The real downside of all of this shit is that it’s enormously restoring the public image of the intelligence agencies in the eyes of liberals. We’re supposed to hate those goddamn spooks for blackbagging a bunch of innocent brown dudes to secret sites all across the world with no good reason aside from racism and fear, for wiretapping every man woman and child in the world for similarly shitty reasons and using torture routinely for, you guessed it, the same shitty reasons!
But now we’re utterly reliant upon them to save us from Trump, so we’ve got to pretend the CIA, NSA, and FBI are good people for a couple of years -.-
From talking to people I know, at least a subset of Trump voters are those who truly believe the anti-government line that the GOP has been peddling for three decades. They honestly feel that government is bad, that we’re far better off letting corporations run things, and that all the government does is spend money on undeserving lazy people. These folks, of course, are all wealthy, and also truly believe that they are 100% self-made, and the only reason anyone else isn’t wealthy is, well, laziness, probably tied to certain racial, religious, or class characteristics (a sort of mix of determinism and Social Darwinism that is as disturbing as it is illogical).
Though perhaps a relatively small subset of Trump voters, this type at least helps explain how educated, intelligent people could vote for Trump. They literally find his unfitness for office a benefit, because they truly want to destroy the idea of actual functioning government.
John Dowd, President Trump’s outside lawyer, outlined to me a new and highly controversial defense/theory in the Russia probe: A president cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice.
The “President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case,” Dowd claims.
Dowd says he drafted this weekend’s Trump tweet that many thought strengthened the case for obstruction: The tweet suggested Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI when he was fired, raising new questions about the later firing of FBI Director James Comey.
Dowd: “The tweet did not admit obstruction. That is an ignorant and arrogant assertion.”
Why it matters: Trump’s legal team is clearly setting the stage to say the president cannot be charged with any of the core crimes discussed in the Russia probe: collusion and obstruction. Presumably, you wouldn’t preemptively make these arguments unless you felt there was a chance charges are coming.
One top D.C. lawyer told me that obstruction is usually an ancillary charge rather than a principal one, such as aquid pro quo between the Trump campaign and Russians.
But Dems will fight the Dowd theory. Bob Bauer, an NYU law professor and former White House counsel to President Obama, told me: “It is certainly possible for a president to obstruct justice. The case for immunity has its adherents, but they based their position largely on the consideration that a president subject to prosecution would be unable to perform the duties of the office, a result that they see as constitutionally intolerable.”
Remember: The Articles of Impeachment against Nixon began by saying he “obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice.”
Well, it makes sense. We know that these guys are all “originalists”, right? And clearly the founding fathers meant for the President to be above the law, effectively a King. Those guys were all super into monarchy.
Seriously, though, if you say the President can’t be guilty of obstruction, then you’re saying he can commit any crime, because he can then just lie about it and fire prosecutors until he’s in the clear. You’re literally saying the President is above the law, and has no limits on his power.
Okay, now McGahn is saying he told the President that Flynn misled the FBI and lied to Pence and should be fired. So I guess we are back to the point where Trump knew about Flynn when he asked Comey to back off. It is getting hard to keep up with their stories. So now to see what Dowd’s latest response is.
I mean, he already told us what they’re going with: when the President does it, it’s not illegal. So it doesn’t matter when Trump knew what or what his state of mind was, he can do whatever he wants, neener neener neener.
Also, axios.com makes me retch. “But Dems will fight the Dowd theory.” No, you idiots, people who believe in rule of law will fight the Dowd theory. Mueller is a Republican. The media’s obsession with turning politics into a team sport where every position can only ever belong to one team is one of the things destroying the country.
The argument that the president can’t obstruct Justice seems absurd on it’s face, given we have already impeached two presidents for obstruction of Justice.
Sure, but look at this from the defense attorneys’ point of view. They’ve got a client who is very likely in deep legal shit and won’t shut up about, you know, anything. They’re taking the legal equivalent of throwing spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks. “They didn’t buy it? OK, what else we got?”
