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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
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Mattis: It is clear that...Russia & China want to shape a world consistent w/their authoritarian model--gaining veto authority over other nations' economic, diplomatic, & security decisions--to promote their own interests at the expense of...America.
WASHINGTON — Soon after the Democrats take control of the Housenext year, Rep. Richard Neal, who will be the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, expects to send a letter to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin requesting copies of Donald Trump's returns.
He doesn't expect to get them.
At least, not right away.
A 1924 federal law — 26 U.S. Code § 6103 — mandates that the Treasury secretary "shall furnish" the https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/donald-trump-s-taxes-what-we-know-what-we-don-n658161 (tax returns) of any individual for private review by the chairmen of the House and Senate tax committees. Committee sources could find no evidence that it had ever been used to obtain somebody's tax return.
But they say the law, which was passed to monitor conflicts of interest in the executive branch, is clear.
...
But Neal has said he also expects that the Treasury Department — and perhaps Trump himself — will put up a ferocious legal fight.
"I assume that there would be a court case that would go on for a period of time," Neal told reporters recently.
If and when he does get them, Neal and the Democrats plan to make the returns public, Congressional sources told NBC News. They believe they can do so by committee vote in a closed session.
If that happens, some will see a fearsome abuse of government power, while others will welcome an important check on a president who has refused to play by accepted ethical rules.
Swiper
Banned
“Psychiatrist: Trump Derangement Syndrome is real – and serious”
“Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D., offers stunning new analysis of today's left-wing mindset”
Psychiatrist: Trump Derangement Syndrome is real – and serious - WND - WND
where is all of Scully‘s friends? he clearly has severe mental illness and no one is doing anything to help him? Nice set of friends.... or probably doesn’t even have any due to his mental illness.
“Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr., M.D., offers stunning new analysis of today's left-wing mindset”
Psychiatrist: Trump Derangement Syndrome is real – and serious - WND - WND
where is all of Scully‘s friends? he clearly has severe mental illness and no one is doing anything to help him? Nice set of friends.... or probably doesn’t even have any due to his mental illness.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis resigned from the Trump administration Thursday, saying the president deserved someone atop the Pentagon who is “better aligned” with his views.
The retired Marine Corps general’s surprise resignation came a day after President Trump overruled his advisers, including Mattis, and shocked American allies by announcing he would be withdrawing American troops from Syria. Trump declared victory over the Islamic State, even though the Pentagon and State Department for months have been saying the fight against the group in Syria isn’t over.
...
The Pentagon released the letter moments after Trump announced on Twitter that Mattis would be leaving, saying the retired general would “retire.” Trump’s tweet made no mention of the fact that the Pentagon chief was leaving over his differences with the president.
Goebbels ...
tRump Turncoats Traitors ...
President Trump began Thursday under siege, listening to howls of indignation from conservatives over his border wall and thrusting the government toward a shutdown. He ended it by announcing the exit of the man U.S. allies see as the last guardrail against the president’s erratic behavior: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, whose resignation letter was a scathing rebuke of Trump’s worldview.
At perhaps the most fragile moment of his presidency — and vulnerable to convulsions on the political right — Trump single-handedly propelled the U.S. government into crisis and sent markets tumbling with his gambits this week to salvage signature campaign promises.
The president’s decisions and conduct have led to a fracturing of Trump’s coalition. Hawks condemned his sudden decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Conservatives called him a “gutless president” and questioned whether he would ever build a wall. Political friends began privately questioning whether Trump needed to be reined in.
After campaigning on shrinking America’s footprint in overseas wars, Trump abruptly declared Wednesday that he was withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria, a move Mattis and other advisers counseled against. And officials said Thursday that Trump is preparing to send thousands of troops home from Afghanistan, as well.
The president also issued an ultimatum to Congress to fund construction of his promised U.S.-Mexico border wall, a move poised to result in a government shutdown just before Christmas. Trump and his aides had signaled tacit support for a short-term spending compromise that would avert the shutdown, but the president abruptly changed course after absorbing a deluge of criticism from some of his most high-profile loyalists.
Leon Panetta, who served as defense secretary, CIA director and White House chief of staff for Democratic presidents, said, “We’re in a constant state of chaos right now in this country.” He added, “While it may satisfy [Trump’s] need for attention, it’s raising hell with the country.”
Panetta said the resignation of Mattis is a singular moment and that his letter, which underscores how Mattis sees Trump’s approach as misguided, “puts the security of the nation right now at some degree of risk.”
Trump has been isolated in bunker mode in recent weeks as political and personal crises mount, according to interviews with 27 current and former White House officials, Republican lawmakers, and outside advisers to the president, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer candid assessments.
“There’s going to be an intervention,” one former senior administration official said speculatively. “Jim Mattis just sent a shot across the bow. He’s the most credible member of the administration by five grades of magnitude. He’s the steady, safe set of hands. And this letter is brutal. He quit because of the madness.”
It made me realize something has been missing from every analysis of the indictment question I’ve seen: whether you can indict a sitting President’s eponymous corporate entities. Under Dellinger’s analysis, you’d have to include the Trump Organization in any conspiracy involving a Trump Tower in Moscow — it was the entity that signed the Letter of Intent, would be the entity that would obtain funding, and would be the entity that would profit.
But the Trump Organization did not get elected the President of the United States (and while the claims are thin fictions, Trump has claimed to separate himself from the Organization and Foundation). So none of the Constitutional claims about indicting a sitting President, it seems to me, would apply.
If I’m right, there are a whole slew of implications, starting with the fact that (as I laid out on a Twitter rant this morning), it utterly changes the calculation Nixon faced as the walls started crumbling. Nixon could (and had the historical wisdom to) trade a pardon to avoid an impeachment fight; he didn’t save his presidency, but he salvaged his natural person. With Trump, a pardon won’t go far enough: he may well be facing the criminal indictment and possible financial ruin of his corporate person, and that would take a far different legal arrangement (such as a settlement or Deferred Prosecution Agreement) to salvage. Now throw in Trump’s narcissism, in which his own identity is inextricably linked to that of his brand. And, even beyond any difference in temperament between Nixon and Trump, there’s no telling what he’d do if his corporate self were also cornered.
In other words, Trump might not be able to take the Nixon — resign for a pardon — deal, because that may not be enough to save his corporate personhood.
For virtually every other legal situation, it seems to me, existing in both natural and corporate form offers protection that can save both. But if you’re the President of the United States, simultaneously existing — and criminally conspiring — in corporate form may create all sorts of additional exposure any normal President would normally be protected from.
Update, 12/9: I’ve changed the title of this post, in part because comments here and on Twitter have convinced me that Mike Pence could pardon Trump Organization. The central point — that Trump seems to be ignoring the risk to his eponymous businesses — remains.
While it appears the Southern District is assembling a powerful criminal case against Trump, one of the targets for prosecution may be not the president himself, but the Trump Organization.
A stubborn obstacle stands in the way of presenting a case against the president in court. A memorandum, written in the fall of 1973 by attorneys at the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel amid the Watergate scandal concluded that constitutional principles forbid indicting or criminally prosecuting a sitting president for federal crimes. That conclusion was reaffirmed in 2000 and amounts to a Justice Department-wide policy against bringing criminal charges against the president.
Even though the Manhattan-based division is often cheekily referred to as the “Sovereign District of New York,” former prosecutors who worked there agreed that its vaunted independence would not extend to disregarding the Office of Legal Counsel’s written guidance on indicting and prosecuting the president.
“There’s no question that, as long as the [Office of Legal Counsel] memo is in place, they’re going to follow that,” said Rocah. “Even the ‘Sovereign District’ is not going to just ignore that.”
