The Trump Impeachment Inquiry

Politics & Elections
1501

Bearing in mind that we’re not to talk about Bill Clinton: for those who may insist that Trump can’t be impeached because only perjury may be used as the basis for articles of impeachment, and Trump has carefully avoided testifying under oath—

—you may be living in a fool’s paradise. As it happens the written testimony Trump gave to Mueller is actually considered to have been given under oath. And there appears to be a substantial chance that Trump perjured himself:

https://www.axios.com/mueller-trump-house-records-grandy-jury-ukraine-af8964b1-1f9d-4d93-97c6-03708c96d8c6.html

Obtaining access to the grand-jury testimony is key, of course. And now that the House inquiry is officially an impeachment one, that access may well be granted.

So impeaching Trump for perjury may become a real possibility.

1502

This appears to be new, today (and not yet posted to this thread):

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/463843-former-deutsche-bank-executives-son-secretly-helped-fbis

1503

Uh, what? Why would anyone insist that?

1504

You didn’t ask my opinion on FOIA and having EOs be the basis of national security classification.

1505

Ukrianian nationalists protesting outside the Presidential Office in Kyiv after Zelenskiy announced support for Steinmeier Formula, which would grant Russia-held areas of E Ukraine special self-governing status after local elex held under Ukrainian law are approved by the OSCE.

Huh. So, just a week after Trump publicly pressures Zelensky to make a deal with Putin, Putin’s deal is made, a deal which allows Putin to control parts of Ukraine under a puppet government.

I mean, guys… stop going to bat for the honor of Donald J Trump. It always goes bad for his defenders.

1506

This thread is starting to feel like the pit.

Back to the topic at hand:

What’s your speculation on why Barr and Trump are so insistent on discrediting the Mueller report?

According to Trump–and according to the propaganda that is working really well–Mueller fully exonerated him. I’ve seen in this thread a sentiment that I share–that Mueller dropped the ball. We can debate how handcuffed he was from the get-go or whatever, but I think we’re all a little disappointed in the tiny puff of smoke that wound up being all we got from his report.

So why the continuous, apparently criminal attempt to discredit the investigation?

My lines of thought are as such: 1, Going off of the CrowdStrike portion of Trump’s call, it stands to reason The Orange Menace is trying to “prove” that the Ukraine was behind the DNC hack, not Russia.

I strongly dislike the turn this thread took regarding how much of a puppet your president is or isn’t, but that said, one line of reasoning could be that he was told to do this, part of a tit-for-tat, part of some kompromat, which or whatever, under some pressure from Putin and so on and so forth.

Or

2, He is acting out of extreme self interest because he knows how damning the redacted portions of the report are/knows the ramifications of what will happen (given the content of the report) in his future–be it after his presidency or after.

Reports are Barr is in Rome right now working on this project.

So what are you thoughts? Is it possible that the yet-to-come fallout from the Mueller report will be so damaging to him that he’s made it the current priority of his entire presidency?

I reckon there’s a chance Trump’s petty egocentrism is driving this–after all he can’t even let Twitter typos go without fighting like a sick dog with anyone who mentions it. (Remember Covfefe? Instead of just moving on with his life after making a deleted typo, he had to make a giant statement about how he MEANT to type it and the people who matter “will know what he meant.” Imagine being the kind of person who cannot, under any circumstances, accept the notion that you just messed up a tiny, stupid thing).
So to that end, perhaps he’s so ate-up by the report that he simply can’t let it go without torching it.

I mean he’s still hung up on HRC. What’s he going to do, EXTRA win the 2016 election?

1507

What you did manipulate was the quote - the “dubious” emoji was not in the original. Do not alter quotes in the quote box.

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1508

Still, a smidgen of self-awareness would force him to acknowledge the reality that the ass-end of the America-hating fuckstick’s one and only term is as close to the Presidency as he’s gonna get.

1509

Honey mustard for me, pls.

1510

Rachel Maddow’s theory is that if he can discredit the conclusion that Russia interfered with the 2016 election, then he can lift the sanctions that are based on that conclusion.

1511

A lot of Republicans surveyed do not believe that Trump discussed Biden with the Ukrainian president. The call that has a transcript released by the White House. And has been acknowledged repeatedly by Trump. And that nobody denies happened. That call.

They don’t believe that it happened.

“Just over 6-in-10 Americans (62%) believe it is likely that Trump mentioned the possibility of an investigation into Biden during his call with Zelenskiy, while 15% say he probably did not do this and 23% are unsure. Among those who have heard a lot about the incident, 76% say this conversation probably occurred, 12% say it probably did not, and 12% are unsure. Among all Democrats, 85% believe that Trump mentioned the investigation during the call, a number that goes up to 97% among Democrats who have heard a lot about it. Among all independents, 61% believe that Trump mentioned the investigation during the call, a number that goes up to 73% among independents who have heard a lot. Among all Republicans, though, just 40% believe that Trump mentioned the investigation during the call. This number goes up only to 50% among Republicans who have heard a lot about the call. Nearly 3-in-10 of all Republicans (29%) as well as the subset of Republicans who have heard a lot about the call (29%) say the investigation into Biden was probably not mentioned by Trump.”

1512

This is why democracy is doomed. The onset of Fox “News”, Hate Radio, and whack-a-doodle Facebook posts have made some people totally impervious to facts. They believe what the Red Tribe tells them to believe. A certain level of education in the populace is necessary for democracy, the US no longer has it.

1513

Well, we had a nice run.

1514

I’m actually surprised these percentages aren’t higher. Irrationality defines your average Trump voter.

1515

Network was supposed to be cautionary, not predictive. So was Idiocracy.

1516

No apologies. At some point, you have to do your own homework. You asked for the facts of Russia’s control of Trump and were given them. You don’t get to complain that the story is extensive and complex and that you just don’t want to be bothered. Take less time posting complaints and more time reading and you’ll be caught up before you know it.

The thread is about Trump’s impeachment. The reasons for it *are *pretty damn relevant.

1517

Not sure why this isn’t bigger news, but Trump alsotried to get Boris Johnson to discredit Mueller.

1518

I’m about 99% sure that the OLC, which is apparently run by a newly appointed partisan hack, has ginned up some documentation that they think will kill the investigation.

1519

He’s going to ask every world leader to discredit Mueller and help him find Hillary’s emails. Next thing you know he’ll have a bat signal installed on the White House roof to solicit help from the Caped Crusader.

1520

Conor Friedersdorf had an interesting piece on the Ukraine request and the potential liability for Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric.

I have to admit that I never thought my ethics were so situational, but if Republicans insist the Ukraine call was “perfect,” I guess I look forward to President Warren using the awesome power of the Federal Government to pressure all our allies to find evidence of money laundering by the Trump Organization.

Psssst, they can start looking at the Trump Organization’s Kazakh connections…