Poll: Any more impeachment suprises coming?

[One Bad Pig]

Do you have any idea of how much credibility the NYT will lose if this story turns out to be false? This is a big one. Their story has had a larger impact on the impeachment trial of any story which has come out since the trial started. Do you have any idea of how much harm Trump will find a way to throw at them using this as a pretext? They wouldn't go to presses unless they felt the story was very solid.

The New York "1619 Project" Times?

[rogue06]

The New York "1619 Project" Times?

Didn't they also end up with egg on their face this summer about a book about Kavanaugh or something to that effect?

[DivineOb]

The New York "1619 Project" Times?

No, that's New York Times MAGAzine, genius.

[Mountain Man]

Do you have any idea of how much credibility the NYT will lose if this story turns out to be false?

As much credibility as they've lost publishing false stories in the past, and hiring racist and anti-Semitic editors and writers. And when this Bolton Bombshell fizzles, they'll blow it off with a half-hearted retraction just like they do with every other controversy involving the publication. There's a reason the New York Times is no longer considered "the paper of record".

[DivineOb]

As much credibility as they've lost publishing false stories in the past, and hiring racist and anti-Semitic editors and writers. And when this Bolton Bombshell fizzles, they'll blow it off with a half-hearted retraction just like they do with every other controversy involving the publication. There's a reason the New York Times is no longer considered "the paper of record".

You are going to go on record that what they are reporting does not appear in Bolton's book?

[Sam]

It was not a violation of the law.

Source: Michael Reagan

The GAO, which is an independent agency, announced that its investigators had determined that when the Trump White House's Office of Management and Budget delayed the military aid to Ukraine it broke the 1974 Impoundment Control Act.

The ICA is a Nixon-era law requiring the executive department to spend the money Congress has appropriated in the way Congress wants it to be spent.

It was designed to give Congress more power over the federal budget process by curtailing the president's power to impound federal money for programs he didn't like.

The act was passed by Congress during Watergate to punish President Nixon, who was so politically weak he didn't even try to fight it.

It's no coincidence, by the way, that once Congress got the upper hand over the budget process the annual deficit exploded, which is why every president since my father has supported the restoration of the impoundment power.

Democrats and the media made a really big deal out of the GAO's decision that Trump's OMB had violated the ICA on the Ukraine military funding issue.

"Oh my God, the president broke the law! He broke the law."

But let's wait half a minute. No law was broken.

The money for Ukraine was held up. It was not withheld. And it was sent by the OMB to Ukraine weeks before Congress' deadline, which was the end of the fiscal year on Oct. 31.

Anyway, violating the Impoundment Control Act isn't an impeachable offense. The act says Congress can try to get a court to force the president to spend what it appropriated.

© Copyright Original Source

And you're relying on anonymous hearsay for "Trump told Bolton". Anonymous hearsay a couple times removed is not evidence.

It was a violation of the law because the money was not released in time to be spend in the then-current fiscal year, part of the GAO's determination for why the administration violated the law. And violating the law is an effect of what Trump is being impeached over not the primary cause of impeachment.

Bolton's book -- the relevant content of which has not been denied by Bolton or the White House -- is evidence that Bolton has first-hand knowledge of Trump's intent to hold Ukrainian security aid until he got "material" from the investigations he wanted for personal purposes. All that's being litigated here is whether or not Bolton gets called to give testimony before the trial, as would be typical for direct witnesses.

There's no argument to be had here: you're all trying to cover for a trial where relevant witnesses are not called, even though one has explicitly said he has relevant information not yet in the record. It's disgraceful.

--Sam

[Sam]

As I've been repeatedly warning y'all there is a big danger in constantly making allegations that don't pan out.

This is a bed of your own making that y'all were grimly determined on doing.

By "pan out", you mean "will sway me and my fellow partisans" -- which is a lousy metric for truth, to be frank.

--Sam