Politico: This Impeachment Is Different—and More Dangerous

When Republicans impeached Andrew Johnson for obstructing Reconstruction in 1868, there was no broadcasting. There was no polling, at least not in the scientific sense of today. “Media” in America meant newspapers, which were largely partisan, but whose effect on the public was hard for politicians to gauge. The trial of Andrew Johnson was thus conducted by a relatively small political elite that, because focused on the crisis, at least understood the facts. [...]

As the Watergate hearings progressed, Americans weren’t just focused on the story: They were focused on the same story. The networks were different in how they broadcast news, but not much different. And thus, as widespread polling would reveal—to the public and the administration—views about the President were highly correlated across a wide range of America. When support for Nixon fell among Democrats, it also fell among Republicans and independents at the same time. America had heard a common story, and what it heard had a common effect. [...]

That division will have a profound effect on how this impeachment will matter to Americans. In short, it will matter differently depending on how those Americans come to understand reality. In a study published last month, the research institute PRRI found that 55% of “Republicans for whom Fox News is their primary news source say there is nothing Trump could do to lose their approval, compared to only 29% of Republicans who do not cite Fox News as their primary news source.” That 26-point difference is driven not just by politics, but in part by the media source. [...]

Social media platforms have responsibilities here as well. We don’t yet know the consequences of those platforms forgoing political ads in the context of an entire election season — even as, and importantly, some are experimenting with this right now. But impeachment could be an important moment to experiment even more fully. This is precisely the kind of question for which we do not need interested ad-driven spin. It is precisely the moment when Facebook and Twitter together could take the lead in turning away ads aimed at rallying a base or trashing the opposition. Whether or not political ads make sense on social media platforms during an election—at least for races not likely to be targeted by foreign influence—there is no reason for them here. America’s understanding of this critical event could come through the organic spread of the views of Americans—and it is just possible that the organic spread alone is not as poisonous as the spread spiked by advertising.

read the article

The Atlantic: Why the Strongest Argument Against Impeachment Fails

Last week, National Review’s Jim Geraghty offered an argument against removing Donald Trump that even those of us who believe him to be guilty of bribery should ponder. If you see danger in Trumpism or think Trump is an authoritarian menace, he argued, then you have the most to lose if his presidency ends with impeachment and removal, making Trump “a martyr in the eyes of his supporters” rather than a defeated loser––and leaving a sizable faction convinced that but for removal, he would have won reelection. [...]

For the record: Multiple members of the Trump administration and Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, participated in an effort to pressure Ukraine into announcing an investigation of the Biden family. When confronted, Trump not only declared his phone call with Ukraine’s leader “perfect,” but he defiantly gave a statement publicly calling on another country to investigate Joe Biden. Trump told television cameras, “China should start an investigation into the Bidens, because what happened in China is just about as bad as what happened with Ukraine.” [...]

If the House nevertheless votes down impeachment, or if the Senate declines to convict, what seems more likely? That Trump will stop pressuring foreign regimes to undermine his challenger in the next presidential election, or that, having faced no consequences, he will redouble his efforts to get that foreign help?

read the article

Politico: What Impeachment Will Cost the GOP

On policy matters, Clinton’s notion of the center involved pushing both major parties against old natural instincts. For Democrats, that meant going against the grain on spending and trade, among other issues. For Republicans, it meant if they would surrender their instinctual hostility to government in general, Clinton would work with them in practical ways to create a society in which a robust, technology-driven public sector would work with an efficient future-oriented government to create more opportunities for average Americans. [...]

A year later, these high-minded ambitions collided with the scandal surrounding his relationship with Monica Lewinsky. Once the battle began, Clinton lost all leverage to push his own party—he needed every vote, including those of liberals who had scant interest in his centrist vision—and he had zero pathway to engage even with sympathetic Republicans, whose party leaders brooked no opposition to their plan to evict Clinton from power. The new political and cultural center Clinton tried to create in the 1990s died during impeachment and is still dead. [...]

Lastly, most Republicans do not face a high cost within their own party for defending Trump. But, in a country becoming younger and more diverse, there’s little chance even these internal GOP politics remain static. The isolationists of the 1930s had the popular position at the time, but had considerable explaining to do for years after. So did the McCarthy backers of the 1950s. So did the civil rights opponents of the 1960s.

read the article

FiveThirtyEight: The Constitution Doesn’t Give Presidents Any Protections During Impeachment

The basic sentiment is that the president is being railroaded. But the reality is that when it comes to impeachment, there aren’t any protections for the president laid out in the Constitution. In fact, experts told me that pretty much any rights Democrats give Trump are above and beyond what they’re required to do. Trump hasn’t been charged with a crime and impeachment isn’t a legal proceeding, so he doesn’t have any of the rights you hear about on “Law and Order,” including due process. In the world of impeachment, “fairness” means whatever the majority party in the House of Representatives thinks it should mean. [...]

It’s easy to see a presidential impeachment as something akin to a criminal prosecution — evidence is marshaled, a trial is held, and the president’s fate hangs in the balance. But impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. As a result, it has entirely different rules that make certain protections that are reserved for criminal defendants — like due process — irrelevant. “As a matter of law, a president has essentially no claim to any kind of participation in the impeachment process,” said Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri and the author of “High Crimes and Misdemeanors: A History of Impeachment for the Age of Trump.” [...]

All of these protections only kick in when impeachment moves into the Judiciary Committee, though — and unlike past impeachments, a significant portion of the action this time around will happen outside that committee. Importantly, Trump’s lawyers won’t be allowed to participate in the next phase of the inquiry, which will involve public hearings run by the House Intelligence Committee. But Binder said that made sense, because unlike the House majority in the Nixon and Clinton impeachments, Democrats don’t have a voluminous special counsel probe to draw from, so the next round of hearings are arguably the public distillation of the House’s investigation, not its case for impeachment. On a practical level, though, it means that Trump’s legal team likely won’t be able to get involved for several weeks — which leaves plenty of time for his defenders to complain about how he’s been boxed out of the process.

read the article

Vox: A federal appeals court just demolished Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal investigatio

Yet, as Chief Judge Robert Katzmann, a Clinton appointee, explains for his court, Trump’s immunity claim is especially weak because Vance seeks personal documents that are unrelated to Trump’s conduct in office. Though prior Supreme Court decisions establish that the president enjoys “absolute immunity from damages liability predicated on his official acts,” this case does not involve Trump’s conduct in office. Nor does it even involve an “order that compels the President himself to do anything.” [...]

This decision is undoubtedly correct, at least under existing precedents. “The most relevant precedent for present purposes is United States v. Nixon,” Katzmann notes, a 1974 Supreme Court decision requiring President Nixon to “‘produce certain tape recordings and documents relating to his conversations with aides and advisers’ for use in a criminal trial against high‐level advisers to the President.” [...]

It’s important to note just how narrow this decision is. “This appeal does not require us to consider whether the President is immune from indictment and prosecution while in office,” Katzmann writes. It also does not require the court “to consider whether the President may lawfully be ordered to produce documents for use in a state criminal proceeding.” Rather, the Vance opinion dealt only with Trump’s sweeping claim that he is immune from criminal investigation altogether.

read the article

The Guardian: Trump's presidency is built on lies. Does he actually believe them?

From the phantom peace in Syria to the phantom wall on the Mexican border, the Trump presidency is based on the theory that reality is created by mere assertion. The scariest interpretation of the torrent of Trump lies is that the president actually believes the words that he is saying each time his lips move. [...]

By any rational measure, the Watergate break-in was dangerously unnecessary since Nixon would go on to carry 49 states against the hapless McGovern, even without planted microphones at Democratic headquarters. [...]

Taylor’s written statement ended with an earnest plea: “We must support Ukraine in its fight against its bullying neighbor. Russian aggression cannot stand.” Sadly, the same thing can be said about the Kurds, whom Trump also cynically and willfully abandoned.

read the article

FiveThirtyEight: There Are Plenty Of Anti-Trump Republicans — You Just Have To Know Where To Look

But looking at Trump’s standing only among people currently inside of powerful Republican-controlled spaces — the party itself, Fox News, the White House, etc. — presents an incomplete picture and understates opposition to Trump among Republican politicians and activists. Almost by definition, that opposition can’t happen within the obvious GOP spaces — the president and his acolytes have accumulated enough power that it’s increasingly hard to be both be anti-Trump and a Republican in good standing at a major conservative institution. [...]

There were 241 Republicans in the U.S. House in early 2017, at the start of Trump’s tenure. Since then, more than a quarter have either been defeated at the ballot box, in last November’s elections (29), or retired (36).3 Some of them, such as former Rep. Mia Love of Utah, blame Trump’s unpopularity for their defeats. Others, such as Rep. Will Hurd of Texas, hint that they are leaving Congress in part because they are uncomfortable with the direction Trump is taking the GOP, as the Washington Post recently reported in a story detailing the exodus of House Republicans. [...]

In a clear and public rebuke to Trump, chiefs of staff for Republican presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush recently told the New York Times that the presidents they served would never have asked for help winning an election from a foreign government. A group of conservative lawyers, many of whom served in top positions in the Department of Justice under Reagan or one of the Bushes, are supporting the impeachment inquiry. [...]

All of this helps explain why Republican voters are among the most loyal-to-Trump constituencies in the Republican Party. Surveys have long suggested that between 85 and 90 percent of Republican voters approve of the president. Only about 13 percent of people who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 said that they disapproved of Trump in a poll conducted in late 2018 and early 2019 by the Democracy Fund Voter Study Group. According to FiveThirtyEight’s average of impeachment polls, about 14 percent of Republicans support impeachment.

read the article

Politico: New poll has Warren leading Biden ahead of next Democratic debate

Warren leads Biden by 30 percent to 27 percent among Democratic voters and independents who lean Democratic, according to a Quinnipiac University poll published Monday.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, who is expected to return to the campaign trail after recovering from a recent heart attack, came in at third with 11 percent. South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg received 8 percent, while Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) received 4 percent. No other candidate topped 2 percent in support.

Biden, according to the poll, remains the most electable candidate in voters' minds, with 48 percent saying he's the one to beat Trump in the 2020 general election, but Warren is gaining ground. The Massachusetts senator sits at 21 percent, an increase from 9 percent in August. [...]

Support for impeaching Trump has seen a slight uptick in the last week. In an October 8 Quinnipiac poll, 45 percent of voters said Trump should be impeached, while 49 percent said he shouldn’t.

read the article

The Guardian: Trump's mounting troubles in Iowa could spell doom for Republicans

Trump’s trade war with China caused John Deere, the largest employer in Iowa, to cut production by 20% and lay off 160 workers in the Quad Cities along the Mississippi River. Crop markets are in disarray as China was the largest consumer of soybeans until that market was shut down.

Farmers have been furious with Trump for waiving ethanol blending requirements, which the EPA has tried to smooth over with vague promises for the corn-based fuel. But the trust has been breached, and mothballed ethanol plants in north-west Iowa are unlikely to fire up again. [...]

If she votes for evicting Trump she could be seen as a maverick, like Grassley was as a younger man. Independent voters – the biggest Iowa bloc – like honest mavericks. If she votes with Trump, Ernst risks losing re-election to one of four Democrats seeking the nomination in a primary next June.

read the article

The Atlantic: The Conspiracy of Silence Is Cracking

As the week closes, however, something strange has happened. The White House hasn’t changed its stance, but witnesses employed by the executive branch are coming to testify to House committees anyway. On Friday, Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine who was recalled earlier this year, is giving a transcribed interview behind closed doors over State Department objections. Also on Friday, Gordon Sondland, Trump’s ambassador to the European Union, signaled he would testify as well.

Suddenly the obstruction letter is looking a bit more like a Maginot letter: imposing in theory, impotent in practice. One of the leading narratives of the last three years has been that the guardrails thought to constrain the White House are not enforceable on a president with no shame. Yovanovitch and Sondland are illustrating a corollary: Trump’s insistence that his subordinates answer only to him is also unenforceable. A conspiracy of silence works only if people want to conspire. [...]

Motives aside, testimony from Sondland and Yovanovitch, like that of Volker, could influence future witnesses. The House has invited a slew of other current executive-branch employees to testify as well, including William Taylor, now the current top diplomat in Ukraine. In the messages Volker produced, Taylor seemed to be consciously creating a paper record of conversations. “Are we now saying that security assistance and WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?” he said in one message. Later, Taylor wrote, “I think it’s crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” Whether these officials testify will help determine whether a dam is breaking or some water has merely spilled over the top.

read the article

FiveThirtyEight: Two Weeks In, Impeachment Is Becoming More Popular

In response to this, we launched an impeachment polling tracker to track how much support impeaching the president had among the public — and whether new revelations in this unfolding saga would change their minds. And based on polls released on or before Sept. 19 (before the Ukraine story broke open), support for impeachment initially sat at 40.1 percent, and opposition was at 51.0 percent. But that began to change after we learned more about the scandal. And now, as of Wednesday, Oct. 9, the polling consensus is clear: Impeachment has gone from fairly unpopular to a near-majority opinion.

According to our average, 48.8 percent of people support impeachment, while only 43.6 percent don’t support it.1 That’s an increase even from last week, when the share of people who supported and opposed impeachment were roughly the same. What’s changed? Early this week, we got a couple new, high-quality polls that showed a majority of Americans in favor of an impeachment inquiry. Most notably, a Washington Post-Schar School poll found that 58 percent of Americans agreed with the House’s decision to start an impeachment inquiry, and only 38 percent disagreed with it. And an Investor’s Business Daily/TIPP poll found that 55 percent approved of the House’s decision and 44 percent disapproved. [...]

From Sept. 19 to Oct. 9, backing for impeachment among Democrats has increased by 11.2 points (from 71.6 percent support to 82.8 percent support). But backing has also increased among independents by 9.6 points (from 33.9 percent to 43.5 percent). Even some Republicans have had a change of heart: Their support for impeachment has increased by 4.1 points, from 9.7 percent to 13.8 percent.

read the article

Politico: Trump’s Bizarro World Reading of the Constitution

That matters. While the Trump administration has repeatedly taken unprecedented legal positions to delay and stonewall Congress, it previously recognized, however tacitly, the legitimacy of impeachment as a constitutional remedy. Even when it prevented witnesses like former White House counsel Don McGahn from testifying, it provided a fig leaf of justification—executive privilege or attorney-client privilege, for example—thereby implicitly acknowledging the oversight prerogatives of Congress and its power to issue subpoenas. That changed on Tuesday. [...]

While the letter is signed by a lawyer and occasionally uses legal terms, such as “due process,” it is a political document, not a legal one. The complaints that the administration has with the impeachment inquiry are not legal reasons that would excuse a failure to comply with the inquiry. Trump is not going to court. He is not claiming privilege. He has simply declared that the usual rules don’t apply to him. [...]

Both parties have publicly opposed this unconstitutional expansion of presidential power in the past. Not so long ago, when Republicans were arguing for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, they cited President Richard Nixon’s defiance of congressional oversight as a significant justification for his impeachment. Lindsey Graham, then a congressman from South Carolina, made a cogent case for why that article of impeachment was necessary against Nixon and why it was warranted for Clinton. But unless 20 Senate Republicans vote to remove Trump, he will remain in office and his noncompliance with Congress will be unpunished.

read the article

Politico: Trump’s impeachment defiance spooks key voting blocs

Nearly a half-dozen polls conducted since last Tuesday, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi directed her colleagues to proceed with pursuing Trump for potentially impeachable offenses, have shown women voters rallying behind her decision, exacerbating concerns among White House allies that white women who helped carry Trump to victory in 2016 can no longer be counted on next November.

The development comes as independent voters and college-educated whites — two more demographic groups that could make or break Trump’s reelection bid — have shown signs of softening their resistance to impeachment. Taken together, the latest polls paint an alarming picture for the president, whose base is sticking by him but cannot be counted on by themselves to deliver him a second term. [...]

Back-to-back polls this week found greater support for the impeachment proceedings than opposition among white voters with college degrees — a group that backed Trump over Hillary Clinton by a slightly greater margin in 2016, according to publicly available exit data. Fifty percent of college-educated whites in an NPR/Marist College survey said they approved of House Democrats’ decision to launch the formal impeachment inquiry into Trump. That compares to a narrower margin of support for the move, 45-43, in a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday. [...]

A Monmouth University poll released Tuesday also highlighted areas of confusion involving the facts that led to the impeachment inquiry against Trump. Among Republican respondents, only 40 percent said they believed Trump mentioned the possibility of an investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter on his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which led Pelosi to pull the trigger on impeachment proceedings. Trump does not use the word “investigation” in a transcript of the call made public by the White House, but does claim the former vice president “went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution” of his son. 

read the article

Politico: ‘An avoidable, unforced error’: Trump’s Ukraine trap starts worrying allies

High-level Trump supporters who have stood by the president for years are growing increasingly unsettled by his latest strategy of dismissing the latest fight as Russia 2.0. Half-a-dozen senior Republicans, including those who both talk directly to Trump and advise him on everything from campaign strategy to policy, communications and fundraising, said in interviews that they fear the president's plan to tie Russia and Ukraine could be ineffective because it dismisses the seriousness of the allegations and the fact that he admitted his actions. [...]

None of the advisers think Trump will be removed from office — not enough Senate Republicans would vote for that — but they say he’s hurt himself in what is expected to be a tight reelection campaign. A Republican close to the president said the notion that impeaching Trump will help his campaign, as some are pushing, is ludicrous. “It isn’t a positive,” the person said flatly. [...]

Michael Steel, a Republican strategist who worked for the presidential campaigns of Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney, said the Ukraine controversy is much more clear-cut than Russia because Trump was personally involved, he admitted what he did and, perhaps most important, it happened while he already was sworn into office. [...]

A second Republican close to the president said Trump's problem is that he‘s still so fixated on anyone trying to discredit him during the 2016 election — including former President Barack Obama and his vice president — that he went after Biden. “Should he have mentioned Biden? No,” the person said. “I wish he wouldn’t have. ... But I don’t fault him as much as other people.”

read the article