Impeach

Mueller’s House Of Henchmen?

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ 1 Comment

Here’s a scenario. Donald Trump stonewalls on talking to special counsel Robert Mueller. He decides he has nothing to gain by answering his questions. Mueller cannot subpoena the President, so we are done.

Or are we?

Assuming the Dems take power in the House (not a safe assumption at all), a number of House committees will start investigating Trump for this and that. He will stonewall all of them. And there the matter will end.

Or will it?

Suppose the House votes to impeach Trump, knowing that they have no hope of winning a conviction in the Senate. But the reason for impeaching him is not to kick him out of office. It is to force a trial in the Senate where the President will have to testify under oath. In other words, the House tells Mueller, “Give us your questions – we’ll get the answers for you”.

Mitch McConnell will do everything he can to delay a trial. Brett Kavanaugh will likely help him. But you have to admin it would be a pretty sneaky way for the Dems to get Mueller the information he needs to build his case(s).

Kavanaugh: It’s The Clintons. Again

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Brett Kavanaugh fell back on the reliable right wing boogieman last week. He blamed his troubles on the Clintons.

The fact that women are coming out of the woodwork and accusing him of sexual harassment and worse is “a calculated and orchestrated political hit fueled with . . . revenge on behalf of the Clintons.”

Revenge for what? He didn’t specify, but he was on the team that successfully got Bill Clinton impeached for lying about sex with Monica Lewinsky.

But why would anyone carry the Clintons’ load and take revenge on their behalf? Did Diane Feinstein really wait 20 years since Bill’s impeachment to go after one of the lawyers that got him?

No, this is what psychologists call projection. Kavanaugh projected his own issues onto the Democrats. Most likely, it is Kavanaugh that has been waiting 20 years to get revenge on the Clintons. Revenge on Bill for staying in office despite Kavanaugh’s best efforts to boot him out. Revenge on Hillary for, well, whatever. When you are mentally unhinged, who needs a reason?

And that is the main reason that Kavanaugh doesn’t belong on the Supreme Court. He revealed himself to be politically motivated and short fused. Not the kind of person one would want as the swing vote on the highest court in the land.

 

Trump Buys FBI Insurance

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Donald Trump took another swipe at the FBI last week, calling it ‘disgraceful’. Some people thought he was trying to get the FBI to back off. More likely, he was insuring himself against anything the FBI finds against him.

No matter what the facts of what the FBI uncovers, Trump will say that it is untrue and just sour grapes from an agency that is out to get him because he had the balls to point out its shortcomings. If he can discredit anything the FBI (or Mueller) turns up, he will be way ahead in the court of public opinion. And impeachment is mostly a court of public opinion, which he knows very well.

As the man said, the best defense is a good offense. Discredit your potential accusers before they even start to present their case, and all of the sudden their facts become ‘facts’.

 

It’s the Cover Up, Stupid

~ Mr. Rantastic ~ Leave a comment

Anyone who follows politics knows that when it comes to scandals, it is not the transgression that gets you, it’s the cover up. Nevertheless, politicians continue to cover things up rather than just admit to them, face the music and try to move on.

There was some reasonable expectation that Donald Trump would be different. After all, he was the one that claimed he could shoot someone in Times Square and still maintain his support. But it was not to be, and a few days ago Trump succumbed. He fired the FBI director, apparently for digging too deeply into his Russian connections.

By taking this extreme step that was clearly politically motivated, Trump likely achieves a number of unwanted objectives.

  • He makes enemies of a whole bunch of FBI personnel that can hurt him with their investigations and, more importantly, their leaks.
  • He gives the press renewed incentive to pursue the story
  • He gives his enemies in congress more ammo that he is undemocratic
  • He encourages more leaking by other members of the executive branch that disagree with politicizing the FBI

Inevitably, Trump’s Russian connections will be exposed. They could be around manipulating the election, they could be around his business empire being financed by Putins’ billionaire friends, they could be around his hotels getting sweetheart deals in Russia. There is a good chance it will be all of the above.

Whatever the connections turn out to be, they will not be the impeachable offense. That will be his efforts to cover them up.