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“Sorry About That”: How The Lynching Controversy Offers A Preview For An Impeachment Trial

Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the recent controversy over President Donald Trump’s use of “lynching” and what it portends for any Senate impeachment trial.

Here is the column:

This week Americans saw a preview of the likely impeachment trial of President Trump. No, it was not the testimony of William Taylor, the acting United States ambassador to Ukraine, who certainly added damaging information on an alleged quid pro quo demanded by Trump. Rather, it was the kerfuffle over Trump using the word “lynching.”

Trump thought it was appropriate to compare the investigation of his alleged misconduct to lynchings, a word more often reserved for racist murders carried out in this country for decades. It was yet another Trump tweet that caused many of us to cringe over his language. Former Vice President Joe Biden expressed shock that Trump would use the term. Republicans and Democrats joined in objecting to his tweet.

Then the stories began to surface of some of the same politicians using the same word in the past, including Biden, who actually used it in the same context of impeachment. This is all a foreshadowing of what would come with the impeachment of Trump. The problem in Washington has never been a lack of corruption, just a lack of clarity. The public is in store for a drawn out process that takes the hypocrisy over this one word and multiplies it a thousandfold in a trial over self-dealing in office.

As I have said before, there is no question that the use of public office for personal gain is an impeachable offense, including the withholding of military aid in exchange for the investigation of a political opponent. You just have to prove it happened. If you can establish intent to use public office for personal gain, you have a viable impeachment offense. The problem then becomes not the charge but the members of jury.

The Senate may be the worst jury in world. As someone who has tried a case before that body, I would move to strike half of them for cause in a real courtroom. In that impeachment trial of a judge, I had jury figures like Republican Senator David Vitter, who had escaped criminal charges over his admitted use of prostitutes in Washington. Indeed, he sat there in judgment of a judge accused of improper conduct involving gambling and other acts, such as the payment of a stripper by a lawyer.

Trump would be judged on self-dealing by a jury that would include Democratic Senator Robert Menendez, charged with corruption for exchanging official acts for gifts from a wealthy doctor. All politicians are self-dealers who use their offices to advance their ambitions. It is in their blood. The fact is that “public service” often means “self-service” to those in political power. Watching a trial on self-dealing with this jury is like having Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman sit on a college admissions board. They certainly have experience, just not the right kind.

That is why the “lynching” controversy is so instructive. Biden expressed absolute revulsion with Trump using the term. “Impeachment is not lynching, it is part of our Constitution. Our country has a dark shameful history with lynching, and to even think about making this comparison is abhorrent. It is despicable.” He is certainly correct, but that is not what he believed when a Democratic president was being impeached.

During the impeachment of President Clinton, Biden declared, “History will question whether or not this was a partisan lynching or whether or not it was something that, in fact, met the standard.” To make matters worse, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, Representative Gregory Meeks, and other Democrats also have used the term.

When confronted with his own use of the term, in the same context with the same underlying point, Biden insisted there was no comparison. Him using the “despicable” word was merely incautious, while Trump using it was “deliberative.” Biden apologized but added that Trump “chose his words deliberately today in his use of the word ‘lynching’ and continues to stoke racial divides in this country daily.” The same act is apparently a venial sin for a Democrat but a mortal sin for a Republican.

The same spin will be required in any trial, as shown by the business dealings of Hunter Biden. Joe Biden dismissed any controversy as entirely without merit, but the windfall payments to his son from a Ukrainian company will not be so easily set aside in a Senate trial. A respected ambassador said he was so concerned about those dealings with one of the most corrupt Ukrainian figures that he raised the matter with the staff of the vice president. He said he was shut down in his efforts.

The same is true of the outrage over seeking investigations or evidence from foreign governments. The Clinton campaign denied that it funded the dossier investigation of Trump until the media proved that it had lied. Former British spy Christopher Steele sought information from foreign sources, including Russian intelligence. The Obama administration investigated Trump campaign officials and sought information from foreign governments on alleged meddling in the 2016 election.

None of that excuses Trump if he demanded quid pro quo on Ukraine. The question is whether a compelling case can be made if Democrats have to excuse the actions of themselves. It will not be enough simply to claim their corrupt contracts or foreign inquiries were not as “deliberative” as those of Trump. If a case can be made against Trump, it will require a narrative that offers the public some clarity to distinguish the conduct of the defendant from those sitting in judgment in a Senate trial.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He also served as the last lead counsel in a Senate impeachment trial and testified as a constitutional expert in the Clinton impeachment hearings. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

387 thoughts on ““Sorry About That”: How The Lynching Controversy Offers A Preview For An Impeachment Trial”

  1. TURLEY OFFERS AN ALL-ENCOMPASSING ‘WHAT ABOUT’

    I think Professor Turley consulted with Commenter Karen to craft this all-encompassing What About. Karen has been long shown a flair for stacking What Abouts on top of each other. The idea is to create layers of What Abouts, not unlike a tiered wedding cake (or a Russian doll, perhaps).

    This column presumes to be about Trump’s use of the term ‘lynching’. But the professor manages to cast aspersions on every Democrat and the whole impeachment drive. Though interestingly Turley allows that Taylor’s testimony was “damaging”. Damaging indeed; hence this all-encompassing What About.

    After Taylor’s testimony, Trump went into panic mode and called on every Republican to fight this impeachment. That very next day, Turley’s column played-down Taylor’s testimony in favor of noting the ‘irony’ that Democrats could become strange bedfellows with former NSA Advisor John Bolton (who is possibly the whistleblower).

    The day after Taylor testified, 30 Republican Congressmen crashed into the secure hearing room where impeachment investigators were about to take testimony from a Pentagon official. Then ‘yesterday’ we learned that the Justice Department probe of the Mueller Probe has been upgraded to a criminal investigation.

    One might ask if William Barr’s Justice Department is really an honest broker in probing the Mueller Probe. Cynics might say that William Barr has essentially become Trump’s lawyer and no longer represents a true Justice Department. It would have been interesting to get Professor Turley’s take on that. But sadly he opted for this all-encompassing What About.

    It goes to show that Donald Trump has an evil capacity to corrupt almost every Republican. In fact Trump’s shocking decision on Syria is already fading as a news story. Never mind that Trump’s decision has made Russia the dominant player in Syria. We’re supposed to put that aside and think the Mueller Probe was a travesty.

    2. JW, spin much? Jolly good job of spreading donkey poo.

      Dimms, current communists, fake stream media, radical lefties & ‘progressives: If it were not for duplicitous double standards, the fascist left would have no standards at all.

      Use of the word ‘lynching’ is A-OK for lefties, but no one else? The examples of leftist double standards is very long.

      Please feel free to add more examples of their two face double tongued ‘standards’. These clowns remind me of Mitt Romney, a classic two tongued prevaricator as pointed out in Snakes on A Campaign, Mitt Romney.

      SamFox

  2. If liberals want us to believe that their feigned daily hysterics are actually real, then we must conclude that they are too delicate to hold public office; therefore, they should get the hell out and leave governing to the adults.
    There just aren’t enough fainting couches in D.C. to accommodate them.

  3. Dr. T – if you actually believe in the legal process and the Constitution it is time to stop equivocating.

    What we all know is that this is no legal or reasonable impeachment process. Democrats are disregarding any allegiance to the concept of precedence and fairness. Democrats are willfully disregarding the legal systems of the United States, tearing it to shreds. This is being done entirely for nefarious reasons, all outside of the context of civil society.

    The Dems are a constant lie and smear campaign and it’s time to talk truth to their corrupt power… or you are a party to it.

    1. BS. The process is as last updated in 2015 under the GOP and followed during the Benghazi hearings.

      Frigging GOP drama queens and the dummies who listen to them.

  4. All of this is such a sham. Americans are worried about their society spinning out of control, nuclear family has disappeared, they know the culture is rotten, many are anxious, depressed, insomniacs, chronic medical illnesses with multiple drug prescriptions, in a sterile world where people are widgets for capitalistic purposes, their sense of alienation is great in medical health care systems, universities, churches, you name it…it is entropy fully throttled

    Yet for Biden, Pelosi, Schiff and the MSM, their concerns are so detached from Americans that it is a wonder they are not lynched by We the People.

  5. Western lynching movie scenes are common in Hollywood

    My favorite is when Blondie strings up his buddy Tuco

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o36m-2TPwck

    Then there is the real world. 12/26/1862. The order execution of the Dakota 38.

    On that day after Christmas in 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged under order of President Abraham Lincoln. The hangings and convictions of the Dakota 38 resulted from the aftermath of the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 in southwest Minnesota.

  6. Lynchings, as most people who have read history know, are centuries old!
    When I hear the word, I immediately think of cattle and horse rustlers, which are still a problem here …with 700-800 incidents(crimes) a year, just in Texas. A lynching of rustlers, gamblers, bank robbers used to be the Law of the West.
    The demonic Democrats have successfully convinced a large percentage of the black community that the sun rises and sets on them. So that any action or word given by their foes , especially Trump and supporters, is twisted into a racial attack. This is how they maintain control over that voting block, as everyone knows. It’s so obvious, it’s laughable.

  7. As a black man I am acutely aware of the history of the use of lynching by the Democrat backed terror groups like the KKK. Lynching however is not a race specific crime.
    The largest mass lynching in this country appears to be the lynching of 11 Italian Americans In Louisiana.

    2. As always, everyone and everything is more note worthy than the genocide of our Native Americans. Not to diminish the unspeakable crimes perpetuated upon Black America, but to once again simply say “me too” with the hope that lynching is in the everlasting past for both peoples.

      1. Chuck…..good point, but may I say Africans sold other Africans into slavery. The American Indian saga is tragic, indeed, but they arrived in North America on their own.
        The worst atrocities in the history of mankind were committed against the Jews……..and yet, look what they managed to accomplish. They are miracle people.

        1. Many believe that the US army killed huge numbers of Indians. This is wrong. US forces killed Indians but the perception is of some is out of line. Most of the Indians were dead before the US was born. Most of the Indians I believe were from south of our present borders. Huge numbers died from small pox. Huge numbers were killed by the Spanish and other European powers. Huge numbers were killed by other Indians since the tribes fought each other.

          I remember reading an account of the numbers officially killed by US sources (but this is a memory from long ago.) It amount to about 15,000. Killing is horrible but that seems to be what happens when cultures, tribes or even individuals clash. Placing the burden on America for such killings is pure foolishness as America compared to others has been relatively good.

        2. Yeah Mespo, I feel a whole lot better as an American about Wounded Knee and of my German ancestry about Auschwitz.

          Do you have a “what about” incident for every occasion?

    3. the Democrats should think about this:

      if due process does not apply to a billionaire who is President of the United States,’

      THEN DUE PROCESS WILL DEFINITELY NOT APPLY TO THEM.

      that can manifest itself in a lot of different ways and some are more ugly than others

      1. What part of due process is not being followed Kurtz. You’re an attorney. Let’s hear it.

          1. “Due process does not apply when republicans are in power. See Merrick Garland.”

            Foolishness. What was Merrick Garland accused of?

              1. Though you are unaware no one accused Merrick Garland of anything so how could due process be denied? This demonstrates how you have little understanding of what you say so you merely repeat talking points sometimes placing the wrong talking points together. That doesn’t put you in a very good light and that is why some people make fun of you.

        2. due process certainly entails, as a general concept, two things, among others:

          a– the right to call witnesses

          b– the right to examine evidence

          this is what Fl. Rep. Matt Gaetz said yesterday in interview on NPR

          He was especially incensed that he hasn’t had access to testimony given a week ago, when in the interim, lots of things had been leaked. He said why can’t I get access to read the testimony but all this stuff is coming out in leaks? His assertion was basically that the Democrats were locking down things that were favorable to the POTUS but leaking things that weren’t.

          1. Kurtz, come on! THis is the inquiry, not the trial. You know that. Gaetz should have gotten on the right committee if he wanted to see the interviews. He’ll see what is deemed worthy of evidence and so with everyone and Trump’s team will every opportunity to review and challenge it.

            This is Mickey Mouse BS and you know it.

            1. your last sentence packs a lot of meaning it. the words are revealing

              ” He’ll see what is deemed worthy of evidence….”

              WHO DEEMS WHAT IS WORTHY?

              that’s where a lot of these things get messy. this is why the Dems have subpoenaed the Meuller grand jury stuff. today they say a judge has ordered it to be produced to them. See, they want to see the underlying testimony and not just the conclusions about what’s relevant evidence.

              I expect that’s how Graetz and Republicans in Congress may feel too, about this other subject.

              1. Kurtz, there are GOP House members at all the committee hearings. They are able to cross exam the interviewees. What “underlying testimony are you worried about?

                1. well he said yes they can cross but they can’t call witnesses. If i understood him correctly.

                  Since we don’t have access to it all whatsoever, even less than Graetz does, of course, I don’t know, I’m just repeating what Graetz said, essentially. time will tell.

                  1. Graetz is the AH who threatened Cohen’s family just before his testimony. He’s a light weight jerk.

    4. Thanks, Ti317. I was going to mention that inconvenient fact but folks like Enigma and Yuri think they have a monopoly on not just virtue but suffering.

      1. What a puny post. Blacks have been the main victims of lynchings in this country , which occurred in every confederate state by the scores and some border states. They did not end until well into the 1950’s.

        Are you so small that you want to fight over blacks well earned sensitivity to the institution and word lynching?

        1. There have been 423 homicides to date (2019) in the city of Chicago where the largest number are blacks. I take note how much some wish to cry over the deaths of those deaths that already occured but how little attention those same people pay to those that will die tomorrow and thereafter. Such people care about their ideology which represents the culture of death rather than the culture of life. Anon seems to be one of those people. We should ask ourselves where the greatest numbers of homocide are and we find that to occur in the cities that have had continuous leftist control.

          https://graphics.suntimes.com/homicides/

        2. Anon1–And who was it that did the lynching of black people?

          OH, yeah—

          The dim’s enforcement arm of the day,
          the ‘grand’ ol’ sheet wearing KKK!

          The dimm party has always been racist, especially against black people. Dimms fought tooth & nail against setting them free & fought Fed laws that gave blacks rights & liberties. Now fascist dimms disguise their racist objectives by doing identity politics to divide the people.

          The sensitivity you mention was forced on blacks by the dimm party.

          Now the leftist fascists have antifa to do their violence as the fascist thugs enforce one of the dimm codes, ‘free speech for me, but none for thee’.

          How long will it be before antifa thugs actually start killing people? I doubt antifake will be content with just beating up people for much longer.

          Dimms are also trying to frame Mr. Trump with their fake impeachment. If they had any REAL evidence, they wouldn’t be hiding in a basement trying to fabricate charges.

          SamFox

  8. I think all the wise guys are wrong and there will be no impeachment vote.
    I am sure Mitch M would cooperate in dragging out the trial so that during the election campaign, the spectacle of Biden giving public testimony will be a nightly feature. Can you imagine Obama called under oath to testify about his dealings with Ukraine? Hillary? Pelosi? Brennan?
    A good legal team will make the Democrats rue the day they sent this on to the Senate. I don’t think they are that stupid or hate filled. The whole objective is to use this to damage the President.
    Nothing more, nothing less.

        1. Kurtz, odds makers adjust their odds to get equal bets on each side, It is effectively a poll.

    2. Ti317:

      I said at the outset a vote on impeachment is unlikely which will further infuriate the Dims base, i.e. Soros’ internal insurgency. When Trump inevitable wins against this gang of dwarfs, we’d better be prepared for violence in the street.

  10. The Democratic Party is chock-a-bloc with people who have no procedural principles whatsoever. There can be no rule book, because all they do is play Calvinball. This will not end well.

    1. if there are no rules then the strong will tend to win. Let’s see how they do with no rules.

        1. Whether or not they are the rules it sounds like Soviet style justice but it doesn’t demonstrate respect for the act of impeachment and it leaves out the American public. If they take a vote without adequate time for review of the documents by the public then over 300 million Americans will have been disenfranchised. The leaks in a secret hearing are not part of the House rules. I blame the Republicans and Democrats for the rules but I blame Schiff for perverting justice and I blame the scum that encourage such action. Any one item Schiff has done might be let go but his continuous use of Soviet style justice for political reasons (Exactly what Stalin did) is heinous and if I could I would remove him from his position. Thank goodness there is a Republican Senate or we could potentially have the destruction of the Presidency no matter which party is in power.

  11. Lynch = to put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal approval or permission. So other than death, isn’t what the Dem’s are trying to do exactly the same? Besides, doesn’t the word Nazi (and all the other dozens of disgusting names the Demwits use to refer to the Commander in Chief) evoke equally horrid images? There once was a saying “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”, but it looks like some of those prickly words seem to hurt them more than they do President Trump. D’ya think that’s another example of the Dem’s most common character flaw being “hypocrisy”?

  12. I think there are 3 issues that impeachment depends upon:

    1. Will the Dems have a smoking gun? So far, maybe, but not yet. All the evidence is only of what one bozo, often unidentified, told another bozo about “what Trump wants”. But nobody has gone on record that Trump personally told him or her what Trump wants. The call transcript is nowhere near a smoking gun.

    2. Will the Dems efforts be so drawn out, strenuous and boring to connect these floating dots to draw a smoking gun, that the Public tunes out, even with the “gun”? Clinton’s SG was perjury in plain sight, but the GOP just exhausted the public and looked stupid.

    3. But even with the SG, will it just look trivial. Sure, it was impeachable to misuse power to to get dirt on your opponent by using that money. But the Ukraine got the money. Trump never got any dirt. The Ukraine is in the same relationship with us as before. Who lost anything? Maybe the public concludes that The Dems – the losers in 2016 – just want to reverse the election.

    Trump may be guilty, but the impeachment process – in plain sight – can be made to look so ugly, that people can accept him getting off.

  13. These controversies have now extended outside of the political realm. One might not note it in the Washington Post or the NYTimes but we might be seeing a lot of this playing out in the criminal justice system rather than in the political halls of Congress. In addition to what is said below it appears that a number of prominent people from the Obama administration have now hired criminal attorneys.

    —
    John Durham opens criminal inquiry in DOJ’s investigation of the investigators
    by Jerry Dunleavy | October 24, 2019 09:31 PM
    U.S. Attorney John Durham opened a criminal inquiry in his investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia investigation and into the conduct of the Justice Department, FBI, and Intelligence Community during their scrutiny of possible connections between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.

    The significant new move in the DOJ’s investigation of the investigators, which would give Durham the power to impanel a grand jury and hand down indictments, according to the New York Times.

    https://jonathanturley.org/2019/10/25/sorry-about-that-how-the-lynching-controversy-offers-a-preview-for-an-impeachment-trial/

  14. Turley is overlooking simple legal issues in his latest “what about-ism”. It is not illegal to hire foreigners with campaign funds as Clinton indirectly did with Steele. If Steele or the Russians give you campaign help, that is a foreign contribution and illegal. WTF JT? You don’t know this? What am I not teaching law at GW? Similarly, the “Obama Administration” did not go on a fishing expedition on the Trump campaign. The FBI was alerted to that campaign’s early knowledge of illegal election interference by the Russians and it’s connections to previously a surveilled character suspected of being a Russian asset or agent.

    2. Steele was paid as a foreigner to gather information to impune the reputation of Clinton’s opponent. Whether or not one wishes to call that a quid pro quo doesn’t concern me, however how that information was used for FISA warrants is very disturbing since the FBI had been warned in multiple ways that the the Steele Dossier was unproven. That information was withheld from the FISA Court which is just one illegality of many. Though you may not have come across it yet the Durham investigation has expanded to a criminal investigation and Obama administration officials have been said to be hiring criminal attorneys.

      1. Typically Allen is completely confused. There was nothinh even hinting at illegality by Steel’s oppo research and yes, someone who is paid for a service is working under a QPQ. They do the work, you pay them.

        1. “There was nothinh even hinting at illegality by Steel’s oppo research”

          Anon, you apparently can not comprehend my words or the words reported by those accurately reporting what is happening. (“Whether or not one wishes to call that a quid pro quo doesn’t concern me”) My concern has little to do with QPQ even though Steele was a foreign individual. My concerns lie with using the Steele Document in front of the FISA Court without notifying the court of all the facts known behind the Steele Dossier that were not revealed. That is a criminal act.

  15. When I was growing up “lynching” was a term applied to dealing with horse thieves, who were seldom… Never mind, sanity is not a desirable trait these days.

    1. The left gets so hot and bothered about the use of this word when in the past they used it so many times and even tried to “lynch” a black man when he was appointed to the Supreme Court, the superb justice Clarence Thomas. I don’t think they ever think of it in terms of horse thieves though that is basically what they are. I decided to look it up.

      lynch (v.)
      1835, “inflict severe (but not deliberately fatal) bodily punishment (on someone) without legal sanction,” from earlier Lynch law (1811), in reference to such activity, which was likely named after William Lynch (1742-1820) of Pittsylvania, Virginia, who c. 1780 led a vigilance committee to keep order there during the Revolution. Other sources trace the name to Charles Lynch (1736-1796) a Virginia magistrate who fined and imprisoned Tories in his district c. 1782, but the connection to him is less likely. The surname is perhaps from Irish Loingseach “sailor.”

      https://www.etymonline.com/word/lynch

  16. Judging from your comments, Jonathan, it appears you are auditioning for Republican lead counsel in an impeachment trial of Donald Trump

      1. The fact of it is, the only people that like trump are the ill informed, and people that don’t accept reality. And of course the few billionaires that got yuge tax breaks, but they overlooked the other two for reasons.

        1. FishWings, all you seem able to do is repeat talking points. You can’t defend a position, you seldom possess the appropriate facts for the discussion and you say things that are ignorant like you did above. You are a waste of time.

        2. That’s your opinion Fishead. I’m well informed and my ideas are very well grounded in reality. My opinions differ. You’re presumptuous and arrogant to pretend that only your side sees “Reality” as you fashion it. As if you were a scientist or a Grand Inquisitor of the contemporary era!

          However, perceptions of reality are informed by who and where you are in life. This relativistic viewpoint is strong in Marxism, but has come for in contemporary times to be understood as existential reality. Democrats as creatures of the Left (postmodernism) have come to well understand how this can be used to further their aims.

          But this understanding is not confined to the Left. It comes from Martin Heidegger’s work in the first place. He was definitely a man of the Right. As was Nietzsche, whose other related work on “will to power” comes to mind, as a primary factor in the current thinking of the Democratic leadership. But you see the Left does not have a monopoly on what is to be drawn from these insights. Other people can use them too.

          It is insincere to pretend that your frames of reference do not color your interpretation of reality. For some time, Republicans have been as insincere as Democrats, if not even more so. Republicans used to pretend that only they were proceeding according to some observable objective reality. this was a detritus of the Enlightenment from which most American conservatives had emerged. But, things have changed. In Donald Trump, they have a guy who sees things his own way, and isn’t shy about calling the shots accordingly. In following him and the shared world-view, Republicans have now taken a path which is more sincere. And thus it echoes with the people who share similar world-view. You guys don’t like where that’s leading, because, where it goes is unsettling to your perceptions of reality, and your underlying aims according to your own will to power.

          The insincerity of the Left and Democrat leadership and mass media bosses of today is the fakery that they have some sort of ability to scientifically, objectively, and truthfully detect ‘reality” or the truth, that their opponents lack. Even as they are actually coming from a postmodernist viewpoint that rejects the very notion of truth and objective reality in favor of the more relativistic epistemology that I mentioned above. In other words, you who do not believe in truth, pretend now to own it.

          This fake, presumptuous and arrogant notion that only THEY have a right to use postmodernism, cultural relativism, and the other intellectual accoutrements of the 20th century gone by, to advantage their own aims. Now that the “Right” or to be more precise, “populists and nationalists” have rediscovered these tools, you all are very unhappy indeed.

          I’ll say it differently. the people that threw deonotological ethical norms out the window a long time ago, are now mad because their adversaries have embraced teleological norms as well. Too bad, so sorry, have a nice day!

          1. and to put it differently again, here’s all this comes down to. The Democrats want the Republicans to play by Marquess of Queensbury rules, while they themselves fight according to the MMA rule-set. Sorry, no can do! Get ready to rumble. Both sides are well into the “End justifies the means” way of thinking now, and you’ll have to get used to kicking below the belt now and not just patty-cake.

          2. Maybe Fishwings is just ” totally unequipped to handle the genius of our great President”.😁
            I think the Press Secretary went “a little” over the top with that statement.

  17. What’s the big deal? We all know that when Demos say a nasty word, well, actually they are incapable of saying a nasty word. So if they say a word that would be Nasty if a Repo says it? Well, it’s just not nasty.

    So look, the Demos can do no wrong, the Repos are always wrong. This is a provable fact if you watch just one night of MSNBC.

  18. “The White House’s trade representative in late August withdrew a recommendation to restore some of Ukraine’s trade privileges after John Bolton, then-national security adviser, warned him that President Trump probably would oppose any action that benefited the government in Kyiv, according to people briefed on the matter.

    The warning to Robert E. Light­hizer came as Trump was withholding $391 million in military aid and security assistance from Ukraine. House Democrats have launched an impeachment inquiry into allegations that the president did so to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate the business activities of former vice president Joe Biden’s son Hunter. As part of the inquiry, lawmakers are closely scrutinizing the White House’s actions between July and September.

    The August exchange between Bolton and Lighthizer over the trade matter represents the first indication that the administration’s suspension of assistance to Ukraine extended beyond the congressionally authorized military aid and security assistance to other government programs. It is not clear whether Trump directed Bolton to intervene over Ukraine’s trade privileges or was even aware of the discussion….”

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/white-house-delayed-ukraine-trade-decision-in-august-a-signal-that-us-suspension-of-cooperation-extended-beyond-security-funds/2019/10/24/a42b8992-f67d-11e9-8cf0-4cc99f74d127_story.html

    1. Enter stage left, a large rhinoceros. Republican chorus: “There is no rhinoceros.” A large fire breaks out. “There is no fire” says the chorus as they walk right into it…GYM Jordan leading the way, uttering nonsense words in order to confuse his own mind as the heat begins to penetrate.

    1. Paul, what makes the proceedings a “star chamber” and how is it a “lynching”?

      1. It’s a lynching in the same way Clinton’s impeachment was a lynching: the political opposition is hunting the President.

        1. Ivan, a lynching is an extra legal attack by a mob resulting in a murder. Care to explain how the Congressional inquiry into alleged crimes by the President meets that definition?

            1. Monument, I can only get the 1st paragraph before the pay wall. Here is Judge Napolitano explaing the House Rules to Brian Kilmeade – in this case written in 2015 under GOP majority rule – which of course keep what amounts to Grand Jury like testimony private. There are GOP Committee members at the hearings who question those being interviewed. Of course anything later deemed relevant to the trial will be made public and subject to review, challenge, and cross examination by Trump’s team.

              https://video.foxnews.com/v/6097325158001/

          2. Clutch those pearls even harder. We are in hyperbolic times and the words you are hearing are hyperbole.

  20. The column makes very clear that the impeachment process is a lynching; we may argue about semantics, and we may cringe when our sensibilities are offended, but there is no doubt that the Never Trumpers are determined to lynch Trump.

    “The problem in Washington has never been a lack of corruption, just a lack of clarity.”

    The corruption is a problem, maybe the single biggest driver of this impeachment attempt.

    Turley: please stop trying for moral equivalency – in this case, the Dems are wrong.

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