Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Books are my comfort food!

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You are here: Home / Politics / Trumpery / Dolt 45 / Oh Hey This is Obstruction of Justice and Impeachable

Oh Hey This is Obstruction of Justice and Impeachable

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This post is in: 

But the Republicans won’t do anything about it:

President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, according to two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.

Trump also supported a plan, set up by Cohen, to visit Russia during the presidential campaign, in order to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations. “Make it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen.

And even as Trump told the public he had no business deals with Russia, the sources said Trump and his children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr., received regular, detailed updates about the real estate development from Cohen, whom they put in charge of the project.

Dollhands should be in lockup.

Reader Interactions

134Comments

  6. 6.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    Republicans just don’t give a shit. Not yet. I was only a baby when Watergate came around, so even though my father was bellowing about how awful Nixon was and what a crook he was, none of that sank in at the time. I only learned about it later. But I think it’s worth keeping in mind that through most of what we now call Watergate, Republicans were almost monolithically behind him. It was only when enough oozed out about what he’d been doing that that began to change, and when it began changing, it changed in a hurry. I could be wrong. The Republicans of 1974, as bad as they were, were nothing like the Republicans of 2019. But I still think that when things get bad enough, they’re going to let him sink. Few of them will turn on him, not obviously anyway, or at least that’s what I think. But they’ll begin to edge away and turn their backs to him, and that could be almost as bad. I think there’s just going to come a time when sticking with Trump is going to be riskier to their odds of holding their seats than it’s worth. My wife thinks I’m a dizzy optimist, and maybe she’s right. But I still hope that self preservation will drive a wedge between a lot of Republicans and Trump, because I know that decency or morality sure as hell never will.

  10. 10.

    joel hanes

    But but but
    DID HE GET A BLOWJOB FROM SOMEONE NOT HIS WIFE ?

    and
    WHAT ARE HIS EMAIL ARCHIVE POLICIES

    These are the most important questions in the universe

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    Donald Trump Jr., meanwhile, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 7, 2017, that he was only “peripherally aware” of the plan to build a tower in Moscow. “Most of my knowledge has been gained since as it relates to hearing about it over the last few weeks.”

    The two law enforcement sources disputed this characterization and said that he and Cohen had multiple, detailed conversations on this subject during the campaign.

    I wonder whether Jr. can be persuaded to flip on Daddy Dearest.

  14. 14.

    plato

    Just reported on @MSNBC: Melania Trump flew to Florida today on a government plane, a law enforcement source confirms to NBC News, just after Trump prevented Nancy Pelosi from using a government plane to visit troops in Afghanistan. @TheLastWord

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 18, 2019

  16. 16.

    Princess

    They may not do anything but we can do a lot more damage to them and their party by demanding they act than by saying “oh well, I guess nothing will happen.”

    Also too: I guess this was the big story that Guiliani was signaling when he admitted collusion in Trump’s circle the other day.

  18. 18.

    joel hanes

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    I still think that when things get bad enough, they’re going to let him sink.

    IMHO, they’ve waited too long, and the suck from his sinking will take down many of them, because they glued themselves to him out of political calculation for over two years. Those videos are going to make great campaign ads when the name “Trump” has become politically toxic. They are realizing this, and threw Steve King under the bus as a first sacrifice, but I think Ernst is vulnerable, and Grassley should be beginning to be scared. Those farmers looking at piles of rotting soybeans and not getting their offset checks from the government and not able to make planting plans for next year because of the shutdown are starting to feel burned.

    And Trump is only going to lash out more desperately as the water closes over his nostrils.
    We ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

  20. 20.

    piratedan

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): the biggest obstacle here in this current administration is that many of the actors in the Senate that would have to vote against him appear to be just a guilty, based on the amount of money that also found its way into the coffers of Senators Rubio, Graham and McConnell plus quite a few Congressional campaigns as well. Plus there’s that nagging issue of Russia filtering money through the NRA and apparently coordinating their attacks and subversion thru the RNC itself, it becomes a question of who ISN’T corrupted on the GOP side and how many of them have spines? Not to mention the fact that as long as McConnell is handling the agenda, it may not even come up for a vote.

    Doesn’t mean that the Dems shouldn’t do it, they should and it should be public but I have yet to see any tactic that would move McConnell to do anything that would place McConnell in any kind of jeopardy. Unless someone has something on Mitch, I think this shit carosel still turns

  21. 21.

    Viva BrisVegas

    ” two federal law enforcement officials involved in an investigation of the matter.”

    Who are these people and why are they talking?

    Sorry, but in the Trump era it’s well to be suspicious of everybody’s motives.

  22. 22.

    Ruckus

    @dmsilev:
    Seems quite possibly too stupid to save his own ass.
    And besides, he’s a branch off the tree of drumpf. I can’t imagine that they all don’t think that there is anything they can do wrong. Look where they are, the world is theirs, may it come crashing down on them.

  28. 28.

    Cheryl Rofer

    This was retweeted by Liz Spayd, who was that public editor.

  29. 29.

    The Midnight Lurker

    @piratedan: Bingo! The real reason that McConnell, Graham, etc. won’t move against Trump is they are all either neck-deep in this Putin mess, or compromised in some other way.

  32. 32.

    Mary G

    I was a junior in college when Watergate happened and there was no big deal and no particular interest until the tapes were released. All the cursing and casual racism was a shock. It was all down hill for him from that. I am hoping Mueller’s report hss the same effect, but I worry that the rot goes much further, into the Republican Party overall, and that too many are going to overwhelm the system and most go free.

    Somebody like Kim Kardashian has 100 million followers on social media when even a viral tweet or Instagram post by one of the Obamas gets 300,000 or 400,000 responses. So many of our fellow citizens are captivated by the bread and circuses and neither know nor care to know about politics and government it can feel hopeless.

  35. 35.

    plato

    "If a President…suborns perjury, or induces a witness to change testimony, or commits any act deliberately impairing the integrity of available evidence, then he, like anyone else, commits the crime of obstruction." — William Barr

    https://t.co/LziXcdoaTQ— Justin Miller (@justinjm1) January 18, 2019

    Hoisted on his own petards? Or will he change his tune now and say iokiyar?

  38. 38.

    Ruckus

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    I know this has been discussed just about to death, but until the media has a legal obligation to tell the truth none of this matters. They are private companies and the 1st applies. Personally I feel that if a company is in the “news” business the news should be factual, not whatever someone wants to print. Possibly that they are charging money for news might be a solution. If they want to give it away they are no different than the doofus who stands on a street corner handing out leaflets or shouting through a bull horn. But if they want to sell it as news it should have to reflect not their political viewpoint but verifiable facts. Like selling medication, it has to be what they say it is, nothing else, it has to be real, you can’t sell a sugar pill as aspirin.

  42. 42.

    SFAW

    @David Anderson:

    and fillings.

    Is he one of those guys who gets messages from aliens through his fillings, too? [Sorry, David, I couldn’t resist. I’m a baaaad person.]

  44. 44.

    zhena gogolia

    Ben Wittes:

    This story is a very big deal. It’s a big enough deal that I’m going to refrain from commenting on it tonight. I and the team will put together our thoughts early in the morning over coffee on @lawfareblog. Good night. Yours til the ship sinks!

  45. 45.

    Mike in DC

    18 US Code 1622 Subornation of Perjury
    –punishable by up to 5 years in prison

    “Senator McConnell, is it the consensus view of the Republican Senate caucus that President Trump is above the law?”

  46. 46.

    Another Scott

    @plato: If he’s asked again, I’m sure Barr would say that he’s personally opposed to the President committing the crime of obstruction, but since the law didn’t envision the Internet or cell phones when it was written, then Donnie’s actions weren’t illegal. He must be free to act since he is the Unitary Executive.

    Barr can only prosecute people based on what the law says, not based on the actual growth of human and societal understanding, so even though he personally deplores such horrible things, what’s a reasonable person like him to do??1?!

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  47. 47.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Ruckus: Ah, that has never been the model for news distribution. For a short while there was a vague approximation in the broadcast Fairness Rule, but newspapers have often been highly partisan, lying rags.

    ETA: But I do think we need to address the media in the Truth and Reconciliation commissions.

  51. 51.

    piratedan

    @Mike in DC: my guess is this is what you might get in return…”The Senate is in adjournment until the Democrats stop perpetuating in these partisan witch hunts and start returning to their responsibilities as a deliberative legislative body”…….

  52. 52.

    SFAW

    @ruemara:

    I just wonder how we come back

    As Villago said last thread, and I’ve said before, truth and retribution commission. No head-on-pike stuff, but seizing the assets of the traitors, followed by their deportation to Somalia or Sibirsk, might set the proper tone for the future.

  53. 53.

    Mnemosyne

    @piratedan:

    it becomes a question of who ISN’T corrupted on the GOP side and how many of them have spines?

    They are all corrupt, and none of them have spines. The corruption is what’s keeping them together, because if one goes down, the whole façade crumbles and the entire party is ruined.

  55. 55.

    jl

    @Another Scott: Cool. So, they didn’t know about nuclear radiation when they wrote the constitution, so if a friend used some radioactive goop to kill someone, then I’m good to go? That might come in handy some day. Speaking for a friend, of course.

  58. 58.

    ArchTeryx

    @Adam L Silverman: +100 points for Real Genius reference. As an exile from academia, I can honestly say that the entire damn Academy is infested just about top to bottom with people like Jerry Hathaway – those that stayed professors, that is, and just didn’t straight out become corporate Republicans or deans (but I repeat myself). Hathaway had to triple-dip on the sly. Most of our modern Republicans do so completely publically and dare you to do anything about it.

  59. 59.

    jl

    @jl: And if a friend paid some dope to do it, so he gets radiation poisoning instead of me, then I didn’t really do it? Then Giuliani would be glad to defend him in court?

  60. 60.

    Aleta

    Kyle Griffin. @kylegriffin1
    FLASHBACK:

    Klobuchar: “A president persuading a person to commit perjury would be obstruction. Is that right?”
    Barr: “Yes.”

    Klobuchar: “You also said that a president — or any person — convincing a witness to change testimony would be obstruction. Is that right?”
    Barr: “Yes.”

  61. 61.

    bluehill

    Someone tweeted this, which if accurate, is umm interesting.

    Really not trying to be conspiratorial, but does anyone else find it peculiar that both @SenSanders AND @TulsiGabbard happened to miss votes on easing Russian sanctions?

    RT @CMSeeberger: It gets even more peculiar: @TulsiGabbard cast votes on EVERY roll call vote today EXCEPT the Russia sanctions vote.

  66. 66.

    dmsilev

    @Aleta: Someone should arrange for that to be aired on Fox & Friends tomorrow; maybe we can get Trump to pull the nomination of his AG-designate.

  67. 67.

    SFAW

    @Steve in the ATL:

    Agree to disagree?

    I don’t think I’ve seen this side of you before now. Or at least, hadn’t noticed. Is this a result of the Cincy trip?

    Not complaining, mind you, just a little surprised. [Well, technically, “amazed,” but I figure you knew what I meant.]

  68. 68.

    ArchTeryx

    @Adam L Silverman: Still doesn’t pay enough to do anything but live in a friend’s spare bedroom. I still get science interviews – all temp, all nonnegotiable. Civil Service lists in NYS apparently are just Potemkin Villages – the managers hire whoever the hell they want to hire and screw the lists, and the Civil Service folks just whimper out a few farts about it then everything’s cool. I watched that very thing go down in my own office. In state government science, they don’t even bother with the Potemkin stuff. They just make all the jobs noncompetitive (i.e., off-lists).

    I’m just a wee bit cynical about it all, and about my chances of ever breaking out of the pit I’m in. But at least my lifesaving healthcare isn’t about to be taken away by a bunch of swastika-waving nazis calling themselves Representatives of the People’s House, so that’s an improvement! I live for the day Trump leaves office in disgrace, one way or another.

  69. 69.

    Emerald

    @Another Scott: There is a hope here, and I’m not the only one who sees this as a possibility. Trump is going down. Barr has a choice here: is he going to be John Mitchell or Elliot Richardson? How important is his place in history to him?

  71. 71.

    GregB

    That Republican who just quit might be a canary in a coal mine.

    I assume we are about to witness some very fascinating things in the body politic.

  72. 72.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SFAW: I have had enough of these mofos destroying my country. No quarter.

    Also, they aren’t allowed to unionize!

  73. 73.

    Another Scott

    @jl: Kinda sorta, if one buy’s Barr’s reasoning, I guess, but IANAL.

    WashingtonBlade:

    […]

    Barr then referenced the petitions currently before the U.S. Supreme Court seeking clarification on whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which bars discrimination on the basis of sex in the workplace, applies to cases of anti-LGBT discrimination.

    “I think the litigation going on now on Title VII is what the the 1964 act actually contemplated, but personally, I think —,” Barr said.

    Before Barr could finish and venture an opinion on Title VII, Booker interrupted and asked to verify whether lawmakers contemplated including LGBT people in Title VII. Barr rejected that idea, saying “no.”

    “I think it was male-female that they were talking about when they said sex in the ’64 act,” Barr added.

    Booker then interjected again by conflating anti-LGBT discrimination with sexual harassment: “So protecting someone’s basic rights to be free from discrimination because of sexual harassment is not something the Department of Justice should be protecting?”

    Playing with one of the many U.S. Senate coasters before him on the witness stand, Barr insisted the onus is on Congress to make the law.

    As we know, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination “because of … race, color, religion, sex or national origin.” The language, and the intent, is pretty clear it seems to me. Especially since intersex people exist – pointing to the need for the law to recognize that there’s no scientific basis for demanding binary human sexual categories. In addition, of course, to the fact that even “normal” XX and XY people are not all the same when it comes to their sexual identities and the law has no business discriminating against them any more than it does in discriminating against hair color or finger-length ratios.

    But Barr wants to play the “I’m a reasonable man” card (as Roberts did) while he hopes to get a position and power that allows him to take the country back 150 years.

    These “reasonable” and “moderate” republicans are worse, in some ways, than the Teabaggers – they’re smart enough to know better.

    Grrr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    Aleta

    Isn’t it nearly time for DJ Jr to swear to tell the truth to Mueller?

    From the Buzzfeed article:

    Ivanka Trump was slated to manage a spa at the tower and personally recommended an architect. She also instructed Cohen to speak with a Russian athlete who offered “synergy on a government level” ….
    Cohen rebuffed the athlete’s proposal, which angered Ivanka Trump, according to emails reviewed by BuzzFeed News.

    A spokesperson for Ivanka Trump’s attorney wrote that she was only “minimally involved” in the project. “Ms. Trump did not know about this proposal until after a non-binding letter of intent had been signed, never talked to anyone outside the Organization about the proposal, never visited the prospective project site and, even internally, was only minimally involved,” wrote Peter Mirijanian.

    Donald Trump Jr., meanwhile, testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 7, 2017, that he was only “peripherally aware” of the plan to build a tower in Moscow. “Most of my knowledge has been gained since as it relates to hearing about it over the last few weeks.”

    The two law enforcement sources disputed this characterization and said that he and Cohen had multiple, detailed conversations on this subject during the campaign.

    An attorney for Donald F. McGahn II, the former White House counsel who reportedly gave about 30 hours of testimony to the special counsel, told BuzzFeed News: “Don McGahn had no involvement with or knowledge of Michael Cohen’s testimony. Nor was he aware of anyone in the White House Counsel’s Office who did.”

  78. 78.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Another Scott: you may recall that the statute did not address sexual harassment; that was a creation of the courts, who decided that it was part of “because of sex.” The original intent morons lost that battle, thankfully. It’s now statutory.

  81. 81.

    James E Powell

    @joel hanes:

    That is why we have to stop letting the NYT determine the agenda for political coverage. We can never succeed if we continue to let them destroy Democrats while promoting and protecting Republicans.

  85. 85.

    The Dangerman

    @SFAW:

    …seizing the assets of the traitors…

    With you so far.

    …followed by their deportation to Somalia or Sibirsk…

    As long as they know an express deplaning (such as occurred in “The Good Shepherd”) over open water can occur if they complain, I’m there. Far less mess to clean up than HOPs and feeds some wildlife, too.

  86. 86.

    SFAW

    @The Dangerman:

    (such as occurred in “The Good Shepherd”)

    I don’t exactly recall: was she a spy? Or did they just think she might be, and were worried about Damon’s kid possibly getting compromised?

  87. 87.

    The Dangerman

    @SFAW:

    I don’t exactly recall: was she a spy?

    Remember the scene, not the details; IIRC, she was an informant, not a spy, per se.

  90. 90.

    sdhays

    I look forward to seeing this play out differently from when the ASSet confessed to obstruction of justice on national television and the media decided that it wasn’t that big of a deal. At least I hope it plays out differently.

  92. 92.

    Martin

    @Viva BrisVegas:

    Who are these people and why are they talking?

    Employers have rules. The way you enforce those rules is by giving money to the people you want to follow them. When they don’t follow the rules, you withhold the money.

    A funny thing happens when you withhold the money while they’re following the rules. Wait, I won’t spoil it…

  93. 93.

    Raoul

    @Cheryl Rofer: The NY Times, despite a public mea culpa of sorts after the Iraq war runup, learned nothing from that disaster.

    Dean Baquet is drowning the grey old lady.

  95. 95.

    dww44

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
    Well, obviously, I’m maybe a generation older than you and I remember lots about Watergate, but the circumstances underlying it were nothing close to the scale of what we are seeing with Trump. I’ve lots of conservative friends and relatives and right now they have gone quite silent. They don’t want to bring up the subject of Trump. Those that are of my age and generation know, deep down, that the vilenes of Trump far surpasses what happened with Nixon and Watergate.

    They, if they have eyes that are open, should be as petrified as I am by Trump’s obeisance to Putin. Trump is NOT pro America. They don’t won’t to admit to themselves that as Republicans they’ve elected the two most corrupt Presidents of the modern era and the current one is dangerous to the very survival of our country and our democracy

  99. 99.

    Kay

    Matthew Yglesias
    ‏Verified account
    @mattyglesias
    6h6 hours ago
    More Matthew Yglesias Retweeted Josh Dawsey
    Pelosi is playing checkers — a relatively straightforward game that she knows how to win — while Trump is playing chess very poorly.

    So true. She’s looking at him like “It’s your turn. Just move your piece already” while Trump has 47 low quality hires plotting increasingly complicated but extremely dumb moves.

  100. 100.

    psycholinguist

    Anybody else think this was leaked by someone on one of the congressional committees, as a countermove to Trump threatening Cohen’s father in law? Seems to be the assumption is out there it was Muller, because of the details and independent confirmations, but I don’t think so.

  101. 101.

    NotMax

    Reply link fail. Fix.

    @Omnes Omnibus

    Howdy, OO. How are things going?

    @SFAW

    Au contraire. In what passes for his mind his imaginary executive assistant, Bambi Periphal, made him aware,

    ;)

  102. 102.

    Martin

    @jl:

    Forcing as many people as possible to hate your guts has its limits as a leadership strategy.
    But, that is just IMHO.

    No, I think you might really be onto something here.

  103. 103.

    jl

    @dww44: ” they’ve elected the two most corrupt Presidents of the modern era ”

    Let’s see:
    Nixon: corrupt and vile, liar, treacherous acts in foreign policy
    Ford: Nonentity, who pardoned crimes to sweep under the rug… er… I mean help bind the nations wounds…
    Reagan: controversial, some notable achievements, some big correct decisions (deal with Gorby, continue with arms control), but race baiting demagogue when politically convenient, survived a major political scandal, treacherous acts in foreign policy
    GHW Bush: Nonentity (sorry, too soon? well, we need to be honest), who pardoned crimes to sweep under the rug… er… I mean help bind the nations wounds.
    GW Bush: incompetent, committed one of greatest foreign policy blunders in US history, almost brought on second great world depression in modern times.

    That’s quite a record. And we haven’t even finished with what Trump is up to. Or, Trump hasn’t finished with us. We’ll see.

  104. 104.

    Aleta

    How come the two federal LE sources who are ‘involved in the investigation’ are talking to Buzzfeed about what Cohen told Mueller’s office ? They’ve supposedly been forbidden to leak, and they wouldn’t be getting paid, and I can’t imagine they’re doing it to keep our spirits up. I could see Cohen leaking but.

  105. 105.

    jl

    @Martin: I’m working up a book proposal: Leadership Lessons of Donald Trump. Not sure if I’ll send to a publisher, or maybe shop it to Trump first. Use it to get into the WH and be a second Michael Wolff. Might work.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    “Make it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen.

    Because that’s how dealmakers talk. Then they blunder into shutting down the organization they lead out of sheer stupidity and incompetence.

    Donald Trump literally can’t even keep the government open. All he really had to do was sit back and let it operate and he couldn’t even manage that.

    The government would be running much better if he simply stopped going to work. What the government shutdown is, at base, is a complete and utter failure of Donald Trump as a manager.

  108. 108.

    Sebastian

    Accesory after the fact. All of them.

    What do you know and when did you know it.

    It’s time to take the trash out.

  109. 109.

    jl

    @Martin: Scaring the crap out of people about the future of the country, and who know secret stuff, by virtue of your sheer incompetence, maliciousness and stupidity, may have a synergistic effect with making them hate your guts.

    OK, I’ll run and note that down for my Leadership Lessons of Donald Trump book. I think I’ve had an insight.

  110. 110.

    Aardvark Cheeselog

    …to personally meet President Vladimir Putin and jump-start the tower negotiations. “Make it happen,” the sources said Trump told Cohen.

    Recall when Cohen was first arrested/had his offices tossed, it leaked that he was in the habit of recording his conversations with people. I hope there’s a tape (well an mp3) of this one.

  112. 112.

    Aleta

    BuzzFeed News @BuzzFeedNews
    NEW: The House Intelligence Committee will investigate the revelation that President Trump ordered his longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress.

    So were the leaks a heads up to Congress to let them prepare to act? Who in Mueller’s office would have authorized it?

  113. 113.

    patroclus

    Subornation of perjury to Congress seems clearly impeachable, but I’m not sure if it actually qualifies as obstruction of justice. Not to be too pedantic, it would seem that to qualify as obstruction of justice, it would have to be subornation of perjury to a law enforcement official or agency.

  114. 114.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    Re: 37-dimensional chess.that Traitor-in-Chief plays:

    Typical moves (doesn’t matter what moves Shrieking Harpy Pelosi makes to try to counter his brilliance):
    1) P-KR4
    2) P-QR4
    3) Q-KB8
    4) KR-KR1
    5) Z-QK9
    6) QB-Park Place
    7) ???
    8) Yahtzee!! “I win!!!!!”

    Game, set, and touchdown, libtard!!!

  115. 115.

    Aleta

    @Aardvark Cheeselog: And maybe not only his phone conversations, but recording face-to-face ones too? Like being asked to handle Moscow for the Trump Org during the campaign? Or being asked to lie to Congress ?

    And this tawdry, sleazy cheat of a fake president has been appointing unqualified, indecent federal judges, and the Senate Republicans just waved them right though every checkpoint, into the heart of the country.

  116. 116.

    SFAW

    @patroclus:

    “High crimes and misdemeanors” can mean whatever Congress decides it means.

    According to Wikipedia: “The criminal offense of “contempt of Congress” sets the penalty at not less than one month nor more than twelve months in jail and a fine of not more than $100,000.” And I bet they don’t even need the Marshal of the SCOTUS to arrest the felon.

    ETA: The point I was attempting was that, although Congress is not a law enforcement agency (etc.), lying to them is a felony.

  118. 118.

    Aleta

    The Kucinich–Wexler impeachment resolution contained 35 articles covering the Iraq War, the Valerie Plame affair, creating a case for war with Iran, capture and treatment of prisoners of war, spying and or wiretapping inside the United States, use of signing statements, failing to comply with Congressional subpoenas, the 2004 elections, Medicare, Hurricane Katrina, global warming, and 9/11.[

    Fifteen of the 35 articles directly relate to alleged misconduct by Bush in seeking authority for the war, and in the conduct of military action itself.

    The first four impeachment articles charge the president with illegally creating a case for war with Iraq, including charges of a propaganda campaign, falsely representing Iraq as responsible for 9/11, and falsely representing Iraq as an imminent danger to the United States.

  119. 119.

    SFAW

    @Aleta:

    and he cheats at it.

    Far easier to total up the things he DOESN’T cheat at (“I can count them on the fingers of a snake’s hands”), than the things he does.

  121. 121.

    Aleta

    Giuliani has risen from his coffin, and Pence is reassuring his christians that Ma and Pa strong still love them.

    NBC News @NBCNews

    VP Pence addressed news coverage and criticism regarding his wife’s decision to return to teaching at a Virginia school that bars LGBTQ employees and students:

    “To see major news organizations attacking Christian education is deeply offensive to us”

  122. 122.

    SFAW

    @Aleta:

    “To see major news organizations attacking Christian education is deeply offensive to us”

    Fuck you, Dense. To see persons, who claim to be Christian, trying to deny the rights of those not like them, is deeply offensive to Jesus

  124. 124.

    Raoul

    @Aleta: I am deeply offended that Pence lied about defeating ISIS on the day the US military sustained fatal casualties in Syria and ISIS claimed credit.

  125. 125.

    Ruckus

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    I understand that it never has been, but heroin was sold in drug stores at one time but for the most part world wide we don’t do that any more. What I’m saying is that a product called news should have a factual basis. Bayer first sold heroin over the counter as a less addictive replacement for morphine. It wasn’t of course but it was a hell of a ride for a few decades. But that changed because it wasn’t healthy. Neither is bullshit masquerading as news. Large parts of this country think that if it’s on TV and called news, it’s true. And companies have exploited that misconception in the same manner as heroin manufactures did. Things change, the world should adjust to meet those changes.

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    @Cheryl Rofer: I understand that it never has been, but heroin was sold in drug stores at one time but for the most part world wide we don’t do that any more. What I’m saying is that a product called news should have a factual basis. Bayer first sold heroin over the counter as a less addictive replacement for morphine. It wasn’t of course but it was a hell of a ride for a few decades. But that changed because it wasn’t healthy. Neither is bullshit masquerading as news. Large parts of this country think that if it’s on TV and called news, it’s true. And companies have exploited that misconception in the same manner as heroin manufactures did. Things change, the world should adjust to meet those changes.

  127. 127.

    patroclus

    @SFAW: I don’t dispute anything you say, but my point remains – subornation of perjury to Congress does not constitute “obstruction of justice” as the headline to this post proclaims.

  129. 129.

    SFAW

    @patroclus:
    “Under 18 U.S.C. § 1505, however, a defendant can be convicted of obstruction of justice by obstructing a pending proceeding before Congress or a federal administrative agency. A pending proceeding could include an informal investigation by an executive agency.” Seems to include Congress, i.e., not limited to the courts and titular law enforcement agencies.

    Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, so I might be misreading or misunderstanding this explanation

  130. 130.

    SFAW

    @plato:

    I think patroclus was distinguishing between law enforcement personnel, and Congress, and saying that affects whether it’s obstruction. My (possibly misunderstood) link @ 128 seems to indicate otherwise.

  131. 131.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Yarrow:

    Nobody plays the victim better than white evangelicals.

    How is it that their Lord is so small within them that they feel attacked and victimized by shit like this?

    If they ever knew the Lord, they abandoned him so long ago that they’ve completely lost any idea of what it’s like.

  132. 132.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Mary G:

    I was a junior in college when Watergate happened and there was no big deal and no particular interest until the tapes were released.

    Are you kidding? The Ervin Committee hearings were must-see TV during the summer of 1973*, and most of that happened before the existence of the tapes was revealed.

    And the public reaction to the Saturday Night Massacree (before we had heard the first word of what was IN the tapes) was, in the words of Time magazine, a ‘firestorm.’

    *The summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, fwiw.

  134. 134.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @low-tech cyclist: IMHO any halfway honest Christian, presented with an (anonymous) list of Twitlers offenses against decency & morality, would have to admit that such behavior is closer to the Antichrist than to a reputable POTUS. Then again, the various churches sold their collective soul for the pursuit of money & power over a generation back. (I wish I could dig up the webpage of the person who claimed to be present at the very meeting where that quite overtly happened, back in the 1960s IIRC.)

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