Can you imagine a worse reason to start a civil war?

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

A crime is not a requirement of impeachment.
Impeachment is a vote in the House and anything is impeachable.

If you're trying to school me on what it takes to impeach, you needn't bother. I have stated at least two times on this forum that the House could impeach for any reason it wants if it has the votes.

Look at the reasons proposed for impeaching the last President.

Job offer to Pennsylvania Representative Joe Sestak
Preventing Obama from "pushing his agenda"
Obama administration immigration policy
Libya intervention
Benghazi attack
Impeachment requested by a townhall meeting audience member
False claims of being born outside the United States
IRS targeting conservatives
Debt ceiling crisis
Hearing on "President's Constitutional Duty"
Prisoner swap
Transgender bathroom directive

Here we go again. What you do best. Change the subject. Pile on with stuff that has nothing to do with the transcript. As if spouting out a whole lot of words is enough to make it sound that you have a valid point.

The Transcript shows bribery as defined by the Founders.
Perhaps the stenographers very professional exact words that Trump claims exist will show more or was he hyperbolizing once again.

I don't recall how the Founders defined bribery. Perhaps you could refresh. I don't see bribery in the transcript. As for withholding funds, it seems that the Ukraine Pres. didn't know about that till after the phone call. And it has been explained and corroborated, that the temporary fund withholding was to gain leverage in getting the Europeans to pony up more aid for Ukraine than they were giving. As for the Bidens, when Trump asked for help, he directly referred to Ukraine's possible interference in the election. Trump didn't say anything about the Bidens until after the Ukraine President brought it up.

In fact, Trump’s conduct almost certainly satisfies the modern statutory standard for bribery. As Randall Eliason has explained, a quid pro quo “need not be stated in express terms; corrupt actors are seldom so clumsy, and the law may not be evaded through winks and nods.” We have little doubt that a prosecutor would be able to establish a quid pro quo based on what was said on the call and the surrounding facts and context. (As an aside, Trump’s conduct also likely qualifies as extortion. As James Lindgren has explained at length, historically there has been a substantial overlap between the concepts of extortion and bribery, and around the time of the Founding, the terms were often used to describe the same conduct.)

But even if Trump’s actions do not satisfy the modern criminal standard for bribery, the argument from Trump’s defenders is misplaced—because the federal statute isn’t the relevant statement of the law in the context of impeachment.

The Founders had no intent of tying the constitutional definition of bribery to federal criminal statutory law. On the most basic level, no federal criminal code existed at the time that the Constitution was drafted. Beyond that, the Framers had no reason to believe that Congress would enact federal criminal statutes in the future. As Laurence Tribe and Joshua Matz explain in their comprehensive book on impeachment, “To End a Presidency,” criminal law was understood to be the province of the states, and there was very little federal criminal law at all until the mid-20th century. To the extent there was federal criminal law, it followed the common law model. That is why the concept of high crimes and misdemeanors can’t be limited by federal statutes. The same goes for bribery—as there was no general federal bribery statute at all until 1853.

OK, so what you're saying is that there is no federal statutory reason here for the impeachment by this federal House of Representatives (there is no evidence of bribery in the transcript). And we both agree that Congress can cook up any grounds it wants to impeach if it has the votes.

This post by you was in response to my saying yes, do focus on the transcript. As usual, you wander on to other possibilities and conjectures. And, in the end, you seem to settle on this impeachment attempt being for whatever the House wants it to be about. The transcript, which I said to focus on (which I thought you wanted to do in your post that I responded to), in substantive fact, has no statutory or criminal reasons for impeachment. It's simply about the House wanting to impeach.

In substantive fact, actually, the transcript does contain a legitimate request, per the treaty with Ukraine, to assist on a matter pertaining to an ongoing DOJ investigation. That is something you, to this point, have avoided talking about. Why?

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by detbuch

OK, so what you're saying is that there is no federal statutory reason here for the impeachment by this federal House of Representatives (there is no evidence of bribery in the transcript). And we both agree that Congress can cook up any grounds it wants to impeach if it has the votes.

This post by you was in response to my saying yes, do focus on the transcript. As usual, you wander on to other possibilities and conjectures. And, in the end, you seem to settle on this impeachment attempt being for whatever the House wants it to be about. The transcript, which I said to focus on (which I thought you wanted to do in your post that I responded to), in substantive fact, has no statutory or criminal reasons for impeachment. It's simply about the House wanting to impeach.

In substantive fact, actually, the transcript does contain a legitimate request, per the treaty with Ukraine, to assist on a matter pertaining to an ongoing DOJ investigation. That is something you, to this point, have avoided talking about. Why?

Detbuch, do you know if the Europeans did, in fact, pony up more?

Is there legitimate, credible evidence to suggest aid was withheld to get the Europeans to help more, rather than to pressure them on Biden? Or is it all he said / she said?

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

Detbuch, do you know if the Europeans did, in fact, pony up more?

Is there legitimate, credible evidence to suggest aid was withheld to get the Europeans to help more, rather than to pressure them on Biden? Or is it all he said / she said?

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, EU institutions top the OECD’s list of the top 10 donors of official development assistance to Ukraine, with $425.2 million contributed on average for 2016-2017. The U.S. was second with $204.4 million in assistance, closely followed by Germany, which contributed $189.8 million on its own, in addition to contributions it would have made through the European Union.

CSIS’ King, a former U.K. defense and foreign conflict specialist, detailed the aid the U.S. and other countries have provided to Ukraine in a Sept. 26 report. U.S. Agency for International Development figures King cited show the U.S. has contributed between $272 million and $513 million annually since 2014. As for military assistance, the U.S. has contributed about $800 million, “which includes small arms, counter-narcotics efforts, training programs, and military advisers to support and improve the Ukrainian forces, among others,” King wrote.

Those are sizable numbers, but the EU has given more. “The European Union is the largest donor to Ukraine” King wrote, estimating that the EU has given almost twice as much on average per year than the U.S. since 2014.

Maja Kocijancic, EU spokesperson for foreign affairs and security policy, told us in an email, “The European Union’s support to Ukraine is unprecedented. In these five years, we have put together for Ukraine the largest support package in the history of the European Union.”

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

OK, so what you're saying is that there is no federal statutory reason here for the impeachment by this federal House of Representatives (there is no evidence of bribery in the transcript). And we both agree that Congress can cook up any grounds it wants to impeach if it has the votes.

This post by you was in response to my saying yes, do focus on the transcript. As usual, you wander on to other possibilities and conjectures. And, in the end, you seem to settle on this impeachment attempt being for whatever the House wants it to be about. The transcript, which I said to focus on (which I thought you wanted to do in your post that I responded to), in substantive fact, has no statutory or criminal reasons for impeachment. It's simply about the House wanting to impeach.

In substantive fact, actually, the transcript does contain a legitimate request, per the treaty with Ukraine, to assist on a matter pertaining to an ongoing DOJ investigation. That is something you, to this point, have avoided talking about. Why?

Show me the legitimate request in the memo, per the treaty.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Show me the legitimate request in the memo, per the treaty.

Are you for real? The whole nonsense is about Trump's request for aid from a foreign government. That request, per the MLAT treaty was valid and treaty members are obliged, per treaty, to assist when asked.

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Are you for real? The whole nonsense is about Trump's request for aid from a foreign government. That request, per the MLAT treaty was valid and treaty members are obliged, per treaty, to assist when asked.

And legitimate requests are typically hidden on that server?

Presidential conversations with a foreign leader are circulated among the members of the administration that are affected by them.
No one saw it.
They buried it.
They buried the whistleblowers report.
They are stonewalling the investigation.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

And legitimate requests are typically hidden on that server?

Presidential conversations with a foreign leader are circulated among the members of the administration that are affected by them.
No one saw it.
They buried it.
They buried the whistleblowers report.
They are stonewalling the investigation.

Trump released the transcript. It is not hidden. If you don't know what is on the server, how can you definitively accuse Trump of bribery, treachery, high crimes and misdemeanors?

[Pete F.]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Trump released the transcript. It is not hidden. If you don't know what is on the server, how can you definitively accuse Trump of bribery, treachery, high crimes and misdemeanors?

Trump released the memo, he claims there is a word by word transcript by professional stenographers.
The full conversation remain hidden.
Until the obstruction stops and all the evidence is produced no one can be definite.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by Pete F.

Trump released the memo, he claims there is a word by word transcript by professional stenographers.
The full conversation remain hidden.
Until the obstruction stops and all the evidence is produced no one can be definite.

No one except you. That being said, let's impeach the m-fer anyway.