Trump Fires FBI Director Comey

Well, instead we could play Which Simpsons Character is Donald Trump?

(You might think it’s C. Montgomery Burns but it’s actually a trick question. The correct answer is Maggie crossed with Nelson.)

Pence will pardon him- and then strongly suggest he hole up somewhere. This is assuming that Republicans will impeach and then convict. That’s not a done deal, especially if a stab in the back myth develops among Trumpists.

Not from RICO charges in NY…

If it goes like Watergate, will Trump resign? I still doubt that he would be removed by impeachment. It will take 67 Senate votes to do that. That is never going to be easy.

OTOH I can see Republicans dumping him like cauterizing a wound. Better to do it now in the next few months and give Pence a year at the helm before the mid-terms, and the results will probably be better than if Trump is still Prez and the shit keeps happening. And certainly Pence running as an incumbent in 2020 will be harder to beat than Trump.

The other possibility is the GOP helps push through Trump’s dumb wall, some tax cuts, some denuded form of a travel ban, and an alternative healthcare plan and Trump says he’s done more in six months than any other President has done in eight years and resigns, job done.

This is a fun read. I didn’t realize Ann Coulter had turned against Trump.

To imply, as Anton did, that Barack Obama, for all his shortcomings, was Ziad Jarrah, Flight 93’s lead hijacker, is vile. To suppose that we’d all be dead if Hillary Clinton, for all her flaws, had been elected is hallucinatory. To argue that the United States, for all its problems, was the equivalent of a doomed aircraft is absurd. To suggest that Donald Trump, a man who has sacrificed nothing in his life for anyone or anything, is the worthy moral heir to the Flight 93 passengers is a travesty.

(Sorry, this probably belongs in a more generic Trump thread… they’ve all blended together this past week.)

Not really. The Feds get countless people on obstruction. There only has to be an investigation. Fucking with said investigation is obstruction of justice and will put you in prison.

There is a reason people like Popehat say: “Never talk to the cops and especially not the Feds.”

[quote]The latest iteration of the lesson comes courtesy of retired Marine Corps General and former Vice-Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James E. Cartwright. General Cartwright – who by all accounts had a distinguished and admirable career of service to the nation – pled guilty last month in United States District Court for the District of Columbia to lying to the FBI. That’s a felony under 18 U.S.C. § 1001. It’s one of the feds’ very favorite felonies, because folks commit it so easily and so clumsily when the FBI comes around asking them questions “just to clear a few things up.”

As is often the case, General Cartwright did not wind up being convicted of the thing the FBI was investigating in the first place: leaks of classified information to the press. Instead, when the FBI interviewed him about those leaks, he lied about whether he was the source of information reported by the press. That’s what caught him – the cover-up, not the alleged crime.[/quote]

To a degree, I buy it. I think he is that stupid and has no idea of the import of the words of the most powerful man on the planet.

He treated this like a business deal. Hey, he fouled up, he’s out, go easy on him, he’s a good guy.

He has no respect for the actual rule of law,and doesn’t even comprehend it.

Sure, but are any of those people presidents?

Getting 63 million people to vote for you is a big deal. They’re not going to impeach or prosecute him on a technicality.

It’s literally what they got both Nixon and Clinton for.

Two of them were.

Literally 66.6% of all Presidential Impeachments.

Meet the WH counsel. Another winner.

I guess I’m not really seeing your point. They didn’t “get” either of them. Clinton was impeached but acquitted, and Nixon resigned before he could be impeached, though one assumes he would have been. Nevertheless, there were other impeachable offenses as well as obstruction: the Watergate break-in and lying to a grand jury.

My original point, maybe badly stated, was that without the Russia stuff being proven, it’s going to be tough to get an obstruction charge through the House and the Senate. It’s an already pretty high bar to impeach a President, even higher to convict one and I can’t imagine this Congress or any plausible future Congress voting unless the Russia connections pan out.

  1. Flynn is under investigation
  2. Trump asks Comey for loyalty oath
  3. Acting AG Yates warns WH consul that NSA Sec. is at risk of being bribed. Twice.
  4. WH shrugs, fires Yates.
  5. 18 days pass and Flynn resigns for “lying” to (St.) Pence
  6. The next day, Trump has Comey for dinner and asks the FBI to drop Flynn investigation
  7. Trump fires Comey, WH staff cites DAG memo on Comey handling of Clinton email invesigation (lol)
  8. Trump admits on national televison Russia investigation is prime motivator behind Comey firing
  9. Comey memo details Trump asking Comey to drop Flynn investigation after asking Chief of Staff and AG to leave the room

Edit; Transition team is advised not to let all 46 USAG’s go at once. They accept the recommendation.
Then Session is appointed AG and all 46 are asked for resignation including Preet Bahara

That starts to build a plausible case for obstruction of justice regardless of outcome of Russia investigation.
Enough with a GOP House? Probably not, but enough likely for public opinion and if R’s feel enough pressure from their voters, there’s a chance.

Maybe, but the one thing right-wingers on Twitter I saw were happy about today was that the special counsel will give Trump a chance to clear his name about all this Russia bullshit. If nothing turns up in the Russia investigation I can’t see any way the right will allow articles of impeachment. They would flip their shit…and frankly it’s hard to blame them. It’d be like Hillary being impeached for obstruction over the bullshit Benghazi stuff.

One can hold on to hope, I guess.

I mean if they aren’t going to impeach for a blatant felony that easily also falls under High Crimes (literally using the Office of President to do so) then we might as well grab our guns now because nothing will ever do it.

Completely failing to understand this logic.

A US President cannot be criminally indicated. Any checks on executive power is done solely by the House.

So if a President

  1. Asks for a loyalty oath from the Director of an independent investigative arm of DoJ
  2. Asks for an investigation the President doesn’t like to be dropped
  3. Fires the Director because he doesn’t get 1 and 2

and the House fails to act because the President happens to be from the same party, that can lead to an abuse of power where the President can quite literally do anything he wants. It has nothing directly to do with the “Russia bullshit” and is nothing at all like Benghazi. Up until now we’ve been lucky with having people with integrity (minus Nixon) as Presidents. 2017 and 45 has put an end to that. It doesn’t matter if Rightwing Twitter, Fox or Glenn Greenwald thinks it’s stupid or not. Without checks on executive power our system of government does not nor cannot work.

Well, it might not be to your liking, but there are numerous examples of democratic structures around the world crumbling that just keep going. It might not be “right”, but that doesn’t mean it MUST stop.

Whether or not there is actually any Russia collusion, Trump’s alienation from the Republican House will continue-- based not on perceived criminality but perceived incompetence. Blabbing at the Russia meeting and firing Comey are both spectacularly bone-headed moves that reinforce the most damaging narrative on Trump: he is just not up to the job. With Trump’s approval ratings abysmal and no constructive leadership on legislative priorities, House Republicans will be itching for a way to ease him out as far in advance of the midterms as can reasonably be managed.