Mueller report thread - Mueller testimony July 24

[pbrower2a]

Why do you guys WANT it to be true that trump colluded with russia? It is bizarre to me.

Millions of Americans are livid that their President WASN’T colluding with a foreign power

Think about that for a second. Imagine half of the country actively hoping that FDR or Truman was caught colluding with the Japanese during WW2.

It’s difficult to comprehend

Wouldn't it be better if nobody had cause to believe that the President was in collusion with Russian  political figures, intelligence agents, or Russian mobsters?

This is not World War 2.

[pbrower2a]

Why do you guys WANT it to be true that trump colluded with russia? It is bizarre to me.

Millions of Americans are livid that their President WASN’T colluding with a foreign power

Think about that for a second. Imagine half of the country actively hoping that FDR or Truman was caught colluding with the Japanese during WW2.

It’s difficult to comprehend

Americans are livid that the President could have colluded with a foreign power hostile to democracy. Note that the Roman Republic had a wild-and-woolly political order complete with elections. Coincidentally, the Romans also had a two-Party system.

Much was excusable, but one thing was not: collusion with a foreign power to get electoral strength. Such could get the daggers out. 

[pbrower2a]

Barr's cover letter is itself a cover-up. Maybe it is just his biased interpretation. Yeah, sure, the Russians did it all on behalf of Trump, but Trump had nothing to do with it. Nice kitty, nice kitty -- wouldn't hurt a mouse. 

How were the federal courts able to get so many convictions out of this investigation if there were nothing behind it?

Witch-hunt? An understatement. Real witches, at least as adjudicated by the legal process of the time of the persecution of imagined witches, could never do the horrible things of which they were accused of. We have some sophisticated operators being convicted of very bad stuff.

The President cannot use national security as a cover for official misconduct or personal wrong-doing.

Think of what significance exists if it is 'only the Russians' with minor aid by some Americans misguided by their ideology. If the Russians could alter the results of our Presidential elections, then think of what was possible with others. Republicans did far better in House and Senate elections in 2016. OK, the House elections of 2018 are obviously moot now, but the Republicans may have a majority in the Senate in part because they were able to hold onto all but two gains in the wave election of 2010. We are stuck with such until 2022.

No, Donald Trump is not at fault. Nice kitty, nice kitty -- wouldn't hurt a mouse!

[pbrower2a]

Barr's cover letter is itself a cover-up. Maybe it is just his biased interpretation. Yeah, sure, the Russians did it all on behalf of Trump, but Trump had nothing to do with it. Nice kitty, nice kitty -- wouldn't hurt a mouse. 

How were the federal courts able to get so many convictions out of this investigation if there were nothing behind it?

You would actually need half a brain to understand that those convictions had nothing to do with collusion.

One does not do such crimes as money laundering, perjury, or obstruction of justice for the fun of doing them. Let us find out what lies beneath the vague and potentially-absurd summary. Deceit is the norm with anyone associated with Donald Trump for long unless in a menial role.

Yeah, sure -- Vladimir Putin manipulated the 2016 election out of charity toward Donald Trump and the GOP. Sure -- and winter clothes are a necessity for July travel to Florida.

[pbrower2a]

I'm ROFL right now, watching the Echo Chamber explode in frustration.  It really is amazing.

The Mueller investigation wasn't about investigating a crime.  It was about investigating Trump, personally, and individuals close to him.  This would be great if you had reasonable suspicion that Trump committed an actual crime, but that was not the case.

I have, for a long time, stated that I was waiting for the Mueller Report to come in before I drew any conclusions as to what Trump did or didn't do.  Well the report is in, and not only did the report not indicate an indictment for Trump, it indicated that (A) there would be no recommendations for further indictments, (B) there was no indication that Trump would have been indicted if he were not President, and (C) neither Trump, nor anyone else, was named as unindicted co-conspirators.  There was no "collusion" (whatever that means) and any interference in our elections by Russia was done by Russians, and not in conjunction with Trump's campaign.

The Democrats, of course, could accept this and go forward with actually allowing the government to function.  They are showing themselves as no better than the GOP and its endless investigations of Hillary, who WAS being investigated for a specific crime.  (That's a difference between Hillary and Trump that cries out for recognition.)  There is no evidence that Donald Trump, nor anyone else "obstructed justice".  And it's a little hard to say this when you can't point to a specific crime that was covered up.

How Donald Trump has conducted himself as President involves a number of relevant issues.  His Tweets are often indefensible in terms of taste and level of pettiness.  His policies are a matter for debate as he ran as a different kind of Republican and turned out to be pretty much a standard GOP conservative, with some shifts away from free trade and internationalism.  Let the politics begin, by all means.  Let the case against Trump's record in office, in terms of he actions and accomplishments as President be examined and discussed.  But let the political judgment also be rendered against a mindless Democratic Party that opts to investigate the investigation, and investigate the investigators investigating the investigation.  They are continuing the "investigation" solely to find some juicy tidbits that will serve their campaign well, and there is something very wrong with that, no matter who is doing it.

The specific crime is the hacking of a Presidential campaign and political party. The 21st century version of the Watergate break-in. That was a major crime with huge impacts, unlike whatever happened with Hillary's e-mails which literally had zero impact.

Well, yes, and those individuals (most of the Russian Nationals) have been charged.

And it’s still illegal to cover up other people’s crimes.

And there's no probable cause to believe that Trump, or anyone on his campaign staff or current staff did so.  That's why there's no indictments; there's no probable cause.  No indictments.  No unindicted co-conspirators.  

Donald Trump is not, and should not. be above the law.  But he shouldn't be below the law, either.  The latter is something you and folks like you here seem to think is OK.  It's not, and his being Trump doesn't make it so.

And while I feel for the American people and the American taxpayers that have had to endure this, I am, quite frankly, celebrating the intense, wrenching angst that the intellectually dishonest Echo Chamber Posse are going through now.  Not everyone here, mind you.  Just the Echo Chamber Posse.  You know who you are. 

Did you have similar emotions with the endless Benghazi investigations that ultimately found nothing to incriminate Hillary Clinton? 

Of course, the Russia and Benghazi investigations are not exactly the same -even if Mueller ultimately found no evidence of collusion or conspiracy by Trump or his campaign with the Russian government, he found enough instances of corruption and underhanded dealings to warrant further investigations.  Consider the indictments and prison sentences already handed down.  And you cannot blame us for believing that there was something there.  Trump acted like he was guilty of something.  It looked like a duck, acted like a duck, and quacked like a duck. Surely you can forgive us for thinking it was a duck. 

I don't believe that the Echo Chamber was interested in the facts, no.  I believe the Echo Chamber just wants to drive Trump from office by any means.  Primaries and GEs exist for that purpose; to get rid of an incumbent people no longer want, regardless of the reason.

I was never a big fan of the Congressional investigation of Hillary Clinton on Benghazi.  It was a politicized spectacle that deserved the criticism it got.  It was designed to achieve a politically negative result for Ms. Clinton, and it achieved its purpose.  The investigation stunk of rank politics, but it DID bring to light confirmation that the Obama Administration, with HRC at the top of the State Department, attempted to blame an attack on our Embassy in Benghazi on spontaneous anger over the showing of a movie Fundamentalist Muslims found offensive and not the work of organized Islamist Terrorist groups that the Obama Administration was claiming that they were controlling.  The upshot of all of that was that Hillary Clinton made a series of decisions that, basically, left people at that Embassy to die.  She could have taken steps to get them out, and she did not.  I personally believe that her inaction was to preserve the "movie" narrative as insurance of (A) Obama's re-election and (B) her viability for 2016.  (I don't believe Hillary made a single decision as SoS without taking 2016 into account.)

I DO think that "Government Oversight" of the Executive Branch by Congress has progressed to the point where every matter is unfairly politicized and checks and balances are upset.  We have gone too far, IMO, in the direction of "Oversight" to where everything is politicized.  The Army-McCarthy Hearings have become the norm.  There is something wrong with this in general.  If good people are less willing than ever to serve in government, perhaps this factor should be looked at.

We have more tolerance for political messes that come from failed intelligence or execution than we have for political messes that come from corruption and malign intent. Barring a visit with the Grim Reaper to the White House that results in the permanent departure of the President, we are stuck with him until January 2021.

The allegations are not disproved; they will follow this President throughout his Presidency and into history. So far as I can tell he will be defeated, as his approval ratings were weak before the investigation and will be weak again.

[pbrower2a]

Any other president whose investigation led to dozens of indictments, including several members of his inner circle, would be doomed by this. Teflon Trump is going to spin the fact that he isn't personally leaving the White House in chains today as a win, and it looks like that narrative is going to win out.

Blame the Dem hacks who have insisted for years now that Trump was going to be literally arrested and dragged out of the White House in chains, which was obviously NEVER going to happen.

Dems are the absolute worst at managing expectations.

No one will believe the worst about Trump if it comes from them.  They are permanently entrenched in our politics as Wolf Criers of the highest order.

Now if the Democrats get off of Trump and onto issues, they might win in 2020.  Trump's hardly got it made.  Fortunately for Trump, the Democrats will provide the unexpected help.

Donald Trump is an issue in himself for his recklessness, corruption, cruelty, and reactionary ideology.

We need to see what is in that report unless disclosure puts Americans at risk or jeopardizes criminal trials. I am willing to find out, should such be so, that Donald Trump is a man of pure honor and integrity who deserves re-election and who will find that he wi9ns because only the most partisan of hacks can vote against him. I went along with him making his economic case and hoped for the best in "making America great again".

Whatever chance I gave him I no longer give him. I am not the sort who gets conned, but if someone cheated me once I would never give him a second chance.

Just watch the polls. By the middle of next month we should see whether the President has gained enough trust to be on track for re-election and perhaps even winning back the House majority and picking off a few Democratic Senate seats.

At this stage I have less faith in the President than I have had in any President except perhaps when Nixon's administration was in a death spiral and when Dubya was experiencing a double-whammy with an economic meltdown while reverses in Iraq and Afghanistan became obvious. Things are nearly that bad with this President.

Yeah, sure -- make America great again -- if you want a return to the economic and political norms of the 1920s. I have known people who lived through the 1920s -- and the only nostalgia that they had about that slum of a decade was that they were still young.

[pbrower2a]

The full report will be out soon.  Perhaps we can spike the narrative before hand so then if and when it turns out to be something far less than what people are saying, there will be cries of "cover up" and calls for a "new investigation".

There were NO indictments.  Zip, zero, zilch.  The full report will be released soon enough.  Good Lord, people waited longer for the Warren Report, and its release sparked a cottage industry of conspiracy theorists that continues to this day.

People are doing penal time because they have been indicted and convicted. Manafort, Gates, Papadopoulos, Flynn... all indicted for doing political dirty work on behalf of the President. A comparison to the Warren Report is void because that report includes investigations of then-imaginable accusations of involvement with a Presidential assassination. One such possible accusation would have been against the KGB, and an imaginable pretext for starting World War III, something that few Americans would have wanted. 

Will this report say Trump acted like a yucky poo-poo head?  Probably.  Will what's there justify more investigations, let alone impeachment?  I doubt it, and everyone here doubts it too.  If it does, well, have at it, but what people are trying to do, ultimately, is define Obstruction of Justice in a way that criminalizes Trump's normal and legal use of his Presidential powers, and those powers include the right to fire the FBI Director.

You are dated now. Julian Assange has been busted, and the UK is one of the easiest countries from which to extradite someone. This man can crack if he sees himself spending the rest of his life in a ADX-Florence, the federal Supermax.

Do I like everything about Donald Trump?  Lord, no!  I would not want my son to have Trump's persona (although I might wish my son to have Trump's work ethic).  He says things and does things at times that, while entertaining (to a point), have me scratching my head.  I'm a "less is more" individual in many walks of life, and I usually restrain the urges I have to fire off at people because I know once I say something I can't take it back.  That's not Trump at all. 

I would not want a son to grow up with the sense of entitlement, the lack of empathy, and the vindictiveness of Donald Trump. Work ethic? I know of men who do work that few of us want and live in a trailer -- with five other such men.

Do I like everything politically about Donald Trump?  Again:  Lord, no!  He's right on immigration and trade, and I appreciate his commitment to social conservatism, even if his heart isn't always in it.  I certainly think he's been too much the Freedom Caucus Republican, and while I see that as an alliance of convenience, those are the folks who do the most to reward the wealthiest and trash the safety net.  While I agree with a good deal of Trump's questioning of many institutions, I don't wish to trash those institutions to the point where they are unsalvagable.

Donald Trump is a Marxist stereotype as a businessman and a Marxist stereotype of a pol who represents rapacious plutocrats. Such in itself is evil. One can defend capitalism by either humanizing its worst aspects or by endorsing those worst aspects. Trump is one of those "Suffer for my greed and indulgence, you expendable peon!" types who make Marxism relevant.   

No, I don't like everything about Donald Trump, but I detest "The Resistance".  I consider "The Resistance" to be downright anti-American; they would have America fail if it brings down Trump.  And the events of the post-election period of 2016 has convinced me that there is a coalition of powerful elites who cast their own veto on Trump's election and are bound and determined to undo his election.  When nearly every single newspaper in America comes out to oppose Trump, when the mainstream media abandon any pretense of objectivity toward Trump, and when they do this REGARDLESS OF THE FACTS, we have before us the darkness that democracy will actually die in, if it, indeed, is killed.  When the majority of a House of Congress devotes its entire resources removing a President, and with developing false narratives to justify the extreme step of impeachment and removal, then we have something other than what the Founding Fathers indicated.  Something frightening.  Something more worthy of the failed states from which the people seeking to crash our borders come from than from an advanced and supposedly stable democracy that Trump, by the way, did not destabilize.

First of all, Donald Trump is political rot should he establish the new direction for America. The reformer who makes his country better is a genuine patriot in contrast to the grafter and shyster. Second, we have a 230-year tradition of Constitutional government with checks and balances most directed against despotism; Trump violates that.  Third, it is the right of newspapers to oppose any politician (although newspaper editorials rarely change anyone's mind). Fourth, Trump appeals to the basest drives in human nature. We may need to regulate some practices out of the realm of legality, we may need to raise taxes, we may need to get people to lower their expectations, and we may need to get people to put their lives at risk in the defense of their country.

If Trump's that bad, then make the case for it in an election.  Convince people you're right and vote him out of office.  I'm all for that.  Let the Congress work on legislation, and not on political investigations disguised as "oversight".  But let's stop the insanity.  Because it IS possible for the GOP to be even more of a "resistance" if the Democrats are voted in.  Would THAT be good for America?  Somehow, I think not.

Donald Trump has put himself into the political nightmare that he is in. He is a depraved, corrupt, unfeeling person. It's not that he lacks empathy; people can act as if they have some out of some principle contrary to their tendencies. Anyone who brags about grabbing women by their "kitty-cats" is bragging about behavior very close to rape.   

[pbrower2a]

In the first 55 pages:


1. The material is reduced from "Attorney Work Project".


2. Redactions appear largely as "Harm to ongoing matter" (most space taken), "Investigative technique", or rarely "Personal privacy".  These. to the extent that they are valid redactions, are mandated by law. Potential "harm to ongoing matter" suggests that further investigatione and prosecutions remain possible and even likely. I am willing to accept "investigative technique" for what it is, and "personal privacy" as mandated u8nder federal law against the release of classified or confidential information.

3. The Russian role is heavily delineated. If Trump is not a conspirator, then he is at the least a dupe. Russian intelligence agencies and front groups are named.

4. Julian Assange is apparently quite guilty as a foreign agent for disseminating materials, stolen or perhaps forged, through Wikileaks.

Go ahead. Read it. I shall spare my usual judgments. Yours matter more.

[pbrower2a]

2016 Presidential election -- made in Moscow.

[pbrower2a]

Okay this seems like what everyone figured all along (pre-memo). Trump did some light collusion but they couldn’t establish a conspiracy nor did what they did rise to the level of a a crime

Other than that whole obstruction of justice thing being a crime.

And getting aid from a foreign power in an electoral campaign.

[pbrower2a]

On pp 180-181 the report makes clear that collusion in a criminal activity is itself conspiracy in accordance with Black's Law Dictionary, a recognized source on the meaning of words in law. One cannot successfully twist the meaning of words in legal statutes to win a legal point, as by calling one's theft "pilferage" instead of "larceny". Words have rigid meanings in statutory  law lest they be meaningless in law. Postmodernist devices with language are incompatible with legal statutes, lest law be unenforceable.

I cannot cut and paste the section from the report, so such is the best that I can do.  

[pbrower2a]

It is mere coincidence that my previous post follows a tweet from the President that asserts that what he did is not obstruction of justice.  Legal statutes define such, and Donald Trump cannot. The law is not a convenience to those who perform shady deeds. 

[pbrower2a]

There is something in Mueller for everyone.

1.  No collusion with the Russians.  Point blank. 

Wrong. Trump's campaign was in collusion with Russian intelligence, Russian plutocrats, and perhaps even with Russian crime syndicates. The report indicates that even supplying intelligence against the opposition is a violation of campaign-finance laws.

2.  The Russians certainly did try to interfere in the 2016 election.

The Russians had their dupe and knew it. Undeniably true.

3.  Trump certainly wanted the investigation to end.

Criminal investigations end quickly if there is nothing worthy of prosecution.

4.  The administration did not act to interfere with the investigation.  Nobody actually obstructed justice.

People lied to investigators (which is obstruction of justice) on his behalf.
 

Some of Trump's comments, at least, are natural and not obstruction.  He was angry that an investigation into something that was false.  It is very reasonable for someone who is under investigation to be angry, especially when it is for something that didn't happen. 

Denying guilt is not obstruction of justice. Attempts to deceive or deflect an investigation, or destruction of evidence, is obstruction of justice.  J. Edgar Hoover put it clearly enough: find the liars and you find the crime. That is how Robert Mueller works.  

The problem is that Trump said he wanted something that would be OoJ done, his staff said no, and he didn't push it.  Pushing for it would have been OoJ; asking about it and effectively being talked out of it, may not be.

 

Gangster bosses from Al Capone to Antichrist Hitler have typically let subordinates do the dirty work without giving explicit instructions. There is no written order by Capone for the St. Valentine's Day Massacre and no document ordering the Holocaust that has the signature of you-know-who. Trump has connections to organized crime, so he has learned a few things that have influenced his style of management.

This, however, creates a problem for the Democrats.  They cannot overplay it.  The can't claim obstruction, because there wasn't actual obstruction.  They can't claim collusion, because there wasn't any collusion.  The only thing that the Democrats could claim is that Trump wanted to obstruct justice, but didn't.

The Mueller Report begins with serious violations of campaign-finance law. In a close election, such could constitute electoral fraud. Trump has collaborated with the intelligence service of a regime hostile to democracy. Of course there will be marginal cases in campaign contributions, as when they come from the US citizen spouse of a foreigner who has interests in the electoral process in America. This goes far beyond that.  

It is the same legally as you saying to someone "Tell the police I was with you last Tuesday," with the response being "No."  If you did not commit a crime last Tuesday, does that even rise to the level of obstruction? 

No crime, no obstruction. Truth that leads nowhere does not get followed. Police and DAs
have better things to do than to investigate non-offenses.

Politically, that is a hard sell.  (I think it would be a hard sell for a jury, for that matter.)

Had I been a juror on some of the cases already resolved, I would have voted "guilty" rather early, perhaps voting "not guilty" only to discuss more testimony and evidence before coming to a decision. Jury decisions are definitive on facts of a case unless testimony is perjured or evidence is fabricated.

[pbrower2a]

Were I a Republican officeholder I would want President Trump to step down. He offers far too many risks and too few rewards -- and he might make my electoral loss all the more likely. Besides, Mike Pence would be just the thing for my economic and social agenda -- back to the Gilded Age!

[pbrower2a]

I've avoided commenting on any Russia related topics, because it has been obvious for some time what the ultimate conclusion would be. However, it was satisfying to see the Mueller report systematically destroy every conspiracy theory that people have obsessed over (Papadopolous passed on his gossip to Trump campaign, Carter Page as superspy, Michael Cohen Prague trip, Manafort-Assange rendezvous, RNC platform change, Alfa bank server, Deutsche bank Russian money laundering, Jeff Sessions as Russian agent while a US senator, honestly the list goes on and on).

Many of the violations in themselves are small, but on a big scale they make a serious set of crimes. We have laws against tax evasion, money laundering, banking fraud, campaign-finance violations, wire fraud, and mail fraud. Maybe one gets away with one such violation (so you fail to report your winnings in a 50-50 contest that nets you $35... but if you have a job in which you are being paid under the table you are committing a crime, and so is your employer). 

Minor offenses might be essential to major crimes, and if one does enough of them one could be a major criminal. It is the organization of those minor offenses that is the big crime.

Did Trump's people do enough to throw the 2016 Presidential election (and as a corollary, some Senate elections?) How can one measure such? The Presidential election was close, and it would not have taken much.   

But at the end of the day, most normal people have tuned out this "scandal" long ago, because of one fatal flaw. It is so incredibly *BORING*. It is full of facebook memes, FARA violations, tax law violations, obscure arguments over obstruction of justice statutes etc. Where is the illicit sex in the West Wing, the Watergate break-in, the secret recordings inside the White House? Even the big event that the obstructionists are clinging to, the Mueller firing...oh wait, he wasn't actually even fired. Where is the Saturday Night Massacre?

I think the opposite: I think that it is getting juicy. We have learned that at the very least, Donald Trump is a willing dupe of Vladimir Putin. Willing dupes are accomplices if they are somehow involved in illegal acts in a conspiracy to commit a crime.

Look at it this way: when Obama was President, the FBI was investigating other things than corruption involving the Presidency. Like cyber-crime, including the fake FBI warning that you were to send in money to some shyster  to get your computer access restored. Like drug trafficking or human trafficking.   

My prediction is that the Trump-Russia affair will quickly be relegated to the dustbin of history like Iran-Contra or Valerie Plame. There is nothing here that can capture and hold the national consciousness like the more sensational Watergate and Lewinsky scandals.

The incompetence, amorality, and venality of this President is exposed to history. This man is more loyal to his self-image than to his country. What many of us suspected has proved true. Do we have more to the story? Sure. There is much redaction, mostly of on-going investigation. I am drawing no conclusions about that. Were it exculpatory it would be out in the open.

Should Trump run for re-election, then the content of the report will be used against him. This is material for the comedians on the Daily Show, Saturday Night Live, and others. With news, comedy is the best analysis.

[pbrower2a]

Atlas liberals (indeed, most of the anti-Trump left coalition) is disappointed that the Mueller report concluded that Trump and his campaign didn't "collude" with Russia.  They wanted it to be true.  They wanted sham indictments, even if they were baseless.

It might be impractical to indict a current President. Some of his subordinates have been indicted and convicted of crimes, including perjury and money laundering that nobody does for the fun of it but instead in an effort to conceal one's criminal deeds.

There are huge rewards for a successful insider who will do anything for his benefactor -- vanity and gain. Maybe one arranges for the sale of public assets on the cheap to sleazy entities, and after one's term in office is over one gets a well-paid job with soft stock options from the company to which one sold public assets on the cheap. Or you get lucrative book contracts or public appearances. Vanity? You get recognition in Wikipedia, which isn't so easy. It used to be possible to do a particularly offensive crime and get a Wikipedia page, but that is not enough anymore. You can thank me for participating in that change in Wikipedia policy so that contemptible losers don't get a measure of fame just by doing something horrible. Any dimwit can commit a murder, but getting a credit in a significant film, getting elected to high public office, or making a major-league  team is much harder. 

Sleazy people attract other sleazy people, and Donald Trump is a horrible person. He is not becoming a saint while in office.   

When a prosecutor indicts someone, they are saying, at the time of an indictment, or of an information filed, that they are able, at trial, to prove their allegation beyond a reasonable doubt.  The idea that a prosecutor indicts someone to see what sticks is reprehensible in jurisprudence.  It's not OK just because people see examples of this on fictional TV, and the fact that it's done in real life doesn't make it right.  That's what people wanted here, even though the facts of the report say otherwise.

Not quite. First, it is a grand jury that indicts after a prosecuting attorney has compelling reason to put someone on trial for a crime. Second, one might get indicted for a crime best described as a technicality -- and upon more investigation, something sticks. The investigation might be incomplete. Oh, the tax fraud is about drug trafficking? Then maybe the focus changes.

The  facts are not established in a court of law except to the extent that people have been convicted in courts of law (including guilty pleas as well as verdicts in criminal trials).

Donald Trump may not deserve your vote.  I'm not convinced he deserves mine for 2020, although there are lost of Democrats I can't vote for under any circumstances.  But people are so deranged over Trump that they've abandoned their own principles.  Vote the man out.  Oppose his policies.  But the idea that anyone, even a political leader you hate, should be prosecuted when the investigation doesn't even meet the standard of probable cause, is a dangerous concept that I believe many here lack the ability to appreciate.

The Mueller Report simply strengthened my suspicion of serious wrongdoing that might have given us electoral results different from what would have happened without the cheating. Electoral fraud is the tiny flame that starts the conflagration that destroys a democracy. I do not want my politicians selected from outside the United States.

There is more to 2016 than the Presidency. The Republican Party seemed to have a dozen or so vulnerable incumbent Senators, and only two of them lost. The Republican Party is under the control of people who seem  to believe that no human suffering can ever be in excess so long as such enhances, indulges, or entrenches a rapacious and ruthless elite. Is this hyperbola? I wish it were.   

[pbrower2a]

Schiff looks looks the statesman, and Nunes looks the fool.

Schiff turned the discussion in part from corruption to national security, which is an excellent stratagem when it works and it worked!

[pbrower2a]

Another embarrassment for the Democrats. The left just got smacked up.

It is also absolutely disgusting to see CNN so desperate in wishing, wanting, begging, for trump to be impeached. Trying to twist and wring any fraction of a fraction of evidence to possibly maybe support impeachment. This is journalism? It’s disgusting.

No. The Left did something that one usually associates with the Right -- taking on the claim to be for national security and asserting that personal morality is essential to good politics.

Everything that Mitt Romney said about Donald Trump in April 2016 has proved true.