From The Daily Show tonight: he tweeted a lie during the congressional hearing about him tweeting lies.
I am aggressively anti-Trump, his persona, his policies and his personnel.
Serious question: assuming the current situation holds, what could happen to Trump? He tweeted idiotic, distracting statements which all relevant Gov’t agencies have rejected while Trump tries to spin them as general accusations of monitoring.
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if no evidence of Trump-Russian collusion is surfaced, is the only thing Trump has done is send out scandalous tweets? Is that actionable?
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If collusion is surfaced, then that overtakes the tweets for importance and the tweets only serve as evidence damning his behavior when he knew otherwise.
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Or something is surfaced that can be used against the previous administration, however tenuous, and Trump pivots to that. He will ID “leakers” and try to make that the story, esp if no specific collusion is identified.
Any other major scenarios? Another obvious one is that something else happens, either self-inflicted or externally - a disaster or war or other diplomatic dust up - and this issue gets sidelined.
Too late to add:
In sum: have we seen anything so far except Trump not acting “Presidential”? What have we seen so far that could lead to legal or congressional action?
This presumes that no “smoking gun” is found against Trump collusion or inappropriate monitoring from the previous administration.
What had Bill Clinton done?
Makes for an interesting question when future challenges to Presidential authority bring up his inability to tell the truth (or recognize reality) and tie that back to his oath of office. Why believe he meant that then, when he lies continually now?
Trump’s been decisively lying for the last year and a half. He’s stepped it up a bit here, lying about criminal actions of the then-President Obama, but if it didn’t bring him down before, nothing will change this time.
If Congress wants Trump out, they can impeach him. They can find something. All they have to do is find some reason to get him under oath for something at which point he WILL lie. Once he lies under oath, he can be impeached.
I think Congress could also weasel out of this by passing legislation to require him to release his tax returns. He would resign before he did that.
Congress can impeach him for most anything, but I agree lying under oath would give them cover. But why would they want to?
You think Congress can pass that with veto override majorities? Plus, I’m guessing you’d run into ex post facto considerations - it could be legal to say “the president must release his tax returns in the future”, but I doubt it could apply to the current clown.
ETA - What makes you think Congress wants him gone?
At present, he’s guilty only of being a childish twit incapable of admitting mistakes and unwilling to assume the slightest bit of responsibility. He is a child with ADHD, and a dimwitted one at that. Congress would never impeach him for that.
Everything hinges on what the FBI investigation comes up with, and that will take years. If collusion was there, he’s done. Congressional Republicans will go to the White House and say resign or we impeach and convict. Treason charges could well follow and dare I say (dare, dare) he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
At some point, the house of cards will collapse on him. The toadies who treat his every tweet as ex cathedra infallible truth will turn on him. Republicans who loathe him in secret but are terrified of his base will turn on him. That he will resign in disgrace is in my opinion a foregone conclusion.
Actually, the Apology Tour will begin with the next PotUS having to apologize to the world for this president.
I think that is the point of my question: has any clear line been crossed? I respect that Congress could move as they choose - with a GOP majority, I think some obvious major line would have to be crossed before they would move.
Basically, things would have to be so bad that even the rabid Republican base were threatening to kick out their representatives at the next election if they didn’t step up and do something about Trump. By which point most of the country will basically be on fire.
The tipping point has yet to be determined. Once reached, resignation/impeachment is inevitable. Would it be finding out that the campaign colluded with Russia? I think so. There may be other issues that tip to scale about other scandals yet to be hinted at. He has more skeletons in his closet than the finest anthropology lab. Whenever GOP congressmen collectively decide that continuing to support him is riskier in the elections than abandoning him, they will do so en masse.
You might be made happy looking for emoluments.
He had the audacity to be a Democratic president with a Republican Congress. You should never do that.
Oh yeah, there are plenty of other things to investigate Trump for - emoluments, unfair competitive advantage, nepotism, etc. - I am just making sure I know the implications of this particular one.
I think we’ve clearly established that he does not act Presidential with his tweets, but I haven’t seen where they are actionable. These slams against Obama and claims of wiretapping don’t appear to be. His comments about Nordstrom dropping Ivanka’s merch feels closer, but that is an emoluments/unfair competition issue, not related to his wire-tapping tweets.
Came here to say this. Trump was in violation of the Emoluments Clause at the moment he swore his oath of office.
Also, more city councils and state legislatures need to do this: City Council of Richmond, California votes unanimously to impeach Trump. It would be a movement that Congress would find difficult to ignore.
Until there is a direct threat to impeach Congress itself, they will find no difficulty in ignoring feeble gestures like this. I have given up on guessing what it would take for Congress to grow a new set.
I’ll allow I may be grasping at straws, but I do believe in the power of the citizenry when they get off their asses and get loud. I think if enough state and local governments were to follow Richmond’s lead, it would send a strong message to Republicans hoping to keep their seats in the mid-terms. Assuming the mid-term election is not manipulated by outside influence as this recent one was, I do consider it to be our best hope for an impeachment.
I just find it almost inconceivable that we will have to endure almost 2 full years of the horrifying Trump clown show – and all that that implies with respect to the damage done to our country – to get it done.
I will stop going off-topic now, though. Back to “wiretapping.”
Just to remind everyone - impeachment does not mean removal from office. The House of Representatives has the power to impeach, which is akin to indictment. Then it would take the Senate to convict him, at which point he would be removed.
But for that to become law, Trump would have to sign the bill. That, or Congress would have to override his veto. Neither of which would happen unless the country gets to the point of being a shitstorm.