On today’s BradCast: Is it just me, or is it getting Nixon in here? [Audio link to show is posted below.]
As they asked during Watergate: “What did the President known and when did he know it?” That’s just one of the many questions quickly emerging in the hours since last night’s resignation of National Security Advisor, Lt. General Michael Flynn, following revelations that he spoke with the Russian Ambassador about U.S. sanctions prior to Trump’s inauguration and then lied about it to the media, the public, Vice President Mike Pence — and perhaps even the FBI.
As they also said during Watergate: “It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up.” The Logan Act, as I explain today, was never really the problem. It’s a weak statute and has never actually been prosecuted in its history, dating back to the 1790’s. It’s the lies and the possibility of blackmail in the wake of those lies that are now (among) the many problems for this White House.
The continuing — and growing — disarray of the not-even-one-month-old Trump Administration extends to the amazing contradictions from high-level officials at the White House about all of this over the past 24 hours, and to Trump himself, who, just last Friday, seemed to feign ignorance about Flynn’s conversations with Russian officials. That, before the White House confirmed this afternoon that the President was directly informed about all of this by the Department of Justice weeks ago.
Among questions now being raised, even by some Republicans in the House and Senate: Why didn’t Trump act weeks ago on this? Is it plausible in anyway that Flynn went “rogue”, or was he, in fact, authorized and/or directed — by someone on the Trump transition team — to discuss lifting sanctions against Russia with their Ambassador? If so, by whom? Was he also directed to lie about it? If so, by whom and why are so many seemingly lying about it all now? We discuss those questions and many others on today’s show.
Also today: the Republican-majority Senate confirms former Goldman Sachs exec and billionaire Wall St. “Foreclosure King” Steve Mnuchin for Treasury Secretary along party lines (though with the help of one Democratic senator); A federal court denies the Trump Administration’s attempt to forestall hearings on his Muslim travel ban Executive Order; and Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with the latest on the Oroville Dam crisis in California and much more…
Well, the one good thing to come out of all of this is at least Hillary isn’t our president. Because that would be a terrible thing. I mean, her emails!
Hahh-ha-ha-ha-hah! Wheeeeeeeeee!
Oh, and her ties to Goldman-Sachs. I mean, over the course of several years she made three paid speeches to Goldman-Sachs employees! Why, if she was president GS would practically be running our economy. So glad she didn’t get elected, that would have been bad for working people.
Hoo-hoo, ha-ha-ha-hah, oh lord yes ha-ha-hah-hah-haaaaaaa!
“It’s not the crime, it’s the cover-up” has some pretty uncomfortable connotations to those of us who lived through Watergate. “Watergate” is, after all, short for “a White House political scandal that came to light during the 1972 presidential campaign, growing out of a break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters at the Watergate apartment-office complex in Washington, D.C., and, after congressional hearings, culminating in the resignation of President Nixon in 1974”
-DictionaryDotCom
Nixon’s ordering of the Watergate break-in had implications that may have led down the road to impeachment, or even charges of treason. A focus on the cover-up was, for many of us at the time, an attempt to “soften” the focus, and the potential damage to the presidency and Nixon himself. In our view, that very “softening” did a disservice to Democracy, and emboldened those who might come after Nixon.
So here we are. Trump’s ties to Russia are in the process of being revealed to us. Flynn’s actions, if perpetrated at the behest of the President, MAY NOT be indictable crimes in and of themselves. Still…a sitting President having his foreign policy decisions undermined by people who do not have the authority to do so…might give a few Constitutional scholars and lawyers pause. ESPECIALLY considering the sanctions in question were in response to electoral crimes that MAY WELL involve all the people presently under investigation.
The REAL crime are perhaps, as it was with the Watergate, yet to be revealed. HOW this one act fits into the whole narrative is unknown.
But the REAL issue here is: What did the President know. NOT when did he STOP knowing it.
could we possibly get Hillary back with Marks v. Stinson? This was in Huffington Post 12/10/16
“Marks v. Stinson, is the first and only known case in which a federal judge reversed an election outcome.
In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review an appellate court’s decision of Marks v. Stinson, a case originally brought before a federal district judge in Pennsylvania in 1993, which was subsequently appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1994. The Third Circuit partially upheld the federal judge’s decision to intervene and invalidate a 1993 state senate election due to fraud. Interestingly, the federal district judge ordered the winner be removed from office and the subsequent vacancy be filled by his opponent.”