Trump admits to obstruction of justice yet again
"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI."
He asked the FBI director the very next day to let "good guy" Flynn go.
Timeline:
Flynn talked to Ambassador Kislyak on December 29th. The FBI knew immediately the exact contents of that conversation, since all of Kislyak's phone conversations were monitored, legally, as he was the agent for a foreign government. They discussed the sanctions against Russia.
On January 15th, V.P. Mike Pence told "Face the Nation" that Flynn had not discussed the Russia sanctions with Kisylak, presumably based on what Flynn had told him.
January 20th: Trump was inaugurated; Flynn officially became National Security Advisor.
January 24th: Flynn was questioned by the FBI about his conversations with Ambasssador Kislyak. He lied. (We presume he was unaware that the FBI had recorded the conversation.)
On January 26th, acting attorney general Sally Yates went to the White House to tell White House counsel Don McGahn that Flynn had lied about the substance of that call, and had obviously misled Mike Pence. She gave just a top-line summary at that time and agreed to return on the 30th to present the hard evidence.
January 30th: Trump fired Sally Yates (for reasons unrelated to this matter) on the day she was to present the supporting evidence on Flynn to the White House counsel.
February 8th: Flynn flatly denied discussing the sanctions
February 9th: the Washington Post broke the story that Flynn had discussed the sanctions. Oops.
Also February 9th: Pence said he was unaware that Flynn had lied to him. This means that White House counsel McGahn had known for two weeks that Flynn had lied to Pence, but had failed to inform Pence! (Either McGahn really screwed up or somebody is still lying.)
February 13th, Trump asked for and received Flynn's resignation
On February 14th, Trump said to Comey, then head of the FBI: “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”
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Back to the present day.
Trump said today that he fired Flynn for lying to the FBI. But the very next day Trump asked James Comey, director of the FBI, to drop an inquiry into a man Trump now says he knew lied to the bureau about discussions he was having on behalf of Trump's (upcoming) administration.
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This is not the first time that President Trump has openly admitted to obstruction. In the official summary of his meeting with the Russians after his Comey firing, he said, "I just fired the head of the FBI. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off."
He basically dared the Congress to act. They did nothing then, and they will do nothing now.
As I wrote deep inside another thread, it will take something monstrously evil to get Congress to act. The bar for a "smoking gun" has been significantly raised since Nixon's day. Trump has already openly admitted to worse things than anything which motivated Nixon to resign, but (virtually) no Republicans are calling for his removal.
It is possible that the House might vote to impeach if there is a mass party turnover in the 2018 mid-term elections, but even in the case of a House impeachment, which can be done with a simple majority, there is no possibility of a conviction in the Senate. That would require 67 votes, and that is simply is not going to happen, no matter what the Special Counsel may unearth. It is possible that Trump's son and son-in-law might face some jail time, but I can't foresee any realistic scenario that would cause 67 Senators to vote for Trump's removal, or would cause Trump's hand-picked lackeys to invoke section four of the 25th Amendment.
Realistically, the only way to get him out of office is the 2020 election.
You're disregarding something massive: they're planning on impeaching him. They've been planning since the convention.
ReplyDeleteToo long to get into here, but it's not conspiracy theory kookery, it's been discussed for a long time among political wonks. They put Pence on the ticket at the last minute for exactly this reason: he's party loyal and will resign after finishing Trumps term so Ryan can run in 2020, which is what they wanted all along, going back to Mitt/Ryan 2008.
They figured he'd quit or do something criminal, and he did, almost immediately. Thing is, they wanted obamacare removed first and they can't seem to get that done.
So they're waiting on Mueller and will take what they can get in the meantime, like this tax bill everyone hates except rich donors.
Trump goes down in flames, they have a come to Jesus moment and rebuke what they've done because of the "far right" and use the ouster of Trump and his pals to also get rid of people like Issa and Gowdy who make the GOPs life hard.
Enter the repentant, "moderate" new GOP for the midterms.
Only way to save the party. As NC showed, the midterms will literally END the GOP as a political force of they don't do this.
You seem to think they'll go quietly into that dark night as the Cheeto leads them off a cliff. The GOP itself isn't done brainwashed cultist willing to let the least popular president in history destroy them for 2 years of gain that can be undone with a penstroke.
They may impeach, but convict? 67 votes in the Senate? I doubt it. If Trump gave Putin a blow job on live TV while he himself came all over a picture of Jesus, maybe.
DeleteStress "maybe."
Lacking that, I doubt it.
Then you believe that the GOP senators will literally watch their careers and power end just because...what, they like trump? I'm hard pressed to imagine any scenario where any sitting senator would kiss that lottery ticket goodbye.
ReplyDeleteLook at McCain and Graham. They've been laying the groundwork for this since the start. Those two ARE the gop, and they've had nothing good to say about trump, ever.
That's intentional. They're going to have to lead the charge to throw him out, and be the standard bearers for this "revolution" from within the gop to reform before the mid terms.
Otherwise, they're gone. Almost all of them. And I'll never believe they'll let they happen.