Quote:
Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
He's fucking President. His adult children are fucking advisors the President. As a candidate, he had an army of top lawyers and experienced advisors available to him. As President, he has the entire DOJ ready to serve.
And folks want to let him off because he didn't understand the law he swore to uphold?
WTF?
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I surmise this is a bit like the Bill Clinton perjury thing. When an investigation is political, and this investigation became quite political, politics comes into it. Politics involves messaging, spinning, using all sorts of thuggish devices to defend against and attack opponents.
Congress and the American people gave Clinton a pass for perjury because, well, the investigation was unfair. It was political. Is Trump's situation 1:1 analogous? No. There was a lot more than politics involved here at the start. But Trump's political enemies seized on the investigation and used it for political ends. So he fought back politically, and through the powers of his office. The problem for him was these efforts could also be construed as obstruction of a criminal investigation.
Trump and Clinton were both fighting with one hand tied behind their back. That's what always happens when politics and investigations are mixed. The attackers use the investigation as a sword and a shield, and the target has no way to defend that doesn't risk making him look like he's engaged in a cover-up. Trump's behavior is far more egregious than Clinton's lie (I wouldn't have even disbarred Clinton), but I think at some level, Barr and even Mueller recognized that for Trump to fight politically against Democrats who were hiding behind and weaponizing Mueller, he had to also attack Mueller and stymie the investigation. Thus, the standard for what constitutes obstruction was relaxed in regard to Trump, in much the same way Congress and the American people rejected the impeachment of Clinton for his "perjury." An investigation that becomes political loses its credibility. (In that regard, Mueller was hobbled from the start.)
If the Democrats had not weaponized the Mueller investigation, we might not be seeing this outcome. I understand why they did it. But if one wants to apportion blame for Trump's escaping here, Adam Schiff owns a nice chunk of it. Along with many other Democrats.
Notice Pelosi isn't front and center on the Mueller thing. She's smart. She's letting this blow up in other representatives' faces.
ETA: The Democrats should be very wary about moving to impeach. The people, as the Times article I cited notes, don't care about Russiagate. An impeachment, which will fail, would be a political disaster. It would also give Trump a huge issue to ride into 2020. All the Ds have to do to win in 2020 is bring back a piece or two of the Blue Wall or Florida. That should be their focus.
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