As far as I am concerned, this is game/set/match.
Washington (CNN)- Around the time presidential candidate Donald Trump was touting his real estate dealings at a Republican primary debate, a proposal was in the works to build a Trump Tower in Russia that would have given his company a $4 million upfront fee, no upfront costs, a percentage of the sales, and control over marketing and design. And that’s not all: the deal included the opportunity to name the hotel spa after his daughter Ivanka.
An internal Trump Organization document from October 2015, obtained by CNN on Thursday, reveals the details of a 17-page letter of intent that set the stage for Trump’s attorney to negotiate a promising branding venture for Trump condominiums, a hotel and commercial property in the heart of Moscow. Trump signed the document later that month, according to Michael Cohen, his corporate attorney at the time. The document CNN obtained does not have Trump’s signature because it is a copy of the deal that Cohen brought to Trump to sign.
Cohen pulled out of the arrangement three months later as the project failed to get off the ground.
Trump did not mention during the presidential campaign that his company explored the business deal in Russia. Instead, he insisted that he had “nothing to do with Russia.” Even when talking about his past dealings with Russians — like the Miss Universe pageant he held in Moscow in 2013 — Trump never referred to the prospective licensing deal that fell through a few weeks before the Iowa caucuses.
While the potential Russian deal was still on the table, Trump was speaking positively about working with Russian President Vladimir Putin and also minimized Russia’s aggressive military moves around the world. His willingness to accept narratives favored by the Kremlin contrasted with not only the Obama administration but also his Republican opponents.
As just a simple matter of whether Trump can be entrusted with our foreign policy, the answer is a clear ‘no.’
We can look for evidence of collusion, but that’s unnecessary to make the point. Trump was suspected of having undisclosed commercial interests in Russia that explained his policies and he could not have lied about it in a more brazen fashion.
What’s really left to discuss?
I guess I’m not convinced that any evidence of wrongdoing by Trump and his family and associates will make a difference. Mueller can add this to his pile of incriminations, but there are twenty lawyers burning midnight oil to cover Trump’s sizable ass on anything that comes up.
Those of us who have loathed Trump since the beginning have had our hopes dashed too many times. Trump will serve a full term as President and probably try to run again. What’s sickening is that he’d get votes.
I am always hopeful that the second shoe will drop and finally there will be something so big that Trumps goes down, but so far that hasn’t happened. As always, fingers crossed for justice, but not betting on it.
Correct.
The lawyers, the facts, common decency won’t get Trump, the Republican base won’t stand for it, consequently the House and Senate won’t do a thing.
He’s already done every evil thing a rich person can do without going to jail. There’s no straw to break the camel’s back. The camel has already been pulverized by several I-beams dropped on it from great height. Then shot and put through a meat grinder.
Frankly, anyone who thinks the Clinton foundation was corrupt without any evidence is certainly not going to be swayed by Trump corruption anyway.
The GOP, as a party, has largely come to fully embrace Southern autocracy. More to the point, the billionaires that largely fund the party are quite sympathetic to the kind of oligarchical authoritarianism that Putin so flagrantly represents. So, I would argue that there is no internal, patriotic motivation for the GOP to take umbrage at Trump’s obvious national security conflicts of interest. So, the only other reason to turn against him is if he drives enough Democrats and Indies voters to overcome the expected massive voter suppression and flip the HOR and possibly the Senate next year and also discourage the base from voting in sufficient numbers.
However, even if that didn’t happen, I doubt he’s either mentally or physically healthy enough to last 4 years in this job.
Impeachment/indictment/investigation is controlled by the GOP House, who are in turn held hostage to the goddamned Trump supporting GOP majority, whose numbers prevent them from even speaking out against him — and have basically threatened armed insurrection if Trump is imperiled. I think we’ll probably be at this same excruciatingly slow standstill for some time yet.
However I don’t accept the false logic that claims that every apparent soon-to-be Trump collapse won’t happen because none of the previously predicted ones happened. I think that’s false logic — a distorted version of the “hot hand theory” I shamelessly cribbed from The Big Short.
. . . Trump “could not have lied about it in a more brazen fashion”, but did, with impunity, that the operative question has to be: Why would this one be the one he doesn’t get away with?
I mean, I agree with you on the merits, but the merits haven’t seemed to get us much of anywhere so far. (On the merits, we’d have taken robust action to address the causes of climate change starting decades ago. On the merits, Trump’s bid for the Presidency would have been laughed out of existence.) How/why does this lie change that dynamic?
Astounding to look at this and recognize that indeed we are now living in a world where normalizing Trump’s behavior has borne fruit. We’re now looking around at the massive amounts of breaking not just the spirit of our laws but the laws themselves and the premise of the Constitution and saying to ourselves, ‘is this enough?’.
Ah but remember for a lot of folks, the answer is that it doesnt bother them.
“What’s really left to discuss?” Not much. But then, there hasn’t really been much left to discuss since before the election.
“Is this enough?” No. In fact it really doesn’t change anything. The people who have the means to remove Trump from office still lack the motivation. The people who have the motivation to remove Trump from office still lack the means.
The theory behind the endless fascination with Mueller’s investigation is that it will provide enough political cover that a sufficient number of the former group join up with the latter to change the balance between the two. Maybe it will — at any rate there’s no way to prove any contention for or against that theory so we might as well let it play out. It’s not as though we had a choice.
“Is nothing changing then? Should we just give up?” No. A lot of things are changing. The far right almost pulled off a stunning success with the Charlottesville demonstrations but — entirely because of their own stupidity and lack of discipline — they ended up isolating and marginalizing themselves when one of their people killed Heather Heyer and injured 19 other people. Heather did not die in vain. Trump had no choice other than to equivocate in his condemnation of the fascists — they’re the last and the only reliable friends he’s got — but now his showpiece corporate councils are in disarray, the military brass is walking away from him, he’s at war with the Republicans in Congress — and cutting deals with the Democrats serves his interests in the short run but it strengthens the Republicans’ intransigence in the long run. In the past month he has isolated himself politically and pardoning Arpaio (who has no support outside of the most reactionary elements of his base) and throwing the Dreamers (who have broad, if not deep, support everywhere outside of the most reactionary elements of his base) will not help. He’s consolidating his support but he’s not expanding it.
In no way is this new revelation game, set, or match insofar as proving that Trump is corrupt. Of course he’s corrupt. He’s just as corrupt today as he was yesterday as he will be tomorrow, but establishing that means nothing. Our political institutions and both of our major political parties are so broken that he will get a pass on his corruption. He may ultimately be so isolated and weakened that he can be neutralized and elected out of office but waiting and hoping for a deus ex machina will not help us.
. . . ex machina . . .
. . . where has Davis been lately, anyway?
Been in and out of hospital.
Cellphones aren’t really substitutes for laptops.
Been following read-only. Not much else to do, really. Kindle, Audible, Twitter, teeny-tiny Firefox, in an endless loop.
But not much writing: big hands, tiny touch-keys, no good.
Back home though, and back on the MacBook now.
Damn. Hope the worst of the medical stuff is behind you, and that you’ll have a speedy recovery. Take care of yourself!
Hope things are okay, or at least improving. Take care of yourself.
Thanks for the expressions of concern. I’m getting better a day at a time… and vastly improved on a month ago.
Good to see you back. This place is not the same without you.
Glad to see you back. Stay well.
VidaLoca-Excellent!!!
Only one small suggestion…
You write:
Perhaps it would be a little more accurate to say that:
They refuse to bite the kind of hand that feeds them.
So it goes.
Later…
AG
We can’t accomplish it. I seriously doubt that even if Mueller comes up with really damning evidence of felonies clearly and personally committed by Trump himself there could ever be any consequences.
Nixon would never have been impeached if there hadn’t been the tapes. It was there in his own voice saying things that flatly contradicted every lie he’d told for years. There’s nothing like that with Trump – outside of the control of Vladimir Putin that is.
So, we’re stuck with Trump for the next 3 years. The question is What Do We Do With This Opportunity? An opportunity to organize, an opportunity to rouse people from their lethargy, and start things moving in our direction for a change.
If we’re the future and they’re the past, it’s well past time to start moving towards that future. And of course Trump gives us a perfect chance to do just that. The motivation and the opportunity don’t come around that often. It’d be a shame to fumble that chance.
But if you (“we”) are the future and the Democratic Party is…and remains…the past?
Then what?
The question of the year.
“We” have about one year to answer it, if that long. After that? Too late to mount a real progressive campaign. Same old same old, all over again. Groundhog Day, 2020. Center left against Center right. Where do you end up after all is said and done? In the center, of course.
Unless of course Trump manages to shatter the center before 2020.
That’s his aim, you know.
Bet on it.
Just asking…
I have no answers, these days.
Just questions.
Later…
AG
What are you even talking about? Does it look like Trump is winning to you? He’s sharpening the contrast between what we want and what we don’t want. People see him in the White House and decide “that is not what I want in my president.”
He’s destroying the Republican party. Notice they are now utterly unable to govern? Everytime he does something nuts like move to eliminate DACA or praise the Nazis, and his popularity goes down more.
The wheels are already off this particular wagon and it’s careening out of control. Now that’s a scary time, but it’s also a time of maximum opportunity.
Just 2 years ago serious thinkers were wondering: “did Obama miss a generational chance in 2008 to go for a second New Deal?” Etc. Forget whether you believe he did or didn’t. Here is certainly another such chance.
Either 1) Trump is going to win and crush all dissent and the U.S. becomes like Russia under Putin (unlikely) or else 2) we win, and Trump ends up destroying and dividing the right wing off from everybody else.
So far absolutely everything has pointed towards 2). GOP insiders are becoming more and more grim looking at their future and are talking about it to sympathetic reporters, which accounts for the recent reports in the press.
I hope that you are right.
I really do.
But that recent move to the Dems for support?
Split your opposition. Play one against the other until you win.
Watch.
The Dems and RatPubs are now equally venal and equally corrupt. What separates them?
Style, mostly.
Style and identity politics…now pretty much identical to constituency.
The Dems have their constituency, the Rats have theirs and now…for the very first time in my own politically aware life…a single person has his constituency, one that is roughly equal in size and power to the two previous two blocs. He stole from both and simultaneously reached a third, a whole new group…many of the undecideds, the ones who thought both parties were full of shit and had thus stepped away from political life, including voting.
Now?
Now he is in the process of shaming both parties even more. He is pitting them against one another in any way possible so that when the right moment arrives…a crisis of some kind, whether created by outside influences, ginned up by Trump or some unholy combination of those two possibilities…he can strike.
Watch.
AG
Great picture. I can just see Trump enjoying all the clothes, jewels, and splendor of Court. And saying “It’s good to be the King”.
Shit. Does this mean it’s not all a CIA-MI 6 fabrication designed to swing the election to Hillary?
Good to have you back!
That’s the Davis I’ve missed! Welcome back.
The problem is not just the politicians it is the average citizen that lives here in the USA. See they have forgotten that this country was founded by a revolution. Freedom and honest rule by our politicians has to have checks and balances.
The major component missing in this government is the populace balance. When the time comes that the politicians will not follow the US Constitution and the American people do not act themselves to protect the US Constitution.Then the US Constitution has been allowed to be turned into nothing more then toilet paper by the inaction of those it was designed to protect. That is when you see the end of this form of government via inaction.
Why should any of our political parties follow the US Constitution when they are not held accountable by the people?
The right policy approach for the wrong reasons — and the business deal angle is not exactly a shocking surprise. Still, it looks like he did nothing illegal, though he did outright lie to the public about his ongoing dealings in Russia. And I doubt if there is any compromising info that could have been used against him, other than the Russkies disclosing the business initiative during the campaign to expose him as a liar, which they declined to do, consistent with their position not to get involved in our own political affairs, a position which as yet is unrebutted by actual evidence.
Typical New Coldwarrior rhetoric from CNN, home of Wolf “I’m Just a Shill for Israel” Blitzer and Jack “Where Can We Invade Next” Taper. When Russia acts, or rather reacts, even in their own backyard to rationally protect its own security interests, it’s “aggressive”. When we act, thousands of miles from our shores, it’s to protect innocent lives/get rid of a bad guy dictator/promote regional stability. Simple and effective propaganda for most.
Strange you talk about propaganda but you still shill for the Russian and Syrian states. Speaking of, care to comment on the latest from the UN regarding Syrian chemical weapons attacks? That’s what’s so absurd about your entire point of view. It’s not analysis, it’s bullshit whataboutism.
Sounds like you are eager for another US-engineered regime change venture. Syria next. Then Russia? Or should we do Iran after Syria?
As for shilling, unlike you and your buds in the warmongering MSM, I try to find the real facts, not those the regime changers and their media allies spoon feed a gullible public.
As for the UN, it appears the Deep Staters have worked their magic in recent times to put their assets and friendlies in place to ensure outcomes they prefer, as per this recent piece by Rbt Parry at ConsortiumNews.