I don't think Trump is so much goading Dems towards impeachment as he is fighting back

[Dream Girl]

With everything in his power to keep from losing power and the next election. If he loses, he’s toast, broke, possibly jailed...game over. Wat he’s doing now is just one collasal hail Mary pass. What does he have to lose? It may work. If it doesn’t, what has he really lost, he’s not much worse off. I think we can all agree he is a survivor with absolutely no sense of morality or fealty to the law. He’s just doing wat he’s always done on a different level. Frankly, I’d be surprised if he wasn’t attempting to block and ignore Congress.

[unblock]

1. the "goading" concept is completely wrong-headed.

donald fraud doesn't think like that. he steamrolls people and bullies them. he doesn't do rope-a-dope.
he isn't trying to get himself impeached so that the senate can acquit him.

no. he's obstructing because he *doesn't* want to get impeached.

he doesn't want republican senators to have anything over him, to ask him for anything to save his sorry butt.

he'd much rather delay and defy and obstruct and try to keep impeachment from happening, or at least make it happen as late as possible.

that's how he operates.

[coti]

6. 100% right

Your post, I mean, lol

[Chin music]

7. This.

[JHB]

14. Absolutely spot-on

Right now the path of least resistance for Republicans is supporting Trump. The constant stream of his dirty dealings that impeachment hearings would produce could change that, as well as turning up more explicit Russian-scented dirt in the GOP's closet.

Once the path of least resistance is no longer so clear, there can be breakaways. And dirt on the GOP will help us in the election too.

[uponit7771]

15. +1

[EveHammond13]

2. he will fight dirty no matter what is happening - he is already calling us treasonous baby-murderers

trying to placate him is useless

[dem4decades]

3. Trump's doing what he always does, playing to his base.

And impeachment will rile up the Idiot Horde like no other issue.

[Dream Girl]

5. Don't think so. The last thing he wants is the nation transfixed on impeachment proceedings

He doesn’t want all that evidence to come out and be paraded on the teevee 24/7.

[uponit7771]

16. to what end? there wasn't enough of them to get him elected last time without the help of

... left third parties.

Red Don's base isn't a threat outside of the MAGA Cult

[pandr32]

4. I agree with this

Too many people seem to assume tRump is more intelligent than he is. He doesn't strategize--his many advisers and appointees do and are usually ignored. tRump can't seem to help himself. He has a very strong, hair-trigger response mechanism that he has allowed free rein over the course of his life. He insults, bullies, attacks, and seeks vengeance on anyone he perceives to have slighted him. This is not "goading Dems towards impeachment" but him behaving true to type.

[Honeycombe8]

8. He wants impeachment, because he knows it can't remove him, & wud benefit him politically.

It would get his based fired up. And would change the conversation from crimes he may have done to "the impeachment witch hunt that Democrats are perpetrating on poor victimized Trump."

Trump's lawyers even based part of their argument fighting the Acct firm subpoena on the fact that the subpoena is no good, unless they open an impeachment hearing/investigation. There's no doubt they want an impeachment hearing/investigation.

(This doesn't mean that I think we should not impeach. If we can impeach, it's Congress's duty to do so. But this is complicated; I don't know when they should do this or what would happen as a result. I leave that to the Democratic leaders. It's a big decision.)

[Dream Girl]

9. But everything would come out. Don't think he wants that.

[Honeycombe8]

11. Oh, everything comes out no matter what kind of investigation is going on.

Bad news coming out of hearings, w/o "IMPEACHMENT" to fire his base up isn't nearly as good as having the "impeachment witch hunt" thing to milk, from his point of view.

I edited my post to make it clear that I do think Congress has the duty to impeach, if there are legal grounds. It's the "when" that I don't know about, and I don't envy the Democratic leaders who have to make that decision.

[uponit7771]

17. it would come out right before election

[StarfishSaver]

10. It would also give him one target to focus his attention and ire on

And to focus his low attention span followers on. They need a target to hate and it's hard to focus on several different committees coming at him all at one time, but they can rally to hate on one impeachment panel.

[Honeycombe8]

12. That's a good point. Yes, he's a one-word politician, and his cult are one-word followers. nt

[uponit7771]

18. He'll target his attention anyway and his followers will follow anyway no matter what. We've NEVER

... had to give them rational reasons for anything.

If there is no reason at all they'll make one up.

What Red Don's cult will do is not a good political reason to not proceed, timing is though... that has to be right.

[StarfishSaver]

19. But it's much harder for him to single out one target when several committee

are coming at him from every direction. And his followers will be even more confused

Sure, he'll always attack whoever's coming at it him. But he's always more effective when he focuses his attention and the hate of his followers on one person or entity.

And he's much less affective flailing around squatting incoming from different directions

[uponit7771]

20. I just heard on MSNBC, I think it was Jaynapa, who said they don't have to stop the other ...

.... investigations if impeachment for the narrow set of reasons is going on.

Also, Red Don's base didn't get him elected last time it was IRA focusing the left on 3rd parties in VSM states if we go by the numbers.

Yes, the amount of "coincidences" in the last election is gob smacking ... when looked at through IRA et ak lens.

Red Don under performed rMoney, his base isn't enough in 2020 and wasn't enough in 2016 ... hell if anything Red Don's base is smaller.

That's the reason they ... KNOW ... they will need Russian help this time.

Red Don's 16 base +1% and he still loses if there's no 3rd party focus by the likes of the Russians, his base isn't the threat the M$M says it is to the election system but is a threat inside the MAGA cult.

[StarfishSaver]

21. They don't have to stop, but it will be virtually impossible to sustain such investigations

during an impeachment inquiry. The point of the impeachment investigation is to fold everything into that inquiry. It would be very difficult operate on several different tracks like that within impeachment inquiry going on.

One alternative is for the House to authorize various committees to continue conducting their oversight work and refer to the investigations as "preliminary" to impeachment. That would allow the house committees to continue conducting a wide range of investigations without the constraints imposed by an impeachment inquiry while unequivocally bringing those investigations under the purview of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)'s grand jury material exception.

[uponit7771]

22. She was also talking about the SDNY, SoNY and other investigations. There's about 20 something ...

... and around 4 - 7 of them are state level.

Damn, ... Red Don is going to go to jail ... there's no way all of those investigations just collapse into "he's innocent"

[wryter2000]

13. It's desperation

If Barr, Mueller, and others testify, he's toast. If his financial records get out, he's toast. He has no choice but defy Congress. I don't think it's a clever ploy. It's desperation, and it won't work for long. Judges don't like to have their orders ignored.

[Moral Compass]

23. Agreed

Those that think he is trying to get the Democrats to impeach him haven't been listening when he completely freaks out about any mention of impeachment.

He's trying to get back control of the narrative and lately even Fox News hasn't been cooperating. He knows that this is all spiraling out of control. He keeps filing suits and losing. Even judges appointed by him and Bush are failing to come through with the decisions he seems to think he should be getting.

If the issue of McGhan and Mueller and others testifying before Congress comes to a court he'll lose that case too. The Constitution, while vague about some things, it is not vague about the structure of the government and the fundamental co-equality of each branch. There is no basis for a favorable decision on McGhan not testifying for example. He cannot assert executive privilege as he has already waived that by allowing McGhan to talk to Mueller.

Nothing is looking good for him right now.