 years straight and remake the Court entirely by replacing both RBG and Breyer. Pelosi knows this as does Schumer. So what is their game? Just a little election year impeachment drama for the kiddies but without any serious intent of actually removing Trump? It seems that way to me.
I would expect that some competent person would be the manager and the function inself will largely be executed by a staff lawyer.
As the impeachment itself has no real chance of reaching conviction, other motives should be considered. The biggest threat to the DEMe is the Squad and the radical nutbags who have agitated this nonsense. Nancy may well be leading the lemmings off a cliff, saving the party while incurring a temporary loss of seats. Nancy might get a party meritorious service award for aiding the radicals in Epsteining themselves, culling the herd.
The Senate will very rapidly dismiss the charges. There will be no lengthy proceeding.
This may trash the radical left so badly that the current crop of nutty candidates collapsing and a white knight "has to" ride in and "save" the party. I don't think the establishment thinks any of that lot can succeed against Trump. The debates have collapsed into an irrelevant farce.
Their disaster is having the GOP nominate SCOTUS justices and other Federal judges for another four to eight years.
