Wednesday, June 14, 2017

Trump and Comey and Sessions OH MY!

Watching this soap opera unfold in the Senate is an absolute joke. Basically everyone says everyone else is lying. Of course Trump can't make up his mind whether Comey "vindicated" him or told terrible lies about him.

Sessions say the whole Russian collusion idea is a lie. Well, Jeff baby, it's only a lie if the person making the accusation knows it's a lie.

What to make of this he said, he said, he said fiasco?

It's generally been my experience that people lie when either they (a) can gain something from the lie or (b) they need to protect themselves. I think we can pretty much exclude the altruistic white lie from the conversation.

The guy that appears to have the least to gain or protect is Comey. That doesn't mean he isn't lying but it's not clear to me what reason he would have for opening himself up to perjury charges.

Trump isn't making his statements under oath and I'm not sure Sessions knows the difference between a lie and the truth.

So I sort of suspect that Comey is closest to being completely honest, Sessions is a distant second and Trump still trying to get out of the starting gate.

Do I think Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice in the Flynn investigation? Yes, I do. Do I think he meant to obstruct justice? No, I think he was simply doing the same sort of backroom maneuvering he's used to in the business world and didn't realize what he was doing was illegal.

Do I think the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians to tilt the 2016 election to Trump? Six months ago I would have said that's ridiculous but now I'm not so sure.

So what happens if that turns out to be the case? The proper thing to do would be for Trump and Pence to resign or be impeached leaving Paul Ryan as president.

Do I think that will ever happen? Not in a million years. Even if you could come up with sufficient evidence I'm sure the Republicans would come up with some "alternate facts" to try and smooth the whole thing over.

Do I think this could lead to civil war? Probably not. I don't think enough people are ready to start killing in the streets over this.

No comments: