President Trump Fires FBI Director Comey

Celia Cyanide · Jun 8, 2017

Kaiser-Kun said:
No early morning tweets today. I guess every TV in the white house will mysteriously malfunction today.

He said he was going to Ohio to meet with "ObamaCare victims."

Brightdreamer · Jun 8, 2017

Myrealana said:
I figure some staffer is shining a laser pointer at the wall all morning, followed by a glass of milk, apple slices and then a nap.

Just no chocolate cake. We all know what happens when he gets a slice of really good chocolate cake...

As for the testimony today, a tiny hint of residual optimism hopes it means something, but there's a looming cloud of realism/pessimism that knows nothing means squat until/unless the Republicans get on board... which they probably won't, because they still have their agenda and it still needs a big orange distraction/legitimization.

nighttimer · Jun 8, 2017

rugcat said:
Since the Russia investigation has not stopped, the line will be that what Trump did may have been inappropriate and ill-advised but did not actually consist of any crime or rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

But this got me thinking – what if Trump were to be impeached, convicted and removed from office? Many would cheer of course. But there is also a hard-core base that would be of the opinion that the charges were trumped up (no pun unintended) nothing but lies, and that the elite, including the Republican establishment for whom they have no love, illegally removed from office the one man who could save America.

I think these true believer hard-core supporters are in the minority – maybe 20-25%. But that's an awful lot of people. What would the backlash look like?

I'm thinking we might see civil unrest unlike anything we've seen since the 60s and probably larger than that. And unlike the hippies in the 60s, many Trump supporters own guns, carry guns, and believe themselves to be patriots. We might then see something violent and unprecedented since the days of the Whiskey and Shay's rebellions, only not so geographically isolated.

Still might be worth it – but the aftermath of any type of armed civil unrest might be enough to make today's partisan divide look like a lovefest.

Your concerns are legitimate, but I am not overly worried over armed mobs of pissed-off Trump supporters beating up snowflakes and anyone who looks different from themselves.

What about my anger and my frustration in how my chosen candidate was done in by a meddling, ass-covering FBI director, a scheming foreign power, and a rabble-rousing candidate who took the low road to power and took it lower than any other before him. Should I just let it go, shake it off and grudgingly accept Donald Trump is now my president?

Yeah, that's not gonna happen. :rolleyes

Why should the anger of a Trump voter be a scarier prospect than the anger of a Clinton voter?

Somehow there seems to be a lot less concern about the psychic shock inflicted upon the people who voted against Trump, who now know that his victory was assisted by a Russian intelligence operation and who watch, aghast, as Trump does everything he can to reward Russia for its help. Few pundits seem worried about Clinton voters’ trust in the rule of law when Trump blatantly ignores the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. Nor have I seen anyone fretting about the damage to the stability of our democracy when a Congress that is largely controlled by a rural white minority discards the wishes of the anti-Trump majority, which desperately wants to see the president restrained. Indeed, polls show that between 43 percent and 48 percent of voters want Trump impeached. That’s a lot of alienated people! Shouldn’t we be anxious about their faith in our government’s legitimacy?

This lopsided concern for the tender feelings of people who march around in “Fuck Your Feelings” T-shirts is of a piece with all those post-election journalistic safaris into declining steel towns and white exurbs where Trump supporters flaunt their stubborn Trump loyalty. Perhaps I’m misremembering, but I can’t recall any similar anthropological snapshots of communities that strongly backed Barack Obama when his approval ratings were at their nadir. Nor do I remember any worries that Republican attempts to thwart Obama at every opportunity, and even steal a Supreme Court seat from him, would make his base question our system.

Certainly, the rage of the people who gave us Trump is important to understand. Despite the economic disenfranchisement of the white working class, it wields disproportionate political power, because, as Robert Griffin, John Halpin, and Ruy Teixeira report in the American Prospect, they are clustered in swing states and swing congressional districts. Their suffering—and the resentments bred of it—have taken the country to a place of inconceivable peril. But if their bitter disaffection is uniquely dangerous, it’s not uniquely valid. They’re not the only ones who get to decide whether or not the country is coming apart.

The reason we don’t worry much about furious Clinton supporters is that no one’s afraid of them. They’re disproportionately female and don’t parade around with firearms or gather in torch-bearing mobs. They’re not going to blow up a federal building. The right-wing pundit Erick Erickson even argues that liberals must not really believe what they say about the Trump regime because they haven’t started an armed rebellion: “If the left really does believe the Republican Party is a criminal enterprise in league with the Russians, they’re either moral cowards without conviction in their beliefs or about to take up arms to defend their country.” Implicit in this—as well as in all the hand-wringing about what the pro-Trump minority might do if they’re thwarted—is the idea that only people capable of violence need be taken seriously. That, in and of itself, is a sign of a political culture in crisis.

Already, Republicans are trying to normalize the idea that even if collusion between Trump and Russia is found, it doesn’t discredit the administration. If they succeed—if any sort of collaboration between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence is found but doesn’t end his presidency—it will be a betrayal of the American voting public. You think impeachment threatens America’s civic fabric? Try telling the majority of American citizens that even if their hated rulers are revealed as traitors, there’s nothing they can do about it.

I do not trivialize how badly the minority of American voters who supported Trump might react were he to be impeached. Equally, they should not trivialize how badly the majority of American voters who supported Clinton might react should he get away with conspiring with a foreign power to win the presidency.

Our rage is every bit as legitimate, fearsome and potentially lethal as theirs.

ElaineA · Jun 8, 2017

DJT, Jr. has taken Twitter duty. Sorry, I won't link because I think he's a scumbag and I don't want to give him clicks. :e2shrug:

Alessandra Kelley · Jun 8, 2017

Celia Cyanide said:
He said he was going to Ohio to meet with "ObamaCare victims."

Really? Because his schedule says he's going to give a speech at the homophobic Faith and Freedom Coalition.

Teinz · Jun 8, 2017

Watching the hearing. Republicans are bringing up the Clinton emails!!!! What!?

Introversion · Jun 8, 2017

Teinz said:
Watching the hearing. Republicans are bringing up the Clinton emails!!!! What!?

Beats talking about reality, I guess.

Introversion · Jun 8, 2017

CathleenT · Jun 8, 2017

Thanks so much, Elaine. I didn't know about the ten year appointment info. I do understand about impeachment requiring an act of Congress, but I'm more inherently hopeful about them acting, at least to save their jobs from outraged constituents if nothing else. Even in gerrymandered districts (and it has been done both ways--mysteriously, this is never abolished, no matter which party is in power), there are people of conscience who get fed up.

So I did some research on the case for Trump's impeachment, since I was so obviously missing a key component of the picture, and this is what I came up with.

The Constitution states that a president can be impeached by the House (and subsequently tried by the Senate): "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." (info found at http://litigation.findlaw.com/legal...achment-the-legal-standard-and-procedure.html).

It's quite an informative article, and covers a lot of the confusion between standards on the last catch phrase--from whether an impeachable offense is whatever the House says it is to whether only an indictable transgression is serious enough, to dereliction of duty. It seems there's no consensus at all, and no way to determine if there's an abuse of the procedure. The Supreme Court was loathe to opine even in the clear case of Richard Nixon, who later confessed his deep regret for how he treated the American people on television.

But having experienced this sequence of events for the third time now in my life (and isn't that a tragic commentary on our times), it seems that in a practical sense, at the very least, the president can be removed for an indictable offense.

According to wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indictable_offence#United_States), an indictable offense in the US is either a felony, court findings, or an act of gross negligence. (I wanted to stand up and cheer over the last. If ever a president deserved to be impeached it was James Buchanan for abandoning the federal troops at Fort Sumter. But there was no time, and the country had bigger problems.)

So today, the cry for impeachment is sounding due to obstruction of justice, the critical reason Nixon and Clinton were impeached (or nearly impeached, avoided only by his resignation, in Nixon's case). According to http://blogs.findlaw.com/blotter/2014/06/what-is-obstruction-of-justice.html,

"If you willfully hide or destroy evidence to hamper an investigation, you likely have committed some form of obstruction. Concealing, altering, or destroying evidence or documents in order to impede or obstruct a federal investigation is a serious felony with a 20-year maximum penalty.The evidence doesn't necessarily need to be physical either. In Matanov's indictment, prosecutors allege that he knowingly deleted information from his Internet search history related to the Tsarnaevs as well as hundreds of files after learning the FBI might contact him."

I found quite a good article explaining how this might apply to Trump here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/08/us/politics/obstruction-of-justice-trump-comey.html?_r=0. It states that

"Obstruction of justice cases often come down to whether prosecutors can prove defendants’ mental state when they committed the act, legal specialists said. It is not enough to show that a defendant knew the act would have a side consequence of impeding an investigation; achieving that obstruction has to have been the specific intention.

It further goes on to say that an impeachment is a murky procedure, only "quasi-judicial," and that standards "are met by anything that a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate are willing to vote for."

Rolling Stone (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/how-impeaching-trump-would-work-w482643) and FiveThirtyEight (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/chance-donald-trump-impeached/) both have excellent articles on Trump's chances of impeachment. Both state that while Republicans so far have prioritized party loyalty, they won't want to go down with him if Trump's ship is sinking. (Okay, it's an oversimplification, but it does save time, and you can go read the articles yourself. They're quite good.)

I would like to ask, since so many here follow this stuff with way more passion and energy than I do, if I have the case clear in my mind. Or am I still missing something?

JJ Litke · Jun 8, 2017

Wow, what the hell was up with McCain? He not only brought up Clinton's emails, he questioned why she's not under investigation for collusion with Russia--like he thinks she might be guilty of conspiring with the Russians to sabotage her own candidacy?!

He also mixed up Trump and Comey's names a few times, which ordinarily I'd chalk up to misspeaking, but along with his general demeanor and insistence about the email thing, he sounded like he's either drugged or going senile. Maybe both.

ElaineA · Jun 8, 2017

Republicans been taking a lot of yoga or acrobatics classes. The logic knots are impressive AF

JJ Litke said:
He also mixed up Trump and Comey's names a few times, which ordinarily I'd chalk up to misspeaking, but along with his general demeanor and insistence about the email thing, he sounded like he's either drugged or going senile. Maybe both.

Personally, I thought it was a spasm of his inner Jiminy Cricket whispering in his ear, and McCain trying to shrug his shoulder to dislodge the pesky insect.

Cathleen, I'm sorry not to share your optimism. In the face of what we saw today, which was dangerously similar to what happens to victims of physical assault, I have absolutely no faith in the GOP having a sudden attack of conscience. None at all.

Oh, and by the way, today they're voting to repeal Dodd-Frank so the banks can once again act with impunity and lead us to another market crash, and yesterday they moved to fast-track AHCA almost exactly intact from the house version. With no hearings. So, yeah. No faith there.

rugcat · Jun 8, 2017

Teinz said:
Watching the hearing. Republicans are bringing up the Clinton emails!!!! What!?

This was John McCain at his finest.

He was rather incoherent (to the point, without snark, that one might wonder about his advancing age and mental acuity) but what he seem to be saying was how could Comey have wrapped up the Hillary Clinton email investigation and yet be continuing the entirely separate and unrelated Russia investigation? Clearly, he says, it's a troubling double standard.

Honestly, he's never been the brightest bulb in the Senate, but this was a little weird.

Two takeaways for me – one, when you strip away all of the surrounding circus, one thing is clear. Trump asked the director of the FBI if he could see his way to dropping the criminal investigation of one of Trump's high advisers. When the director did not do so, Trump fired him on a pretext, a pretext which he has since admitted. There really can be no clearer example of obstruction of justice – but it will come to nothing.

Two: None of this is going anywhere.

Teinz · Jun 8, 2017

Yeah, it all makes sense ofcourse. The brazenness of it just took me by surprise. McCain did seem a bit off, to me also. One can hope the brazennes of it got to him as well.

nighttimer · Jun 8, 2017

I listened on the job and whatever Johnny Mac was sipping from his water bottle wasn't water. Dude was just a wee bit incoherent. If McCain rambled, wandered aimlessly and just generally farted away his time, he did say one thing to Comey I did get.

"You're going to have to help me out here." :e2hammer:

AW Admin · Jun 8, 2017

McCain made almost no sense at all, and yes, he did sound like there was an underlying cause for his increased incoherency.

It seems very clear to me that Trump made some inappropriate requests, and in inappropriate ways.

Kinda squick-worthy, if you're female and have had bosses who wanted "loyalty" and or as one guy my boss reported to would put it, "special attention."

nighttimer · Jun 8, 2017

Speaking of Johnny Mac and squick-worthy responses to women, here's Johnny Mac and Richard Burr, two White Republican men, basically telling Kamala Harris, a Black Democratic woman, to STFU and stop running her yap.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto..._shush_kamala_harris_in_a_senate_hearing.html

Liz Warren can relate.

MaeZe · Jun 8, 2017

nighttimer said:
Speaking of Johnny Mac and squick-worthy responses to women, here's Johnny Mac and Richard Burr, two White Republican men, basically telling Kamala Harris, a Black Democratic woman, to STFU and stop running her yap.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto..._shush_kamala_harris_in_a_senate_hearing.html

Liz Warren can relate.

Glad to see it rated news-notice-mention.

MaeZe said:
... Side note: Yet again the male Senators butt in and chastise the female Senator Kamala Harris for the same kind of questioning (demanding a yes or no answer when Rosenstein began some long non-answer) that I've seen male members of Congress do often. Once in a great while someone from the party not liking the question will stop another and say, let the witness answer, but try it as a woman and you'll be perceived as too pushy in a heartbeat.

MaeZe · Jun 8, 2017

AG Lynch asks Comey to use the word "matter" with the Clinton email case instead of "investigation."

Trump tells Comey he hopes Comey can see a way to drop the investigation into Flynn and announce publicly that Trump is not being investigated. Trump lies about Comey and the FBI. Trump fires Comey.

One of these things is not like the other. But heaven forbid CNN not give lots of time to covering the corrupt AG Lynch, pushing Robby Mook (Brooke Baldwin CNN interview of Mook just now) to discuss the equivalence that isn't actually there.

James D. Macdonald · Jun 8, 2017

Teinz said:
Watching the hearing. Republicans are bringing up the Clinton emails!!!! What!?

Benghazi is next.

nighttimer · Jun 8, 2017

James D. Macdonald said:
Benghazi is next.

Oh goody. I've been going through withdrawal hoping for another cycle of Benghazi stories (no. I really wasn't). Well, at least I know what the lead story is I won't be watching on Fux News will be tonight.

Brightdreamer · Jun 8, 2017

Teinz said:
Watching the hearing. Republicans are bringing up the Clinton emails!!!! What!?

You didn't honestly think a Republican-controlled government would be interested in investigating the legitimacy of a Republican victory or a Republican president, did you?

Anyone who thinks this investigation will lead to the truth, or that the party is at all concerned about the country as a whole rather than clinging to their own power, can pretty much put that notion to bed with this kind of questioning. There's Red Law and Blue Law now. This falls under Red Law, which is "ends justify any means - but just for our party." They don't even have to pretend it's about anything else anymore, because they're essentially untouchable. Wasting time on the Clinton e-mail issue just rubs in how little this was ever going to be about Russian interference and improper actions.

MaeZe · Jun 8, 2017

As Carl Bernstein reminded everyone on CNN this morning, the Watergate burglary was in June of 1972, Nixon didn't resign until Aug of 1974. The current mess has a long way to go.

rugcat · Jun 8, 2017

MaeZe said:
As Carl Bernstein reminded everyone on CNN this morning, the Watergate burglary was in June of 1972, Nixon didn't resign until Aug of 1974. The current mess has a long way to go.

Without the support of a significant number of Republicans, Nixon would not have been impeached. (Or rather, forced to resign under threat of impeachment.)

Today's Republicans are a very different breed.

MaeZe · Jun 8, 2017

rugcat said:
Without the support of a significant number of Republicans, Nixon would not have been impeached. (Or rather, forced to resign under threat of impeachment.)

Today's Republicans are a very different breed.

I agree they are a different breed, but they are also a divided party at the moment. And wait until we are closer to the 2018 elections and you'll see a greater effect from toxic Trump. Not to mention, if this drags out it might be after 2018 that an impeachment action is taken.

I have mixed feelings, Pence is a religious right wing nightmare. Trump is keeping the GOP controlled Congress from enacting much legislation.

On the other side we have a really dangerous POTUS given the precarious nature of world peace.

ElaineA · Jun 8, 2017

MaeZe said:
I have mixed feelings, Pence is a religious right wing nightmare. Trump is keeping the GOP controlled Congress from enacting much legislation.

If this plays all the way out, Pence might very well get rolled up in it, too. Still the only safety would be if the House flips to D. Imagine the outcry if that were to happen, then Trump and Pence both get nailed, and Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi are next in line for the Presidency. O_O

(I KNOW, but a dog can dream...)

President Trump Fires FBI Director Comey

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