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I first mentioned Heather Cox Richardson the other day. Her newsletter from yesterday highlights just how corrupt Trump's administration actually is. Here's the highlights:
1) Giuliani's “documentary” on the pro-Trump One America News Network accusing Ukraine of interfering in the 2016 elections and attacking the Bidens has played on state television in Russia.
2) Foreigners in trouble with the law in America hired Giuliani for huge sums of money to pilot their cases into safer waters; businessmen in Ukraine eager to make corrupt deals in the natural gas industry hired Giuliani to get rid of anti-corruption figures like U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch. Casey Michel at the New Republic has a similar story today, in which a Ukrainian oligarch offered dirt on Biden in exchange for getting US charges of money laundering against him dropped. (He allegedly used shell companies and real estate purchases to launder hundreds of millions of dollars in the US.)
3) Republicans today have floated the idea that the Senate is simply a jury and that the place for pursuing facts was in the House. If the Democrats missed that opportunity it’s not the Senate’s problem.
4) Brian Kemp was the only state election official to refuse help from the Department of Homeland Security to protect against Russian cyber attacks in 2016, and when election observers sued to examine the insecure servers for signs of a breach, technicians wiped the servers clean and, two months later, also wiped clean the backup servers.) Abrams lost by just over 50,000 votes. Wisconsin conservatives used a technique called "voter caging". They sent out letters to 234,000 voters, primarily in counties that voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and if those voters did not return the letter, they were marked as having moved and thus no longer eligible to vote from that location
One intriguing possibility in the impeachment process would be for the Democrats to pass the articles of impeachment, but then hold onto them. This would keep the Senate from whitewashing the Ukraine scandal. It would also drive Trump nuts.
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/
Is the Senate REQUIRED to vote on articles of impeachment from the House?
Technically, no. While the House must bring charges to the Senate, the Senate has the right to dismiss the charges or adjourn the trial without a vote on a charge, sine die, though both cases happened only once for each instance in U.S. History. As the High Court of Impeachment, these would have the legal effect of dismissal with prejudice in an ordinary judicial court (i.e. the Court refuses to hear this case and will not accept refiling for any reason) and can happen with a 51% majority as well.
If the House held onto the articles, or the senate refused to take a vote, I have absolutely no clue as to how either one would affect the 2020 election - but they definitely would.
https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/46260/is-a-senate-trial-required-after-the-house-impeaches-a-president