Political Roundtable Part XXV

[Ruzious]

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Trump said he had no idea that happened, so the answer is easy. Find out who gave the order, and fire that person. It should be done today.

[closg00]

Remember when Michael Cohen testified about Trump's unspoken "code"? It would be hard to believe that some staffer took this action on their own, but it's possible that they understood Trump's "code". The oversight committee should expose these disgusting people

[Pointgod]

It was necessary for Mueller to issue a statement because Barr had created a false narrative about the report, and release it into the media world in-order to lay-down cover for Trump.

Congress needs to subpoena Mueller and get him testifying for tv. It needs to be spelled out clearly for the majority of uninformed Americans. The President would be indicted if not for the fact that he’s President. Fox News wouldn’t even be able to spin that.

It's maddening but I agree - even if all that happens is Mueller reads exerpts from his report, somehow if it isn't a talking head saying something on tv it doesn't exist. For the same reason the Dems need to have hearings and they have to call them impeachment hearings so the press will cover it.

Last xmas I watched Die Hard (1988) and they come down really hard on the press in that movie. Then I watched the Bird Cage (the US version with Robin Williams) (1996) and they do the same. We've been teaching the public to consider the press an enemy of the people for decades. But I think the press is just a mirror of us. They behave the way they do because that's what we choose to consume. We're the idiots.

Yet if you point this out you’re supposedly out of touch and elitist. Sometimes we forget that there are millions of STDs in the country. I was watching the news and they interviewed one lady at the Justin Amash townhall and she said I quote “ I never heard from the news that Trump did anything wrong. All I listen to is conservative media.”

[popper]

Anyone, I’m curious. Which of the ten or eleven potential obstruction of justice events identified by Mueller make the strongest case for impeachment? There are so many calling for it but I haven’t seen anyone identify the strongest component.

[pancakes3]

what? any obstruction is sufficient justification for impeachment

[popper]

what? any obstruction is sufficient justification for impeachment

Which one out of the ten do you think is most sufficient?

[pancakes3]

what? any obstruction is sufficient justification for impeachment

Which one out of the ten do you think is most sufficient?

i still think you're asking from a disingenuous perspective but here:



https://www.lawfareblog.com/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map

[popper]

what? any obstruction is sufficient justification for impeachment

Which one out of the ten do you think is most sufficient?

i still think you're asking from a disingenuous perspective but here:



https://www.lawfareblog.com/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map

So does that mean you support impeachment based most strongly on E,F and I? I’m not trying to be a wise ass pancakes but we should analyze the case for impeachment much as Pelosi is doing now. I believe she said recently that approx 15% of House D’s support the effort as it stood when she commented.

[Zonkerbl]

I think refusing to comply with the law and turn over his taxes is by far the most serious impeachable offense so far.

In the Mueller report, his instructions to McGan to fire Mueller and subsequent attempts to pretend he never did. But generally all the lies he and his staff told about contacts with Russians. Those lies included covering up discussions of dropping sanctions on Russia, which Trump has done pretty much for free over the objections of Congress.

Also it sure looks like Trump tower Moscow was some sort of bribery attempt.

[Zonkerbl]

Also the Republicans impeached Clinton for lying about getting a blow job. Trump illegally ordered Michael Cohen to pay hush money to a porn star side piece.

[pancakes3]

Which one out of the ten do you think is most sufficient?

i still think you're asking from a disingenuous perspective but here:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map

So does that mean you support impeachment based most strongly on E,F and I? I’m not trying to be a wise ass pancakes but we should analyze the case for impeachment much as Pelosi is doing now. I believe she said recently that approx 15% of House D’s support the effort as it stood when she commented.

Pelosi's decision to begin impeachment has nothing to do with the merits of the facts but rather a political calculation of whether she believes there are enough congressmen who are willing to burn the political capital and do a fair and impartisan job. This goes beyond just the D/R divide. There are plenty of dems who don't want to burn the capital because it would impact their re-election.

If you're still stuck on whether the merits of the case (read: Trump's actions) are impeachable, then you're like 4 steps behind. To Zonk's point, the slew of impeachable offenses that Trump's committed *after* the report came out has been much more public and defiant, and only adds to the obstruction.

Trump needs to be evaluated for his fitness for office, when there are credible allegations that he is using is position of power to obstruct justice. It's not a question of which individual act is the most obstructive, but rather a question of whether Trump's behavior collectively makes him unfit for office. Asking which act of obstruction is the most convincing is like asking which individual chicken pock is the most infectious. Each pock can be analyzed and categorized based on size and redness, but it misses the point that we've got chicken pox and and we need to be treated.

[dobrojim]

Violation of the emouluments clause should be sufficient on it's own.
Playing 'footsie' with a hostile foreign power. I'm easily old enough to remember
when this sort of thing would have gotten conservatives really fired up.
Or when conservatives thought character mattered.

How about failure to take care that the laws be faithfully upheld?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/if-trump-doesnt-warrant-impeachment-who-does/2019/05/30/0ae3ee8a-8311-11e9-bce7-40b4105f7ca0_story.html?utm_term=.65e740dde6be

Obstruct a Justice Department investigation, perhaps? No, apparently that’s not enough. What about playing footsie with a hostile foreign power? Abusing his office to settle personal grievances? Using instruments of the state, including the justice system, to attack his perceived political opponents? Aligning the nation with murderous foreign dictators while forsaking democracy and human rights? Violating campaign-finance laws with disguised hush-money payments to alleged paramours? Giving aid and comfort to neo-Nazis and white supremacists? Defying requests and subpoenas from congressional committees charged with oversight? Refusing to protect our electoral system from malign foreign interference? Cruelly ripping young children away from their asylum-seeking parents? Lying constantly and shamelessly to the American people, to the point where not a single word he says or writes can be believed?

[popper]

i still think you're asking from a disingenuous perspective but here:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map

So does that mean you support impeachment based most strongly on E,F and I? I’m not trying to be a wise ass pancakes but we should analyze the case for impeachment much as Pelosi is doing now. I believe she said recently that approx 15% of House D’s support the effort as it stood when she commented.

Pelosi's decision to begin impeachment has nothing to do with the merits of the facts but rather a political calculation of whether she believes there are enough congressmen who are willing to burn the political capital and do a fair and impartisan job. This goes beyond just the D/R divide. There are plenty of dems who don't want to burn the capital because it would impact their re-election.

If you're still stuck on whether the merits of the case (read: Trump's actions) are impeachable, then you're like 4 steps behind. To Zonk's point, the slew of impeachable offenses that Trump's committed *after* the report came out has been much more public and defiant, and only adds to the obstruction.

Trump needs to be evaluated for his fitness for office, when there are credible allegations that he is using is position of power to obstruct justice. It's not a question of which individual act is the most obstructive, but rather a question of whether Trump's behavior collectively makes him unfit for office. Asking which act of obstruction is the most convincing is like asking which individual chicken pock is the most infectious. Each pock can be analyzed and categorized based on size and redness, but it misses the point that we've got chicken pox and and we need to be treated.

I hear you but eventually some compilation of charges against Trump would be assembled for use in an impeachment effort. I assume those charges would begin with the most egregious actions on Trump's part. That's what I was trying to get at when I asked you what you thought those might be.

Pelosi is in a tough position IMO. She's being asked to impeach Trump for attempting, but failing, to obstruct justice. How will the American people receive such an effort given there's a new election in 18 months and there's lots of issues that congress needs to concentrate on that will require bipartisan cooperation. In addition, I'm sure Pelosi would like to wait until the IG report comes out so she can take the public's temperature then in the aftermath of that and other revelations. Last, Pelosi knows that some variation of the following will be repeated by House R's over and over during the entire process.

Clinton and the Democrat Party hired a company, who then hired a foreign agent, to collect dirt on Trump. They tried to conceal this fact by laundering the payments through a law firm. The foreign agent queried Russians, some with ties to the Kremlin, and produced a document that the agent and Comey admitted was unverified. The FBI, with an assist from the Justice Dept. then used that unverified report to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign officials.

I'll be surprised if Pelosi takes the plunge. I'm no fan of Trump but I question the value of pursuing this whole affair any further. That's just my opinion of course.

[dobrojim]

Then there is also the lengthy list of former federal prosecutors, from both parties,
hundreds of them, who have signed a letter stating that if Trump were not POTUS,
he would clearly be charged. The letter indicates that in their opinion, this isn't even a close call.

[dobrojim]

Why do you believe Trump failed to obstruct justice?
There are a number of ways he has succeeded in doing just that.

As an aside, I was actually not surprised but rather extremely
frustrated by the woman at the Amash town hall who honestly
didn't know that Trump had done /anything/ wrong. She admitted
she watched 'conservative' news.

I'm reminded of the study that was done roughly fifteen years ago
about mistakenly held beliefs. It found that Fox viewers were not
only found to be more likely to believe things that were not true
(the study was about the failure to find WMDs after the invasion of Iraq)
but that the more hours/day of Fox they watched, the more likely they
were to believe things that simply were not true.

[dobrojim]

Clinton and the Democrat Party hired a company, who then hired a foreign agent, to collect dirt on Trump. They tried to conceal this fact by laundering the payments through a law firm. The foreign agent queried Russians, some with ties to the Kremlin, and produced a document that the agent and Comey admitted was unverified. The FBI, with an assist from the Justice Dept. then used that unverified report to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign officials.

To my point above, this sounds to me like the Fox news readers digest version
to what is a much more complicated story. The 'unverified report' has been largely
upheld in most of its findings. Plus, are you trying to say that the FBI only
used this report, without other corroboration, to decide that a counter-intelligence investigation should
be opened? The notion that the head of the FBI was somehow a Clinton
loyalist out to get Trump is laughable on its face.

[Zonkerbl]

I also reject the premise that Trump has failed to obstruct justice. He's obstructing justice right now. Furthermore, the very fact that they were not able to prove conspiracy against Trump is an indicator that he may very well have succeeded in obstructing justice. I bet you dollars over doughnuts Roger Stone's buddy whatsisname used whatsapp to coordinate with Assange and the FBI couldn't crack Whatsapp's code, and Stone and whatsisname kept mum, on Trump's orders, so no charges could be brought. That's successful obstruction. That's the WHOLE POINT of obstruction of justice charges - you HAVE to be able to bring them ESPECIALLY when no underlying crime could be proven. That is why you try to obstruct justice, in order to hide evidence of your crimes.

Mueller never said that Trump failed to obstruct justice. Ever. He said in the McGahn case that he gave an order for Mueller to be fired and McGahn didn't obey it. THAT'S OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE. The very act of ordering Mueller to be fired is a criminal act.

There's no question that there's enough evidence to put Trump away for felony obstruction of justice and when he loses the election he's going directly to jail for the crimes he committed during the campaign. But for the crimes he committed while President, he has to be impeached.

If I were Pelosi, here's what I'd do. I'd get all the Dems together and say, we need to time this perfectly so the impeachment vote in the Senate happens no earlier than July or August 2020. The Senate is going to jam the vote through if we go too early, and they're going to delay until after the election if we wait too long. So the optimal time to have the impeachment vote in the house is May 2020. We have to make it look like we had no choice but to wait that long, and we need to have a constant drip drip drip of impeachment related news on the old people's tvs every day from now until then. How do we believably stretch this out over an entire year in the era of the two minute news cycle? Here's the plan - I'll make something up, like oh the evidence isn't enough, or I'll make a political argument that it won't pass the senate so what's the point. I'll be the lead "no impeachment" person. Meanwhile Trump will try to obstruct everything because he's an idiot and doesn't realize that plays right into our strategy, he'll lose every single time but each court case will be on a slightly different schedule, and every loss will make the news. Every time something like that happens I want four or five Dems in the house to switch to being for impeachment. That way it won't look like a partisan witchhunt but we were dragged reluctantly to impeachment because the POTUS' behavior is so obviously and publicly corrupt. Around about May is what our economists tell us is when the recession will hit, if Trump's idiotic trade war has the effect they predict it will, so waiting a year will be doubly advantageous for us. People will be angry. That's when we strike.

[Pointgod]

So does that mean you support impeachment based most strongly on E,F and I? I’m not trying to be a wise ass pancakes but we should analyze the case for impeachment much as Pelosi is doing now. I believe she said recently that approx 15% of House D’s support the effort as it stood when she commented.

Pelosi's decision to begin impeachment has nothing to do with the merits of the facts but rather a political calculation of whether she believes there are enough congressmen who are willing to burn the political capital and do a fair and impartisan job. This goes beyond just the D/R divide. There are plenty of dems who don't want to burn the capital because it would impact their re-election.

If you're still stuck on whether the merits of the case (read: Trump's actions) are impeachable, then you're like 4 steps behind. To Zonk's point, the slew of impeachable offenses that Trump's committed *after* the report came out has been much more public and defiant, and only adds to the obstruction.

Trump needs to be evaluated for his fitness for office, when there are credible allegations that he is using is position of power to obstruct justice. It's not a question of which individual act is the most obstructive, but rather a question of whether Trump's behavior collectively makes him unfit for office. Asking which act of obstruction is the most convincing is like asking which individual chicken pock is the most infectious. Each pock can be analyzed and categorized based on size and redness, but it misses the point that we've got chicken pox and and we need to be treated.

I hear you but eventually some compilation of charges against Trump would be assembled for use in an impeachment effort. I assume those charges would begin with the most egregious actions on Trump's part. That's what I was trying to get at when I asked you what you thought those might be.

Pelosi is in a tough position IMO. She's being asked to impeach Trump for attempting, but failing, to obstruct justice. How will the American people receive such an effort given there's a new election in 18 months and there's lots of issues that congress needs to concentrate on that will require bipartisan cooperation. In addition, I'm sure Pelosi would like to wait until the IG report comes out so she can take the public's temperature then in the aftermath of that and other revelations. Last, Pelosi knows that some variation of the following will be repeated by House R's over and over during the entire process.

Clinton and the Democrat Party hired a company, who then hired a foreign agent, to collect dirt on Trump. They tried to conceal this fact by laundering the payments through a law firm. The foreign agent queried Russians, some with ties to the Kremlin, and produced a document that the agent and Comey admitted was unverified. The FBI, with an assist from the Justice Dept. then used that unverified report to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil Trump campaign officials.

I'll be surprised if Pelosi takes the plunge. I'm no fan of Trump but I question the value of pursuing this whole affair any further. That's just my opinion of course.

You really need to stop taking in Conservative news. You know this has been debunked. Tell me how many indictments or charges came from everything you just wrote.

[Zonkerbl]

lol at "bipartisan cooperation." There's never going to be bipartisan cooperation with this GOP. Screw them. When the GOP is so cowed by their brutal treatment by the electorate and the criminal justice system that THEY come crawling back begging for bipartisanship, then maybe we should *consider* trying the whole "bipartisan" thing again. But that idea is dead dead dead right now.

[popper]

So much to respond to it’s almost overwhelming. I’m not opposed to impeaching Trump I just think the public is tired of the whole affair and would like to move on. Obviously most of you feel differently so by all means continue your advocacy. We’ll learn more about the genesis of the investigation when the IG report comes out and when the Justice Dept completes their review. Should be an interesting few months.