On my business Twitter account, I recently saw a retweet of a serial tweet by a guy that claims to be an attorney. He has a list of reasons Trump is in trouble, mostly related to Muller's investigation. He makes some good points, but most of his claims are bunk or wishful thinking, and he is giving many Democrats false hope. I want to address some of these claims.
First, Trump recently said something suggesting he is planning on firing Muller in a few days. In the second or third (perhaps both) of the series of Tweets (honestly, this guy needs to learn what a blog is), he says that this would be illegal. He suggests it would be grounds for impeachment if Trump did try to do this. Now, I am no lawyer. I don't know the specifics of the law on this. We are talking about an FBI investigation though, with a specially assigned investigator. The FBI is part of the Executive branch of the Federal government. The head of that branch of government is the President, who happens to be Donald Trump. I also happen to know for a fact that Trump is not constrained by the Constitution from firing Muller. If he is legally constrained, it is by a bill passed by Congress, and this strikes me as rather problematic, because the Executive branch (the President and co) and Legislative branch (Congress) are supposed to act, in addition to the Judicial branch (the Supreme Court) as checks and balances for each other. Congress can, in many circumstances, vote to overturn certain acts of the President, but Congress passing bills generically limiting the power of the President rather defeats the point, giving Congress more power than it was intended to have. This should only be legal through an amendment to the Constitution, not through some general bill. In short, Congress should not be able to limit the power of he President beyond what the Constitution does, except in case-by-case instances or by full on Constitutional amendment. In short, this seems like an instance of Congress illegally interfering in the operations of the Executive branch, essentially usurping the power of the President. Let's assume this will stand though, given that the Supreme Court (which is the branch that would be responsible for sorting this out) cares more about personal opinions than the words or intent of the Constitution. This guy who needs to get a blog says that this has certain potential outcomes. Muller could just comply. Muller could refuse, and Trump could kick him out forceably. Muller could refuse and file a law suit against Trump. There are a few other options, but these are the primary ones. All of these could end in nothing or in Trump facing impeachment. The thing is, Federal law does not make Trump trying to fire Muller a crime. It also does not make Trump forceably removing someone appointed within his own branch of government from government property used by his branch a crime. Congress would have to pass another law for Trump to be guilty of anything worthy of impeachment, and the Constitution does say that laws cannot be applied retroactively, meaning Trump could only be charged if the law was passed before he did whatever it is people think it is wrong for him to do. In short, Congress could send angry letters to Trump. They might be able to make his life complicated. If they tried to do more than that though, they would be the ones violating the rule of law and the Constitution. In short, Trump is actually on pretty solid ground here. Yeah, he would look really bad. People would just assume he must be guilty. But then, what would that change?
That brings me to the next claim. This guy that thinks tweeting is for posting long articles says that Trump is obviously guilty. He suggests that Muller's behavior is consistent with having substantial evidence condemning Trump. He suggests his own research provides sufficient evidence to convict Trump. Only, where is that evidence? And how does he think that his personal research is as good as or better than the research of the FBI? I might not be a lawyer or a cop, but there are some things I know. One of those is that investigators don't gather enough evidence to convict someone and then sit on it for several months. The FBI does tend to be careful. Maybe it is covering all of its bases. Only, if it still has bases that aren't covered, then where are these claims coming from that it has enough to absolutely prove guilt? I mean, once you have that, there shouldn't be bases left to cover. Maybe Muller is planning on giving Trump a cruel and ironic Christmas present, but this does not seem to fit his character. If Muller had the evidence, he would be moving on to the next step. Recent actions do suggest Muller may have evidence of other people in Trump's circle being involved in election fraud or at least something else they should probably get in trouble for, but he is still not acting even on that. What this does look like is that he is keeping his cards close to his chest. Maybe he thinks he is close to some evidence against Trump, so he is holding back on starting proceeding against those closest to Trump. This does not suggest he actually has evidence against Trump though. Suggesting otherwise is just giving the left false hope. It is possible that this writer is deliberately trying to set things up for a revolution. He has encouraged people to "take to the streets" if Trump tries to fire Muller. Maybe he knows that Muller does not have the evidence and is lying to set the stage. Who knows? I suspect it is just wishful thinking though. Ever since Trump won the election, the left has been making trumped up claims (put intended) about how Trump is definitely going to get ousted, but despite all of their efforts and mud slinging, they have not managed to pin anything on Trump except a profound lack of tact or giving a darn.
But what if this does move on to impeachment? Let's say this guy who does not understand the difference between a tweet and a dissertation is actually right. He is, after all (according to himself) an attorney, and I am definitely not, so maybe he knows something I don't. So let's say this moves on to impeachment. What happens then? Well, Congress has to convict Trump of some crime. Firing Muller would be a hard sell as a criminal act, since it is not one. The worst that happens on this is probably that Congress says, "No, you cannot fire Muller, and that means he is still acting as a special investigator." Congress might force Trump to let Muller back on FBI property, or they might give him a place to work where Trump does not have the power to kick him out. I can tell you this though, it is very unlikely Republicans will even try to convict Trump if the only issue is that he fired and evicted Muller from FBI property. So what if I am wrong, and Muller does have evidence? This guy who thinks Twitter is a blog thinks that Republicans, even if only just enough to make up the difference, will convict Trump, completing his impeachment. I have one question: Bill Clinton lied in court. We have video recordings of this. Bill Clinton lied in court after swearing not to, and the left did not convict him, despite overwhelming evidence. Clinton's only defense was that he did not realize what he did was wrong. He could have committed murder, and said, "Oh, I did not realize that was what murder meant." Evidently not realizing something is illegal is good enough for the Democrats to clear someone (though, this defense won't work in any court outside of Congress). Now, I presume this Twitter blogger is a Democrat, because I don't know anyone that is not a Democrat that believes the claims he is making. His own party cleared someone with absolute proof that a crime was committed, and he trusts the other party who he thinks is a bunch of lying, self interested scumbags to have better morals? Seriously?
There is only one way Congress convicts Trump of anything. Not convicting him has to make the Republican party look significantly worse than convicting him. See, the Republican Party is in a bit of a bind with this. First, the party leaders (including many of those in Congress) hate Donald Trump. They would have ousted him after he won the primaries, if they thought they could get away with it (just like the left was considering doing if Sanders won their primaries). Ousting Trump now, through impeachment, would risk the same backlash ousting him after the primaries would have (possibly worse, because he has been elected as President now). The right has three demographics to satisfy. One is conscientious, mostly religious conservatives. Another is business conservatives, who genuinely like many of Trump's policies. The other is the racist, bigoted, alt right. At this point, most of the conscientious conservatives wouldn't be terribly bothered to see Trump go, but the bigots and business conservatives would, though the business conservatives probably would not bail over Trump getting ousted. You might say, "The right should just let the bigots go!" You would love that, wouldn't you? The problem here is that the right knows that without the bigots, it is underrepresented. The left has undermined religious freedom and religious values to the point where the right needs to bigots just to get fair representation. The left is not interested in democracy. It is only interested in getting it way. So, the left uses underhanded shaming tactics, while the right responds by grudgingly giving a voice to the bigots. (At least the right is honest.) What do you expect? Do you think the right should play totally fair, while the left uses anti-democratic strategies to marginalize the voices of the right? As things are right now, if Trump is tried, he will almost certainly be acquitted. The Republican Representatives know that convicting Trump will lose them the alt right support. The rest of the right thinks Trump is an inept idiot, but he is still better than Hillary. (Interestingly, I know a lot of conservatives who would have voted for Sanders instead of Trump, were it an option.) The only way Trump is convicted, assuming he is even impeached in the first place, is if not convicting him would do more damage to the Republican Party than convicting him. That is going to take more than just evidence that he might have colluded with Russians to remind Americans about Hillary being a criminal in an effort that may or may not have altered the outcome of the election.
Now, I should add: I am not a Trump supporter. I am a political conservative. I don't subscribe to the Republican party line. I think Trump's immigration policy is idiotic, but if damaging our economy by eliminating cheap Mexican labor is what it takes for the right to understand the relationship between immigration and economy, then I am fine with letting him have his way. I am glad Trump is pushing back on religious freedom, because all of the stupid social justice agendas that affect only a few percent of the population all rely on the very religious freedom they seek to undermine. I think it is utterly moronic that the left is focusing all of its efforts on meaningless accusations against Trump, instead of actually doing something productive and good for all Americans. I honestly don't care what happens to Trump. I would not like to see the influence of the Republican Party undermined any more, at least until the left starts focusing on the American people, instead of just the tiny percentage of illegal immigrants, the tiny percentage of gay people, the even tinier percentage of people who don't like being their biological gender, and so on. The Republicans might be pretty dumb and out of touch, but have you seen the Democratic establishment recently? Welcome to, "I am so jealous of Donald Trump that I cannot think of literally anything else while he is still in the White House." You want my support, then get off your butts and do something real, instead of trying to undermine the guy that you didn't want to win the Presidential election!
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