Move to dismiss charges after opening?

[jimnyc]

They SHOULD do this, it makes the most sense. Any attorney can ask for dismissal when they think the prosecution has no evidence or no case, of which this case screams of just that.

As to their request for additional witnesses - EFF em is what I say. Ignore them the same way the Dems did in the House. Ok, maybe not play their games, but then do the right thing legally, which is dismissal.

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McConnell Suggests Senate Will Move to Dismiss Impeachment After Opening Arguments

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) hinted in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday morning that the Senate will move to dismiss the pending articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump after opening arguments in the expected trial.

McConnell was reacting to a proposal by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Monday that the Senate call four additional, in-person witnesses that were not called, or not available, during the House inquiry, led by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).

But McConnell dismissed that suggestion out of hand, arguing that Schumer was trying to make “Chairman Schiff’s sloppy work more persuasive.”

McConnell accused Schumer of going straight to the news media with his proposals rather than speaking to him in person, as Senate leaders had done in the past.

He also noted that Schumer had misquoted the Constitution. The Democrat leader had claimed the Constitution gave the Senate “sole Power of Impeachment,” whereas Article I, Section 3 actually states, “The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.”

“We don’t create impeachments over here … we judge them,” he declared.

It was the House’s role to investigate, and to build a case. “If they fail, they fail! It’s not the Senate’s job to leap into the breach to search desperately for ways to get to guilty. That would hardly be impartial justice.”

The Senate would not, he said, participate in “new fact-finding” that House Democrats were “too impatient” to pursue.

The Republican leader said he agreed with Schumer’s suggestion that the Senate follow the model used in President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial in 1999, but accused Schumer of departing from that precedent.

In the 1999 trial, McConnell noted, here there were two procedural motions — one at the start of the trial, which allowed for a motion to dismiss; and a later one guiding the trial’s procedures and conclusion.

McConnell noted that Schumer had supported a motion to dismiss in the Clinton case. He added that Schumer had opposed the calling of live witnesses in that case.

The Majority Leader also strongly suggested that a motion to dismiss would be on Republicans’ agenda in trying the case against President Trump.

McConnell called the House effort to investigate Trump the “most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history,” anticipating that its “slapdash work product” would be “dumped” on the Senate after Wednesday’s House vote.

Rest - https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/17/mcconnell-suggests-senate-will-move-to-dismiss-impeachment-after-opening-arguments/

[jimnyc]

They KNOW they failed and KNOW they are in line for a quick loss on this one. So time to try new methods - but they aren't going to work in the senate.

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Mitch McConnell Shoots Down Schumer’s Request for More Impeachment Witnesses

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) rejected Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) request to have new witnesses testify as part of the upper chamber’s likely impeachment trial, stating he is opposed to conducting a “fishing expedition.”

“The House chose this road. It is their duty to investigate,” said McConnell in a floor speech Tuesday morning. “It’s their duty to meet the very high bar for undoing a national election. As Speaker Pelosi herself once said, it is the House’s obligation to, quote, ‘build an ironclad case to act.'”

“If they fail, they fail. It is not the Senate’s job to leap into the breach and search desperately for ways to get to guilty. That would hardly be impartial justice,” he added.

Rest - https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/17/mitch-mcconnell-shoots-down-schumers-request-for-more-impeachment-witnesses/

[STTAB]

Yep, I think the best bet would be to simply dismiss this as the joke that everyone knows it is.

Don't even let it get out committee . Dems want to play games, well two can play games.

[jimnyc]

Yep, I think the best bet would be to simply dismiss this as the joke that everyone knows it is.

Don't even let it get out committee . Dems want to play games, well two can play games.

Well, in the real world, if you present a case that has no true "facts" and doesn't show certain evidence to bring to trial - then you get a dismissal. Not easy to do but it happens, and I think in this case it would apply.

[STTAB]

Well, in the real world, if you present a case that has no true "facts" and doesn't show certain evidence to bring to trial - then you get a dismissal. Not easy to do but it happens, and I think in this case it would apply.


Yes, but if we used that logic then it would be up to the judge, in this case John Roberts to dismiss, not the jury itself.

[jimnyc]

Yet another reason....

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House Democrats Violated the First, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments in Impeachment Inquiry

House Democrats violated the Bill of Rights in pursuing their impeachment inquiry against President Donald Trump. Republicans have pointed out that Democrats’ articles of impeachment, especially the second article charging “obstruction of Congress,” punish the president for obeying the Constitution’s checks-and-balances.

Yet Democrats have also violated the basic liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, in the following four ways:

First Amendment: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA), which led the impeachment inquiry, released a 300-page report in which he printed phone logs purportedly belonging to Ranking Member Devin Nunes (R-CA), presidential lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and journalist John Solomon. Schiff has never made clear what authority granted him the power to snoop on a journalist (among others) — a violation of freedom of the press.

Fourth Amendment: Schiff’s snooping on phone logs violated the protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” As the Wall Street Journal‘s Kim Strassel has noted, “Federal law bars phone carriers from handing over records without an individual’s agreement.” There are exceptions for legitimate law enforcement investigations, but there is no exception for lawmakers, and Schiff’s inquiry had no law enforcement purpose; no crime was alleged.

Fifth Amendment: President Trump was denied the due process rights guaranteed to his predecessors in prior impeachment inquiries. Unlike Presidents Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton, for example, he was denied legal representation in the fact-finding stage of the inquiry. He was also told at the outset that any effort to invoke constitutional rights or privileges would itself be considered further evidence of an impeachable offense.

Sixth Amendment: Democrats violated the president’s right to counsel when they snooped on Giuliani’s phone records, even making a public record of his conversations with the White House, potentially violating attorney-client privilege. Moreover, by refusing to allow the so-called “whistleblower” to testify — and silencing questions about the “whistleblower” — Democrats denied Trump the right to confront his accuser before being impeached.

Democrats have argued that at least some of these rights only apply in a criminal trial, not an impeachment inquiry — and that if they were to apply to impeachment, it would only be in the trial phase, in the Senate, not in the House.

But impeachment — as Democrats have themselves argued — is itself a sanction that is meant, in their view, to deter misconduct. It is a penalty in and of itself, and the president is therefore entitled to all constitutional protections.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/17/pollak-house-democrats-violated-the-first-fourth-fifth-and-sixth-amendments-in-impeachment-inquiry/

[jimnyc]

Yes, but if we used that logic then it would be up to the judge, in this case John Roberts to dismiss, not the jury itself.

I don't think Roberts is in the can for republicans, but I do think he's a smart cookie and will see through their case and their shenanigans. No judge should or would allow such conduct in their courtroom.

[Kathianne]

There's been some 'talk' that the House just will not move the charges to the Senate, leaving the issue blowing in the wind. Not sure that would not further erode their position of seeming to 'hate Trump' with the general public, who are increasingly getting sick of impeachment?

[STTAB]

There's been some 'talk' that the House just will not move the charges to the Senate, leaving the issue blowing in the wind. Not sure that would not further erode their position of seeming to 'hate Trump' with the general public, who are increasingly getting sick of impeachment?


I've said this from the beginning. I NEVER believed the House would actually vote. They just wanted to smear Trump.

[High_Plains_Drifter]

I think the sentiment of most of the general public, more the republicans, that it's time for PAY BACK.

But, maybe this can be a two'fer. Move to dismiss the charges and end the impeachment farce, and then when the Barr/Durham report comes out, THEN get the pay back and start putting people in JAIL.

I heard that the Barr/Durham investigation should end sometime next Spring. Good... start exposing the horrendous CORRUPTION of the democrats right before the election.

[fj1200]

Yes, but if we used that logic then it would be up to the judge, in this case John Roberts to dismiss, not the jury itself.

I can't see him doing that. He would be stepping in the way of the Constitutional role of the House no matter how flawed their process might be.