TRUMP IS FUCKED

[berni_mccoy]

This is the corollary to Manafort is FUCKED.

Cohen cooperating with investigation.
Manafort off to Jail.

I said in my previous post about Manafort being fucked, this is the beginning of the end. It IS!

All on a Friday Morning in the middle of June.

It's Mueller TIME BABY!



LOCK THEM UP!

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

1. With any luck

there will be more good news before 5pm today. dts playing lawn darts w fox and friends this morning is allllll distraction. Imagine living such a hollow life. egad.

[berni_mccoy]

2. Day is off to a great start! Get your popcorn ready!

[C Moon]

24. "Imagine living such a hollow life."

That says so much about those people!

[Stallion]

3. How About a Friday Twi-night Double Header with the Arrest of Cohen

its still early

[triron]

57. I think the chances are 50-50 roughly.

[GoCubsGo]

4. It certainly explains the crazy shitshow we saw from him this morning.

It was, no doubt, a pre-emptive spewing of what he wants to be his narrative. Got to get it out there before too much shit hits the fan.

[berni_mccoy]

5. Agreed... Trump lost the narrative between the kidnapped children, Cohen flipping and Manafort now

going to jail.

[Crutchez_CuiBono]

6. Ahhhh

just a sunny day at the WH...I think I'll go visit.."my people"....oh hey...Steve D and his son.....Hey steve...I have some time for you. RIGHTTTTT.

[Bluesaph]

9. Cohen flipped?

[berni_mccoy]

16. He's signaling he will

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/15/politics/michael-cohen-cooperation-federal-investigators/index.html

[Cracklin Charlie]

7. I wish someone would document today's events in video. (Hint)

I am babysitting and the bosses won’t let me watch.

I will likely be catching up late tonight.

[USALiberal]

8. We have said this for months. nt

[Garrett78]

21. Yep. I'm not holding my breath.

[LiberalLovinLug]

26. These OPs really annoy me. But whatever.

Just like the hundreds of "Bush is going down" or "Cheney is hooped" or " Rove will be handcuffed and taken away!" I read in the early 00's.

But I understand now that some here need this kind of optimism. So live and let live. Whatever you need to get through this. Personally I won't be popping the champagne until Trump himself is convicted, or at least forced from office. Because all the while he is filling judicial seats with Trump loyalists. Hes replacing honest civil servants who can't work under a loyalty oath with those that will. And the GOP is lapping it up, with Mitch saying that these are the best years for Conservatives ever. Why would he even lift a finger? Add to that the dominance of Fox "News" and almost all of daytime talk radio across the middle of the country.

America is on a precipice. Like Germany in the 30's. It could fall ether way, and I won't be celebrating until I see Trump go down for good. And his sleezy criminal family.

[USALiberal]

49. +1000! nt

[Johnny2X2X]

10. Jail is sobering

Manafort will be sleeping in a cell tonight wondering how it all came to this. In a jail he'll get a thin foam pad on a concrete slab for a bed, if he's lucky he'll get a pillow. There will be a sink for washing up and for drinking water that spits out warm and usually smelly water. He'll have a filthy stainless steel toilet with no seat and barely enough toilet paper to last a day. It's going to change him quickly, really quickly. 12 hours will seem like days, a week will seem like a lifetime to someone like him. And then he'll sing.

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

79. Sounds like someone who has had the experience...

Just kidding. You can get the same information from watching CSI:Anywhere.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

11. If Both Cohen AND Manafort Flip, Trump Will Die In Prison

The two guys who know where all the bodies are buried. And Mueller already has one of them. It has been acknowledged that Trump actually said something to the effect of if Manafort flips, he (Trump) is screwed. And I'm betting that a little time behind bars is going to have Manafort rethinking his decision not to flip.

I'm calling it right now: if Manafort and Cohen BOTH flip, the entire Trump Crime Family is going to prison.

[lagomorph777]

29. Mueller doesn't even need to flip Cohen; he has his millions of records.

But I would enjoy seeing him jailed anyhow; with nothing extra to offer he'll just rot there forever.

[mercuryblues]

47. I am hoping that

Mueller doesn't need Manafort to flip. Mueller isn't playing games with him. He has all he needs with Gates flipping.

[OliverQ]

12. I realize we're trying to be positive,

but we still have Trump using the pardon power and Republicans refusing to hold him accountable. Trump is untouchable.

[berni_mccoy]

15. Trump can't pardon himself.

[Cicada]

17. DOJ says President can't be indicted, mueller must follow DOJ rules

Even if Trump were indicted, one Republican juror would vote not guilty no matter what.

I would vote not guilty on emails for Hillary no matter what. I might vote guilty were there a real crime, like shooting Comey. But only 63% of Trump supporters said he should be charged if he shot Comey. PPP poll.

Trump must be voted out, only way to get rid of him.

[berni_mccoy]

18. Whether or not Mueller can indict Trump is untested law, DoJ opinions aside.

If Mueller indicted trump, you can bet it would go to the Supreme Court. It's likely to return in Trump's favor. Once indicted, I am sure Mueller would give his report to Rosenstein who would turn it over to Congress. Trump has burned enough bridges there that it's possible there could be enough defectors to Impeach. I agree the Senate would not convict though, but that would politically help Democrats this year (assuming it happened before the election).

[librechik]

23. Good thing SCOTUS can be relied on to stand up for democracy!

[Cicada]

58. Mueller as DOJ employee must follow DOJ rule, no indictment

DOJ will not indict, per longstanding policy. Mueller is DOJ employee, he must obey.with no indictment there is nothing to appeal to court. Trump is not going to be indicted in federal court. New York? Maybe.

[Downtown Hound]

30. DOJ only issued an opinion, not a law

There is absolutely no law ANYWHERE that says a sitting president can't be indicted. And if you want my two cents, we WILL see it happen for the first time before this is over.

[lagomorph777]

34. You are correct! We should not cut pundits any slack when they make that specious claim.

[Cicada]

62. Who decides? DOJ decides, no one else.

If DOJ does not indict, that is it. No one can contest their decision, no one can ask a judge to review their decision.

[lagomorph777]

65. So we're not allowed to point out they are acting on a false premise?

[Cicada]

67. Correct.

[lagomorph777]

74. WTF?

You sure you fit in here?

[Cicada]

59. DOJ will not indict per their rule. End of story.

The President could order DOJ to indict him but I doubt he will do that. There is no other authority which can force DOJ to indict, as far as I know. I know grand juries can indict in some circumstances, without the approval of anyone else. But I doubt that applies to the federal government.

[Downtown Hound]

64. Again, not a rule, an opinion.

Learn that distinction.

[Cicada]

70. Big organizations have internal rules their employees must follow

One rule is, you cannot indict the president. That internal rule is binding on Mueller. It is based on an opinion that indicting the president is unconstitutional. You may disagree with that opinion but you have no say in the matter. The DOJ is free to change their rule but I doubt they will. But I may be wrong.

[Downtown Hound]

73. It is not binding, they can change it anytime.

That opinion was written in regards to Bill Clinton and his perjury with Monica. Consensual oral sex between two adults. We're talking about treason and collusion with a hostile foreign power. There is a huge difference. If Mueller presents his report and there is enough terrible things in it. the DOJ may very well decide to indict, because they will not want to chance it that Congress will let Trump off.

[lagomorph777]

31. DOJ is absolutely wrong and their policy is not law.

“Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”

Article I, Section 3, Clause 7

It's there in black and white. The Nixon-era DOJ misinterpretation was invalid then and it's invalid now.

It bugs me to admit this, but the best essay I've seen on this is at the Heritage Foundation:
https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/18/punishment-for-impeachment

[Cicada]

61. You are not King of DOJ. They do not care what you think the law is. They decide, period.

Trump could order them to indict him, and the DOJ can always change their mind, but they have carefully considered this twice in the past and I doubt they will change their opinion.

Don’t boo, don’t indict, vote.

[lagomorph777]

63. Obviously voting is the piece I can do.

I can also point out lies from DOJ when I see them.

[Cicada]

71. People have different opinions.

I don’t have an opinion. The question is too hard for me and I know too little to have an opinion. But I have no reason to think the DOJ is lying. If all constitutional law professors agree with you then that is evidence DOJ is lying. My guess is that constitutional law professors are divided on this.

[Cicada]

72. "Most scholars believe a sitting president may not be indicted"

I googled and found that quote from a law professor in Michigan. That undercuts your view the DOJ opinion is dishonest.

[lagomorph777]

75. I see - one quote from some person outranks the actual text of the US Constitution?

[Cicada]

78. Yes, it does

You accused the Department of Justice of dishonesty in reaching their conclusion that a sitting president may not be indicted. If a majority of constitutional scholars agree with the DOJ then there is a strong chance that the DOJ opinion is based on honest opinion. A law professor is extremely unlikely to be wrong when he says a majority of scholars agree with the DOJ.

In addition, the quote from the Michigan law professor was not the only source for my view that the DOJ opinion is widely shared. First I saw that Cass Sunstein agrees with DOJ. Mr Sunstein is one of the authors of the casebook Constitutional Law, one of the most widely used law school casebooks on Constitutional law. His view is unlikely to be his alone.

CBS had a story on the views of scholars. They cited Yale constitutional law professor Akil Reed Amar as agreeing with the DOJ and CBS concluded that most scholars agree with the view that a President may not be indicted.

[lagomorph777]

82. If you believe the President can't be indicted, you believe he is above the law; i.e. he's a Monarch

A monarch. The exact thing this country was founded to prevent. The exact thing the American Revolution successfully expelled from this land.

There is not a single shred of evidence in the text of the Constitution that the founders intended the President to be above the law. In fact the clause I cited shows that public officers are subject to both impeachment and criminal prosecution if they break the law. It makes absolutely no special exception for the President.

Scholars who claim otherwise are dishonest, as was the DOJ person who wrote that memo, probably under political pressure. Show me the text in the Constitution that says the President is above the law. You can't, because it's not there. Claims to the contrary are simply lies. Somebody can legitimately say it's difficult politically, but they cross the line into lies when they claim some kind of Constitutional justification.

[Cicada]

83. The president may be indicted at a later time

The DOJ addressed this topic twice, Nixon and Clinton, with more than one person. Same conclusion. You have given your legal analysis, nothing explicitly says President can’t be indicted, otherwise he would be above the law. Scholars no doubt have arguments contrary to yours. That you can’t imagine what those arguments are does not mean they do not exist. That you can not imagine their reasons does not mean they are dishonest. Why would they publish something they think is untrue? That makes no sense at all.

But former circuit court of appeals Judge Richard Posner, a guy with a dazzling mind, who published many books on many topics in his spare time, the most cited legal scholar in the twentieth century, has an approach which may appeal to you. He says judges lie in their opinions. He says they decide what they want a legal result to be and then make up legal arguments to support that result. He says the legal arguments are the result of the verdict, the ruling is not the result of the arguments. He said Scalia, whose rulings Posner often agreed with, claimed to decide based in “original intent” but that he used an “original intent” framework because it would almost always lead to the conservative results Scalia wanted for other reasons. Posner was generally conservative tho the modern Republican politics has driven him to be much more liberal lately, he says. So consider this results oriented argument. Jailing a political leader is a good way to kill democracy. Manafort guy in Ukraine ran against prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko claiming she was a crook. Sound familiar? Manafort guy won, Yulia went to prison. Yulia supporters went wild, revolted, and Ukraine broke into two parts. Russians now occupy the east and control the ports. If a President is jailed it will probably lead to unintended disaster. So maybe the DOJ is smart enough to see around the corner.

[lagomorph777]

84. Well, I don't think making up arguments not based on the text will save your guy.

The public evidence is far too convincing. He makes his situation worse every day.

[Cicada]

85. Save my guy? I hate Trump, I want him to suffer 24 hours per day

Just because I defend the honesty of the department of justice against a claim they were dishonest in concluding a sitting president can not be indicted, once in the 1970 s and once again in the 1990s, does not logically support your false claim that Trump is my guy. What the law or should be iis independent of who a specific defendant is.

The “rule of law” has as one of its component parts that it applies independently of who the accused is.

I think Bill Clinton is an incredible force for good, a great President, a philanthropist who has saved many millions of lives and who I expect to save millions more. I will vote for him and support him for any position. But that does not blind me to see that he obstructed justice about Monica Lewinsky, based on what the law is.

Jeez, you owe me an apology.

[Volaris]

69. That means he has to be successfully impeached first,

Convicted in the Senate and removed from the presidency.
THEN he can be indicted for any crimes committed while in office.

[BannonsLiver]

19. So were Sadam, Gaddafi, Nixon, Idi Amin and many others

Until they weren’t.

[progressoid]

40. Yep. The 2018 midterms are more important at this point.

[grantcart]

56. Pardons won't help Trump. Once they get the pardon they

Can't use their right to not self incriminate and become assets of Mueller.

They will get off federal charges but Trump really doesn't get anything.

[OliverQ]

60. I dont want them off federal charges.

Manafort needs to rot in jail.

[edbermac]

13. The dominos start to fall.

[H2O Man]

14. Recommended.

If I still drank alcohol, I would be enjoying a cold one now.

[LiberalBob_in_MA]

20. Repig Congress means Trump is invulnerable

... so long as they continue to be willing to look the other way.

But it is the beginning. The 'Emperor has no clothes' moment will eventually arrive.

[George II]

22. Sunday is the 46th anniversary of the Watergate break in!

[fallout87]

25. How many times...

Have we heard:
Trump is fucked
He's really screwed this time!
Trump is toast.


Too many times to recall.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

32. I know. And I'm tired of it.

A lot of people were convinced he'd resign before even taking the Oath of Office. Then the steady drumbeat of things like "He'll be gone by the end of the week!"

It's taken how long to get Manaforth in jail? And then only because he was stupid enough to egregiously violate the terms of his house arrest.

[Awsi Dooger]

48. People who follow day to day details are ultimate suckers

I learned quickly in Las Vegas that the worst handicappers of all were the ones who watched every game every day and formed opinions accordingly. Exactly the same thing applies to politics.

A president will be removed from office or leave office early. Oh sure, happens all the time. No burden at all.

It's beyond hilarious that the people who obsess over daily specifics actually fall for this crap, no matter how dependably it fails.

You can always tell a no-chance thread when a certain poster responds with "Recommended"

[USALiberal]

68. It is posted weekly, yet nothing happens. nt

[JustAnotherGen]

27. I'm going to wait and see

I still think that 45/140 lasts out this term. Our only hope is the midterm election.

The GOP are a bunch of wusses who can't see fit to stand up for our Federal Republic or Constitution. At this point - I'm convinced every last one of them is compromised and they need to go.

Every. Single. One.

[TNNurse]

28. I hope you are right,

but I have been seeing these posts for months and he is still in office, still destroying this country. Cannot get hopeful or excited.

[Hoyt]

33. Every week, same thing. Hasn't happened. Heck, Cohen turning on trump is pure conjecture.

Even if Mueller comes out with a damning report, he has to be impeached and convicted (if still in office). If he is out of office, and assuming they can indict him, I bet there is no chance of getting a jury without a few white wingers who'll hang the jury.

Although, getting him out of office is all I really care about. Maybe imprisoning a few of his smartass, disgusting kids would be nice too.

[lagomorph777]

36. Cohen turned on Trump when he kept all those meticulous records.

He just didn't know it yet.

Whether he actually talks - who cares? Documentary and physical evidence is so much better.

[Hoyt]

42. If you assume there is something significantly illegal there. We thought Comey's meticulous notes

would bring trump down. Didn't even touch him and Comey is suspect now.

I do believe a number of trump's aides -- including a kid or two -- will be indicted, although conviction will be tougher.

Not the way I want it to be, but I learned my lesson waking up a few times during the night thinking Fitzgerald was ready to drop charges on bush and cheney.

[lagomorph777]

43. There's definitely something illegal in there.

Every time somebody looks into a dark corner of TrumpWorld, there's something illegal in there.

[Hoyt]

44. No doubt, but you got prove it. Then you either have to get Congress to act or expect a jury

with at least a few white wingers in the box to convict him. Just don't think it will happen.

[vi5]

35. Is Mueller time before or after Fitzmas?

Because frankly I'm still waiting on that one, so.....you'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath based on a series of hyperbolic posts on DU.

[berni_mccoy]

39. This investigation is nothing like the Plame Investigation

Libby was the only one indicted and he took the fall for Cheney, deliberately. Do you think Cohen or Manafort is going to do that? What about Popadopolis, Gates, or Flynn... all but Manafort are cooperating and have plead guilty to charges.

[ProudProgressiveNow]

37. KR NT

[lunatica]

38. I think Manafort is just the first domino to get knocked over

Trump is not the only one who’ll be affected.

[Texin]

41. I see nothing to indicate that. Trump gets by with everything and the rethugs are just A-OK with it.

Rosenstein will be fired and replaced by someone who will just sack Mueller and end the investigation. The rethugs are doing and will continue to do absolutely zero to stop this from happening. Putin will probably issue a prison hit on Manafort before he can spill to the investigation (if there still is one at the time the hit is made).

[AlexSFCA]

45. I smell polonium

[Tipperary]

46. Meh. Seen so many of these posts.

It ain’t over till it’s over.

[fescuerescue]

50. I've been saying that for 3 years

Even before the election.

It's only a matter of time before reality catches up to him.

But at this rate, I'm just hoping its not a few years to late.

[redstatebluegirl]

51. We can hope but this guy appears to be the Teflon Don.

[pnwest]

52. I'm not so optimistic - without an original thought in his head, shitstain either

copies what others have done, or does the opposite. If there's going to be a "Saturday Night Massacre part duuuhhhh" this is the weekend for it........cause you know he is shitting himself right now...... he's just going to get more and more spun up as the weekend goes on......

[no_hypocrisy]

53. If Trump doesn't get Manafort out of jail within 24 hours, I'm guessing

a promise of a future pardon won't have much impact. Paul could flip.

[grantcart]

54. Even the pardons won't help.

[awesomerwb1]

55. Nah

Don't count your eggs before...
Not over until the.......

These traitors have no shame, no morals standards. They'll be in survival mode soon if they aren't a little bit already, and they're capable of anything.
And we've heard about cornered animals.....

This is far from over.

[LXY123]

66. Mannafort is Fucked

Where the hell is the Democratic outrage ?
Tired of just Avenatti--grow some & step up before its too laye.

[Afromania]

76. one can only hope

[MadDAsHell]

77. After Fitzmas, I can't get my hopes up till I see it.

Way too many people shooting for recs instead of truth.

[Honeycombe8]

80. Can't count the times I've heard that.

Hopefull, one day it will be true.

BTW...we don't know for a fact that Cohen has flipped. He probably has, but we don't really know.

Hopefully, Manafort will flip.

[ancianita]

81. If we get out of this with democracy intact, we must create a national holiday in Mueller's honor.