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[wierd]

Has there been an uncharacteristic reduction in Trumps tweets? (I ask, because I tend to try to avoid that level of incomprehensible, to save my brain cells.) If so, it suggests strongly that his PR team has him off twitter for damage control until the scandal loses steam, or at least cools off some.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

I don't believe it for a moment. If Trump's team tried to take his phone he'd order them executed (and then settle for firing them).

[RedKing]

Stories are emerging of a rift among the Trump regime (what else is new?), with the more politically savvy lawyers and politicos urging Trump to keep his mouth shut and/or even cooperating with Mueller so that the investigation can be over with as quick as possible, and get out of the news cycle without seemingly implicating Trump.

The scorched earth wing (led by Steve Bannon, who Trump still seems to be listening to, for some goddamn reason) are urging Trump to wage war, cut Mueller's funding, question his legitimacy, stonewall documents, etc. Which would be the political equivalent of O.J. Simpson's "If I Did It" book. I can't help but wonder if Bannon wants Trump to go crashing down in flames so that he can step in and vie for leadership of the nascent Trump Party.

[Trekkin]

I can't help but wonder if Bannon wants Trump to go crashing down in flames so that he can step in and vie for leadership of the nascent Trump Party.

Or that he wants the "deep state" fully exposed by tearing down "the system" until they have no other option but to roll out the black helicopters and whatever else he's convinced they have.

The Trump Party is driven by nihilism, anti-authoritarianism and pointless resentment. It's not the sort of thing you'd lead hoping to move it anywhere, because half of it will call you an establishment puppet for trying. Trump has the entire Murdoch empire and his brand recognition helping him and his numbers are still rotting out from under him. Few people could credibly try to lead the Trump party after his ouster, all of them only temporarily, and I think Bannon's been too heavily involved to be one of them. If he has a plan, I would think it's to be more kingmaker than king.

[Paxiecrunchle]

So did I miss the bit where  the thread addressed the release of the JFK files which documented amongst other things plans from the CIA to cause famine and release bioweapons around Cuba during the sixties, or has the thread just not gotten around to it yet. https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/2017-release

[EnigmaticHat]

Stories are emerging of a rift among the Trump regime (what else is new?), with the more politically savvy lawyers and politicos urging Trump to keep his mouth shut and/or even cooperating with Mueller so that the investigation can be over with as quick as possible, and get out of the news cycle without seemingly implicating Trump.

The scorched earth wing (led by Steve Bannon, who Trump still seems to be listening to, for some goddamn reason) are urging Trump to wage war, cut Mueller's funding, question his legitimacy, stonewall documents, etc. Which would be the political equivalent of O.J. Simpson's "If I Did It" book. I can't help but wonder if Bannon wants Trump to go crashing down in flames so that he can step in and vie for leadership of the nascent Trump Party.

Trump's problem, if I'm going to be perfectly blunt, is that he's guilty.  So he can't cooperate.  If Mueller has found even a cent of money transferred from Russia to Trump, it looks to me like he has nearly the full story.  So Mueller must be building a foolproof evidence mountain.  To make it a sure thing I guess, or maybe he wants to be the first person to send an acting president to jail.

[Trekkin]

Stories are emerging of a rift among the Trump regime (what else is new?), with the more politically savvy lawyers and politicos urging Trump to keep his mouth shut and/or even cooperating with Mueller so that the investigation can be over with as quick as possible, and get out of the news cycle without seemingly implicating Trump.

The scorched earth wing (led by Steve Bannon, who Trump still seems to be listening to, for some goddamn reason) are urging Trump to wage war, cut Mueller's funding, question his legitimacy, stonewall documents, etc. Which would be the political equivalent of O.J. Simpson's "If I Did It" book. I can't help but wonder if Bannon wants Trump to go crashing down in flames so that he can step in and vie for leadership of the nascent Trump Party.

Trump's problem, if I'm going to be perfectly blunt, is that he's guilty.  So he can't cooperate.  If Mueller has found even a cent of money transferred from Russia to Trump, it looks to me like he has nearly the full story.  So Mueller must be building a foolproof evidence mountain.  To make it a sure thing I guess, or maybe he wants to be the first person to send an acting president to jail.

Or simply to fulfill the breadth of his mandate. Trump and the Russians go almost as far back as Trump and the Mob; understanding where the Russians got all their kompromat in depth is going to involve a good deal of history and a lot of people. It is one thing to say "Trump and Russia colluded in the election"; Mueller's mandate arguably extends to finding everyone who was a part of that process and understanding how Russia found and used them lest anyone escape justice to do it again. Untangling all the chaos is also going to involve corroborating everyone's stories until what Trump says does nothing but rack up more perjury charges.

In other words, that foolproof evidence mountain is going to bury many people when all of this is said and done, and Mueller has every incentive to give no one cause to call it incomplete.

[Sheb]

Stories are emerging of a rift among the Trump regime (what else is new?), with the more politically savvy lawyers and politicos urging Trump to keep his mouth shut and/or even cooperating with Mueller so that the investigation can be over with as quick as possible, and get out of the news cycle without seemingly implicating Trump.

The scorched earth wing (led by Steve Bannon, who Trump still seems to be listening to, for some goddamn reason) are urging Trump to wage war, cut Mueller's funding, question his legitimacy, stonewall documents, etc. Which would be the political equivalent of O.J. Simpson's "If I Did It" book. I can't help but wonder if Bannon wants Trump to go crashing down in flames so that he can step in and vie for leadership of the nascent Trump Party.

Trump's problem, if I'm going to be perfectly blunt, is that he's guilty.  So he can't cooperate.  If Mueller has found even a cent of money transferred from Russia to Trump, it looks to me like he has nearly the full story.  So Mueller must be building a foolproof evidence mountain.  To make it a sure thing I guess, or maybe he wants to be the first person to send an acting president to jail.

I'm frankly not that certain he's guilty of anything significant.

[Karnewarrior]

Stories are emerging of a rift among the Trump regime (what else is new?), with the more politically savvy lawyers and politicos urging Trump to keep his mouth shut and/or even cooperating with Mueller so that the investigation can be over with as quick as possible, and get out of the news cycle without seemingly implicating Trump.

The scorched earth wing (led by Steve Bannon, who Trump still seems to be listening to, for some goddamn reason) are urging Trump to wage war, cut Mueller's funding, question his legitimacy, stonewall documents, etc. Which would be the political equivalent of O.J. Simpson's "If I Did It" book. I can't help but wonder if Bannon wants Trump to go crashing down in flames so that he can step in and vie for leadership of the nascent Trump Party.

Trump's problem, if I'm going to be perfectly blunt, is that he's guilty.  So he can't cooperate.  If Mueller has found even a cent of money transferred from Russia to Trump, it looks to me like he has nearly the full story.  So Mueller must be building a foolproof evidence mountain.  To make it a sure thing I guess, or maybe he wants to be the first person to send an acting president to jail.

Let's not assume he's guilty until the charges are proven true. You may be sure he's guilty, and I'm sure he's guilty, but we still should make sure we maintain enough skepticism that we aren't misled by our own predisposition on the subject.

[Dunamisdeos]

Agreed on the skepticism/guilty point.

Also, I don't think he would cooperate whether he was guilty or no.

[smjjames]

I think he has said he'd be willing to do an interview with Mueller, only problem is that he'd instantly perjure himself and his lawyers painfully know it. A Trump interview would most likely be near the very end of the investigation since he'd have to find every possible fact and back up the questions with knowledge so that he can be absolutely sure that whatever Mueller asks Trump, there'd be no doubt as to whether he spoke truthfully or not.

[RedKing]

You can ask Trump pretty much anything now and be relatively sure he didn't speak truthfully. Not even about Russia, I mean anything.

"Mr. Trump, is the sky blue?"

"You know, people have been saying for a long time -- long time -- that I'm an expert on sky colors. It's true, everybody says so. Some people, like Crooked Hillary, they say I don't know anything about the sky -- they said the same thing about me winning, you know? You know that, right? Won't get 200, 220 tops. And I got 306! Biggest win in American history. Or so I'm told."

[smjjames]

If he is really, really willing to do an interview with Mueller and we all know how much he likes being interviewed, there is nothing stopping him. However, as I said in the previous post, his lawyers would try everything they can to stop him from doing an interview because they know that he exaggerates and lies so much that it'd be laughably easy to smack a perjury charge on him.

I doubt Mueller would charge him with that (if only to not give Republicans something tiny to focus on and ignore the rest) since its way too easy to get him for that.

[RedKing]

You had a legion of jackals harping on "it depends on the definition of 'sex'". I have no problems with taking Trump down on a technicality and then listening to Republicans wail and gnash their teeth about it for 20 years. Their tears are like sweet nectar.

[Dunamisdeos]

...Define "Is"
~Bill Clinton

Also, what is that a reference to, that definition of sex thing? I'm unaware, but also I'd prefer to get him on something actual because otherwise he would become a martyr and grow the cause, as it were.