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DonViejo

(60,536 posts)
Mon Sep 11, 2017, 04:49 PM Sep 2017

Does Bannon believe Mueller could bring down Trump? By Paul Waldman

September 11 at 1:27 PM

-snip-

Here’s the key exchange with Charlie Rose:

BANNON: I don’t think there’s any doubt that if James Comey had not been fired we would not have a special counsel, yes.

ROSE: So we would not have the Mueller investigation.

BANNON: We would not have the Mueller investigation, we would not have the Mueller investigation in the breadth that clearly Mr. Mueller is going. … Because I think directionally it’s a very different investigation.


Keep that idea of “the breadth that clearly Mr. Mueller is going” in the back of your head. Now here’s more:

ROSE: Someone said to me that you described the firing of James Comey — you’re a student of history — as the biggest mistake in political history.

BANNON: That probably would be too bombastic even for me, but maybe modern political history.

ROSE: The firing of James Comey was the biggest mistake in modern political history.

BANNON: I think, if you’re saying that that’s associated with me, then I’ll leave it at that.


In modern political history, if we’re just sticking to presidential scandals (and not policy decisions such as George W. Bush deciding to invade Iraq), then we have some pretty big mistakes. There’s Bill Clinton’s decision to have an affair with Monica Lewinsky. There’s Ronald Reagan’s decision to sell arms to terrorists so the profits could be used to fund an illegal war in Central America. Then there are any number of decisions Richard Nixon made — authorizing a coverup of the Watergate break-in, putting a recording system in the Oval Office — that led him to resign.

If firing Comey was bigger than all of them, what does that mean? It can only mean that it could end Trump’s presidency. Anything less would make it a big mistake, but not the biggest. Bannon’s unspoken logical chain goes like this: Trump fires Comey, which leads to the appointment of a special counsel, which leads to the discovery of terribly damaging information about Trump, which brings him down, either through resignation or impeachment.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/09/11/does-steve-bannon-believe-robert-mueller-could-bring-down-donald-trump
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