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Merged Trump Fires Comey....

TraneWreck said:
I mean, is he just the worst super-villain ever?

So, he was thinking about the "Russia thing" when he decided to fire him...just thinking about how lame it was so it was totally cool to fire him.

Spicey! Kellyanne! Get on CNN and say the exact opposite of that!
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Diarrhea of the brain/mouth does that to a person. It may be our only saving grace.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
People who weren't there at the time, or weren't involved in the politics of the day more than likely don't know what a big deal it was, can we put an ex-POTUS in jail? Half the country was all about the appearance of such a thing and the other half was screaming about their disgust with the pardon.

In all cases, however, it was more than clear to everyone that Nixon had committed an actual crime. Many in his administration went to jail for years. That is in addition to the burglars. Nixon had a slush fund financing the criminals.

People like my dad, a staunch Nixon supporter said to me, and I quote, "All Presidents commit crimes." Even the Republicans knew the evidence was clear Nixon had broken the law.

The pardon was a big deal and not just some ribbon on the box.
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The pardon was huuuuge. ;) I was in my teens and as crazy as to sounds I was a news junkie. Also this was before cable TV. There was 6 TV channels and the Watergate hearings were broadcast live and it was on 4 of them and this was the summer. They were both boring and riveting at the same time. But you could hardly miss it.

Just to give a little perspective. The Watergate scandal resulted in 69 government officials being charged and 48 being found guilty, Nixon was sure to be impeached. The ten Republicans of the committee that voted against the articles of Impeachment all said that they would vote for Impeachment when the full house voted on it. There was zero I mean zero doubt that the Senate would convict him in the trial.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
My take: Trump fired Comey because Trump got more and more upset by the news cycle focusing on the investigation. It was impulsive, not some strategic plan to stop the investigation. That is reflected in the shifting reasons for the firing.

You can expect that story to keep on shifting as Trump makes up more stories to address the holes in the previous ones.

I speculate that in Trump's mind, he believes he can make the investigation go away. But that doesn't translate into a plan. It translates into an impulse. The insistence he's not under investigation, the minions going around repeating the talking point, it's been investigated, nothing there, time to move on, are in Trump's mind going to make it go away because Trump wishes it so.

Denial works like that until the next crisis where it's in Trump's face again. Queue the next impulsive behavior disaster.
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Concur. Seems he has already contradicted the talking points his underlings were giving.

Analysis: President Trump just decimated the White House's entire Comey narrative

In one fell swoop, Trump totally contradicted his three top spokespeople and offered a polar-opposite version of events than they had provided.

After they had spent the past 45 hours emphasizing that this was a decision Trump arrived at after receiving a memo and recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, Trump just blurted out that he was going to fire Comey all along. Basically, he admitted the memo was a ruse and a political ploy.

HOLT: Did you ask for a recommendation?

TRUMP: What I did is, I was going to fire Comey. My decision. It was not . . .

HOLT: You had made the decision before they came in the room.

TRUMP: I was going to fire Comey. There's no good time to do it, by the way.

HOLT: Because in your letter, you said, 'I accepted their recommendation.' So you had already made the decision.

TRUMP: Oh, I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.

. . .

"It was all him," Spicer said of Rosenstein, as a reporter repeated his answer back to him. "That's correct - I mean, I can't, I guess I shouldn't say that, thank you for the help on that one. No one from the White House. That was a DOJ decision."

And here's deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday morning in an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe":

. . .

SANDERS: Look, I think when you receive a report that is so clear and a recommendation by someone like the deputy attorney general, you have no choice but to act.

. . .

And here's White House counselor Kellyanne Conway in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper on Tuesday night:

CONWAY: This man is the president of the United States. He acted decisively today. He took the recommendation of his deputy attorney general, who oversees the FBI director.
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BobTheCoward said:
I have heard the tapes and I believe there is a real possibility it wasn't obstruction.

-the CIA is allowed to ask the FBI to stop investigating for international interest and not be obstruction.
-there was an international interest (not embarrassing Mexico and hurting relation by condtantly linking their banks to a big crime in DC)

I have not heard any test that actually examines the balance between the competing interest of international relations and obstruction.
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On August 5, 1974, the White House released a previously unknown audio tape from June 23, 1972. Recorded only a few days after the break-in, it documented the initial stages of the cover-up: it revealed Nixon, Swingle, and Haldeman had conducted a meeting in the Oval Office where they discussed how they will stop the FBI from continuing their investigation of the break-in as they recognised that there was a high risk that their position in the scandal may be revealed.

Haldeman introduced the topic as follows:

... the Democratic break-in thing, we're back to the–in the, the problem area because the FBI is not under control, because Gray doesn't exactly know how to control them, and they have ... their investigation is now leading into some productive areas ... and it goes in some directions we don't want it to go.[65]

After explaining how the money from CRP was traced to the burglars, Haldeman explained to Nixon the cover-up plan: "the way to handle this now is for us to have Walters [CIA] call Pat Gray [FBI] and just say, 'Stay the hell out of this ... this is ah, business here we don't want you to go any further on it.'"[65]

President Nixon approved the plan, and after he was given more information about the involvement of his campaign in the break-in, he told Haldeman: "All right, fine, I understand it all. We won't second-guess Mitchell and the rest." Returning to the use of the CIA to obstruct the FBI, he instructed Haldeman: "You call them in. Good. Good deal. Play it tough. That's the way they play it and that's the way we are going to play it."

Nixon denies this was obstruction ofjustice. But I don't know of a single lawyer who would agree.
 
Trump's lack of self-awareness worries me. Calling Comey a "grandstander" and a "showboat"? This coming from the guy who, after Pussygate, held a press conference with President Clinton's accusers (who he had previously dismissed decades earlier as "losers"). Trump recently graded his foreign policy: "All A's and A-pluses." He said he's not bragging, just calling it like it is. Do countries prank each other? If so, Russia took this way too far.

Trump's interview with The Economist:

Economist: But beyond that it’s OK if the tax plan increases the deficit?
POTUS: It is OK, because it won’t increase it for long. You may have two years where you’ll…you understand the expression “prime the pump”?

Yes.
We have to prime the pump.

It’s very Keynesian.
We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world. Have you heard that expression before, for this particular type of an event?

Priming the pump?
Yeah, have you heard it?

Yes.
Have you heard that expression used before? Because I haven’t heard it. I mean, I just…I came up with it a couple of days ago and I thought it was good. It’s what you have to do.

It’s…
Yeah, what you have to do is you have to put something in before you can get something out.
 
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shuttlt said:
I didn't claim Democrats were wholly and solely responsible for him. You can't surely be claiming that if Republicans are morally responsible for him then nothing Democrats are doing can be counter productive. What is your actual argument?
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My argument is that your argument is talking-point ********.

The Democrats are not 'feeding the troll' in their criticisms of Comey's firing. His firing is actually a huge problem, not just 'trolling'. Dems are not responsible for Trump's other trolling, and this isn't even trolling.

It's misplacing blame and agency. Being critical of those outraged is more counter-productive than outrage. It builds the lie that Democrats are driving Trump's actions and that they need to 'get over it' and 'get out of the way'. It really, really doesn't matter that you aren't arguing the Democrats are wholly and solely responsible for him, by focusing on what in this case are not even Democrat missteps, it provides cover for those who do make arguments like that. Did you miss my mention of those like FOX who do so? It's a false equivalency. Trump is responsible for Trump's actions. His enablers are as well. The Dems are not, and them not acting outraged will not even help. The Republicans don't actually care, they'll attack the Dems anyway and keep lying about them and the media.

Like I've said elsewhere, this election taught me a lot. One of those things was to trying to appear reasonable and fair can get in the way of being reasonable and fair. Others call that 'deciding to be more partisan', but when one party and the Conservatives in general have become the party of defending Trump to attack liberals, being rational and fair is to condemn that, and them. Thus, I'm not going to sit back and not call such talking-point deflection ******** for what it is. Your criticism is false and irrelevant.
 
acbytesla said:
Nixon denies this was obstruction ofjustice. But I don't know of a single lawyer who would agree.
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I have gone looking, and it is an unanswered question.

I can tell you how courts weigh inciting speech, how they handle self defense, how they handle torture cases, I have never found an answer on the Nixon question. For something people are so confident about, no one can tell me what is the line on having the CIA ask the FBI to stop investigating for foreign policy reasons and when it becomes obstruction.

Nixon had a national security interest affecting foreign Relations.

Also, only talking about smoking gun...he broke a ton of other laws.
 
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tyr_13 said:
My argument is that your argument is talking-point ********.

The Democrats are not 'feeding the troll' in their criticisms of Comey's firing. His firing is actually a huge problem, not just 'trolling'. Dems are not responsible for Trump's other trolling, and this isn't even trolling.

It's misplacing blame and agency. Being critical of those outraged is more counter-productive than outrage. It builds the lie that Democrats are driving Trump's actions and that they need to 'get over it' and 'get out of the way'. It really, really doesn't matter that you aren't arguing the Democrats are wholly and solely responsible for him, by focusing on what in this case are not even Democrat missteps, it provides cover for those who do make arguments like that. Did you miss my mention of those like FOX who do so? It's a false equivalency. Trump is responsible for Trump's actions. His enablers are as well. The Dems are not, and them not acting outraged will not even help. The Republicans don't actually care, they'll attack the Dems anyway and keep lying about them and the media.

Like I've said elsewhere, this election taught me a lot. One of those things was to trying to appear reasonable and fair can get in the way of being reasonable and fair. Others call that 'deciding to be more partisan', but when one party and the Conservatives in general have become the party of defending Trump to attack liberals, being rational and fair is to condemn that, and them. Thus, I'm not going to sit back and not call such talking-point deflection ******** for what it is. Your criticism is false and irrelevant.
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Very well said. Bravo. This false equivalency game is nonsense and is tiresome.
 
tyr_13 said:
Like I've said elsewhere, this election taught me a lot. One of those things was to trying to appear reasonable and fair can get in the way of being reasonable and fair. Others call that 'deciding to be more partisan', but when one party and the Conservatives in general have become the party of defending Trump to attack liberals, being rational and fair is to condemn that, and them. Thus, I'm not going to sit back and not call such talking-point deflection ******** for what it is. Your criticism is false and irrelevant.
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Lol, this election taught you a lot! ******* hilarious!

When leftists are out of power this is what they're reduced to.
 
BobTheCoward said:
I have gone looking, and it is an unanswered question.

I can tell you how courts weigh inciting speech, how they handle self defense, how they handle torture cases, I have never found an answer on the Nixon question. For something people are so confident about, no one can tell me what is the line on having the CIA ask the FBI to stop investigating for foreign policy reasons and when it becomes obstruction.

Nixon had a national security interest affecting foreign Relations.
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Here's the problem with your take. Nixon knew about the burglaries and the dirty tricks from the beginning. And considering that Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's closest aide, convicted for conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Former attorney general and reelection campaign manager John Mitchell was found guilty of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice.
White House counsel John Dean convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Domestic policy adviser John Ehrlichman was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and perjury with regards to Watergate.

You can argue that Nixon was doing all this for the good of the country but I sure as hell don't buy it. I also have ZERO doubt he would have been indicted for Obstruction especially when you consider that was the first article of Impeachment and no more than 10 Senators would have voted against convicting him. This according to Goldwater who urged him to resign the night before he did.
 
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acbytesla said:
Here's the problem with your take. Nixon knew about the burglaries and the dirty tricks from the beginning. And considering that Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, Nixon's closest aide, convicted for conspiracy and obstruction of justice.
Former attorney general and reelection campaign manager John Mitchell was found guilty of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice.
White House counsel John Dean convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
Domestic policy adviser John Ehrlichman was convicted of conspiracy to obstruct justice and perjury with regards to Watergate.

You can argue that Nixon was doing all this for the good of the country but I sure as hell don't buy it. I also have ZERO doubt he would have been indicted for Obstruction especially when you consider that was the first article of Impeachment and no more than 10 Senators would have voted against convicting him. This according to Goldwater who urged him to resign the night before he did.
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Let is assume it goes before the supreme Court following some sort of DoJ charges and legal challenges. Nixon makes a national security claim. How do the justices wiegh the circumstances and what do they base those on?
 
BobTheCoward said:
Let is assume it goes before the supreme Court following some sort of DoJ charges and legal challenges. Nixon makes a national security claim. How do the justices wiegh the circumstances and what do they base those on?
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They determine that it is BS because it obviously is.
 
acbytesla said:
Now politically pure partisanship may have prevented a conviction but I have no doubt that without the pardon, Nixon would certainly have been charged with multiple counts of conspiracy to obstruct justice.
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I don't think anyone would have bothered indicting him. He was out of office, disgraced, as was his whole administration including VP Spiro Agnew. Oil-producing countries were getting uppity and we had fairly recently gotten out of Vietnam. I really don't think dragging out the whole mess was foremost on the minds of the American people. To what end? To put Nixon in prison?

I was a newly minted teenager asking my lawyer father: "Is it evidence before someone subpoenas it?" Wondering why he made the recordings in the first place, if not to preserve information. Nixon's own self-centered and paranoiac leanings his undoing. Interesting man. A lot more interesting than Trump. Wheels within wheels, while Trump is just a grotesque and gargantuan infant. His facial expressions reinforce my opinion - I can only see his mouth as either suckling a teat or puckering to deliver a fresh load of diarrhea (or puke). Certainly whatever comes out of it is certified BS. I can't fathom how disaffected the nation must be, to deliver him a win the Electoral College.
 
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Tony Stark said:
Because breaking into the DNC headquarters and trying to cover it up has nothing to do with national security.
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The money was linked to bank accounts in Mexican banks. Bringing Mexico into the news will greatly hurt relations with a bordering country.
 
BobTheCoward said:
The money was linked to bank accounts in Mexican banks. Bringing Mexico into the news will greatly hurt relations with a bordering country.
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I have an extremely hard time believing that you believe that it is an acceptable reason to obstruct justice.
 
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