You don’t even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republic if the Senate determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role… because impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.
— Lindsey Graham (R-SC), quoted by the Washington Post in 1999, on President Bill Clinton.
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He encouraged people to lie for him. He lied. I think he obstructed justice. I think there’s a compelling case that he has, in fact, engaged in conduct that would be better for him to leave office than to stay in office.
— Rep. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), on C-SPAN in 1999, on President Bill Clinton.
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If the arguments they’re making are as reported, they rate an F. The Trump attorneys’ memos WSJ has obtained are just plain stupid. https://t.co/UcGV38jxJB
Today there’s tactical spin and counter-spin over letter drafts which go to Trump’s intent to obstruct justice in the firing of James Comey,
This was a response to the claims made by Trump’s lawyers that the whole affair needs to go away because they have a lawyer who’s traded on his nominal relationship to a famous baseball player. Nice try boys, but Mueller seems to have the trump cards.
And like a fair-use troll, Trump tries to disguise his hate with a deflection. Lord Dampnut replies… Wow
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Wow, looks like James Comey exonerated Hillary Clinton long before the investigation was over…and so much more. A rigged system!
As his lawyers make their arguments to Mr. Mueller, Mr. Trump has used hisTwitterfeed for what people familiar with the matter describe as an effort to persuade Americans that the investigation is unfair, and to minimize any political fallout in the 2018 midterm elections or his own re-election campaign two years later.
The initial White House statement said Trump acted based on the recommendations from Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, but Trump himself told NBC on Thursday that he had already decided to fire Comey before meeting with them. Mike Pence told reporters on Capitol Hill that the firing was not about the Russia investigations, but Trump told NBC he had the investigation in mind when he decided to fire Comey. Kellyanne Conway said Comey’s firing had “zero to do” with the Russia investigation, but the White House timeline released the same day said that after watching Comey’s testimony about the Russia investigation, Trump was “strongly inclined” to remove him. Sean Spicer said that the decision originated from Rosenstein, but Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Trump had already made the decision. After Spicer, Conway, Pence, and Sanders provided Rosenstein’s letter as a key reason for, if not the entire basis of, Trump’s decision to fire Comey, Sanders said “I don’t think there was ever an attempt to pin the decision on the Deputy Attorney General.” The White House’s use of Rosenstein’s letter as the reason Trump decided to fire Comey reportedly led Rosenstein to threaten to resign thinkprogress.org/…
Because reasons…
Mr. Trump has given conflicting reasons as to why he dismissed Mr. Comey.
At first, he said it was in response to advice from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who had concluded in a memo for the president that Mr. Comey was an ineffective leader.
Two days after the firing, Mr. Trump told NBC News that the decision to fire Mr. Comey was his alone and that when he did it, “I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, it’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.”
The obstruction-related memo advanced other arguments beyond the matter of the president’s executive powers, citing case law that the lawyers believed buttressed the contention that Mr. Trump had not obstructed justice.
Hard to assess significance without knowing the actual contents of the draft firing letter and why WH counsel vetoed it. But can’t be good. https://t.co/cww8kaBBib
