When do you think Trumpeachment will happen?

Aresen · Post by **Aresen** » 02 Mar 2017, 13:57

From the Orange is the New President Thread:

thoreau wrote:If you ask me whether I want Clarke or Arpaio to take office as a fully-empowered AG in a situation where DC will give him the usual mix of deference and scrutiny that an AG gets, my answer is "Hellztothefuckno!!!!!" I mean, is either of them even an attorney?

But ask me what I think of them coming into office after the removal of Jeff Sessions, facing even more scrutiny, getting removed when their incompetence gets scandalicious, and further hastening the inevitable impeachment of Czar Donaldik Fyodorovich. My answer to that question is "OH YELL YES PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!!!!!"

I do not think Trump will be impeached and convicted. Nor do I want it to happen, because his fans will turn it into another grievance over the "librul konspiracy against 'Murica". I want him voted out in 2020.

TBS, if Trump is impeached, when do you expect it?

thoreau · Post by **thoreau** » 02 Mar 2017, 14:00

I'm not convinced that he'll be impeached, but if he's impeached by a Republican House he will be convicted by a Republican Senate. The Russia stuff and the conflicts of interest are serious shit.

Mo · Post by Mo » 02 Mar 2017, 14:25

thoreau wrote:I'm not convinced that he'll be impeached, but if he's impeached by a Republican House he will be convicted by a Republican Senate. The Russia stuff and the conflicts of interest are serious shit.

I disagree. The only way it happens is if 2018 is a mirror of 2010. Then guys up for reelection in 2020 will want to tear the band-aid off. If guys like Nunes and Chaffetz get smoked despite being in safe seats, the writing is on the wall.

JasonL · Post by **JasonL** » 02 Mar 2017, 14:25

Will not unless something new happens. I don't think they are going to get him on conflicts of interest and I don't know what the evidence is on Russia. There is 10X more speculation than actual stuff so far.

Kolohe · Post by **Kolohe** » 02 Mar 2017, 14:35

Will not unless the Dems take the House and Senate in 2018, and then still an uphill fight due to the the 2/3 rule for conviction. (as it is the maximum number of Senate seats that could flip is 8, so your still looking at 13 GOP votes for conviction. And all 8 aren't going to flip, no matter what Donald does)

Warren · Post by **Warren** » 02 Mar 2017, 14:37

Cosign not on anything we know about at this time. But I think it's a crapshoot on at some point in the future he's cleaning his gun and it just goes off.

thoreau · Post by **thoreau** » 02 Mar 2017, 14:39

JasonL wrote:Will not unless something new happens. I don't think they are going to get him on conflicts of interest and I don't know what the evidence is on Russia. There is 10X more speculation than actual stuff so far.

The NYT reported that European intelligence agencies are investigating the Russian ties. The US intelligence agencies seem to want to spill. I get the feeling that if the Russia stuff turns out to be real we won't just be getting what journalists get--accounts from sources, public record digs, etc. We'll be getting hard-core shit that people thought was secret: surveillance reports, recorded phone calls, hacked hard drives, and so forth.

So if it's real I think the evidence will be raw, abundant, and damning. Republicans will vote to convict. If it's not real, at best the story goes away and at worst the US intelligence agencies get some pretty serious purges.

Kolohe · Post by **Kolohe** » 02 Mar 2017, 15:09

this NYT article correct. Like many of the genre, I'm finding it a bit oversold to compared to how people were talking about it on twitter.

For instance-

There was also an effort to pass reports and other sensitive materials to Congress. In one instance, the State Department sent a cache of documents marked “secret” to Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland days before the Jan. 20 inauguration. The documents, detailing Russian efforts to intervene in elections worldwide, were sent in response to a request from Mr. Cardin, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, and were shared with Republicans on the panel.

this is completely unremarkable. first up, 'secret' isn't that big a deal, and the way 'secret' is stored electronically, it's really hard to purge. So I'm extremely doubtful this was an effort to get stuff to a 'safe' location, it's almost certainly a routine request for information (spurred on, to be sure, by all the allegations about the Russians during the election season itself). And note this is 'elections worldwide' which, hey, no shit, Russian interfere with elections worldwide. (the useful and sensitive data is what the Russians are doing to *United States* elections.

Former senior Obama administration officials said that none of the efforts were directed by Mr. Obama.

While nothing in the article can be construed as anything other than 'people doing their jobs until the clock expired, but with vigor, instead of senior slumping', there's still something disquieting about the intel community operating independent of the elected leadership.

Eric the .5b · Post by **Eric the .5b** » 03 Mar 2017, 01:33

I'll be the unreasonably optimistic one.

MJGreen · Post by **MJGreen** » 03 Mar 2017, 11:23

Unless he makes good on shooting someone on 5th Avenue, he won't be impeached by a Republican Congress. I wouldn't bet on the Ds taking Congress in 2018, but even if they did, I expect Trumpism will be normalized enough by then that it would still take a huge violation to start proceedings.

I still cling to the gut feeling that Trump will get bored and walk away before his term is over. I should probably drop that delusion, now that he's getting the hang of it, still gets to angry-tweet, and can always sign some new beautiful executive orders, but I have more hope for that right now than impeachment.

nicole · Post by **nicole** » 03 Mar 2017, 11:24

By my count there are six unreasonably optimistic ones.

nicole · Post by **nicole** » 03 Mar 2017, 11:24

MJGreen wrote:Unless he makes good on shooting someone on 5th Avenue, he won't be impeached by a Republican Congress. I wouldn't bet on the Ds taking Congress in 2018, but even if they did, I expect Trumpism will be normalized enough by then that it would still take a huge violation to start proceedings.

I still cling to the gut feeling that Trump will get bored and walk away before his term is over. I should probably drop that delusion, now that he's getting the hang of it, still gets to angry-tweet, and can always sign some new beautiful executive orders, but I have more hope for that right now than impeachment.

There's also the question of how long a septuagenarian can survive on McDonalds.

Warren · Post by **Warren** » 03 Mar 2017, 11:32

Eric the .5b wrote:I'll be the unreasonably optimistic one.

There's nothing optimistic about getting Trump out of office early. You have to ask "And then what?"

thoreau · Post by **thoreau** » 03 Mar 2017, 16:40

I want to offer a hypothetical:
1) Suppose it came out that a person close to Trump met with a Russian official before election day and made some promises about sanctions or other foreign policy matters.
2) Suppose it also came out that someone in Trump's camp was informed of Russian hacking efforts prior to this meeting.

Would they impeach?

Aresen · Post by **Aresen** » 03 Mar 2017, 16:49

One reason the Dems might resist impeachment is that Trump in office is probably the best motivator of their base that Team Blue can have.

In answer to thoreau's question: I think someone else would take the fall, not Trump.

thoreau · Post by **thoreau** » 03 Mar 2017, 17:17

Aresen wrote:In answer to thoreau's question: I think someone else would take the fall, not Trump.

In most cases somebody else takes the fall. In this case, I think the obvious question in the minds of a lot of powerful people would be "Just how compromised is this White House?" Were I an intelligence official with responsibility for people doing sensitive work in Russia and places that Russia is interested in, I'd wonder how safe my people are. I can see a lot of powerful people wanting a top-to-bottom sweep of the Office of the President and political appointees.

Of course, one option might be a metric shit ton of people resigning "To spend more time with family", Trump remaining as ceremonial head of state, and Pence functioning as de facto head of government with a reshaped Cabinet. So, essentially the current situation except with new faces and an even shorter leash for Trump. No more Jared Kushner or Steve Bannon or other people that he personally likes holding positions of any consequence. He gets to sit in the Oval Office, he gets to sign what's put in front of him, and he gets to go to rallies, but his friends are out, anyone he's liked is out, his interactions with foreign leaders are supervised, and the Cabinet runs the government with supervision from Pence.

But I don't know if you can purge that many grifters without one of them deciding to talk, at which point Trump is impeachable. Unless he resigns first because he doesn't want to sit in the White House if he can't have his cronies with him.

Warren · Post by **Warren** » 03 Mar 2017, 18:23

thoreau wrote:I want to offer a hypothetical:
1) Suppose it came out that a person close to Trump met with a Russian official before election day and made some promises about sanctions or other foreign policy matters.
2) Suppose it also came out that someone in Trump's camp was informed of Russian hacking efforts prior to this meeting.

Would they impeach?

Without a Dem. majority there will be no impeaching period.

With a Dem. majority:
1) No. Everybody already assumes this is true. Nobody really cares.
2) No. Nobody really cares.

You need something new. Something more morally repugnant. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if The Donald supplies just that though.

Mo · Post by Mo » 03 Mar 2017, 23:07

Warren wrote:
thoreau wrote:I want to offer a hypothetical:
1) Suppose it came out that a person close to Trump met with a Russian official before election day and made some promises about sanctions or other foreign policy matters.
2) Suppose it also came out that someone in Trump's camp was informed of Russian hacking efforts prior to this meeting.

Would they impeach?
Without a Dem. majority there will be no impeaching period.

With a Dem. majority:
1) No. Everybody already assumes this is true. Nobody really cares.
2) No. Nobody really cares.

You need something new. Something more morally repugnant. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if The Donald supplies just that though.

I could see something related to his shady mob ties surfacing.

Jennifer · Post by **Jennifer** » 03 Mar 2017, 23:19

At this point, I suspect even the proverbial shooting someone on Fifth Avenue wouldn't cut it -- Trump and the Trumpsters would likely argue that the person he shot was a threat to national security. I think it would have to be something so sleazily over-the-top that even the Trumpsters couldn't handwave it away. Say, if the legendary Russian pee-prostitute videos turned out to be real, and were released, and there was no denying that's Trump in them-thar pictures.

Warren · Post by **Warren** » 03 Mar 2017, 23:21

Jennifer wrote:Say, if the legendary Russian pee-prostitute videos turned out to be real, and were released, and there was no denying that's Trump in them-thar pictures.

So? Why should anyone care?

Jennifer · Post by **Jennifer** » 03 Mar 2017, 23:30

Warren wrote:
Jennifer wrote:Say, if the legendary Russian pee-prostitute videos turned out to be real, and were released, and there was no denying that's Trump in them-thar pictures.
So? Why should anyone care?

In a sane polity, the answer is "They shouldn't -- at least, they shouldn't care about that more than about other far-worse things Trump has said and done as president." But by the same token, in a sane world, certain Republicans shouldn't have cared about Milo Yiannopoulos' comments regarding his own teenaged sex life more than they cared about various thoroughly rancid things he said and did before that.

If those videos were real, and came to light, I think that would be the final straw for the alleged "family values" Republicans, in a way that more straightforward adultery would not be -- fairly or not, golden-shower fetishes are considered beyond the pale even for many people who'd overlook plain vanilla sex if committed by someone they like. Can't even be dismissed as "locker-room talk" the way his pussy-grabbing comments were. Add to that the many indignant denials Trump's already issued about the whole thing, and the fact that there's no way THAT could be construed as a positive (the way, for example, Trump in one of his debates said that not paying taxes made him "smart").

But then -- who knows? I'm rather surprised so many national-security Republicans have refused to look at possible Putin ties already. Maybe even pee videos wouldn't bother them at this point.

Aresen · Post by **Aresen** » 03 Mar 2017, 23:43

Warren wrote:
thoreau wrote:I want to offer a hypothetical:
1) Suppose it came out that a person close to Trump met with a Russian official before election day and made some promises about sanctions or other foreign policy matters.
2) Suppose it also came out that someone in Trump's camp was informed of Russian hacking efforts prior to this meeting.

Would they impeach?
Without a Dem. majority there will be no impeaching period.

With a Dem. majority:
1) No. Everybody already assumes this is true. Nobody really cares.
2) No. Nobody really cares.

You need something new. Something more morally repugnant. It wouldn't surprise me one bit if The Donald supplies just that though.

At this point, Team Red is hostage to Trump. There are very few things that would make the GOP defect:
1) Actual, indisputable treason.
2) The proverbial caught in bed with a dead woman or live boy.
3) Ordering the arrest of a Congressman.

D.A. Ridgely · Post by **D.A. Ridgely** » 04 Mar 2017, 00:17

The only thing that will make them turn on him is his losing enough public support to threaten their reelection.

Number 6 · Post by **Number 6** » 04 Mar 2017, 00:28

I'm in the "he really could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and get away with it" camp. There is nothing, nothing at all, that would lead a Republican Congress to impeach.

ETA: I'm also in the 'he'll be re-elected' camp.

Kolohe · Post by **Kolohe** » 04 Mar 2017, 10:42

I'm in the gunslinger on 5th Avenue camp, but in the he won't be relected camp, because his election was a fluke & can't be replicated.

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