Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

When the "leg tingler" gives up the fake news russian fable, it's over
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Donald Trump has told Theresa May in a phone call he does not want to go ahead with a state visit to Britain until the British public supports him coming.

The US president said he did not want to come if there were large-scale protests and his remarks in effect put the visit on hold for some time.

The call was made in recent weeks, according to a Downing Street adviser who was in the room. The statement surprised May, according to those present.

The conversation in part explains why there has been little public discussion about a visit.
 
[Seriously ... Socio/Psychopathic Liar Trump ...]



Even though his prepared statement had been released and read by millions of Americans a day earlier, former FBI Director James B. Comey’s testimony Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee was sensational, riveting and sickening.

Not only did Comey, as expected, say that President Trump repeatedly demanded his “loyalty” and beseeched him to abandon an investigation of former National Security Advisor http://www.latimes.com/topic/unrest-conflicts-war/defense/michael-flynn-PEGPF00206-topic.html. He also told the committee that he made detailed notes of their conversations because he was “honestly concerned that [Trump] might lie” about it later. And he said he concluded that he was fired because of the FBI’s investigation of possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. The administration’s alternative explanations — including that the FBI was in disarray and was being poorly led — were, he said, “lies, plain and simple.”

Comey’s performance was believable and deeply troubling, as he responded calmly and confidently to questions from members of the committee, including Republicans who acted more as defense counsel for Trump than as impartial investigators. Sen. James Risch of Idaho, for instance, tried to dismiss Comey’s claim that Trump had told him, in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office, that “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” Risch said: “He didn’t direct you to drop the case,” to which Comey replied, “Not in those words [but] I took it as a direction.” Given the context — the president of the United States leaning on a subordinate in a room from which everyone else has been dismissed — who wouldn’t?

Marc Kasowitz, a lawyer for Trump, contradicted Comey’s assertions, saying the president had never sought a loyalty pledge from the director or tried to stop the investigation of Flynn. That strikes us, frankly, as far-fetched. Kasowitz also noted — correctly — that Comey had confirmed that he privately had told Trump at various times that he himself wasn’t then under investigation by the FBI as part of its Russia probe.

The problem for Trump is that Comey is an experienced public servant with a reputation for rectitude, while Trump is a serial prevaricator whose campaign is currently being investigated not only by two congressional committees but by a special counsel whose mandate could be expanded to include the circumstances of Comey’s dismissal. Trump shouldn’t be surprised that he’s the one with the credibility problem.
 
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CREW and its co-plaintiffs argue that the president stands in clear violation of the Constitution’s “emolument’s clause,” a provision stipulating that no federal official “shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” In plain English, does Trump’s sprawling business empire benefit directly from commercial agreements with foreign governments or entities chartered by or representing foreign governments? And if so, is he in violation of the Constitution?

Trump’s lawyers believe that the question itself is silly, for surely the founding fathers confronted similar dilemmas. And if they were in violation of the very document that they authored, the Justice Department’s lawyers write, “surely someone would have raised concerns about whether foreign governments or government-owned corporations may have been among the customers of the farm and other products regularly exported by early Presidents. Yet, there is no evidence of these Presidents taking any steps to ensure that they were not transacting business with a foreign or domestic government instrumentality.”

Legal consideration aside, the DOJ’s motion is sorely deficient in its use of history. The question isn’t whether James Madison sold crops to a foreign state entity. (We don’t know.) Rather, it’s why the founders bothered to draft the emoluments clause in the first place, and what ideological worldview guided their thinking. The answer isn’t one that the current president or his lawyers would welcome.

The Emoluments Clause reflected common republican (small ‘r’) wisdom. The founders believed that the new nation should be governed by men who enjoyed sufficient economic wherewithal to place the common good above private, pecuniary concerns. They valued disinterestedness, virtue and independence and feared the day that someone beholden to a foreign or domestic economic power might hold high office.

The Emoluments Clause was a product of the founders’ shared republican ideology. And Donald Trump is the eventuality they feared above all.
 
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