[Chloé Palmas]

Meh he also said that he had no clue about Hillary's server while he had corresponded messages with her about information he later deemed to be retrospectively classified, to her e-mail address at her domain. Either wreaks of incompetence or he is a liar.

The Strzok / Page affair was one thing (I suppose inter-office relationship ethics are something that I have no desire to get into) but yeah, their texts could have screwed up the entire counsel due to stupidity due to their nature.

---------- Post added at 03:07 ---------- Previous post was at 03:04 ----------

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

That would be my summary of this whole episode. I think he just seems to be acting very below par at the moment.

You would be surprised - my theory is that one day Rudy is going to turn around and tell Trump "sorry I made you squirm / everything worse, but when I said that I wanted to be Secretary of State..."

---------- Post added at 03:14 ---------- Previous post was at 03:07 ----------

Originally Posted by Hugh

But to be given a Presidential Pardon, someone has to have been found guilty of a Federal crime, so the only time Trump could pardon himself would be if he had been found guilty of a Federal crime...

More to the problem (for Trump) though here, is that Rudy has all but ruled out any other way for holding Trump to account other than Impeachment, at which point pardoning is thrown out of the window.

If he is acquitted (by being impeached and then put on trial by the Senate) then he does not need to pardon himself (unless like with Clinton he is later prosecuted once leaving office as DJ does not apply) and if he is convicted, then he would expelled from office (as punishment) and would no longer have the power to pardon himself.

He can't do it through the period / tenure of the trial or process of articles being filed / impeachment hearings. OOLC have said in the past that it would warrant a secondary wrap of OOJ charges almost instantaneously.

Rudy has all but guaranteed that Trump can not even claim to pardon his way out of this, by (correctly) asserting that he cannot be charged with a crime while sitting as President.

With friends like Rudy who needs.....(you get the idea).

---------- Post added at 04:49 ---------- Previous post was at 03:14 ----------

Originally Posted by Damien

Mueller himself is a Republican who was appointed by another Republican after the collapse of the FBI investigation heading by another Republican.

Yup, with a Republican President / AG etc. This is all Republican through and through and even though some are the staff lower down are Democrats they all answer to Republicans. This though, has its pitfalls and unfortunately falls into Trump's narrative. (Will get to that below).

Party affiliation in the US is a lot looser than it is here too. Just because someone is a registered Democrat or Republican doesn't mean they're uncontrollably partisan.

That also (imo) speaks the preposterous nature of British stiff upper lipped nonsense. Just because someone is a member of the LP does not mean that as a judge he or she cannot independently look at case law or a case at all, involving a corporate dispute with workers.

Britain is horrible at this - female nurses for female patients (upon request) - as if every guy is some kind of pervert first, medical practitioner second. The comfort of one cannot be at the discrimination of another.

Do you remember the case where a police officer was marched out of his station and suspended following revelations that his name appeared on a BNP mailing list? He lost his badge and the whole thing was over an accident but even if he was actually on the list (which he wasn't) the BNP was not outlawed as a party so if he chose to become a member I am not sure what stopped him.

All female candidate selection committees...just today PwC are announcing that all male boards are coming to an end. Not that they only recruit male candidates but women need to become quotas, to sit on the board. What a joke.

The reason that this is different in the US per voting stipulations is that you have to be registered to vote. That means that in order to vote you need to rely on registering with a major party - that does all the leg work for you.

Then again, they don't have the government regulating every part of their life for you the way they take care of everything for you here - even getting you to the ballot box, registration, etc etc. It is dreadful - ethics and oversight is done with integrity there. So if anyone saw a need to recuse (like McCabe), they would.

So take the Supremes. We would rely on them to adjudicate the most important cases, yet we can't trust them to recuse if there is a conflict of interest?

Most of the country is not like that. The paranoid mindset of Trump and his supporters, a mindset that divides the world into good (Republican) and evil (Democrat), blinds them to that fact.

Even more so, if any single Republican is opposed to him the person in question is just a "RINO" / member of the establishment / media darling, etc etc.

And then they will turn on their own guy and it will border on the preposterous (if he or she doesn't do as he or she is supposed to, or win). So we all know what happened to Sessions (and how he was treated, post recusal) but look at the race to succeed him.

Strange was their guy all the way through, then Trump deleted any mention of the guy - was backing Moore all the way (after Moore shattered him in the primary).

Then, Moore got allegation after allegation thrown his way (mostly involving sexual assault / predatory action on minors) and everything under the sun was "fake news" according to Trump's team.

Then, when he lost and on election night (yes, they lost Alabama) what did the pathetic apologists he had in the media do? (Everyone from Hannity to Ingraham to Calson etc)...they all said that he was never really a good pick / not really Trump's choice, etc etc. It is like full circle - from start to finish.

Nothing sums that up more than the fact whenever he meets any opposition from the institutions that are meant to act as a check against the executive that it's construed as illegitimate and sinister. All opposition to Trump is somehow corrupt it seems, any investigation into his allies should be stopped.

It's the language of tinpot dictators: Lock up the rivals, pardon the allies.

Oh it is worse...even among his supporters, the only time he is happy with anyone is if they do exactly what he says, when he says it, and to whom. If they deviate even the slightest, then they're not good enough for him - look at the way that he berates his own cabinet members. His own staff, his own nominee for the high court. He even boasts about how he likes a fight club mentality.

Heck, he denigrated the mother of a fallen servicemen, got Kelly to defend him and invoke Kelly's own dead son, then turned on Kelly (after he got Kelly to fire Tillerson and tell everyone Rex was on the toilet at the time)...why do people keep licking this guy's feet???

Yours was an outstanding post btw, -mod edit- - hope my rant wasn't too painful to read.