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The Best Path To Impeachment – An Excerpt from \”Making Sense of the Whistleblower Revelations
Below are excerpts from our most recent episode of Deep State Radio titled, \”Making Sense of the Ukraine Whistleblower Revelations.\” David argues for a wider versus narrow approach to impeachment. You can listen to the full episode here, or wherever you get your podcasts.
David Rothkopf
The Russians came to see Trump to get sanctions lifted that had been imposed upon them after invading the Ukraine or Ukraine. Forgive me for saying the Ukraine, and the fact of the matter is, that this case is closely related to the other case and to disconnect the two of them I think is doing an injustice. Somebody has to do a real investigation of what\’s behind all of this. Furthermore, whatever we may say about what the Mueller report did or did not do in volume one, which has to do with the collusion side of things, there is a very, very clear cut case of multiple instances of obstruction of justice, which should not go unpunished. And there is, by the way, a rationale that exists in the history of impeachment, which suggests that multiple articles give the Senate the opportunity to vote up or down on one or two of them and, and still vote in favor of one of them and thus [inaudible] remove the president.
The Russians came to see Trump to get sanctions lifted that had been imposed upon them after invading the Ukraine or Ukraine. Forgive me for saying the Ukraine, and the fact of the matter is, that this case is closely related to the other case and to disconnect the two of them I think is doing an injustice. Somebody has to do a real investigation of what\’s behind all of this. Furthermore, whatever we may say about what the Mueller report did or did not do in volume one, which has to do with the collusion side of things, there is a very, very clear cut case of multiple instances of obstruction of justice, which should not go unpunished. And there is, by the way, a rationale that exists in the history of impeachment, which suggests that multiple articles give the Senate the opportunity to vote up or down on one or two of them and, and still vote in favor of one of them and thus [inaudible] remove the president.
But having said that, the federal campaign finance law violation and that the Southern district identified is a pretty clear cut case. The emoluments case is a pretty clear cut case. There are, you know, other instances, of crimes by President Trump that not only would benefit from being aired, but there is the possibility the Senate won\’t do the right thing on this. And therefore the benefit of the impeachment hearing is to raise the president\’s crimes, make the case, do it publicly so that you win in the court of public opinion even if you don\’t win in the court of the United States Senate. And that to me argues for identifying every place that you can make a rock solid case with facts on your side that you do it and that you don\’t keep it narrow. Now that\’s just my view and you guys have been here a long time and you have other things to do. You may or may not want to comment on it. Mimi, do you have a comment you want to add to that or Ryan?
Mimi Rocah
I mean I, I don\’t know that I can add more eloquently into what you just said eloquently. But yeah, I think that part of what needs to be done now is, I mean there\’s impeachment, but there\’s also investigation to expose the acts and the conduct regardless of what the final result is and whether Trump gets impeached or not, partly for national security and partly for, you know, just going forward and the history books. We need to know what\’s happened here and I think we still don\’t know as you\’ve pointed out in several different ways.
I mean I, I don\’t know that I can add more eloquently into what you just said eloquently. But yeah, I think that part of what needs to be done now is, I mean there\’s impeachment, but there\’s also investigation to expose the acts and the conduct regardless of what the final result is and whether Trump gets impeached or not, partly for national security and partly for, you know, just going forward and the history books. We need to know what\’s happened here and I think we still don\’t know as you\’ve pointed out in several different ways.
Ryan Goodman
I think we need to move ahead quickly. And I worry if we add all these pieces onto the table, it won\’t happen quickly. And part of the reason I think we should do quickly, expeditiously in a sense is that now\’s the time, the public understands, they\’re not gonna get as much fatigue and they can be educated on Ukraine, plus I think public corruption type issues, including the obstruction coming out of volume two of the Mueller Report. I think those are all connected and I worry about things that being overtaken by events. I worry that we\’re in January, February of 2020 and for some reason there is an armed conflict with Iran, his popularity goes up and it\’s like, are you really going to impeach a president at wartime or in this particular war? So they\’re just things like that that I worry about. And I also think there\’s something if when we\’re being politically pragmatic about it for the Democrats do impeachment and then spend more of 2020 focusing on the healthcare issues and other things like that, that they\’re otherwise worried about that the voters will think, oh, you spent all your time trying to impeach him rather than doing the things that are important to my individual life.
I think we need to move ahead quickly. And I worry if we add all these pieces onto the table, it won\’t happen quickly. And part of the reason I think we should do quickly, expeditiously in a sense is that now\’s the time, the public understands, they\’re not gonna get as much fatigue and they can be educated on Ukraine, plus I think public corruption type issues, including the obstruction coming out of volume two of the Mueller Report. I think those are all connected and I worry about things that being overtaken by events. I worry that we\’re in January, February of 2020 and for some reason there is an armed conflict with Iran, his popularity goes up and it\’s like, are you really going to impeach a president at wartime or in this particular war? So they\’re just things like that that I worry about. And I also think there\’s something if when we\’re being politically pragmatic about it for the Democrats do impeachment and then spend more of 2020 focusing on the healthcare issues and other things like that, that they\’re otherwise worried about that the voters will think, oh, you spent all your time trying to impeach him rather than doing the things that are important to my individual life.
