Oh, I dunno. The Court of Public Opinion ultimately rules. One the Emperor is exposed in all of his pathetic, impotent nakedness, his popularity will suffer shrinkage, too.
And then we have…Mike Pence. The carnage continues, and as hard as it is to imagine, in some ways, it could be worse. The Republican party are nothing but proxies for billionaire plutocrats who believe that American democracy should operate like the Roman Senate. What the Mueller investigation is revealing is that the rot in this country is so much bigger than just Trump.
With respect to election crimes, you’re correct. But I believe Jarvanka and Don Jr./Eric have significant exposure for non-election-related crimes that can be tried in state courts; most notably, money laundering, tax evasion, that sort of thing. The shenanigans for 666 5th Avenue, Trump SoHo, the Florida condos and others.
I agree in most investigations, prosecutors/law enforcement like to interview a target as a last step, and I understand the old saw that good prosecutors never ask questions to which they don’t already know the answers. But I think this investigation will be prosecuted more strategically. It has to be. I believe Mueller will question Trump at present only as to the limited scope of obstruction. He’ll reserve his right to question Trump further on issues of “collusion,” at a later date for lack of a better umbrella term, when he has all his ducks in a row. Or he may not even need Trump’s statements regarding “collusion,” since that can be tried on documentary evidence and witness testimony. That’s where Flynn and others come in.
I expect he’ll move more rapidly on obstruction charges, but not too soon. He’s not going to present a report to a Republican Congress recommending impeachment when they’ve already telegraphed they’re just going to ignore it. He’ll continue to nail down his “collusion” case for after the first of the year while obstruction is wending its way through the process.
I also think Mueller may have a few “throw away” charges that he’ll float just to see what Trump does. For example, he could toss out a perjury charge on Don Jr., Hope Hicks and/or Jared Kushner, just to see if Trump exercises pardon powers. It would be instructive for Mueller to decide how best to proceed knowing this information.
This is a prosecution like no other, I suspect we can agree, and it will likely involve some brand new moves. From a legal perspective, I’m fascinated. From a personal one, I’m aghast.
I’m going to nickname you Eeyore. 
I don’t disagree with anything you said. But…
One corrupt dickhead at a time. Pence will be easier. He’s committed his crimes in full view of the public. He’s an Obstruction guy, not likely subject to the “collusion” aspect of Mueller’s prosecutions. He has none of Trump’s charisma with Teh Base™. He’s slow-witted. His views are so extreme that even Indiana came to hate him in fairly short order. (How bad is that?)
Pence does not enjoy the same immunity from prosecution while in office that the president does, I don’t believe.
He’s the one I would expect to enjoy an offer to step down to “spend more time with the family.” That leaves us with President Ryan. Eeeuuuggghhh. But just for a little while.
If Dems do their thing in 2018, whoever is in the Oval will find themselves pretty much a lame duck through the end of 2019. And Pence and/or Ryan at least won’t start a nuclear war.
This approach could scrape out the worst of the rot and still leave the government intact to the greatest extent possible to 2020.
As ever, just spit ballin’.
Not true! It’s not true that Republicans are nothing more than proxies for billionaire plutocrats! They’re also theocratic white supremacists.
I certainly hope I’m wrong, too. I’m probably not, though.
Look, I do see your point. I realize Trump will not remain popular with everyone.
The problem is that it doesn’t matter. Trump isn’t popular with most people NOW.
The examples of Trump Streaks and Trump Vodka (I think his winery still does okay) aren’t really pertinent. For one thing, it’s erroneous to think those are significant failures; Trump stuck his name on a lot of products and fully expected some to fail. It was a low risk, high reward thing that didn’t have to pay off every time. If you think that was some epic failure on his part, really, it wasn’t; it was good business.
But more to the point, if you don’t like Trump Steaks, you can go buy another steak. If you don’t like the federal government, brother, you ain’t got no other options until the next election - and one of the central GOP plans is to ensure that election is fixed.
Measuring Trump’s success by his popularity in a Gallup poll is really not the right way to look at it; it matter not what his poll numbers are in February of 2018. There’s no election this week. The damage will be done by 2020.
What Trump is doing is changing political norms and getting a significant enough portion of the American people to support him in genuine evil. If a year ago he’d try to fire a special, prosecutor (yes, there wasn’t one, but imagine there was) or - oh, let’s just say for funsies - pardon someone close to him who’d been charged with a federal crime, well, it would probably have torpedoed him right then and there.
Now? I don’t buy it. If he fires Rosenstein and Mueller this coming week he absolutely will get away with it. You know it as well as I. No chance of impeachment.
Support before he packs his things Mueller has Don Jr. or Kushner arrested. Trump will pardon them, immediately. He’s got his Trumpists totally believing any such arrest will be bogus. Couldn’t have done it a year ago; today, he could for sure.
Sure, a lot of people will hate it. It will not matter, because it’s gonna happen anyway, and you are going to be truly, truly horrified at how many of your countrymen will be fine with it. That’s the thing; I think you’re assuming Trump’s popularity level is going to drop to abysmal levels. It’s not; it’s not getting any lower, and the critical “fuck it, whatever” level of apathetic, accept-the-state-of-affairs people will start to rise the day after the firings.
I don’t doubt Robert Mueller is smarter than Devin Nunes. I don’t see how it matters if Mueller is a retired cop. You know who’s also smarter than Devin Nunes? Me. But so what?
I guess I just don’t see him as being as successful as you do. Though I do admit I have often been overly optimistic.
But I won’t give up trying to persuade people to do all they can to stop this coup attempt. I’m already horrified at how many of my countrymen will be fine with it – are fine with it.
I do believe if things don’t change at the mid-terms, we’re cooked. That is the last opportunity to hold the line.
I would quibble with your characterization of Mueller as a retired cop. He’s also a retired U.S. Attorney who understands how to work the levers of government far better than any creep Trump has installed in power. All Trump’s “best people” have shown themselves to be ignorant and corrupt. No one with gravitas will come work in this administration. That gives me some hope, too. There are decent Republicans. They will help. Trumpists are still a minority.
I’ve also seen recent polls that show fewer and fewer Republicans identify as Republicans. They’re moving to instead identify as independents, more every day. So when you see studies that say, “75% of Republicans support…” realize, this is a smaller percentage than what it was a year ago.
We’ll see what happens in the next 9 months. Please be wrong. :o
Stuff like this (Reuters) does give me hope.
Out of touch… just a little.
We already knew. It’s just a lot more brazen now.
I think what I’m sensing, and what I think RickJay is also sensing, is that the rule of law is slipping away and being replaced by something else. We might not yet be at the Banana Republic stage, and we might not ever completely get there, but right now, this country is going ape shit. I think a lot of us trust that there will be a point at which the Constitution and the law catch up to these people, and that the voters will, too. But that may not be the case. As I’ve described it before, while many of us are outraged, many others are in a state of disorientation, fully cognizant that something is wrong trying to process just how bad it is and what can be done about it.
You’re right. But one thing about Pence, and Ryan, too, for that matter, is that they’re not shameless narcissists like thump. The fact that Ryan took down that tweet about the $1.50/week raise says in a small way that he can be gotten to by public opinion. He backtracked. Thump never backtracks. He just plows ahead, lying brazenly and not giving a shit. He is the epitome of shamelessness. I believe Pence also gives a shit and could be gotten to by a public outcry that would simply bounce off thump’s teflon-coated exterior.
I need some shred of hope…
This is the best tweet I have seen in response to the Ryan tweet.
If you’re not, can I come live with you? You know, as a refugee? I wish I was kidding. I have a wife and two kids, I’d like them to come too. Thanks in advance. I’m a Tigers fan now, but I can come to love the Blue Jays.
That is… epic. 
Thanks for sharing. I don’t Twitter, so I’d have missed it.
Pence, Ryan, McConnell, and yes, even Trump, have the same fear: the fear of losing their current job. Trump is different in that he doesn’t need other billionaires to fund his re-election campaigns – I guess you could say the same is true of Pence as long as he’s tethered to Trump, but the point is, the Republicans depend on the billionaires to fund their re-election efforts. The billionaires will find their guy. If it’s not Trump, it’ll be someone else, and the congress will support their president because they all work for the billionaire class.
Why is Steve Bannon not hear from anymore? He stopped representing the interests of the billionaire class. He threatened their progress. He’s done - unless he decides to run as a real populist. But he’d need to find a way to repair a lot of the damage he’s done.
I agree with every word of that, and of course it becomes more apparent every day that the rule of law is slipping away. It’s what McConnell/Ryan/Trump/Kochs/Mercers et. al are working toward faster than anything else, and where they have already done the greatest and most lasting damage. Of this I am hyper-aware.
I want to believe we have caught the rot in time. It will be an enormous amount of work to put things to rights again, no question. But my hope – and I refuse to let it go at this point – is that this horrible debacle has served to awaken a sense of civic responsibility in enough of our citizens that they will become participants in their own government again. People are registering to vote in record numbers. Not as Republicans. They’re paying a lot more attention. Certainly not all are. But maybe enough.
There is a lot of evidence of it, and it is being borne out in the results of special elections all through last year. Anxiously awaiting what happens in PA in March. Primaries begin in Texas also in March. I’m keeping an eye on Cruz’s seat.
No need to repeat Ben Franklin’s famous words here. This crew already knows them.
“They don’t yell, they don’t tell, they don’t swell, and grateful as Hell!”. Those?
The very ones.
I’m curious about this secretary who was pleasantly surprised at her $1.50 a week windfall. Maybe she is a Trump supporter or maybe not, but is that all it takes to buy off the working class? Ryan apparently thought so.
I wonder if it was sarcasm that went unrecognized by The Spineless Speaker.