Absolutely no way, especially now that he’s delivered the goods for the plutocratic party. That tax reform bill did a lot more than just lower taxes; it was, like many pieces of tax legislation, their vision of what it means to make America great again. And the members of the donor class are raising their glasses tonight. And after their fifth or sixth glass of bubbly, they’ll go out and take a giant piss on the rest of us.
Don’t forget that the Tax Bill also “repeals Obamacare”. Check off 2 boxes!!
Where’s your gratitude? You should be thankful it’s only piss.
Read this and tell me if you don’t notice any…parallels.
Think of Zykov as Comey/Mueller.
Don’t think of Trump is Putin; think of Trump as Putin’s…apprentice.
We know where this is investigation is going - nowhere.
Besides for not seeing anything in that quote which hasn’t been known for some time, I’m also unsure of what you’re implying altogether. Are you saying it’s “pretty near to a slam dunk” that Trump fired Comey in May because he refused to back off on Flynn in January?
Trickle down!
It confirms that Trump was aware of Flynn’s lying to the FBI (despite Jim Dowd claiming culpability for the tweet a few weeks ago).
You need evidence that the suspect was aware that he was preventing justice from being served, and that that is an express intent, to demonstrate obstruction of justice.
That assumes that 1) Yates told McGahn what Flynn had told the FBI, and 2) that McGahn had relayed this to Trump. I don’t think either of these is a slam dunk.
Right. You need evidence that Trump fired Comey with the specific intention of stopping the Flynn investigation. This seems very dubious, let alone a slam dunk.
I think the obstruction angle as it relates to Flynn is not related to the Comey firing, but that simply by asking Comey to ease up on Flynn could count as obstruction if Trump knew that Flynn was guilty. The Comey firing could be obstruction if it was intended to shut down the Russia investigation altogether, not the Flynn part specifically.
This is of course leaving aside the open legal question as to whether a president telling DOJ/FBI people to leave off on a prosecution counts as obstruction, which is itself not a slam dunk. And - as to the Flynn angle specifically - whether there’s any other evidence beyond Comey’s assertion that Trump asked him to back off. AFAIK there is not, and Trump is denying it. Obviously my money would go on Comey over Trump, but that’s not the same thing as a slam dunk case.
I’m pretty certain that I wrote, “getting near to”.
Right. I was using shorthand. Those two assumptions, plus assuming that Trump told Comey to back off, plus the legal question as to whether this counts as obstruction, is very very far from a slam dunk. IMHO.
Would it matter that Trump knew Flynn was guilty, or even whether Flynn actually was guilty? The FBI should go into an investigation with an open mind, to determine if a crime was committed, and if so,by whom. Seems to me that stopping an investigation because of what it might uncover, or that the subject is a friend, or that you want them indebted to you, or whatever, should be considered obstruction even if the person being investigated turns out to be innocent.
It might be a lot harder to prosecute someone for obstructing an investigation of an innocent man, but I’m not sure it’s any less of a crime.
I suppose a legal expert could weigh in here. That wouldn’t be me. 
But at a minimum, it would seem to me that Trump’s knowledge of Flynn’s guilt is relevant to the argument made by Dershowitz and others, that as the ultimate boss of the DOJ and FBI, the president has the absolute legal right to tell these entities to stop investigating anyone he feels like for any reason. Because the counterargument - as I understand it - is that this is incorrect in cases where he’s trying to cover up a crime. If Trump didn’t know that Flynn had committed a crime, then it becomes much harder to argue that he lacks the authority to close down the investigation.
So even if your argument is true of people outside the chain of command at the DOJ & FBI, it wouldn’t necessarily hold for Trump (or anyone else in the chain of command, I would think).
That is almost literally what the article says. It says McGahn looked at the law involving lying to investigators and warned Trump that Flynn had possibly broken it. The only difference is Yates, who it says didn’t tell McGahn anything. McGahn must have gotten the info somewhere else, most likely by asking Flynn himself what he had told the FBI.
So what the article says is: 1) McGahn finds out (from whatever means) what Flynn had told the FBI 2) gets worried that Flynn had broken the law and 3) McGahn relayed this to Trump
We’ll have to see how it shakes out, but your two requirements are actually met by the article.
Your speculation that “must have gotten the info somewhere else” is very shaky, especially since the article doesn’t say anywhere that McGahn told this to Trump.
All this article says is that McGahn was concerned about the possibility, researched the legal angle, and discussed his findings with Trump. It doesn’t say anywhere that McGahn had actual knowledge that Flynn had lied to the FBI, and if anything implies that he did not.
This is in addition to one of the sources in the article casting doubt on the timeline of when McGahn discussed the matter with Trump.
Lawyer: Mr. McGahn, is there any reason that you were researching the statues related to lying to the FBI?
McGahn: Well, you know, it was January, a bit nippy outside. It’s always good to spend your free time expanding your knowledge.
Lawyer: And this just happened to coincide with defendant Flynn lying to the FBI?
McGahn: Yep yep. Just opened Google and pressed the “I feel lucky button” until some law that I didn’t know too well came up.
Lawyer: Mr. McGahn, that feature was removed seven years ago.
McGahn: Oh! No, no, I mean, I opened a law book to a random page. That was it.
I’m not seeing any way for this conversation to play out in the way you suggest, successfully.
That Trump told Comey to back off is a matter of public record, taken under oath, by a law officer who was confirmed by the Senate 93-1 and the 1 was due to Comey supporting drone warfare, not anything partisan.
It is an assumption only in the same sense that I assume Paul Ryan is a Republican. There’s the tiniest potential for some very convoluted, conspiratorial shenanigan that he’s not, but it’s a small enough potential to discount out of hand.
How about this version?
Lawyer: Mr. McGahn, is there any reason that you were researching the statues related to lying to the FBI?
McGahn: Well I got a call from Ms. Yates, who was concerned about this matter. Although she refused to discuss the FBI interview, this raised the possibility that Flynn may have been less than truthful. As the White House lawyer, my job is to be prepared for any legal situation that might impact him, so I researched the law in case this became an issue. But at that time I had no knowledge of any actual lying by Flynn, as Ms. Yates can confirm, and there was therefore nothing actionable at that time.
“Matter of public record” means nothing. (Why did you insert that term?)
Comey’s confirmation margin is marginally relevant at best. As I said above, I would personally believe Comey over Trump, but that doesn’t mean you can make a case against Trump based on one guy’s word.
Which is in addition to the notion that there may have been a misunderstanding, in which case the relative veracity is also not much of a factor.
Dude, it’s over. He knew Flynn had commited felonies, and was a traitor, when he asked Comey to lay off.
Oh.
:dubious:
Your logic seems to require: Yates finds out that Flynn lied to the Vice President, hears that Flynn has just been interviewed by the FBI, and makes a wild assumption that Flynn would have lied to them, as well, fails to verify it and instead goes to Donald Trump’s personal lawyer - probably her favorite confidant in the world - and he accepts the wild assumptions of this hold-over from the opposite political party, puts in some research, and so updates the President on the topic.
I…don’t see how that seems plausible at all. Why would she make an assumption rather than verify? Why would McGahn put research effort in, unless he had some reason to believe that it was a worthwhile thing to put effort into (one presumes that there isn’t a shortage of things for a real estate lawyer to learn as he moves into the White House - so he’s going to focus on the ones that are really top of the necessity order).
It’s not something someone said in private, in a low-stakes conversation with some random person. Comey made a clear and public announcement to the entire nation that he was asked to stand down from the investigation. He said so under oath. He said that there are contemporaneous records to back that claim.
While it may be true that that’s sort of meaningless if we were talking about Donald Trump, I think that it gives sufficient gravity to his statement that warrants taking it as a given, not an assumption. Trump asked him to let Flynn off the hook. It’s a thing that happened. That’s not an assumption.
How many people do you think go to jail on the basis of a single law officer’s word? Do you think that all of those people should be let free?
We send people to jail, ticket them, etc. because we recognize that the law officer is doing his job. There’s no personal malice. He has no skin in the game.
Comey is widely accepted as being non-partisan and apolotical by one of the world’s largest bodies of partisan and political people. He was entrusted with the keys to the kingdom of an organization which once used its powers to manipulate and control Congress, through subterfuge and blackmail, by the people of Congress. They aren’t going to choose someone who they don’t implicitly trust to wield that sort of power, 100%.