It seems to me that everyone on the left, in spite of the fact that he is a Republican, is convinced that Mueller is a bastion of honor and integrity and truth and competence. Kind of of like Comey when he does stuff they like, and not when he does stuff they don’t like. By an large, it seems most are convinced Mueller’s going to take down Trump.
Let’s say he releases the final results and nothing substantial is found against Trump himself regarding conspiracy or obstruction of justice? Maybe a couple underlings go down but that’s it. Will you accept it? Will you still view Mueller as so awesome, or a partisan hack? Will you believe the findings, or still assume Trump got away with something?
I think that it is a lock that campaign aides like Manafort, Stone, and Page were engaged in doing bad things with Russia.
I think it’s quite likely that Don Jr. and perhaps others contributed to it.
I’m unclear on whether Trump personally was engaged in wrongdoing here, beyond the obscene statement encouraging Russia to hack a political opponent. If Muller finds that Trump didn’t do that, I would be inclined to believe it.
Of course, the Muller investigation doesn’t cover the dozens of other ways we know Trump is a disaster, like how many of his Cabinet have been exposed as thoroughly corrupt, or his racist policies against immigrants, his gleeful desire to endanger innocent children, etc.
You realize that this presents us with only two options, but there are clearly more options than that.
What if the findings are that there isn’t enough evidence to successfully prosecute and so no charges are filed? In that case, can people still assume that Trump got away with something?
The investigation is unlikely, IMO, to result in a statement along the lines of “there was no evidence at all implicating Trump in any way with any wrongdoing”. If it does, I’ll prolly want to take a look at their evidence and see how they reached that conclusion so I can evaluate it for my skeptical self.
Probably. I don’t actually think that Trump’s problems are of the legal variety though. I think we know that he committed obstruction for firing Comey, but that’s out in the open and the world seems to have moved on. I don’t think there’s some sort of Russian ‘deep state’ conspiracy that Trump is in league with. I think that Trump just admires dictators and their power and sees the left as his enemy and he thinks that the left is largely Europhilic, so by extension hates Europe and there is no need for a pee-pee tape or deep state conspiracy to explain his behavior. I think that it’s pretty clear that he was hoping for dirt on Clinton that the Russians could provide (he announced it from the stump) and he likely knew about attempts to get that information from them, but I also think think that the country has already largely gotten over that. Was anyone really surprised when Cohen said that Trump knew and do even his supporters really think that Trump didn’t know. They just don’t think that it’s an impeachable offense.
Where I do think he has likely engaged in very illegal things is in his business dealings. My guess is that he has done quite a bit of shading on his taxes and that he has done some under the table stuff with regards to lots of his business deals. He was in bed with the mob for a very long time and I doubt he wants people to dig too deeply into that relationship. He knows that his business is where the dirt is and that’s what he’s really scared of. I think the collusion is largely a side show if for no other reason than Putin is ex-KGB and if he wanted a Manchurian candidate, I don’t think Donald Trump would be his first, second, third or even last choice.
I don’t know what’s so hard to believe that a Republican can be an honorable person. Mueller is a Republican in the sense that he is registered to vote as a Republican, a member of the party. That’s different from being a Republican in the sense of being an elected Republican politician, a set in which there is, indeed, a current lack of honor… but it’s a very different set from the set of millions of people who are registered as Republicans.
Sure, I’d accept Mueller’s findings, and wouldn’t be terribly surprised by them. Trump should be impeached anyway; he has obviously committed impeachable offenses.
In principle, of course I’d accept Mueller’s findings, regardless of what they are. In practice, it would, of course, depend on the actual facts involved. So far, by all indications, the Mueller investigation seems to be impartial, thorough, and conscientious. If other facts come to light that indicate that Mueller’s investigation is seriously flawed, I would be equally hesitant to accept the results, regardless of what they are.
But, of course, that’s all easy for me, or anyone, to say now. It’s also what I would expect anyone, including those “on the left,” to say, more or less. I’m curious as to what you’re looking for here. Do you really expect anyone “on the left” to say that they will only accept results that incriminate Donald Trump, regardless of the merits? Even if you think everyone “on the left” really only thinks well of Mueller or Comey or any other official to the extent that their investigations make their political opponents look bad, do you really think any of “us” “on the left” are going to come out and say that?
“We” know? Obstruction of justice is a crime. If it is so obvious that firing Comey was obstruction of justice, then Mueller cannot just shrug that off and "move on. " But he hasn’t charged him with that. If it is so obvious, that would be an open and shut case. I mean, we have tons of people saying it is, but I would think that if Mueller actually thought that, this would have been over a long time ago.
If they were honest, yes. There are certainly many democrats that are absolutely convinced that Trump committed conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Both here, and publicly, even by some democrat politicians And I’m seeing some indications right here that if is not found, that Mueller must have missed something, not that Trump didn’t do it.
I will accept whatever outcome comes from Mueller. I believe the guy is as unbiased as anyone can possibly be.
If only the R’s would accept the outcomes of all the investigations into Hillary. I think it was just last week there were fresh chants of “lock her up” with Keebler Elf Sessions on stage.
Hypothetical: You found out that Mueller wrote a letter exonerating Trump months before he was ever interviewed. And furthermore was comprised of multiple drafts whose language had been changed to soften anything that would result in a criminal charge? Or that Trumps team was taking hammers to “unused” cellphones and bleaching servers that maybe had something of value on them? And Mueller thought that was okay?
Not at all. There’s a difference between what you know and what you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I know that last night I was reading ‘The Brothers Karamazov,’ but I would have a devil of a time proving that in court.
There is also the reality that charges against a sitting President are not a simple affair and they involve much more than simply proving guilt of a crime. There has to be enough guilt proven to actually change the political headwinds. If Mueller were to today issue incontrovertible proof that Comey was fired for attempting to open an investigation into Trump colluding with Russia, would that actually change anything? No, of course not, because there are very few people that don’t actually believe that already. Only the incredibly naive think that he was fired for his treatment of Clinton and there is ample evidence from Trump’s own words that this wasn’t the case. Society hasn’t changed and Trump is still in office and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future, so why would Mueller issue a charge that serves no purpose other than to end his investigation into what might be other charges as well?
I’d hop on my magical time-travelling unicorn pony, and travel to Trump Tower on June 15, 2015, break into the engineering spaces, and start and stop the escalator at random. Just to make him look ridiculous so even the paid actors wouldn’t take him seriously.
Benghazi was investigated 7 times, resulted in 0 indictments.
Russia has been partially investigated once and already has dozens of indictments.
There are going to need to be many investigations into Russia, not just 1.
In fact everything Trump, his administration and his family have ever done in their entire lives from birth to death needs to be investigated multiple times. At least 8 times each.
It will take decades to unravel the Trump criminal enterprise.
I will still consider Mueller an honest person with integrity no matter what he finds. But that doesn’t mean that his investigation is the alpha and omega of investigations into Trump. Mueller is just the beginning.
Oh yes, I will. I don’t like Trump and would welcome any reason for him not to serve another term. He exhausts me, and I don’t want to deal with that for another 6 years.
BUT, I am almost 100% certain he will not be removed from office before then, and if he goes down, I want it to be 100% legitimately. Not just because he did things I don’t like or don’t agree with. While I see tons of people absolutely certain this report will destroy him, I am skeptical that anything coming out of this report is going to directly implicate him.
What “Trump” supporters will do? They’ll dismiss it I’m sure.