Trump's Russian Collusion

[old salt]

We’d know a lot more about Russians if the House Intelligence committee and Nunes had done their job. If they won’t call critical witnesses and won’t ask follow up questions, it’s just another Kavanaugh-style whitewash. You can’t claim innocence any more than Judge Boof can. You told us you don’t want to know. You want to know who was mean to Carter Page. Thus, we wait for Special Counsel, who is also following the Gop rules. One report. At the end. And any remaining trials.

Nobody slowed down the Senate Intel Comm. All we learned from them was that their senior staffer was boofing his favorite NYT reporter ...(or was it boffing ?)

[ggait]

Maybe Mueller is busier than we thought. Politico thinks he may have subpoenaed Trump.

There's been tons of speculation about who the mystery grand jury witness is who is wrangling with Mueller. It could be Trump, but there's lots of other possibilities. I'm guessing not Trump himself. Regardless, Mueller will be very noisy once the quiet period ends. Buckle up.

I think Trump is playing nice with Rosenstein for a few possible reasons. Maybe Rod has told Trump he really isn't in jeopardy, so just chill. Maybe Trump plans to circumvent Rod via a non-recused replacement of Sessions (who is clearly leaving).

Or (my vote) maybe Trump realizes that the time to off Mueller via Rod has just come and gone. Mueller is now entrenched, so why stir things up with Rod for no reason.

[MDlaxfan76]

Maybe Mueller is busier than we thought. Politico thinks he may have subpoenaed Trump.


https://www.politico.com/magazine/story ... ump-222060

Whether Politico is correct or not, we're pretty darn likely to learn a heck of a lot more post the midterms.

At first that's going to come in the form of more indictments, pleas, and possibly trials.

But February onward we're quite likely to see a very different oversight process from the House.

The wild card, I think, is whether Trump tries to preemptively control the investigation, indictments and ultimate report.

If the House doesn't flip, I have no doubt that Trump will do all in his power to shut it down within the DOJ and FBI, firing everyone who doesn't get in line, Sessions, Rosenstein, Mueller, the staff, with no resistance from the GOP. It gets a heck of lot more messy with the Dems controlling those committees, with subpoena power.

If Trump truly has clean hands, he would be ridiculously stupid to obstruct.

But, there's really no telling what he may do with McGahn gone, etc.

Especially since, IMO, it's actually quite likely that he really doesn't have 100% clean hands, or at least his campaign did not, including Don Jr. So, it's quite unlikely to blow over. And, his ultimate concern is not the Russian meddling, but the predicate issues of various financial transactions, the further investigation of which could well unwind his businesses and lose his fortune. For him, it's all about the greenbacks to "keep score". Women were another way to 'keep score', but money was always the primary ego driver.

It is an absolute certainty that the campaign's hands are not clean. Less than 10% chance that Trump's hands are clean IMO. I thought Rosenstein made it pretty clear when he spoke at the last indictment press conference that the country was in for a wild ride, that DOJ had things that were going to blow the country's collective mind. First thing after the quiet period I would expect indictment of Roger Stone, and with that more clues in the indictment as to Trump's role. Mueller has Don Jr. anytime he wants to bend down to scoop him up. There are a lot more US citizen's to be named.

I agree that, based just on what we know so far, "the campaign's hands are not clean". At a minimum, the Trump Tower meeting and related communications, and the later attempts to cover it up, are both "collusion" and "obstruction".

The open questions that strike me are:

1) Exactly how much did the campaign encourage the hacking and/or the release of the hacked materials, and did they coordinate or otherwise have foreknowledge of the timing and mechanisms to disseminate?

2) Did they know of, and coordinate in any intentional way, with the Russian social media campaign, trolls, bots, and other false identities and false content?

3) Who specifically was involved and when? Who knew and when did they know it?

4) Most importantly what did Trump himself know at various points in time? Did he authorize or approve or direct or otherwise provide intentional license to these activities?

and also

5) Were there preceding acts committed by Trump or his businesses or his family, potentially/likely known to the Russians, that would be either embarrassing or were actually criminal?

The issue is that if the House does not flip and Trump is thereby emboldened, with a totally compliant elected-GOP, the shutdown of the investigation will be swift and the cover-up will go into full force.

Executive Orders?
Trump will be in full 'try and stop me' mode.

[old salt]

At a minimum, the Trump Tower meeting and related communications, and the later attempts to cover it up, are both "collusion" and "obstruction".

Prove it, in a court of law. If you can't do that, it will never get 67 votes in the Senate.

[MDlaxfan76]

We’d know a lot more about Russians if the House Intelligence committee and Nunes had done their job. If they won’t call critical witnesses and won’t ask follow up questions, it’s just another Kavanaugh-style whitewash. You can’t claim innocence any more than Judge Boof can. You told us you don’t want to know. You want to know who was mean to Carter Page. Thus, we wait for Special Counsel, who is also following the Gop rules. One report. At the end. And any remaining trials.

Nobody slowed down the Senate Intel Comm. All we learned from them was that their senior staffer was boofing his favorite NYT reporter ...(or was it boffing ?)

Sure ...the Senate committee made clear that it was deferring to Mueller and that he had their full confidence. They quite correctly deferred any criminal aspect of conspiracy and obstruction. They focused, instead, on examining that the Russians had indeed meddled egregiously. Their conclusions, like the IC's, was in direct opposition to Trump's assertions that the Russians never did a darn thing (much less that any of his people had ever met with Russians, etc, etc.).

If you want to critique the Senate, it would be that they did not take more steps to prevent interference by the Russians going forward, including the mid-terms.

The House committee on the other hand went to full-on 'defend the President' mode, making a sham out of the supposed 'investigation' they purported to do.

Assuming that the Dems win, that will change.
But, if I were advising the Dems in charge, I'd urge them to continue to leave the criminal aspects to Mueller until he signals that he has completed his work. In the meantime, they can stay quite busy with other oversight work relative to all sorts of corruption issues throughout the Administration, including emoluments, tax returns etc And, thus, doing both their actual oversight duty, as well as scoring plenty of political points, without rushing any sort of impeachment proceedings. If instead they get too far out over their skis, that could bite them and ultimately not achieve the goal of cleaning up this mess.

Undoubtedly, some will try to push too fast. Hopefully, wiser heads will prevail.

[dislaxxic]

Marcy Wheeler pushes back (gently) on the idea that Trumpty has been subpoenaed

..

[MDlaxfan76]

At a minimum, the Trump Tower meeting and related communications, and the later attempts to cover it up, are both "collusion" and "obstruction".

Prove it, in a court of law. If you can't do that, it will never get 67 votes in the Senate.

"Prove it" is of course is the job of Mueller and his team.
I don't think they will bring indictments or achieve plea agreements for anything other than what they can convincingly prove. That's what they've done so far, and with an amazing level of discipline in what the public gets to see.

Which is actually quite a lot at this point.

I tend to think that charges related to Trump himself, whether conspiracy or obstruction, will only be brought after the rest of my list of questions are answered to Mueller's satisfaction.

Comey apparently came to the conclusion that what the FBI found on HRC was not sufficient to justify a prosecution (Not his place to say so, but the standard would be correct).

That's extremely likely to be the standard applied by Mueller, as to date, he has only brought charges with overwhelming levels of detailed evidence. Fundamentally, is it provable in court?

If, at the end of the day, Trump himself was kept in the dark on everything or Mueller simply doesn't believe that he can prove convincingly otherwise, Trump will not face charges of 'high crimes and misdemeanors' based on Mueller's work.

The Dems might well impeach nevertheless, possibly for other reasons, emoluments, past crimes, tax evasion, etc, but I tend to agree that the Senate would only convict if Mueller makes that recommendation and the evidence is provable that Trump knew, approved, and/or covered up the conspiracy.

Unless outright bribery can be directly proven, I don't think the emoluments aspect will result in a 67 vote.

So, 2020 will come.

In my personal view, the best outcome would be an overwhelming rejection of Trumpism in that election. Somehow, the GOP needs to shake itself away from the spell they've been under and regain credibility. And the Dems need to not overplay their hand in any sort of revenge or copycat of the authoritarian strain now alive and well in Trumpism.

We need to find a way back to a bipartisan approach to governing. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen until after 2020.

[HooDat]

We need to find a way back to a bipartisan approach to governing. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen until after 2020.

oh, we've been there for years. Both parties are getting all the things they want - even more so under Trump, because we are spending like sailors on shore leave, while no hard decisions are being made, and the pols are spending money on elections at what appears to be unprecedented rates (which I tend to think means the "bribe" money is probably flowing strong as well...)

Now if you mean old fashioned bipartisan compromise and governing where hard DECISIONS and CHOICES are made - that was so long ago I think i forget what that even looks like - but I think there were as many black and white programs on the tv as color......

[MDlaxfan76]

We need to find a way back to a bipartisan approach to governing. Unfortunately, that's not going to happen until after 2020.

oh, we've been there for years. Both parties are getting all the things they want - even more so under Trump, because we are spending like sailors on shore leave, while no hard decisions are being made, and the pols are spending money on elections at what appears to be unprecedented rates (which I tend to think means the "bribe" money is probably flowing strong as well...)

Now if you mean old fashioned bipartisan compromise and governing where hard DECISIONS and CHOICES are made - that was so long ago I think i forget what that even looks like - but I think there were as many black and white programs on the tv as color......

yup, actually "governing".

[Trinity]

Bring back earmarks and overturn Citizens United. This is nuts.

[old salt]

This is great. The MSNBC star chamber is positively giddy.

They're predicting Roger Stone will be in an orange jump suit within 6 wks.

...can't wait. I hope it's all televised.

Watch how the MSNBC hosts omit "the" before "Podesta's" when they read Stone's now famous tweet.
...trying way too hard.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/20/politics ... index.html

Aug 21:
Stone tweets that "it will soon the Podesta's time in the barrel."

[Typical Lax Dad]

Roger Stone claims he didn’t collude with Russia. But his story doesn’t add up

[old salt]

Watch which cable news talking heads omit the "the",
even when it's included on the Tweet graphic they're reading.
...then imagine a televised trial.

like Ari Melber, at 00:56 of this clip.

[Chips O'Toole]

I enjoyed your tutorial about how Avenatti should slander more convincingly. It takes a practiced character assassin to critique another.

Thank you, it does indeed. I'm still pissed about that little piece of malpractice.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Watch which cable news talking heads omit the "the",
even when it's included on the Tweet graphic they're reading.
...then imagine a televised trial.

like Ari Melber, at 00:56 of this clip.

Good thing they are not prosecutors...

[old salt]

Maybe that's why so many of them are former prosecutors.

[Typical Lax Dad]

Maybe that's why so many of them are former prosecutors.

Like Rudy....
Here is another one of your boys that didn't do anything

[Typical Lax Dad]

"ain't no such thing as half way crooks"

[Chips O'Toole]

What is the path out of this for the GOP? While I want to Trump to go down -- hard -- because he needs to, I am scared to death he will take the whole party down with him. The Dem's, with control of Congress and the White House, can wreak all sorts of havoc. And that right wing SCt won't be able to stop them when they get packed with about 7 new justices. How can the GOP come out of this with a sustainable party, rather than one that appeals to no more than 30% of the population -- virtually all of them uneducated, redneck voters who are unreliable come election day; their wives who vote as they are told to avoid being hit with a tire iron; and old, white almost dead men? If Trump makes it to 2020, I think this is the worst possible outcome for the GOP. They will go down with him. The best hope is with a swift Trump resignation from near unanimous pressure from the GOP after seeing a compelling report from Mueller. The GOP and Pence (if he can come out of this unscathed -- unlikely) would have a fighting chance at rehabilitation. But none of that seems likely. Complete annihilation of the party seems most likely.

[dislaxxic]

The GOP has been dancing with the Devil for so long now that it was bound to catch up with them. The constituencies they have nurtured, through culture warring and fear mongering, are drying up, aging and dying off. The central notion of their economic policy, "trickle-down", has proven, over and over again, to be a sad, broken lie.

The really sad thing is that we really NEED (at least) two viable parties to make the system function. We really just don't have that today.

I think we may be headed to a place where the more conservative portions of the left, (bulked up by former republicans that are horrified and depressed at what their former party has become) break off and re-constitute a new party to balance the more left-leaning portions of the Democratic Party. Blue Dogs vs. Social Democrats if you will. Through demographics and just plain bollixed up policy prescriptions, the current GOP sure DOES seem destined for permanent minority status, if not worse...

..