Much as I hate to admit it, D’Anconia has something of a point: declaring it obstruction of justice, full stop, appears to be overstating the case.
Thing is, Trump is a narcissistic imbecile, we all know that. But this ambiguity is gong to give Republican leaders (and other Republicans, hypothetically some of the Trump fans on this board) an out: as long as they can say that there might theoretically be a legitimate reason for Trump’s words, they don’t have to admit the bleedin’ obvious. They’ll probably even call us conspiracy theorists, or tell us that This Is Why Trump Won.
Hey, this can’t be right. Everyone knows Ed McMahon is dead.
Seriously, Comey’s notes may turn out to be very detailed indeed, with extensive revelations about Trump’s motivations, state of mind (as it were), aims, goals, intentions, etc. The actual blow-by-blow.
The “blow-by-blow” of Trump’s, motivations, aims, goals, et cetera can be summed up in one sentence: “I want the best audience ratings.” Whether that audience is his followers, or the American public, Russian officials, or a coven of witches doesn’t really matter; he just wants the attention and adulation. That’s it; no complex schemes within schemes, or elaborate endgames to an inevitable checkmate, or precognition. Just applause, or barring that, speechless astonishment that his interprets as approval rather than flat horror.
All the documentation you need is in his magnum anus, his soliloquy of compiled whatdom, his treatise on the business of making poor investments, The Art of the Deal. In that hollowed tome lies all of the nonsense that has echoed back and forth through the vast cavernous void between his infamous hairdo for decades, all the while acquiring a flat resonance that only a soliton created from pure effervescent nothingness can present. In it, he explains how to lie, to renig on prior agreements, to use bullying and threats to prevent others from taking legal recourse to get their due payments, to ignore good advice and blame others for poor decisions, and generally how to be an entitled fucknugget who nonetheless promotes his brand of gaudy pseudo-wealth as luxury and value to a guileless public with a limitless appetite for Lotto and bullshit success anecdota from a fake university.
The documentation of Trump’s thoughts wouldn’t fill a single page of a Big Chief Writing Tablet, and would yet make it even more racist than the picture on the front by doing so. Trump’s mind is like a snowglobe that leaked out and now just has fake snowflakes permanently cemented to the glass, with a sorry little plastic polar bear rattling around.
Anyone want to speculate over Trump’s intense loyalty to Michael Flynn? Seems like a lot of risk to ask the head of the FBI to go easy on Flynn, and Trump isn’t known for doing much that isn’t self serving.
First guess - Trump is afraid of what a thorough investigation of Flynn will bring out about him.
Second guess, Flynn has verifiable evidence of Trump’s wrongdoings in something like collusion with the Russians.
Putting him through a long series of questioning would be the funniest/most embarrassing show ever. I’m waiting for a temper tantrum followed by fake heart attack.
I’m still hearing he had a 40% “like” rating after the Comey memo thingy, so again, I doubt much comes from this. We’ll need 10 more like this to get the GOP to budge the impeachment wall.
I want to mention here an argument I just posted in the pit. For the purposes of impeaching Donald Trump, it doesn’t matter if his attempts to disrupt the FBI and congressional investigations rise to the level of illegality. Impeachment is a charge of “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors”. That last is undefined.
Harvard constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe in the Wapo points out that Nixon and Clinton were both charged with obstruction of justice in their
impeachments.
There is no question that Trump has tried to interfere with the FBI investigation (and remember this article was published on Sunday, before news of the Comey memos). For the purposes of impeaching Donald, the evidence is right before our eyes.
My coworker said, “This is a non-story. Flynn was already cleared when this supposedly happened.” And then gave me this link. I need a good comeback for this.
That link says they found no evidence of anything illicit when reviewing phone calls between Flynn and a Russian. So? It’s like hearing that a guy, accused of murdering people, says “hey, you have no evidence that I poisoned my wife.” That statement doesn’t rule out guns or knives – or the idea that he poisoned anyone else – sure as declaring some phone calls innocuous proves nothing about anything else.
(Also, isn’t it Trump’s story that Flynn was out for being untruthful about whether the calls happened, instead of for anything that happened during those calls?)
Flynn is still under investigation by the FBI, which is what the hullabulloo is about regarding whether Trump’s words could be interpreted as pressuring Comey to end the investigation back in February.
[QUOTE=The Chicago Tribune]
Flynn has been under investigation for a variety of issues, including his payments from foreign entities; whether he violated laws requiring registering as an agent of a foreign government; and his communications with Russian officials. The FBI has also probed other Trump associates for possible connections to Russian officials.
[/quote]