Not to mention the primary reason corporations give those plums to ex-presidents is to gain the influence ex-presidents have on members of Congress. What influence would Trump possibly have?
Which former Presidents (other than Gerald Ford) spent their post-presidential years sitting on the boards of for-profit corporations?
ETA: I spent nearly half an hour looking, and came up dry. But maybe you’re a better looker than I am.
Seems to me they make their living doing exclusive speaking engagements sponsored by large corporations and rich donors who pay $5000 a seat to hear them speak about global warming and trade policies. Basically all the subjects they didn’t do shit about while president but feel the need to continue to lecture as a pretense of advancing public policies that will be ignored by the current administration.
Well, here’s a commutation.
Stone got off easy, he only had to blow Trump 5 times for that.
Secrets? The secrets are what is kept from us concerning conversations he already had with Putin.
Do you think that he has the names of actual spies embedded in Moscow (or Teheran) government offices on his phone? I think not. Gina Haspel is not so dumb to tell him, besides that she probably doesn’t want to know such identifying information herself.
If he runs off to one of his properties in Dubai, that would be wonderful. They’d likely make avoiding embarrassing statements a condition of allowing him to stay…As a result, the Trump era would be over.
Instead, we’re likely to have Trump continue to be frequent front page news as he battles a New York State grand jury indictment. And after years of suspense, I think there would be a hung jury. If I’m wrong and he is convicted, there then will be years of appeals ending in a Supreme Court win, or him avoiding prison on grounds of by-then ill health.
Another very possible scenario is that he manages to stay in office, either through electoral college manipulations, or by just plain winning the election.
Putin is not dumb. He knows that others will watch to see how Putin treats Trump. It is in Putin’s interest to set Trump up in a swank dacha and give Trump all the teenage girls and Big Macs he wants along with 24/7 cable and a Twitter account and let him live fat and happy. That would be cheap for what Putin could get out of it.
And there is no need for Trump to wait till he is out of office. He’s the president. Demand that Air Force One fly him to Moscow the day before he he leaves office then refuse to get back on the plane and go home. Simple.
And I am sure Putin can instruct Trump on how to obtain the things Putin wants before he leaves office. Trump is a moron. Putin is not.
Don’t bet on that. True believers are a force of nature. Brainless, maybe, but not healthy to ignore. My personal view is that everybody needs to watch Boogaloo Bois, ku-kluckers, and white nationalists like hawks. Throw the book at them hard for every transgression. tRump made them think they have power. They must be disabused of that notion.
I doubt if trump knows any “secrets.” He doesn’t read his one-page briefings because words. Nothing sticks in his head, which is one reason why he repeats a few catch phrases over and over. Putin might keep him as a trophy the way people used to keep trained bears.
In this case (unlike many others), I don’t think fellatio was necessary. Just yesterday, Stone told journalist Howard Fineman that he has major dirt on Trump — basically, he claimed he could get Trump landed in jail (or at least yet more severely disgraced), so Trump HAD to do him a favor, to shut him up.
Astounding.
Actually this makes more sense than anything. We know that loyalty only goes one way in the Trumpiverse, so commuting the sentence because Stone is a “pal” (as the headlines are saying) doesn’t sound likely.
I assume Trump will be out of the country on inauguration day, probably in Israel if Netanyahu can stay out of prison himself. He will not be chumming around with Putin though, Putin will reveal all the details to embarrass Trump and the US once Trump is no longer president and useless to him.
I had the exact same objection to the NY Times headline! (They said “friend.”)
Trump has never had a single true friend in his life. This is both the cause and the effect of so much about him.
Trump can escape to Mar-a-Lago and be protected by Gov DeSantis (little Putin south).
Trump is sufficiently non-swift to do things like buy bugs on ebay and install them in
the WH. Of course the SS will do a sweep, but the obvious ones might be decoys to cover
up real sophisticated bugs that are voice activated for record and only transmit when
interrogated by someone in the press room or on a WH tour.
Romney said the Stone deal was unprecedented corrupt. Maybe he’s running in 2024
Trump won’t flee to Russia. He won’t get adoring crowds in Russia. He can barely speak English and won’t learn Russian. He’d be an afterthought there, not the top story.
No, he’ll stay in the US, direct his attorneys to use every tactic available to push for plea deals that mean no jail time, and if that fails, delay every hearing, trial, and sentencing as long as possible. In the meantime, he’ll be tweeting like crazy and making big bucks off his real estate and his position as right-wing commentator on Fox or wherever and promulgating every wild QAnon theory out there.
Nah. Netahyahu wouldn’t be able to stop an extradition even if he wanted to.
I fully expect that Trump’s last act in office will be to issue a full pardon for any and all crimes committed during his Presidency to himself and his inner circle. Why wouldn’t he? Decorum?
Will it stand up? Maybe not, but it’ll create another layer of delay and obstruction should the Biden administration attempt to pursue Trump for any accountability for his actions.
It is possible no other country will take him. He’ll be left with the choice of returning home to face state charges or be an illegal immigrant in some other country.
he can bribe some foreign leader to take him