Is Donald Trump Done for?

[Lexicus]

"Unelected bureaucrats" pose far less of a threat than the Republican party (and in particular- its Supreme Court Justices).

 

[FriendlyFire]

You want to win thanks to lies helpfully produced by the FBI? Russia Even if you do it will be a pyrrhic victory: the FBI Russia wins, not you. They Putin will be calling the shots.!

Fixed for You
/shrugs the US public elected GWBush Twice of their own accord with the horrendous damage that he and the Republicans did. The US is just going to have to learn the hard once way again

 

[Ajidica]

Another of the rare honest journalists still allowed to work in something close to mainstream media. And one that should be suspect of sympathizing with any right-wing strongmen. He does identify that the real threat to democracy in the US is not Trump but the unelected bureaucracy manipulating institutions in Washington.

The US bureaucracy can't even prevent their budgets from being destroyed by Trump or their own ambassadors from being hounded out of office by a smear campaign conducted by the President's lackeys. It is right and proper to be skeptical of bureaucracies, but they aren't where the threat to the United States is. The threat is contained in the plutocrats, kleptocrats, and semi-aristocratic moneyed interests who have twisted US politics by supporting the collection of profoundly anti-democratic wierdos, racists, and scumbags known as the Republican Party.
An overly strong bureaucracy without democratic oversight can be a threat; a state too weak to protect its citizens from corporate greed - which is only accountable to shareholders with no democratic oversight and recourse- is by far the greater threat in this day an age.

You want to win thanks to lies helpfully produced by the FBI? Even if you do it will be a pyrrhic victory: the FBI wins, not you. They will be calling the shots.

I'm more concerned about a government that is a puppet of business interests where democratic opposition has been jerrymandered and sidelined into irrelevance.

This is indeed the cruse of any big state with a big bureaucracy. Democracy suffers and withers. But don't make it easier, people can fight the trend to hand power to it. Instead, is it being eagerly embraced!

Trump and the GOP are not standardbearers of this fight, unless you prefer rule by unaccountable corporations and moneyed interests to that of a -however flawed - democratic state.
As Tony Benn famously noted, democracy allows us to determine how we are ruled. The path the GOP is building is toward a future where democracy is completely impotent in the face of moneyed interests and there is no recourse.

 

[Berzerker]

But he absolutely did not want anyone's corruption investigated. All the witnesses testified that all he wanted or cared about was for Ukraine to announce that they were doing an investigation. He didn't care a whit about any actual investigation taking place. In fact, Ukraine's efforts to fight corruption had already been evaluated and deemed sufficient before Trump froze the aid. The aid had been approved, precisely because the Ukrainians had already addressed the corruption issue to the satisfaction of Congress.

So the claim that he wanted an actual investigation is a falsehood that has been thoroughly debunked so many times. Trump just pulled the "corruption" excuse out of his ass to use as a pretense to ask for an anti-Biden announcement by Ukraine. Trump probably remembered hearing something about Ukrainian corruption at some point earlier and figured it would be a great excuse to ask for his "favor", not realizing that it was a moot point by then because Ukraine had already dealt with the corruption issue.

Witnesses testified Trump wanted a public commitment from Zelensky in exchange for a WH meeting, on the phone call he wanted a favor for 'us' - the country - and he proceeded to run down a list of reasons why, our country had been thru a lot in the 2016 election and Ukraine was involved.

Trump wanted that investigated, primarily Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election, Crowdstrike and the DNC server he thought was in Ukraine. Trump might think the hack came from Crowdstrike to cover for a leaker at the DNC. Somebody didn't like the way the primaries were rigged and sent proof to Wikileaks. Podesta, John Brennan and the DNC braintrust used a compliant partisan media and Obama administration to divert attention from DNC corruption to Russia and Trump. Its possible, thats what Cartman would do...

Anyway, Trump wanted the new guy to take a public stand, to show he wasn't a continuation of the old corrupt system that tried to bring him down. Biden, Burisma and the fired prosecutor have become emblematic of the corruption.There's just no way to investigate Ukrainian interference in our election without involving the people in charge of US policy there. Thats Biden, US ambassador(s), diplomats and staff along with their Ukrainian allies.

If Biden wasn't involved Trump would still want Ukraine to investigate Crowdstrike and their interference in our election. If you're the Prez do you want to help the corrupt people who tried to bring you down? No, you want the new guy on your side, not theirs. If the guy wont make a public commitment then maybe his private assurances aren't believable.

Democrats spent 3 years trying to nail Trump on all sorts of BS and now they're mad because Trump wants to investigate them. Why he cant do that, investigating political opponents is an abuse of power, so says Obama supporters. Jesus, the Democrats were spying on Trump. I think thats funny, I cant wait for Barr and Durham to finish their investigations.

Moving to the Senate, we have a situation brewing now, where there are members of both parties in jeopardy from investigations in Ukraine. Apparently there have been kickbacks for the aid the country has received. The Bidens are the tip of the iceberg. What then, if Ukraine suddenly elected a president whose anti-corruption platform won support across the ethnic lines, and the US elected a president who was more than happy to go toe-to-toe with the swamp here? Trouble for the Senate...

OUCH! Lindsey better not have any donations from Ukraine. Yup, that corruption is bipartisan, the 2 parties will try to avoid an investigation into the billions we sent to Ukraine and what happened to that money because you can bet the kickbacks were flying at US politicians. The fired prosecutor Shokin was investigating that very matter. I think his office raided the main reformer/activist outfit being funded by the west. Thats why he was fired, he was going after people we wanted protected. Our corruption is off limits and dont you forget it...Here's a billion to remind you.

FF has been posting articles showing Giuliani's connections to Ukraine and we know Paul Manafort was working with John Podesta, the swamp is thick in Washington and Kiev. I guess thats to be expected since we conspired with Ukrainians to overthrow the government. The business opportunities abound just as taking down a drug cartel opens the door for the wanna-bes. Sadly I think you're right, the Senate doesn't want to look too closely at Ukraine.

its all a left wing conspiracy against our dear fuhrer! How dare reality not align with his desires!

He has an entire lifetime of criminality in his past and yet you defend him over people whose entire lives read like Lawful/Good Paladins. /smh

Can we ask Carter Page about these Paladins guarding the national virtue? Please continue with your Hitler comparison.

 

[Estebonrober]

Can we ask Carter Page about these Paladins guarding the national virtue? Please continue with your Hitler comparison.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_B._Taylor_Jr.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiona_Hill_(presidential_advisor)

An eample of "lawful/good" to a fault imo. There are many like him in this case where they testified against Trump a lifelong career criminal. Btw I am in no way comparing Trump to hitler good, he is nowhere near competent enough to be hitler. I am comparing your ilk to his brownshirts though. No ability to reason on their own intensely tied to the success of their dear leader. Unable to snap out of it like, hmm like a cult.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-poli...370/trump-republican-party-cult-steven-hassan

The question almost feels like a provocation. And yet more and more people, like veteran Republican strategist John Weaver, are comfortable saying, “Yes.”

 

[Samson]

Hmm...wanna bet Obama either knew about or authorized the spying? If Trump was this Russian agent certainly the President would be informed, no?

https://www.realclearinvestigations...about_a_prime_mover_of_russiagate_121098.html



The Deep State, coming to a theater near you next year

IF Obama was breaking the law, then it was the House's job to investigate. At that point it was a Republican house, to it was the republicans not doing their job if he should have been investigated. Surely you do not want the current house to fail in the same way do you?

 

[Berzerker]

The complaints about the process being rushed are completely disingenuous horse squeeze. Not one Republican was going to vote for impeachment regardless of how much time the Democrats took to do it. They are just trying to fool the Democrats into slowing the process down in the hopes that the public loses interest and or becomes impeachment-weary and turns against it.

Similarly all the Republicans' attempted amendments were just more disingenuous bullsqueeze. There is no way any of the Republicans would have voted in favor of impeachment regardless of what amendments the Democrats adopted. I'm glad to see that the Democrats have finally started to wise up a little, stop falling for the Republicans little games and obstruction tactics and start standing up to them for a change.

I dont think Turley's a Republican, do you and Lex have a link for that? He complained about the rush because there was and is so much the House needs to investigate and that 'the people' need to be brought along so we can judge the credibility of the process. I got the impression Turley thought the House investigation was so one sided the other needs to be heard first.

I dont think the Democrats are worried about the public losing interest, they're worried about losing support as we become interested. They dont want us interested, they want us ignorant. So speed the process up, cherry pick the evidence and muffle the other side. I'm worried Graham will get his way in the Senate and the impeachment will be immediately rejected without a trial. We need the deep state put on trial, thats the swamp's monster.

Brennan, Comey, McCabe, Kline Smith, Strzok and Page, Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Glenn Simpson and Steele, their henchman and allies in the media got caught and their coup will fail. They're just a modern version of J Edgar Hoover and his empire of corruption and abuse of power. So meanwhile, the Democrats have dropped bribery and extortion for, you guessed it, abuse of power. Turley accused the Democrats of abusing power.

Alan Dershowitz said Trump has taken a subpoena to the courts thereby nullifying the obstruction of Congress charge before its even passed. Or something to that effect...

I am in no way comparing Trump to hitler good, he is nowhere near competent enough to be hitler. I am comparing your ilk to his brownshirts though. No ability to reason on their own intensely tied to the success of their dear leader. Unable to snap out of it like, hmm like a cult.

"Your ilk" just started a few wars and lied to the courts to spy on political opponents, comparing your critics to brownshirts is Orwellian.

IF Obama was breaking the law, then it was the House's job to investigate. At that point it was a Republican house, to it was the republicans not doing their job if he should have been investigated. Surely you do not want the current house to fail in the same way do you?

At that point we didn't have the IG report exposing what the FBI did. If Trump is impeached maybe we'll find out how involved Obama was in spying on a political opponent, but I suspect he had to sign off on it by at least turning a blind eye. Now maybe Brennan was ultimately the one convincing Obama to spy on Trump but it doesn't look good. The Democrats have consistently accused Trump of doing what they did and they're gonna impeach him for investigating their corruption and abuse of power.

First off, I did some googling and the only news outlets talking about the 'Brennan Dossier' are RCP, The Washington Examiner, a Fox News opinion piece, and some LaRouche stuff. Once I got into the LaRouche stuff I stopped looking. That the story has not gained any reporting in other news sources is one mark against it. Further, the article you linked to is a half-coherent mess of partially accurate statements and innuendo with a surprising lack of clear citations to back it up. If this is symptomatic of where you get your information on the security services from, no wonder your posts are so out there at times.

Aaron Mate is the author of the article, he writes for the Nation and other 'progressive' outlets. Of course Trump's side would publish it first. It takes time for other media to research his information and do a follow up or refutation, but his track record on RussiaGate is pretty damn good. I think its time your side opened both ears. If you're so informed on the subject why did you think the Steele Dossier was inconsequential or had no real effect on getting the FISA warrants? I cant remember exactly what you said, can you refresh my memory?

That the FBI behaves badly and FISA courts have a ridiculously low standard is not new. Anyone on the spookwise left has known that for decades. I've said from before this started that FISA procedure needs to be reviewed and the security services need stronger democratic oversight. The noise is coming from the GOP who are Shocked! Shocked I say! that the FBI might behave poorly when for so long it limited its bad behavior to leftists and minorities.

Yeah, yeah, happens every day, stop complaining

Translation: Trump was right, yawnnnn zzzzzz

Impeach him anyway!

Additionally, from a Politico article

Written before the IG report and Mate's article. Hopefully the authors will address Mate's work with something more than your criticism.

EDIT: To add, the bureaucratic turf war between the CIA and FBI and what role the 'Steele Dossier' ended up playing is largely immaterial at this point, useful only for how to better strengthen internal procedures at the security services. As Horowitz, and I'm pretty sure Mueller noted, the probes were launched before the 'Steele Dossier' was a Thing. Horowitz specifically noted there was no impropriety in the launching of the probes. As is obvious from the public record, there was enough for the security services to launch probes on various members of the Trump campaign.

Then everything is on the up and up if the dossier doesn't matter. But it does matter, the IG said it was central and essential to obtaining the FISA warrants to spy on Page. Telling us Priestap was unbiased investigating Papadopoulus is irrelevant, the FBI needed more to go on than George hearing the Russians might have dirt on Hillary.

Famously there was Paul Manafort who actively lobbied for pro-Russian oligarchs and was up to his neck in dodgy dealings with pro-Putin elements in Russia. You got George Papadopolus, by his own admission to Congress, playing coy with the Greek foreign minister (among others) about whether he had knowledge of an active plan by Russian security services to acquire and leak documents about Clinton to help Trump. There was also Stone -and Assange to an extent- who played clever about whether Russian security services were laundering hacked documents through wikileaks. As Craig Murray fairly convincingly shows through his interview with Randy Credico; Stone lied about being the cutout/having inside knowledge on it. Stone lied in he wanted to appear all big and important but in reality, per Credico, had no special information.

None of which justified spying on Page.

All of this is separate from what has been reported regarding the Ukraine phonecall. In that Trump through Rudy Guiliani, assembled a motley crew of individuals to engage in a pressure campaign against the Ukrainian government to get the US ambassador to Ukraine reassigned, in order to facilitate pressuring the Ukrainian government into announcing a (fake) investigation into Hunter Biden and Burisma. As Ukraine didn't want to turn US support for Ukraine into a partisan issue, they tried stalling, which lead Trump to use the Congressionally appropriated military aid as leverage, hence the phone call.

Trump wants to investigate Ukrainian interference in our election and he wants their help. Thats why he's being impeached? The US ambassador was one of Obama/Biden's people, a potential suspect in or witness to that interference. Why would the investigation be fake? Nothing would come of it and people would forget. If anything Biden could sweep away any criticism with how the Ukrainians cleared him of wrong doing.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

Were the Mexicans equally excluded?

Not by that specific act but by others. In the 50's, Eisenhower launched Trump's wet dream: Operation Wetback (actual name). The authorities back then actually did go into communities en masse and round up Mexicans specifically for deportation, on a scale even Trump can't match today.

. Consider Obama's personal distance form the Trump investigations

And he tried to bring in the Republicans to form a concensus that Russia had to be stopped from meddling. When McConnell threatened to go thermonuclear over it, he opted not to even disclose the investigations to the public to let people know about the threat.

 

[rah]

If Trump is impeached maybe we'll find out how involved Obama was in spying on a political opponent, but I suspect he had to sign off on it by at least turning a blind eye. Now maybe Brennan was ultimately the one convincing Obama to spy on Trump but it doesn't look good. The Democrats have consistently accused Trump of doing what they did and they're gonna impeach him for investigating their corruption and abuse of power.

Please stop repeating this. Trump is being charged with bribing a foreign government for personal gain and obstructing the investigation. That is NOT investigating corruption. And you keep using terms like Maybe we'll find out. Sounds like a pretty weak charge there. If they did something wrong hold them accountable.
If Trump did something wrong, (which he outright admitted) then he should be held accountable.

 

[Sommerswerd]

I dont think Turley's a Republican, do you and Lex have a link for that?

Nowhere in the post you quoted did I say Turley was a Republican... and that's irrelevant anyway. Once you began your post with a red herring and blatant lie/strawman I couldn't be bothered to read the rest.

 

[Arakhor]

If Trump did something wrong, (which he outright admitted) then he should be held accountable.

Someone somewhere did something wrong, therefore all crimes are valid!

 

[Berzerker]

Please stop repeating this. Trump is being charged with bribing a foreign government for personal gain and obstructing the investigation. That is NOT investigating corruption. And you keep using terms like Maybe we'll find out. Sounds like a pretty weak charge there. If they did something wrong hold them accountable.
If Trump did something wrong, (which he outright admitted) then he should be held accountable.

I thought he was charged with abuse of power and obstructing Congress

Nowhere in the post you quoted did I say Turley was a Republican... and that's irrelevant anyway. Once you began your post with a red herring and blatant lie/strawman I couldn't be bothered to read the rest.

Lex said he's a Republican and you said his argument was completely disingenuous horse squeeze, so I got the impression you thought he was a Republican too. If he isn't, was Lex lying?

Why is that a straw man?

 

[Estebonrober]

If Trump's political opponents lied to the FBI to spy on Trump, investigating them is a crime?

Depends on how you do it? Just like it depends on if they actually lied or just omitted something. Trump has violated the constitution every day he has been in office imo.

 

[Arakhor]

If Trump's political opponents lied to the FBI to spy on Trump, investigating them is a crime?

Is that illegal? If not, no. You seem to know all about this, after all.

 

[rah]

I thought he was charged with abuse of power and obstructing Congress

Trying to strong arm the Ukraine is an abuse of power. And obstructing is exactly like it sounds. He refused to cooperate with the investigation and
ordered his people not to testify. That's the definition of obstructing. There is nothing in the definition that states, boo hoo, it's ok if you think it's a witch hunt.
Every guilty person ever claims that. Go to your local prison and ask around. They'll tell you.

And saying but they broke the law first has never ever worked in a courtroom.

 

[Berzerker]

Is that illegal? If not, no. You seem to know all about this, after all.

Lying to the FBI is illegal, lying to a FISA court to get a warrant to spy on political opponents is illegal. Trump's trying to investigate that and he's the one being put on trial? Not for long, according to the IG a criminal referral was made for Kline Smith (or Kleinsmith, I'm not sure) and I heard other people are lawyering up.

This will not end well for the Dems, I think they're creating a backlash large enough to propel Trump to a 2nd term. First, its all downhill for impeachment. Even if it happens the Senate will expose it as a hypocritical partisan sham, but the Durham report will be due next summer before the election. There's about 30% of the voting population (or less) that swings elections, they will break in Trump's favor if that report hurts the Democrats... And it will hurt them.

The reason I heard for why Durham and Barr took issue with the IG's claim of valid unbiased predication for Priestap's look into Papadopoulos is the possibility Brennan was manipulating the FBI to open investigations on Trump earlier in 2016. I dont know if that means Priestap was getting a nudge from Brennan or his higher ups or if it was his unbiased decision. It sounds like Brennan had been running around pushing RussiaGate a few months before the FBI got involved.

Depends on how you do it? Just like it depends on if they actually lied or just omitted something. Trump has violated the constitution every day he has been in office imo.

What did they omit?

1) Steele's Russian source disavowed him and his dossier in Jan '17

2) Page was a CIA source, he was in contact with Russians and keeping the CIA informed on them. In the spring of '17 Page was on TV explaining that fact and someone at the FBI decided they better look into it, so they asked the CIA if he was their source and they said yes. The FBI (Kline Smith) doctored the email when renewing the warrant to show Page was not a source. Page wasn't a Russian agent, he was a CIA source and the FBI hid that fact from the FISA court. Thats like stabbing an undercover agent in the back.

3) The FISA application did not tell the judge about Steele's biases, motives, and being paid by the Clinton campaign. Now supposedly a footnote told the judge about that but the IG said it aint in the application. The court was led to believe Steele was reliable but the IG hearing showed even the British were warning us about his credibility.

Those are just the most damning I've heard so far...

 

[Estebonrober]

Lying to the FBI is illegal, lying to a FISA court to get a warrant to spy on political opponents is illegal. Trump's trying to investigate that and he's the one being put on trial? Not for long, according to the IG a criminal referral was made for Kline Smith (or Kleinsmith, I'm not sure) and I heard other people are lawyering up.

This will not end well for the Dems, I think they're creating a backlash large enough to propel Trump to a 2nd term. First, its all downhill for impeachment. Even if it happens the Senate will expose it as a hypocritical partisan sham, but the Durham report will be due next summer before the election. There's about 30% of the voting population (or less) that swings elections, they will break in Trump's favor if that report hurts the Democrats... And it will hurt them.

The reason I heard for why Durham and Barr took issue with the IG's claim of valid unbiased predication for Priestap's look into Papadopoulos is the possibility Brennan was manipulating the FBI to open investigations on Trump earlier in 2016. I dont know if that means Priestap was getting a nudge from Brennan or his higher ups or if it was his unbiased decision. It sounds like Brennan had been running around pushing RussiaGate a few months before the FBI got involved.



What did they omit?

1) Steele's Russian source disavowed him and his dossier in Jan '17

2) Page was a CIA source, he was in contact with Russians and keeping the CIA informed on them. In the spring of '17 Page was on TV explaining that fact and someone at the FBI decided they better look into it, so they asked the CIA if he was their source and they said yes. The FBI (Kline Smith) doctored the email when renewing the warrant to show Page was not a source. Page wasn't a Russian agent, he was a CIA source and the FBI hid that fact from the FISA court. Thats like stabbing an undercover agent in the back.

3) The FISA application did not tell the judge about Steele's biases, motives, and being paid by the Clinton campaign. Now supposedly a footnote told the judge about that but the IG said it aint in the application. The court was led to believe Steele was reliable but the IG hearing showed even the British were warning us about his credibility.

Those are just the most damning I've heard so far...

Which considering the history of the FBI its not that damning. Seems like typical FBI/CIA nonsense to me. I wouldn't expect FBI agents to treat CIA operative honorably. I would expect them to treat them crappy, manipulate warrant applications to their favor and generally be as self interested and self serving as any other human ran organization.

Fwiw the klinesmith thing is the only "lie" ( I bet he says it was an error btw) in all of this the rest is just a matter of perspective. You are your dear fuhrer don't like it and me and my resistance do not think any of this goes far enough.

 

[Berzerker]

Trying to strong arm the Ukraine is an abuse of power. And obstructing is exactly like it sounds. He refused to cooperate with the investigation and
ordered his people not to testify. That's the definition of obstructing. There is nothing in the definition that states, boo hoo, it's ok if you think it's a witch hunt.
Every guilty person ever claims that. Go to your local prison and ask around. They'll tell you.

And saying but they broke the law first has never ever worked in a courtroom.

What law did he break? So bribery is off the list, that leaves obstruction. According to Turley congressional subpoenas are subject to judicial review if there's a dispute. Some judge has to agree with Congress first and that means Congress has to take the matter to court. Mueller already showed it was a witch hunt.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Mueller already showed it was a witch hunt.

 

[Estebonrober]

What law did he break? So bribery is off the list, that leaves obstruction. According to Turley congressional subpoenas are subject to judicial review if there's a dispute. Some judge has to agree with Congress first and that means Congress has to take the matter to court. Mueller already showed it was a witch hunt.

Mueller showed no such thing what fantasy world are you living in? He wrote out 10 counts of obstruction into the russia investigation. The fact that democrats were too weak to pursue those isn't a sign of Trump's innocence it is a sign of the perpetual weakness of the left.