He was never going to be convicted but the finding of guilt still stands.
He wasn't impeached because of anything relating to the 2016 election. He was impeached because of his unconstitutional, illegal behaviour while he was president.
Once again let me just clarify that I'm no supporter of Trump, but isn't it quite clear that the Democrats were looking for an excuse for impeachment long before the Ukraine issue happened?
No. Nancy Pelosi is on record as saying that impeachment over the events of the 2016 Election cycle was counterproductive. However, a sitting president making military aid to a friendly foreign government engaged in a war against a government hostile to the US contingent on that foreign government interfering in a US election was something that couldn't be ignored.
Some of them were, but others such as Pelosi knew that it would never get through the Senate particularly when the charges were rather obscure and he claimed to have been absolved by the official investigation (whereas in fact Mueller moreorless said he would have been charged if he hadn't been President). The Ukraine business was probably more likely to come across as wrong to the wider public, and as mentioned forced the hand of the Democratic leadership. But again he was in a situation where he could claim to have been cleared, probably coming out stronger at the end of the day.
This is why the Democratic leadership were opposed to impeachment - there was no way he would be convicted by the GOP-controlled senate. But his actions with Ukraine were so clearly wrong that they had no choice but to do something.
No. The Hunter Biden laptop 'scandal' was a fever-dream invention of the right-wing media in the latter stages of the election cycle. It had no relation to the impeachment.
I wonder if the impeachment immunised Biden to some extent against "laptopgate" or whatever they called it. Another Trumped-up accusation against Hunter Biden may have convinced the base, but swing voters may just have been reminded what the Donald got away with last time he tried that.
The laptop was a non-story, invented by conspiracy nuts. Again, to summarise: Hunter Biden took laptop(s) from his home in California to a computer repair shop in Delaware and then forgot to collect them. The laptop(s) (which had no password/encryption) happened to contain incriminating evidence about his family's business dealings in Ukraine. We know that it was Hunter Biden because the legally blind owner of the repair shop saw him (though the CCTV images have been deleted). The laptops have now disappeared, but the repair shop owner copied the hard drives and kept the copied data.
Because he had leverage. The new president of Ukraine was desperate for the aid and also for the strong display of US support through a White House meeting.
It's an agreed fact that Hunter Biden worked for a company in Ukraine, and he's essentially admitted that he got the job because of his name rather than his abilities.
Well i'm convinced!
So what? People getting jobs that they aren't qualified for because of their name, the school they attended, their friends, who they're married to or how they look isn't a crime. If it was half of the world's business execs would be in jail.
(cough) Baroness Harding ...
Indeed, neither side made much of a fuss about that particular aspect. "Laptopgate" alleged that he fixed up a meeting between his father (when vice-president) and some of the people he was connected with, and the thing that led to impeachment was Trump fishing for anything incriminating about Hunter Biden's role.
That’s great.
A full-on GOP civil war would be... fascinating.
Oh, that I agree with. The beautiful part about it is that you can be pretty sure that Trump saw his call being sent to voicemail live...
