I think he has valid point bring up Clinton given Comey's testimony. Well he should be bringing up Loretta Lynch and that bullshit she pulled. Talk about obstruction.. holy shit.

I thought he was making the wrong logic. He seemed to be claiming that it was unfair (and illegal) that Lynch wasn't investigated to the same level that he's being investigated. E.g. he apparently thinks obstruction is so serious that it should be aggressively pursued at all times.

Trump may want to rethink the implications of that line of reasoning. If I were Trump, I'd flip that argument around. I'd be arguing that Lynch, as AG and Comey's boss had full latitude and authority to guide the investigation. And did nothing at all wrong. And that Sessions should be afforded that same latitude.

LOL when you look at it that way.. yeah!

Wait. I thought there were only those nasty unnamed sources from some unknown country saying he was being investigated. Now we can just cite Trump (though I am not certain we know what planet he is from)..

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Last night, at 11pm, they were reporting "breaking news" which was just a summary of the shooting that happened the morning before.

During the election, there was "breaking news" on CNN when Trump was boarding a plane to go on a campaign stump.

His point was that Trump obsessively, and unbidden, brings up Clinton as if he's still running against her. Twice yesterday. At some point that well is gonna run dry, though.

The same well hasn't run dry around here.

The job description of President of the United States comes with power to start, stop, or guide FBI investigations. It also comes with the plenary constitutional power to pardon anyone involved. So, there is that.

When the police investigate you for over 6 months, find no evidence of a link between you and the fight, but expand their investigation then I think you can use this example. Also, there are serious separation of powers issues that do exempt the POTUS from being overly or completely cooperative with law enforcement.

The history of the Presidency and special investigations says the complete opposite.

Okay Scott. You are right. He is handling this professionally, diplomatically and has brought none of this on himself. Poor guy.

  

It doesn't say those powers are legal in any context. (e.g. the President can pardon, but he can't sell pardons on eBay and expect to avoid legal issues) Nor does it say that use of those powers is excluded from consideration in impeachment. (there's precedent, here).



There is explicit authority (and precedent) for special investigators investigating interference in their own investigations. Or branching out to investigate other things. Kenneth Starr, charged with investigating a real-estate deal between the Clintons and McDougals, suddenly branched out into sexual shenanigans having nothing to do with real-estate. And the White House/POTUS is not granted freedom from responding to subpoenas. And they're not granted the power to lie to investigators.




Does it?

Actual guilt and innocence, hopefully, play a role here. The Reagan administration sold arms illegally and lied about it. Nixon was guilty and lied about it. Clinton actually did sexual shenanigans and lied about it. So those were only "hard" because the prosecutor was doing his job. In my opinion.

But there are others where there was little-to-no-drama. Under Bush there was the investigation of the Plame leak, which caught Scooter but never reached the POTUS, and isn't talked about much anymore. Under Clinton the investigation of the Waco siege was relatively drama-free.

I'd agree that if the Trump campaign is "innocent" or "relatively innocent" (just throw Flynn under the bus like Scooter or North were) then it shouldn't have to be hard. Unless you think that Mueller is a stooge of the left and is going to manufacture stuff. But Mueller was appointed by Bush, was on Trump's list of people to interview for the new FBI job, and was appointed by the Deputy AG that Trump appointed. So if Mueller is an embedded Deep State actor who wants to take down Trump at any cost, then that's some of the worst extreme vetting in history by the Trump camp.

If I was Trump I'd be praising Mueller, like he were my employee. And acting as if everything he was doing was exactly what I wanted him to do. "I'm glad to hear the news that Mueller is investigating the firing of Comey, so his report can outline what really happened, rather than this #fakenews from Wapo. I look forward to the report next year."

Then I'd get on with leading the country.

For someone completely innocent, and with (apparently) zero evidence against him (w.r.t Russians) he does a brilliant job at acting exactly like someone who's guilty as all hell would act.

"I'm not saying he's a liar. I'm just saying the he says the kinds of things a liar would say." - Seth Myers

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Whoa, whoa, whoa! I never said any of that. lol
My position is that this isn't the right fight, or at least the correct way to have this fight.

Sure, anything can be a consideration in impeachment I suppose. Did Bill Clinton have any legal issues after he pardoned Mark Rich for ~$550k? I guess those were the days before eBay took off. =)


I wouldn't want to hang my argument's hat on the Kenneth Starr debacle. Didn't he just publicly apologize to Bill Clinton for all that? What a disaster for everyone involved in that thing -- including this country. Are the Dems looking to get punished by the voters like the Pubs?

Quote:

If you've got nothing to hide then you've got nothing to fear...

I had to paraphrase your last stuff, forgive me if I didn't do it justice. As a lifelong American, that argument for gov't intrusion doesn't go very far with me. (Despite our recent trends.)

You've already pointed out where Starr started with real estate and then ended with semen stains. I don't think I need to go over the capricious nature of these witch hunt/fishing expeditions. Everyone recognizes they sap Admin resources and Admin attention span because they are a threat. Like any auditor or investigator the special prosecutor's whole value proposition is finding something... or anything. However, it goes beyond that. Justice Scalia wrote this about the danger of special prosecutors: "Perhaps the boldness of the President himself will not be affected — though I am not so sure." Here is a link to a level headed editorial that outlines the type of dangers Scalia was talking about... Article