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@SpeakerPelosi If there are no GOP votes for impeachment, it is not because they're not doing their job, it's because you are not doing yours.
No prosecutor or DA says, when deciding if they should go to trial in a criminal case, says they shouldn't do it because they don't --
No prosecutor or DA says, when deciding if they should go to trial in a criminal case, says they shouldn't do it because they don't --
-- have the guilty votes assured in advance. Their job is to present the jury with the evidence and make an airtight, evidence-based, unassailable case that criminal actions took place. Only then can the jury reasonably be expected to vote "guilty."
The importance of convincing the jury is implicit in the mandate to be tried "before a jury of one's peers." The founding fathers WANTED the accused to have the hometown advantage, making it even harder to convince a jury without absolute, evidence-based proof.
Trump's "peers" are the GOP; with them he has the hometown advantage. Of course you will not have any votes to impeach because you have not yet convinced them -- or backed them into a corner -- with precisely that evidence-based proof of criminal actions.
To expect any other situation would be madness. That's the whole purpose of *having* an impeachment inquiry, which is a trial -- like any other -- wherein solid, irrefutable evidence is gathered in the cold light of day. The job is not to convince the GOP on premises or --
-- through dialectic or opinion, it's to present them, and the nation, with proof so undeniable that the GOP has only two choices: stand before the nation and deny unassailable proof of misconduct (and bear the electoral consequences) or take action.
To expect the GOP (or the Democratic Party were the situation reversed) to support impeachment before a full trial and production of all the available evidence is futile and cowardly. The task of the House is to act as prosecutor in a criminal case and present the evidence.
If the evidence is there, you've done your job to convince the nation *and* the GOP so they can then act one way or another. But to say "we don't have the votes" before taking any action to provide those facts is, again, as foolish as a District Attorney saying --
-- "We can't bring person X to trial because we don't have any guilty votes from the jury in advance of going to court."
The Constitution states that a President can be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors." As with any other kind of criminal trial, it begins --
The Constitution states that a President can be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors." As with any other kind of criminal trial, it begins --
-- with an investigation (which pretty much shoots down Trump's insistence that he cannot be investigated). That is entirely on you. Investigate. Get the facts, stop relying on (and hiding behind) rhetoric, debate and dialectic.
If the facts are there, get them. If they're not, they're not. But it's not up to the GOP to give you an advance "impeach" vote as a freebie. It starts with you doing your job to investigate. And you're not. You're running out the clock, playing it safe.
Convince the jury.
Convince the jury.
Begin an impeachment inquiry. Let the system work the way it was designed to work.
