The Tyrannical Minority

[_Res Ipsa]

The article says that these type of transcripts are routinely classified as secret.

What matters is the purpose for classifying them. They are routinely classified because they routinely contain sensitive material deserving of classification. On the flip side, calls are routinely not protected in this manner as well. The argument at hand is that the Ukraine call, among others, was classified not because of legitimate reasons these cases typically involve, but instead out of a desire conceal the embarrassing and corrupt content of the call. That is the allegation.

The problem with your argument is that the call does contain sensitive information. It discusses specific weapons purchases and corruption among government officials. Yes, not all calls are categorized as "secret." The April call was not classified. But it says absolutely nothing of a sensitive nature. (Unless the Miss Universe Pageant has become a state secret.) Given the fact that the "default" and "routine" classification for calls (at least of any substance) between the President and foreign leaders, and that the non-embarrassing portions of the memo justified classification (see the Post articles linked below), how can you make a straight faced argument that giving late transcript the correct designation broke some sort of rule?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/ ... -alarming/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... ite-house/

If I'm correct that the July call, absent the embarrassing content, merited the "routine", "default" secret classification, then the argument you're trying to sell is that the document was given the correct classification for the wrong reason. If you think you can sell "he broke the rules because he did what the rules permit for the wrong reason," good luck to ya. It looks like overreaching on a hyper technical argument, which is what most "fishing expeditions" are based on.

[quote=EAllusion]If so, that's both a gross abuse of power and a violation of the controlling executive order for how to use that power that exists because it is a gross abuse of power. Congress has oversight over whether the President conducts his classification powers in a proper manner regardless, but the violation exists in a written legal interpretation.[/quote]

What executive order? You keep talking about an executive order without referring to the actual language. As a guy once said "I cannot read a sealed book."

I think you’ve misunderstood my reason for referring to Trump handing over the Ukraine transcript. My purpose was only to show that Schiff didn’t have to fight for months to see the Ukraine transcript because Trump volunteered it. That puts the Ukraine investigation many months ahead of any investigation of other phone calls.

I did misread you. To that, all I say is, "What's the rush?"

I wouldn't describe promptly acting on very solid evidence of an impeachable offense as "rushing." Delaying action on a clear impeachable offense sends an implicit message that the Democrats don't think its really a big deal. If Trump is re-elected, it really is going to look like the Democrats just waited around and then tried to undo the results of an election. If you've got a case, and you believe it's a good case, bring the case. Don't wait around to see if maybe you can add some other stuff that you don't, right now, have clear evidence for.

I thought you were arguing, like Honor has, that this is a unique instance because Trump finally has done something there is brightline evidence of impeachable conduct over, so this is a special case. Trump does that on a regular basis. This is just the instance where Democrats decided to act. He hands over evidence of impeachable conduct often enough.

For example, pardoning unquestionable war criminals against the wishes of the Pentagon is ballpark impeachable on its own and as part of a pattern of related conduct, is plainly impeachable. It's not a secret that he did it. It's a matter of public record. Trump, through unrelenting corruption and our poor media culture, has lowered the bar a great deal for what a (Republican) executive can get away with.

for what it's worth, I don't agree with Honor's argument. But I also don't think you've presented it accurately or fairly.

[_EAllusion]

The problem with your argument is that the call does contain sensitive information. It discusses specific weapons purchases and corruption among government officials.

The weapons sales portion of the call was a matter of public knowledge. The only thing secret about it was the effort to hold up those weapons sales as leverage for political advantage. Discussion of corruption among government officials only occurs in the context of pressuring Ukraine to investigate (i.e. make up dirt on) political rivals. It does not contain any sensitive material. If there were sensitive material, we wouldn't be seeing it, but we probably would be hearing about its existence as a refutation of the allegation the classification system was abused.

There isn't anything in the call that merits moving from ordinary classification systems to the code word level server that we know of, and the whistleblower's complaint - the one that has been dead-on about almost everything - alleges that it was used in this instance and others as a tool to conceal details of the President's corrupt or embarrassing behavior by his staff.

What executive order? You keep talking about an executive order without referring to the actual language. As a guy once said "I cannot read a sealed book."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... it-worked/

https://www.archives.gov/isoo/policy-do ... o.html#one

I wouldn't describe promptly acting on very solid evidence of an impeachable offense as "rushing." Delaying action on a clear impeachable offense sends an implicit message that the Democrats don't think its really a big deal. If Trump is re-elected, it really is going to look like the Democrats just waited around and then tried to undo the results of an election. If you've got a case, and you believe it's a good case, bring the case. Don't wait around to see if maybe you can add some other stuff that you don't, right now, have clear evidence for.

Investigating is promptly acting on. Refusing to pursue leads on wrongdoing in the course of that investigation out of an artificial need to end quickly is "rushing."

The flip side of this is that when Congress doesn't impeach on all the other impeachable conduct, it sends a clear message to the public that it must not be that bad because even Democrats don't think so. I would argue that exact thing happened with the Mueller Report.

[_Dr. Shades]

Page clutter? Search on the screen name "Smokey" and look at the obnoxiously large images he's spamming posting. Let us know if you find any "page clutter", Shades.

By "page clutter," I'm referring to the bar of buttons labeled "Profile," "PM," "E-mail," and "Quote." These won't appear if you simply type everything into a single post rather than making a new post every time you should simply press the "Enter" key twice.

[_honorentheos]

Returning to the OP, which started with the disparity between the views of the general electorate and the voters in swing states who could end up deciding the election in 2020.

It has been mentioned on the board there is variety between how convinced people may be that Trump has committed an impeachable offense. Those include disparities between differing political affiliations but also in swing States such as Wisconsin. For example, Fivethirtyeight describes the political differences in this link -

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mo ... e-offense/

Likewise polls taken in the middle of the impeachment proceedings tell us the voters in the OP are slightly less likely to support impeachment than they were when this kicked off.

It forces me to reconsider my views on the topic as I see the testimonies given as quite compelling and clear. While there is wiggle room in the evidence, it leaves only limited space to try and distance the President from the worst possibilty of his having held up aid for a political favor. The biggest gap in the evidence being the direct tie between the aid being held up and Trump seeking the announcement of an investigation into Biden.

I have to agree with EA on that point. Closing the investigation right now will likely cause more damage. The gaps will be exploited in public opinion as the Senate takes up the issue and begins the hearing if/when Democrats impeach which, at this point, they have to or the end of our democracy will have came and went live on CNN.

I don't agree with the expansion of the proceedings into a fishing expedition to find anything and everything one might hope to dig up on Trump, and certainly don't see how doing so changes the calculus on his attempting to pursue election manipulation given what we are seeing going on with Nunes and Graham. In some ways, the impeachment gave oxygen to the conspiracy theories in a Barbara Streisand Effect kinda way.

I don't know.

[_Res Ipsa]

I’ve seen nothing that has caused me to rethink my opinion that the impeachment process over the Ukraine issue should not be delayed for the period of time it would take to gather the evidence necessary on other issues. That doesn’t mean that the inquiry shouldn’t take all the time it needs to fully gather the relevant evidence. I think there should move forward on the case Bolton filed, as he is a witness who was in a position to know important information and who appears willing to testify if a court says he can. I think more effort should be made to find the witness who has first-hand knowledge of the hold placed on the military aid, and I think Parnass should be deposed and whatever relevant facts he has should be investigated.

Normally, had the justice department done the investigation, the public would have seen nothing yet. And what it hasn’t seen is the events told as a story. That would have first been done in the report of the investigation. We aren’t even there yet.

There’s a great article in the NYT about how Fox News goes about deciding on a narrative at the beginning of every day and then concentrates on crafting a story around the narrative. It’s the stories that are persuasive. But the House Democrats can’t afford to do that until they have the facts.

I agree that rushing for rushing’s sake is idiotic. But I haven’t seen anything that has convinced me that proceed with impeachment on the Ukraine issue alone is a mistake.

[_honorentheos]

I agree with everything you've said above, Res. My concern is that the Democrats appear ready to move on to drafting articles of impeachment and voting soon. The examples you cite above are similar if not the same ones I think deserve to be resolved before they do. Their original witness pool has left a few critical unanswered questions that need to be before the articles of impeachment are voted on by the House.

[_EAllusion]

In fairness to Honor, while I believe there is a best course of action, I don't think any course of action is likely to lead to desirable results. I'm more thinking in terms of "best shot" rather than, "This is what will work." Therefore, I don't take any approach's failure as definitive proof it was the wrong path to advocate. Trump is probably gonna get away with it. He probably is going to use illegitimate means to tip what would otherwise be a dodgy election in his favor, and he likely will use the following years to further institute authoritarianism within the US government. The US is likely to fall into being an illiberal country with semi-permanent right-wing control. After this episode, I imagine what remains of the independent civil service will be further obliterated in the coming years should the likely election outcome obtain.

The sad truth is the important election already happened and we are living with the consequences. This makes me frustrated that Democrats won't at least go down swinging.

[_EAllusion]

But I haven’t seen anything that has convinced me that proceed with impeachment on the Ukraine issue alone is a mistake.

Part of the issue here is the Ukraine issue not only connects thematically with other impeachable conduct, but appears to connect as part of a larger overarching scandal involving the same people and related actions. Pulling threads on what happened with Ukraine gets you to other topics of impeachment. You can't really fully investigate Ukraine without getting bogged down in a lot of misconduct here.

Trump and co really do operate as an organized crime syndicate and it's hard to isolate wrongful behavior when it comes to that.

[_EAllusion]

I've said this a few times, but when these types of events happen in other countries, people don't have nearly of a hard of a time seeing where this is going. If you changed the names and attributed the last few years of politics in the US to the political situation in, say, South Korea, a lot of people would already know where this is headed.

[_Res Ipsa]

In fairness to Honor, while I believe there is a best course of action, I don't think any course of action is likely to lead to desirable results. I'm more thinking in terms of "best shot" rather than, "This is what will work." Therefore, I don't take any approach's failure as definitive proof it was the wrong path to advocate. Trump is probably gonna get away with it. He probably is going to use illegitimate means to tip what would otherwise be a dodgy election in his favor, and he likely will use the following years to further institute authoritarianism within the US government, and the US is likely to fall into an illiberal country with semi-permanent right-wing control. After this episode, I imagine what remains of the independent civil service will be further obliterated in the coming years should the likely election outcome obtain.

The sad truth is the important election already happened and we are living with the consequences. This makes me frustrated that Democrats won't at least go down swinging.

Yeah, I get that. I have my own opinion, but that’s all it is. I can’t claim that I know I’m right.

And I agree with your bottom-line analysis: the election of Trump combined with their choice to hop on the back of the Tiger has put us in a situation that may be impossible to remedy.

But I would like to check out Nunes’s alleged involvement in the scheme.