Former prosecutor: "Should Trump be stripped of office he gained by fraud?"

[Laura PourMeADrink]

https://crooksandliars.com/2018/12/former-prosecutor-should-trump-be-stripped
Snip
"By lying and covering up about his past on the eve of the election and violating the laws designed to create transparency, they say that President Trump clouded the process for the American voters. When immigrants procure their citizenship by fraud, we strip them of their citizenship. When a president procures his office by fraud, should we consider doing the same?"

[panader0]

1. Yes. We're in uncharted territory here, but he defrauded the people.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100211529782

[Dr Hobbitstein]

2. Through impeachment, yes.

Otherwise, there is no other way. Suggesting such is ignorance of the laws of our land.

[Baitball Blogger]

4. Hard to believe we have Democrats on this site trying to argue away the House's

responsibility to impeach. If they succeed in blocking that step, history will blame the Democrats for undermining the process.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. Exactly!!! Makes me very suspicious. By saying "take it

off the table" you are showing your cards and you are also saying that you have decided before all the evidence is in - which makes zero sense.

[Baitball Blogger]

8. I'll tell you another thing that makes me suspicious.

For God's sake, if the Dem leadership is going to sell out their own people, then make damn sure you're going to get something out of it. Stab us in the back for a reason that we might understand. Negotiate the treachery for something in return.

But, stop this fucking meme that, if we play nice and civil we'll bring our country back together. No, fucking we won't. You'll just get your best party supporters to dig down deeper and foment their anger because we're the ones in the trenches having to deal with the effects of tribalism at the local level.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

10. Perfect example of that was the immediate belief

That the GOP and didpshit we're being on the up and up by adding a one week FBI probe on Kavenaugh. Jumping on YES we'll go along without any hesitation. This was us thinking that the world is honest and fair. At the very least we should have said..." We will discuss". We could have withheld agreement until we approved the scope. Seeing Dipshit and graham act like they wanted more investigating should have been an immediate red flag. We need more savvy. And we definitely need less "won't do any goods"!!!!

[Baitball Blogger]

11. Good example.

I remember people on DU trying to warn us not to get our hopes up. "It's a trap."

They were right.

[Scarsdale]

13. It seems like

the Iraq war excuses all over again. Remember "If we charge Bush/Cheney it will look like partisan politics"? "Look forward, not backwards" Or even McConnell telling President Obama that to reveal the collusion between tRump and Russia (plus the gop, incidentally) it would look like partisan politics? Strangely, the gop does whatever they want to and to HELL with being accused of partisan politics as long as it benefits them.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

18. That is so true. If trump rule has taught politicians

Anything...I hope it has taught our side to not over-explain and buckle to their one-liner trashtalk. They do it because they know it works any we will apologize a zillion times and then go into hiding.

Sure, sometimes an apology is in order but other times it's best to act confident. Perfect example.... Ivanka and her email and reaction.

Hillary never stood up for what she did and brush it off. She only apologized. Hell, it was the same system people set up for a prez in a house guarded by the secret service. Sure they would have knocked her ...but a dose of confidence and "that's crazy" might have helped.

[Grasswire2]

47. DiFi fell for the "Gentleman's Agreement" scam that Flake engineered with Grassley.

It was an op. It was a planned op, from Flake to the Kavanaugh fit, to the very end. A charade.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

57. Yup, suspected it the second they all were a-ok /w further fbi probe..instant flip flop- Phil Mudd

Seemed to as well. That day, he ranted about it on CNN. Then, later that day, he changed to - “the FBI can do anything when they put their mind and resources to it. They will rise to the occasion.” (Seemingly back to the false hope that the fbi would have unfettered access).

The extra week ended up being just a PR campaign on right to discredit the accusers. Still irks the hell out of me.

[Hortensis]

54. Could a push to immediate impeachment before

it could succeed possibly be coming from a preemptive plot to derail the Democratic house investigations being prepared against not just Trump but various very powerful Republicans?

If you want to suspect something, suspect that. I told you after another of your posts, Bait, that one of your notions was standard Republican/Russian "tell a lie often enough and they'll believe it" rhetoric. They've been soaking the nation in that very phrase.

May I ask, have you read or heard somewhere that the Democratic leadership may be plotting betrayal by refusing to impeach? That the Republicans aren't the only ones betraying our nation, that the Democratic Party is complicit? If that's not just your getting carried away on your own, I'd like to check that out.

Itm, maybe imagine over half the nation outraged what was seen as a corrupt partisan attempt to remove the president in the senate (and that would fail right now). It's not only Republicans who disbelieve Trump-Russia -- there's still much suspicious doubt about how real all this is on the left also. Now imagine much of the nation believing that the Democratic investigations of others in their leadership were just as corrupt and phony as the attempt to remove the president.

All this would of course be carefully organized by the right, with plentiful media support. None of these powerful oconservative leaderse intend to go to prison, they'd burn the nation down first. And, critically, this kind of giant misstep would be likely to help them regain the power they just lost and more in 2020. House, senate, presidency, states.

We MUST have the support of a majority of the people to proceed. Trump trying to nuke NK or invade Mexico would also do, because that would create that support in short order afterward.

[Baitball Blogger]

63. Everyone seems to miss a very important moving piece of this puzzle.

The Mueller investigation is moving at a very fast clip. It is December 10th. The new Congressional session begins January 3. By the time they get through with the housework, we'll be at mid January. We will have a whole month of information rolling out to the public and the media digesting and discussing what it all means.

And with each disclosure it is going to be difficult to counter with lies. And here's why: The usual right-wing media suspects are being closed down. Twitters accounts have gone silent. Many of Trump's biggest loudspeakers are being named in testimonies and lawsuits. Think about who is being associated with some very unlawful activities: Hannity, Dershowitz, Giuliani. The louder they get, the more attention they bring to themselves and everyone begs the question: Why? Why are they building a wall to protect Trump? And one by one, we find what looks like compromat for each one of them.

This is going to go up as a warning to anyone else who has personal skin in the game to think twice before they pick up the mic to spread lies.

In sum, I do believe we will have more support for impeachment because the true facts will be hard to spin.

[malaise]

20. Meanwhile ReTHUGs pass laws to remove power from newly elected Democratic governors

Secretaries of State and Attorneys General - not partisan at all.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

30. I don't think we have to be dirty like they are but

We need to be smarter and more savvy. Geez...does our side ever talk? They (repukes)are always on the same page. Without giving up individual opinions and values...surely we can better organize a unified messaging.

I am sure Perez is doing great things? But I would have liked the candidate that was talking state of the art media approach. And we've got the same old crew running everything. One of only a few here who want them all to step aside

[Baitball Blogger]

65. A unified message would be wonderful.

And it shouldn't be that hard when you're on the side that demands to stand by the facts.

[KPN]

15. Most here who state reservations about impeachment

are saying not until the Mueller report comes out. That’s not unreasonable— as long as we don’t accept any watered down version of the report.

Otherwise I agree about it being hard to believe any Democrat here would argue against impeachment just because of the Senate or the lame, false analogy argument that no prosecutor would try a case they knew they could not win. This is the kind of logic and naive high road “diplomacy” that has created non and third party voters out of liberals in the past.

[Baitball Blogger]

23. Don't you think the Mueller Report will be ready by the time the Dems take the House?

I think it will happen sooner than later so this question is here, and timely.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

31. Yes BB !!! Start getting ready! It's the way Comey

Team works...they start the draft.

[Baitball Blogger]

32. .

[elocs]

21. Sorry, I don't believe there's a responsibility to impeach at this time.

How about waiting until there is actual evidence from not only Mueller's investigation but others as well?

And let's get something else straight as well. Nobody gets to infer that others on the Left are not really Democrats just because they don't support immediate impeachment of Trump. That's the kind of crap I'd expect from the right.

[Baitball Blogger]

24. Why do people assume that Mueller's Report isn't going to be ready by the time the Dems take

the House? I

[elocs]

28. Why would you assume it will be ready?

I wrote: "How about waiting until there is actual evidence from not only Mueller's investigation but others as well?"

This Democrat would like to see some House investigations completed as well. There is no need to rush into impeachment.

[Baitball Blogger]

29. Things are moving quickly.

60% disapprove of him. We just need to nick into the 38% and we are there.

[onenote]

34. Why do you assume it will be ready by then?

I don't have the sense Mueller is nearly done.

[Baitball Blogger]

35. If we continue at this rate with the Mueller disclosures

It might become a situation where the evidence is so overwhelming that public pressure will demand action.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

45. And, someone was saying it may be incremental...

We may have gotten the first 3-4 chapters along the way. (Partly for fear he wouldn't be able to finish in entireity) Last chapter Dingbat.

[Baitball Blogger]

64. Exactly.

It will be incremental and decisive. If we have retired military out there who still hold out to the belief that it's their duty to protect a president who won the office with the help of an enemy of this country, then I think it's time for the military to step up and sort it out for them. Afterall, our tax dollars pay for their infra-structure.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

67. That is the saddest thing ever. If we all.. especially

those you speak of ( not us sitting safely in our homes) can hold out for two more long years? I am hoping that Mueller found enough proof to convince 17? Republicans to think.

[Hortensis]

53. Bait, NO ONE is trying to do that. We have a duty

to remove this president. The Republicans have a duty to remove this president. The entire nation, including all those contemptibles who didn't vote against him, has a duty to remove this president.

But this isn't some simpleminded sport competition, where one or another team is supposed to win and the other is supposed to lose. In a democracy majorities must have a say and win, or it will eventually fail. And we are closer to that now than we could have believed possible 10 years ago.

Those who don't want to accept like that need to strive for understanding and up their game. No one who hangs on social media the way people here do would like having the authoritarian government of a sham democracy make them illegal. Or remember bitterly the days when they could imagine disagreements on a political forum were important and engage freely without fear.

On the plus side, it's likely that what the Mueller investigation reveals to the nation will create the shift in national opinion that is needed. Less dramatically but it will have an effect, Mueller is currently also releasing some of that information quietly with these indictments and sentencing memos.

[beachbum bob]

3. trump got elected not by fraud, but by disintereste democratic voters who either voted for stein or

stayed home.

Those of us who understood elections have consequences VOTED FOR HILLARY


the fraud was not not claiming "in-kind" campaign contribution to pay off 2 women, and not reported on FEC forms

[Laura PourMeADrink]

6. Yes, think we are also talking about fraud in the

Non-legal sense. Lying about business deals in Russia, lying about mexico paying for wall, lying that he didn't know his female accusers, etc etc.

Knowing the truth before the election could have stopped the more learned among them

[Caliman73]

17. I disagree.

Ultimately, supposedly more people voted for Trump in three states (in small margin) to shift the electoral college vote to him. There were definitely a very large percentage of people who did not vote.

Where I find problem with your argument is that you basically saying that the election was completely clean and Trump just won. You seem to be saying that because you and other people had already chosen your side and were not swayed by anything, that other voters are exactly like you and just "made the wrong choice" on purpose.


What Mueller's investigation appears to be showing more and more clearly is that Trump coordinated with Russian operatives tied to the government, who undertook a campaign to suppress voter turnout, feed false information to people for the purpose of dividing them and influencing them to vote for stein, or stay home. In addition, the fraud you write about was Trump paying money to stop verifiable negative information from coming out in the closing days of the election, which could have had a significant effect on said election.

You and I know that Clinton was the absolute best candidate in the general election. I am sure we both saw from the very beginning that Trump was unfit and would be a disaster. I would also assume that you and I spend a lot of time thinking about, reading about, and discussing politics. The majority of the electorate are not like us. A great many of them get their information from Facebook and other social media, or from their friends. We know that most of the social media sites were rampant with false information. We know that there has been a more than 30 year effort to paint Hillary Clinton as a bad person and that it wasn't going to take a Herculean effort to keep those negative stories in the media.

Trump was elected for a variety of factors including voter suppression by GOP lead state administrations, the culmination of decades of fake stories implying Clinton's dishonesty which were ratcheted up by Trump and fed into millions and millions of social media pages by coordinated effort of Russia and the Trump campaign. Comey's decision to "re-open" the investigation into her emails just before the election.

To say that Trump was elected simply because "disinterested democratic voters" is just not accurate.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

37. Strikes me as a wash. If more people voted for HRC

She would have won. And if less people voted for Dipshit we would be so much better now.

One could make the point that if the Russians and other right wing brainwashing machines hadn't trashed HRC for so many years like you say, ...A perfectly qualified ( better than anyone ever) could have been president. Geez...even I, as liberal as you can get, got that bad vibe about her in the back of my mind. Invented baggage.

[FM123]

5. Barbara McQuade makes some good points there!

[ROB-ROX]

9. THE GOP CONTROLS THE SENATE

Those souls "R" beings will do as they are PAID to do by their EVIL MASTERS. I think the GOP popular opinion will be fueled by false reporting by their media machines. I think the moral ethics of a common "R" is VERY low. The idea that an "R" would think twice concerning supporting a traitor and their president today is non existent. They believe what they are told by their masters. All the facts presented will not be digested because they have been programmed to ignore the TRUTH with a capital "T."

[Laura PourMeADrink]

38. If you are right...let them stand up, in public, and

Vote nay. And hopefully they will be gone.

Just made me think...maybe we should do it now. Let the mofos vote no. Then, when Mueller finds more....do it again.

[KPN]

12. We have to ask that question?

[AllyCat]

14. Yes.

[D23MIURG23]

16. Yes, but the obvious question is how?

Trump should be impeached, but we would need the cockroaches in the senate to act in the best interest of the country, which is unlikely to happen.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

39. Let the cockroaches be accountable now!!

And again when more shit comes out. They DO NOT want to go on record !!!

Sounds like the best way to rid society of them.

[ffr]

19. Yes! Civilian tRump committed these crimes and should be held to those standards.

Fast-forward to 4:00 mins in

[elocs]

22. Our Constitution (remember that?) only provides 1 way to remove a president from office,

that's impeachment AND conviction by the Senate. Those 2 things together only removes a president from office, it does not send that person to jail or prison.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

40. Sure. Know all that. They tried twice with Andrew Johnson

Didn't they?

Take a stand now !!! We can up the game later.

[elocs]

50. My stand is with the Constitution of the United States.

That provides the one and only way to remove a president from office against their will before their term is up.
We can't just get rid of Trump anymore than the Republicans could just get rid of Obama.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

55. Understand. Not sure why you are saying it though. Who is suggesting otherwise. Nt

[elocs]

56. There are lots of posts on DU that claim we need to get rid of Trump

and we need to get rid of him Right Now. Since there is only 1 constitutional means to be rid of Trump, what doe "Right Now" mean? Is the inference that some extra-Constitutional means be used because although Trump can easily be impeached he won't be convicted in the Senate. So why be coy about how we are supposed to be rid of Trump other than impeachment and conviction that would force him from office?

[delisen]

52. threat of Impeachment led Nixon to remove himself by resigning

Some think he made a deal with Ford for a pardon. I don't know if it is true but a president can resign and can also probably make a deal to leave office even though neither of these is stated in the Constitution.

[Garrett78]

25. The winner of a poker tournament or beauty pageant would lose their winnings, and a new winner...

...would be declared.

But this is just the presidency we're talking about, not something super consequential. The federal government can't be held to the same standard as Miss America. Just imagine how many members of Congress (Gym, Duncan, etc.) would be out of a job. Thank goodness for the US Constitution.

[samnsara]

26. yes and branded with a T for traitor

[TDale313]

27. Impeachment's the mechanism for that.

“But that’s hard in the current political circumstances” Yep. By design. IMO, it probably will only happen if Republicans decide he’s too big a liability and cut him loose. But there is no recall provision and no clause for declaring an election invalid in the Constitution. If the Electoral College chooses a President there’s no re-do no matter how shady things were.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

41. Yup, lots of buts and ifs. So what. Wrong

for a president and right behavior for a president. Black and white.

[TDale313]

43. Oh, I agree.

And frankly I think Dems should go for it. Just pointing out that’s the recourse our Constitution provides for this.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

33. of course

After a few weeks of televised hearings in the House.

[DFW]

36. SHOULD he?

Sure. He should be dragged outta there by his $1000 shoes.

But did it happen in 2000? 2004?

That's about how much chance there is of it happening now.

[Calista241]

42. There is no mechanism to "strip him from office"

There are only two remedies to remove Trump; impeach him, or vote him out in 2020. Those are the only options anyone should be talking about.

[TDale313]

44. Yes.

[Grasswire2]

48. That is simply not so.

The third option has never been tested in court.

Indict him.

Never tested in court, it is only an "opinion" written by those wanting to protect a president from his crimes.

So here is the strategy that should be implemented now. Before momentum for 2020 campaign ramps up.

Indict him. Release the indictment, unredacted.

Reason? The people have a right to know the extent of the charges against him and the evidence therein BEFORE another election. The only way for that to happen is in an indictment.

In 2016, the information was withheld, and the election was affected.

[Calista241]

60. That is a change in policy that will have to be made by the Attorney General

And I don’t see Whitaker or this new guy very receptive to that idea.

And an indictment won’t remove him from office. Plenty of politicians have continued to serve through their trial. And it will probably just serve to fire up his base.

[ck4829]

46. What does it say about the law if he isn't?

[DFW]

49. Who does the stripping?

The devil is in the details. "We" don't strip a president of his office. "We" don't march up to the gates of the White House to escort a president into a waiting paddy wagon. Someone has to give an order to someone who will carry it out.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

59. There's got to be a groundswell - protests - demands to Reps and Senators. But, you must

Mean something else?

We are nowhere near a groundswell - 80% of DU against even mentioning the I word. Even with it being obvious that he broke federal law..based on Cohen filing. So we just lope along, in essence condoning his behavior and placing our hopes on defeating him in 2020.

[democratisphere]

51. Stripped immediately!

drumpf and pence. Install the rightful winner of the popular and legitimate vote; HRC for the remaining 2 years!

[In It to Win It]

58. Yes.

[bdamomma]

61. to answer your question

Yes.

How much more evidence can be presented that he is guilty as sin.

[LiberalFighter]

62. Hell yes. He obtained it by fraud.

[bluestarone]

66. Fully support impeachment here BUT timing IS important. Keeping in mind

PENCE will be the president and will PARDONS from him begin? This needs to be thought out very well. RUSSIA is involved in this we all know this. Maybe getting MITCH removed first from the senate? (not sure of the procedure) But PARDONS need to be stopped first!! I want them all in jail!! AGAIN i support impeachment as soon as possible BUT need to have our shit together first, and be SMART as to what we do!!!