There is an old axiom in law: ignorance of the law is no excuse...
Ignorance of the content of a law is not a valid defense : fair enough...
How about this for a defense: a person cannot be guilty of a crime because they are too stupid to fully commit the crime?...
Sounds like a stupid argument to defend a stupid person, but, hey, the Wall Street Journal has floated that idea as a defense of Trump's Ukraine debacle:
Quote:
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Intriguingly, Mr. Taylor says in his statement that many people in the Administration opposed the Giuliani effort, including some in senior positions at the White House. This matters because it may turn out that while Mr. Trump wanted a quid-pro-quo policy ultimatum toward Ukraine, he was too inept to execute it. Impeachment for incompetence would disqualify most of the government, and most Presidents at some point or another in office.
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Schiff’s Secret Bombshells --
https://www.wsj.com/articles/schiffs...ls-11571872974
I know a lot of the forum members may not be able to get access to the WSJ site and I looked around for any other sites that may have republished the op-ed piece, but, a s yet, I have not found one, with full text, that does not link back to the WSJ; if anyone can find an easily accessible posting of the WSJ piece, it would be appreciated if a link would be posted. I am posting this link to the Law & Crime analysis of the op-ed piece since it quotes the relevant portions of the article; it also offers an analysis of this rather bizarre and novel legal stretch the minions and Trumpettes are seemingly trying to foist off as actual legal standing:
WSJ Editorial Board Argued Trump Shouldn’t Be Impeached for Being ‘Inept,’ and It Didn’t Go Well --
https://lawandcrime.com/opinion/wsj-...didnt-go-well/
Trump, never one to let a slight of his much self-vaunted "genius" go unanswered, has been irked by the WSJ piece and has been claiming he is smart enough to commit a crime such as the quid pro quo; Trump just keeps putting his foot in his mouth; I do believe by now, he is nibbling around his inner thigh...
Trump Wants You to Know He’s Smart and Capable Enough to ‘Do Quid Pro Quo’ --
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-...o-quid-pro-quo
A few months back, I was looking into anther matter and I came across this rather interesting document prepared by Covington & Burling LLP, a law firm that handles matters related to the government for its clients; the document is an analysis of the operations and the rules governing those operations by various Congressional committees; I found it enlightening as a means of separating the wheat from the media and party spins on the actual functions of Congressional Committees:
Congressional Investigations and the Rules of the 116th Congress --
https://www.cov.com/-/media/files/co...h_congress.pdf
I also found this document, recently; it was prepared by the Congressional Research Service, a function of the Library of Congress, that works exclusively for Congress. This report was prepared in 1999 and, as far as I have been able to ascertain, it has not been superseded. For those of you who, like myself, do do the 'homework', who don't invoke the "TLDR" school of research, who don't parrot th utterances talking heads of either party, who value fact over 'drive-by' dribble and who like to backup what they contend with actual research, you may find this annotated legal analysis of the powers and processes of depositions such as have been recently held by the three joint House committees a clarification of what has been clouded over by spin:
Staff Depositions in Congressional Investigations --
https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/95-949.pdf
Basically, the above report is what the House has been using as part of its guidelines regarding hearings and depositions; straight fact, no filter. It should also be noted that the GOP's constant snowflake bitching and whining about the joint impeachment depositions is the GOP, the Trump minions, and the Trumpettes filling their pampers over rules put in place in 2015 by...
... ...
...the then GOP controlled House leadership. That's right: the GOP is kvetching about a system them set in place themselves. And why did they put such rules in place? Because they were rigging the rules in hopes of easing their own inquiries into the Obama Administration and, if a DEM had won in 2016, any future inquiries into whichever DEM was in the White House. Now, they've lost, in a very big loss, their control of the House and they're 'cleverness' has come back to bite them...
It is classic: make the rule, live by the rule, break the rule, die by the rule...
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