Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Let me tell you a story about why I now believe Donald Trump will be impeached

The Forty-Fifth President of the United States will be successfully impeached in the People's House. The probability that he will be lawfully ousted from office by conviction from two-thirds of the members of the United States Senate is NOT zero.

Beside the fact that I can "feel it in my bones" and can easily envision it at this point in history, it's not just in my imagination.

Less than a week ago, a redacted version of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigative report, was publicly released by current Attorney General Bill Barr. For several weeks, since the report was delivered to Barr in the first place, we've known that Barr would supervise the redaction of portions of the report. Those redactions are meant, for example, to protect investigations that had been handed off to other prosecutors (such as the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York).

During the interim, pundits have speculated that the redacted version, when released, would be so cleansed that it would even protect Trump. But that's not how it played out.

Yes, Bill Barr did and does his best to protect Trump by speaking of the plethora of the revelations in the document in dismissive and euphemistic ways. The result of which is to embolden the person I now refer to as the criminal maniac who presides over the federal government. The criminal maniac will undoubtedly turn up the volume on his blustery rants on video and on Twitter.

Notwithstanding Barr's interpretations of Trump's behavior/conduct as completely innocuous, the AG has not succeeded in tamping down the popular consternation over Trump's shockingly unlawful conduct.

Then there's the other major player in this drama: Madam Speaker (Pelosi). Broadcast and print news reports have consistently led Americans to believe that the House will NOT impeach the criminal maniac. Until Tuesday (April 23), that is.

On Monday evening, Pelosi held a conference call (oh the wonders of telecommunication technology) with the 235 members of the House Majority.

Over the weekend, and with reports as late as Monday evening, everyone talking about the plans of House leadership could only go so far as to emphasize that we are not yet to the point where impeachment can be seriously considered.

Yet the Mueller Report laid out in exquisite detail a "road map" for Congress to finish the investigation, draw up Articles of Impeachment, and send it over to the Senate for trial.

Now let's go to the tape. Lawrence O'Donnell interviewed Congressman David Cicillini (D-RI) on the video below. Cicillini sits on the House Judiciary Committee. Please listen to the conversation. Lawrence and the Congressman will explain what developed next.




Take note that the testimony and other evidence in the Mueller Report came overwhelmingly from current or former members of Trump's own team, i.e. Republicans. Any fears Congressional (Democratic) leadership may have about stoking even more heightened polarization for the 2020 election season will be assuaged by consistent reporting of that fact.

Further, AZBlueMeanie over at Blog for Arizona this afternoon spelled out how the criminal maniac's conduct this week echoes that of Nixon as it was memorialized in the third Article of Impeachment that the late Republican president would have faced had he not resigned.

While it's not proof of what will take place over the following weeks, the message suggests impeachment is inevitable.

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