Since others have speculated as to the reasons Mueller and Comey are going after Trump, I suspect that this is what it’s about.
I suspect that some of Trump’s advisors like McMasters, Mattis, and Kelly are also privately dispirited, but they can compartmentalize Trump’s madness and rationalize staying aboard the Trump train on the premise that they’re trying to make sure that the presidency functions, irrespective of the person holding the office. However, Mueller, Comey, and others serve a completely different purpose, which is to protect the rule of law and to ensure that it and the Constitution apply to everyone, including members of a presidential cabinet and even the president himself.
I would guess that privately, Mattis, McMaster, and Kelly are anywhere from disillusioned and disgusted at having to be in the position of defending their guy, but their love of country demands that they maintain the strength of the presidency. Likewise, I think that Mueller, Comey, and others are also anywhere from disillusioned to disgusted that they’re in the position of having to take down a sitting president and, in effect, reverse an election, but their love of country requires them to focus on the higher principles, and there are some principles that actually do compete with a democratic outcome.
I think Mueller is at minimum going for someone deep - and I mean way deep - in Trump’s inner circle, like Jared Kushner or Donald Trump Jr. But he’ll probably go even deeper than that. There’s probably a good reason why Trump didn’t release those tax returns. Remember, folks, before Mueller was a law man, he was a marine. He knows what it means to go to war, and he’s going to take his sweet merry time to move his soldiers and artillery pieces into place. He’s going to choose his battlefield. And he’s going to choose his timing. He’s going to do what he can to maximize the possibility of victory over his target.
It’s obviously not treasonous. That’s ridiculous. Trump is entitled to his view on what’s in the interests of the US.
I agree about stupid, though. That’s actually pretty stupid even by Trump standards, which are a lot lower than ordinary standards.
IMO this marine going into battle stuff is silly, and is at odds with everything people have said about Mueller.
As to speed, it’s been speculated that the opposite is true. Mueller is moving at unusually fast speed, due to speculation that Trump might try to fire him.
And his view just happens to magically align with Putin’s? How is cutting the staff at your embassy in your most powerful hostile nation possibly in the best interest of the US? What kind of idiot would wake up and say “I know what I need to do! I need fewer people on the ground in the capital our most powerful adversary!”
Besides for his monumental stupidity, Trump is also extremely arrogant. (The former is mostly the result of the latter.) So he’s impervious to learning new things or changing his behavior.
If you think about it for a bit, it’s pretty obvious that it’s stupidity and not any sinister collusion with Russia. If it was the latter he would just keep his mouth shut. There’s nothing Russia or anyone gains out of that type of statement.
Above all, he’s not going to go so fast that he overlooks something or makes mistakes that can hurt the case. He’s probably going neither slowly nor quickly; he’s doing what is required to build the case. It’s not about speed, it’s about being thorough.
Junior and Manafort met with an alleged Russian money launderer, a lawyer who has represented alleged Russian money launderers, and a Russian-American with ties to Russian intelligence - all three of whom have a vested interest in adoptions which Putin is preventing in revenge for Obama’s Magnitsky Act - then DNC computers just happens to be attacked on behalf of Russian intelligence five days later? Suuuure.
Without getting into the meeting that you’re discussing, I want to clarify that my prior posts have been about Trump’s statement re the diplomat expulsion, and not anything else.
He’s so monumentally stupid that he keeps saying things that make him look guilty of collusion, but if he were really guilty of collusion he’d be smart and not say anything about it?
I disagree that no one gains from the Russia statement. It benefits Vladamir Putin quite a bit.
It has been pretty well established (at least from what I’ve read and recall) that Russian intelligence (and perhaps sympathizer hacktivists) attempted to infiltrate networks related to the Clinton campaign. However, I have also wondered if there weren’t people secretly working in the campaign who got disillusioned and disgruntled, or perhaps were just paid plants by someone (domestic or internationally) to sabotage the campaign. I’ve volunteered on campaigns before (not at the strategist level but in fundraising, canvassing and so on). If somebody wanted to pose as a supporter and secretly dump info, I can’t imagine it would be that hard at all.
