Whatever Trump is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now

[babylonsister]

https://politicalwire.com/2018/02/18/whatever-trump-hiding-hurting-us-now/

Whatever Trump is Hiding Is Hurting All of Us Now
February 18, 2018 at 9:03 pm EST
By Taegan Goddard

Thomas Friedman: “President Trump is either totally compromised by the Russians or is a towering fool, or both, but either way he has shown himself unwilling or unable to defend America against a Russian campaign to divide and undermine our democracy.”

“That is, either Trump’s real estate empire has taken large amounts of money from shady oligarchs linked to the Kremlin — so much that they literally own him; or rumors are true that he engaged in sexual misbehavior while he was in Moscow running the Miss Universe contest, which Russian intelligence has on tape and he doesn’t want released; or Trump actually believes Russian President Vladimir Putin when he says he is innocent of intervening in our elections — over the explicit findings of Trump’s own C.I.A., N.S.A. and F.B.I. chiefs.”

“In sum, Trump is either hiding something so threatening to himself, or he’s criminally incompetent to be commander in chief.”

[Raster]

1. I'll take both answers for $500, Alex...

...“In sum, Trump is either hiding something so threatening to himself, or he’s criminally incompetent to be commander in chief.”

[RandomAccess]

33. And add money-laundering, please

He was already fined for that back in his Casino days and there's PLENTY of circumstantial evidence for it.

I think that's more important to him than the tapes because he can lose his money and property if convicted of that, and he CAN be convicted of that (with no opportunity to pardon himself) because it would be prosecuted in state courts.

He doesn't have enough shame, frankly, to be worried about the tapes.

[Raster]

34. Oh yes, I can support that!

[Cha]

36. YES!

[nolabels]

2. Maybe all three or maybe more and or something worse

The motives for someone that steps off of the path and wanders are as wide as the sky. Since the public only gets to see small parts of important issues of a special prosecutors investigations the rest of peoples thinking can only be with educated speculations.

[Moostache]

25. The tapes are not "pee-pee" ... they are Trump bedding down with minors.

It is the only thing that makes sense outside of financial entanglements that leave him open to blackmail...but even those would be a blip, being a pedophile and having the goods on tape are game overs for Trump.

[KG]

3. he's finally right about something. that said, piss on freidman anyway.

[Vinca]

4. I think Vlad owns him and you can imagine what he does to people who don't pay their bills.

[SWBTATTReg]

5. I agree...something isn't right here when he keeps harping on it again and again and again and ...

again to the point, enough already! Obviously from the way he's acting (like he really is guilty of something, you know)? Anyone else would have just let them do their thing (the FBI, Mueller, etc.) and calmly awaited the conclusion(s) and report(s) of their investigations. But here and the way he is acting?

Sounds like he's guilty of something and has definitely something to hide, doesn't he?

[mobeau69]

24. "Sounds like"? WTF?

[MBS]

6. Excellent op-ed

He nicely illuminates both the core of the problem, and its urgency.
One of the best from Friedman in a long time.

[Martin Eden]

7. He won't defend our country against enemies foreign and domestic

Isn't that a breach of oath or something?

[PJMcK]

13. Of course it's a breach

The problem is that impeachment is the only real solution and that's not going to happen.

[Martin Eden]

14. Not unless Dems regain the House and Senate

As much as I despise Mike Pence, Trump has got to go!

[PJMcK]

16. Pence will probably get caught up in the Mueller investigation

After all, Pence was in the campaign and he was the head of the transition team. He's going to be dirty, too.

My skepticism about impeachment stems from the inherent difficulty of removing a president. Even if we Democrats win the House this fall, the new Democratic majority won't be seated until January 2019-- ten long months from now. Even if the new Speaker makes impeachment a priority, it will take months to hold hearings, draft articles of impeachment, and debate and vote on them. Assuming they pass, then the fun starts.

A trial in the Senate will take more months of preparation. Then the trial and vote whether to remove the president. Even if we Democrats flip a few Senate seats, it will be a far cry from the 67 votes that would be needed to convict and remove the president. Would the evidence against Trump be powerful and persuasive enough to convince enough partisan Republicans to vote against their party's leader? With this batch of bozos, I find that really hard to believe.

If all of that transpires, it would probably take at least another year and then we'd be in 2020. I cannot believe that our country has come to this point!

(By the way, I know you already know all of this. I just needed to vent. Thanks for reading!)

[Farmer-Rick]

29. Thanks for laying that out for us

But congress has been known to act quicker, with enough pressure and heat. But I'm not sure the temperature is hot enough yet.

[Martin Eden]

30. If it takes that long to impeach Trump, then Pence's complicity is irrelevant.

Unless he's out of office by then, the next president would be in office by the time he's impeached.

The decision whether or not to pursue impeachment is a political calculation but it also needs to be a matter of right and wrong, of fulfilling a responsibility, and of justice.

I believe GW Bush and Dick Cheney are war criminals who abused the national tragedy of 9/11 and deliberately lied us into the catastrophic war in Iraq.

Nancy Pelosi immediately took impeachment "off the table" when she became House Speaker. In my view, she took justice off the table.

[ananda]

8. It's all of the above.

nt

[lkinwi]

9. I think almost everyone has to know that something is definitely wrong with this president.

But their fears are buried underneath a bunch of wedge issues and/or bigotry that tRump continues to exploit. It’s exhausting.

[joshcryer]

10. Strong article.

[uponit7771]

11. Or Red Don is a True Believer in Russia and is out right helping Vlad subvert US influence globally

[imanamerican63]

12. It is all about the ruble!

He is either in debt to the Russians? He has launder money for them? He has been taking a bribes from them? Take your pick? But, then again! It could be that he wants to be like Putin, in control of everything?

[MBS]

15. Here's the link to the full NYT op-ed.

Really important article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/18/opinion/trump-russia-putin.html
A few more excerpts:

Up to now, Trump has been flouting the norms of the presidency. Now Trump’s behavior amounts to a refusal to carry out his oath of office — to protect and defend the Constitution. Here’s an imperfect but close analogy: It’s as if George W. Bush had said after 9/11: “No big deal. I am going golfing over the weekend in Florida and blogging about how it’s all the Democrats’ fault — no need to hold a National Security Council meeting.”

At a time when the special prosecutor Robert Mueller — leveraging several years of intelligence gathering by the F.B.I., C.I.A. and N.S.A. — has brought indictments against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian groups — all linked in some way to the Kremlin — for interfering with the 2016 U.S. elections, America needs a president who will lead our nation’s defense against this attack on the integrity of our electoral democracy.

What would that look like? He would educate the public on the scale of the problem; he would bring together all the stakeholders — state and local election authorities, the federal government, both parties and all the owners of social networks that the Russians used to carry out their interference — to mount an effective defense; and he would bring together our intelligence and military experts to mount an effective offense against Putin — the best defense of all.

. ..

After pointing how much Trump is NOT doing what needs to be done, Friedman concludes:

My guess is what Trump is hiding has to do with money. It’s something about his financial ties to business elites tied to the Kremlin. They may own a big stake in him. Who can forget that quote from his son Donald Trump Jr. from back in 2008: “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross section of a lot of our assets.” They may own our president. But whatever it is, Trump is either trying so hard to hide it or is so naïve about Russia that he is ready to not only resist mounting a proper defense of our democracy, he’s actually ready to undermine some of our most important institutions, the F.B.I. and Justice Department, to keep his compromised status hidden.
That must not be tolerated. This is code red. The biggest threat to the integrity of our democracy today is in the Oval Office.

[lark]

17. I choose option C

"all of the above"

[jimlup]

18. Well both

and it isn't even probably. He is both stupid and compromised.

[spanone]

19. K&R...

[kentuck]

20. Amen.

Or all of the above.

[NoMoreRepugs]

21. Exposed outright, admitting it's about the money

and the pee tape and massive collusion...everything....I'm
still not positive the "base" will abandon him.

[smirkymonkey]

22. All of the above, and then some.

[mobeau69]

27. Ditto. nt

[ehrnst]

23. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. (nt)

[Cary]

26. #fakepresident is a bad man with no redeeming qualities

The whys and wherefores are irrelevant.

Resist! And, of course, VOTE DEMOCRATIC!

[njhoneybadger]

28. It has to be really bad, like a tape of him having sex with a 14 year old who resembles Ivanka

[bdamomma]

31. How much more

evidence is needed to show how he is traitor to the US and the office that he stole .

[H2O Man]

32. Recommended.

Thank you for this!

[dalton99a]

35. Trump is hiding something AND he is criminally incompetent.

Where are the tax returns?