Is it possible that Trump is innocent?

[Doodley]

Based on his behavior alone, I personally don't think it is possible Trump is innocent. His own words and actions show he is as guilty as Hell of something that is so heinous that he is desperate to go to extreme lengths to conceal it.

I hope Mueller finds the witnesses and the paper trail that are needed to convince at least some of the GOP and some Republican supporters, but Trump's own actions, that we can all see, point in only one direction.

1/ His constant insults (such as worse than McCarthy), his attacks (witch hunt) and lies (17 Angry Democrats) about Mueller and the Russia probe, including labeling as "fake news' all media that supports a lawful investigation initiated by a Republican deputy AG, nominated in 2017 by Trump himself. If Trump was innocent, he would not feel the need to do this.

2/ His continual praise of Putin, while simultaneously attacking and insulting our closest strategic and economic allies. This shows his loyalty to Putin are above his loyalty to our staunchest friends.

3/ His reticence to sign into law sanctions against Russia, and his lack of initiative to take serious action against Russia for their involvement in the 2016 election, and to protect us from further interference. Why would the man who is supposed to defend America fail to do this, unless his loyalty was first and foremost to Putin?

4/ His constant attempts to undermine and politicize the Justice Department, including the Attorney General and FBI, including verbal attacks, public humiliations and firings, as well as undermining and contradicting the CIA and its assessment of the 2016 election. Again, these are not the actions of an innocent man.

5/ His constant lies about the Trump Tower meeting, his business dealings in Russia, his Russian contacts, his firing of Comey, and his game-playing about an interview with Mueller, not to mention the sheer number of staff around him with Russian contacts. No innocent man would do any of this.


For these reasons, I go well beyond thinking it is probable Trump is innocent. I think it is impossible Trump is innocent. It isn't possible that an innocent man behaves in this way. But what are his crimes? We do not know for sure, but I fear they are more serious than most of us think.

However, it seems that Trump is determined to destroy America as we know it from within. Heads of departments - education, housing, health, environment, all seem to have expressed desires to destroy the very purpose of those departments and the benefits that they deliver. The economic policy is to explode the debt (something that was a central GOP attack point against Obama) and to reward only the wealthiest. Trump's tariff war can only end badly, and already we are seeing a negative impact across the economy and some factories have closed or are planning to move manufacturing plants out of America. We are becoming more divided racially as well as economically. Trump seems to want to start a race war, scapegoating minorities by singling out blacks and attacking their imagined low IQ's or supposed lack of patriotism. Trump is after all, the man who rose to political power on Birtherism and an ambition to scapegoat Mexicans and ban all Muslims.

We are no longer the world leader that we were compared to just two years ago when Obama was president. Relations with the rest of the world and approval in other nations have plummeted to levels not seen since polling began.

We are now a nation that is seen as wanting to shut people out based on their religion. Our president insults our allies and lies about what they say. International agreements on Iran, climate and trade have been ripped up as far as America's contribution is concerned, with no suggestions of alternatives. We are now isolationists, happy to let other nations take the lead. The UN and NATO have been undermined and insulted. Trump looks like the treasurer of a club asking that everyone pay their dues, but he has no vision of what the club can actually do and has no intention of being engaged. Our humanitarian and environmental efforts have been reduced and Trump's immigration policy have all helped to give us a bad name the world over.

It is as though "Make America Great Again" was all part of an inside joke, as if Putin knew that everything that would happen would make America worse. It has been said many times, perhaps in jest, but it seems that Trump really is Putin's puppet. Putin is the winner of everything Trump does and America is the loser.

Do I think it possible Trump is innocent? No, because I don't think it possible this all happens through stupidity. Even Trump isn't that stupid.

[trueblue2007]

1. why even post this. it can't even be considered. HE IS EVIL AND HAS TO BE STOPPED.

[Awsi Dooger]

2. Unfortunate choice of header

It's going to turn everyone off even though most of the summary is fine

[KY_EnviroGuy]

7. Probably better to ask....

Is it possible that tRump will be found innocent?

I have a lot of faith in our institutions but with Repugs in charge, nothing shocks me these days. They will use every underhanded trick in the book and spend unlimited amounts of money to save face.

........

[Scarsdale]

11. It is impossible to

"save face" at this point. Seeing the damage done, the gop had better wake up and smell the coffee. Their "leader" is mentally ill and crooked as a dog's hind leg. Anyone who defends him must also have something to hide. If the gop continues to defend him, block any investigations, they are done as a "party". I hope they realize that all that Russian money was just not worth it when they lose their cushy jobs, and are exposed as traitors. Some should face prison time as traitors to their country. Nunes and a group of aides in the WH come to mind. tRump's wealthy supporters who are running the government agencies from Mar-A-Lago should be exposed. This is beyond being a joke, it is a disgraceful period in the country's history. We have an unhinged ego maniac in the WH, tweeting his ass off daily, in between golf games. He has broken most rules that other presidents followed to the letter. He does as he pleases, and the gop are too cowardly to speak up, until they are about to "retire" and feel safe from his fury. He was NEVER qualified for the position. Everyone knew it, mostly Putin, who saw a great opportunity to get help destroying his arch enemy, the USA.

[KY_EnviroGuy]

15. Agree 100% and reminds me of my favorite, simple political expression...

"Republicans cannot govern".

Governing is not in their DNA and electing them to government would be like me hiring a bunch of new guys into my company that were openly hell-bent on destroying my company.

I really feel Repugs have been waiting for this window of full control of government for so long that they are still in an "orgasmic" stage of shock and are not sure what to do, although their minders are (Heritage Foundation, ALEC, etc.). However, the minders should not be shocked that the radical incompetent bunch they shoved into Congress are totally dysfunctional regarding writing and passing meaningful policy. Much of that is because they are power-mad and totally allergic to bipartisanship.

I have no sympathy for their dilemma and hope they're all looking for new professions after November.....

[wroberts189]

3. I thought as you ... I gave it the same as you ..a fair hearing.

Lock that treasonous piece of shit up!!!!

[RDANGELO]

4. Looking at the different charges.

Conspiracy - He did it on national TV asking Russia to find the e-mails

Obstruction of justice - remotely possible that he is innocent.

Money Laundering for Russian Mafia - probably guilty if they can get the evidence.

[jmowreader]

9. Obstruction's going to come down to how Mueller holds his mouth

There's a good chance that if Trump can convince the court his people were committing crimes behind his back, an obstruction charge won't stick.

As we saw in the Bundy Bunch trial, it is extremely hard to sell a conspiracy charge to a jury.

This is what I'd try.

1. I would look extremely hard at Trump's rental agreements with the government. IIRC Trump is earning roughly $3 million per year renting hotel rooms and office space to the federal government. If Trump is selling room to the feds above market value, you've got a clean fraudulent-conveyance case.

2. Can we nail the bastard for election tampering?

3. Trump is violating the Presidential Records Act by not retaining his tweets. Since his personal Twitter account has become the de facto official White House communication channel, the PRA applies.

4. If "conduct unbecoming an officer of the federal government" isn't a crime, it should at least be a termination offense.

5. I like the money laundering angle. We'll use that too.

[Takket]

14. Bribery as well

Accepting help in exchange for lifting sanctions is a bribe.

[denbot]

5. He changed the RNC Platform regarding Russian sanctions.

Then lied about it. Moronic OP title.

[octoberlib]

6. No. Read House of Trump , House of Putin.

[malaise]

8. No. n/t

[global1]

10. NO - But He's Convinced His Deplorables He Is....

and that block of people that gave him to us in the first place will cause us problems when Mueller finally releases his findings. Brace yourselves - because we're in for some interesting times.

[Scarsdale]

12. We all know ahead of time

that Mueller's findings will be heavily redacted. The gop will fight to protect their mentally deficient leader, and themselves. The findings should be released to several newspapers in it's original form. We deserve to KNOW all the dirty details of exactly what the gop has promised Putin.

[empedocles]

13. trump base is largely into the 'ends justify the means'

and traitortrump 'can shake things up.'

[metalbot]

16. Innocent of what?

Unless you are addressing a specific charge, the notion of Trump being "innocent" isn't very helpful.

I suspect that Mueller already has enough evidence to charge obstruction of justice.

I also suspect that Mueller has pulled enough threads of financial information to sink Trump on financial crimes, though these may be harder to link to Trump himself.

If you're asking "is Trump innocent of colluding with Russia during the election", then the answer could very well be "yes". I'm personally of the opinion that Trump has been owned by Putin for 20+ years, and that he's assisted Russian oligarchs of money laundering via fraudulent real estate transactions. If that's the case, there would be no need to "collude" during the election - Putin would have acted autonomously to help Trump, and he could easily tip off members of the Trump campaign without involving Trump himself. That might cast (even more) shade on the election results, but wouldn't necessarily touch Trump directly in terms of collusion.

[dewsgirl]

17. No, he is dug in deep with the Russian mafia.

[Squinch]

18. He has committed obstruction before our eyes. He invited

Russian interference in the election before our eyes. We know trump tower is th Russian money laundering castle. We know he knew about his sons meeting to collude with Russia to influence the election and at the very least did not report it to the fbi as a security breach.

If that is the kind of thing he shows us, I am confident that there are egregious crimes he hides badly.

[democratisphere]

19. "Innocent" and "drumpf" are exact opposites.

[wishstar]

20. I believe Trump will claim innocence and shift all blame to Manafort,Stone,Cohen etc.

so I doubt any pardons are forthcoming until Trump can target scapegoats to blame for his and Don Jr and Kushner's involvement in Russian collusion.

[struggle4progress]

21. "He didn't do it! And when he did, it wasn't that often! Anyway he usually didn't even know

what he was doing! And everybody else does it all the time! So he can't remember how often he did it! If you can't remember how often he did it, how can you expect him to remember? He's a very busy man and doesn't have time for this stuff! Benghazi! Parade! Lock her up!"

[meadowlander]

22. No.

It beggars belief that his son, son-in-law and campaign manager met with the Russians to get dirt on Hillary Clinton and he didn't know about it, not to mention he went to a rally the same day and teased all the dirt that was about to come out.

And there is no way Kushner was running around trying to set up "back channels" with the Russian embassy without Trump being in the loop.

He admitted on TV that he fired Comey to obstruct the investigation.

And that's just the tip of the guilty-berg.

The only question left is how many of his crimes are chargeable under which criminal codes and whether or not the Republicans in Congress are ever going to show any integrity or if they've been bought and sold by the Russians too.

[ck4829]

23. An innocent billionaire... No such group exists.

[LuckyCharms]

24. Nope. he wouldn't be working so hard to dig his own grave...

if he was innocent. A person with nothing to worry about just sits back and smiles.

[Vinca]

25. No. He's agitated because this might be the first time the full scope of his criminality will be

exposed. For decades he's managed to hide it out in the open. He even managed to weasel out of money laundering accusations when he had the New Jersey casino. I don't know if he's paid people off over the years or had goons threaten them, but Mueller is not intimidated. My only fear is he'll evade prison because his loyal dog Mike will pardon him.

[Trueblue Texan]

26. it's possible that he's convinced himself of his innocence.

His behavior is so normal FOR HIM that it's easy for him to behave as though he's been wrongly accused. Then he turns right around and obstructs so that his spin is the one that gets air time.

[kentuck]

27. He's a criminal pig...

...even if you put lipstick on it, it is still a criminal.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

28. His actions do not reflect those of a genuinely innocent person

It is *possible* MAYBE that he wasn't directly in on everything but that people around him had their hands dirty but it seems highly improbable also that he was completely oblivious to everything going on around him. And he's obviously been frantically trying to shut down/stymie the Mueller investigation in almost every way he can, so it seems that he's aware that people around him were doing *something* they weren't supposed to, which he may or may not know the full extent of. If he wasn't directly involved in anything, he is almost certainly compromised by somebody or something and knee deep in the hoopla in *something*

[Hoyt]

29. Problem is, who is going to convict him? I really think it comes down to voters -- 2018 and 2020.

I'm not sure he will ever be convicted in court or Congress. He's definitely colluded, obstructed, discriminated, cheated, stolen, lied, and worse.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

30. You Can Answer That Question Yourself, Simply By Asking One Question

Is this how an innocent person would act?

If you ask yourself that question EVERY TIME you see him weigh in on the investigation, you'll have your answer.

[SeattleVet]

31. Innocent?

Good one!

[Bettie]

32. Nope

not even a little bit.

He's stupid, evil, petty, and blind to everything beyond his personal space, but he's not innocent.

He is however, absolutely sure that he is completely above the law, having never faced consequences for his actions beyond a fine that he then turns to his own tax advantage.