It was a weird election, where both major parties nominated quite unpopular candidates.
I don’t know if you could create a better year for a successful independent bid even if you had a magic wand. I was surprised that there were not more independent-minded people willing to jump into the fray.
People who are partisan above everything else always think everyone else is as partisan as they are, I guess. What if I have no real feelings whatsoever about Comey? What if I think he did what was right both times? What if I think he did what was right both times but I didn’t like the outcome of one of the times and think it should have been handled better, yet -I’m gonna blow your mind here- that view is not based in partisanship? Do you believe it’s possible for people to look at things objectively?
So Trump said he was “100% willling” to testify. Does anyone actually believe him? I’d love to be wrong, but I’d put the chances that he testifies to the Senate or the House at about 1%.
Again, abuse of power historically qualifies as “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Impeachment has been called for for abuse of power. Both the Nixon and Clinton cases (Nixon of course resigning before being successfully impeached) included abuse of power as an article.
That will be just another one of those things he says he’ll do but will find some way to not do. “My lawyers won’t let me and I would totally do it and I would totally tell the best truth but they won’t let me.” And I can’t believe that anyone except his fans would believe anything he says anyway, even under oath. Hell, he probably doesn’t understand the concept.
I wonder… has Trump himself actually ever testified in a court of law under oath? Lots of lawsuits he purportedly directed to be filed over the years/decades, but has he personally ever been directly involved in the proceedings?
I spent all of last summer and fall saying that, if the Democrats had been able to nominate a candidate without HRC’s baggage and the Right’s pre-established deep hatred of her, that candidate should have been able to destroy Trump. And, conversely, if the GOP had been able to nominate pretty much anyone else except Trump, they, too, should have won in a landslide.
I don’t know if that’s really true. I think someone like an Obama or Biden would have defeated Trump but not as badly as people think. When you look at the Republican field, the two leading candidates were Trump and Ted Cruz, who is also an extremely toxic candidate but for different reasons. Bernie Sanders would still have probably made a lot of noise against any conventional Democratic candidate. The reality is that American voters are moving away from the political norms of the post-Roosevelt and Eisenhower eras and moving toward the unknown, which makes fringe candidates a lot more viable. I don’t really see this changing in the upcoming elections, either.
There’s no chance Trump’s lawyers agree to let him testify under oath voluntarily. And, all of the articles about his agreeing to it appear (at least to me) that he agreed to it, but had no idea what he was agreeing to.
I’m guessing his administration has already figured out how to deflect this newest self imposed clusterfuck (he can’t testify under oath while he is under audit by the IRS…).
As a procedural matter, can the minority party (i.e., Democrats) compel a witness to testify before the committee? Or, is that a privilege reserved for the majority party? I’m thinking that the Republicans would know better than to allow Trump to testify.