Fox host asks how Trump is supposed to talk to Mueller if he can’t lie

Scoop, ... 1 comment.

Fox host asks how Trump is supposed to talk to Mueller if he can’t lie

Once again, real life and The Onion are indistinguishable. This one is real.

“How in the world could he ever cooperate, and sit down with Mueller for an interview, knowing that if you tell one lie to Bob Mueller, he will move to file charges?” Dagen McDowell asked.

Another panelist responded. “He could not tell a lie. That’s always an option.” (Whereupon, I presume, everyone had a good laugh!)

Trump admits in a Tweet that his son colluded with the Russians

Scoop, ... 16 comments.

Trump admits in a Tweet that his son colluded with the Russians

Re: “the meeting my wonderful son, Donald, had in Trump Tower. This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics – and it went nowhere.”

I didn’t see this shocker coming. In this one Tweet, Trump basically admitted that he and Don Jr. committed several crimes:

  1. Trump Jr. intentionally met with people that he understood to represent the Russian government’s attempt to sway the American election. That would be a crime: conspiracy to break  52 U.S. Code § 30121
  2.  In this new Tweet, Trump himself has now admitted that he lied when he dictated the statement saying that the meeting was about adoptions. Moreover, he had previously lied when he said (through Jay Sekulow and Sarah Sanders) that he hadn’t dictated the statement at all! It is very possible that both instances (claiming he didn’t dictate the statement, and the actual contents of the statement) could constitute counts of obstruction of justice. In the earlier case, he can claim that Sarah Sanders misspoke and did not represent him accurately when she said he “certainly didn’t dictate,” but even that claim would lack credibility, inasmuch as he had plenty of chances to correct the statement, either by himself or through her, and did not.

Now here’s why all of this means nothing:

While Trump Jr is obviously guilty, he is also totally invulnerable. The crimes he committed are federal crimes, and can therefore be washed away by a Presidential pardon. Senior is clearly not going to let Junior go to jail, or even to trial. Senior can make Junior’s troubles go away at any time, in an instant, with just a wave of his hand, and there is no mechanism for appeal of a Presidential pardon.

While Trump Sr could be impeached by the House if it changes hands in the mid-terms, and probably will be, he will not be convicted by the Senate, and therefore will remain President until defeated in an election. Removing a president from office requires the vote of 67 members of the Senate. That’s not going to happen, no matter what Trump does. Within the gamut of realistic possibilities, I can conceive of no action which would persuade 67 Senators to vote for conviction.

So if you want The Donald out of the White House, vote, and get all your like-minded friends to vote, because it will not happen otherwise.