Donald Trump Presidency-Day One

[broncofan]

I think nothing new has been revealed to the public about the Trump Russia investigation for some time. That doesn't mean the FBI does not have something.

Comey just released a statement saying he believes the FBI director can be fired for any reason or no reason at all. It's a funny statement, because in at-will employment dismissal for no reason (assuming that's a coherent concept) is legitimate, but there are some illegitimate reasons. It would probably be illegitimate if he was fired because the President asked him to make public statements exonerating him and he refused or because he wanted to expand an investigation into matters that directly impact the president. In short, it should be illegal to fire someone because you expect loyalty when they are supposed to be independent.

His statement, which I don't have a link to yet but read on twitter, is gracious but confirms that he is probably an honest but not very intelligent man. If he believes he was fired for doing his job and not for inchoate concerns about his competence, then he should at some point tell us what sorts of actions the president demanded or pushed back against that may have led to his firing.

[broncofan]

One thing to consider is that the longer there is scrutiny the greater chance there is that the fbi comes upon scandal that was not what anyone had in mind. Maybe Trump's personal businesses are financed with a lot of dirty money. It's possible he thinks he can exert more influence over someone else for cheap pr victories. Trump is a very vain person as I'm sure we've all noticed. The range of improper bases for the decision is broad.

There's also the possibility of explosive things like the fisa warrants into Alfa Bank showing direct trails of money between Trump campaign and the Russian government, but I actually think if something big had materialized already, firing the director would not keep it buried. As improper as Trump's actions have been and as feckless as the person he plans to hire ends up being, if there were strong evidence of collusion, more people than just the director would probably know about it, and cutting off the head would not quash it.

[Stavros]

On the one hand, alarm bells may have been ringing when subpoenas were issued to associates of Mike Flynn to appear before a Grand Jury; and the Bells were ringing when James Comey asked for more funding to maintain the investigations into the potential collusion between the Russians and the Republican Presidential campaign;
On the other hand, according to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Mr Comey was sacked because he had committed 'atrocities' -a flamboyant word for the Director of the FBI making decisions she believes should have been made by the Attorney General-, even though the letter from Deputy AG Rosenstein criticized Comey but did not recommend removing him from office.

It could come down to the simple fact that for months the Commandante has been fuming over the high profile of James Comey and could not bear to think of someone receiving more media attention than himself, the peril of spending your late night hours flipping through multiple cable channels and shouting at the TV.

As for the links, there is some confusion over the ownership of Cambridge Analytica and its links to the Russians via Vincent Tchenguiz and others associated with him, such as Dmitry Firtash, who in turn is linked to Paul Manafort while the SCL connection gives you Mike Flynn, and so on. A tangled web if ever there was one, and the difference being the legal right to mine, launder and manipulate personal data, and the actual effectiveness of it, given that 'Lyin' Ted Cruz' was the Republican darling when this started. If you want to, you can try and work it out from these profiles, but in the end, we are back to the 'Ayn Rand'-based free market agenda being promoted by Nigel Farage, Steven Bannon, and people like that and their determination to break the mould of politics to create their Brave New World.

http://www.bluedotdaily.com/cambridg...ever-heard-of/
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news...russian-access
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...p-nigel-farage

[broncofan]

We have now heard a little bit more about Trump's claim that he was given assurances by Comey that he was not under investigation. He said that at a dinner he had with Comey where Comey was basically vying to retain his position as director of the FBI, he asked Comey whether he was under investigation. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says that she doesn't believe this is a conflict of interest but one doesn't have to know DOJ protocol to know that the question is highly improper.

Comey may think it is noble to fall on his sword but it is inconsistent with his demand that rank and file continue to uphold rule of law. If Trump is being dishonest about conversations they had then Comey should correct the record. Any other undue pressure Trump put on Comey should also be revealed if he cares about upholding the rule of law. One gets a sense that there is a group of people who hold Comey in high regard but I wonder what they see that is never evident in his public appearances.

The President now claims that he did not fire Comey because of the Rosenstein memo but because Comey is a grandstander. Apparently Rosenstein did not like being blamed for Comey's firing and that explains the backtracking. But Rosenstein's pressure on Trump to provide another explanation for why he fired Comey will not save his reputation as he must have known when he wrote that memo that it was being used to hide Trump's real reasons for dismissing Comey. If he does not resign or appoint a special prosecutor, he has disgraced himself. But I expect he will be as spineless as everyone else has been here.

[Stavros]

“He’s a showboat, he’s a grandstander"

-Hard to believe the person being referred to is the ex-Director of the FBI. There are times when you want a President to sound graceful, to sound, dare one say it, 'Presidential'. The current occupant of the White House is a cheap showman incapable of grace, unable to even pretend he believes his fellow citizens are his equals, incapable of a simple statement of modest regret at 'having' to sack one of the most senior law enforcement officers in the country.

Every time you think this vulgar ignoramus can't go lower, he finds new depths to sink to, taking the Presidency and the USA with him.

[Stavros]

Jonathan Freedland, writing in The Guardian argues there is now a clear case for impeachment, based on the fact that the President has broken the law. We now wait for Congress to do its duty.

What, then, of those actions by Trump that don’t simply violate an unspoken norm, or rely on a self-censoring sense of shame, but break the law? Surely Trump can be brought to account over those?

There is no shortage of such deeds. In the last 24 hours or so, he has provided evidence of two more. First, he told an NBC interviewer that, despite the version spun by his aides, his motive for firing Comey related to the FBI’s investigation into collusion between his campaign and Russia. That is a clear admission of obstruction of justice. On Friday morning, he tweeted a threat to Comey who, he suggested, had “better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”. That’s intimidation of a witness. Both would surely count as what the constitution calls “high crimes” and therefore grounds for impeachment.
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-him-dangerous

[broncofan]

Laurence Tribe, leading constitutional scholar discusses the various bases on which Trump could be impeached. We don't know if there was anything impeachable in the underlying conduct being investigated, but there are at least two bases for impeachment. 1. the admission with Lester Holt that he was at least thinking about Russia when he fired Comey. He did not have to think Comey would find anything, just that he based the dismissal on his annoyance at being investigated (something I said in my first and second post on the subject...) 2. His question to Comey about whether he was being investigated at a dinner with Comey, in addition to his request for loyalty.

Although his tweet about Comey was highly inappropriate, I doubt even a Democratic Congress would impeach him for that alone because it ostensibly just demanded the truth about their conversations by threatening that he could prove what he said. It's not as though he was threatening blackmail with a tape about some unrelated matter to coerce Comey to speak a falsehood.

[broncofan]

It's not as though he was threatening blackmail with a tape about some unrelated matter to coerce Comey to speak a falsehood.

Although few will want to admit it, the essence of witness intimidation is, "if you tell the truth, there will be consequences" not "if you tell a lie, I can prove it" as indecorous as Trump's tweet was.

DC also allows the recording of conversations without the consent of the party being recorded, something that many localities do not, so I don't think Trump was restricted from recording the call. But if he did record Comey, those tapes might end up getting subpoenaed and we will know what was asked and agreed to.

[broncofan]

Although few will want to admit it, the essence of witness intimidation is, "if you tell the truth, there will be consequences" not "if you tell a lie, I can prove it" as indecorous as Trump's tweet was.

Slight contradiction though. If there are no tapes I think it's witness intimidation, because he would be playing off a person's natural infirmities of memory to suppress their testimony by pretending there's a recording that contradicts them. The purpose in that case would be to bluff them into thinking their recollection is contradicted by recording when it's not and to prevent them from speaking the truth. But if there is a recording I don't think a warning about it, however unseemly is witness intimidation.

[Stavros]

Slight contradiction though. If there are no tapes I think it's witness intimidation, because he would be playing off a person's natural infirmities of memory to suppress their testimony by pretending there's a recording that contradicts them. The purpose in that case would be to bluff them into thinking their recollection is contradicted by recording when it's not and to prevent them from speaking the truth. But if there is a recording I don't think a warning about it, however unseemly is witness intimidation.

Thank for altering me to the legal situation on tapes in Washington DC, but as Freedland points out in his article, it is often not the question of legality that applies, but the indifference to established modes of conduct, of which taping people without their knowledge is one, not least in a White House where it helped destroy a previous President.

The irony is that he may well have tapes, thereby taking one criminal allegation away that could be used in impeachment.
The man is obsessed, mostly with himself and how he appears on tv and in the media. One thing that probably keeps him awake at night is the simple fact that when they are seen together, John Comey towers over him at 6'-6". Nobody should ever make the Commandante look small.

And, according to Buzzfeed (health warning?) he also eavesdrops on his own staff in Florida:
In 2016, BuzzFeed News reported that at Mar-a-Lago, Trump frequently eavesdropped on his staff members’ phone calls.
“At Mar-a-Lago, the Palm Beach resort he runs as a club for paying guests and celebrities, Donald Trump had a telephone console installed in his bedroom that acted like a switchboard, connecting to every phone extension on the estate, according to six former workers,” BuzzFeed reported. “Several of them said he used that console to eavesdrop on calls involving staff.”
http://heavy.com/news/2017/05/is-it-...washington-dc/

Another simple fact: the job is too big for the man. Some people are natural leaders, some grow in the office, but on this occasion you have a man with no knowledge of US history; who has not read, and does not even understand the Constitution he has sworn to protect, preserve and defend; has no known diplomatic skills, but who does brag about himself as a winner and can't move on from the election he won in the College but not in the street, which is why he is prepared to spend millions of tax payer dollars 'proving' that the popular vote was fixed through voter fraud.

Never mind, with US investors and firms (and the Commandante himself) being given more access to markets in China, and a $100 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia in the bag the Commandante will soon be drinking tea with an unelected nutcase and mass murderer, perhaps to work out how they can start a war against Iran, because there aren't enough wars right now, and for a man with no empathy, you might as well spend millions of dollars on bombs, send US troops to Afghanistan for another 16 years, and get stuck in to Somalia, rather than spend a dime of that money on education.
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...-a7732861.html