#Impeachment Special: Witnesses & Documents, Trump Taking the 5th & Trial Strategy

Schumer, Pushing McConnell to Negotiate, Lays Out Plan for Impeachment Trial

The Senate Democratic leader wants to seek testimony from Mick Mulvaney, John Bolton and other White House officials, and subpoena documents the White House has withheld.

Senator Chuck Schumer proposed a trial beginning Jan. 7 that would give each side a fixed amount of time to present their cases.Credit...Samuel Corum for The New York Times

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Michael D. Shear

• Dec. 15, 2019

The article above lays out a fair & reasonable plan--based primarily on the Clinton impeachment plan approved by all of the Senate Republicans back in 1999. Schumer also wants to subpoena the testimony of witnesses who have here to date refused to testify and limited number of documents that the WH has refused to produce. Seems fair, doesn't it? 

The witnesses, including Mulvaney and Bolton, could provide definitive exculpatory evidence in favor of the president. So, too, the documents. The Democrats will have established a prima facie case if the House votes in favor of impeachment, the analog of a criminal indictment. At this point, the Democrats can claim that they have established probable cause that an impeachable offense has been committed. One could argue that by calling these (hostile) witnesses and obtaining these documents, the Democrats could ruin their case. What if Bolton & Mulvaney lie to protect Trump? What if the documents are inconclusive? It's a gamble. Of course, if a lie is apparent enough in the face of all of the evidence and an attorney believes that during the examination of the witness the witnesses credibility will be undermined by obvious attempts to lie or evade, then breaking the adage about never asking a question that you don't the answer to can be set aside. (Prosecutors in criminal cases, because of a defendant's 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination, quite often don't have the benefit of advanced statements from the defendant to use in cross-examining a defendant who's chosen to testify.) 

Query: if impeached, does Trump have a 5th Amendment right to refuse to testify (if subpoenaed)? This is not a criminal offense. Impeachment is a constitutional provision that his neither strictly civil or criminal, nor even legal in nature. There most certainly is a political component. So why would the 5th Amendment apply? And why wouldn't Trump want to appear and testify to clear his good name about what he considers scurrilous charges? 

Just askin'.

Riots in Jaipur, Kerala, and Throughout India: A Sad & Frightening Story

NYTIMES.COM

Protests Spread Across India Over Divisive Citizenship Law

Several people have been killed as the unrest spreads to new corners of the country, and security forces have cracked down.

I'm deeply saddened to read about the new anti-Muslim law in #India and the resulting violence. Both #Jaipur and the state of #Kerala--where C & I lived about a year-each during our two years in India--reported violence and deaths. In Dehli, where we spent a fair amount of time, the report suggests a police riot (and I suspect other places as well, although some held higher expectations of the #Dehli police). India has, I believe, the second-highest population of Muslims in the world (behind Indonesia), but Indian Muslims have been subject to a great deal of discrimination and mistreatment--including violence. When we were in Thiruvananthapuram (Trivandrum), Kerala, in 2014, Modi was elected prime minister, and I, and many others, thought his election didn't bode well for India and the fraught issue of religious tolerance. Where we lived in Thiruvananthapuram, we had a mosque, a surprising variety of Christian churches, and Hindu temples within a short walking distance of our apartment. And they seemed to play well together. (Of Jaipur, firmly in the center of the solidly Hindu-dominant north but near Muslim areas, I'm less surprised.)

The leadership of Gandhi, Nehru, and Ambedkar (the least known & under-appreciated of this founding triumvirate) attempted to form a religiously-tolerate nation-state, but that has been difficult, as it has been in the U.S. And as the U.S. still suffers the original sin of slavery, so India from its caste system. It's sad but not surprising that these troubles exist and that the BJP under #Modi would attempt to fan and exploit divisions. At one point Modi was barred from traveling to the U.S. because of his perceived role in anti-Muslin riots in #Gujarat in the early 1990s. So again, no surprise.

"A widespread belief is that the Indian government will use both these measures — the citizenship tests and the new citizenship law — to render millions of Muslims who have been living in India for generations stateless." (From the article below.) The words "render . . . stateless" should send a chill through anyone who's read Hannah Arendt or #TimothySnyder, among others. Such moves pave the way for genocide and less lethal forms of discrimination and horror. It's a very sad & alarming story to wake-up to.

Several people have been killed as the unrest spreads to new corners of the country, and security forces have cracked down.