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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
Trump would probably do it. Right now, Republicans are more afraid of Democrats than of Russia. That's where the Party Over Country behavior stems from, after all. Trump's made clear on multiple occasions that he thinks the entire investigation is illegitimate; that the Democrats invented this scandal as an elaborate web of lies they're using to try and undermine his Presidency.
An opinion largely fed by right-wing pundits.
Since Trump thinks the entire Russia thing is one big lie to try and discredit him - and because he's too stupid to consider the political ramifications of his actions - he would undoubtedly pardon Sessions, Flynn, Kushner, and anyone else caught in the probe. Hell, I wouldn't put it past him to try and reappoint them afterwards.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.We have to consider that Trump is a businessman who was openly corrupt during his whole career and yet constantly got away with it, partly because he was born rich and partly because he simply bullied his way through difficulties. I am ready to bet that if you actually look into his finances it will turn out that he isn't a billionaire at all, but sitting on a giant Ponzi scheme, in which he owes a lot of people a lot of money....and based on what his son said, those people are Russians. What Trump is now doing is just continuing the pattern. He doesn't care that everyone sees his corruption, but he does care to keep the people with whom he is connected through "loyalty" happy.
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And that would put the ball squarely in the court of the, well, courts-While the AG and pardons office actually write the pardons with the POTUS, those pardons must be introduced and confirmed in court-and can be thrown out as a matter of course if they try to end run them. Now, that has never happened, so that would likely mean it gets fast tracked to the SCOTUS.
If SCOTUS upholds a pardon for someone being investigated for sedition via compromised by foreign power, I will be first in line with a lit torch and machete (I do not own a pitchfork).
And then we get to watch this happen:
- Trump's Lawyer: Nobody is talking about some kind of blanket pardon. Sessions deserves a pardon because he's been the target of a witch hunt with insufficient evidence to justify the accusations against him.
- Trump on Twitter: Crooked liberal courts trying to mess with my blanket pardon!
edited 13th Jun '17 2:02:48 PM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.RE: Pardons
To clarify something, Sessions was asked whether he'd discussed them with Trump, and Sessions reiterated what he'd said in the opening statement, that he would not be speaking about private conversations he'd had with Trump during this testimony. So it's not exactly a smoking gun that he had.
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"Congressional Democrats are not united on whether to push for impeachment right now
The ones pushing for it are a minority still and the prevailing opinion seems to want to let the investigation continue to play out. Some of it is about possible hurt in 2018, some of it is wanting to wait till it's more sure.
@Septimus: That one actually happened
.
The question, though, is whether or not anything new that gets dug up will matter- the US have never managed to reach the point where both parties are calling for impeachment before, so why should we assume whatever the investigation turns out will change that?
Or, conversely, if we assume impeachment charges matter, is the potential for more damaging stuff turning up later worth all the problems Trump will cause between then and now?
Consider what the price of failure is, in this case. There's a reason investigations for crimes go on for a while, and one of this magnitude needs to be air tight. Otherwise, it's a huge fucking embarrassment to the Democrats for years.
So yeah, he can do a lot of damage in the meantime. But if they don't do this absolutely right, than the attempt won't matter at all.
Moving against Trump without airtight evidence would embarrass the Democrats and validate his accusations of them conducting a witch hunt. It might even increase sympathy for him if the GOP were to play their cards right. It'd be very unwise to do anything rash before such a time that there's anything completely solid to hook him on.
The Attorney General represents the United States of America, theoretically. (This mostly matters in terms of attorney-client relations and yatta-yatta).
The AG handles executive branch actions often (and can drastically affect the laws on hir own merit by, for example, declining to defend certain laws), but practically, the AG is an agent of the president (who can fire the AG after all).
Officially calling for impeachment now, before Mueller's investigation has revealed a sufficient amount of smoking guns, would all but guarantee Trump becoming a Karma Houdini and would pretty much throw the 2018, 2020, and 2024 elections to the GOP. Unless anyone happens to have a time machine and an Ahnold android ready to go, letting Mueller conduct his investigation is the most sure bet we have of getting Trump out of office.
edited 13th Jun '17 4:13:52 PM by TrashJack
"Cynic, n. — A blackguard whose faulty vision sees things as they are, not as they ought to be." - The Devil's Dictionary

Aren't Presidential Pardons accompanied by an effective admission of guilt?
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.