Articles of Impeachment – Some Initial Thoughts

So the Democrats have drafted their Articles of Impeachment, charging the President with Abuse of Power and Obstruction of Justice.  They continue, like children, to act out their anger and hatred of the President.  Indeed, other than their hatred of the President with which they twist facts and their own impressions to create evidence of their complaints, the Democrats have little support for such charges.

Let us, however, consider where these charges should really lie.  There is far more evidence against the Democrats.

Here are just some of the Democrats’ Abuses of Power:

• Charging someone with a crime without evidence and only for political gain.
• The Democrats now admit that their impeachment of the President is a political move.
• The Democrats have had the charge of impeachment on the table since Jan. 2017; they have simply been searching for a crime and still do not have the evidence, but do have the need to impeach to try to keep the President from being reelected (many have stated that if they do not impeach him, Donald Trump will be re-elected).

• They are ignoring and violating laws, rules, and the Constitution.

• They deny due process to the President during their impeachment “investigations.”
• For example, Adam Schiff hides evidence, denies Republicans the ability to call witnesses,  and subpoenas the phone records of his Republican opponents without any reasonable reason for doing so.

• The Inspector General report released yesterday tells us that Adam Schiff’s  2018 memo vilifying Republican Devin Nunes and others and defending the Steele dossier and FBI tactics (and adored by media) was riddled with lies and false statements.

• Refusal, since the 2016 election results were declared, to accept the will of the people and abide by their electoral decision. Refusal to do their sworn Constitutional duty and respect and support that decision along with the executive branch of government and the office of president.

• This is a show trial to destroy an opponent, nothing more.

And, some examples of the Democrats’ Obstruction of Justice:

• Again, refusal to allow witnesses and minority presentations at their impeachment “investigations.”

• Meeting with the “whistle blower” before he came forward in an attempt to use him to create a case against the President, then refusing to call the whistle-blower as a witness, falsely stating that to do so would violate laws, and then stating that he and his testimony are not relevant (to a charge based upon allegations by the whistle-blower!)

• Repeatedly leaking various and often misleading information to the press in an attempt to sway public opinion in their favor and against the President.

• Refusal of Adam Schiff to testify or to release full transcripts of his secret “witness” interviews regarding impeachment.

• Adam Schiff’s reading and entry into the House record of a fake transcript of the Ukraine phone call.

• The many FISA abuses outlined in the just released Inspector General report, all attempts to create a crime where one did not exist so as to be able to charge and convict the President.

• The rush to impeachment itself – denying the ability to have full investigations in what is a serious matter for the country.

• This is not justice but another act in the continuing endeavor to effect a coup and overturn the results of an election.

The above lists only begin to scratch the surface of the abuses by the Democrats.

This is now all out war.  The blood thirsty Democrats move in for the kill – not only of the man they hate but also, with him, of America as we know it. It is not Constructional. This is not right.  It is not fair.  It is not justice.      

The Democrats are playing a dangerous game.  A game that can easily destroy America.

I don’t know if Democrats really believe their press statements.  I can’t believe that any rational person would.  I don’t know if they are simply overcome with hatred as it seems, so that their sole obsession is to remove a man they hate simply because he bested them in 2016, giving the country and the people who elected him policies that are making America strong in so many ways, accomplishing so much that Democrats have promised for years but been unable to deliver.  I don’t know if it is simply about power and their insatiable thirst for it.  I don’t know if they really hate America and its greatness.  I just don’t know what or why they are doing this.  But what I do know is that they must be stopped.

This is no longer about Donald Trump.  It is about our country and whether or not we want it to continue to survive along with its Constitutional values and protections that have given greatness not only to the people of America but as a shining example to the world. 

Presidents come and go.  We the people see to that via our voices in the election booths.  But our principles, our laws, our Constitution, our values all remain.  Allowing the Democrats to subvert that system for their own hate and power subverts our entire system and moves us far closer to a form of dictatorship than democracy. 

The Impeachment Show is a selfish presentation by selfish people who think they are better than the rest of us and therefore should be given the power to decide for us whom we should have elected.  I stand firmly against that view and I hope that others do the same.

Stacking Opinions

Just a few quick notes on the House Judiciary Committee hearing held today, Dec. 4.   I am not going to again go into lengthy discussion about the ridiculous nature of this Impeachment Show, but rather simply reflect on what we saw today.

First, today we saw not just opinion vs. opinion, but rather opinion based upon opinion vs. opinion based upon opinion.  That is, we had four law professors who have heard no evidence but who have heard or read opinions of others about what they feel about various actions of the President, give their legal opinions about whether those opinions they read/heard about those facts create a basis for impeachment.  Yes, it is ridiculous, isn’t it?

Let’s understand:  lawyers and especially law professors enjoy examining the law and rendering their opinions about it.  OPINION is the operative word here.  In the law, issues are issues because they have more than one possible solution.  Legal minds form opinions and put that opinion forward.  It may or may not be the opinion that will be adopted in a particular case.  Think of any simple court case.  The plaintiff or prosecution puts forth its opinion that the defendant has done something wrong.  The defense puts forth its opinion that defendant is innocent or not at fault.  Opinion vs. opinion.  A legal decision – guilt, acquittal, liability, or no liability will require fact, not opinion.

Opinions cannot be proven.  They are simply one person’s view about events.  They are not necessarily right or wrong.  As one of my law professors was fond of saying, there are no right answers, only wrong ones.  The wrong ones he referred to were those that were not well supported by facts and by clear and logical reasoning.

Legal scholars will not all agree on the meaning of a law nor on the proper resolution of a case.  This is why, for example, so many Supreme Court decisions are not unanimous.  More than one well-reasoned interpretation can be put forward.  So, while a law professor may sound very authoritative in proclaiming his or her opinion, it is not a fact, it is not a law, and it is not even necessarily correct.  If not grounded in evidence or if not soundly and logically supported, it might very well be wrong.

At the hearing today, however, we saw many Democrats asking their witnesses what was their opinion about the law (remember, that is not a definitive definition but simply one opinion about the law), then taking that law as fact, then asking the witness if the “facts” as defined by one of the earlier Intelligence Committee witnesses’ opinions, met the current witness’s interpretation of “impeachment.”  So, we have the Democrats starting with an opinion and calling it fact, then taking a professorial interpretation of law and calling it actual law, and then getting a professor to assert that the fact/opinion that he has only been told about meets his definition of law (which is really just his interpretation/opinion) and using that as a basis to impeach the President.  Yes, it really is that ridiculous.

But what troubled me today more than anything is what the appearance of these four professors told me about the future of the law and justice in this country.  Three of the four have well documented biases against the President and have been actively and monetarily involved in various campaigns against President Trump since he has been in office.  They clearly were letting their own biases color and determine their legal opinions about impeachment.  If that is what they are teaching their students, then there is little hope for the future of fairness and justice.  Witness Turley was the only one of the four who was able to render objective opinions that happened to not favor impeachment even though he himself is not a Trump supporter and is critical of many of his policies and actions.

It is that ability to divorce one’s own feelings from one’s legal analysis that is critical to justice.  To be clear, Professor Turley’s opinions are, just as those of the other witnesses, nothing more than opinion.  They are not fact.  They are not law.  But the difference is that they are based on objective examination of the relevant source materials and supported by sound legal reasoning.  While I am sure that the other professor-witnesses are also capable of such reasoning, it was fairly clear that they had not engaged in such objective analysis in this case.  There may well be logical support for their opinions, but that was lacking here because those opinions were so obviously based upon their personal hatred of President Trump. 

Professor Turley urged us all to “divide rage from reason.”  That is, there is so much hate that it is preventing the reasoned approach that is necessary for an impeachment consideration.  But it goes beyond that.  The rage, the hate that consumes the Democrats is preventing a reasoned approach to nearly anything in this country and especially to the continuation of our form of government.

So, I was deeply saddened to see the hatred overcome the three Democrat professor witnesses whose credentials should have made them able to distinguish rage from reason and hold heir personal opinions at bay while considering scholarly legal analysis, especially when that analysis may be used to affect the future of our nation and whether or not an election should be overturned.

These are legal scholars.  I expect them to understand the gravity of the undertaking when they are asked to testify about impeachment.  I expect them to understand that when they engage in scholarly discourse about the Constitution or law or past cases that they are expressing their opinions only and that they are not judges rendering decisions on facts that they have not even examined.  Yet if they are willing to accept and engage in such over biased reasoning then Lady Justice has surely lost her blindfold and the concept of a fair and unbiased hearing within the justice system is at serious risk.  This is simply not OK – for those who seek justice and for our Country which depends upon our judicial branch of government as one of the three pillars that sustain us and our freedoms.

So, the Impeachers have now built a case by stacking opinion upon opinion with no clear factual foundation.  Such a structure must surely collapse – hopefully before it takes the entire country with it.

The Impeachers also seem to be perhaps moving away from their focus group determined term of “bribery” and back toward the Mueller report – the report that took 2 years along with taxpayer dollars to investigate another ludicrous charge.  It was determined there was no obstruction there.  Yet obstruction seems to be back again.  Along with idiotic analogies to Nixon, suggestions that the President wants to be king (using the President’s minor son as the butt of a joke about this), and most anything else the President has done or said as meeting their witnesses’ opined definition of impeachment. 

Really, the only thing that is constant, the only thing that is substantiated by clear and convincing evidence, is the continuing rage and hatred of the Democrats toward Donald Trump.  It is time that everyone follows Professor Turley’s advice and “divide rage from reason.”  Then, and only then, can we move forward with the business of the country.