If you buy 500 rooms, don't stay in them, and the Trump admin helps you cover up a murder you say? Yeah, that's probably an emoluments violation.
How is that Trump's fault that they didn't stay in the rooms? Even so it's not nominal consideration under the law. Is this really the worst you can come up with DJT doing?
How is it Trump's fault if people want to hand him giant bags with dollar signs on them and he coincidentally pursues actions that advantage them?
Well, to answer your question, he has an ethical and constitutional obligation not to take monetary compensation, especially gratuitous compensation, from foreign actors he is in a position to advantage.
EAllusion wrote:The foreign emoluments clause was meant to prevent foreign bribery and undue influence through gift-giving and aristocratic title sharing.
ajax18 wrote:So if I stay in Trump plaza and pay my hotel fee for the night, is that a gift under your definition of a gift?
EAllusion wrote:If you buy 500 rooms, don't stay in them, and the Trump admin helps you cover up a murder you say? Yeah, that's probably an emoluments violation.
Again and again and again, Trump made a decision to put his business interests ahead of running for the Presidency. He refused to divest himself. Trump did not think he was going to win. It's important to remember that when looking at actions before the election. He thought he would go back to his businesses with his image and connections burnished by his Presidential run.
MIchael Flynn is an interesting case. Before he was fired from the D.I.A. post under Obama, he was known as an incredibly hard-working go-getter, a great field general. But he was not equipped for the bureaucratic infighting of Washington. After he was let go, people who knew him said he changed. This is speculation on my part, but I think that after a lifetime of public service, being shuffled out of a dream job was a painful experience. I think he looked around at all of the other people getting rich, and said why not me? And I think this is possibly part of the rationale behind Mueller recommending no jail time. I think Mike Flynn basically 'flipped' from being an honest public servant to an embittered one, and according to Mueller 'flipped' back to be an honest one. Again, this is speculation. It will be really interesting to see what is behind all of the redactions.
Flynn is a nutbar though. I think there's a good chance the promiscuous pattern seeking and irrational grandiosity that makes him crazy-pants might've served him well in prior roles, but eventually caught up with him.
One thing that is interesting about Flynn is Trump's absolute silence about the man. When Obama met with Trump, he told him that he would have to deal with North Korea, and do NOT hire Michael Flynn. Flynn told the transition team himself that he was under investigation for being an unregistered lobbyist for Turkey. When Sally Yates told White House Counsel Don McGahn that Flynn had lied to the FBI, he still wasn't fired. And after he was forced to fire Flynn, Trump goes to Comey and says drop the investigation. He then went to the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coates, and asked him to intervene to stop the FBI investigation. (Note: Nixon went to the CIA to try to squash the Watergate Investigation. It was part of the obstruction of justice.)
And now Flynn has given 18 separate interviews with Mueller's office and aided in numerous investigations, and still the President has nothing to say? This President is talkative about everything in this investigation. I think his silence is significant.
"The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization." - Will Durant "We've kept more promises than we've even made" - Donald Trump "Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist." - Edwin Land
Trump has been tweeting like a psychopath about Mueller for two days straight now. Either this is related to whatever he's watching on Fox News recently or he's recently learned about something significant we haven't heard yet.
EAllusion wrote:Trump has been tweeting like a psychopath about Mueller for two days straight now. Either this is related to whatever he's watching on Fox News recently or he's recently learned about something significant we haven't heard yet.
Today, more of Mueller's case is supposedly coming out in sentencing memos for Flynn and Cohen. He is supposed to outline how Flynn and Cohen acted and where they lied.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen
The Utah federal prosecutor Huber is investigating the clinton foundation and was supposed to report to Congress. He was bumped due to the Bush funeral. The above article reveals some pretty damning evidence that maybe the friendly Obama Admin missed.
If Trump is guilty, impeach him. If Clinton is guilty, prosecute her. Let's throw all the guilty in jail.
"Religion is about providing human community in the guise of solving problems that don’t exist or failing to solve problems that do and seeking to reconcile these contradictions and conceal the failures in bogus explanations otherwise known as theology." - Kishkumen
EAllusion wrote:Trump has been tweeting like a psychopath about Mueller for two days straight now. Either this is related to whatever he's watching on Fox News recently or he's recently learned about something significant we haven't heard yet.
*Trump starts priming the distraction pump. *EA comes running with a bucket.
Seek freedom and become captive of your desires...seek discipline and find your liberty I can tell if a person is judgmental just by looking at them what is chaos to the fly is normal to the spider - morticia addams If you're not upsetting idiots, you might be an idiot. - Ted Nugent
Judge orders Michael Flynn to surrender his passport while he waits to be sentenced
What the...
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
I wish we'd have subjected Judge Sullivan to the same scrutiny we subjected Justice Kavanaugh before his appointment, or perhaps just do away with lifetime appointments altogether. Judge Sullivan, in the words of Mark Levin, is a disgrace.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
subgenius wrote:I would settle for it being just plain ole obvious...because what you got now ain't that...its speculative...but I understand - you are truly convinced that it is obvious. And if evidence comes forth that affirms your belief then you will feel vindicated, and if such evidence does not blossom then you will feel cheated....and in both scenarios, your opinion will still remain as it is right now.
Speculative in the same way that you think all science that doesn't merely record observations is "speculative" and statistical evidence is "speculative." Got it. Your opinion is taken with all the respect it deserves.
