Kansas Crimson

The Mueller Report Was My Tipping Point. I was a Trump transition staffer, and I’ve seen enough. It’s time for impeachment.

Let’s start at the end of this story. This weekend, I read Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report twice, and realized that enough was enough—I needed to do something. I’ve worked on every Republican presidential transition team for the past 10 years and recently served as counsel to the Republican-led House Financial Services Committee. My permanent job is as a law professor at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia Law School, which is not political, but where my colleagues have held many prime spots in Republican administrations.

If you think calling for the impeachment of a sitting Republican president would constitute career suicide for someone like me, you may end up being right. But I did exactly that this weekend, tweeting that it’s time to begin impeachment proceedings.

...I wanted to share my experience transitioning from Trump team member to pragmatist about Trump to advocate for his impeachment, because I think many other Republicans are starting a similar transition. Politics is a team sport, and if you actively work within a political party, there is some expectation that you will follow orders and rally behind the leader, even when you disagree. There is a point, though, at which that expectation turns from a mix of loyalty and pragmatism into something more sinister, a blind devotion that serves to enable criminal conduct.

The Mueller report was that tipping point for me, and it should be for Republican and independent voters, and for Republicans in Congress. In the face of a Department of Justice policy that prohibited him from indicting a sitting president, Mueller drafted what any reasonable reader would see as a referral to Congress to commence impeachment hearings.

Depending on how you count, roughly a dozen separate instances of obstruction of justice are contained in the Mueller report. The president dangled pardons in front of witnesses to encourage them to lie to the special counsel, and directly ordered people to lie to throw the special counsel off the scent.

[...]

I agree.

you should impeach him.

What would the country gain from it?

A huge waste of important time.

you may not think so, or want to be, dolo, but i think we can and should be better than having someone like drumpf hold the office of the presidency

i want the US to be the beacon on the hill, in a variety of ways...it’s troubling and sad that you don’t

TraditionKU wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:37 am you may not think so, or want to be, dolo, but i think we can and should be better than having someone like drumpf hold the office of the presidency

Then nominate someone better than Trump.

No one thinks what Trump did is anything less than scandalous. But because of ignorance -- willful or otherwise -- many presume that what he's doing is out of the ordinary for a president or distinguishes him from the Democratic Party's nominee. Neither is true. Barack Obama (and frankly, George W. Bush) was an anomaly. He was the exception; Trump is the rule.

DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:40 am

TraditionKU wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:37 am you may not think so, or want to be, dolo, but i think we can and should be better than having someone like drumpf hold the office of the presidency

Then nominate someone better than Trump.

No one thinks what Trump did is anything less than scandalous. But because of ignorance -- willful or otherwise -- many presume that what he's doing is out of the ordinary for a president or distinguishes him from the Democratic Party's nominee. Neither is true. Barack Obama (and frankly, George W. Bush) was an anomaly. He was the exception; Trump is the rule.

the democratic party fucked my guy last time

that said, you aren’t gonna convince me that drumpf is, or has been, the lesser of two evils

we can agree to disagree, but it’s a fool’s argument because we’ll never know how a hillary presidency would have gone

TraditionKU wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:50 am

DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:40 am

TraditionKU wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:37 am you may not think so, or want to be, dolo, but i think we can and should be better than having someone like drumpf hold the office of the presidency

Then nominate someone better than Trump.

No one thinks what Trump did is anything less than scandalous. But because of ignorance -- willful or otherwise -- many presume that what he's doing is out of the ordinary for a president or distinguishes him from the Democratic Party's nominee. Neither is true. Barack Obama (and frankly, George W. Bush) was an anomaly. He was the exception; Trump is the rule.

the democratic party fucked my guy last time

that said, you aren’t gonna convince me that drumpf is, or has been, the lesser of two evils

we can agree to disagree, but it’s a fool’s argument because we’ll never know how a hillary presidency would have gone

Even more investigations and nothing getting done in congress. Supreme Court would look different though.

Every president has had skeletons in the closet and made poor decisions based on beliefs or pressure from outside interests for personal gain. I don't agree with it, but that's reality. Every administration has had bad actors at some level for some amount of time. Again, don't like it, but that's reality.

This feels different. Worse. And not because there's an (R) after his name. It's because it feels like he's gaslighting the nation. There's nothing that compels me to believe he's capable of empathy for his fellow man or woman.

DC, what you're saying is the complete and utter shit show of the Trump administration is..the rule?

jhawks99 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:52 am

TraditionKU wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:50 am

DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:40 am

Then nominate someone better than Trump.

No one thinks what Trump did is anything less than scandalous. But because of ignorance -- willful or otherwise -- many presume that what he's doing is out of the ordinary for a president or distinguishes him from the Democratic Party's nominee. Neither is true. Barack Obama (and frankly, George W. Bush) was an anomaly. He was the exception; Trump is the rule.

the democratic party fucked my guy last time

that said, you aren’t gonna convince me that drumpf is, or has been, the lesser of two evils

we can agree to disagree, but it’s a fool’s argument because we’ll never know how a hillary presidency would have gone

Even more investigations and nothing getting done in congress. Supreme Court would look different though.

re: investigations, not saying that wouldn't be the case, but that's all speculation

the SC would undoubtedly look different

kubowler99 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 12:00 pm DC, what you're saying is the complete and utter shit show of the Trump administration is..the rule?

sure seems like that's what he's saying

and yes, i know we've had "crooks" in the office previously...but, i hardly believe the majority of our presidents have been on the level of drumpf

Yes, I'm saying that Kennedy was a drug addict who spent more time fucking than governing (including Helen Thomas, yikes!); that Johnson was among the most corrupt men ever elected to higher office, much less to the presidency; that Nixon was Nixon; that Carter was surrounded by some of the most incompetent and hateful men alive; that Reagan was surrounded by some of the most corrupt men alive; that George H.W. Bush carried on multiple affairs over many years; and that Bill Clinton would have been the second-most corrupt modern president even without the Lewinsky/impeachment bit.

Trump fits in nicely. Certainly, he isn't outside of the "norm" -- whatever that is -- by more than one standard deviation.

those are the names i thought of

hardly a majority, but as far as recency in the office is concerned, i don't necessarily disagree

And to be clear: NONE of this justifies Trump's obvious corruption. It just places it in context.

dolomite wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 10:24 am What would the country gain from it?

A huge waste of important time.

I agree.

DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 11:40 am
Then nominate someone better than Trump.

Didn’t the GOP try like the dickens to do so?

But alas, Trump was the guy that republican voters had been waiting for.

No one thinks what Trump did is anything less than scandalous.

Yet how many have tried to shrug it off?

But because of ignorance -- willful or otherwise -- many presume that what he's doing is out of the ordinary for a president

Corruption in itself isn’t out of the ordinary for a president, sure. But is it ordinary for the corruption to be so blatantly obvious? And in so many different flavors - firing intelligence agents for getting nosy, banging porn stars and paying them to shut up and denying it no wait no yes, getting cozy with a foreign fucking adversary? Does any of that have any real precedent?

or distinguishes him from the Democratic Party's nominee.

As crooked as Hillary was, she at least was able to behave in a stately, presidential, and generally professional manner - at least enough to distinguish her from Trump’s boorish stunts.

"zis go hear?"

I like how the cone of silence is dropping over the White House.

DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 12:12 pm Yes, I'm saying that Kennedy was a drug addict who spent more time fucking than governing (including Helen Thomas, yikes!); that Johnson was among the most corrupt men ever elected to higher office, much less to the presidency; that Nixon was Nixon; that Carter was surrounded by some of the most incompetent and hateful men alive; that Reagan was surrounded by some of the most corrupt men alive; that George H.W. Bush carried on multiple affairs over many years; and that Bill Clinton would have been the second-most corrupt modern president even without the Lewinsky/impeachment bit.

Trump fits in nicely. Certainly, he isn't outside of the "norm" -- whatever that is -- by more than one standard deviation.

Say it ain't so about Ike . . .

Geezer wrote: ↑Wed Apr 24, 2019 6:50 pm I like how the cone of silence is dropping over the White House.

Trump silent? Ha, not gonna happen.

Geez, of all the whataboutisms DC has ever presented to excuse Republican office holders, the extent he has to go to in defending Trump has become just amusing.

But, John Kennedy was both a drug addict and this big-time womanizer--I always get a kick out of that characterization. JFK was a very sick guy for most of his life who had back problems from WWII and he spent all his time having sex in the White House. As a woman, I have serious doubts about that.