Donald Trump can rant and rave about Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russian trolls
He can claim the indictments shows there was no collusion.
He can try to discredit the FBI.
As only a pathetic and increasingly desperate dotard could.
But he can't call Russian interference a hoax any longer.
And he can't fire Mueller.
For while the indictments don't answer some burning questions.
Friday’s indictment of 13 Russian nationals and three organizations answers some of the bigger outstanding legal and factual questions surrounding Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election. But a number remain unanswered, including the most obvious: Were Trump campaign officials involved, or Donald Trump himself?
There are several very good reasons for Mueller not to show his full hand.
Friday’s indictment sets a dramatic stage for anything that will follow. It provides the most detailed public account to date of the activities that Mueller is charged with investigating, and puts to rest any notion that there is “no there there.” It also lets other potential targets know that Mueller’s knowledge of Russian interference is extensive, and that the wisest course may be to cooperate rather than to try to obfuscate or obstruct.
Firstly, now that Mueller has demolished Trump's claims that the whole thing was a hoax, and made it clear that the Russians were working to elect HIM, it encourages others to cooperate with his inquiry.
Or else.
Secondly, it makes the charge of obstruction of justice, which is more easily proven, a far more deadly weapon to use against Trump and his crime family.
There have been clear signs that Mueller may be probing potential efforts to thwart the Russia investigation and/or efforts by campaign officials to conceal Russian contacts. That parallel area of inquiry is not affected by this indictment. The obstruction of justice-related shoes, if any, still remain to drop.
And thirdly, and most importantly, it will prevent Trump and his Republicans from firing him.
Bringing the first major indictment against only Russian individuals is also a brilliant rebuttal to those who argue (without basis ) that Mueller’s inquiry may be politically motivated. It allows Mueller to reveal the breadth and seriousness of the misconduct without any distracting political sideshows.
Surely the condemnation of the conduct set forth in Friday’s indictment will be bipartisan and overwhelming. That will give Mueller’s investigation considerable momentum and should provide substantial political insurance against any potential moves to fire the special counsel.
For now, as the presidential historian Tim Naftali points out, any attempts to do that could rightfully be seen as treason.
"I think any attempt to undermine the Mueller investigation at this point could credibly be described as treason." CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali joins @jimsciutto for analysis of special counsel Robert Mueller's indictment of 13 Russians https://t.co/fYVZZujQUX pic.twitter.com/VIdCqEYanq— CNN (@CNN) February 17, 2018
Which could leave Trump looking like the traitor-in-chief...
Destroy his corrupt presidency.
And as I have long predicted, finally send that depraved monster to the place where he rightfully belongs...
The shadows are lengthening.
The Mueller is coming.
And sooner or later the hog will be roasted...
15 comments:
It's neat cause it also shows that the Bernie bots were fed Russian propaganda and are happily still regurgitating it. Reminds me of the ndp slamming Trudeau and helping the cons.
Really Simon you fall for the big lie. Lets accept everything the US says about the 13 as true. First most of the ad buys where after the election.
This seems to be no more than Russia playing with Facebook to see how effective propaganda can be. Its a crime the USA does daily. Its equivalent to using a friends COSTCO card to shop.
What this does is expose the deep state as the Emperor with no clothes. Even the FBI states the Russians had zero efect upon the election.
I still think there will be an attempt to bring down Trump on money laudering. See Wall street and how many people have been charged, and how many people have been convicted. There is no chance of bringing down Trump on money laundering.
"Even the FBI states the Russians had zero efect upon the election."
A rather ludicrous statement considering that if someone changed their vote because of Russian planted fake news, well then yes, they damn well did have an effect on the election.
JD
You're nuts
Nobody wants to admit that they got duped. Especially not self-proclaimed intellectuals or college-educated students, the "academic" class comprising much of Bernie's "base." But even the most stable of geniuses can get snookered by emotional appeals and promises of a unicorn in every garage, which means the far "smarter" and braver thing to do is to admit that one was wrong and work to make amends and do it better next time. That almost never happens, unfortunately. For some reason there's usually a rift that splits left-liberal groups versus the right-wing, probably because left-liberals' "big tent" encourages disagreement and (healthy) debate, whereas the right-wing is all about a zero-sum game in which the enemy is always far worse than even the worst or "weakest" of party candidates.
So the Bernouts will attack Hillary or even Obama for not being sufficiently "progressive," while the Dippers will attack Trudeau; the modern-day Paris Communards will attack Macron; the Greens, Social Democrats and whomever else is in Germany's Bundestag will attack Merkel; and in all cases it ends up splitting the vote (or posing the threat of that, at least), and causing disarray, leading to something far worse. Trump, Harper/Scheer (and/or whatever clown wins the semifinal bracket for the cons in Ontario); Le Pen; and actual Nazis by any other name who are now the third-largest party in the Bundestag. Nice going, ideologues. Party like it's 1933.
The far-far-left needs to pull their head out of their revolutionary rear ends and stop letting unattainable perfection be the enemy of the good. The hell do they want anyway? For Trudeau to build a wall around Alberta and make Saskatchewan pay for it? For Macron to throw everyone with an income above poverty wages in the guillotine? For Merkel to throw open the gates to the whole of the Middle East and the African continent? For Obama to drone-strike Aetna and Hillary to take a hatchet to Goldman Sachs like Carry A. Nation did to the saloons?
What I want is for Bernie to realize that his 15 minutes are up, slink away quietly and tell his cult to knock off the purity tests, instead of continuing to sabotage the Democrats' chances in November of this year while floating the carrot of running again for the White House in 2020. Whether it's right or not, politics is the art of the possible, as Hillary said in her book. 100 years of Red Scaring has ensured, realistically, that a self-declared socialist cannot win a federal election in the United States. Period. He should have damn well known that before he threw his Ché beret in the ring.
I have no problem with steadily moving the Democrats back to an FDR-style platform and attempting to bring the U.S. in line with other civilized countries that have social democracy and public investment in a safety net. But a crucial election like 2016 was not the time to "blow things up." Not when a Russia-backed neo-Nazi con man and the party of insane, heartless warmongers and sociopathic plutocrats was ready to pounce on the void left by "imperfect" Barack Obama. Who for whatever missteps he made was far, far, far, far, infinitely better than the garbage fire we have now. If Hillary would have been "more of the same," so what. At least she wasn't Trump.
At a Trumpian all in spend rate of approximately $13 per vote the estimated $12 million annual spend the Russians contributed converts to around 900,000 votes. It could be lower but probably much higher as the hacked (poor Bernie) emails were one of the significant factors that cooked Hillary's goose. The hacking was a foreign operative job (Russian?) as the risk-reward profile was too high for a US based entity. America spent the past 80 years fighting commie spooks around the world as well as under every American bed. With countless American lives lost (and a magnitude of innocents) how can his base mentally shrug off the fact that their arch enemy contributed to his win? I can understand why connecting several dots might be a challenge but hell its only two dots. Russians evil * Russians supported Trump * Trump evil. I never suffered from Russian phobia so my version would be Putin not our friend * Putin supports Trump * Trump not our friend but the conclusions are the same.
Yes there is a much longer game where the West needs Russia in our camp but the instant gratification Manchurian idiot is incapable of winning this type of long term strategic game even if he wanted to.
RT
Trump is in big trouble. Mueller has him in a box, and now can take his time and finish his investigation, which should finish Trump off. Every tweet is more frantic than the one before, so he knows he's screwed...
This post and the bulk of the comments provides further evidence of the insanity of "liberals."
Trump's Repug rivals lost to him because they all stood for the rotten status-quo. Bernie Sanders was winning and Hillary and the DNC had to steal the nomination from him because the bulk of Democrats were sick of the rotten status-quo. Some people voted Green because they were sick of the rotten status-quo. Many traditional Dem voters stayed home because they had no options that didn't represent the rotten status-quo.
Hillary did not become president because she was an uninspiring candidate.
Rather than face this fact and its significance, Hillary and the Dem Party leadership would rather babble about "Russian meddling."
You imbeciles falling for this crap hook, line, and sinker means that the rotten status-quo will continue forever, unless the heightened animosity between the USA and Russia bring on nuclear annihilation.
hi anon@8:25AM...Aren't you forgetting Jill Stein? For if there was ever a wasted vote her campaign was the one or the bot. But it doesn't matter, hopefully progressives will learn from the past. United we win, divided we lose...
hi Steve...I'm falling for the Big Lie? No, I don't think so, I think you're the one who is being fooled or Trumped. For starters the FBI doesn't say that the Russians had zero effect on the election, for the very simple reason that they can't read people's minds.
But since the election was very close, and the Russian disinformation program was very large, nobody can say that it didn't have an effect.
Secondly I think I'll believe what Mueller is saying in his indictment, rather than anything Facebook says.
And thirdly, if Trump is brought down by his financial dealings, it won't be because of the "Deep State" but only because he was, is, and will always be a crook...
hi Jackie...I think enough mistakes were made by all progressive factions in the last election, so I'm not going to single out anybody, lest I only help perpetuate a situation that only helps our enemies. I believe that the left must see itself as a coalition, and that perfection is sometimes the enemy of the good. And that if we intend to defeat the right, as we must, we must unite to fight the real enemy...
hi JD...of course that massive fake news effort had an effect. It helped pit Bernie supporters against Hillary supporters and vice versa. And among other things, according to a survey I saw recently, it also helped many black voters at home. The important things is to remember that the Russians and/or Schmeagol and his gang are likely to try the same thing in our election, and we must be ready to counter them, and make sure the truth wins out...
hi RT...as I've said before, I am not a Cold War warrior, I would like to see better relations with the Russian people. And the irony is that Trump is doing a lot to make those relations worse, and lead us to the brink of war. But while I obviously don't want to see that happen, I also can't understand why Trump's idiot base doesn't understand that the Putin regime is not their friend, and definitely does NOT want to make America greater...
hi anon@11:30...yes, as I pointed out in my post, I think that Mueller's main objective right now is to set the parameters and make it almost impossible for Trump to fire him. Now Trump must wait helplessly for the other shoe to fall, and I wouldn't be surprised if that waiting game drives him over the deep end...
Jill Stein is a nut job, and most people get that. Sanders is still treated like he is legit, when he is not. I was a big fan of his during the primaries because of his policies, but since he refused to drop out and continues running the purity test on progressives, I can't stand him. If we can rip on the ndp, we can rip on the old fraud, Bernie.
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