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:4629 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.
If Drumpf is so "concerned" about corruption in Ukraine then why isn't he using his maganificent 3rd grade intellect to apply international pressure and expedite the extradition and prosecution of Firtash?
That faithful old government publication of Rules of Evidence in an Impeachment Trial, it states: [boldface as in original]
2218. After discussion of English precedents, the Senate ruled decisively in the Peck trial that the strict rules of evidence in force in the courts should be applied.
Witnesses in an impeachment trial are required to state facts and not opinions.
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When they get out of that "fact-finding stage," and get into the trial stage, none of the hearsay or less than "best evidence" comes in. The Republican led Senate is highly unlikely to waive centuries of precedent to help Sloppy Jerry avoid disaster.
2226. In impeachment trials the rule that the best evidence procurable should be presented has been followed.
It was decided in the Belknap trial that a witness might not be examined as to the contents of an existing letter without the letter itself being submitted.
Instance wherein the President pro tempore ruled on evidence during an impeachment trial.
On April 4, 1868,2 in the Senate sitting for the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, Mr. Robert S. Chew, chief clerk of the State Department, was sworn as a witness on behalf of the House of Representatives, and examined by Mr. Manager Benjamin F. Butler as to the practice of making temporary appointments of assistant secretaries of Departments to perform the duties of their chiefs in the absence of the latter. The witness testified that the appointments in such cases were made by the President, or by his order. Mr. Butler then asked:
Did the letter of authority in most of these cases * * * proceed from the head of the Department or from the President?
Mr. William M. Evarts, of counsel for the President, objected that the letter of authority showed from whom it came, and was the best evidence on that point. In the discussion which followed, the counsel for the President intimated that they did not object if the question was intended to elicit a reply as to whose manual possession the paper came from. But if it was intended to ascertain who signed the paper, then the paper itself would be the best evidence.
Mr. Butler reduced the question to writing as follows:
Question. State whether any of the letters of authority which you have mentioned came from the Secretary of State or from what other officer?
The Chief Justice3 thereupon made an inquiry which led to this colloquy:
The CHIEF JUSTICE. ‘‘Came from the Secretary of State.’’ Do I understand you to mean signed by him?
Mr. Manager BUTLER. I am not anxious upon that part of it, sir. I am content with the question as it stands.
The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Chief Justice conceives that the question in the form in which it is put is not objectionable, but—
Mr. Manager BUTLER. I will put it, then, with the leave of the Chief Justice.
The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Chief Justice was about to proceed to say that if it is intended to ask the question whether these documents of which a list is furnished were signed by the Secretary, then he thinks it is clearly incompetent without producing them.
Mr. Manager BUTLER. Under favor, Mr. President, I have no list of these documents; none has been furnished.
The CHIEF JUSTICE. Does not the question relate to the list which has been furnished?
Mr. Manager BUTLER. It relates to the people whose names have been put upon the list; but I have no list of the documents at all. I have only a list of the facts that such appointments were made, but I have no list of the letters, whether they came from the President or from the Secretary or from anybody else.
The CHIEF JUSTICE. In the form in which the question is put the Chief Justice thinks it is not objectionable. If any Senator desires to have the question taken by the Senate, he will put it to the Senate. [To the managers, no Senator speaking.] You can put the question in the form proposed.
Mr. Manager BUTLER (to the witness). State whether any of the letters of authority which you have mentioned came from the Secretary of State, or from what other officer.
Mr. CURTIS. I understand the witness is not to answer by whom they were sent.
Mr. Manager BUTLER. I believe I have this witness.
The CHIEF JUSTICE. The Chief Justice will instruct the witness. [To the witness.] You are not to answer at present by whom these documents were signed. You may say from whom they came.
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2 Second session Fortieth Congress, Globe supplement, p. 118.
3 Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Chief Justice.
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2230. In the Swayne trial hearsay testimony introduced to show inconvenience to litigants from respondent’s conduct was ruled out.
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2235. In general during impeachment trials questions as to conversations with third parties, not in presence of respondent, have been excluded from evidence.—On March 8, 1803,2 in the high court of impeachment during the trial of John Pickering, judge of the United States district court of New Hampshire, Mr. Jonathan Steele was testifying, when, Mr. Joseph H. Nicholson, of Maryland, chairman of the managers for the House of Representatives, addressed the court. He said he wished in case it should be deemed proper by the court, to ask one of the witnesses whether he had conversed with the family physician of Judge Pickering, and what his opinion was as to the origination of his insanity. Mr. Nicholson observed that he had doubts of the propriety of this question, and therefore, in the first instance, stated it to the court.
The court decided the question inadmissible.
Later, on the same day, this witness, in the course of his testimony, was going on to state some conversation he had with Judge Pickering’s physician at this time
which he was induced to ask in consequence of solicitude to gain true information as to the reported intemperance of the Judge, when he was interrupted by the Court,1 and informed that this species of testimony had been already decided to be inadmissible.
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2 First session Eighth Congress, Annals, pp. 358, 359.
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2238. In the Johnson trial declarations of respondent, made anterior to the act, and even concomitant with it, were held inadmissible as evidence.
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2245. In the Johnson trial the Chief Justice ruled that an official message transmitted after the act was not admissible as evidence to show intent.
