General Trump hilarity free-for-all thread

[Prelate Diogenes Shandor]

Is it true that Trump recently offered up a large chunk of one of the national parks as his latest sacrifice to Mammon?

[Bu☆ns]

The Prince Pitch ( http://tinyurl.com/y6u4oze7 )

For Afghanistan...

Source:
@pwnallthethings :: JFC. "Please let us strip-mine AFG for rare-earth minerals. It'll be great. We'll have guns, and Afghanis can work in the mines" https://t.co/Aw7rrIf6sv

@pwnallthethings :: Sadly not joking https://t.co/3m6yaNhmdI

[Cain]

Rumour is Trump is going to shitcan Mueller on the 22nd, while Congress is out of town.

All the current manufactured outrage about the transition team emails Mueller legally requested is intended to be the opening salvo in making an immediate case for his dismissal.

Just thought you'd like to know. Nothing is set in stone, of course.  But Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, voiced his concerns that this was going to happen even before the email thing blew up.  And while he may be something of a hawk, Schiff has always come across as thoughtful and not inclined to hysterical pronouncements in the past.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

Rumour is Trump is going to shitcan Mueller on the 22nd, while Congress is out of town.

All the current manufactured outrage about the transition team emails Mueller legally requested is intended to be the opening salvo in making an immediate case for his dismissal.

Just thought you'd like to know. Nothing is set in stone, of course.  But Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, voiced his concerns that this was going to happen even before the email thing blew up.  And while he may be something of a hawk, Schiff has always come across as thoughtful and not inclined to hysterical pronouncements in the past.

I saw today that some Trump admin spokesperson claimed in no uncertain terms that "there have been no discussions whatsoever" about firing Mueller, which means of course that it's a foregone conclusion. If (when) it happens, I expect the Democrats to whine about it for a couple of days and then roll over, as usual.

[Doktor Howl]

Rumour is Trump is going to shitcan Mueller on the 22nd, while Congress is out of town.

All the current manufactured outrage about the transition team emails Mueller legally requested is intended to be the opening salvo in making an immediate case for his dismissal.

Just thought you'd like to know. Nothing is set in stone, of course.  But Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, voiced his concerns that this was going to happen even before the email thing blew up.  And while he may be something of a hawk, Schiff has always come across as thoughtful and not inclined to hysterical pronouncements in the past.

That would be amazingly illegal and unconstitutional (not that this would stop Trump), as only the ADA that hired him (not Sessions) can fire him.

My guess is that Trump will try to have him and Rod Rosenstein (the ADA) arrested outright, because that's the kind of banana republic we've become.

[Cain]

I was doing some reading on this, and I can't find the article now, but it suggested that Trump would use executive orders to dissolve the inquiry.

Rosenstein, for all his issues, has made it clear he wont fire Mueller, and the person next in the chain of command from him is even less likely to do what Trump wants (crazy Cruz supporter).  Trump will have to pull the trigger himself, which is possibly the only thing that has stopped him so far.

[Doktor Howl]

I was doing some reading on this, and I can't find the article now, but it suggested that Trump would use executive orders to dissolve the inquiry.

Rosenstein, for all his issues, has made it clear he wont fire Mueller, and the person next in the chain of command from him is even less likely to do what Trump wants (crazy Cruz supporter).  Trump will have to pull the trigger himself, which is possibly the only thing that has stopped him so far.

Except that, again, he isn't legally empowered to do so.  Only Rosenstein can do that.  It's the only way special prosecutors/investigators can function.

This doesn't mean he won't try it.

[Cain]

I believe the reasoning is that he can use executive orders to abolish the position of special counsel,on the basis that the President is the ultimate law enforcement authority. 

Or he could call on Congress to defund it - Congress are willing to get into bed with Trump for insane tax cuts, so as long as there is a quid quo pro I can't see any reason they wouldn't do this.

[Doktor Howl]

I believe the reasoning is that he can use executive orders to abolish the position of special counsel,on the basis that the President is the ultimate law enforcement authority. 

Or he could call on Congress to defund it - Congress are willing to get into bed with Trump for insane tax cuts, so as long as there is a quid quo pro I can't see any reason they wouldn't do this.

That makes sense, given that Trump has consistently been unable to realize that executive orders cannot contradict standing law.  Which is why he keeps getting slapped around in court.

Congress could eliminate or defund the position, but not during an ongoing investigation.  The position occupies a niche between congressional & judicial responsibilities.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

They're already talking about how Mueller got emails from the Trump campaign "illegally" as if Mueller is the kind of person to make rookie mistakes like that. Of course it's all bullshit but as long as Fox News has something to beat over Mueller's head, nobody on the right (yes that includes Congressional Democrats) will do anything about firing him. Maybe they'll make some kind of general wishy-washy statement about allowing the (Trump-controlled) FBI to take on the "investigation" as a standard case (which will promptly go cold and won't even be mentioned anymore). The fact is there's no reason for Trump to hesitate on this. There is no one willing to hold him to any kind of standard whatsoever. He could have the Secret Service shoot Mueller in the back in broad daylight, and nothing would happen.

[LMNO]

There's also the bullshit about the Mueller team member who was having an affair with a fellow staffer, and used government phones to keep it a secret, and texted some anti-Trump stuff, which gave the propaganda arm of the GOP plenty of ammo.

Way to shoot yourself in the foot there, guy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/us/fbi-trump-russia.html?_r=0

[Cain]

To be fair, this was going to happen regardless.

They're painting Mueller and Comey - card-carrying Catholic Republicans from one of the most conservative institutions in the US government - as raving agents of Teh Hillary.

That is, the ones who don't believe that Mueller is a double secret agent preparing to take down the Deep State as part of a convoluted plan by Trump because #followthewhiterabbit

They cried foul over the FBI accessing .gov emails that explicitly state in their terms of use that law enforcement will be given unfettered access to in the course of an investigation.  We're not dealing here with people who are interested in the facts.  Comey and Mueller could have been shown to have voted for Trump, and they'd still be evil libtards on a witch-hunt.

[LMNO]

My levels of impotent rage and frustration are at all-time highs these days.

[Cain]

You could always join #TheResistance and post fact free conspiracy theories on Twitter all day.  I mean, they're not at Trumpian levels yet, Louise Mensch and co aside, but for instance, the freakout about Roy Moore being able to speak a sentence in shitty Russian, like DuoLingo isn't actually a thing, was cringeworthy.

[Cain]

Our buddy Devin Nunes is back on the case

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/20/house-republicans-quietly-investigate-doj-fbi-310121

A group of House Republicans has gathered secretly for weeks in the Capitol in an effort to build a case that senior leaders of the Justice Department and FBI improperly — and perhaps criminally — mishandled the contents of a dossier that describes alleged ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, according to four people familiar with their plans.

A subset of the Republican members of the House intelligence committee, led by Chairman Devin Nunes of California, has been quietly working parallel to the committee's high-profile inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. They haven't informed Democrats about their plans, but they have consulted with the House's general counsel.

The people familiar with Nunes' plans said the goal is to highlight what some committee Republicans see as corruption and conspiracy in the upper ranks of federal law enforcement. The group hopes to release a report early next year detailing their concerns about the DOJ and FBI, and they might seek congressional votes to declassify elements of their evidence.

That final product could ultimately be used by Republicans to discredit special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether any Trump aides colluded with Russia during the 2016 campaign — or possibly even to justify his dismissal, as some rank-and-file Republicans and Trump allies have demanded. (The president has said he is not currently considering firing Mueller.)