Trump/Russia/SDNY investigation

Raoul said:
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https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday...iff-trump-may-face-real-prospect-of-jail-time

Schiff beginning to discuss actual jail time too.

I think the longer this goes on the more likely we are to reach a point where Trump’s best play is to hand over to Pence in return for pardons.

Obviously there will be two issues for Trump here. The first being parallel state level charges, the second being that Trump is going to be screwed if he leaves the presidency disgracefully. None of his old associates will touch him with a barge pole, imagine funding or laundering money through him now? No chance.

Whether he sees jail time or not, I expect his businesses to be absolutely crippled when he leaves office.
 
These points in that McCarthy piece are salient here:

Arguably, the payment is not a donation if it was made for an expense that was independent of the campaign – that is, money that would have had to be paid even if there were no campaign.

Cohen chose to plead guilty and forfeited the right to contest this point. That concession is not binding on Trump. If the president is charged, I expect he would vigorously argue that the payment was not a campaign contribution.

There are other salient issues to consider. Justice Department guidance holds that a sitting president may not be indicted. If prosecutors in the Southern District of New York believe they have a case against the president, must they hold off until after he is out of office?

If President Trump were to win re-election, he would not be out of office until 2024, when the five-year statute of limitations on a 2016 offense would have lapsed.

More importantly, do campaign finance violations qualify as “high crimes and misdemeanors,” which is the constitutional standard for impeachment? It is hard to imagine an infraction that the Justice Department often elects not to prosecute is sufficiently egregious to rise to that level, but the debate on this point between partisans would be intense.
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What's being filed so far is still minuscule considering how low the bar has been set for Trump. Mueller still needs to come up with something bigger with the collusion probe to make a real dent on Trump.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
These points in that McCarthy piece are salient here:



What's being filed so far is still minuscule considering how low the bar has been set for Trump. Mueller still needs to come up with something bigger with the collusion probe to make a real dent on Trump.
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Doubt we've seen much, of what will eventually be thrown at Trump and co.
 
Surely they'd do better to wait until his term is over otherwise Pence could just pardon him?

But it would be spectacular to see him impeached.
 
The Firestarter said:
Is this really happening...
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Its not happening at the moment, but the discussion after Friday's Mueller revelations about Cohen seems to have shifted the overton window about Trump from "he may be guilty but that would be up to the Republican Senate" to "he has now been directly implicated and may be indicted".
 
oates said:
Surely they'd do better to wait until his term is over otherwise Pence could just pardon him?

But it would be spectacular to see him impeached.
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Statute of limitations is 5 years on the campaign finance charges.
 
oates said:
Surely they'd do better to wait until his term is over otherwise Pence could just pardon him?

But it would be spectacular to see him impeached.
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Would be even more spectacular if Pence doesn't pardon him because Jesus told him not to.
 
oates said:
So it would probably be tight to leave it.
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For that charge, yeah, but campaign finance violations are the least of his troubles. It’s just at this stage the most solid implication we have on Trump.

There’s no way anyone is going to try to oust him as President on this charge alone though.
 
An even funnier scenario would involve Trump getting impeached with about 3 months left before the next Presidential election and the Republicans don't have enough time to field a viable candidate for 2020
 
Raoul said:
An even funnier scenario would involve Trump getting impeached with about 3 months left before the next Presidential election and the Republicans don't have enough time to field a viable candidate for 2020
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If that happens then it's ivanka.... They will already have the trump 2020 domains and adverts ready
 
I wish they'd stop teasing impeachment in such casual terms. The threshold for impeaching an elected president is extraordinarily high and its not a matter that needs to be discussed on every TV slot, it kind of loses its meaning.

I have the same issue with /r/politics. Its like such a continuous passive aggressive rage fest at everything the GOP/Trump do. The idea of outrage loses its value.
 
Raoul said:
Its not happening at the moment, but the discussion after Friday's Mueller revelations about Cohen seems to have shifted the overton window about Trump from "he may be guilty but that would be up to the Republican Senate" to "he has now been directly implicated and may be indicted".
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Quite a few republicans starting to openly discuss that. The momentum is gathering I feel.
 
The whole idea of not being able to indict a sitting President is such absolute nonsense. Nobody should be above the law.
 
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