Sen. John Fetterman on Republicans trying to impeach Biden: 'Go ahead, do it. I dare you.'

politics @lemmy.world – 865 points – 10 months ago

Sen. John Fetterman on Republicans trying to impeach Biden: 'Go ahead, do it. I dare you.'

Sen. John Fetterman offered a message Wednesday to House Republicans considering impeaching President Joe Biden: “Go ahead, do it. I dare you.”

Speaking to reporters in his Senate office, the Pennsylvania Democrat suggested that the impeachment push by Republicans on the other side of the Capitol was meant to deflect from the mountain of legal problems facing former President Donald Trump.

"Your man has what, three or four indictments now?" Fetterman said. “Trump has a mug shot and he’s been impeached twice.”

"Sometimes you just gotta call their bullshit," he said.

The first-term senator went on to say that a Biden impeachment "would just be like a big circle jerk on the fringe right,” and "would diminish what impeachment really means."

Note: As pointed out by reddig33 in comments, this is an old photo. Here's a couple examples of his new look.

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Just remember the first of those impeachment hearings was about the extortion of Ukrainian President Zelenskyy by threatening to withhold military aid in “a perfect phone call” If they didn’t run cover for the election interference allegations in the 2016 election and offer up dirt on Hunter Biden.

There is no timeline where the republicans would have received it any better.

It only took a couple of months after the invasion happened and they realized the withholding aid in the past looked like it created the atmosphere to facilitate the invasion and suddenly all the people who were praising journalists in body armor in the Middle East were criticizing journalists for wearing body armor in Kyiv, and start backing Russia for “reasons” (I still can’t really get any concrete reason from any of them).

The only reason I’ve been given why it was a “ Partisan attack” was that it was revenge for Bill Clinton being impeached for lying about a blow job under oath, as if that diminishes the levity of the situation in the first place.

Clinton out-lawyered the GOP and they were pissed. The legal definition they gave didn't include what he and Monica were doing.

Also, that relationship didn't even start (I don't think they had even met) until after the investigation had started because of a land deal gone bad.

Trying to compare Clinton's impeachment with Trump's is asinine for many reasons.

Trump and Clinton’s impeachments were so very different, absolutely.

What’s funny is that the same Republicans flipped their positions. Old 1990s Lindsey Graham said that it doesn’t have to be a literal crime to impeach a president if they disgraced the office. (Clinton did commit a felony with the lying under oath part, although Republicans cared way more about the sex scandal at the time.) 2020 Lindsey Graham said what Trump did wasn’t a felony and therefore not impeachable. He’s one of the worst slime balls in congress and that’s saying something.

He’s one of the worst slime balls in congress

No, you're mistaken. I can assure you, Lindsey Graham has no balls.

Clinton did commit a felony with the lying under oath part

That's my point though. The legal definition they gave him to work with didn't include what he did with Monica. What he did wasn't ok, and I'm not defending him personally, but it wasn't a lie by the legal definition of "sexual relations." The GOP was just on a fishing expedition to find anything they could on him.

Baloney. What he did counted as sexual relations or “sexual relationship” as he testified to. Then he tried to claim that since he was merely pleasuring her and didn’t orgasm himself, it didn’t count. They had to drag Lewinsky back to testify further that Clinton was still lying.

Clinton tried to split hairs to pretend he didn’t lie. It didn’t work.

since he was merely pleasuring her and didn’t orgasm himself, it didn’t count

That's not what happened at all.

He claimed that she had sexual relations with him but he didn't have sexual relations with her because the special investigator defined it based on who touched whose genitals.

http://www.languageandlaw.org/PERJURY.HTM

That correction doesn’t make it any better. It’s still perjury and she still had to testify that he lied even under that definition.

During the deposition, Clinton was asked "Have you ever had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky, as that term is defined in Deposition Exhibit 1?" The judge ordered that Clinton be given an opportunity to review the agreed definition. Afterwards, based on the definition created by the Independent Counsel's Office, Clinton answered, "I have never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky." Clinton later said, "I thought the definition included any activity by [me], where [I] was the actor and came in contact with those parts of the bodies" which had been explicitly listed (and "with an intent to gratify or arouse the sexual desire of any person").

In other words, Clinton denied that he had ever contacted Lewinsky's "genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks", and effectively claimed that the agreed-upon definition of "sexual relations" included giving oral sex but excluded receiving oral sex.

Well played…

And she testified that under his redefinition he still lied. Don’t forget him pleasuring her with the cigar etc.