The latest revelations in the Stormy Daniels story have brought a question to mind: suppose that it turns out that Trump lied about his affair with Daniels under oath in some court case, that Daniels has proof of this, that Mueller investigates this, and that Trump ends up lying to Mueller about it. Would you be in favor of impeaching Trump for this?
That’s what Clinton was impeached for, of course. Personally, I would not be in favor of impeaching Trump for that (though if there was inappropriate use of campaign funds to pay her off or things of that nature, I’d have to think more about it).
Of course, none of this is relevant unless Democrats take the House. We already raised money for the Balloon Juice House fund today, so let’s raise a little more for Swing Left which is coordinating volunteer activity in over 70 House districts currently held by Republicans.
Xenos
Anybody see a good review of the enforceability of this arbitration claus? I would think you would still need to go to a real court to execute on an arbitrator’s ruling that your client was entitled to some huge sum of liquidated damages, and that the validity of these damages could be brought under judicial review.
Mike J
You can impeach him and even if you find him guilty you don’t have to kick him out. I say impeach him once a week.
Fizzle
Personally, what I want is a Bluenami that can make Orange Julius miserable enough to pull a Palin and resign.
I don’t think I’ll get my wish.
No, I don’t want him impeached over consensual sex. Let the Clenis obsession be the end of that. I’d be OK with it for conspiracy against the USG or similar. I’m not picky; I want to see the man end his presidency disgraced and miserable.
B.B.A.
@Mike J: That’s what the GOP was planning to do to Hillary. Sauce for the goose, etc.
randy khan
I think it’s absolutely an impeachable offense to violate campaign law by diverting money to pay off someone to keep her mouth shut. That’s more or less what John Edwards was indicted for (although he was not convicted for reasons that didn’t have much to do with the underlying legal theory).
While I think that cheating on your wife with a porn star and then paying off the porn star to keep her mouth shut is morally reprehensible, I don’t think that’s impeachable. I probably wouldn’t impeach someone for lying about an affair, but it’s possible there would be specific circumstances where I’d reconsider that position.
efgoldman
@Mike J:
Dems don’t do process like that. Don’t say if it’s good or bad.
Another Scott
I’m in (yet again).
This morning I heard on NPR that Forbes (or someone) thinks that Bezos is worth ~ $115B, Gates ~ $95B, Buffett ~ $75B (I may be mis-remembering the numbers).
It got me thinking (briefly) about what I would do if I had a huge fortune, or won a huge lottery.
There are roughly 1.2M people in my county. Giving each of them, no strings attached, no income requirement or limit, $1,000 would cost $1.2B. It sounds like a huge amount of money, but in the greater scheme of things it really isn’t. But it could make a huge difference to normal people who have no savings and are struggling every month…
Anyway, it just goes to show that individual “charity” even with a huge amount of money can’t really address the problem of hugely out of whack incomes and wealth. It needs to be national, and that means we need sensible politicians to have sensible policies.
That means voting out the Trumpists and the Teabaggers.
Let’s get it done.
Cheers,
Scott.
efgoldman
@randy khan:
An impeachable offense is anything a majority of the house says it is. It’s a political process, not a legal one.
As we doubtless be reminded many more times between now and November.
Brachiator
No.
And I detest Trump.
Mary G
I’ve been surveyed for polls twice in two days now. My opinion of the president, using the scale of 0-100, 100 being best? Zero. Are you sure you want to say that? OK, negative one trillion.
EricNNY
F them. I’m tired of taking the high road. With the tangerine menace, by any means necessary.
Another Scott
@randy khan: The trouble with having an affair as a politician is the susceptibility to blackmail. That’s what was so bad and stupid about Clinton’s escapades. I also think that lying under oath is a big deal, especially as a President.
But, like you, I’m torn about it.
Mueller has a lot more possible charges than this stuff, so it’s probably not necessary to consider (based on what we know now) adding it to the Impeachment charges list.
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
efgoldman
[email protected]Another Scott:
I don’t know where you live, but many would piss it away.
Anecdcata: At Enormous Brokerage & Mutual Funds LLC, an advisor sent us a customer from Pennsyltucky who’d won a substantial lottery prize (less than $10 million, but way more than I have).
We could follow the account; he had check writing privileges. And we watched him piss it away in $20-$250 checks that he cashed, mostly at the liquor store. Gone on a few years.
Doug!
@EricNNY:
I think he should be impeached and removed if the case is strong enough. But then we get Pence unfortunately. In a way, that *is* taking the high road unfortunately.
Susan
Clinton has an illicit affair with a young, naive intern and lied about it (and negatively affected her life forever). The current president* paid a woman who works in pornography to have sex with him and, at least verbally, directed his lawyer to pay her “hush” money. And then lied about it.
Not the same. Not the same for the women, either.
And anyway, there’s myriad reasons – more than this space allows – to impeach the current president* and if the money laundering allegations prove true, then criminal prosecution is in order.
eemom
This is an exceptionally uninteresting and pointless hypothetical. As everybody knows, he ain’t getting impeached for shit unless we retake Congress. IF we do that, there are only about 800 million better grounds to impeach him on.
Also, there’s no indication anywhere that he lied UNDER OATH about this.
Really, is there NOTHING better to talk about?
eta: And for fuck’s sake, you really think Mueller gives a shit about this? Again, like he ain’t got 800 million serious CRIMES to focus on? The man deserves a hell of a lot better than to be lumped in with the likes of Ken Fuckhole Starr.
efgoldman
@Doug!:
We didn’t get Agnew after Tricksie. Shit happens.
efgoldman
@eemom:
Talk about what you want. It’s an open thread. Maybe someone will engage you, maybe not.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
Whatever it takes. This guy is a ticking time bomb.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m a pretty hardcore impeachment skeptic. I think– assuming what Meuller uncovers is bad enough to move the mouth-brothers– he’s more likely to resign, especially if he can cut some kind of deal that keeps his ass out of prison, and Ivanka’s.
EricNNY
@Doug!: Although I hate Pence, I believe he’d be better. And I’m a gay man. I never thought I’d say that. Ever.
Brachiator
@Another Scott:
I don’t think that this has ever been shown to be that big a deal. Nor has it ever really prevented politicians from having affairs.
Case in point. Clinton had numerous affairs as governor. But no serious blackmail attempts as far as we know.
El Caganer
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I really, really hope that “mouth-brothers” was intentional, ’cause it’s a keeper and I’m stealing it.
eemom
@efgoldman:
I am. I’m talking about the fact that it’s a stupid fucking question.
Thanks for checking in though, Hall Monitor.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Don’t discount the venal, perfidious lapdogs raising a ruckus that the next in line is Donald Jr. or Ivanka.
efgoldman
@EricNNY:
I think he’d be equally hideous in a different kind of way.
@eemom: No wonder Omnes loves you so much.
hellslittlestangel
I wouldn’t mind seeing him impeached for the affair, but I’d rather see Melania stab him with a rat-tail comb.
efgoldman
@NotMax:
All fog. Not a goddamned thing they can do about it.
Achrachno
“Would you be in favor of impeaching Trump for this?”
No. Load him into a rocket and send him into orbit out beyond Neptune. He could still be president out there, so we’d not have to go through all that impeachment bother, but we’d probably not be able to hear his blather anymore. Nothing less would be adequate or just.
We could send along some of his friends and family to keep him company.
Bonnie
Lock him up and throw away the key.
EricNNY
@efgoldman: I agree, but I don’t think he’d make it past 2020.
NotMax
@efgoldman
Yeah, but there’s a hardcore who would like nothing more than having the Supreme Court declare the Constitution unconstitutional.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Peale
@randy khan: there’s lots that could have happened that thankfully didn’t in that affair that would have caused me to support impeachment. Some, like had he assaulted her, or used government funds to pay her off, are obviously illegal. Others may not be illegal, but certainly would have had me calling for his resignation. Like if he had then appointed her to some senior administrative post that she wasn’t qualified for. Like Jim McGreevy appointing his lover to that anti terrorism security coordinator post. Also, had she turned out to be a foreign agent.
Doug!
@eemom:
Do you think there are really hundreds of valid grounds for impeachment here? I’m not sure.
I hate Trump but I just don’t know about impeachment at this point.
Jay
@eemom:
Yup, Meuller deserves a medal for dumpster diving.
John Revolta
stab him with a rat-tail comb
How delightfully old-school!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Doug!: obstruction of justice, including intimidation of witness (Comey had better hope their aren’t tapes, etc), and witness tampering seem to me like exactly what the Founders would’ve had in mind, to say nothing of all the grubby corruption and monetizing of the presidency.
Here’s just the latest
The national party and Republican state AGs are paying Mar-A-Lago to hold parties, doubling the membership fees IIRC less than a week after election day, etc etc
smike
@Achrachno: Just tell him that he has been chosen to be an extra special Tesla astronaut and that he will be able to survey his kingdom for the next billion years (talk about president for life!) or so. He might go for it.
hellslittlestangel
@John Revolta: I assume the Secret Service doesn’t let her get near any real weapons.
smike
@Peale: Wow, I didn’t realize that Stormy is probably a Russian secret agent. We need to get the word out.
Raoul
People don’t orchestrate clandestine meetings in the Saychelles over lying about sex. The Nader stuff (and, fsm willing) Erik Prince are a much bigger deal than Stormy.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
It was wrong to do it to Clinton, doing it to drumpf for the same reason would’t make it right.
However the impeachment would be for money not lying about sex. Specifically it would be about campaign finance. And that is a huge problem, and I think getting drumpf on campaign financing shenanigans would be grand. He’s supposed to be this great financial genius (and JFTR, he fucking isn’t) and impeaching him, trying and convicting him for that would be just fine with me.
patroclus
There’s only gonna be an impeachment inquiry if we win the House by a good margin this November, so it’s a premature question that may not ever be relevant. But if we do, I favor a kitchen sink approach, which would list everything, including obstruction of justice, conspiracy, the emoluments clause, Hatch Act violations, FARA violations, campaign contributions by non-U.S. citizens, other election law violations AND the sex stuff, including payoffs, harassment and assault. Then, some Members of Congress could appear to be “reasonable” by voting against the sex stuff. If a Member, I’d probably vote against the sex stuff.
Trump’s likely to exempt Canada and Mexico (but not Brazil or the ROK) from the first tariffs in the coming trade war. If so, this is somewhat of a partial victory in the Age of Trump.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
Just got off the phone with a buddy who detests drumpf about that much as well, minus one trillion. Yeah that’s about right.
Ruckus
@Doug!:
It’s drumpf. His breathing is an impeachable offense.
Remember, high crimes and misdemeanors. He could be impeached for wearing a crappy tie. Wouldn’t be a stellar congressional moment……. but it’s whatever congress wants it to be. They can make up anything or nothing as long as enough vote for it, he’s impeached. Convicted and ousted, maybe, maybe not.
Raoul
@Ruckus: Yes, this. And if they did this payoff, what else did they throw money at? They expected to lose, they were all grifters at various levels like a multi level marketing scheme, and they assumed their campaign finances were never going to get looked at closely as the also-rans.
Ruckus
@Raoul:
Well he’s actually thrown very little money in his life. He either gets others to do it for him or he stiffs (no pun intended in the Stormy matter) the person, which is what it looks like he did here, stiffed his lawyer. It still seems to be a campaign finance violation from what I understand. And you are right, if a lying sack of shit does something once there is a good chance that it happened other times. He runs such a tight ship, and within the law, that I can imagine it happened a lot. A whole fucking lot.
Chet Murthy
@Raoul: ISTR tales of that fuckstick Cohen paying off hundreds (was it 800?) women before the election. I’m sure there’s a fuckton out there just wishin’ they could talk.
Fair Economist
@efgoldman:
That’s a whole lotta checks for a few years. A lottery win of 2.5 million covers 10,000 $250 checks, which is 1 a day for almost 30 years. If he was actually cashing several $250 checks per day at liquor stores there probably was something going on worse than just wasting money (e.g. an addiction).
Jay
Events are not passing, unnoticed.
https://wonkette.com/630909/no-gary-cohn-youre-still-not-invited-to-seder
Jay
@Fair Economist:
Poor shaming.
Jay
@Fair Economist:
Interest would have covered the checks,
Welfare Cadillac.
Achrachno
@smike: I was thinking we could point out: 1) Obama never went into space 2) There are no germs in space.
I was hoping maybe NASA had some old booster in storage somewhere, but a private vehicle might have more appeal for him, so your approach is better in that respect.
eemom
@efgoldman:
heh. Knew that would be next from you. Omnes, paragon of all that is right and rational.
Feebog
The Stormy Daniels stuff is titalating and all, but it is not going to bring him down. It may not even affect his poll numbers much. Mueller’s investigation on the other hand may dig up some serious shit, even before we get to the obstruction charges.
Shalimar
@EricNNY: The chance that Trump impulsively starts a war that ends humanity has to be over 10%. Eliminating that alone makes Pence an improvement, even if he is worse in every other way.
eemom
@Doug!:
“Hundreds” may be hyperbole. But you have to be fucking kidding me if you don’t think the evidence of obstructing justice and corruption are sufficient for impeachment. To say nothing of the thousands of documented lies and blatant attempts to subvert the machinery of government for political advantage, and the many other shoes yet to drop from the Mueller investigation.
sukabi
@hellslittlestangel: only if it’s a metal one with a sharpened tip and she does it 70 times.
Shalimar
@Feebog: Trump sent Stormy Daniels “still pictures” that he was desperate to acquire legal ownership of. If those get out, every time a relative posts something saying how great Trump is, all you have to reply with to make your point is a picture of his 60 year-old penis. His followers are not going to shrug off Stormy Daniels forever.
Aleta
sukabi
@Doug!: really? Christ, just the gross incompetence should be enough….
? Martin
So, the hot take on this suit from the law folks I know is as follows:
The suit was filed in CA superior court (thank god I finished my jury duty last month). Presumably this means that Daniels is a CA resident. The first point here is that the contract is almost certainly illegal in California. Mostly having to due with the absurdly one-sided nature of the contract that allows the first party (Trump, presumably) to choose the court of arbitration of their choice and seek relief with no notice given to the other party nor having them present. That doesn’t fly here. So, just to start, the arbitration is almost certainly garbage.
Beyond that, the wording is very odd and not terribly clear how to interpret. According to the reading, Trump and the LLC that Cohen created are the interested parties, and Cohen signed as an agent of the LLC, not of Trump. Most would read that to suggest that Trump has no standing here. Further, the LLC that Cohen created was to our understanding dissolved shortly after the money was disbursed, so Cohen can’t be filing on behalf of that entity as it no longer exists. In short, Cohen would have to be bringing this to arbitration as Trump’s attorney. In the document it is never established that Trump has given his permission for this action to take place, and you can’t sue someone on behalf of some stranger that is completely uninvolved. So it’s probably going to fall apart on that front as well.
Lastly, there’s this odd little matter:
Looks to me like the campaign paid Trump Org for the hush money and then Trump Org paid Cohen without reporting it.
? Martin
In short, Trump/Cohen are the legal equivalent of a gish gallop. Just throw so much legal bullshit out there that you drown your target. Problem is that Trump is now a large enough figure for people to decide that it’s worth fighting back.
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
As I understand it, if the Trump campaign paid the hush money to Daniels, regardless of how they laundered it, that is illegal. John Edwards illegal. Not just unethical, but a violation of existing campaign finance laws.
That takes it out of the realm of “revenge for Bill” because, unlike with Clinton’s perjury, it breaks the law.
? Martin
@Mnemosyne: Oh, very illegal. And the Trump Org would be a party to that crime as well.
? Martin
I think it’s also very in character for Trump to see this situation of a porn star he needs to pay off and then go “I wonder if I can get the campaign to pay for it and save a few bucks” further compounding his legal problem.
Like I keep saying, criminality is the core competency of these people.
JaneSays
I’m curious what the endgame is going to be in all of this. I do think the Democrats are going to retake the House, and I do think that Dolt45 is going to get impeached when they do. But I see no hope of getting a conviction, even if the Democrats pull off a Senate takeover, because they’ll still need 15-16 Republicans to join them to get a conviction. That will never happen.
I also don’t think he’s likely to be criminally charged (though I do expect a good number of people around him to be, possibly even his own son-in-law). In 220+ years, we’ve never criminally charged a sitting president (though there almost certainly were instances where we should have), and I really don’t see that changing.
So let’s say he gets impeached by the House and acquitted by the Senate… then what? Do we just ride it out until we can vote him out in 2020?
Brachiator
@Aleta:
Jesus. It’s been a year and dopes still haven’t learned a thing about Trump.
Trump does not believe in or trust the government he heads. He does not believe in diplomacy or the use of foreign policy staff and experts. He rules through his loyalists, who take his messages directly to the people he wants to deal with.
Interesting how he is still using “No Secret Clearance” Kushner to deal with Mexico.
Trump has also been clear that he doesn’t give a shit about past treaties and agreements and that he expects countries to bow down and make deals that benefit the US. Anyone expecting Trump to be fair or respectful when dealing with other countries is smoking crack.
Trump behaves like a mafia don shaking down a neighborhood, or a Roman emperor exacting tribute and ruling by decree.
Viva BrisVegas
Two things to say to this:
One, they got Al Capone on tax evasion. You go with the case you have, not the one you wish you had.
Two, it is far better that Trump stay President through to 2020. Pence would normalise the Presidency while doing just as much damage.
Three, none of this matters if the Republicans keep the House in 2018.
Four, I can count just as well as Trump.
Citizen Alan
@JaneSays:
I’m amazed that it may come down to the Stormy Daniels business! In the normal course of events, I could never imagine Republicans in the Senate voting to impeach shitgibbon. But if they lose one or both houses of Congress and then on top of that there are dick pics of the Republican president all over the internet come the summer of 2019, I think the panic will be enough to scare a few dozen of them into turning so they can Market themselves as being one of the few decent Republicans instead of just another apologist for a deviant.
Bruce K
The infidelity? Hell with it. That’s between the cheeto and the third Mrs. cheeto and whatever pre-nuptial agreement they agreed to be bound by.
The hush money, now, that’s a horse of a different color.
Shalimar
@JaneSays: The most likely end-game I see is Mueller continuing his investigation, bringing charges against dozens including Kushner, Ivanka and Junior while also sending the House a report on all the charges Trump should be impeached on. The House impeaches, and enough pressure is put on Trump to resign so senators don’t have to put themselves on the historical record supporting him.
The White House is hemorrhaging personnel and already can’t find adequate replacements. Republicans will be dying to replace Trump with Pence a year from now.
different-church-lady
@Viva BrisVegas: Five is right out.
Aimai
@Susan: her life wasn’t destroyed by clinton lying about the affair—it was destroyed by linda tripp and fox news and ken starr. Bragging about the affair would hzve been a culpable act. Lying about it was not.
The Lodger
@Achrachno: It’ll never happen. In order to shoot an object into space you need an honest measurement of its weight.
TenguPhule
@The Lodger:
Only if you intend to bring it back down again in one piece.
Bonnie
I favor locking him up and throwing away the key.