Trump lawyer: Trump can’t be prosecuted for shooting someone - POLITICO

I do agree that if they do admit it, then it may help sway some republicans in the House and Senate to be in favor of impeachment and removal from office. In any other administration, you wouldn't need them though and they would just be icing on the cake.

Yes I do believe it rises to the level of impeachment. When it comes to things/issues like this, it isn't always about the 'what', but, the 'act'. It's dirty, it goes against the rules (the name of the rule is escaping me at the moment). It's just like obstruction of justice, where there needs to be no actual crime committed, but, lying or impeding an investigation is, even if there 'really is no server'. It's a level of impropriety that the President of the United States should never reach. In this instance, trump is acting against the interests of the United States of America and instead is trying to enrich himself by using the position of the Presidency to do so via quid pro quo. Honestly though, in the real world, the obstruction of justice and the emoluments violations should have been enough for his removal from office.

This does not strike me as an outlandish theory.

I'm not sure that I'd want, say, some random sheriff in Oklahoma to have had the power to arrest President Obama and hold him without bail because he claimed that Obama had committed a crime.

I don't really know enough to know what is the legally correct answer here. But if you switch the D and R, you can see why these questions are closer than they first appear.

He didn't say arrest, just investigate. He said there is nothing that local authorities could do.

I asked because they're related.

It's 100% impeachable, without question. Our intelligence agencies have reported extensively on this yet our President tosses that information aside to chase a thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory.

First, by going directly to another leader and openly showing he does not believe or trust our Intel he shows he's exploitable. Second, he's illegally withholding aid that was approved by congress in doing so.

That is just as dangerous and damaging as going after political opponents.

Bringing them troops home huh?

McGurk right that Trump has sent 14,000 troops to Middle East since May

So why does anyone believe anything that trump says at this point?

The more I read the more I am convinced that Guiliani is actually convinced of the ghosts he's chasing. He has gone full over to the conspiracy mindset, and I think he completely believes that the Deep State is totally one step ahead of him everywhere and he's going to catch up if he just tries hard enough.

RE: Syria...


Today's announcement is called a covered withdrawal. The US essentially forced the Kurds to either die, surrender, or withdraw. Turkey was then allowed into those areas and a goal they have been seeking for well over 3 presidencies has been achieved thanks to donnie-boy.

So a bunch of Republican congressmen stormed into Cooper's testimony hearing, yelling and screaming. They're refusing to leave. Cooper left.

I'm surprised one of them wasn't carrying a cane to start beating people bloody.

And Trump declares victory in Syria...

In an ideal world they should be slapped with obstruction charges.

Each and everyone one of them needs to be censured.

I'm okay with the President (or Congress) not believing or trusting our intel. WMD is a pretty good example of where overwhelming, favorable intel was wrong. I'm not saying our intel is wrong in this case, I'm just saying questioning it and asking other governments to look into it is okay.

On your second point, I'm going to guess there has been plenty of Presidents that have withheld aid that Congress has approved.


To answer your question specifically. It depends on the definition of "undermine". If undermine in this context is "question" the agencies, yes I'm okay with it. Should Bush have better listened to some allies objections or the UN, yes.

If undermine in this context is to systematically and repeatedly reduce confidence in our intelligence agencies, no. Trump is doing this and I'm not okay with it. Should Congress fight back and support the intelligence agencies, yes. Is it impeachable, no I don't think it reaches to that level.

Slow down. The intelligence agencies were skeptical of Iraq's programs until Cheney formed a group to stovepipe information that was "better" than what the intelligence agencies were offering.

It's a good comparison, though, in how a political apparatus can corrupt a professional organization to provide low-quality information.

Doesn't that greatly reward consistent lying?

Let's not give a free pass to the intelligence agencies and blame it all on Bush/Cheney.

FWIW.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...te-house-spin/

From the same article:


I don't think there's any doubt that the intelligence was much more uncertain than the administration suggested.

I worked Intel for the government for nearly a decade covering the time pre 9/11, post 9/11, and throughout the Kosovo campaign. The Iraq situation did identify some issues with our Intel and changed the way Intel was collected and reported.

What was happening was our agencies were being told to look for something specific. They were basically being told "look for evidence of weapons of mass destruction". That creates problems. Your team wants to be the team recognized for finding that evidence because with that comes a lot of promotions, awards, and recognition. So when you're told to find something specific you also start seeing ghosts so to speak. The "This has to be the code word they're using for WMDs" mindset leads to a lot of rabbit holes and tail chasing. It also creates faulty Intel, which was a major lesson learned. It still goes back to the Bush administration pressuring the Intel community to find something rather than allowing collection and analysis to naturally.

It is definitely ok for the President to question Intel. However there are ways to do that internally and through trusted allies without undermining your own agencies. Going directly to an questionable ally, asking them to investigate something that was thoroughly debunked, [b]and[b] withholding approved aid until its agreed to is far beyond the bar for impeachment. This signals enemies and members of our intelligence community that we have a president that does not trust, have faith in, or respect his own intelligence agencies. That's something easily exploitable, puts agents working on foreign soil at risk, and will damage the quality of intelligence we gather.

I would agree the repeated public questioning of our intelligence agencies is pure BS. He should be doing it privately and with trusted allies.

Your reference to Kosovo made me look up our current relationship with them. Article is as of Feb 2018. 95% muslim. It seems we should be doing more to cultivate and strengthen our relationship there.

Welcome To The Country With The Biggest Crush On America : Parallels : NPR


Unlike Kuwait unfortunately.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/26728/k...ince-2001.aspx

They knowingly took cell phones into a SCIF. They should be removed from office.

I'd stay away from 5th Avenue everyone

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...while-n1070711

Has there ever been an instance in our government's history where elected officials don't confirm to the decorum of the office they hold like we are seeing these days?

I feel like Trump has done a pretty good job of disrupting the politcal landscape in this country. He can pretty much get away with anything and it seems like his followers are going down the same road.

I typically stay away from politics but this situation with Trump has me following it every day.

What in the wide wide world of sports?? I agree. All I know is, after this administration is out, republicans have absolutely NO leg to stand on to complain about anything a democratic administration is doing. I mean, they will, but, they will have an acute case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Is this really the timeline we are in?

Evidently Trump had advanced knowledge of, and completely supported, the bumrush of the SCIF.

And of course it’s DUI Matt Gaetz at the wheel of the House Republican short bus.

He probably told them they had to do it.

McCarthy is like they've never been in an Intelligence Committee or anywhere really, so they didn't know, and it's nothing serious.

That awkward when Gaetz the Goof is on the (expletive) Judiciary Committee which meets there

Andy Biggs was tweeting from the SCIF. I don't understand why he wasn't detained and if he isn't removed from office then we can just accept that Trump has destroyed all respect for our intelligence norms.

Because laws don't apply to them.

I love the spin from conservatives on this, saying that there's only democrats on the committee and that the whole thing is a secret coup to overthrow the president. JFC, I can't believe this bovine scatos we are witnessing.

Democrats could do a better job communicating that there are 40 GOP reps sitting in on the depositions, and they get ample time to ask questions.

He wasn't asking for intelligence. He was blackmailing a foreign government that needed our support to aid in his election efforts by holding taxpayer money Congress approved over their heads.

If he doesn't like the intelligence he's getting, hire better people for the taxpayer funded agency you run.

I don't know what more evidence a person could need to show what he did. It's patently obvious. Support him doing that or don't. But pretending this was legitimately about our national security is ludicrous.

This is one thing that does drive me nuts about democrats in general. They are really bad at 'getting out the message'. Other than AOC, most of them aren't very good at it at all in my opinion.

So, this whole game of "let's talk sense into one forum member we disagree with" is fun and all, but as someone who isn't really interested in playing... a departure inspired by it.

The central takeaway here (and generally) is that among people engaged in politics, the polarization and tribalization is nearly perfected and absolute. That's just where we are. A piece of paper with a series of words comes out, and Team Red sees one thing and can't fathom Team Blue honestly is saying they see another thing, and vice versa. It's a common lament, one that lots of people agree with.

(And I'm guilty too. In general I have mixed views on politics, but right at the moment my only driving force on national politics is hatred for Trump.)

So... what's happening is twofold. The right, or at least some of the right, is the only group really playing this game correctly, in my view. If every headline, every fact, every event is going to be viewed through the lens of "what team am I on, and what are my people telling me to think?" then don't fucking worry about anything. Lie. Tell a lie that can be demonstrably proven to be a lie. Contradict what you just said on tape. Cheat, steal, do what the fuck ever you want to do - and let it all settle itself on the pick-your-sides media. You cannot lose. It's not a structure-of-govt argument like this 5th Avenue shooting hypo, it's just the logical outcome of where we are politically. Trump cannot go below 40% or so because that means the libs win, that Nancy wins, that the Squad wins, that all those terrible people win - and the most important thing is to own the libs. Start from there.

The left, in its usual fashion, is dong this wrong. They're doubling down on increasingly leftward policy in hopes that they can reach a majority. But at the same time, the left wants to engage on substance -- they (we?) tend to believe that if we just keep pointing out the lies, the disgraces, the graft, and the malfeasance... surely any right-hearted person will eventually come around and see that they're right. Smug, effete, annoying, assholes -- and unaware that these are the elements being weaponized against them to undermine their potential effectiveness. It's exactly because libs tend to sound like "we just know what's best" that the right recoils when they hear it. That "Basket of Deplorables" was a perfect little segment of the whole problem the blue/left side has in the current political debate... that a team of smart people in a room somehow thought that her saying that at a major campaign event could work to her advantage. God heavens.

So... my left friend, you can tell Joe Foxnews that it doesn't matter if the whistleblower was going with second hand information, since we now have the transcript that offers precisely the first hand insight we would have been looking for. And you think that will win the argument. It cannot. It cannot be allowed to. And the same goes when Trump strongarms Mexico into tending to its own southern border more effectively. Joe shouts at you that this is proof of 10d chess being payed. You reject it outright - you are duty bound to. Just wait, Rachel will come on tonight and tel you what to think about it, you'll be fine.

I don't know if this is escapable. But the red/right side of this at least plays the game understanding the rules. It's sickening, but that's now a plus.

McCarthy on his Repubs barging into the SCIF


“These are individuals who have never been in Intel Committee before or anywhere else. So it’s nothing serious from that matter.”

Don't worry guys. We are building the most beautiful wall in Colorado.

This tweet mocking the idiot in chief sums it up perfectly:
Sen. Patrick Leahy on Twitter: "https://t.co/fmE0hiPLNB… "

And New Mexico will pay for it.

Heh

I have no idea where you got that I though Ukraine investigating was necessary for national security? If its the word "Intel", I didn't originate it and was just responding to a post that used it.

I have been using "investigate democratic/DNC hack" or "investigate Biden & Son". The first I said was for trump to rationalize his tainted election in 2016 and the latter was for political gain in 2020 elections.

Half of the "protestors" today were members of the relevant committees conducting the depositions and could have witnessed testimony and ask questions.

But phony outrage was more fun, I guess.

Quik: I feel like to some extent we in the opposition just need to wait until things go to shit and then ask: "are you happy now?" I don't think that particularly serves anyone well (if it's not actually, you know, catastrophic) but sometimes I don't know what the alternative is.

My one counter to this is that the red voters are dying and the younger, more diverse voters replacing them are repelled by what the right is doing. It's a short term strategy that will look foolish in ten or twenty years.

But even that won't be enough. Trump could make a decision, and the markets could plunge. And respected economists on the right and left could say that the economy suffered greatly because of specific actions that can be directly tied to Trump.

And some "economist" will get on Fox and opine that it was really just the markets reacting to the risk of Medicare for All, and the 40% will nod knowingly.

Just based on demographics (race, gender, age), if the percentages remain the same in 2020 as 2016, Trump loses

Epstein, Weinstein, Cosby, trump

Donald Trump And The Making Of A Predatory President

Possibly corroborating testimony to Taylor's but last paragraph is interesting. No idea what it means or how Morrison will "finesse" it.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/24/polit...ony/index.html

New book coming out from anonymous which made me wonder who is anonymous.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/25/polit...ons/index.html

So I googled on it and it blows my mind some of the possibles because I would have thought next level down

Vice President Pence is odds-on favorite to be ‘Anonymous’ author, followed closely by Betsy Devos. Melania Trump is the dark horse - New York Daily News

From that list, I'm not thinking Melania, Ivanka, Jared or Trump himself. My guess is Kelly or Mattis or Sessions.

I agree. I highly, highly doubt it's Devos. She paid trump to get the position of Education Secretary, so she already got what she wanted and has about as much interest in the 'Resistance' as she does in actually being qualified for the position she is currently in.

Trump continues to attack NeverTrump Republicans. Alienating people who *might* vote for you in 2020 is some brilliant 5-D chess.

So Rudy apparantly butt-dialed a NBC reporter on Oct 15 who got the whole conversation on voice mail:


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/pol...-cash-n1071901