Is Trump Facing An Indictment?

[Donald Baker]

I think I read on Drudge that Mueller said Trump will likely be indicted at some point?  If he is, will he survive his term?  If he does, will this mess convince him not to run for a second term?

[Phidippides]

I think this is all rather suspect, and the media builds up "anxiety" even if it doesn't reflect reality.  Even without discussing the details, think about it:

1) The Democrats called for the Mueller probe to investigate potential Trump-Russia conspiracy to essentially take over the United States

2) The Democrats then called for impeachment for "obstruction of justice" over Comey's firing

3) The Democrats now call for impeachment/prison for "campaign finance violations".

Do you see how this works?  When the gravest of charges doesn't stick, they move on to lesser ones.  A campaign finance violation?  Resulting in impeachment?

Do we recall that Obama faced multiple campaign finance violations?  Probably not, since it's a footnote in history.

Don't fall for the media hype.  For them, every drop of "breaking news" is a tantalizing morsel that they will salivate over because it lets them wishfully think out loud that Trump will be impeached.

The left is on the brink of becoming a totalitarian party, if they're not already.  This is not the best of times to be an American.

[Donald Baker]

Trump still appears to be on shakier ground now especially with the Mannafort sentencing.  Still believe what you wrote about this?

[Phidippides]

Yes, I do.  It all fits within the wider working theory that I have held since this began began in 2017:

• The Democrats suffered such a crushing and unexpected loss in the 2016 elections (POTUS, Congress, state governorship) that they had very little power left.
• They needed to find a way to undermine Trump's power, and did so by concocting a Trump-Russia conspiracy theory which was false to begin with.
• Since the media sides with the Democrats and against Trump, they went along with it, wishfully thinking that it end in Trump's downfall.

I'll add to this that the Democrats likely knew that even if though showing a conspiracy between Trump-Russia would fail, the investigation itself could cripple Trump, and at least would obstruct his ability to govern with an effective mandate.  As it turns out, they were partially correct.   

Enter Paul Manafort, a man who was Trump's campaign manager for three months during the summer of 2016, and later sentenced for tax fraud and bank fraud and another charge related to a foreign bank account.  The fact that Manafort was convicted for crimes which were not related to the original task of the Mueller investigation should be a red flag for us.  If the investigative power of Mueller is able to dig back into Trump's associates, spend a lot of time and effort convicting a Trump associate for a crime unrelated to the 2016 election, do they even have any evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy at all?

If you go back and look at the other Mueller indictments, you will find that many of the other crimes were process crimes (crimes committed during the investigation, such as lying to FBI agents, rather than crimes committed before the investigation began): Papadopoulus, Flynn, van der Zwaan.

Think of the bigger picture: if after almost two years of Mueller's investigations, on top of other congressional investigations into Trump-Russia, and this is all they have so far, how much do they actually have?

Yes, it's possible they could find crimes by Trump related to other non-Russia issues, but at the end of the day this entire Trump-Russia conspiracy theory was an attempt by Democrats to undo the results of the 2016 election.

[Donald Baker]

If the Democrats can find a non radical leftist Presidential candidate, they may have a shot at beating Trump in 2020.  Trump won't be as strong a candidate the next go around.  I never dismiss what those idiots can pull off.  Trump has a battle on his hands and he cannot count on the Republicans to support him especially at the first signs of weakness.

[Phidippides]

I agree that anything can happen.  However, I think we're going to see some real cracks developing in the Democrat Party as we march toward the 2020 election as leftwing extremists demand their piece of the pie.  The Bernie Sanders-AOC wing of the party has grown a lot stronger than they were in 2016 when they put up a good showing.  And those people, I should add, are scary.  They're the ones who, if they got power, would be curtailing individual liberties, legislating their leftist morality, fining people, and ultimately probably throwing them in jail for having the wrong political opinions. 

But I agree with you - if the Democrats were to find a moderate Democrat, they'd have a shot.  A person like Schultz might work but he's not known well enough.  More likely Biden or Kamala Harris would be stronger candidates.

[Donald Baker]

Biden scares me as he might be able to unify the Democrats long enough to win an election.

[Phidippides]

Now that Mueller has released his report and found no Trump-Russia colllusion, I think the next step has to be to investigate how it all started.  It's too big to ignore.  And if such an investigation takes place, be prepared to see what is arguably the biggest scandal in American politics be revealed, especially if it implicates Obama.

[Donald Baker]

Somehow I just don't think Obama will ever be implicated in anything.

[Phidippides]

Lol, yeah, probably true.  His supporters are too many and they undoubtedly want to protect his reputation and legacy.  Still, somebody has to be held accountable for what went on.  Imagine if it was discovered that George W. Bush had authorized surveillance on the Obama campaign leading up to the 2008 election, and that it was done under the false accusation that he was an agent of a foreign country.  The response by the left and the media would have been C-R-A-Z-Y.  They would have gone insane.  Immediately Bush would have been denounced as a racist, a Hitler-esque character.  A congressional commission or special counsel would have been quickly dispatched to look into the matter, people would have been brought up on criminal charges.

In real life, though, it was Trump whose campaign was spied on under the false notion that he was working with a foreign country. 

The media?  Virtual silence, but even that is deafening to my ears.