同情特朗普
- 主题发起人 ccc
- 开始时间
还真能助选。
一项调查显示，从美国众院民主党人发动弹劾调查开始后至今，川普总统的支持率有所
上升。
据“福克斯新闻网”（Foxnews）报导，盖洛普咨询公司（Gallup）周三（12月18日）
公布了这份最新民意调查。调查结果显示，由于众议院举行了轰动一时的弹劾公开听证
会，民众对现任共和党总统的支持率在过去两个月里有所上升，从10月的39%升至
目前的45% 。
另外，民众对弹劾行动的支持率有所下降。根据盖洛普民意调查的结果，当时美国民众
曾以52%比46%的优势支持弹劾，而现在支持者少了很多，支持和反对者的比例是45%对
51%。
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Two factors help explain why Donald Trump felt emboldened to deliver the most strangely celebratory reaction to becoming the third president ever impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives.
Both were on display Wednesday.
Taken together, they reveal why he might feel free to bask in short-term invincibility, knowing that Republicans will not — under any currently imaginable circumstance — vote to oust him from office whenever the impeachment process moves to the Senate, which they control.
He jubilantly read out the news, at a rally Wednesday in Michigan, that his party had stuck with him. Yes, he'd been impeached, but not a single House Republican voted for it.
"Wow," Trump said, to cheers in Battle Creek, Mich. "We didn't lose one Republican vote."
So unlike Bill Clinton, who, under pressure from his own party, made a contrite public appearance after his 1998 impeachment, Trump reacted with a speech mocking his opponents as "crooked Hillary" and "Pocahontas," referring to Hillary Clinton and Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren, respectively.
He also ridiculed the family name of presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg as hard to pronounce, joked that a recently deceased congressman might be suffering in hell and celebrated his firing of former FBI director James Comey.
What a different scene it was 1,000 kilometres away in Washington, D.C.
With a thud of the gavel, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hailed the impeachment vote as official — then shot a withering stare at members of her party who appeared to begin cheering.
They quickly stopped clapping.
Democrats were determined to cast this as a solemn affair, the reprimand of a president for apparently soliciting foreign dirt against an election opponent and for then obstructing congressional investigations.
But in Trump-era Washington, seemingly not even the most sacred civic ceremony remains entirely solemn.
Not even the impeachment of a president.
In a unique event in U.S. history, Trump now appears poised to become the first president ever to get impeached and then seek re-election as the nominee of a major party.
Andrew Johnson was rejected by the Democrats after his 1868 impeachment, Bill Clinton was halfway through his final term when he was impeached and Richard Nixon quit before being pushed out in 1974.
Stand by Trump — or be cast out
For 2020, Republicans have made it clear that, barring some unforeseen shocker, he'll be their nominee.
One reason for their fealty is personal. The other invokes principle. And examples of both these reasons resonated in the congressional precinct during Wednesday's debate.
For a personal example of what happens when members of Trump's party turn on him, one former Republican voter shared an anecdote while standing on a sidewalk outside the U.S. Capitol building.
Thousands rallied across the U.S. for and against impeachment on Wednesday. Here, protesters gather outside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. (Susan Ormiston/CBC News)
Ethan Cusey said he remains a conservative and supports causes like gun rights, but he abandoned his old party after it nominated Trump.
On Wednesday, he took a train into D.C. from his home in Reston, Va., and, for several hours, stood on a corner outside the Capitol holding a sign, "Honk 4 Impeach."
That political stance has come at a cost.
"I lost a lot of friends," said Cusey, a 22-year-old studying audio-video engineering.
"Lost a lot of people I used to admire.… The more people rationalized [in support of Trump], the more people gave up what made them respectable people."
Ethan Cusey, who said he lost friends when he turned on the Republican Party over Trump, took the metro to the Capitol from his home in Virginia to show his support for impeachment. (Alex Panetta/CBC News)
When asked if the experience has been isolating, he noted, cheerfully, that many cars were honking in support as they passed him on Constitution Avenue.
Inside the Capitol, it's been lonely for other Republicans who oppose Trump; they've either been driven out of Congress or, in the case of Justin Amash, out of the Republican Party as pariahs.
Amash now sits as an Independent and his vote was the closest thing to a Republican vote for impeachment in the House of Representatives.
The other development that explained congressional Republicans' loyalty to Trump unfolded in a courtroom Wednesday.
Trump has delivered on his chief promise to conservatives: to create a more right-wing judiciary, as his administration nominates judges at a dizzying pace.
It just so happened that Republicans celebrated as one Trump-appointed judge played a clinching role Wednesday in a 2-1 decision where a circuit court struck down a key element of Barack Obama's landmark health law. The court did the administration another favour: it delayed the effect of the decision until after next year's election, so Trump won't have to deal with the complex, politically fraught issue of health reform in a campaign year.
'A national civics lesson'
Back inside the impeachment vote, Democrats chastised their Republican colleagues for betraying their higher oath to the country.
Pelosi kicked off the 11-hour debate by standing next to a poster with a U.S. flag, inscribed with a line from the Pledge of Allegiance.
She quoted George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, and warned that Trump's behaviour would threaten America's ability to hold free and fair elections without the foreign interference so feared by the founding generation.
"Our founders' vision of the republic is under threat," Pelosi said.
"Today is a national civics lesson — though a sad one."
Democrats were determined to cast Trump's impeachment as a solemn affair. (Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)
When he entered the chamber several hours later, Adam Schiff, one of the Democrats leading the process, quoted another founder.
Speaking in the dimly lit House, which was four-fifths empty at that moment, Schiff said Trump was the kind of demagogue Alexander Hamilton warned about.
"If what we're talking about is not impeachable, then nothing is impeachable," Schiff said. He predicted that Republicans would someday rue their obeisance to Trump.
It's safe to say they aren't there yet.
Republicans responded with their own founding-father quotes, citing Hamilton on the danger of a partisan impeachment: "Mob rule," is how Republican Gregory Murphy described impeachment.
So if the voters are to decide Trump's fate in next year's election, what do the polls say?
His approval ratings have budged a point here and there, but remain locked where they were on Sept. 24, the day Democrats announced impeachment proceedings.
Some surveys even show him performing better than usual.
As for impeachment, different polling aggregators reach nearly identical conclusions: that the country is deadlocked, with support and opposition to Trump's removal from office within a single percentage point of each other.
Republicans outspending Democrats on impeachment ads
Support for impeachment may have even dipped a bit.
One possible reason for that, beyond the rock-solid wall of defence around Trump in conservative media, is advertising.
Steven Passwaiter, who heads the political monitoring unit at the media-intelligence group Kantar Media, said 80 per cent of spending on televised impeachment ads is happening in 15 key congressional districts.
And he said Republicans are outspending the Democrats at a margin exceeding 3 to 1.
Republicans are using the occasion to stoke the passions of the president's 2016 voters in advance of the 2020 vote.
Nearly every Republican who spoke on the House floor described the process as an attempt to steal the votes of 63 million Americans who backed Trump in 2016.
One even called for a moment of silence in the Congress on Wednesday for those 63 million Americans. They likened the impeachment to Christ's crucifixion.
Ahead of the Trump impeachment votes, Barry Loudermilk, a Republican representative from Georgia, told members that Jesus received a more fair trial ahead of his crucifixion. (House TV via Reuters)
Trump emphasized that message of group martyrdom at his rally in Michigan.
The president told the crowd, speaking of impeachment, "Anything to get rid of us. Not me," he said, motioning as if hugging the crowd.
"Us."
'Impeachment is permanent,' regardless of Senate outcome
Pelosi is playing coy about when she might send the impeachment articles to the Senate, saying she wants to know if it plans to conduct an impartial trial. That impartial trial doesn't sound likely.
But Democrats predict Republicans will pay someday for their behaviour — if not in a Senate trial, and if not in next year's election, then eventually, and then with their reputation for all of history.
"Our children are watching. No president ever wants to be impeached. Whether Donald Trump leaves in one month, one year, or five years, this impeachment is permanent," California Democrat Ted Lieu told the House chamber.
"It will follow him around for the rest of his life and history books will record it. And people will know why we impeached. It's all very simple: No one is above the law."
After about four hours protesting outside in the cold Wednesday, Cusey left the Capitol.
As he was leaving, news of the Republican win in the Obamacare case landed. Asked whether these kinds of conservative victories made it worth swallowing his pride and re-entering the Republican fold to embrace Trump, he brushed off the idea.
"Mussolini made the trains run on time," Cusey said. "But Italy would have been much better off without him regardless."
What's the point of having a conservative court, he asked, if future presidents can just ignore their obligations under the law.
Republicans brushed off these dire warnings.
'I don't know about you but I'm having a great time,' Trump told a crowd at a rally in Michigan amid his own impeachment. (Leah Millis/Reuters)
Trump said his foes would carry their vote as an eternal mark of shame. He tweeted about 50 times about impeachment Wednesday, Then he flew to a rally — all this despite his office insisting he was too busy working to pay attention to impeachment.
"I don't know about you but I'm having a great time," the president told the Michigan crowd.
"It's crazy."
And the crowd chanted, "Four more years."
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F. Michael Higginbotham is a constitutional law professor and author who teaches at the University of Baltimore School of Law, and a candidate to fill the late Elijah Cummings' seat representing Maryland's 7th District in the House. The views expressed in this commentary are those of the author. View more opinion on CNN.
(CNN) On August 8, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency, becoming the first president in American history to withdraw from office. The House had begun impeachment proceedings because of his involvement in the Watergate burglary cover-up, a group of Republican senators had told him he likely had too few supporters to beat conviction in the Senate, and Nixon relented to pressure from the public and Congress.
In an address to the nation, Nixon explained that "by taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of the process of healing which is so desperately needed in America." The next day, Nixon departed the White House and Vice President Gerald Ford took the oath of office.
Nixon's enemies called him "Tricky Dick." Over the course of his 30-year political career, he showed himself to be vindictive, paranoid and selfish. But his decision to resign could be characterized as an act of patriotism: It spared the nation a painful and extremely divisive process of removing the commander in chief from office. History has recorded that, to paraphrase Shakespeare, nothing in his presidency became him like the leaving of it.
Even a half-century later, the mind of Richard Nixon is a tangled mystery. Deceptive, self-seeking and devious, he was also capable of far-seeing statesmanship (witness his outreach to China) and a genuine concern for America's place in the world. Historians will long debate which side of his character was salient in his decision to resign. But one thing is clear: By resigning, he protected not only his own historical legacy but also the country he had taken an oath to serve.
Donald Trump should follow suit.
Recently, a majority of the House of Representatives voted to impeach Donald Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Both articles arise from Trump's alleged involvement in a scheme to solicit an investigation of political dirt against Joe Biden by Ukrainian government officials, despite no evidence of wrongdoing, in exchange for military aid to help Ukraine in its ongoing conflict with Russia.
Prior to Trump, the impeachment provisions of the Constitution were initiated against three other presidents: Andrew Johnson, whose case fell one vote short of conviction in the Senate; Nixon, whose proceeding never came to a vote; and Bill Clinton, whose case failed to reach even a majority in the Senate, let alone the two thirds needed for removal from office. Of the three, Trump's behavior most resembles Nixon's.
Trump, like Nixon, is accused of participating in a cover-up involving the investigation of political opponents. But Trump's alleged transgressions are worse than Nixon's because they concern an attempt to involve a foreign power in the American political process.
Nixon and Trump also have in common fiercely loyal supporters. Nixon's popularity in his second term had been quite high. He won reelection in 1972 with more than 60% of the popular vote and 520 electoral votes. The Watergate scandal reduced Nixon's political support, but his hardcore supporters urged him to fight on.
But Nixon emphasized country over personal considerations in deciding to resign. While most historians believe the full House would have voted to impeach, and the Senate would have secured the necessary two-thirds vote for removal, the trial process would have been extremely divisive and painful for the country.
In retrospect, we will never know whether a show of stubbornness -- like Trump's -- might have switched the political dynamic and persuaded the Senate to not convict, but we can instead be grateful that Nixon did not put the system to the test.
Bill Clinton, of course, did put the system to test: after an impeachment by the House, he fought and turned back the impeachment effort in the Senate. Yet a generation later, some Democrats wish that he had chosen the Nixon path. It is likely that Clinton's misconduct and his false testimony do not rise to the level of "high crimes and misdemeanors." Yet no one denies that they were grave blotches on his character, and harmful to how the public perceived the dignity of the office of the president.
Moreover, after Democrats found surprising success in 1998, his actions cost his party dearly in the 2000 election. For the same reason, some Republicans today may quietly hope that Trump will go away before 2020.
At this moment, the question goes beyond what is best politically for Trump, for the Republican party, or for Democrats. The question is not whether Trump can secure enough votes to avoid conviction or whether poll numbers will go up or down.
The sole question should be what is best for the country.
And if Trump forces the nation to go through an impeachment trial in the Senate, the consequences for our democracy are grave.
First, Trump will cause a further erosion of confidence in our democratic institutions, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation, if he continues to attack and undermine the nation's intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Second, his insistence on slavish support from Republicans in Congress will weaken -- perhaps permanently -- the separation of powers required to maintain a legislature capable of functioning. Third, his heated rhetoric will widen the gap between Americans of different political beliefs.
The answer is clear: Trump should resign so the country can begin the process of healing. The divisions in the country today are even more corrosive than they were in 1974. That's why it's even more important that Trump emulate the best of Richard Nixon, who, in a rare moment of grace, understood he could only weaken the nation he led by focusing solely on himself, and chose the better path.
In President Trump's acceptance speech of the Republican nomination at the Republican National Convention in 2016, he told the nation, "Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone can fix it." While many mocked the hubris behind that claim, at this moment of national danger it is undoubtedly true: Trump alone can spare the nation the painful ordeal of an impeachment trial in the Senate.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/26/opinions/nixon-trump-impeachment-resign-higginbotham/index.html
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Washington (CNN) In the face of warnings from the Pentagon that the hold on military aid to Ukraine could be illegal, an official from the Office of Management and Budget made it clear that the order to keep the freeze in place came directly from President Donald Trump, according to unredacted documents reviewed by Just Security.
The documents, including emails from officials at the Department of Defense and the Office of Management and Budget that were released under court order last month but were either partially or completely blacked out, offer new details about tensions between the two agencies tasked with carrying out Trump's unexplained hold on aid to Ukraine.
They also raise serious questions about why the newly revealed contents were redacted by the Trump administration in the first place amid congressional oversight efforts and court orders in Freedom of Information Act litigation.
"These redactions at least raise eyebrows. The categories that the Freedom of Information Act allows the government to withhold are sufficiently vague that it's hard to say whether these redactions were actually in violation of that law," said Josh Geltzer, executive director and visiting professor of law at Georgetown University Law Center's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
"But does it appear suspicious given the damning nature of what was withheld, and the current government's obvious motivation for withholding it," he told CNN.
'Clear direction from POTUS'
Among the documents viewed by Just Security, a website focusing on reporting and analysis of national security law and policy, was an August 30 email from Michael Duffey, associate director of national security programs at OMB to Elaine McCusker, the acting Pentagon comptroller, stating the freeze on aid to Ukraine would continue at the explicit direction of the President despite growing legal concerns within the Pentagon and mounting external questions prompted by news of the hold becoming public just days prior.
"Clear direction from POTUS to continue to hold," Duffey wrote in that email, which has only been made available in redacted form until now and was not handed over to House investigators conducting the impeachment inquiry into the President, according to Just Security.
The August 30 email was sent on the same day Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Trump to discuss the hold, which had already been in place for roughly two months.
Additional emails viewed by Just Security show that McCusker first raised concerns about the legality of the hold on July 25, the same day as Trump's now infamous call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in which Trump pressed Zelensky for investigations that could boost him politically.
The Defense Department issued additional warnings to OMB and the White House about the legality of the hold as it stretched into August. Specifically, Pentagon officials made clear they were becoming increasingly concerned about DoD's ability to spend the Ukraine funding by the legally mandated September 30 deadline.
If the money was not spent by the deadline, it would be returned to the Treasury Department in what is known as "impoundment."
"We were always concerned about the ramifications of holding the military assistance to Ukraine," a Defense Department official told CNN.
"This is due to the fact it was appropriated by Congress and had been notified to Congress already prior to the hold being placed and the need to obligate the money by the end of the fiscal year, something the hold had prevented. These concerns were 'raised multiple times with OMB' via multiple channels," they added.
The documents also highlight McCusker's concerns that OMB was not representing the Pentagon's concerns accurately.
"Recognizing the importance of decision space, but this situation is really unworkable made particularly difficult because OMB lawyers continue to consistently mischaracterize the process — and the information we have provided. They keep repeating that this pause will not impact DOD's ability to execute on time," McCusker wrote to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper's chief of staff on August 27 in response to an inquiry about the hold from a defense contractor.
Blame game
In a September 9 email to McCusker, Duffey suggested that the Pentagon, not OMB, would be to blame if the money was not spent.
"If you are unable to obligate the funds, it will have been DoD's decision that cause any impoundment of funds," he wrote.
McCusker responded: "You can't be serious. I am speechless."
A second official, who spoke to CNN under the condition of anonymity due to their not being authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said the Pentagon made it clear to OMB that it was not going to be held legally liable for or suffer the consequences of the hold and the ignoring of the concerns of the Defense Department.
The official said that DoD told OMB it should take responsibility.
Pentagon officials were concerned at OMB's apparent apathy surrounding their legal concerns and a lack of understanding of the legal constraints that the Defense Department was under with regard to the aid, the official said, adding that they believe OMB's apathy stemmed from the fact that they had guidance from the President to execute the hold.
However, a OMB spokesperson downplayed the idea that there was any conflict between the two agencies.
"There was agreement every step of the way between DOD and OMB lawyers, who were responsible for working out the details of the hold, in line with the President's priorities," the told CNN.
A senior administration official said OMB officials believed that McCusker was exaggerating the numbers about the money that the Pentagon would be unable to spend if the hold wasn't lifted.
According to Just Security, McCusker sent an email to OMB officials on Aug. 9 and said: "As we discussed, as of 12 AUG I don't think we can agree that the pause 'will not preclude timely execution.' We hope it won't and will do all we can to execute once the policy decision is made, but can no longer make that declarative statement."
The senior administration official insisted that OMB officials believed she was overstating concerns about how much money might be left unspent. This official claimed there were other top Defense Department officials who disagreed with McCusker's conclusions.
Ultimately $35 million in Ukraine assistance did not make it out the door by the end of the fiscal year, however, Congress passed a Continuing Resolution that ensured the remainder of the money could be spent.
Democrats respond
Democrats have seized on the new revelations about the hold on aid to Ukraine arguing the documents reinforce the need for witnesses to testify in a Senate impeachment trial and produce additional materials.
"Senator McConnell: This new evidence raises questions that can only be answered by having the key Trump administration officials—Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton, Michael Duffey, and Robert Blair—testify under oath in a Senate trial," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted Thursday.
House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff said in a statement that "these incriminating documents reinforces the need for all of these materials to be produced, and that a fair trial in the Senate cannot take place without them."
"As part of our impeachment inquiry, the House subpoenaed these very documents. From their deeply incriminating character, we can now see why they were concealed: They directly corroborate witnesses who testified that military aid to Ukraine was withheld at the direction of the President and that the White House was informed doing so may violate the law. The Administration did not want Congress to find out why," he added.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also weighed in.
"Trump engaged in unprecedented, total obstruction of Congress, hiding these emails, all other documents, and his top aides from the American people. His excuse was a phony complaint about the House process. What's the excuse now? Why won't Trump & McConnell allow a fair trial?" she tweeted.
