As most people know impeachment begins in the House of Representatives and now that Democrats control the House, impeachment is possible. However, the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, says the House will not take up impeachment until they have the Mueller Report in hand and then only if the malfeasance within is so overwhelming it would have a good chance of succeeding in the Senate. She may be right, but she might also be wrong. Why? Because it's beginning to look like Donald Trump (sorry I can't call him President) is 1) setting up his pieces for a coup and 2) his behavior is out of control.
We need to get the country's focus off of his fake accomplishments and onto his real deeds or misdeeds if you will and nothing would do a more thorough job of that than an impeachment trial where all of the dirty little things the Trump campaign, then the transition team and then the TRUMP administration did and has done could be revealed in it's entirety. All the better if we have the Mueller Report, but even without, if the Republicans can impeach a sitting President for consensual fellatio, there is plenty more here to impeach Trump and even if the impeachment were to be unsuccessful, we'd at least have informed the 2020 voters of what the real Donald Trump is like, a luxury voters didn't have in 2016, especially with so many choosing to watch Trump Propaganda TV—Fox News instead of mainstream media sources.
Besides, even if the Republicans protected Trump, they would likely deliver the Senate to the Democrats in 2020 since their protection of Trump outside of Trumpville, where critical thinking still resides would not be appreciated. As it is, Republicans were facing an uphill battle to hold onto the Senate with 22 of 34 seats at risk and I suspect a vote to absolve Trump would be a career killer, maybe even worse than voting for the Iraq War.
So if we don't have the Mueller Report what do we have to Impeach Trump?
Well, if and that's a big if, we don't have the Mueller report before or don't get it during impeachment proceedings, we can still have the same actors testify. Cohen, Gates, Flynn etc can all be called to testify, but even with the Mueller Report, or Mueller witnesses, there is a mountain of evidence that Trump committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors or acted in such a way that is unbecoming of the President of the United States. Here’s just what I can think of off the top of my head—Readers are welcome to submit their own in comments.
ELECTION FRAUD
Most of us know that Individual #1 in the Michael Cohen indictment and conviction is Donald Trump and there is even a recording of him directing Cohen to pay Stormy Daniels $130, 000 a few days before the election. That is hard evidence. There may be more with the National Inquirer ‘Catching and Killing’ the Karen McDougal story just before the election too, but we'll leave it with Stormy Daniels for now.
OPERATING A CHARITY FOR PERSONAL GAIN
Donald Trump's personal piggy bank TRUMP FOUNDATION was ordered closed last year due to misuse of funds for personal use. The New York Attorney General is looking into the Foundation for criminal activities as well.
EMOLUMENT CLAUSE
This is happening right before our eyes, in the White House, Trump International Hotel, Mar a Lago, Trump Tower and probably overseas. Foreigners and Foreign Governments are lining up to line Trump’s pockets for favors. Currently there is three lawsuits from Attorney's General in three states for violations of the Emolument Clause.
BREAKING THE & LAW
There have been numerous cases Trump has broke the law or tried to get underlings to break the law, the most recent I can think of is trying to get Homeland Security to re-institute the illegal family separation policy against his own Executive Order & a standing Court Order. Also ordering Border Patrol agents to not allow immigrants to ask for asylum. There's also cases where Trump Obstructed Justice and once at least was even seen on TV.
DERELICTION OF DUTY
When Trump was sworn in to be President he agreed that his first order of business was to protect the country and the people. His second order of business was to follow the constitution. He has done neither. From 2015 until now seventeen U.S. intelligence gathering agencies have agreed that Russia using cyber information warfare attacked our country in many ways to interfere in our election in order to elect Donald Trump.
Donald Trump not only denies Russia helped him win the election, he refuses to authorize countermeasures to Russia’s continuing interference and now there are signs other unfriendly countries such as North Korea are attempting to interfere too. IMO this is aiding & abetting the enemy which borders on Treason.
SEDITION & DIVIDING THE COUNTRY
As we all know Donald Trump has divided the country more than at any time in a hundred and fifty years. In addition to many guest appearances on Fox News, where he bemoans everybody that he feels are unfair to him, which is pretty much everyone who doesn’t wear a MAGA hat. He enjoys holding rallies because the Trump acolytes adore him. At these rallies he often gets out of control showing his bigoted, racist side and even going so far as to preach sedition. In a recent interview he even said, "I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump - I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough - until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."
PAY TO PLAY
It should be, but unfortunately, it’s not against the law for the President to accept bribes, favors as long as it’s not from foreigners of foreign governments and he knows it. That’s why our corrupt to the core president is doing everything he can to make money off of his presidency from accepting bribes, etc in all his properties. He even sells positions like ambassadorships, by assigning 2/3 these positions to donors.
He also started his campaign for re-election on the day he was inaugurated and has amassed in slightly over two years over $100 million and of course he still holds several rallies a month where he sells Trump paraphernalia and accepts donations. None of this is illegal but it does display his lack of ethics, morals and is very un-presidential. IMO this behavior could be applied in an impeachment trial.
NEPOTISM
Another thing which is probably not against the law for the president (so little is) but is against the law for any other government employees is nepotism. As we know TRUMP has his daughter, Ivanka, his son in law, Jared Kushner with him working in and out of the White House, working for Trump senior and likely TRUMP INC on the side, shamelessly using the presidency to make money.
REFUSAL TO DIVEST
Presidents all divest business interests and investments or put them in a blind trust so there is not even a whiff of conflict of interest. Jimmy Carter even sold his peanut farm, but that was pre-Trump. Trump’s idea of divestment is putting his two older sons in charge of his business, while staying heavily involved and even being able to add or draw money from those businesses.
INDIFFERENCE TO PUERTO RICO
Donald Trump obviously has a problem with the U.S. Possession in the Caribbean sea, Puerto Rico. They were damaged like no state has ever been damaged by two hurricanes in 2017. The response to the destruction by both TRUMP and FEMA was pathetic. Power was out in much of the island for close to a year, which contributed mightily to the almost 3000 Puerto Ricans who perished.
CHARACTER FLAWS
Character? Yes, you could say Donald J Trump is a character, but he’s a character without character:
Not counting the exaggerations and outright lies Donald made while campaigning and during the transition period, the Washington Post, who’s been keeping track, says Donald has spun over 9000 prevarications or outright fantasies in the twenty-seven months he’s been president. But that’s nothing.
- Donald Trump, the ‘successful businessman’ has gone bankrupt 6 times, has had over a dozen enterprises, from Trump Airlines to Trump Vodka go out of business.
- He’s also been accused by over 20 women of sexual assault and or harassment.
- He also was a regular at convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s infamous underage model parties. A woman who was 13 at the time accused Trump of raping her at one of these parties.
- Donald Trump the so called builder/businessman was notorious for stiffing hundreds of creditors out of millions of dollars.
- Trump University was a scam where Trump, for tens of thousands of dollars, promised to show students how to be a successful businessman, which he wasn’t. Almost all students were disappointed and joined one of the class actions suits that were filed. Eventually, he settled for $25 million when he ran for president.
- Then there’s the infamous pussy-grabber tape that was released only weeks before the election.
- Also Trump allegedly participated in a 50 year family tax scandal, where the family lied and cheated to pay little to no federal, state & local taxes, orchestrated by his father—a former KKK member and Nazi sympathizer—but probably continued under Donald’s tutelage.
There’s more, including Donald’s inherent cruelty and mob ties, but for now I’m going to leave it at that. Thank you for reading and I hope you agree.
BTW, I hope to run for AZCD8 congressional seat in a Republican stronghold. I welcome your support.
Saturday, Apr 20, 2019 · 5:46:17 PM +00:00 · Duane Daum
I wrote this diary about impeachment that was widely panned ten short days ago. In it I stated that there was plenty of information to mount a credible case for impeachment without the Mueller report and the Mueller report would only be icing on the cake.
However, now that the Mueller Report has finally come out, boy has the worm turned! We now have many more congress people (senators too) agreeing that impeachment is necessary and we even have a Presidential candidate (Liz Warren) coming out for impeachment. What’s more many of the remaining candidates sounded like they were getting ready to play ‘follow the leader’. And why shouldn’t they. Impeachment with the added information of the is a slam dunk.
As I said in my original piece, Republicans who vote against impeachment in the CRIME OF THE CENTURY do so at the risk of their reputation and and possibly their career! Would you stick you neck out for this fraud?
That said, if Republican senators are stupid enough to throw there reputation and career away for this miscreant, it only sets us up to win the election and win it big.
Why do I say that?
Before I answer that let me say that the case against Donald J. Trump is so widespread and so deep that I anticipate that if the trial covers all transgressions that are available including failure as a businessman, his longtime connections with Russia, his tax cheating, his bank fraud, his money laundering, his sexual harassment, etc. that I envision the trial lasting several months, which if I’m not mistaken will be covered by all cable news networks including Fox News.
This alone could be monumental as the transmissions of the trial will be in real time and unedited. In other words we would have three to six months of unvarnished truth because we were able to by pass the Right Wing Bubble. So in short it’s a win win situation. We get rid if Trump by Impeachment or, we get rid of trump by ballot box.