The Official Trash Impeachment Thread

[boutons_deux]

Supreme Court Ruling in Bill Clinton Sexual Misconduct Case Could Spell Trouble for TrumpA 1997 Supreme Court decision that ultimately doomed the presidency of Bill Clinton could come back to haunt Donald Trump.

In Clinton v. Jones, (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_v._Jones) the high court ruled for the first time that a sitting president may be sued for actions taken before he or she took office. The court specified that these actions do not have to relate to the office of the presidency.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/supreme_court_bill_clinton_sexual_misconduct_case_ trouble_trump_20170118?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%253A+Truthdig+Truthdig%253A+Dril ling+Beneath+the+Headlines

[UZER]

He'll just refuse to leave like Clinton. The precedent has been sent.

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s Constitutional Problems Are Just Beginning

“When he said he was going to run the government like his own businesses, he meant it. And that means lining his own pockets at the expense of everyone else," said Vermont Law School professor Jennifer Taub in an interview with Rewire.

The U.S. Supreme Court has never considered the full scope of the Emoluments clause of the Constitution, the provision that forbids bribes and gifts to elected officials. Nor has it fully considered the “compensation clause,” which directs how the president and members of Congress are to get paid. But despite the fact that President Donald Trump has purportedly handed over control of his sprawling (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/27/donald-trump-conflicts-interest-constitutional-crisis) and sometimes obscured business dealings to his sons, unless he sells them off, the Court may have no choice (https://thinkprogress.org/trump-poised-to-violate-constitution-his-first-day-in-office-george-w-bushs-ethics-lawyer-says-73e14789a935#.9598b6vwa) but to take a new, hard look at the two anti-corruption clauses in the Constitution—assuming a case challenging Trump on corruption can get there to begin with.

The Emoluments Clause—found in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8 (https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/overview)—is commonly referred to as the “foreign gifts” clause.

That provision says “No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” Emoluments are fees, salaries, or any profit a person earns from either their jobs—including private sector employment and elected positions—or governmental appointments.

“The foreign gifts clause goes beyond forbidding bribes, to forbidding an exchange of any kind of gift whatsoever,” Vermont Law School professor Jennifer Taub explained in an interview with Rewire. “And that’s to prevent even the appearance of favoritism or a quid-pro-quo.”
In other words, the foreign gifts clause prohibits bribes to U.S. elected officials or governmental appointments from foreign leaders or governments, as well as anything that looks like a bribe.

https://rewire.news/article/2017/01/20/trumps-constitutional-problems-just-beginning/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rhrealitycheck+%28RH+Reality+ Check%29

[boutons_deux]

He'll just refuse to leave like Clinton. The precedent has been sent.

goddam, you're stupid

[UZER]

goddam, you're stupid

ouch :rolleyes

[Clipper Nation]

Just think: we've got eight years' worth of daily meltdowns like this from Boutards to look forward to. Hell, then eight more when Ivanka breaks the glass ceiling and becomes the first female POTUS.

[DarrinS]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvAitbViSrI

[baseline bum]

Holy fuck the butthurt

[ducks]

Clinton was already impeached!!

[Darth_Pelican]

https://scontent-dft4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/16142461_10212644462535238_1587692314490775726_n.j pg?oh=29a65a83e6f0f4191a3e19608b05c93d&oe=590B4D0E

[TheSanityAnnex]

boutons_deux is it possible to ramp up the butthurt a few notches or are you already pinned?

[Darth_Pelican]

https://scontent-dft4-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15181292_10155313975449881_5197239985793812704_n.j pg?oh=fe3833d94d6404c4fc09c4f31a251502&oe=590B2E44

[rmt]

Only in America could someone like Trump be president - still can't believe it - did you see him mouthing "My Way" - he is such a clown :-)

[mavsfan1000]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvAitbViSrI
:lol

[mavsfan1000]

The official butthurt thread.

[boutons_deux]

https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/15267508_10154776303746800_5835788116250937591_n.j pg?oh=d6348701e8d4a26b4c5a0e551533348f&oe=5908A0AE

[Blake]

A 1997 Supreme Court decision that ultimately doomed the presidency of Bill Clinton....

Clinton was doomed?

[baseline bum]

Only in America could someone like Trump be president - still can't believe it - did you see him mouthing "My Way" - he is such a clown :-)

No, they have a Trump in the Phillipines too.

[Thread]

Clinton was doomed?

He remains the only duly elected POTUS to ever be impeached.

[Chucho]

The official butthurt thread.

Shouldn't it be "The Boothurt Thread" ?

[ducks]

He remains the only duly elected POTUS to ever be impeached.

As far as I know only one demanded his intern to give him oral sex

[boutons_deux]

Trump is getting payments from foreign governments. We have no idea what they are.

I've studied the emoluments clause for years. Now I'm part of a lawsuit alleging that President Trump is violating it.

In the middle of the 17th century, King Charles II of England took a secret pension from the French King Louis XIV. He agreed to a closer relationship, including a treaty that wasn’t clearly in England’s best interest. The precise content of the secret agreement wasn’t revealed for more than 100 years.

Today, 350 years later, the president of the United States is receiving payments from foreign countries. The money comes to President Trump by way of his companies, although the details and scope of his profits are secret; he refused to disclose his tax returns. After the election, Trump had several months to move toward liquidation and putting his assets in a truly blind trust. He has chosen, instead, to keep his ownership interests in his businesses, turning over operating decisions to his children but remaining an owner. His decision threatens the integrity of American democracy and national security, and it should ring alarm bells for all citizens, regardless of political party.

Trump’s choice violates one of the most overlooked but important sections of the U.S. Constitution, the foreign emoluments clause, which was framed to avoid problems of split loyalty such as that posed by Charles II.

As a law professor, I began exploring the clause in 2009 while examining the framers’ near-obsession with protecting against corruption.

The clause represented a deliberate break from European traditions, where financial relationships between a countries’ representatives and other governments were common. And it epitomized “the particularly demanding notion of corruption” held by our framers.

I never expected the clause to be litigated:

Presidents and federal officials have gone out of their way to avoid violating it. Until now.

But Trump’s blatant violation of the clause is a violation of our fundamental document and our fundamental principles.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/01/26/trump-is-getting-payments-from-foreign-governments-we-have-no-idea-what-they-are/?utm_term=.9da6dfbf8bee

The Repugs will impeach and convict Trash sooner or later.

It will be fascinating to see how you gun fellators, militiamen, KKK, racists, bigots, xenophobes, "white working class" react when Trash goes down.

[Reck]

I like how boots doesn't give a shit of what you niggas think. :lol

[boutons_deux]

Maybe Trump isn’t ‘lying’

Schumer calls that a political problem. He gently offered (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/24/sen-chuck-schumer-worries-trump-facts/96982270/), “In general you cannot run a country unless you know the facts. If you’re going to believe your own facts, whether it’s about what Putin is doing in the world or what jobs or companies are doing here, you aren’t going to be able to govern, so I worry about it.” The shorter version: If he cannot accept reality, he is not fit to carry out the duties of the president.

We are not calling — yet — for invocation of Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.

We are calling for someone, perhaps his children, to see if they can prevail upon him to stop behaving in this way, for if not, legitimate worries will mount about whether he is able to carry out his duties.

We also are saying that Republicans need to be pressed to state their view:

Is he lying or is he unable to separate what he wants to believe and what exists, literally, in front of his eyes?

The first makes him morally unfit, and was the basis upon which many #NeverTrumpers refused to vote for him. If the latter, they — and we all — have a constitutional crisis the likes of which we have never seen. With Trump, however, we have learned the past provides no guarantees.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/01/25/maybe-trump-isnt-lying/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-e%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.8b5820033385#comments

Trash won't make it to 2020

More "data" on Trash's mental illness is that he's swearing he will provide more coverage and cheaper than ACA.

It's simply not possible.

He's deluded and/or lying.

[DMC]

I like how boots doesn't give a shit of what you niggas think. :lol

I'll just bet you do.

[Splits]

474134260149157888

[Blake]

He remains the only duly elected POTUS to ever be impeached.

And it ended up being water on a duck's back

[Blake]

Was it a dilemma to choose between calling him Trash or Dump?

[FuzzyLumpkins]

He'll just refuse to leave like Clinton. The precedent has been sent.

Impeachment only brings trial. It is not an indication of guilt. Clinton is hardly the first to be impeached either. The first was 150 years ago.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

He remains the only duly elected POTUS to ever be impeached.

Andrew Johnson was impeached and acquitted by the Senate 150 years ago. He was 'duly elected.'

[Thread]

And it ended up being water on a duck's back

True, but, Bill Clinton was IMPEACHED and the bonus? He was disbarred.

ha, ha.

[Thread]

Andrew Johnson was impeached and acquitted by the Senate 150 years ago. He was 'duly elected.'

No, he ascended thru assassination. Bill Clinton remains the only duly elected POTUS to be impeached.

[Blake]

No, he ascended thru assassination. Bill Clinton remains the only duly elected POTUS to be impeached.

Fun with Semantics

[Thread]

Fun with Semantics

It's the truth. And will win you a bet or two, by God.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

It's the truth. And will win you a bet or two, by God.

What difference does it make? He was still POTUS, impeached, and did not resign. If anything he would have less legitimacy. Your's is a distinction without meaning.

[Thread]

What difference does it make? He was still POTUS, impeached, and did not resign. If anything he would have less legitimacy. Your's is a distinction without meaning.

But, he was not duly elected. Ipso facto:::Bill Clinton is the lone duly elected POTUS to be impeached.

[boutons_deux]

Nancy Pelosi cools Trump impeachment fever: “When and if he breaks the law, that is when something like that will come up”

Waters clarified her comments without backing down. “I have not called for the impeachment yet,” Waters said. “He’s doing it himself.”

She further explained: “Let me just say the statement I made was a statement in response to questions and pleas that I am getting from many citizens across this country. What are we going to do?”:

How can a president, who is acting in the manner that he’s acting, whether he’s talking about the travel ban, the way that he’s talking to Muslims, or whether he’s talking about his relationship to Putin, and the Kremlin — and knowing that they have hacked our DCC, DNC, and knowing that he is responsible for supplying the bombs that killed innocent children and families in, um – in, um– yeah, in Aleppo.
[…]
And the fact that he is wrapping his arms around Putin while Putin is continuing to advance into Crimea — I think that he is leading himself into that kind of position where folks will begin to ask, what are we going to do? And the answer is going to be, eventually, we’ve got to do something about him. We cannot continue to have a president who’s acting in this manner. It’s dangerous to the United States of America.

( but nothing about financial corruption, international and domestic emoluments violations? :lol )


Pelosi made clear Monday that, despite the newly elected president’s “reckless” and seemingly unpopular actions (http://www.salon.com/2017/02/06/donald-trump-denounces-negative-polls-coverage-as-fake-news/) his first weeks in office, they are “not grounds for impeachment.”



“I’m not here to talk about impeachment today,” she told the gathered reporters shortly after Waters made her comments.

“Any of the things that the congresswoman said are grounds for displeasure and unease in the public about the performance of this president, who has acted in a way that is strategically incoherent, that is incompetent, that is reckless.” But, Pelosi added, “that is not grounds for impeachment.” :lol




Pelosi continued, “When and if he breaks the law, that is when something like that would come up.”

she indicated Democrats won’t seek to blindly obstruct the Trump administration in the way Republicans did to former President Barack Obama.

http://www.salon.com/2017/02/06/nancy-pelosi-cools-trump-impeachment-fever-when-and-if-he-breaks-the-law-that-is-when-something-like-that-will-come-up/

[boutons_deux]

Pelosi Calls On FBI To Investigate Trump's Ties To Russia

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) called on Sunday for an investigation into President Donald Trump's personal and business ties to Russia.

"I want to know what the Russians have on Donald Trump," Pelosi said in an interview (http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/full-pelosi-interview-trump-white-house-using-diversionary-tactics-870511683900) on NBC News' "Meet The Press."

"We have to have that investigation by the FBI into his financial, personal and political connections to Russia, and we want to see his tax returns so we can have truth in the relationship between Putin, whom he admires, and Trump," she said.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/nancy-pelosi-calls-for-investigation-into-trump-ties-to-russia?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+tpm-news+%28TPMNews%29

[Thread]

Nancy Pelosi cools Trump impeachment fever: “When and if he breaks the law, that is when something like that will come up”

Waters clarified her comments without backing down. “I have not called for the impeachment yet,” Waters said. “He’s doing it himself.”

She further explained: “Let me just say the statement I made was a statement in response to questions and pleas that I am getting from many citizens across this country. What are we going to do?”:

How can a president, who is acting in the manner that he’s acting, whether he’s talking about the travel ban, the way that he’s talking to Muslims, or whether he’s talking about his relationship to Putin, and the Kremlin — and knowing that they have hacked our DCC, DNC, and knowing that he is responsible for supplying the bombs that killed innocent children and families in, um – in, um– yeah, in Aleppo.
[…]
And the fact that he is wrapping his arms around Putin while Putin is continuing to advance into Crimea — I think that he is leading himself into that kind of position where folks will begin to ask, what are we going to do? And the answer is going to be, eventually, we’ve got to do something about him. We cannot continue to have a president who’s acting in this manner. It’s dangerous to the United States of America.

( but nothing about financial corruption, international and domestic emoluments violations? :lol )


Pelosi made clear Monday that, despite the newly elected president’s “reckless” and seemingly unpopular actions (http://www.salon.com/2017/02/06/donald-trump-denounces-negative-polls-coverage-as-fake-news/) his first weeks in office, they are “not grounds for impeachment.”


“I’m not here to talk about impeachment today,” she told the gathered reporters shortly after Waters made her comments.

“Any of the things that the congresswoman said are grounds for displeasure and unease in the public about the performance of this president, who has acted in a way that is strategically incoherent, that is incompetent, that is reckless.” But, Pelosi added, “that is not grounds for impeachment.” :lol



Pelosi continued, “When and if he breaks the law, that is when something like that would come up.”

she indicated Democrats won’t seek to blindly obstruct the Trump administration in the way Republicans did to former President Barack Obama.

http://www.salon.com/2017/02/06/nancy-pelosi-cools-trump-impeachment-fever-when-and-if-he-breaks-the-law-that-is-when-something-like-that-will-come-up/


Unless & Until then Bill Clinton remains the lone duly elected U.S. President to ever have his ass IMPEACHED.

Bill Clinton

[boutons_deux]

This Senator Is Hell-Bent on Getting Out the Truth About Trump and Russia

Wyden is in a special position: He can guarantee for the public whether or not an ongoing and (for now) behind-closed-doors investigation examining Vladimir Putin's operation to subvert the 2016 elections—and any possible ties between Donald Trump's circle and Russia—is conducted thoroughly and legitimately.

Enter Wyden.

For the public, at this point, there is no way to tell if the intelligence committee is doing a good job investigating these dicey issues.

Republicans on the committee certainly have an interest in not embarrassing, inconveniencing, or delegitimizing Trump.

So it's up to Wyden and the other Democrats on the committee to monitor the probe and inform the citizenry if it ends up being a whitewash.

And Wyden has already indicated that there is information on Trump-Russia ties within the US government that ought to be declassified, that he will push to keep the committee's inquiry on track, and that he will press to make as much of its findings as public as possible.

In early January, during a rare public hearing of the Senate intelligence committee, which focused on the intelligence community's recently released report (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/read-us-intelligence-report-russian-hacking-2016-campaign) concluding Putin's regime had mounted the hacking to help Trump, Wyden pressed (http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/fbi-information-investigation-trump-russia-wyden) FBI Director James Comey on whether he would declassify information the bureau had obtained related to possible Trump-Russia connections and "release it to the American people" before Trump was inaugurated.

No, Comey said, adding, "I can't talk about it." :lol but he talked TWICE about Hillary's emails. fucking Repug tool

Wyden noted he was worried that if such information was not unveiled by then, it might never be—meaning, the incoming Trump administration would lock it up.

And with this questioning, Wyden signaled that the FBI did indeed possess information on this subject.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/02/ron-wyden-intelligence-committee-russia-trump-investigation

[Blake]

It's the truth. And will win you a bet or two, by God.

Fun in bars at 2am

[Thread]

Unless & Until then Bill Clinton remains the lone duly elected U.S. President to ever have his ass IMPEACHED.

Bill Clinton

[CosmicCowboy]

Uhhh that's incorrect. Andrew Johnson says hi.

[Thread]

Uhhh that's incorrect. Andrew Johnson says hi.

No, CC, Johnson was not duly elected. He ascended thru assassination.

[Blake]

No, CC, Johnson was not duly elected. He ascended thru assassination.

You should have bet him first

[Thread]

You should have bet him first

I never take money from my fellows.

It's my religion.

[CosmicCowboy]

Lol I would have double checked the duly elected clause before putting any money on it...:lol

[CosmicCowboy]

But unlike Reck, if I had bet I would have paid up.

[Thread]

Lol I would have double checked the duly elected clause before putting any money on it...:lol

It's a small point, but, a valid one.

[boutons_deux]

‘He will die in jail’

On Wednesday, former NSA intelligence analyst John Schindler provided some insight into the reaction of national security officials.

“Now we go nuclear,” he wrote on Twitter (https://twitter.com/20committee/status/831872441597194241). “[Intelligence community] war going to new levels. Just got an [email from] senior [intelligence community] friend, it began: ‘He will die in jail.'”

“US intelligence is not the problem here,” Schindler added in another tweet (https://twitter.com/20committee/status/831871040762630146). “The President’s collusion with Russian intelligence is. Many details, but the essence is simple.”

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/he-will-die-in-jail-intelligence-community-ready-to-go-nuclear-on-trump-senior-source-says/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story% 29

[boutons_deux]

It’s bigger than Flynn. New Russia revelations widen Trump’s credibility gap.



THE BIG IDEA: The credibility gap – maybe chasm is a better word at this point – keeps widening for Donald Trump and his White House.

Two days after Trump’s victory, Russia’s deputy foreign minister told a reporter in Moscow that “there were contacts” between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. “Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage,” he said. That prompted a vigorous denial from Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, who insisted there had been “no contact with Russian officials.”



On Jan. 11, an NBC (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-hold-first-press-conference-president-elect-n705676) reporter asked Trump whether members of his staff were in contact with Russian officials during the campaign. “No,” he replied.
On Jan. 15, Mike Pence was asked basically the same question on two Sunday shows. “Of course not,” he replied on Fox and CBS (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-campaign-russia_us_58a3ca36e4b03df370dba994).
Yesterday afternoon, Sean Spicer stood by Trump’s earlier denials during the daily briefing when questioned by ABC (https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/831583725418733569).


From the lead story in today's New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html): “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election,

according to four current and former American officials. American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee … The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the government outside of the intelligence services, they said…

“The call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the F.B.I. is sifting through as it investigates the links between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russian government, as well as the hacking of the D.N.C. …

As part of its inquiry, the F.B.I. has obtained banking and travel records and conducted interviews…The Times story notes that these intercepted calls are different from the wiretapped conversations last year between Michael Flynn, who resigned as former national security adviser the night before last, and Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States: “

The National Security Agency, which monitors the communications of foreign intelligence services, initially captured the calls between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russians as part of routine foreign surveillance. After that, the F.B.I. asked the N.S.A. to collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls, and to search through troves of previous intercepted communications that had not been analyzed. …

The F.B.I. has closely examined at least three other people close to Mr. Trump, although it is unclear if their calls were intercepted.

They are Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign;

Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative;

and Mr. Flynn.”

“High-level advisers close to … Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence, (according to) multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials




“Adding to US investigators' concerns were intercepted communications between Russian officials before and after the election discussing their belief that they had special access to Trump, two law enforcement officials tell CNN.”
“One concern was whether Trump associates were coordinating with Russian intelligence operatives over the release of damaging information about the Hillary Clinton campaign. ‘If that were the case, then that would escalate things,’ one official briefed on the investigation said.”


Flynn’s departure has lent new gravity and intensity to long-simmering questions about Trump and Russia. “There was already a cloud hanging over the administration when it comes to Russia, and this darkens the cloud,” said Eliot Cohen, who served as an adviser to the George W. Bush administration and has been a vocal Trump critic. “This is serious.”

WIDENING THE APERTURE FURTHER – MOSCOW IS TESTING US:
-- Russia’s escalation in Ukraine after Putin’s call with Trump is part of a broader effort to gauge how much Russia can get away with now that they have allies in the White House.

-- In the Black Sea last week, multiple Russian aircraft buzzed a U.S. destroyer on patrol in an incident that the captain of the American ship called “unsafe.”

-- Even more alarming: Russia is secretly deploying a new cruise missile in violation of a treaty with the United States, watching to see if the White House pushes back.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/02/15/daily-202-it-s-bigger-than-flynn-new-russia-revelations-widen-trump-s-credibility-gap/58a3c5b9e9b69b1406c75cb4/?utm_term=.3d28f764332d&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1

[Thread]

It’s bigger than Flynn. New Russia revelations widen Trump’s credibility gap.



THE BIG IDEA: The credibility gap – maybe chasm is a better word at this point – keeps widening for Donald Trump and his White House.

Two days after Trump’s victory, Russia’s deputy foreign minister told a reporter in Moscow that “there were contacts” between Russian officials and the Trump campaign. “Obviously, we know most of the people from his entourage,” he said. That prompted a vigorous denial from Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks, who insisted there had been “no contact with Russian officials.”



On Jan. 11, an NBC (http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-hold-first-press-conference-president-elect-n705676) reporter asked Trump whether members of his staff were in contact with Russian officials during the campaign. “No,” he replied.
On Jan. 15, Mike Pence was asked basically the same question on two Sunday shows. “Of course not,” he replied on Fox and CBS (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-campaign-russia_us_58a3ca36e4b03df370dba994).
Yesterday afternoon, Sean Spicer stood by Trump’s earlier denials during the daily briefing when questioned by ABC (https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/831583725418733569).


From the lead story in today's New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-intelligence-communications-trump.html): “Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election,

according to four current and former American officials. American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee … The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the government outside of the intelligence services, they said…

“The call logs and intercepted communications are part of a larger trove of information that the F.B.I. is sifting through as it investigates the links between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russian government, as well as the hacking of the D.N.C. …

As part of its inquiry, the F.B.I. has obtained banking and travel records and conducted interviews…The Times story notes that these intercepted calls are different from the wiretapped conversations last year between Michael Flynn, who resigned as former national security adviser the night before last, and Sergey Kislyak, Russia’s ambassador to the United States: “

The National Security Agency, which monitors the communications of foreign intelligence services, initially captured the calls between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russians as part of routine foreign surveillance. After that, the F.B.I. asked the N.S.A. to collect as much information as possible about the Russian operatives on the phone calls, and to search through troves of previous intercepted communications that had not been analyzed. …

The F.B.I. has closely examined at least three other people close to Mr. Trump, although it is unclear if their calls were intercepted.

They are Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign;

Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative;

and Mr. Flynn.”

“High-level advisers close to … Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence, (according to) multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials




“Adding to US investigators' concerns were intercepted communications between Russian officials before and after the election discussing their belief that they had special access to Trump, two law enforcement officials tell CNN.”
“One concern was whether Trump associates were coordinating with Russian intelligence operatives over the release of damaging information about the Hillary Clinton campaign. ‘If that were the case, then that would escalate things,’ one official briefed on the investigation said.”


Flynn’s departure has lent new gravity and intensity to long-simmering questions about Trump and Russia. “There was already a cloud hanging over the administration when it comes to Russia, and this darkens the cloud,” said Eliot Cohen, who served as an adviser to the George W. Bush administration and has been a vocal Trump critic. “This is serious.”

WIDENING THE APERTURE FURTHER – MOSCOW IS TESTING US:
-- Russia’s escalation in Ukraine after Putin’s call with Trump is part of a broader effort to gauge how much Russia can get away with now that they have allies in the White House.

-- In the Black Sea last week, multiple Russian aircraft buzzed a U.S. destroyer on patrol in an incident that the captain of the American ship called “unsafe.”

-- Even more alarming: Russia is secretly deploying a new cruise missile in violation of a treaty with the United States, watching to see if the White House pushes back.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2017/02/15/daily-202-it-s-bigger-than-flynn-new-russia-revelations-widen-trump-s-credibility-gap/58a3c5b9e9b69b1406c75cb4/?utm_term=.3d28f764332d&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1

FAKE NEWS

[boutons_deux]

The House GOP won’t investigate Trump due to “executive privilege.” That’s nonsense.

Rep. Devin Nunes, the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, said his committee wouldn’t be looking into conversations between President Trump and Flynn. Those conversations, Nunes said, would be covered by executive privilege, the president’s right to keep conversations with his advisers secret from Congress and the courts.

Experts disputed whether that’s true, given that Trump wasn’t in office when Flynn’s conversation with the Russian ambassador occurred. More broadly, though, the reaction from the House GOP is unusual. Members of Congress also don’t usually shrug and say, essentially, “Executive privilege — what can you do?” when faced with a potential investigation.

Usually, Congress goes ahead and asks for more information. It’s up to the White House to decide whether to claim executive privilege rather than respond.

Executive privilege is for presidents, not Congress

Executive privilege is an excuse for presidents not to answer questions. It’s never been an excuse for Congress not to ask them.

“Congress investigates,” says Mark Rozell, dean of the school of policy and government at George Mason University and the author of a book on executive privilege. He explained via email:

“The White House then decides whether to make a privilege claim. Having Congress take the lead is completely backwards.”

http://www.vox.com/2017/2/15/14616094/trump-flynn-executive-privilege

[boutons_deux]

http://images.dailykos.com/images/366252/story_image/IMG_0177.JPG?1487107004

[clambake]

http://images.dailykos.com/images/366252/story_image/IMG_0177.JPG?1487107004

hmmmm, boo call that phone number

[Thread]

I hope that Chaffetz is fellow is holding his breath.

[boutons_deux]

Trump’s Republican Support Is Cracking As Momentum Grows For Independent Investigation

The wall of Congressional Republicans supporting Trump has begun to crack as calls are growing for an independent investigation into the President's relationship with Russia.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) supported Mike Flynn testifying before Congress during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

The really bad news for Trump came from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who said that proof any contact between the Trump campaign and Russia would justify a full independent investigation into all matters related to Russia and Trump:

The wheels are being set into motion for a full-scale, independent investigation into Donald Trump. The keywords that Sen. Graham used were “all things related to Russia.”

The investigation wouldn’t be centered on Flynn’s activities, but the activities and communications of the entire Trump campaign with Russia.

The Russia scandal has the potential to take out Trump, Pence, the upper White House staff, and Republican Congressional leader Speaker of the House Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell.

It is a scandal that could be bigger than Watergate in size and scope because it involves a presidential campaign potentially colluding with a foreign power that is hostile to the United States to win an election.

If an independent investigation is launched, it will mean years of scandal, that will wreck the Trump presidency.

(http://www.politicususa.com/2017/02/15/trumps-republican-support-congress-cracking-momentum-grows-independent-investigation.html?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=im)http://www.politicususa.com/2017/02/15/trumps-republican-support-congress-cracking-momentum-grows-independent-investigation.html?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=im

Trash won't be able to bullshit his way to safety, like he bullshitted LIES throughout and since the campaign.

[Thread]

Trump’s Republican Support Is Cracking As Momentum Grows For Independent Investigation

The wall of Congressional Republicans supporting Trump has begun to crack as calls are growing for an independent investigation into the President's relationship with Russia.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) supported Mike Flynn testifying before Congress during an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

The really bad news for Trump came from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who said that proof any contact between the Trump campaign and Russia would justify a full independent investigation into all matters related to Russia and Trump:

The wheels are being set into motion for a full-scale, independent investigation into Donald Trump. The keywords that Sen. Graham used were “all things related to Russia.” The investigation wouldn’t be centered on Flynn’s activities, but the activities and communications of the entire Trump campaign with Russia.The Russia scandal has the potential to take out Trump, Pence, the upper White House staff, and Republican Congressional leader Speaker of the House Ryan and Majority Leader McConnell. It is a scandal that could be bigger than Watergate in size and scope because it involves a presidential campaign potentially colluding with a foreign power that is hostile to the United States to win an election.If an independent investigation is launched, it will mean years of scandal, that will wreck the Trump presidency.
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/02/15/trumps-republican-support-congress-cracking-momentum-grows-independent-investigation.html?utm_source=fark&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=im

I'm all for it. There is the truth, and then everything else.

[clambake]

lindsey lol

[hater]

Bill Clinton was impeached not Trump

[Thread]

Bill Clinton was impeached not Trump

[hater]

lindsey lol

If Anyone had listened to Lyndsey last few years wed be living in underground caves with a radioactive wasteland above us :lol hes a cartoon character

[mavsfan1000]

:lol Boutons picking the most dishonest articles.

[Th'Pusher]

It's a small point, but, a valid one.

Not really. Nixon was never impeached but left office disgraced. Bill Clinton was impeached but maintained an approval rating of >50% for the last 5 years of his presidency and left office at 65%.

[Thread]

Not really. Nixon was never impeached but left office disgraced. Bill Clinton was impeached but maintained an approval rating of >50% for the last 5 years of his presidency and left office at 65%.

That's opinion. The unflyblown truth is that Clinton is the lone duly elected U.S. President to be impeached.

[boutons_deux]

The Impeachment of Hillary Clinton

ROBERT KUTTNER (http://prospect.org/authors/robert-kuttner)

Republicans would never have reversed their views on Russia for Hillary Clinton.

FEBRUARY 20 — House Judiciary Chair Bob Goodlatte announced today that the impeachment proceeding against President Hillary Clinton would proceed directly to a vote of the full House.

“We know everything we need to know,” said Goodlatte. “This woman belongs in prison, or worse, for the high crime of treason.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan added, “We knew Hillary Clinton was incompetent and we knew she was corrupt.

But trading favors with Vladimir Putin to throw the election, and to enrich the Clinton business interests, is a new low, even for the Clintons.”

“I don’t want to prejudge this, since the Senate still needs to vote to convict,” added Senate leader Mitch McConnell,” but her behavior makes Benedict Arnold look like a patriot.”

“We now know,” said Goodlatte, citing the bill of impeachment, that the Clinton campaign did the following:

Several senior aides in the campaign were in regular contact with Russian intelligence.

They signaled the Russian leadership that a Clinton administration would give the Russians a freer hand to pursue expansionary objectives.

In return, the Russians hacked into the Trump campaign’s confidential internal communications.

All this while the Clintons had extensive business interests in Russia.

Even now, an unrepentant Clinton has doubled down on her disgusting habit of selling out the security of the United States for the business interests of her family.

China. After feigning a tougher policy on Chinese, Clinton abruptly backed down and confirmed America’s One China policy—and the Chinese government suddenly violated its own laws (https://thinkprogress.org/china-trump-trademark-e3abd18f58f2#.yvl14mmwd) to resolve a long-blocked trademark dispute in the Clintons’ favor.

McConnell added, “Pathetically, the Democrats have focused on the leaks, by patriotic members of the intelligence community.

They liked the leaks just fine when they were coming from Putin.

During the campaign, candidate Clinton even urged Putin to provide more leaks of confidential Republic campaign conversations.”

”This is far worse than Watergate,” said Ryan, “Because it involved meddling by America’s most treacherous global rival; and because unlike in 1972, it actually altered the election results.

I can’t believe that only a handful of Democrats are concerned about this.”

==================

OK, the shoe is on the other foot.

Most Republicans have reversed their longstanding view of the Russian threat rather than embarrass Donald Trump. It’s breathtaking.

They’re OK with having Putin be the dominant world leader as long as Republicans get their tax cuts, deregulation, Supreme Court, and dismantling of government.

With a handful of exceptions, the

Republicans already concluded that selling out America in exchange for partisan goals is an acceptable deal. Hypocrisy is rampant in politics, but this takes it to an unimagined extreme.

A curious question for this Republic is whether it’s better or worse that our would-be dictator is so thoroughly incompetent and disorganized.

You might say that a more competent demagogue would do even more damage.

By now, he would have a fully staffed administration in place. There would be less chaos, less infighting, and a more consistent game plan.

At the same time, Trump’s very weirdness makes him that much more dangerous.

Trump’s approval ratings keep dropping, but it’s a long way to 2018.

The question is which pays the price first—the Republicans or the Republic.

http://prospect.org/article/impeachment-hillary-clinton

[boutons_deux]

Nunes says no evidence about Trash and Pootin

but he refuses to investigate! :lol

[boutons_deux]

Trump must be impeached. Here’s why.

The time has come for Congress to launch an impeachment investigation of President Trump for obstruction of justice.

The remedy of impeachment was designed to create a last-resort mechanism for preserving our constitutional system. It operates by removing executive-branch officials who have so abused power through what the framers called (https://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A2Sec4.html) “high crimes and misdemeanors” that they cannot be trusted to continue in office.

Now the country is faced with a president whose conduct strongly suggests that he poses a danger to our system of government.
Ample reasons existed to worry about this president, and to ponder the extraordinary remedy of impeachment, even before he fired (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/comey-misstated-key-clinton-email-evidence-at-hearing-say-people-close-to-investigation/2017/05/09/074c1c7e-34bd-11e7-b373-418f6849a004_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_comey-1030a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&tid=a_inl&utm_term=.926cb5abc7d9) FBI Director James B. Comey and shockingly admitted on national television that the action was provoked by the FBI’s intensifying investigation into his campaign’s ties with Russia.

impeachable offenses could theoretically have been charged from the outset of this presidency. One important example is Trump’s brazen defiance of the foreign emoluments clause, which is designed to prevent foreign powers from pressuring U.S. officials to stray from undivided loyalty to the United States. Political reality made impeachment and removal on that and other grounds seem premature.

No longer. To wait for the results of the multiple investigations underway is to risk tying our nation’s fate to the whims of an authoritarian leader.

Consider, too, how Trump embroiled Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, despite Sessions’s recusal from involvement in the Russia investigation, in preparing admittedly phony justifications for the firing on which Trump had already decided.

Consider how Trump used the vice president and White House staff to propagate a set of blatant untruths — before giving an interview to NBC’s Lester Holt (http://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/video/pres-trump-s-extended-exclusive-interview-with-lester-holt-at-the-white-house-941854787582) that exposed his true motivation.

Trump insisting that Comey pledge “loyalty” to him in order to retain his job. Publicly saying he saw nothing wrong with demanding such loyalty, the president turned to Twitter (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/863007411132649473) with a none-too-subtle threat that Comey would regret any decision to disseminate his version of his conversations with Trump — something that Comey has every right, and indeed a civic duty, to do.

To say that this does not in itself rise to the level of “obstruction of justice” is to empty that concept of all meaning.

the crucial thing is that the prospect now be taken seriously,

that the machinery of removal be reactivated, and

that the need to use it become the focus of political discourse going into 2018.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-must-be-impeached-heres-why/2017/05/13/82ce2ea4-374d-11e7-b4ee-434b6d506b37_story.html?utm_term=.ff3dbdde4967&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1

35% of fucked up, ignorant, stupid American still support Trash, and 80%+ of Repugs do.

America (of the 99%, or 95%) and its myth of democracy are fucked and unfuckable, in permanent, irreversible decline

[Reck]

Boutons made it ya'll.

https://media.giphy.com/media/5mBE2MiMVFITS/giphy.gif

[baseline bum]

So when are congressional republicans going to start thinking they're a lot better off with Pence than with Putin's cock holster?

[boutons_deux]

So when are congressional republicans going to start thinking they're a lot better off with Pence than with Putin's cock holster?

not until after 2018 mid terms. Until then, Trash will sign everything, destroy all that the Repugs want destroyed with EOs.

Trash, like dubya and St Ronnie, is a Useful Idiot, but distracting.

[baseline bum]

not until after 2018 mid terms. Until then, Trash will sign everything, destroy all that the Repugs want destroyed with EOs.

Trash, like dubya and St Ronnie, is a Useful Idiot, but distracting.

Pence will sign everything too, and would be a lot more effective at getting their agenda through.

[boutons_deux]

Pence will sign everything too, and would be a lot more effective at getting their agenda through.

their agenda is pure destruction and tax cuts for the oligarchy. Trash is not impeding their agenda.

[RandomGuy]

That's opinion. The unflyblown truth is that Clinton is the lone duly elected U.S. President to be impeached.

Eyup.

[boutons_deux]

Pence will sign everything too, and would be a lot more effective at getting their agenda through.

Trump doesn’t embody what’s wrong with Washington. Pence does.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-doesnt-embody-whats-wrong-with-washington-pence-does/2017/05/15/1183895c-3995-11e7-a058-ddbb23c75d82_story.html?utm_term=.26be2202febf&wpisrc=nl_most-draw7&wpmm=1

[boutons_deux]

https://images.dailykos.com/images/400392/story_image/TMW2017-05-17color.png?1494688744

[RandomGuy]

The accumulative damage that Mr Trump is doing to America’s governing norms, it appears, has a counterpart in the damage he is doing, day by day, to his standing within the government and on the Hill, including among senior Republicans. The president never had many sincere supporters among elected Republicans. They backed him in fear of a vindictive tweet and the hope that he would sign conservative bills into law. But with the president’s approval rating plummeting and a diminishing prospect of the sorts of health-care and tax reforms they once dreamed of, both fear and hope are giving way to exasperation and contempt.

Before this latest scandal, the president was looking forward to putting his troubles behind him on his first overseas trip; he is due to visit Saudi Arabia and Israel later this week, before attending meetings of NATO and the G7 in Belgium and Italy. But the Post’s allegations, if not disproved, seem likely to travel with him.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/05/oops

If there is anything that comes out of any investigation for impeachment, Trump has lost a lot of would-be allies.

[boutons_deux]

I wonder if Trash will bitch and whine about unfair media, or as the Muslims say"It Is Written", in the Saudi speech on Mohammedism.

[Blake]

Fuck.

[RandomGuy]

Article 1: Compromising the integrity of the presidency through continuing violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.

[boutons_deux]

There were honorable, serious, good-faith citizens serving under Nixon.

40 years later of the VRWC fucking America, we have Federal and many slave/red state govts peopled with political whore hacks who love fucking America.

It took heroes inside the administration to bring down Nixon. We should be so lucky in 2017

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-koncewicz-the-little-known-heroes-who-stood-up-to-nixon-20170517-story.html#testnws=politicsnow&track=_newsletter_politics-now___________20170518

Bitch McConnell, Ryan, and all the other Repug Congress assholes, esp the Repug Senate, can still keep Trash as President, House-impeached (not probable) but not Senate-convicted (equally not probable).

[RandomGuy]

Article 2: Violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully execute the duties of his office by disregarding U.S. interests and pursuing the interests of a hostile foreign power, to wit, Russia.

[RandomGuy]

Article 3: Impairment and obstruction of inquiries by the Justice Department and Congress into the extent of the Trump administration’s conflicts of interests and Russia ties.

[RandomGuy]

Article 4: Undermining of the American judicial system through felonious intimidation of potential witnesses.

[RandomGuy]

Article 5: Undermining of his office and the Constitution through repeated assaults on the integrity of the federal judiciary and its officers.

[RandomGuy]

Article 6: Demeaning the integrity of government and its public servants, particularly the military and intelligence agencies, in contravention of his constitutional duties to serve as chief executive and commander in chief of the armed forces.

[RandomGuy]

Article 7: Dereliction of his constitutional duty to faithfully execute the office of president by failing to timely appoint officers of the United States to administer the nation’s federal agencies.

[RandomGuy]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2017/05/here_is_a_draft_of_articles_of_impeachment_for_don ald_j_trump.html

First draft.

Some of it weak, some of it, not so much.

[boutons_deux]

Republican Strategist Tells White House Staffers To Dump Trump And Save Themselves

Republican political strategist Rick Wilson, who knows a thing or two about D.C., has some rather terrifying advice for White House staffers. It's time to save yourselves.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/05/18/gop-political-strategist-rick-wilson-tells-trump-wh-staffers-time-save.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

[boutons_deux]

Here’s What Potential Trump Articles of Impeachment Might Look Like (Spoiler Alert: Think Nixon)

The first rule in legal writing is “never reinvent the wheel.”

So, while there are a great many things about the presidency of Donald Trumpthat are truly unprecedented, his impeachment, should it happen, wouldn’t be nearly as fresh and unique.

The House of Representatives has already drafted Articles of Impeachment against a President who

grossly misused his authority,

received illegal emoluments, and

obstructed justice on a grand scale;

those Articles never lived out their full potential though, because President Richard Nixon resigned before standing trial before the Senate.

In an impeachment of President Trump, Congress could do the most efficient thing – and just redline the Articles of Impeachment (some that were adopted and others that were rejected) from 1974.

With a little find-and-replace, and a few Trump-specific additions, the House will be good to go if they want to impeach.

Click here (http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/1025/articlesNixon.pdf) for the full Articles of Impeachment brought against Richard M. Nixon, and check out these choice excerpts, which I’ve taken the liberty of editing appropriately:

http://lawnewz.com/opinion/heres-what-potential-trump-articles-of-impeachment-could-look-like/

[boutons_deux]

The Israeli Spy That Trump Burned Was The Single 'Most Valuable Source' On ISIS Plots (http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-israeli-spy-that-trump-burned-was-the-single-most-v-1795330150)
http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-israeli-spy-that-trump-burned-was-the-single-most-v-1795330150?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmodo%2Ffull+%28Gizmodo%29

emails! :lol TSA! :lol

Benghazi! :lol

[RandomGuy]

If Trump is brought down because he sought to obstruct justice, no one should be surprised. He came to the Presidency with no experience except in the art of fraud and deceit.
As David Remnick notes, Trump as businessman was a disreputable con. He routinely stiffed contractors and workers. He screwed creditors. He violated casino regulations. He bragged of charitable contributions that he never made. He promoted scams such as Trump University.
In the 1990s, as his bankruptcies mounted, he lost the ability to obtain credit from the largest and most reputable American banks. In foreign deals, he ignored his legal obligations to carry out due diligence and did deals with flagrantly corrupt business partners. In Azerbaijan, he was party to a deal whose only real enterprise might have been the laundering of money.
Over the years, Trump has been the focus of investigations on housing discrimination, bribery, corruption, dealings with the mob, misleading earnings reports, fraud, and improper campaign contributions, and sexual predation. He has fought back with money to buy platoons of lawyers, but not with intelligence.
Connect the dots and extend them to today and you see how only four months into his presidency, his deceptiveness is leading him into a deepening hole.

[DMX7]

Bill Clinton was impeached not Trump

And it resulted in nothing.... the vote failed... Trump's on the other hand....

[DarrinS]

:lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8fts_oeRQ

[boutons_deux]

What Donald Trump Needs to Know About Bob Mueller and Jim Comey

The two men who could bring down the president have been preparing their entire lives for this moment.

Donald Trump, as it turns out, has stumbled into taking on two experienced Washington players on their home turf—in skirmishes that will play out in public Capitol Hill hearings with Comey even as Mueller slogs along with what is likely to be a quiet, tenacious and by-the-book investigation into the heart of the Trump campaign’s relationship with Russia.

Robert Mueller might just be America’s straightest arrow—a respected, nonpartisan and fiercely apolitical public servant whose only lifetime motivation has been the search for justice.

“His gift is that he’s decisive without being impulsive,” Comey told me several years back, recalling his years working alongside Mueller. “He’ll sit, listen, ask questions and make a decision. I didn’t realize at the time how rare that is in Washington.”

That thoroughness and Mueller’s strong independence should terrify the Trump White House.

President Trump impulsively fired Comey in the hope that it would shut down the Russia investigation; one week later, though, he finds himself facing not just one esteemed former FBI director but two: the first a wronged martyr for the bureau, and the second a legendary investigator without a hint of politics.

What unfolds ahead will be territory all too familiar to both Comey and Mueller—the field of play where they have made their careers and risen to the highest levels of government—yet the way that a Washington scandal takes on a life of its own amid independent investigations and looming prosecutions is deeply unfamiliar to Trump and many associates around him. Few in Washington know this landscape better than Comey, who as deputy attorney general appointed his friend Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor to lead the leak investigation surrounding Valerie Plame, a case that ultimately led to the dethroning of Cheney’s top aide, Scooter Libby.

It is as if, after having an unrelated disagreement over movie trivia in a bar, Trump has challenged Usain Bolt to a 100-yard dash or John Cena to a cage match to the death.

While Mueller technically reported to Comey as deputy attorney general, Comey, two decades his junior, treated Mueller as a close friend and almost mentor. The men had known each other for years as each rose into the small, elite fraternity of prosecutors at the top of the Justice Department.

Both men were the crème de la crème of Justice:

Mueller helped take on Manuel Noriega and the bombers of Pan Am Flight 103;

Comey helped prosecute mafia boss John Gotti and Martha Stewart.

In early 2001, when Mueller was deputy attorney general, he directed Saudi Arabia's Khobar Towers bombing prosecution to Comey, then a prosecutor in Virginia.

They are alike in many ways. Both men possess a deep public service streak; both men had given up lucrative private-sector careers to become prosecutors.

Both men are also smart inside fighters: They document everything, draft memos carefully and enlist allies who matter. Prosecutors are taught early on to write everything down, and the documentation culture is strong within both the FBI and the Justice Department, where words are recorded routinely as future evidence.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/18/james-comey-trump-special-prosecutor-robert-mueller-fbi-215154

[boutons_deux]

As Russia Scandal Mushrooms, Trump Gives One Of The Worst Press Conferences In Recent History

Trump's joint press conference with the Columbian president did severe damage to his presidency, as Trump bashed the special counsel investigation while trying to distance himself from the Russia scandal and offering delusional answers like everyone in America thinks the idea of impeaching him is ridiculous.

Trump said,

“The entire thing has been a witch hunt.

There is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign,

but I can only speak for myself and the Russians. Zero.

I think it divides the country.

I think it divides the country between that and a lot of things.”

The President denied asking Comey to drop the Flynn investigation: :lol


http://www.politicususa.com/2017/05/18/russia-scandal-mushrooms-trump-worst-press-conferences-history.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+politicususa%2FfJAl+%28Politi cus+USA+%29

[RandomGuy]

:lol


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg8fts_oeRQ

At the risk of actually asking you to read something:


Conservative legal scholars debate: Can the president obstruct justice?

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday morning, as the grave and unpleasant topic of impeachment entered the American political conversation, the leading conservative legal group convened its annual daylong meeting just blocks from the White House.

The Federalist Society handed out media packets to reporters that included a 2014 news article about how the group was at that time discussing the possible impeachment of President Barack Obama for “constitutional excesses.”

But when it came to the current White House occupant and the debate over possible obstruction of justice related to the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, one of the Federalist Society’s founding members was unequivocal in his support of President Donald Trump.

“President Trump acted appropriately if he gave guidance to Director Comey on an investigation. It is important for us to step back and remember that under the Constitution, the president has the authority and power to enforce the laws,” said David McIntosh, who is also the head of the Club for Growth, a pro-business conservative advocacy group.

McIntosh defended Trump’s reported request of former FBI Director James Comey to drop an investigation into Russian contacts with Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

“Presidents have wisely chosen to insulate the FBI from political interference,” McIntosh said, but “the president still has the power and authority to direct the FBI how to do their job.”

A little later, another panelist at the Federalist Society meeting — former Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey — at first echoed McIntosh’s line of argument.

“The president has power to direct that an investigation cease,” Mukasey said.

But Mukasey, who served under Republican President George W. Bush, then went on to make a series of comments that were severely disapproving of Trump’s reported conduct.

First, Mukasey said he was not sure Trump understood the implications of what he was doing.

“As the story is told … it’s kind of informal: ‘Hey, would you cut this guy some slack? He’s a nice guy.’ And that kind of conversation about an ongoing proceeding, conducted in a manner that is extraordinarily informal … suggests complete unconsciousness of what it is that’s actually happening,” Mukasey said.

He continued: “That conversation might be appropriate to a minor disciplinary matter at a big corporation. It’s not appropriate to a criminal investigation. The inability to distinguish the one from the other, I think, is extraordinary.”

The implication in Mukasey’s comments seemed to be that President Trump does not understand the job he now holds. It’s a concern that was echoed by Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel to President Obama.

“The missing piece here, alarmingly, is a conception of the presidency. He seems to be imagining that he is running one of his companies,” Bauer wrote Wednesday. “Where [former President Richard] Nixon put the government at risk with a misbegotten political morality, Trump is failing, badly, because he is vainly running on a certain marketplace morality, compatible with his temperament, that once won him money and attention.”

One observer in the room at the Federalist Society meeting said he was surprised by the strength of Mukasey’s condemnation. And sources with expertise in the matter of presidential power said that Mukasey’s comment about the president’s legal authority to end an investigation is true as a technical matter but does not obviate the issue of obstruction of justice.


A president can intervene in a situation where he or she believes there has been bad judgment on the part of prosecutors, legal experts said. But when a president’s personal interests or behavior are in question, and he involves himself, it raises the issue of obstruction.

“If it’s obstruction of justice then he can’t do it,” one legal expert said, who asked not to be quoted by name given the sensitivity of the discussion.

McIntosh, however, disagreed with that interpretation when interviewed by Yahoo News later in the day.

“When the president has the authority to say what he said, it can’t possibly be obstruction of justice,” McIntosh said. “The president can direct any investigator, any legal authority how to do their job. If he does it in a way that the public feels is inappropriate, the remedy is the next election.”

That’s an extreme view of how far executive power goes that’s unlikely to be widely adopted, but for any congressional Republicans looking for a rationale to cling to, it might suffice. McIntosh said Republicans in Congress should “stop trying to worry about what the press is doing,” pass legislation, and “don’t try to interfere with the president doing his job.”

Yet in addition to concerns about obstruction of justice, there are also the “norms” that govern a president’s behavior when it comes to ongoing investigations, created and upheld to bolster confidence in the impartiality of the law. And in this matter both Mukasey and another former White House lawyer agreed that what Trump did in urging Comey to drop the Flynn matter was highly unusual and potentially damaging to the country.

Mukasey said that never in his 15 months as attorney general did he see President Bush or anyone from the Bush White House involve themselves in any ongoing criminal investigation.

“The norm was observed,” Mukasey said.

Former White House counsel Neil W. Eggleston, who served under President Barack Obama for the last two and a half years of his second term, was on the panel with Mukasey. He stressed that Obama observed the same rule, and also steered clear of any prejudicial comments when responding to national tragedies such as violent mass shootings.

“A really important norm that I spent an enormous amount of time policing when I was at the White House was that the White House stays out of criminal investigations, full stop. Full stop. Never did it. Full stop,” Eggleston said.

“I would have him talk about the tragedy of the shooting but he would not conclude whether the shooter was guilty of something. Even Dylann Roof, he didn’t condemn Dylann Roof and say he should be punished for anything,” Eggleston said, referring to the convicted murderer who in 2015 shot and killed nine people in a Charleston, S.C., church.

“[Obama] was empathetic to the families of the people who had been killed but he stayed out of ascribing guilt,” Eggleston said. “It was my view that the president of the United States … absolutely had to stay out of any criminal matter whatsoever.”

“I think that’s a critical norm,” Eggleston said. “If people think it’s based on anything other than career prosecutors, then our society is in a difficult state.”

Mukasey pushed back, reminding Eggleston that Obama had spoken out in October 2015 about Hillary Clinton’s use of private e-mail server when she was Secretary of State. “This is not a situation in which America’s national security was endangered,” Obama said then, even though the FBI was actively investigating the matter.

News reports at that time noted that Obama’s comments angered the FBI, and on Wednesday, Eggleston confided that he had weighed in disapprovingly in a conversation with the president.

“He [Obama] was talked to by the White House counsel after that,” Eggleston said.

Obama also in 2012 weighed in on a similar matter involving former CIA Director David Petraeus, who was being investigated by the FBI for providing highly classified information to his biographer, also his mistress, and then lying to FBI investigators about it.

Comey’s FBI recommended to Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, that Petraeus face felony charges and possible jail time, but the administration allowed the four-star general and adviser to Obama to plead guilty to a lesser charge that did not require him to serve a prison sentence.

And there are other precedents. George W. Bush, before Mukasey’s time at the head of the Justice Department, said in 2005 that he believed former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, was innocent of money-laundering charges before his trial began.

[tlongII]

Trump president not Clinton.

[ducks]

Comey, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 3, said — under oath — that he's never been pressured to close an investigation for political purposes.