Putin, besides everything else, is a trained KGB officer. I’m sure he is more than competent enough to manipulate a narcissistic man-child.
I think he probably won’t try to stop a Senate vote. If the House approves articles of impeachment, I think the strongest Republican position is to take a vote. If it were taken today, Republicans would vote to acquit and McConnell would be able to scream “witchhunt” and “vindicated” until Election Day. If public opinion shifts dramatically between now and the vote, he’ll let the political winds carry him.
The constitution says the chief justice presides and the Senate decides. The constitution doesn’t specify trial procedures but I think the simplest analogy is to say that Roberts will be the judge and the Senators will be the jury. Jurors don’t make the trial rules in courts. That said, since the Clinton impeachment was conducted pursuant to Senate rules, history suggests that the chief justice will give those rules deference unless they are crazy. Roberts is a half step above partisan hacks like Gorsuch and Kavanaugh but he is still a Republican and the Senate is controlled by Republicans so unless the Senate rules are so hamfistedly designed to preclude any result but acquittal that it would embarrass Roberts’s legitimate role in the process, Roberts will use the Senate adopted rules. And, the Senate can adopt whatever rules it wants.
Giuliani can be both a lawyer for the government and an agent for the government at the same time. Whether he was, in fact, doing so is another question.
Roberts might allow McConnell to preside. Nothing in the constitution prohibits it and the constitution will be Roberts’s lodestone. Since impeachment is fundamentally a political process, Roberts might even see the appeal of letting the politicians run it and reach the political result. But understand that, in my humble opinion, Roberts would be choosing to use Senate rules; he would not be bound to use them. Having decided to adhere to the Senate rules. however, he will adhere to them because to do otherwise would call his legitimate institutional role in the process into question and the thing Roberts cares most about in the world is preserving the legitimacy of the court and himself as chief justice.
duplicate post
sigh
McConnell says if House impeaches Trump, Senate rules would force him to start a trial
He said that on Monday - the second time, to my knowledge, that he’s said words to that effect.
I think the big issue is how thorough the impeachment trial would be. The house could deliver several articles of impeachment with lots of evidence for each one of them and McConnell can turn it into a Sprint and have the articles of voted on without nearly as much consideration in the Senate as it deserves. As far as I know the impeachment trial can become a kangaroo court, and who wouldn’t put it past McConnell to do that?
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Trump also sucks up to Kim Jong Un. Are we to assume that Kim is also bribing him, or is blackmailing him? Same win bin Salman?
I think the simplest explanation is that Trump tends to like dictators, and strongmen blowing smoke up Trump’s ass is very pleasing to him. Sure, the Russians could have something on him, but it seems unlikely that all the world’s worst people also do at the same time.
I should hope John Roberts shows some respect for the Constitution. I worry that McConnell will say “fuck it, we know we have the votes to kill this. Let’s vote right away so we can get back to doing nothing.” I’d like Roberts to say “fuck you, turtle face. We’re going to conduct a proper trial with evidence and arguments.”
As it turns out, the Secretary of State was in on the call where a foreign leader was the subject of extortion. The Attorney General has been globetrotting on our dime to try to undermine the FBI and our intelligence operatives. Time to subpoena the entire contents of the White House super duper locked server.
I think part of it is that Trump is in the autocrats club and part of the autocrat club is that they believe each other’s bullshit because it reinforces their own. I’ll believe you’re a powerful strongman and you believe I am, then we make a show of being best buds who run the world. It’s why they all have such famously thin skin whenever someone punctures their self regard, it’s a paper thin veneer of power.
Sure they have. And Trump could have gone straight to the top of that list after being elected president. Any evidence that this is true, and the these powers are directing Trump in some way? But yes, the other things are need to be investigated.
You quoted:
Flynn telling the Russians that sanctions would be lifted was obviously wrong. It is not evidence that the Russians or anyone else has been controlling Trump in some way since he’s been in office. To reiterate, this is what I originally posted about and am looking for. I don’t believe it’s happening, but show some evidence.
As for the other impeachable offenses, I have no doubt there are plenty. But I’m not talking about this.
Trump has done a lot more than just “suck up” to Putin though.
I’m sure you aren’t interested in an unsupported theory from me, are you? 
First off, I don’t know why Trump did those things. However, my admittedly loose theory goes like this: Trump does not like confrontation. *Successful * dictators and tyrants are some of the most intimidating people on earth. If they weren’t intimidating, with the power to back it up, they wouldn’t be in power. If Trump makes the excuse that Putin is a “very fine fellow” or words to that effect, if he makes the case the Putin or other dictators are benign and not to be worried about, he doesn’t have to confront them.
It goes without saying that I cannot read Trump’s mind. But he acts in mysterious ways all the time. The point being there could very well be a plausible explanation for his behavior that does not involve being blackmailed by said dictators. I have been hearing this claim since he became president. I haven’t seen evidence yet.
Are we perhaps using this word differently. I am using it to mean "someone having control over what Trump does while in office due to information they have on him and/or bribery of some sort, and that they are actively using it or have used it since he took office.
Evidence? Like the Steele Dossier? Like Mueller’s testimony? The massive ties between Trump’s administration and Russia? And the not insignificant number of times and ways Trump has assisted Russia including but not limited to trying to get sanctions lifted, not enforcing sanctions until forced by Congress, trying to get Russia readmitted into the Group of Eight, how ever his responses even now to the Ukraine Scandal helped Russia? Possibly lying about his business dealings there was a clue? Maybe how he has sided with Russia over American intelligence? Told them he didn’t even care about their meddling in our election? And this says nothing of the lengths he has gone to and is still going to as he tries to ensure nobody sees his tax returns which could reveal information about his dealings with Russia? How about the fact that the only band that would loan Trump money was fined $20 billion for Russian money laundering? Or that they hid suspicious transactions involving Trump, Kushner and Russia?
This is not by any means a comprehensive list. This was all off the top of my head with Google searches to find a few links.
Bearing all of this in mind, do you need actual video footage of Trump felating Putin to believe that maybe he is compromised? Him and Putin admitting it all in a heartfelt note addressed to you personally?
Rational Republican leadership (if such there be) is looking at a Trump Presidency that gets goofier by the moment. He is not a Stable Genius slinging cleverly designed distractions at his opponents. He is an uncontrollable, desperate dullard in a position of extreme power. He is ripping the foundation from under the party elite. The Republicans (and perhaps the country) cannot survive five more years of Trump.
Allowing impeachment and removal from office is a gift from the almighty. McConnell’s public announcement regarding the Senate addressing the matter is the first step. There was no reason for Mighty Mitch to say anything. Instead he opened the door to removal.
I mean… yes, I agree it’s possible that Russia, Saudi Arabia, Emirates, Qatar, Turkey had control over Trump and his business interests for decades – struggling, loan-dependent business interests, which Trump still owns and manages because he refused to divest – and then after he assumed the most powerful office in the world, they all just suddenly decided to stop using that leverage.
You see how that sounds, right?
Well, all he said is that he wouldn’t refuse to do anything. I trust McConnell about as much as I trust Trump. The thing about him is that the bullshit he pulls is completely unexpected. He blindsided everyone with his refusal to entertain Obama’s supreme court nominee. I don’t think he’s out of surprises. I’d love to be wrong, though.
Indeed he has, and that would be my point. Not that it proves there’s any sort of blackmail going on, I think it’s clear that he really admires dictators like Putin and Kim Jong Un and that may be about the extent of it – just the instinct of the conman and the mobster to stay on the good side of very powerful people, and hope for a quid pro quo of some kind in the future. But man, the way Trump kowtowed to Putin in Helsinki, endorsing everything he said about no election interference and then criticizing his own intelligence agencies – that was something to behold. That seemed pretty treasonous right there.
Later on, Putin condescended to a one-on-one televised interview with an American journalist, I don’t remember the name. The journalist presented Putin with documents detailing the evidence for Russian election interference. Putin wouldn’t even look at it, just threw it on the table and claimed it was all media fabrications. This is the kind of thing Trump admires, and seems to be trying to emulate. His current propensity for tweeting that everyone involved in the impeachment inquiry should either be arrested or executed follows the same wannabe dictator pattern. Basically I think these people are his role models.
Actually I think he’s revealed his game plan. He said that he’s procedurally required to take up the impeachment trial if the House votes on articles of impeachment, but (just paraphrasing from memory) “how long I’ll stay on it is another matter” – or words to that effect. IOW, expect the Senate trial to run about 15 minutes, followed by a quick vote and then a tweet from the orange terror declaring “Complete and Total vindication”!
Why I would bother to answer you after bullshit like this, I don’t know.
Anyway, from your Mueller link:
Note especially that last sentence. I agree with it. But, I also agree with the first sentence. I’ll ask you the same as others. Quote something from just one of your links that shows Trump is acting at the behest of foreign powers. If Trump does something out of fear that someone has something on him, that’s one thing. If he does it because it has been communicated to him directly, in some way, from a foreign power that he do it or else, that’s another thing entirely.