Trump is a Threat to National Security

[_honorentheos]

There are certain moments in history where calculation, politicking, and self-interest stand in the way of just doing one's duty to the upmost of one's abilities come what may.

In the other thread on the topic of impeachment, Kevin reminded me of that.

Perhaps the biggest issue we face now as a nation is the lack of closure on what appear to be fundamental questions related to more than just Donald Trump, but about the way democracies in the 21st Century operate and if it truly is a model other nations should aspire to follow after.

The Mueller Report failed to provide closure, though we're hearing calls to just accept that lack of closure as a form of resolution. But that's a misreading of the report itself. It didn't provide a lack of closure because the information was so vague it failed to provide illumination. It's worth reading this article in The Atlantic - https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... al/587509/

A normal investigation would end with a prosecutor deciding to bring charges, or to drop the case. It’s a binary choice. But “fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges can be brought.” Ordinarily, a criminal charge would result in “a speedy and public trial, with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case.” But if Mueller were to state plainly that, in his judgment, the president had broken the law and obstructed justice, it would afford “no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.” In other words, because a sitting president cannot be indicted, making such a charge publicly would effectively deny Trump his day in court, and the chance to clear his name.

Mueller also pointed to the OLC’s guidance on seeking sealed indictments, which could be unsealed when a president leaves office, or leveling such charges in an internal (and, presumably, nonpublic) report. Secrecy, the OLC counseled, would be difficult to preserve—and so either step could place a president back in the same unfair situation, accused of a crime without the chance to clear his name.

In essence, Yoni Appelbaum argues that the Mueller Report sets up a clear case for why the investigation should now be moved to Congress because the correct vehicle for finding closure in a case where a) the President cannot be exonerated but B) deserves a day in court, so to speak, is through impeachment proceedings. And we need the kind of closure those proceedings, that process itself, can bring.

For exiled, that should at least cause him to take a pause and reflect that if he agrees we should watch Trump closely, then he ought to agree the Mueller Report lays out the correct vehicle for doing so is Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings regardless of the politics around them. Win or lose in 2020, there is a bigger conflict involved that IS lost if they fail to do so: By chosing to avoid using the mechanisms established in the Constitution for dealing with the conditions we see, the House is undermining American Democracy just as much as Trump or the Republican Senate is and for the same reasons. They're allowing self-interest and partisanship to override what the Constitution establishes is their duty.

We need closure. The election in 2020 isn't going to provide it. Initiating impeachment proceedings may not as well, but it IS how the founders determined the threat of what Trump is accused of should be addressed. By not initiating impeachment proceeding, it's essentially losing the war for the preservation of liberal democracy to try and win the next partisan battle.

[_Kevin Graham]

Barr says Mueller told him about not making a prosecution/declination decision when they met on March 5th.
Barr tells Grassley on May 1st:

"I think that if he felt he shouldn't go down the path of making a traditional prosecutive decision, then he shouldn't be investigating. That was the time to pull up."

Then less than 3 weeks later, Mueller's investigation came to an abrupt end and he turned in his report.

Did Barr's comments to Mueller effectively end the Mueller? Either he convinced Mueller to end it or the timing is a crazy coincidence.

The gist of it is Mueller cannot indict a sitting President. Some in the media speculated whether a sitting President could be indicted, and there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits that. The only thing that prohibits it is a DOJ policy that was created in 1973. So for two years the media for the most part assumed Mueller would abide by the DOJ policy but there were some who thought Mueller would push for indictment. No one really knew until last month.

We also learn from the report that because a sitting President cannot be charged with a crime, it follows that he mustn't be accused of a crime. This is because a sitting President being accused of crimes by a prosecutor is unfair since he wouldn't get a speedy trial and the chance to clear his name, as is every citizen's right. It was also something Mueller said would impede his ability to govern.

So instead of just flat out stating, "Yes, the President is a criminal," Mueller did the closest thing to that which is to lay out in excruciating detail the definitions of certain crimes as well as actions and statements by the President which leave no doubt to any sane mind that he committed crimes. So for Obstruction, Mueller explains that you need X, Y and Z. Then he goes on to detail how Trump statement #1 was clearly X, Trump statement #5 was clearly Y and Trump statement # 8 was clearly Z. All of the elements of obstruction have been satisfied, but he still cannot say he committed a crime. He's leaving that to Congress.

Which is reason #47 why Congress must impeach. A failure to do so means the two year investigation was really for nothing.

[_honorentheos]

Which is reason #47 why Congress must impeach. A failure to do so means the two year investigation was really for nothing.

I would change this to the report laying out why Congress has a duty to initiate impeachment proceedings. Whether or not they ought to vote for impeachment and send it to the Senate should be an outcome from those proceedings. As the report, and your comment, makes clear there is reason to suspect the President is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors. Apparently some pretty good reasons from which the Mueller's investigation was not able to exonerate Trump. But our system of government is predicated on checks and balances as well as giving everyone, no matter their station or influence, a fair hearing. This is a chance for our democratic institutions to prove they can withstand the assault of partisanship and rising nationalism. It's on those grounds I believe that the House is duty-bound to initiate impeachment proceedings. Not because I assume it will lead to the vote to impeach, but because the Mueller Report makes it clear if we are to find closure then the matter must be taken up by Congress. And if western liberal democracy is to survive and reestablish itself as a beacon against the rise of authoritarianism and nationalism globally, we as a nation have a duty to demonstrate that the institutions of democracy can and do work.

[Guest]

One other item that has lead to my change of position is the recognition of another error in my previous thinking that EA and Kevin highlighted though I don't recall if either made it explicitly or I read it into their comments. That being, our way of government is more than just people having the right to vote for things that then happen. Rather, the founders envisioned a system of checks and balances that pitted our worst inclinations as humans against one another to counter the very reasonable, historically associated concerns with pure democracy going back to the Greeks. The founders by no means were supportive of all of the people showing up in the public square to vote up or down on the issues of the day from which the government was merely an automaton obligated to carry out the whim of the majority at any given time. We often tend to dumb down our system into this very thing, though, and from which we see more ballot measures, more executive orders, the year-long delay in replacing a Supreme Court justice in the name of pure democracy, and other abuses of our system in the name of letting the people choose.

Frankly, our system is supposed to be better than that. It includes a certain acknowledgment that to govern well those who write, enact and enforce the law must be informed. And this takes dedicated effort. We elect representatives on the grounds that are essentially macroeconomics-based. Just as we can't possibly grow all of our own food, research and build our own iPhones, build our own houses and cars, all while otherwise specializing in some career or other within the broader economy that makes the overall system achieve more and make more things available to us than what we could produce ourselves. It makes the decision-making ability of our representatives supposedly better informed and MORE representative of what we might do ourselves with the same level of information and debate than is possible if we treated it like we do voting. And as long as we're as crap as we are at voting, I think any argument for pure democracy is handicapped by reality out of the gate.

The institutions established by the Constitution call for the House to provide a check on an out-of-control executive. It appears the executive is out of control. This isn't the people's job. It's the House's job. And it's their duty to do it, and to the best of their abilities.

[_EAllusion]

Yes, because this is part of the political hysterics that both parties love to whip up. Let's look at Trump closely, but, I'm not quite ready to say it's treason like Brennan said.

Coverups in of themselves are bad. Your logic is self-defeating in that you tolerate concealing evidence from you on the grounds that until you see the evidence, you don't have a problem. Seems like all a person involved in wrongdoing would ever need to do to satisfy you is to conceal evidence of their wrongdoing.

Trump isn't engaged in "treason" in the technical sense because that narrowly refers to aid and comfort to a party we are at war with. Something to think about when Donald Trump is constantly accusing people of treason. You know, like Presidents do. He has betrayed the US, though. That's pretty clear.

[_Dr Exiled]

Yes, because this is part of the political hysterics that both parties love to whip up. Let's look at Trump closely, but, I'm not quite ready to say it's treason like Brennan said.

Coverups in of themselves are bad. Your logic is self-defeating in that you tolerate concealing evidence from you on the grounds that until you see the evidence, you don't have a problem. Seems like all a person involved in wrongdoing would ever need to do to satisfy you is to conceal evidence of their wrongdoing.

Trump isn't engaged in "treason" in the technical sense because that narrowly refers to aid and comfort to a party we are at war with. Something to think about when Donald Trump is constantly accusing people of treason. You know, like Presidents do. He has betrayed the US, though. That's pretty clear.

I am always advocating for transparency. Give Congress the unredacted report. How about we lessen what is hidden from the people due to national security reasons? Further, I am for Trump/Putin making their conversations available to the public. I just don't go automatically to treason/cover-up/collusion when Trump seemingly breaches protocol and speaks in private to Putin without an American translator. I wonder how many other world leaders he speaks to this way and what other presidents have done in the past. My guess is that this probably occurs with other leaders.

Is Trump concealing something or is it benign? We don't know but you think we should assume something collusion related or treasonous perhaps, because he doesn't play for your team. I hate Trump as president too, but, speaking to Putin and other leaders should be encouraged. I think you and others here are overselling this.

How has Trump betrayed the US in your opinion? By talking to Putin? Some other way? What are the damages from the Putin/Trump talks? At this point they are speculative, if they even exist, like Russiagate collusion was for two plus years.

[_honorentheos]

Trump's first meeting with Putin included a US translator. She had her notes taken and sworn to never reveal what was discussed. She's been silent since. And Trump has gone out of his way to make sure no American translator accompanies him on at least four other occasions while requiring a Russian translator.

That isn't just a matter of expediency. That's a cover up.

[_honorentheos]

How has Trump betrayed the US in your opinion? By talking to Putin? Some other way? What are the damages from the Putin/Trump talks? At this point they are speculative, if they even exist, like Russiagate collusion was for two plus years.

To this point, we have broad agreement that Russia tampered with our election in 2016, and the intelligence community is sure they are intent on doing so going forward as they were actively combatting it during the 2018 midterms.

Trump's own staff has acted on intelligence pointing out that the Russian government is actively propping up Maduro in Venezuela. Whatever your opinion may be on whether or not the US ought to be involved there, it's clear the Russians are as well and are actively acting in opposition to US efforts. All of which contributes to escalations in violence and the probability of civil war.

In both cases, Trump refused to take the side of the US while holding the office of first American in discussion with Putin.

Now, does that mean Trump is colluding with Putin? I don't know and kinda doubt it if by that you mean Trump and Putin share a common goal and are actively planning/enacting something towards a foreseen objective. I just don't think Trump works like that more than I don't think that's possible. I do think that Trump isn't a citizen of our nation in his heart but is instead a globalist whose wealth and power is tied to the Trump organization being a vehicle for corrupt individuals and governments to move money into real estate. And over 50% of the wealth of Russia has been stripped from the people of Russia by oligarchs and corrupt politicians and moved into offshore ventures where they can be protected by the laws of England, American and other safe havens where the rule of law is bent to turn a blind eye to where the money comes from. Trump's loyalty is to himself first, and to his family second. After that, it's very fluid and negotiable. And Putin appears to be a far better negotiator than Trump.

[_Themis]

Anyone not an ally of Putin should be very concerned by a president not using his own translator to talk to a leader of our biggest adversary. It's holy ____ big.

Maybe, if something can be shown that resulted from this discussion, then it could be holy crap big, like you say.

It's big without any evidence. This should concern people Trump is meeting privately with Putin and his translator and not his own translator. The behavior is very concerning.

In any event, if Putin is controlling Trump or if there is some collusion going on, wouldn't the communications be behind the scenes?

There could be, but you have to worry about intelligence communities. These meetings each leader can ensure the meeting is confidential and with no American translator present Trump and Putin can be sure what they don't want us to know they discussed will be found out. Trump has many flaws that someone like Putin can use to manipulate him with. I don't know if they have something on Trump, but what I do see is someone who acts very authoritarian and spends his time attacking allies and buddying up to dictators.

Also, if better relations with Russia result, isn't that a good thing? Maybe the holy crap big could be good, if peace results. However, sure, we should watch closely. But merely speaking out of earshot of the media, in and of itself, is not necessarily a holy crap moment, in my opinion.

Were at peace now and I don't see how using your own countries trusted translator would endanger that. You want others to help you avoid being manipulated and the people should want other ears around to ensure there leader is not the other guys puppet, and Trump behaves in so many ways that concerns me he is not an ally of freedom and democracy.

[_Themis]

My guess is that this probably occurs with other leaders.

I think it is very very unusual for most world leaders. You ALWAYS want your own translator for various reasons. Maybe the biggest is the translator is loyal to your country and not theirs.