why would he invoke privilege when there was no valid subpoena issued? The Presidents lawyers informed the congress why it would not comply and offered to work with them through the accommodations process in regular over site. had schiff sent subpoenas as part of regular over site then EP would have been invoked and the accommodations process followed, he instead stuck to it being an impeachment inquiry which was not approved by a vote of the house and was therefor no inquiry at all.

and yes, the rules for issuing subpoenas are determined by the house, not the speaker and not a committee chairman. rule 10 gives chairmen and committees subpoena power to conduct regular over site. They vote to give then that power every congress, without the vote they do not have it. in order to get subpoena power in an impeachment inquiry 2 things have to happen, and they have happened in every impeachment before. 1st, the house must vote to open the inquiry, then the house must vote to authorize the chairman to issue subpoenas. until they do that, he has no authority to do so.

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“why would he invoke privilege when there was no valid subpoena issued?”

Again, where does the Executive branch have the power to unilaterally declare a subpoena invalid?

Shouldn’t the Executive branch have gone through the courts to have it declared invalid instead of demanding Congress go through the courts to declare it valid? And yes Congress determines the rules for issuing subpoenas and yet not a single Republican in the House challenged the validity of this invalid subpoena or even questioned the issuing of said subpoena. Odd don’t you think?

"an impeachment inquiry which was not approved by a vote of the house "

Really?

What was this then?

"The 232-196 vote almost entirely along party lines marked only the fourth time the full House authorized an impeachment inquiry. "

The Vindman subpoena was issued in November.

I don’t care about shokin. whether he was good or bad i don’t know. what i do know is this.

he pissed the eu off by raiding agencies that disbursed aid as part of his investigation into corruption. he was ordered to close the investigation and actually went to court to keep it open where he won. after that, the eu wanted him gone.

he claimed to be investigating the 2 big energy companies for corruption one of which was burrisma. he claims proshenko pressured him to close the investigation and he refused,
others claimed there were no investigations, which is why his predecessor was fired. taking bribes not to investigate. I am not aware of any allegations of him personally taking bribes.

it is said that he was ineffective and wasn’t cleaning up the PG’s office of corrupt agents. I have no idea how true that is, or to what degree. he was in office for only one year. the policies to get rid of him were developed some time before that. less than one year seems a short time to make those kind of determinations and get official policy changed, which takes time itself.

this is what i find questionable.

Biden was in charge of US policy in Ukraine, which means he either initiated the change, or approved the change. So, the guy who was in charge of the policy and had to at minimum approve the change and set it as policy, gets the guy fired and then says “I was just following policy” as if he had nothing to do with it being policy.

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that was done after the subpoenas were issued. once it was done the subpoenas could have been reissued and the “invalid” argument would be lost. Then EP would have to be claimed. But Schiff did not choose to reissue, he chose instead to impeach the President for doing his job and protecting the office of the Presidency.

It wasn’t that Shokin was ineffective or that he pissed off the EU, it was that he was really really dirty.

Look up Ukrainian diamond prosecutors and you will see why

No it wasn’t. Check the date of the article. The vote was done end of October. The subpoena was issued in November.

I know the story. It was not him, it was 2 agents in the PG’s office. He dropped the charges against them and fired them instead. It pissed some people off because they wanted them prosecuted… or was the outrage just pretext used to claim he was not doing enough to clean the office up and get him fired?

try again

Vindman was subpoenaed to testify before Congressional investigators on October 29, 2019, as part of the U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump

the vote was oct 31, 2 days after the subpoena

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Why was his brother fired?

Wikipedia? Seriously?

is the date wrong?

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Actually no. However the inquiry was announced in September and again not a single Republican moved against it. The October 31 vote simply expanded the rules to disclose information to the public in addition to cementing the proceedings prior legal as well. The House committees determined the rules for the inquiry prior to that vote. There were also Republicans on those committees in case you missed it. I didn’t see anything that actually required a vote prior to issuing the subpoena and again, odd that not a single Republican in the House piped up about the inquiry being improper or the subpoena being invalid. They were very vocal about the inquiry being behind closed doors though. Weird.

that is patently false.

"House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., asked Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday to suspend the House impeachment inquiry until she establishes more “transparent and equitable rules and procedures.”

“Unfortunately, you have given no clear indication as to how your impeachment inquiry will proceed — including whether key historical precedents or basic standards of due process will be observed,” McCarthy wrote in a letter to Pelosi, D-Calif., on Thursday.

“In addition, the swiftness and recklessness with which you have proceeded has already resulted in committee chairs attempting to limit minority participation in scheduled interviews, calling into question the integrity of such an inquiry,” he continued…

“Republicans and Democrats disagree on the need for a full House vote to open an impeachment inquiry, with Republicans insisting that a vote is required and Pelosi and her caucus saying it isn’t.”

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Not sure what part you think is false.

As for the Minority speaker’s angry letter, it was already responded to:

“In her response to McCarthy in a letter later Thursday, Pelosi wrote there was no requirement under the Constitution or House rules or precedent to that the full chamber vote before moving forward with an impeachment inquiry.”

Prove her wrong. :laughing:

what was false was you claiming no Republicans had moved against it— false, all of them did

you cannot vote something legal ex post facto, that would be unconstitutional

as for proving her wrong? She claimed there was no precedent, which would govern in the absence of specific rules voted on (parliamentary rules). There is ample precedent. Every single impeachment inquiry ever conducted has started with 2 votes. One authorizing the inquiry, and one empowering the committee.

“you cannot vote something legal ex post facto, that would be unconstitutional”

Feel free to quote the part of the Constitution that states this. I’ll wait. You have it backwards. You can’t convict someone ex post facto for breaking a new law before it was written. There is nothing about making something legal retroactively.

No she said there was no requirement “under precedent” to have a full house vote, not that there was no precedent. Words matter. Was the vote required before? Who required it?

true enough.

does not change the fact that precedent rules in the absence of rules that are voted upon. Also does not change the fact that when the subpoenas were issued the committee lacked the authority to issue them. Whether voting later gives them retro active authority is a question for a court. The house chose not to go there. The Senates verdict is instructive however, as it establishes the precedent that unless the house actually uses all of the tools at their disposal in the accommodations process and the prez still does not comply, a failure to comply even with a valid subpoena is not an impeachable offense.

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semantics games matter little to me, if that’s where you choose to go, have fun playing. There is ample precedent (100% being ample) to show that absent a vote to move away from precedent, precedent applies.

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