[RD] Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian diplomats

[Lexicus]

If significantly hindering the ability of the IC to protect our national security doesn't qualify, than I don't know what will.

I tend not to be as hard on them as others, because I don't think it's particularly fair to expect anything other than callow political calculation on the question of whether to come out against Trump. That's the whole purpose of democracy, and one of its most significant limitations, right? All you can possibly ask of these people is to support Trump until their constituents no longer want them to. I happen to believe that it's a pretty myopic view to think that there is anything but electoral peril ahead for anyone who doesn't come out against Trump while doing so is still on the right side of history, but I'm not going to pretend that the political calculus here isn't extraordinarily difficult, far more so than anything that any of them have previously encountered.

That being said, the early line from GOPers in Congress was that this story was rather disturbing if true. Trump has now confirmed it to be true. We'll see who is willing to call this out for what it is. Some senators have already dipped their toes in the water.

I was thinking about this and I don't think it makes sense to portray this as some kind of standing on democratic principles given the decidedly undemocratic, unrepresentative nature of most of the Republican House districts.

 

[red_elk]

I imagine Russia would have been a target

I understand what you mean, my reply was also about "military assets".
Laptops obviously intended to bypass airport security and target civilian planes.

 

[Commodore]

and possibly new elections

Don't need them. The Constitution is very clear about lines of succession for a president that dies, resigns, removed from office, or is medically incapable of carrying out the duties of the office. So if Trump is removed through impeachment, then Pence becomes president.

 

[Arakhor]

So, if for some reason Pence was ineligible too, would it then be the Speaker of the House who gets catapulted into the top job without further election?

 

[Commodore]

So, if for some reason Pence was ineligible too, would it then be the Speaker of the House who gets catapulted into the top job without further election?

Yep, then President Pro Tempore of the Senate after him. After that, it's the heads of each department in the order they were created with Secretary of State being the first and Secretary of Homeland Security being the last.

EDIT: Only after that entire line of succession had been burned through would there be a possibility of emergency elections.