This has been a good discussion. I have been away and not been able to reply to a lot of the posts, so I will select a few points and reply to them.
Charles said, But now that you mention it, the process is not only unfair, it's unamerican. A political lynching. When you have a secret inquisition without rules and due process lead by a man who fabricated Trumps conversation with the Ukrainian President and read it into the congressional record, what do you expect the lying democrats are going to illegally leak? More bullshit.
It isn’t unfair. It is spelled out in the constitution:
The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
The Speaker of the House gets to conduct an impeachment inquiry in any way they deem fit, and that is how the founders intended it. If the Speaker wants each witness to armpit fart the Star-Spangled Banner instead of being sworn in before they testify they can mandate that.
It is an investigation and all investigations by any law enforcement agency are conducted in this manner. You don’t get to cross-examine witnesses when they are giving statements on the record to the investigators. You don’t publish their statements before the investigation is complete. There is a simple reason for this. It is the same reason you segregate witnesses at trial. You don’t want them to know what the other witnesses testified to so they are locked into their story.
If you actually watch the video of Shiff, it is clear he is presenting his theory of the case not a word for word transcript of Trump’s comments. It is the same type statement a prosecutor would make laying out their theory of the case. Do you think every opening statement by the prosecution or defense in a criminal trial is a lie?
The due process rights you are talking about come at trial, not the investigation, and there is nothing unusual about that.
Transparent? Where are the transcripts? Why do all your 'facts' come from illegal leaks? Why can't Republicans call witnesses? Why isn't it televised? Why can't President Trump's Lawyers attend? Why can't other members of congress attend? Transparent? I do not think that means what you think it means. Democracy Dies in Darkness.
Calling witnesses come at the trial phase, not the investigation phase. As I said, you don’t publish the statements before the trial as it forces people to stick to their story. If the police are investigating you for something, they don’t let you sit in on interviews with witnesses nor do they provide you a transcript of witness statements before taking the case to trial.
And make no mistake. If Republicans were running an impeachment inquiry exactly like this
against a Democrat president, Mark and Kevin would be the first ones to object. In fact they'd be calling it a Volksgerichtshof and go all drama queen on us calling it the end of America.
Charles, I am all for conducting the impeachment exactly as the Republicans did in Bill Clinton’s case. If the Republicans want to appoint a special prosecutor, outside the Justice Department and Bill Barr’s supervision, I am in. He should be a Democrat as Starr was a Republican and he should be far-left as Starr was far-right. He should have an unlimited budget, be free to investigate any matter and take as long as he wants even if it takes four years like Clinton’s investigation did. For example, if the Special Counsel wants a search warrant to rummage through Melania’s underwear drawer at the White House he should be granted one just like Starr was granted a search warrant to rummage though Hillary’s underwear drawer. Finally, Trump should be deposed about every sexual relationship he ever engaged in and if he lies about any detail he should be Impeached. Yeah, Charles, let’s do it just like the last Impeachment.
Tom said Prior impeachment proceedings were open.
In the case of Clinton, the investigatory phase was conducted by an independent counsel and only after the investigation reached conclusions were there public hearings. As I told Charles, I am happy to go along with the same process that was used in Clinton's impeachment, but that is not what Republicans, including you, really want.
Republicans don't want an investigative phase, because they don't want evidence to be gathered. As the number two Republican in the Senate said yesterday, they know the evidence is very damming to Trump. They just want the Democrats to say ok we are impeaching him without an investigation. That way when it goes to the Senate they can say see no evidence.
