Trump exploring options to pardon his family and himself.

[MoanaLisa]

I honestly think that he believes that if he fires Mueller and pardons everyone that could possibly be involved with this that his base will stick with him (possible) and that the House and Senate will swallow it (possible but less so) and that the entire thing will simply go away (impossible).

It won't of course but he really is naive enough to try it. And if that doesn't work it wouldn't surprise me in any way at all if he tries to declare a state of emergency and delay or cancel next year's elections.

At this point I don't think there is anything he can do that would surprise me. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that the Joint Chiefs are going to have to give serious consideration about how far down a road they will go with their Commander-in-Chief in the next couple of years.

A further point: They should also be very careful about wishing for McCain to return soon. He may or may not be well enough to come back but if he does he may return with the attitude that he has nothing whatsoever to lose. He's not Trump's friend and he is still greatly respected in the Senate.

[Orbitus]

I enjoy that he's also reportedly having his own lawyers investigating Mueller and his people.

I swear he's speed running Nixon on this.

If he is doing what you are saying he is doing. If they find anything, like he donated to Hillary Clinton, and he tries to use that as a blackmail option, doesn't that mean another obstruction of justice option there?

[Slant]

Basically seems like an admission of guilt.

Weeeell, to be fair. It's lawyers. They're just exploring options under the umbrella of innocent until proven guilty. Lawyers tend to lose sight of the public opinion sometimes, their main concern is what judges and official rulings, that are forced to stick to the law literally, are going to say.

[Santti]

“This is not in the context of, ‘I can’t wait to pardon myself,” the adviser said.

Now why would an innocent president explore such an option, if he's not planning on possibly using it at some point? Fun? Curiosity? Boredom?

And how the hell is that even theoretically possible to pardon yourself?

[MoanaLisa]

May as well look into regulation surrounding the election procedures.

Elections are generally run by the individual states.

They need to switch everything to absentee ballots. Nothing else needs to change. The solution to our election problem, is people voting. Just about everything else I see in bitching about voting is just partisan crap. Even with gerrymandering, even if one side does it more, it's always going to be a partisan issue.

The goal should always be increasing the voter turn out. I personally favor compulsory voting... learn from advertisers... ding those who don't vote by increasing their federal taxes by 5%, but sell it as a 5% cut in taxes for those who vote.

Oregon and Washington State have gone to vote-by-mail. It works well and turnout is somewhat higher than other states. There's plenty of time to vote. It's a mystery as to why more states haven't done this although I can see why Republicans would fear it greatly.

Here's an article from a few years ago discussing possible reasons why vote-by-mail hasn't spread: http://www.governing.com/columns/dis...il-Spread.html

[Gestopft]

Oregon and Washington State have gone to vote-by-mail. It works well and turnout is somewhat higher than other states. There's plenty of time to vote. It's a mystery as to why more states haven't done this although I can see why Republicans would fear it greatly.

Montana was considering a mail-in only election for the recent special election- that is until the state GoP chairman pointed out that it would benefit Dems.

[Shalcker]

I honestly think that he believes that if he fires Mueller and pardons everyone that could possibly be involved with this that his base will stick with him (possible) and that the House and Senate will swallow it (possible but less so) and that the entire thing will simply go away (impossible).

Let me contruct easy narrative - "To save government money on multi-year investigation that is clearly going to produce nothing, i'm going to speed it up by pardoning people being investigated so that they can give their testimony free from fear of self-incrimination and any "gotcha"'s waiting for them from biased Democrat-leaning investigators, just like it happened in Clinton case except this time it'll not be FBI but President providing immunity".

Then since anyone touched by Mueller is pardoned, his special team is brought to swift end.

End of this particular witch hunt.

[Wyrt]

Let me contruct easy narrative - "To save government money on multi-year investigation that is clearly going to produce nothing, i'm going to speed it up by pardoning people being investigated so that they can give their testimony free from fear of self-incrimination and any "gotcha"'s waiting for them from biased Democrat-leaning investigators, just like it happened in Clinton case except this time it'll not be FBI but President providing immunity".

Then since anyone touched by Mueller is pardoned, his special team is brought to swift end.

End of this particular witch hunt.

Except it's not a witch hunt.

[ati87]

Let me contruct easy narrative - "To save government money on multi-year investigation that is clearly going to produce nothing, i'm going to speed it up by pardoning people being investigated so that they can give their testimony free from fear of self-incrimination and any "gotcha"'s waiting for them from biased Democrat-leaning investigators, just like it happened in Clinton case except this time it'll not be FBI but President providing immunity".

Then since anyone touched by Mueller is pardoned, his special team is brought to swift end.

End of this particular witch hunt.

Worst part is I can actually see them putting out that statement.

[Kanyemuhammad]

This is next to Nixon the most corrupt thing I've ever heard of. I mean this is just baffling and disturbing. Even if you're a supporter of Trump this should bother you knowing presidents after him may try this.


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[ati87]

Weeeell, to be fair. It's lawyers. They're just exploring options under the umbrella of innocent until proven guilty. Lawyers tend to lose sight of the public opinion sometimes, their main concern is what judges and official rulings, that are forced to stick to the law literally, are going to say.

Looking into how far you can stretch the presidential pardon doesn't seem like the action somebody takes when they assume the client is incontinent, would seem like waste of time if you assume you're own client is innocent which frankly he Trump should have come clean towards his own lawyers btw.

You don't try to enter the dark grey area's of the law willingly...which will be if any president pardons members of his own family and inner circle of potential treason

[Orbitus]

Let me contruct easy narrative - "To save government money on multi-year investigation that is clearly going to produce nothing, i'm going to speed it up by pardoning people being investigated so that they can give their testimony free from fear of self-incrimination and any "gotcha"'s waiting for them from biased Democrat-leaning investigators, just like it happened in Clinton case except this time it'll not be FBI but President providing immunity".

Then since anyone touched by Mueller is pardoned, his special team is brought to swift end.

End of this particular witch hunt.

If it's a witch hunt and going to produce nothing, then let the investigation go through. Pardoning these people and then trying to pardon yourself, basically admits guilt. And if Republicans were worried about multi-year investigations and millions in tax payer money, they would have stopped the LITERAL witch hunt in the Benghazi Investigations. They did 8 investigations into that and found literally NOTHING.

[Draco-Onis]

Let me contruct easy narrative - "To save government money on multi-year investigation that is clearly going to produce nothing, i'm going to speed it up by pardoning people being investigated so that they can give their testimony free from fear of self-incrimination and any "gotcha"'s waiting for them from biased Democrat-leaning investigators, just like it happened in Clinton case except this time it'll not be FBI but President providing immunity".

Then since anyone touched by Mueller is pardoned, his special team is brought to swift end.

End of this particular witch hunt.

That would be the equivalent of putting out a fire with napalm but Trump has been doing that this entire time so it would be no surprise.

[Crispin]

Next up, Trump explorers if it's possible to run the US while living in Russia.

- - - Updated - - -

Let me contruct easy narrative - "To save government money on multi-year investigation that is clearly going to produce nothing, i'm going to speed it up by pardoning people being investigated so that they can give their testimony free from fear of self-incrimination and any "gotcha"'s waiting for them from biased Democrat-leaning investigators, just like it happened in Clinton case except this time it'll not be FBI but President providing immunity".

Then since anyone touched by Mueller is pardoned, his special team is brought to swift end.

End of this particular witch hunt.

lol wtf, so the guy who's basicly under investigation should end the investigation through pardons to "save money"? I'm sure you'd buy into it if your president put forward such a retarded statement.

[Mehrunes]

Trump is pretty much the most pathetic politician on planet Earth right now. So nothing will surprise me.

Let me contruct easy narrative - "To save government money on multi-year investigation that is clearly going to produce nothing, i'm going to speed it up by pardoning people being investigated so that they can give their testimony free from fear of self-incrimination and any "gotcha"'s waiting for them from biased Democrat-leaning investigators, just like it happened in Clinton case except this time it'll not be FBI but President providing immunity".

Then since anyone touched by Mueller is pardoned, his special team is brought to swift end.

End of this particular witch hunt.

It's not really a witch hunt if the thing that prevents them from testifying their obvious innocence is fear of self-incrimination.

They need to switch everything to absentee ballots. Nothing else needs to change. The solution to our election problem, is people voting. Just about everything else I see in bitching about voting is just partisan crap. Even with gerrymandering, even if one side does it more, it's always going to be a partisan issue.

The goal should always be increasing the voter turn out. I personally favor compulsory voting... learn from advertisers... ding those who don't vote by increasing their federal taxes by 5%, but sell it as a 5% cut in taxes for those who vote.

Gerrymandering stops being partisan crap if you remove it from the hands of the politicians and hand it over to unaffiliated, independent organization. And the effects of gerrymandering (and in turn, the desire to partake in it) are greatly lessened if you switch from the atrocity that is winner-takes-all to proportional vote. Gotta agree on absentee ballots and compulsory voting.

[Wyrt]

Gerrymandering stops being partisan crap if you remove it from the hands of the politicians and hand it over to unaffiliated, independent organization. And the effects of gerrymandering (and in turn, the desire to partake in it) are greatly lessened if you switch from the atrocity that is winner-takes-all to proportional vote. Gotta agree on absentee ballots and compulsory voting.

Gerrymandering mostly affects congressional races so removing winner take all wouldn't actually change anything.

[Flarelaine]

Elections are generally run by the individual states.

I understand as much, but I assume that should not rule out the federal government setting standards while still leaving the specifics to states. Then again, I'm just commenting from the sidelines - but I recall education is run by the states as well and yet you have Common Core and all.

[Mehrunes]

I've been thinking about this on and off this week.

After Trump, I can think of half a dozen constitutional ammendments we need to modernize our checks and balances.

Three in particular I think are relevant here.
- It's insane to me that the Department of Justice, the FBI and the Attorney General are all political positions attached to the Executive branch, rather than non-political positions attached to Judicial Branch. The execution of the nation's law enforcement should not be political in nature.

-The power of the President to remove subordinates and cover-up wrongdoing is far too kingly and needs substantial reform. For example, if the President elects to fire the FBI director, it should only be valid upon a majority vote in the Senate confirming it. Something like that..

DoJ is literally a part of the executive branch though. There needs to be some outside oversight into the justice system from the other branches to check and balance it as well. Police, which the FBI effectively is, is also a part of the executive. I agree partially on the Attorney General in that I don't think Attorney General should be the head of DoJ. DoJ should be headed by a normal secretary, overseeing the law enforcement from an administrative angle, while an independent Attorney General should be a strictly legal position and remain as a chief lawyer of US (with some oversight, but not absolute authority, especially over specific legal proceedings). That should indeed be apolitical.

The FBI should also be under DoJ. I mean, IIRC it already is, but then again POTUS can dismiss the head of FBI for some reason that eludes me. It shouldn't be in his power and be strictly up to the head of the DoJ. Due to the presidential system the POTUS can still pressure the DoJ to do it and under Trump the executive was largely reduced to a group of yes-men, but it still is a barrier.

Overall, the issue is not that these things are governed by the executive per se, but the thing you covered in the second point. The founding fathers didn't really think things through if they wanted proper checks and balances given how they chose the presidential system, which gives immense amount of power in the hands of a single person. Forget the power balance between the different branches of the government. When it comes to things happening within the executive itself, POTUS is basically a tsar. Then again, as you said, the easiest thing to countermeasure that would be to involve the legislative branch somehow.

Gerrymandering mostly affects congressional races so removing winner take all wouldn't actually change anything.

With winner-takes-all come single-mandate districts. Multi-mandate districts lessen the cracking aspect of gerrymandering and packing is already giving the votes to the other party.

[Kiri]

If it's a witch hunt and going to produce nothing, then let the investigation go through. Pardoning these people and then trying to pardon yourself, basically admits guilt. And if Republicans were worried about multi-year investigations and millions in tax payer money, they would have stopped the LITERAL witch hunt in the Benghazi Investigations. They did 8 investigations into that and found literally NOTHING.

Yeah, that is the most annoying part about Trump supporters these days. The investigation is the best thing that could possibly happen to them, but they argue against it at every step.
Then again, it is coherent with the Benghazi thing to be honest. They have raised the 'there is an investigation, so there has to be something. If the investigation finds nothing, it is because corruption/incompetence/Obama' thing to a gospel. So yes, it is hypocritical, but at least it is consistent.

[Deleted]

What a headline. That this is openly discussed and published by big newspapers, should have this family cower in shame. Sadly, it's just in fear of what is going to come.

In the meanwhile: Mueller-watch.