Trump says that co-operating with prosecutors is “unfair” and “almost should be illegal”
That argument seems like some kind of fantasy, but … y’know … if you don’t commit any crimes, that process never affects you.
Additional fantasy: “What Michael Cohen pled to weren’t crimes,” Trump told Fox News. (Say what?)
Reality: each of the campaign finance-related charges to which Cohen pleaded guilty are felonies punishable by as many as five years in prison.
I look for the President to become increasingly erratic and desperate. (Yeah, even more so.) Given that Cohen pleaded guilty to a felony that he testified to have committed at Trump’s direction, meaning that Trump committed a felony based on sworn testimony, Trump now has to maintain the Presidency to avoid a criminal trial.
He could be impeached, but there are not 67 senators who would vote to remove him from office, so an impeachment process would not work at this point, and he will most likely remain President until defeated in an election or until his term limit is up.
As long as he is President, he can’t be indicted by current Justice Department guidelines, which Mueller intends to respect.
But if the President loses the election in 2020, they would soon be slippin’ the cuffs on him. (Oh, the sweet irony of “lock her up.”) He is well aware of that, which means, in my opinion, that he will go to any extremes to hold on to that office.
SIDEBAR: Trump could theoretically be indicted on criminal charges in a state court, and New York is currently on the trail of several Trump businesses, but that’s totally hypothetical, and such an indictment would produce a massive constitutional crisis. I’m not sure how any state official could even physically execute an arrest warrant on a sitting President.
I believe that if the Senate had voted to remove Bill Clinton from office, Al Gore would almost certainly have been re-elected. I’m not sure that would be true for Pence. It would depend on what evidence turned up that convinced 18 or more Senators (if there were still 51 Republicans in the Senate) to vote for conviction. Gore was able to condemn Clinton’s impeachment without reservation (while perhaps maintaining a private wish it would succeed). But we don’t know what we don’t know.
But I think Trump’s best chance for re-election is if the Dems take over the House and impeach him based only on the evidence we have now. That would enrage and enervate his base like nothing else and might turn off some independents/moderates. Well he might have a better chance if the Dems end up nominating socialist NY Governor Cynthia Nixon and she chooses the Reverend Al Sharpton as her running mate. I’m assuming she wins the gubernatorial election if she gets a POTUS nomination. That will never happen. But I almost want to see it. But only almost, because if that happens my sister will almost certainly move to Ireland with my 14-month-old nephew and I would miss him too much.
So I vote for the ghost of Christmas Future to visit Trump and convince Trump to resign and then spend the next 20 years doing a spot-on J.D. Salinger impression.
Couple of issues regarding of a POTUS Pence and his chances to be re-elected:
– There have been reports that Manafort’s two big actions as campaign manager was changing the GOP platform to a more Russia-friendly stance regarding the Ukraine and installing Pence as Trump’s running mate. There’s no guarantee that he’s not caught up in some sort of collusion/conspiracy.
– Trump’sbase (the cultists) are just as likely to believe Pence, as part of the establishment, was part of the deep state and in on getting rid of their god. Regardless, there’s absolutely no way they’d be as enthusiastic about him as they are about Trump.
Trump’s base consists of the cultists and the reactionary religious right. The latter have been holding their noses and/or doing all sorts of moral contortions to support Orange Mussolini, but Pence would be right up their alley.
Most likely there aren’t 67 Senators that would vote to convict; however, I think there is a maybe that it could happen. Trump does not have the best of relationships with the congress, and his removal would not mean that a Democrat would take the office, but that Mike Pence, who depending on how things progress in the next two years could potentially be more electable than a Trump reelection.
I agree with you. It seems to be in their own self-interest to replace Trump with Mike Pence, who appears to be a rational person, and certainly would be more acceptable to the religious right. Presumably Pence would be able to continue most of the policies the Republicans approve, absent all the incendiary language, the irrational tweets, and the racism. Pence would also (presumably) continue the same philosophy regarding court nominations, which is the conservative sine qua non at the moment.
Pence would then be free to nominate a V.P. of his choice based on who would help him most in the Electoral College.
Not only would that help them politically, but it would help them get us out of the trade war that Trump so obviously covets. I’m assuming all those free-trade guys must be exasperated by the tariffs.
I wrote this a while back
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This is in case the Democrats win 70-100 seats in the House and take back the Senate with 51 seats.
The hopeful expectation in this case is that Republicans realize that Trump is a bigger electoral liability than a help and so agree to get rid of him.
In exchange for the Republicans providing 16 votes for conviction in the Senate, the Democrats agree to:
1.Get the impeachment and conviction process over with as quickly as possible. During the Watergate impeachment it never came up for a vote, but the House seemed to largely agree to hold a pro forma impeachment vote of Nixon in order to turn the case over to the Senate for conviction hearings.
The Republicans in the Senate have been quite a bit more reasonable than the Republican Trump cultists in the House, so since the Senate have already held hearings it would be reasonable for them to agree that there is no reason to wait for the conclusion of Mueller investigation in order to convict Trump given the evidence already available (obstruction of justice, violation of the Emoluments Clause and extreme incompetence would be the most obvious articles of impeachment.)
2.The Democrats agree to not look into any activities of Vice President Pence during and after the campaign with the acknowledgement that Pence has not been implicated in anything (which may or may not be true.)
3.The Democrats agree to not insist on prosecutions of Trump, his senior campaign officials or his senior administration officials in exchange for a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’ that gets to the bottom of all of the Russian activities during the 2016 campaign and after (with the sole exception of any dealings Mike Pence may have had with the Russians). Anybody who refuses to give the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in these hearings would be prosecuted (including Trump and his family.)
I think that would be best for everybody involved.