Irish oddsmaker gives 33% chance Trump will be impeached

[Rajvik]

Agreed 100%.  However, Donald Trump has never invoked executive privilege.  Not even once.  So while it's an interesting point it's not really relevant to the situation.

Yes, Labster, he did, after the Mueller investigation was over and the house continued to investigate he invoked Executive privilege and basically said, NO MORE

Look, we had evidence of a crime in process.  Trump was caught trying to rig the next election.  Should we have waited until after the election to try to stop the crime?  The Ukraine thing was a total rig job.

pardon me while i say horse shit, i've already posted the transcript of of the phone call earlier in this thread or one of the corresponding threads, the two FACT witnesses that the house called in its investigation said that nothing illegal occurred.

i'll come back to this tomorrow, it's to late for me to argue coherently right now.
edit: Sorry for not coming back yesterday, i spent most of it asleep due to the flu, now to continue:

If so, then why are GOP senators complaining that they aren't hearing anything new? That sound to me like they want to see new evidence.

what they actually want to see Rob, is actual evidence. Going off of Schiff's 24 hours of rehashing and rehashing his opening statement he's trying to tie this all back to the already debunked Russian Collusion. There were 18 witnesses called behind closed doors, you know the auditions for the seven or so that we actually got to see, and the released transcripts of 17 of them all seem to be conjecture, disagreement on policy and disagreement on HOW to perform said policy, including the ambassador to the Ukraine, (who was NOT brought back because she wouldn't play ball, her own testimony said that she was due for reassignment, and got her choice of assignments) Sondlin, the EU ambassador, (who when questioned said that Trump specifically told him "No quid-pro-quo") and Vindman, (who was on the telephone call and was part of the group that wrote the transcript when asked had to admit that there was nothing illegal said or asked in the phone call)

you know, i really wonder what that 18th witness had to say, it happens to have been Inspector General Michael Atkinson's testimony, and while he's not allowed to actually say what Atkinson told them, what Representative Ratcliffe (R-Tx) had to say about it this morning was rather interesting.

What the senators want Rob, is they want Joe and Hunter Biiden on the stand so that they can crucify the both of them and possibly get them to admit to bribery, accepting of bribes, money laundering and a whole host of other crimes that it is very apparent that they committed. They want the so called "Whistleblower" who by the statute IS NOT A WHISTLEBLOWER (to fall under the whistleblower statute you MUST DIRECTLY OBSERVE the crime being committed) to go on the stand and force him to tell him who it was on the phone call that leaked the call to him, and they want to get Adam Schiff and his lackey up there to find out how much actual collaboration the Schiff team had with the "Whistleblower" in writing his complaint to start this whole ball rolling. In short, they are ready to tar and feather the lot of them, and personally, as i have already said, i hope they do.

Now, back to Labster:

Right, allowing Trump's legal team to participate would have made a total mockery of the legal process. In this case, the House acted as the grand jury, responsible for handing down an indictment. Defense attorneys never participate in grand juries. Perhaps it's more like a preliminary hearing where defense would participate, but hey, grand juries are part of the U.S. Constitution.

No Labster, they were NOT a Grand Jury, and they are not meant to be one for this purpose. The house is supposed to hear both sides, just as they did with Clinton, the accused is supposed to be able to face his accuser, just like happened with Clinton, in short, every smidge of procedure and precedent that was awarded to Clinton, was denied to Trump, and then to boot, the ONE hearing that he is told, "Hey yeah, you can come in and question these witnesses," it was "if we get to approve the questions first," and "Only if you give us the questions in advance" No, as i said before, he was right to not lend any hint of propriety to that farce of a judicial committee hearing, especially considering that NONE of the "Witnesses" were pertinent to the phone call in question.

The president doesn't get to ignore subpoenas

no but he does get to call into question the validity of the subpoenas, that is why the judicial branch is supposed to be the arbiter in that aspect, the democrats where in such a damn rush to do this that they didn't even bother to TRY AND FIGHT IT IN COURT

The president doesn't get to tell people that they can't testify or risk losing their jobs

Yes, actually he does, this specifically falls under executive privilege until such time as the supreme court tells him that privilege does not apply, try again.
addendum, this is EXACTLY what happened with Eric Holder/Barrack Obama

The president doesn't get to solicit things of personal value from foreign countries in exchange for official actions,

this is where you are actually the most right, but still so wrong. Just because DOING HIS JOB might benefit him, doesn't make it bribery. Joe Biden is LITERALLY on tape bragging about blackmailing a foreign nations government with American money to have a foreign prosecutor fired. in the aftermath of that coming to light, he's claiming that it was because a bunch of different people including the IMF and other different foreign governments wanted the prosecutor out of there. Sorry, i don't quite buy it. when your son is getting paid $50K A MONTH with absolutely NO KNOWLEDGE on the subject matter, it sounds a little hinky, and when you then go and threaten to withhold a loan guarantee from the US government to have a prosecutor fired for looking into the corrupt business practices of that company, that sounds even more hinky. My question is, who among the IMF and those other governments were pocketing money from this deal, we know Hunter was, and have reason to believe that he was feeding said money into a hedge fund that his father was earning money off of.

As chief executive he has the DUTY to ensure that if an american breaks american laws in a foreign country, that said american is charged with that crime. Furthermore, there is an existing treaty between the US and Ukraine that allows the Attorney General, or persons he designates to perform investigations into such acts. This is an investigator that does not have to sit the rigors of a senatorial hearing for confirmation, they are basically the lackey of the attorney general of the united states, or as the language calls it, a special envoy. that means, that the sending of Rudy Gulliani to Ukraine to investigate the actions of the Bidens was completely legitimate.

The President's lawyers have argued in court that the president has absolute immunity from prosecution. Under questioning, the attorneys argued that yes, the claim that "I could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in broad daylight and not get arrested" was literally true. They argued, in front of an actual federal judge, that it would be illegal for the police to even investigate the crime, because the President would be the prime suspect.

Ah the abandonment of CONTEXT what a marvelous thing. that was in relation to, wait for it...crimes committed personally not relating to the presidency, and to further expound on this, what it actually means is that to try one Donald J. Trump in a standard court of law, say, southern district of NY for example, first he has to be impeached and removed from the presidency and therefor be a common citizen again. or be out of office as per the end of his term, WHILE HE IS IN OFFICE they would have to impeach and remove him first before trying him for anything else. There are actually TWO DOJ memorandum of the subject, one from the Nixon "Watergate Scandal" and the other from Clinton's '99 impeachment where he ended up cutting a deal and getting disbarred as a lawyer in the state of Arkansas. so quite frankly, don't care if you don't like it, but deal.