OK, This is Now Officially a Legitimate Sh%$ Storm

TheNew York Post states the obvious.^*

OK, so now we know that in June of last year, Donald Trump, Jr., aka "Fredo", was setting up a meeting with a Russian lawyer at the request of a publicist for a Russian to get dirt on Hillary Clinton. (Yes, this is profoundly weird and f%$#ed up)

This is now a big deal, not because this was necessarily a crime, I find the claims of a violation of Section 30121 of Title 52 to be a stretch in the world of Citizens United, but because we now have evidence of a conspiracy and a coverup.

It was a conspiracy to obstruct justice that took down Richard Nixon, after all.

I don't think that this is the most impeachable thing that Trump has done (that will be a later post), but this has a potential to hamstring the Trump administration, particularly if the Democrats take back the House and Senate in 2018.

The underlying crime here is still a violation of campaign finance law, not espionage, not treason^† or some similar heinous crimes.

From a political perspective, I do not think that this is a good thing for the Democratic Party.

This provides yet another opportunity for the Dems to miss the opportunity to reform, and ditch the incompetent and clueless deadwood that populate the party's professional consultant class.

As opposed to a movement toward some sort of ideological coherence, the national Democratic Party will remain in, "A noun, a verb, and Vladimir Putin," mode, which I do not believe will resonate with voters.

If hostility toward Russia were a political winner nationwide, Hillary Clinton would be President now.

My guess is that right now, Republicans will slow walk any investigation, saying that they need to wait for Special Prosecutor Muller's report.

I expect months of overwrought press coverage over this, because this is a classic example of catnip for reporters.

^*I cannot f%$#ing believe that I am f%$#ing citing the f%$#ing New York f%$#ing Post.
^†It was never treason. Treason is specifically defined in the US Constitution because of at least a millennia of abuse in Europe, and this does not meet that very specific definition.^‡
‡That being said, Nixon's sabotage of Vietnam peace talks in 1968, and Reagan and Poppy Bush's deal with Iran to keep the hostages held in Iran in 1980 might meet the statutory requirements of Article 3, Section 3 of the Constitution.

OK, This is a Big F%$#ing Deal

It appears that following his meeting with Donald Trump, James Comey wrote a memo describing the meeting, and in this memo he makes it clear that Donald Trump applied pressure to get him to drop the investigation on Russian coordination^* with the Trump campaign.

Assuming that an actual copy of the memo is made available, and the recipients are willing to testify as to the timing of the memo, then this is more than sufficient justification to open up an investigation against Donald Trump for obstruction of justice:

President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

The documentation of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia. Late Tuesday, Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, demanded that the F.B.I. turn over all “memoranda, notes, summaries and recordings” of discussions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Comey.

Such documents, Mr. Chaffetz wrote, would “raise questions as to whether the president attempted to influence or impede” the F.B.I.

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. It was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation. An F.B.I. agent’s contemporaneous notes are widely held up in court as credible evidence of conversations.

Mr. Comey shared the existence of the memo with senior F.B.I. officials and close associates. The New York Times has not viewed a copy of the memo, which is unclassified, but one of Mr. Comey’s associates read parts of it to a Times reporter.

………

In a statement, the White House denied the version of events in the memo.

“While the president has repeatedly expressed his view that General Flynn is a decent man who served and protected our country, the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn,” the statement said. “The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations. This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”

………

Mr. Comey created similar memos — including some that are classified — about every phone call and meeting he had with the president, the two people said. It is unclear whether Mr. Comey told the Justice Department about the conversation or his memos.

There is a part of me that is hoping that this meeting was actually taped.

There is another part of me who fearss that Mike Pence is way worse than the Donald.

That being said, Congressional Republicans value Donald Trump as the proverbial useful idiot, so I do not see any meaningful moves toward impeachment absent a complete electoral debacle in 2018.

^*Note that Comey has been very meticulious about using the term, "coordination," and not, "collusion," the former is a violation of campaign finance laws, while the latter is just sleazy, and so only the former constitutes an underlying crime to which things like conspiracy or obstruction of justice charges can be laid.^†
†But I am an engineer, not a campaign finance lawyer, dammit.^‡
‡I love it when I get to go all Dr. McCoy!

If Republicans Want to Impeach Obama, This Would Be a Good Starting Point

Buried in the report about the CIA hacking the Senate Intelligence Committee computers is a report that the White House approved explicitly approved these actions against congressional oversight:

According to a report by the CIA Inspector General, the White House was informed of the CIA’s plan to hack US Senate computers to discover what was going to be in the Senate Torture Report. CIA Director John Brennan met with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough then ordered CIA employees to “use whatever means necessary” to find out what Senate investigators knew.

Given the White House’s role in the illegal hacking of Senate computers it becomes obvious why the Justice Department headed by President Obama-appointed Attorney General Eric Holder is not likely to bring charges against the CIA – charges against the CIA could lead back to the White House.

The specific content of the conversation between Brennan and McDonough is not disclosed but after the conversation Brennan instructed his subordinates at the CIA to trash the Constitution and engage in espionage activity against the US Senate.

If the Congress can show that Obama knew about this, you have a deliberate attempt to subvert Congressional oversight and the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitutions.

If they go after him on this, it's actually a decent case.

Of course, the most likely he was willfully blind, much as Reagan was with Iran Contra, which most certainly an impeachable offense, even if the Democrats didn't have the stones to go there.

In fact, it could be argued that from a constitutional perspective, spying on the Senate oversight committee is worse.

In any case, it's a lot worse than getting a blow job from an intern.

Same as It Ever Was

Same as it ever was,
same as it ever was,
same as it ever was

Here we go again. The flying monkeys are looking to impeach Barack Obama, with the usual suspects penning an article, titled, "Is it time to whisper the word 'impeachment'?"

They claim that there is a, "The groundswell of calls for the impeachment of Barack Hussein Obama is growing" but those calls are the voices in their head.

This is what happens to people who believe that God has personally anointed them to rule, and I don't think that you could drive Tom Delay's penis between the mental space separating them from Osama bin Laden.