It is quite impossible that the Russian ambassador didn’t intend for his communications to be intercepted. Encryption that’s unbreakable even by the NSA exists and is readily available, and I can’t believe that a major national power like Russia would be so incompetent as to not use it in their intelligence service, especially not with the ambassador to their prime rival. If the Russian ambassador had wanted to send an unreadable message, he would have.
The fact that this message was intercepted, then, means that Russia wanted it intercepted. Any analysis of motives must start from there.
I think the most plausible explanation is that this is a warning shot, that by taking down Kushner they want to remind Trump that they can take him down too if he doesn’t do what they want. Whatever that is.
Still it’s really hard to banish Jared without also banishing Ivanka, and I think she’ll end up staying with her father right up until the end. She’ll end up trying to coax him out of the White House and minimize the public spectacle as best she can.
I await the evidence Ivanka Trump is any less dishonest, avaricious and power-hungry than her father. The assumption that she’s a reasonable, decently level-headed person amidst the wolves appears to stem solely two from things:
She can speak bullshit much more fluently than Trump
She’s extremely beautiful.
I think she’s got everyone fooled. I suspect she’s as evil as her father.
Are we talking about Presidential vs. Parliamentary democracies here?
At least according to this map from Wikipedia, most countries in the Americas use a Presidential system, with Canada being a notable exception. Africa and the former Soviet states seem to have a mix of Presidential and semi-Presidential systems, at least nominally. How democratic some of these “republics” are, and how comparable their governments are to that of the United States, is another matter.
From the same source: European states mostly use a Parliamentary system, as do Japan, India and its neighbors (excluding China of course), Australia, and Canada.
I didn’t mean to suggest otherwise, but when it comes down to it I think she’ll be savvy enough to recognize it’s in the family’s best interests (financial & otherwise) for her father to go quietly.
I agree that Ivanka is probably as malicious as Trump, albeit not as obviously unhinged. But I suspect that whatever shred of loyalty Trump may actually have is directed to his kids. I don’t think Ivanka will stick with him trying heroically to minimize the damage Trump has done to the world. Rather, hers will simply be the last back into which Trump plants a shank.
It’s a great reason to impeach, one of many. And Congress can impeach for anything they choose to call a high crime or misdemeanor, so they don’t need a great reason. But they do need the votes, and the votes will not be there as long as Trump keeps appointing right wing judges, and signing right wing legislation.
Obstruction of Justice is probably the ground - only problem is proving it; word against word, but it might be enough to get the process rolling, might depend on how Comey fronts the whole thing up …
For goodness sake, evidence of President as being a definitive example of the US model is like saying a steering wheel is definitive evidence it must be a tractor.
The US constitutional model is not followed - except apparently by Rwanda. And good luck to them with that.
Well they got a right wing Supreme Court justice, pretty much the GOP’s entire legislative agent is down the toilet now.
Wrong Mrs Trump; Ivanka’s mother Ivana was Trump’s first wife, and they divorced in the early 90s. Melania is the incumbent wife of Trump, and presumably she would stand to inherit more as a widow than a divorcee.
Well they got a right wing Supreme Court justice, but pretty much the GOP’s entire legislative agent is down the toilet now.
Wrong Mrs Trump; Ivanka’s mother Ivana was Trump’s first wife, and they divorced in the early 90s. Melania is the incumbent wife of Trump, and presumably she would stand to inherit more as a widow than a divorcee.
The existence of practically unbreakable encryption does not in and of itself guarantee security. There are a variety of end-run methods in the spy trade (the most obvious being to plant spyware at either end of the communications channel to intercept content before encryption is applied and/or to intercept the encryption key itself).
