@SenateRules: Anticipating the House adopting Articles of Impeachment, why shouldn't the Senate, by amendment of its Rules if necessary, entertain a motion to dismiss the Articles?
After all, Rule 12 of the Fed.R.Crim.P. permits a motion to dismiss an indictment.
After all, Rule 12 of the Fed.R.Crim.P. permits a motion to dismiss an indictment.
Much ballyhooing has been made of the unseemly nature of the conduct of the House's proceedings: the bias of the Intel Cmte Chair, his obvious need to testify as to material facts, abandonment of established practices, etc.
Why should the time of the Senate be occupied in the conduct of the trial of so suspect origins and purposes?
True enough, grand jury proceedings are secret. That character of them, of course, is why @DNC apologists are analogizing the present proceedings to such.
True enough, grand jury proceedings are secret. That character of them, of course, is why @DNC apologists are analogizing the present proceedings to such.
Never mind that a grand jury that leaks like a Schiff-ty sieve would well and truly earn judicial wrath and punishments.
But if we grant that the House proceedings are the essence of a Grand Jury proceeding on the question of whether the President should be impeached, then it is warranted to consider in what manner the Senate should conduct itself.
Assume, as the House analogy suggests, that the Senate is to act as the Trial Court of Impeachment.
Then, too, remember that the Senate possesses plenary power to decide the Rules of its proceedings.
Then, too, remember that the Senate possesses plenary power to decide the Rules of its proceedings.
The only constitutional limit to that power in respect of impeachment is the requirement that a conviction requires the vote of 2/3s of Senators present. Thus, for example, the Senate could well decide to adopt in full the provisions of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.
With that in mind, and as the criminal rules allow following a grand jury indictment, the @SenateGOP could well amend its rules to allow a "Motion to Dismiss Articles of Impeachment."
Rule 12 of the Federal Criminal Rules permits the dismissal of indictments on the defendant's motion. law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp/r…
By adopting such a rule and practice, the Senate could decide whether all or any Articles of Impeachment displayed to it by the House present within the four corners of the document the requisite facts and circumstances to justify a trial on impeachment.
@HvonSpakovsky has persuasively argued that the Senate doesn't even have an obligation under the Constitution (Senate Rules to the side) to conduct an impeachment trial.
Certainly, given discretion under the Constitution whether to refrain from trying an impeached official at all, the Senate may permissibly iterate grounds upon which such Articles might be subject to pre-trial dismissal entirely.
@ThomTillis @SenatorBurr @senatemajldr @LindseyGrahamSC @realDonaldTrump @threadreaderapp And, as it turns out, pursuant to Vol. 3, Hind's Precedents § 2318, the Senate has previously allowed just such a motion and has granted the relief sought by it in the impeachment of Senator William Blount. 
