lukkiirish, yes, the president can fire a special prosecutor and it's been done before. Nixon fired Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor investigating the Watergate scandal. And I could be wrong, but I think any type of prosecution of a president has to be conducted through impeachment--not criminal--proceedings.

If Trump fired the Special Counsel, that would be the closest thing to the Watergate Scandal.

"Can he be fired?

Yes. He will serve under the authority of Rosenstein, the acting attorney general, who could decide to discharge him for some specific wrongdoing. Ultimately, the president as the chief executive could in theory order the firing of the special prosecutor. But as in Nixon’s experience, the political cost to the president would be enormous, and would probably end in his removal from office".

The Special Counsel

Annie Deighnaugh :"Obstruction of justice is illegal".

Yes, obstruction of justice is illegal, but nothing that has been revealed so far has risen to that charge.

"Yes, obstruction of justice is illegal, but nothing that has been revealed so far has risen to that charge."

That's actually an opinion, vs a fact, and it's an opinion that many do not share.

Thanks jboling

LucyStar, they haven't been charged yet with obstruction, but there are plenty of avenues of investigation that the WH has handed to anyone who's interested.

Jill Wine-Banks, a Watergate prosecutor, mentioned the particular bit that could nail the obstruction charge.

This editorial out of Germany is brutal. Of course, you have probably seen that Merkel is done with him. The new French president Macron will stand up to him and intentionally gave him a white knuckle handshake grip. The British don't trust him with intel. Our allies don't want anything to do with us anymore. This is dangerous.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/donald-trump-is-a-menace-to-the-world-opinion-a-1148471.html

Well, that is what putin wants...to split up the western alliance as much as possible so the "enemy" gets cut down to a more manageable size. That's why he's pushing on brexit, other european elections of divisive candidates, candidates who support breaking up trade agreements, NATO, etc. Heck, there was even a guy pushing for splitting California off from the rest of the US and he's now sheltering in Siberia.

Yep.

Yep.

Yep

Yep, and Trump is playing right into Putin's hands.

Is Putin the instigator or just taking advantage of a divide that started a while ago? Either way his style is very cunning and very scary. :( I'm not politically savvy so am sincerely asking. I'm thinking of the pre-existing financial problems and wars. Also the widening wealth divide in many countries.

I think I read a headline reporting that T's lawyers would not cooperate with Senate investigations.. (I can't find it now.) Can someone explain the ramifications of this, if there are any?

Putin has been trying to destabilize the NATO alliance for years.

yeonassky, there's no doubt in my mind that putin is the instigator -- but in trump, he found a willing partner.

Putin has clear objectives on making russia relatively more powerful by disrupting a united western front (NATO, trade agreements, European Union, etc.) He probably has eyes on reclaiming some of the old USSR territories, especially mineral rich ones like Ukraine and wants no western interference in that process. As such, they are always, and have always been (remember putin is ex-KGB) keeping an eye out for people with money, power and influence that they can "turn" to their own purposes.

Trump, during the housing crash and 4 bankruptcies later, needed money, but no US bank would touch him any more, so he went shopping internationally. (His real estate businesses are extremely leveraged and operate on loads and loads of debt.) At the same time, the russian oligarchs who are making literally billions of dollars need places to "launder" their illegal gains, and nothing like over priced real estate transactions to do it. A match made in heaven.

There are some sources that suggest putin started grooming trump for the presidency years ago, and there is some more recent evidence to suggest that russia was interfering with the RNC before the nomination to make sure that trump won.

Wow he's been planning this for years! I can barely plan my day. Too bad he doesn't use all that power for good. Too bad we're all being dragged into this. :(

There are some sources that suggest putin started grooming trump for the presidency years ago, and there is some more recent evidence to suggest that russia was interfering with the RNC before the nomination to make sure that trump won.

Ok. I know people hate Trump. But this seems so massively far-fetched as to cross over into tinfoil hat territory. If Putin actually thought years ago that a p* grabbing, thrice married, adultering idiot man-child would win over evangelical voters and get the republican nomination, he's got ESP or is the shrewdest politician in the history of the whole world.

And that's just the nomination... the idea that he'd win the election ? No one believed he'd come close. And, if the democrats had run anyone but Hillary (other than Chelsea C) there's absolutely no way Trump would have won. So Putin spent years grooming Trump for the .000001% chance he'd win? Events had to line up perfectly for this election to turn out the way it did... who could have foreseen that coming?

And, could someone please explain to me how exactly Russia helped Trump win the election? Because I'm still really not clear about this after all this time. They released hacked emails. What else did they do, specifically, to help him win the election? (I don't need info on back channels, etc. which is a separate issue) I want to know what they did that made a difference in who won the election.

Are we supposed to believe there were a vast number of people who were going to vote for Hillary but were so put off by the release of some bland emails (and again, does anyone remember anything that was in them?) that they decided to cast their votes for a racist p* grabbing moron instead? Really? Who on earth are these people who did this?

Grooming trump for the presidency was a far fetched dream, but why not? They benefited along the way with their money laundering. And the russians are big into long-range planning. They've been interfering in elections for a long time, they didn't expect the US election to work...that's why they were so delighted and amazed when it did.

Russia not only worked to help President Donald Trump win the presidential election over Hillary Clinton last November, it also aided his victory in the Republican primary, the Senate Intelligence Committee investigating the allegations of Kremlin meddling was told Thursday.

Clinton Watts, a senior fellow at the Center for Cyber and Homeland Security at The George Washington University, told the investigation that Russia worked to undermine the campaigns of both Republican and Democratic candidates who held less favorable views toward Russia, including Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Source

I don't have time right now for a complete answer on how they influenced the election, but briefly not only with fake news and the timing of the release of such fake news and the leaked emails, but also we now know that comey's actions which had a palpable effect on hillary's standings in the polls was based on fake news put out by the russians. Moreover, it is the use of bots to drive false information throughout social media that had a powerful information effect that helped sway the election. For example, one of the most believed lies was that the pope had endorsed trump...he didn't.

See some of the info about the use of bots in this other thread here.

Alternate source :)

Thus is “Collusion with Russia” a scandal built on feints. The Democrats’ entire case relies on two things: 1) malevolent Russian intentions, and 2) our mercurial president’s overreaction to being placed under a cloud of suspicion in the absence of evidence. After all this time and effort, Democrats are unable to show that Trump and his minions did anything wrong, but the president cannot resist the bonehead moves that make him look culpable: the alleged effort to persuade his then–FBI director, James Comey, to drop the investigation of Trump’s friend and former national-security adviser Michael Flynn (an allegation Trump denies); his firing of Comey in a haze of conflicting explanations, which seemed to have settled on Comey’s high-profile pursuit of the Russia investigation as the hanging offense; Trump’s foolish meeting with Russian diplomats, right after firing Comey, during which he allegedly cited pressure from the Russia investigation as the rationale for Comey’s dismissal; and now, accusations that he leaned on Daniel Coats, the national intelligence director, and Admiral Michael Rogers, chief of the National Security Agency, to help him refute claims of ties to Russia and thus push back against the FBI investigation.

In each instance, Trump’s behavior can be explained by exasperation and amateurishness rather than consciousness of guilt. But such an explanation runs smack into the real collusion here: between Democrats and the media. If Trump is going to accommodate them by acting guilty, they are delighted to portray him as such . . . and to skip silently past the minor inconvenience that there is evidently nothing to be guilty of.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/447915/trump-russia-collusion-john-brennan-testimony-how-fight-politicized-narrative

Comey's actions which had a palpable effect on hillary's standings in the polls was based on fake news put out by the russians.

What? This makes no sense. IF you even believe Comey made an impact (which I kind of doubt), then Hillary has herself, Huma and A. Weiner to blame for that mess.

Moreover, it is the use of bots to drive false information throughout social media that had a powerful information effect that helped sway the election.

There's a saying that when you hear horse hoofs, don't look for Zebras. I think there is a real lot of looking for Zebras going on here. People didn't vote for T because they thought the pope endorsed him or because of leaked emails that no one remembers anyway. They voted for T because of one of several factors:

1. They believed his B.S. about bringing jobs back, fixing everything, etc.

2. They were racist

3. They hated Hillary

4. They figured T was the lesser of two evils.

5. They wanted a change / have been left behind by globalism and feel the current system isn't working for them so they wanted to throw a hand grenade in the whole thing.

It's not like there was a choice between two similarly competent candidates here. A few emails weren't going to sway people when the difference was between Trump (of all people) and Hillary.

Comey's letter to Congress had a significant impact on Hillary's standings in the polls from which she couldn't recover in the short time between his saying there's nothing new and the election.

Considering the election was lost by only 77,000 votes in 3 states, this easily had a significant impact on the outcome.

Moreover, he played a direct role as he chose to break policy by commenting on the investigation into hillary AND NOT commenting on the investigation into trump.

The Democrats’ entire case relies on two things: 1) malevolent Russian intentions, and 2) our mercurial president’s overreaction to being placed under a cloud of suspicion in the absence of evidence.

From my post in hot topics, the trump/russia connection is not a democratic delusion:

You do know... that comey is a republican, yes? john brennon, former director of the cia who put the fbi onto the trump/russia connection is an independent, not dem, yes? The treasury's ongoing investigation into manafort and money-laundering is ongoing under trump-appointee mnuchin? That Inspector General Fine who is leading the DoD investigation into Flynn illegally receiving money from foreign governments is a decades-long member of the DoJ in a non-partisan position under both dem and rep presidents? That the Senate judiciary committee, the House intelligence committee, the House oversight committee and the Senate select committee on intelligence are all running separate investigations into trump and are all gop-led? And that a lot of the original intelligence on trump/russia came from neither dems or gops, but US allies abroad who were keeping an eye on the russians and came across this stuff including the Brits, Canada, Australia, Germany, and New Zealand?

Second, you can try to put the spin that it's just trump overreacting, but the fact remains that he has demonstrated a clear consciousness of guilt in that he's done as much as he can to stop the investigation (totally unnecessary if there's no there there) and his behavior toward putin and russia is hard to explain without there being something more than just what appears on its face. See my post above about all the actions he's taken toward obstruction.

The Comey letter wasn't Russia- though. It was Comey. Unless you think he's working for the Kremlin ;)

Let's not forget, too, it was also H's own actions that led to that mess. And, of course, her lead was already falling before Comey.

National polling was tightening even before Comey's Oct. 28 announcement. The Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll conducted Oct. 24 to 27 already showed Trump's deficit declining from double digits to just 2 points

She was just a terrible candidate and the wrong person for a change election. I don't know why it's so hard to accept that she lost b/c people hate her and she spent more time campaigning in Arizona than Wisconsin and not because of Russian influence.

I know a lot of investigations are being run. I also know there's a lot of democrats who have acknowledge there's no actual evidence of collusion. I also know Trump is an absolute moron who can't keep his mouth shut.

I don't really care if Trump is impeached. I'd prefer it, and Pence too...I'd rather have Ryan. But I just can't help but think this whole thing sounds crazy. I truly believe Trump is simply not smart enough to take part in some grand conspiracy. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, which is fine by me and actually would lead to an outcome I prefer. But I really think he's just an idiot (Flynn, on the other hand, is probably going to jail, which is also fine).

Democrats can keep talking about Russia if they want, but I think maybe a focus on jobs, economy and healthcare would be smarter. But what do I know, I'm not a political consultant.

I truly believe Trump is simply not smart enough to take part in some grand conspiracy.

That's what makes him such a "useful idiot" to putin.

The latest goes beyond the obstruction of justice to even more circumstantial evidence about his involvement with russia. He's apparently going to give back the compounds to russia that obama took away as punishment for interfering in the elections.

Now why on earth would someone do that, especially when they are under investigation for being in bed with the russians, unless they are in bed with the russians. Trump has already said that he can't say no to putin....

Because, I don't know if you noticed, but T pretty much wants to undo every single thing O did (which, in most cases, I wholeheartedly support).

I find it wholly believable that Putin may have plans to use Trump's incompetency for his own gain (but, I think he's just thinking he's going to try to manipulate a moron... not that he was somehow "grooming" him, because why would Putin really pick such a volatile, stupid, incompetent man?). But Putin planning to try to manipulate a moron doesn't mean Trump is somehow secretly colluding with him.

If trump wasn't colluding with putin, then why does he refuse to say anything negative about him? Ever?

I believe that putin has trump completely compromised due to his financial dealings and I wouldn't be surprised if the golden showers video is real. So whether willingly or unwillingly, trump has been doing whatever putin wants, be it refuse to support NATO, to disrespecting our allies, gutting the US State Dept, allowing russian spies into the oval office with cameras, trashing the MSM for reporting on the russia investigation, to trying to stop the russia investigation, to lifting sanctions on russia.

There are others that have said that the russian fake news during the campaign would not have been as effective as it was had it not been for trump picking it up and reiterating it and incorporating it into his campaign. So even in that sense, he certainly was coordinating with them. They were coordinating with his campaign including the release of the podesta e-mails within an hour of the release of the p-gate tape.

Trump likes people who like him and he also praises "strongmen." He praised that Duterte guy and various other dictators. Again, mistaking idiocy for malevolence.

I wouldn't be surprised if the golden showers video is real.

Really? I seriously don't think a germaphobe would do this and no credible news outlets ran with this.

There are others that have said that the russian fake news during the campaign would not have been as effective as it was had it not been for trump picking it up and reiterating it

Sharing news that was independently released isn't collusion. Russia independently deciding they want to help T (or, more likely, tarnish H who they expected to be President) is also not evidence of collusion. Russia released info and Trump shared it just like he shares cr*p he sees on Fox and Cable TV.

And again, I don't think Russian fake news was effective at actually doing anything. There are reasons T won. BS news and Podesta emails were not those reasons. Who exactly changed their vote on the basis of this stuff when the gap between T and H was so wide?

H was just a terrible candidate who did not campaign in Wisconsin or Michigan and who basically decided she could win w/o the white working class (even as Bill told her she couldn't)... but I really hope she and everyone else in the democratic party continue to think its "Russia" so she runs again in 2020!

I stand by my position, until proven otherwise, that this Russia stuff, IMO, really sounds nuts to regular people and it's not going to help dems. It's so conspiracy theory and people have "known" Trump for decades from tabloids, the apprentice, etc. It just sounds ridiculous on its face to suggest he's some kind of Russian double agent. And this is not because I like T, which I don't and never have... it just sounds crazy.

Most regular people find "this Russia stuff" entirely believable. Trump supporters, though, they don't believe it. Of course, they are the ones who believe things like "pizzagate" and they are the ones who believe every lie trump tells.

(Pizzagate is, of course, crazy).

As to the other stuff, time will tell. Maybe I'll be proved wrong and we can get Paul Ryan as president and I'll be very, very happy to be proved wrong and get rid of this moron so we can get stuff done!

A guy who brags about grabbing women that he just met is a selective germaphobe.

Even without a speck of Russian collusion, he is utterly unfit to be president.

trump/russia connection. I hate to repeat myself, so I'll just direct anyone who's interested to this thread and scroll down to my posts starting in March 24 where I start to pull together some of the links between russia and trump and his campaign. It goes on for several posts, so keep reading.

It all raises some critical questions:

• How, if trump is just a business guy with most of his connections in real estate, did he manage to fill his campaign and administration with people who all have strong russian ties?
• Why is it that so many of his people deny and lie about meeting with, and in some cases payments from russia and their spies, even under oath, only to have it proven later that these meetings took place. If this were all on the up and up, why hide and lie? If this were all being done in the best interests of the nation and not the trump/kushner/putin cabal, why hide and try to suppress any investigation into it?
• Why have so many people in russia who had some contacts with the trump/russia connection disappeared, been murdered or arrested?

And it wasn't just kushner trying to set up a 'back channel' communication with the russians. Erik Prince, head of Blackwater, Betsy deVos' brother, also coordinated a meeting in the Seychelles around Jan. 11:

The United Arab Emirates arranged a secret meeting in January between Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a Russian close to President Vladi­mir Putin as part of an apparent effort to establish a back-channel line of communication between Moscow and President-elect Donald Trump, according to U.S., European and Arab officials.

I'd forgotten about Erik Prince, Annie, so I'm glad you brought that up. He's such an awful person that I find it unpleasant to even think about him... There's so much, it's hard to keep track of it all.

I agree, veggiegardnr. There is so much there, that it's hard to believe that people still dismiss the whole thing as liberal delusions or sour grapes. Especially since the conservatives used to be the hard-liners against communism and russia in the first cold war....

Re up thread, they voted for t because of his stand on abortion. They saw he was an idiot but they weren't baby killers.

I think this is going to drag out forever. Powers, Rice and Brennan subpoenaed over the unmasking/abuse of power issue. A possible pattern, people with no clearance leaking and sharing classified info with the press, possible illegal use of foreign intelligences with spying for political reasons by the Obama administration And more.

Plus, the Russian investigation part.

This could drag out forever. There has already been instances of unmasking found as well as some evidence on Powers discovered by Devin Nunes . However, at this point I'm not at all clear what that evidence is.

lots of nasty on all sides.

But jterri, most of the nastiness on the other side is made up and there's no there there. Just like obama never wiretapped trump towers. It's just retaliation and distraction for the very real situations around trump. Mueller is smart enough and has enough integrity to suss it out.

Trump, his fellow republicans, and his supporters keep trying to distract everyone by bringing up Obama. But, it's not going to work and the lies aren't even believable. The only people who go for it are trump supporters. Trump, etc. also keep trying to say that the whistleblowers are the problem, but no one except trump supporters are buying that, either. It's not going to work. The investigations into trump and his administration will continue. There's already plenty of evidence against them and more will be found. It's only a matter of time.

Most of the nastiness on the other side is made up and there's no there there.

You mean you believe the unproven theories, dot-connecting, innuendo and speculation that line up with your political viewpoint, but not the unproven theories and speculation from the opposing party.

The investigations into trump and his administration will continue.

Good. Let's find out what happened. Win/win from my perspective... either impeachment and President Paul Ryan (yay!) or liberals are revealed as lunatic fantasists. Either outcome is excellent!

People on the left are gonna lose their minds if nothing is found though...

Yes, I want the investigation and said so above. I also feel that it's a win win either way.

Plenty has been found already regarding trump and associates. Trump supporters are the only ones who say there's no evidence and we need to wait and see. More evidence will be found with time. Trump supporters try to distract by saying the democrats or Obama have done something wrong. No one is buying it, except trump supporters, and there are fewer and fewer of those every day.

The chances that Ryan will ever be president are next to zero, btw. He's damaged his reputation irretrievably, at this point, both by supporting trump (trump/party agenda over country) and with Ryancare. If trump and pence are removed (your proposed pathway to Ryan being president), Ryan will most likely go with them. We've already got a recording of him trying to hush up a high-ranking fellow republican who was saying he thought the Russians were paying trump. He's damaged goods.

The longer this goes on, the worse the republicans look. Plus, it gives people plenty of opportunity to see the real republican agenda, and to think about how it will impact them, personally (e.g. losing their health insurance). Personally, I'm fine with this dragging on for a while.

If T & P are impeached, Ryan is next in the line of succession. You seriously think Ryan has done something impeachable too?

Plenty has been found already regarding trump and associates

Other than with Flynn, I don't think anyone has said there's actual evidence of wrongdoing or collusion.

And I'm definitely not a Trump supporter. Haven't liked him since day one and would be beyond thrilled with Ryan, or heck, Orrin Hatch would be fine too (unless you also somehow think he's in with the Kremlin?).

The chances of getting the things that I want done (entitlement reform-yay!) go up exponentially if Ryan becomes president, so I'd have no motivation to deny wrongdoing if there was evidence of it. I would have a party if we got rid of Trump and had nice, competent, entitlement reforming Ryan.

The longer this goes on, the worse the republicans look. Plus, it gives people plenty of opportunity to see the real republican agenda, and to think about how it will impact them, personally (e.g. losing their health insurance).

I'm closely watching the Georgia election to see if any of this chaos is hurting R's. I'm not convinced the D's have a winning message or leaders who are likely to capture the voters they need to bring them back to power... "But Trump is bad" didn't work for H, so will it work for others? Only time will tell. They've got a better chance at the house, but I'd be shocked if they win the senate and I'm not entirely convinced they'll win the white house in 2020 either...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-will-likely-win-reelection-in-2020_us_59149f5ae4b01ad573dac1f3

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/335844-bloomberg-55-percent-chance-trump-will-win-reelection

Haven't read through all the comments, but the first 100 or so that I read suggest that R would break away from 45 if it becomes sufficiently clear that there have been illegal/inappropriate actions by 45 and his crew. But 45 has been successful thus far in preventing anyone from pursuing that evidence that would lead to that realization. Also, he's numbing/desensitizing the public to the outrage they ought to feel through delay and distraction at every critical point. For example, Withdrawing from the Paris accord comes at the heel of revelations about Kushner. He takes all oxygen out of the room by distracting everyone from staying on the topic of Russia. In the process, the republicans whose position on 45 is disctated by convenience, are emboldened and think they and the party can survive any scandal because the sting and poison of each revelation is numbed by the delay and changing conversation.

Beagles, even if the extremely unlikely happened and Ryan became president because trump and pence were both impeached, he wouldn't be president for long. Why? This is all obviously going to take a long time and impeachment proceedings also take a long time. Let's just imagine that it happens...how much longer do you think will be left before the next presidential election? I'm betting it would be a year or two, at most. Ryan wouldn't get anything done in that time. Then, Ryan wouldn't win the next election, especially because people are really starting to see that he does want to "reform" their health insurance, social security and Medicare. They are ready starting to understand that this means, of course, doing everything possible to get rid of these programs or, at least, to minimize the amount of money people get. You think people are going to vote for someone who wants to hurt them by taking away their health insurance, Medicare or social security? A lot of trump voters were people who either benefit from these programs now, or who are counting on them for the future. Really, it's just not going to happen.

There's plenty of evidence of wrongdoing and collusion, aside from Flynn. A fair amount had been discussed in this thread. If you cannot see it, well, all I can say is that most other people do.

Really, it's just not going to happen.

You seem awfully certain... for something that's years away. Did anyone seriously think T could win? We don't know what is going to happen in 4 years. At this point in B. Clinton's first term, his approval ratings were lower than T's are now. Events have a way of happening and changing what everyone thought was a political certainty.

Trump recent weekly average- May 22-28- 41% approval

Bill Clinton June 1993- 37% approval

Aside from which, if T is really so corrupt and there's so much evidence as people here are suggesting, he could be impeached w/in the first 2 years. Then, Ryan and long-awaited and vitally necessary entitlement reform!

You think people are going to vote for someone who wants to hurt them by taking away their health insurance, Medicare or social security?

Yes. I do. First off, Obamacare really really really sucks. People hate it. And Medicare and Social Security have a lot of fiscal problems coming over the long-term. I'd be thrilled if both programs were fundamentally reformed or phased out over time. And people vote for lots of other reasons other than politicians promising to let them keep government programs. If people primarily voted on the basis of protecting these programs, republicans wouldn't control every single branch of government and the vast majority of states and fill just about every elected office higher than dog catcher in most of the country between the coasts.

Whether Trump / Pence / Ryan can win is a major function of whomever the democrats can find to run. Could any one of those 3 R's beat Biden? Probably not, although Biden's gonna be really old. But all of those 3 could beat Hillary (and I would not be surprised if she ran again--- she just won't go ever away!) or Chelsea C (and I cannot believe the way the media is pushing her... seriously, you'd think the democrats would want this whole family to just disappear!) or E. Warren or Bernie. Right now, I'm hard pressed to see who the democrats could run, other than Biden, with a reasonable shot at winning.

Dems are going to have to figure out who their base is. Do they want to be the progressive coastal party or try to get some of the woking class voters back who live between the coasts (this isn't to say R's aren't divided too... they definitely are... but I think R's tend to fall in line/ come home to whomever their candidate is more so than D's do)

Lol, beagles, I guess we'll just have to see what happens. Obamacare, lol, people only thought they hated it until trump got elected and the republicans started trying to take it away. Then, lots of people started realizing that would mean they would lose their insurance or pay a lot more. My very best friend is a staunch republican. A week or so ago, she was talking about her job and her health insurance and she actually said to me, "aren't they (her employer) required to do x and y for me because of the health care law (meaning Obamacare)?" This was stuff she wanted them to have to do, by the way. Lol, I told her, yes to x, but no to y and added, "but, aren't the republicans going get rid of the health care law, so they won't have to do x for long?" There was complete silence. Even she, a staunch republican who says she hates Obama and Obamacare, relies on the ACA. She doesn't want it to go away, just like most people.