Not a new thing at all.People seem to think it's a new thing for people in politics to go to prison...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes
It's actually very commonplace and not too interesting.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
A lot of democrats are discussing Trump since the election.
Aphorisms do not serve you well.
People seem to think it's a new thing for people in politics to go to prison...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_federal_politicians_convicted_of_crimes
It's actually very commonplace and not too interesting.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.
A lot of democrats are discussing Trump since the election.
Not to mention:
"Crooked Hillary!"
"Lyin' Ted!"
"I'm the best! I'm the smartest! Good brain! Brilliant deals! I'm very rich!"
I wonder why our newest Russian stooge supports the very type of small minded dingbat in the same breath that he criticizes such individuals?
Well at least he's relatively polite.
It's easy to imagine smelling the fear even over the internet regarding Trump's future and perhaps absolute panic to where this may lead.
To be wildly speculative and not suggesting this will be the case, let's look at Nunes. He went to the WH to discuss what he and his commission has discussed, effectively tipping off criminals. A government investigator tipping off the criminal.
Now it's extremely unlikely that Nunes thought this was a criminal scenario or else one would expect he'd be far more cautious, but now? If his actions influenced how the players acted then there is the possibility of conspiracy and now he is fair game for Mueller.
Again note I'm not saying that this happened, but using a hypothetical scenario to illustrate that this investigation could bleed out to heaven knows how many people and not all in the Executive Office.
This should and no doubt has many people worried and panic can be Mueller's friend.
The thing that bothers me the most about Nunes is that I’m almost certain he has no idea what he’s covering up, if anything. This isn’t a guy who has access to the facts and is trying to push something, this is a guy who is desperately trying to avoid discovering the facts or anything else.
If I were Trump the thing I would be absolutely terrified about is Mueller examining his personal finances, which are very likely dirty as hell. Considering Trump has already been in trouble for money laundering in the past there’s a decent chance there’s more where that came from. Manafort’s troubles put Mueller in a position to start digging into Trump’s finances and I strongly suspect they will not hold up under scrutiny.
That's where speculation was heading when Mueller enlisted tax and money laundering experts on his team. But now we see a clear purpose in them for nailing Manafort. It's possible that they have multiple purposes, and I agree that using this investigation as a free-for-all on Trump's potential illegal activity is a floodgate. However, it is entirely plausible that Mueller is sticking neatly within the scope of his special prosecutorial investigation. Building a lock-down case against Manafort and Gates before arresting them makes great sense, so that they can be turned into cooperating assets in the collusion investigation.
It’s not really the world’s biggest jump to go from asking if Trump’s campaign manager was laundering money for the Russians (yes) to if Trump himself was, especially considering the admissions from Trump family members of extensive financial ties to Russians in the past. All of that would be highly relevant.
The Special Counsel mandate is rather broad. Any russian coordination with the Trump campaign. Anything that is found in the course of the investigation (really open ended). Anything pursuant to 28 CFR 600.4 (perjury, obstruction, etc.).
The middle one is the kicker. Any lead they turn up in the course of investigating anyone for the first is allowable. Kiddie porn on Bannon's email ... fair game.
Which is why that picture of George Papadoupoulos working in London a week ago is so interesting. Based on his plea deal he's not allowed to leave the country. So obviously Mueller's team sent him there. Odds of him wearing a wire are probably 99.98% Was he meeting this "professor" person again for more dirt? Was he meeting with Julian Assange? The picture's geotag/location was 2 blocks from the Ecuadorian embassy. So many questions and not many answers yet.
Clearly, Mueller has some wicked smart dudes who are playing chess while the rest of us sit back and play checkers.
It's not a large conceptual leap, however there need to be threads which link all investigations together which tie back to Mueller's directive. If Mueller and his team are as smart as they've been portrayed by other professionals then this chess game was well underway as evidenced by flipping Papadopolous months ago.
I doubt that there's much legal wiggle room for Trump and his people to fight against whatever Mueller asks for since the groundwork has been well laid from what we can tell.
These guys are spooky smart.
Had I ever, in my life, done anything of even questionable legality I would never want these people digging through my past. Given the rogues gallery of shady ass characters Trump employed during his election this is going to end very very poorly for many of them I think.
The lead dog on the Manafort stuff prosecuted mob kingpins and big corporate crimes like Enron. In the Enron case he found out an executive's wife had committed tax fraud and used her prosecution to leverage her husband into spilling his guts, swallow a 10 year sentence, and provide evidence that led to Jeff Skilling's indictment and subsequent conviction.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/30/business/new-plea-bargain-for-lea-fastow-in-enron-case.html
These. People. Are. Not. Fucking. Around.
I know I have said this before but this is what amazes me most about all of this. If you are in Trump's orbit opening yourself to this level of public scrutiny may as well be self immolation. It's simply astounding that any of these people were willing to go anywhere near his campaign or presidency.
Hell I wouldn't want them looking at me and I have lead a pretty boring life.
Viper GTS
They have gotten away with the shady shit for so long they feel untouchable. They never realized it was because they had never really been truly investigated by someone who didn’t see them as potential political donor.
I know I have said this before but this is what amazes me most about all of this. If you are in Trump's orbit opening yourself to this level of public scrutiny may as well be self immolation. It's simply astounding that any of these people were willing to go anywhere near his campaign or presidency.
Hell I wouldn't want them looking at me and I have lead a pretty boring life.
Viper GTS
Which is why that picture of George Papadoupoulos working in London a week ago is so interesting. Based on his plea deal he's not allowed to leave the country. So obviously Mueller's team sent him there. Odds of him wearing a wire are probably 99.98% Was he meeting this "professor" person again for more dirt? Was he meeting with Julian Assange? The picture's geotag/location was 2 blocks from the Ecuadorian embassy. So many questions and not many answers yet.
Clearly, Mueller has some wicked smart dudes who are playing chess while the rest of us sit back and play checkers.
I believe that was debunked. It was a few years ago. At least the trip to London was.
Do you have a source? Because he posted that to his personal twitter acct.
The arrogance of people who think they'll never end up in trouble they can't evade or buy themselves out of is always amazing to witness when the ride ends.
I think Washington has been a rude awakening to Trump and Co. in a large number of ways. I genuinely think he's spent almost his entire life in situations where either he held more cards than the person he was dealing with so he could abuse his position or he could just walk away and find someone else. Now he's forced to deal with Congress and other countries, who do not answer to him and who not have the same incentives he does. We've seen it repeatedly where he's tried his standard bullying tactic and it's just been ignored, much to his bafflement.
I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing is going on here. He's never been in serious legal jeopardy in the past because he could always buy off whoever was investigating him and most prosecutors aren't that interested in prosecuting white collar crime anyway. Now he has a prosecutor who appears to be very interested in white collar crime and in Trump, and one who can't be bought off. I don't think Trump knows how to deal with this situation which is why he wants to fire him so badly. He doesn't know any other way to escape.
This is an existential threat to him that really could run him out of office or land his family in jail.
This is an existential threat to him that really could run him out of office or land his family in jail.
I really hope that if things do come from this, that its all very cut and dry. If its black and white enough, there can't be much argument. If they hold back and don't show anything explicit then its only going to make things worse.
In my opinion they already have Trump dead to rights on obstruction of justice. He admitted on national television that he fired the director of the FBI for investigating his campaign/administration's ties to Russia.