Yep! This is why my first comment on this issue mentioned crossing the Rubicon. It ends badly.
More seriously - the US is and has never been - anything like Rome. That both are referred to as Republics does not make their systems of government similar on anything but the most superficial of levels.
As someone with an above-average interest in Classic history, it’s just painful to read such comparisons. But just for the record, prosecution and indictment of Roman consuls was quite common-place and normal. Every Roman magistrate was eligible to be sued and prosecuted for misuse of their office, once they stood down. Both Scipio Africanus and his brother were prosecuted. Cato the Censor was prosecuted 44 times in his career. On average (based on the evidence available), 25-30% of all Roman Senators faced prosecution during their career. The Republic survived for at least three centuries without this being a problem. Quite the contrary - the threat of prosecution was the essential - if imperfect - element in limiting the abuse of power by Roman magistrates.
Thank you for this!
I think that only worked because Caesar’s army was loyal to him and he was promising them land and money. But I didn’t study this I just watched some documentaries on Netflix.
Not a great day for Don Jr. Frankly there are probably very few good days for Don Jr, but he’s generally too stupid to realize that.
True, I don’t think our military will quite have the “forged in blood and iron” bond with Trump that Caesar’s legions had with him.
Very informative, thanks!
While not directly related to the Russian investigation itself, being the boyfriend of a Russian spy might not be all it’s cracked up to be.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/06/politics/paul-erickson-indicted-russia-maria-butina/index.html
The charges pertain to defrauding investors and are unrelated to the conspiracy that Butina pleaded guilty to in December. Butina pleaded guilty in federal court to attempting to infiltrate Republican political circles and influence US relations with Russia before and after the 2016 presidential election.
“The Indictment alleges that on or about 1996, through August of 2018, Erickson knowingly and unlawfully devised a scheme and artifice to defraud and to obtain money from many victims by means of false and fraudulent pretense, representations, and promises,” a news release by the office of US Attorney Ron Parsons reads.
Erickson is also the target of an investigation in Washington, although he has not yet faced any charges in that probe. His attorney in Washington, William Hurd, declined to comment.
While Erickson’s charges appear largely unrelated to the conspiracy Butina was engaged in, there are clues in the indictment that some of the financial transactions may be linked to her.
The money laundering portion of the indictment notes a $20,472.09 payment from one of Erickson’s accounts to American University in 2017, when Butina was attending graduate school there.
Another $9,000 in payments were directed to a recipient whose initials are listed as “M.B.” in the indictment.
Not worth a mention? LOL
“After two years and 200 interviews, the Senate Intelligence Committee is approaching the end of its investigationinto the 2016 election, having uncovered no direct evidence of a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, according to both Democrats and Republicans on the committee.”
Er, we already know that multiple members of the Trump campaign worked with the russians?
“If we write a report based upon the facts that we have, then we don’t have anything that would suggest there was collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia,” said Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, in an interview with CBS News last week.
Burr was careful to note that more facts may yet be uncovered, but he also made clear that the investigation was nearing an end.
Democratic Senate investigators who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity did not dispute Burr’s characterizations, but said they lacked context.
“We were never going to find a contract signed in blood saying, ‘Hey Vlad, we’re going to collude,’” one Democratic aide said.
Democratic Senate investigators say it may take them six or seven months to write their final report once they are done with witness interviews. They say they have uncovered facts yet to be made public, and that they hope to make Americans more fully aware of the extent to which the Russians manipulated the U.S. presidential election with the help of some Trump officials , witting or unwitting.
The report, Democrats say, will not be good for Trump.
I think perhaps he is mistaking a GOP led investigation not uncovering direct evidence, for there being a lack of evidence.
The GOP wasn’t really that interested in conducting a thorough investigation. They abandoned their constitutional responsibility.
Also, “Direct Evidence” is a narrow category. You don’t need a videotape or a contract signed by Trump and Putin to make some reasonable inferences.
We’ll see.
Also, we actually do have DIRECT evidence that Trump’s campaign manager, Paul Manafort, worked directly with Russians while he was Trump’s campaign manager, in 2016.
We have that evidence.
It’s just that it wasn’t uncovered by the GOP led Senate investigations. It was uncovered by Mueller. And presented in court. And now Manafort is going to jail forever.
The point of the investigation is not to “get Trump” but to determine to the best of our ability what happened and who was responsible.
I at least am not emotionally invested in the idea that Trump personally colluded with Russia. Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. Let the investigation play itself out and let justice be done though the heavens fall.
If Trump is exonerated, he doesn’t “win” and his supporters aren’t “vindicated” because it doesn’t change the fact that he is a terrible, incompetent, anti-democratic, anti-republican demagogue who appointed corrupt cronies and lobbyists to key positions, who denies the single greatest crisis of our time (climate change) in favor of blatant fearmongering (caravan, wall) and who, with a sane electorate, never would have gotten within spitting distance of the White House.
QFT, +1, etc et al.
LOL You still can’t understand anything can you? Working with Russians is not a crime, talking with Russians is not a crime. Contacting and working with Russians is one thing, colluding or conspiring to do something illegal with Russia that undermines the US is something completely different. All of these contacts have amounted to nothing. No evidence of collusion, concluded both Democrats and Republicans in the Senate, and to date not one of Mueller’s indictments had anything to do with collusion with Russia. The Dossier is a lie, a smear paid for and produced Hillary for president. Kompromat is a lie. Collusion is a lie. And that has been obvious to anyone with a functioning brain from day one. Keep dreaming of your sub-Alex Jones conspiracy theory, but you’ll have to start shifting the goalposts soon.
