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Which would be delightful if true, but reading through Rogue WH Snr Advisor’s Twitter feed, I can’t see anything to suggest that the self-styled “Rogue WH Snr Advisor” actually has a desk within a thousand miles of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. No real insights, no hint of insider knowledge, just the same old stuff everyone else is tweeting. Or have I overlooked something?
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It’s an humor account
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From Reuters:
"Jens David Ohlin, a professor of criminal law at Cornell Law School, said it is not clearly a crime for Trump to direct his transition team to communicate with the Russian government. “There is a sense that when you are president-elect you are creating a government in waiting,” he said. “Some contacts during the transition period would not be so damaging.”
A crucial political question is whether the Trump administration sought to reward the Russian government for assistance during the election, Ohlin said. “That would of course not only be treasonous but would rise to the level of impeachment,” Ohlin said. “This is a more of an impeachment issue than an issue of the federal criminal code.”
But Trump could face criminal liability he directed Flynn to lie to the FBI, Ohlin said. “If you conspire with someone to lie to the FBI you ae liable as a co-conspirator,” he said. “That would be a major source of liability.”
I’d say that communicating with a foreign and hostile government during a US presidential election is just wrong in the first place.
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this. I have very little interest in getting my hopes up any longer over the trickle of positive news.
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I hope so.
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While I dearly hope that BernieCrat-flavor Dems take over Congress, and soon, I can’t see that as “practically guaranteed.” All of these rank Repugnican shenanigans only make it easier for the Dem establishment to remain what it is, a pale, corporatized, neoliberal version of the Repugnican Party.
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They manage to get money in kind from the people they enriched, which will either keep them in office or, worst case scenario, guarantee them a sinecure at some Koch-funded thinktank.
Thanks to the voter suppression and gerrymandering of the last decade, they rightly think that only the Senate is really in danger of flipping – and even then not to a filibuster-proof majority. And even if the House does somehow flip, they have Naranja Noriega to veto anything the Dems manage to pass.
If the Dems did indeed have a very good idea what they did wrong, they would have made Ellison DNC chair instead of that useless piece of shit Tom Perez. This, if nothing else, is the GOPs (ahem) trump card.
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I for one welcome our new berniecrat-flavor dem overlords! 
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If he’s entering a guilty plea it’s likely that Mueller’s strategy of co-ordinating with state attorneys-generals to forestall the possibility of a Presidential pardon is also working.
Whatever the outcome of his ratting out the higher-ups, the sad part in all of this is that the Kremlin already achieved its main goal of undermining confidence in America’s liberal democratic institutions more than a year ago.
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I agree, the twit is one of Hillary’s creatures, and needs to be purged from the party ASAP. His statements blaming the DNC for Hillary’s failures “because they didn’t give her good tools for success” are hilarious in hindsight, now that we know from Brazile’s book that Clinton had total power over hiring at the DNC since 2015, which means that if she didn’t have the “tools”, it was entirely of her own doing.
At least Ellison is Deputy Chairman, which gives him some voice in the party. I just wish the party would finally shrug off Clinton and her bloody “Republican Lite” strategy for good, because all it’s doing is holding back the party, and handing elections to the Republicans, because the Democrats have already shown that in all the key battleground states, “Republican Democrat” (which apparently means socially liberal and fiscally conservative, taking only the least popular and most controversial planks from both) is a huge loser as a platform.
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said it is not clearly a crime for Trump to direct his transition team to communicate with the Russian government. “There is a sense that when you are president-elect you are creating a government in waiting,” he said. “Some contacts during the transition period would not be so damaging.
Michael Flynn promised “full cooperation to the Mueller team” and is prepared to testify that as a candidate, Donald Trump “directed him to make contact with the Russians.”
Can you spot the differences in the two things here? The opinion isn’t wrong, however not relevant in this case as a private citizen he is not allowed to make contact with foreign governments. That changes after the election - however the testimony is apparently about when he was still un-elected. There was no ‘government in waiting’ at that point.
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Trump can’t be impeached for anything he did before he was president.
I’m starting to think he can’t be impeached for anything he does as president either, but that’s at least technically possible.
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I’m curious where in the constitution you find that one. Impeachment isn’t a criminal trial - and the rules of the justice system have no bearing on it. The process is political and entirely at the whim of congress.
Actual crimes - well there is a huge question as to if a president could be arrested and charged - the fact is that even if he was convicted and thrown in jail - he would still be president unless impeached. The real ‘out’ here is that these things all go away if he were to resign - because much like the ultimate plea deal the public and country are willing to overlook almost anything to make the pain and embarrassment go away quickly.
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hope it’s not a train.
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I was thinking of Cass Sunstein’s interpretation. But it appears I missed one salient point:
- Actions prior to assuming office – two scenarios
GOODMAN: On your view, actions that a President took before assuming office cannot be an impeachable offense, but you include an exception if a President “procures office by objectionable means.” for example, “as a result of a secret plan with a nation that is unfriendly to the United States.” But what if the President engaged in such a secret plan but it did not actually effect the outcome of the election (i.e., she did not procure office as a result of it)? Imagine, for example, the President engaged in objectionable means to win California; she loses California but handily wins the Electoral College in any case. Or imagine the President engaged in a secret plan with a foreign nation to interfere in the election but never actually thinking he could win the primary or general election?
SUNSTEIN: My view here builds directly from debates at the Constitutional Convention. If a candidate has a secret plan with a foreign nation, and wins, those debates are best read to say: Impeachable. They support that conclusion in both of your scenarios, which seem to be variations on the core case (procuring office by objectionable means). The differences in the two scenarios shouldn’t make a difference.
So, according to Sunstein’s view at least, crimes committed before you’re the president aren’t impeachable (I’m right!) unless they involve procuring office through objectionable means. (Oh. I’m wrong, but hurray!)
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