maybe they're still banking on some hidden dirt, and they just want to use congressional subpoena powers for oppo research.

but honestly trump is the most closely investigated president in history.

if there was dirt, they'd have it by now.

Thats just it, i don't think they WANT impeachment. they want the investigation to make him look bad. they want the cloud of doubt like russiagate.

that doesn't seem to be having any traction though. trump's approval ratings haven't really moved.

yet. they now have an "open and fair" investigation where they can run the leading depositions they asked for the last half month in public every day.

that seems like a desperation strategy to me. people are tuning this shit out. it's not having an impact.

its all they have left. no democrat had a chance against him, they have no issues to stand on. all they have lefts is smears and blatant partizanship

the goal is to make him look corrupt. and if he "gets away with it" they can attempt to make the republicans looks systematically corrupt

precisely because they have no legitimate path forward i think there must be some sort of hidden strategy

i don't know yet what that might be, but these people aren't just going to lose with grace and humility.

there's literally nothing that i think the left would refuse to stoop to

is it possible to bar the senate? like physically prevent the senators from entering the senate?

i have seem a few things like that happen in the Canadian senate

well, we're getting into extreme hypotheticals now, but there could be several different ways of removing senators.

but you'd need to remove a lot to get to the two-thirds threshold.

or flip some.

another thing to remember is that the trial is presided over by the chief justice

we don't know what 'presided' over means in this context, as the chief justice isn't the one making the call. it's still a vote.

this is uncharted territory here.

i assume its like a court, where a judge presides over the proceedings but the jury is the one who convicts

but if its not an easy cheat, all i can assume is that the end goal is not the impeachment trial but the investigation itself.....

maybe it's a variation of the russiagate investigation, where as long as the special council's report was outstanding, the president was hamstrung. he was unable to take many actions because doing so could be seen as obstructing justice.

if he's under investigation by the house, he might feel constrained in his actions for fear of giving the house more ammo to use against him in the senate trial. that's kind of weak though.

since 'high crimes and misdemeanors' is a term left up to the house to decide, they can impeach him for literally anything. doesn't really matter what trump does or does not do in the interim.

yes. but the important thing would be the support for what it is. if they say get him on "not taking the presidential salary" nobody will back the democrats when the republicans refuse to impeach him. they want the russiagate cloud, they want to bring forward a plausible election interference case, and they want to republicans to vote not to impeach him i think. just to they can try and tar the whole party with corruption.

also. once this is all over, i would love a republican lead investigation to the Ukrainian investigation, and the origins of the Russian investigation.

i don't think that'll ever happen, because this is not going to end. even if the democrats don't have some clever strategy to end trump's presidency prematurely, they only need to hold out for a few more years until the demographic changes in the US ensure a permanent democrat presidency and house.

hell, they probably already have a permanent democratic house

looking at most poling? not even close. if things continue on at this rate you are looking at the democrats getting knocked down to a bout 25% of the house and senate.

?
<https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2020_generic_congressional_vote-6722.html>

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/618982545715101719/639656409264291882/EIQDYPTXsAEINsJ.png

https://twitter.com/ryangirdusky/status/1189894916639514624

I dont think those polls are anywhere close to accurate. give them like half a year to actually warm up

if i had to guess, Republican super majority in the senate maybe 67-70 seats. and maybe 230-240 seats in the house. along with trump taking 340~ of the electoral college votes.

My main reason for saying this is this impeachment investigation. it is a desperate move and because of that, i think the house and senate republicans can use it like a club to beat the democrats with, so long as they play it right.

a lot of the democrats driving this process now were in office when it was happening to clinton. they aren't stupid enough to give trump the boost that clinton got. there has to be a deeper strategy here.

maybe they can't control the momentum anymore?

there may be. I'm thinking hours of recorded depositions filled with leading questions. but i'm thinking that even with that house republicans can make a show of what a kangaroo court this is being made into. I'm thinking they will make every reasonable request, for every single possible bit of defense, have most if not all of it refused, and then in the senate hearing it will just be a litany of "your honor we were never given access to X to cross examine and redepose" for several hours. Impeachment is for all intensive purposes a criminal trial, and as such the president gets all the rights a defendant would get. If any Prosecutor had pulled half of what this committee has pulled so far, it would be grounds for a mistrial by itself.

this really isn't like a trial. the analog to the jury, the senators, are all horrifically biased. that wouldn't fly in a court. the judge has a conflict of interest, as he's a member of the party which stands to be destroyed. moreover, the jury are the ones making up the rules as they go.

and there's no such thing as a mistrial here.