I do update the Mueller investigation news several times a week it seems, but it's important to remember that, as The Atlantic's Peter Beinart reminds us, Trump will never be impeached by a Republican-led Congress and even if Democrats have the votes to do so in 2018, he'll never be removed from office by the Senate GOP.
Now that Michael Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I., and agreed to dish on his former boss, some Trump-watchers are suggesting that impeachment may be around the corner. “It’s time to start talking about impeachment,” announced a Saturday column on CNN.com. The Flynn deal, declared former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Harry Litman in Friday’s New York Times, “portends the likelihood of impeachable charges being brought against the president of the United States.”
That may be true. But bringing impeachment charges against Trump, and actually forcing him from office, are two vastly different things. And while the former may be more likely today than it was half a year ago, the latter is actually less likely. Since Robert Mueller became special counsel in May, the chances of the House of Representatives passing articles of impeachment—and the Senate ratifying them—have probably gone down.
That’s because impeachment is less a legal process than a political one. Passing articles of impeachment requires a majority of the House. Were such a vote held today—even if every Democrat voted yes—it would still require 22 Republicans. If Democrats take the House next fall, they could then pass articles of impeachment on their own. But ratifying those articles would require two-thirds of the Senate, which would probably require at least 15 Republican votes.
That kind of mass Republican defection has grown harder, not easier, to imagine. It’s grown harder because the last six months have demonstrated that GOP voters will stick with Trump despite his lunacy, and punish those Republican politicians who do not.
Among Republicans, Trump’s approval rating has held remarkably steady. The week Mueller was named, according to Gallup, Trump’s GOP support stood at 84 percent. In the days after Donald Trump Jr. was revealed to have written, “I love it” in response to a Russian offer of dirt on Hillary Clinton, it reached 87 percent. In Gallup’s last poll, taken in late November, it was 81 percent. Trump’s approval rating among Republicans has not dipped below 79 percent since he took office. None of the revelations from Mueller’s investigation—nor any of the other outrageous things Trump has done—has significantly undermined his support among the GOP rank and file.
Beinert goes on to note Clinton survived impeachment because Democratic voters supported him in 1999 at Trump-like levels. He finished out his second term yes, but then Dubya won the all-important Supreme Court vote and the rest, as they say, is history.
Donald Trump will most likely make it to 2020. He'll run in 2020 too, hell he's running for 2020 now. Whether or not he wins, well, that's up to America, and whether we can overcome massive GOP voter suppression tactics and apathy and not die in a nuclear war with Pyongyang or whatever.
But he won't be impeached or removed from office. Mueller may make his life miserable but there's nothing to make me think Republican voters will turn on Trump when, not if, he makes his move on Mueller.
Yes, the White House is crippled by paranoia and Trump essentially has the worst lawyers ever because they took on the worst client on earth, but the cynic's view is correct here. This is 100% political now, the legality and morality of Trump's actions no longer apply.
President Trump's outside lawyer said in a new interview that a president can't obstruct justice.
The "President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution's Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case," attorney John Dowd told Axios.
His comments come after Trump in a tweet over the weekend appeared to reveal he knew former national security adviser Michael Flynn had lied to the FBI when he was fired.
"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies," Trump tweeted on Saturday.
"It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!"
The tweet spurred controversy, as legal experts suggested if Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI and then asked Comey to drop the investigation, it could amount to obstruction of justice.
Mueller's investigation is still important, but only politics can remove Trump, and he'll have the support of 90%+ of Republicans regardless of what happens. Don't fool yourself into thinking otherwise. We're well past the "alleged" part of collusion and obstruction of justice now.
The White House's chief lawyer told President Donald Trump in January he believed then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled the FBI and lied to Vice President Mike Pence and should be fired, a source familiar with the matter said Monday.
The description of the conversation raises new questions about what Trump knew about Flynn's situation when he urged then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn and whether anyone in the White House, including the President himself, attempted to obstruct justice. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians, a probe led by Comey until Trump fired him.
White House counsel Donald McGahn told Trump that based on his conversation with then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates, he believed Flynn had not told the truth in his interview with the FBI or to Pence, the source said. McGahn did not tell the President that Flynn had violated the law in his FBI interview or was under criminal investigation, the source said.
Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI because McGahn told him, Trump then fired Sally Yates and James Comey in order to try to cover up for Flynn. There's no longer any doubt now. The law no longer matters where we're going.
Yes, the Trump regime is looking more a more like the Nixon administration daily, but Nixon resigned solely due to political pressure. Maybe that pressure can be brought to bear, but as I've been saying for months now, that would depend on the same Republicans who have been supporting Trump for years now, and even if they went along Republican voters won't believe any of the charges against him anyhow.
Oh, and if Obama had ever said that the "President cannot obstruct justice" he would have been impeached the next day and removed from office by the end of the week.
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