And I’m sorry, but have you watched the impeachment thus far? Everything that article uses as Fox “shielding Trump” is just factually accurate. No factual evidence of impeachable activity has been given, everything HAS been hearsay, triple and even quadruple hearsay if I recall correctly. It’s been a failure so far for the Dems.
Unless you’ve seen something impeachable presented so far...maybe I’ve missed it. Haven’t watched the ENTIRE hearings. But what I’ve see. This far seems pretty weak.
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Hearsay” has a precise legal definition, and hearsay rules apply only during civil or criminal trials, but Republicans are using the term in a much looser sense. When they say “hearsay,” they seem to hope that Americans will hear “rumor.”
None of this makes much sense. The first problem with the Republicans’ hearsay defense is that the White House’s rough transcript confirmed much of what the whistleblower was told by several officials. But even if that memo had not been released, the complaints about hearsay would be missing the mark. Hearsay does not mean “unreliable information,” and it can play an important and legitimate part in many kinds of investigations and legal proceedings. So while Trump and his allies are correct that the whistleblower report could not, by itself, be introduced as evidence in a criminal trial, that’s entirely beside the point.
Hearsay — to simplify a bit — refers to statements made outside of court. If a witness sees a truck hit a car, and his sister tells him that she saw the truck run a red light immediately beforehand, the witness can testify only to the accident. If he repeats what his sister told him about the red light, that is hearsay. The sister would have to come in to tell the jury directly what she saw.
These are important rules for trial lawyers, but they have little to do with the whistleblower complaint, which was not introduced at a trial. And using hearsay is entirely acceptable in all sorts of contexts, including formal investigations.
Law enforcement is expected to use hearsay to lead to more direct sources of information. If police are trying to solve a murder, and a woman tells them she has heard from several people that her neighbor was the culprit, they don’t discount that statement because it isn’t firsthand; they follow that lead in search of direct evidence. That’s pretty much what happened with the whistleblower complaint: It prompted officials to seek the rough transcript, which is not hearsay. And on Thursday, the House deposed the former special U.S. envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, who provided incriminating text messages, among other evidence.
Grand juries, which decide whether formal criminal charges can be brought against a suspect, can also rely on hearsay — weighing things a police officer testifies she heard during her investigation, for instance. The impeachment inquiry in the House will determine whether the Senate should proceed with a trial, making it analogous to grand jury proceedings. So there would logically be no ban on hearsay in that context. What’s more, impeachment trials in the Senate don’t follow the rules of criminal trials, so hearsay could be introduced there, too, if the Senate chose to allow it.
Which exceptions and/or exemptions might be relevant to the Ukraine scandal?
Statements “made by the party’s co-conspirator during and in furtherance of the conspiracy” are not hearsay. A person's own previous incriminating statements are not hearsay, either, as conservative attorney and frequent Trump critic George Conway noted after South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham began griping about hearsay a few months ago. Any impeachable offenses to which Trump admits on the White House lawn, then, would be fair game.
Impeachment trials are not the same as criminal trials, and a special set of rules exists for removal proceedings in the Senate. These rules give senators wide latitude to determine what evidence they do and don't want to hear, literally by voting on it. If the Senate's 53-member Republican majority decides it doesn't want to consider hearsay evidence—even if an exception or exemption would otherwise apply in a non-impeachment proceeding—they'll be able to use the process to exclude it. It’s also why 6th amendment and rules of evidence are not entirely applicable at present.
