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@Gators1 said in The Official Election 2020 Thread:
@Blanks said in The Official Election 2020 Thread:
@Gators1 said in The Official Election 2020 Thread:
@Blanks said in The Official Election 2020 Thread:
@Hog said in The Official Election 2020 Thread:
@Gators1 said in The Official Election 2020 Thread:
How fucking pathetic is that guy though to do a 45 minute video claiming bullshit?
To what end is what I’m wondering. Doesn’t seem like it’s just so he can lose claiming he didn’t really lose because the election was rigged. He got that message across already. He keeps getting spanked by the courts so what’s his next move?
I’m sure it’s multifaceted goals. My guesses would be to bring in more money from his supporters. Another being to rally his base and get them to harass more people, possibly members the courts. Another to politicize the investigations going after him and his corrupt family. I figure he may also be setting himself up to step down, have Pence pardon him, then play the victim that it’s all a big deep state conspiracy and he had to do it because they are going after him with more fake news witch hunts.
Whatever the case may be, it’s all probably going to cause a lot of damage to the country for the foreseeable future. Unless everyone collectively changes gears and refuses to accept his bullshittery…which is the most unlikely scenario of them all.
The whole pardon theory is stupid. Trump isn’t going to give up until the last minute and Pence has nothing to gain and everything to lose from that scenario. He has his own political ambitions that would be damaged by pardoning Trump and that’s in exchange for being president for a week? Also it’s unlikely Trump would be federally charged with anything he did during his presidency. There is nothing to gain politically from the Biden spending a bunch of time and news cycles prosecuting this guy and distracting from his own agenda. Ford pardoned Nixon for that reason and suffered for it, but actually having a trial would likely be worse. Trump has enough to worry about from the state of New York coming after him.
The question shouldn’t be ‘what does Pence have to gain?’, it should be ‘what does Pence have to lose?’
As Trump loses control, those are the factors that he will be using as leverage. It’s a common tactic of his already, but in this case he no longer has much else to offer beyond taking people down with him.
Ted Cruz, Lindsay Graham and a host of other politicians spoke for a at least a year about how dangerous Trump is, how he embodies the polar opposite of American values, how no real American can support him, etc. Yet…look at what’s happened since then? They started doing blackflips for him not because of what they got out of it, but out of self preservation. Kissing the ring was the only thing keeping them above water when all Trump has to do is make a few tweets and his cult would be at their throat.
Pence is as lame-duck as it gets and was a perfect weak-lackey-choice to accompany a brutish self-absorbed conman. If Trump wanted to sink him, I have no doubt that he could…at least with his cult members. Which apparently is enough to keep the rest of the GOP in line so far. And with Fox news losing viewers to OAN and Newsmax, I’d say Trump still appears to be holding a lot of cards right now…sadly. Now is this a likely move? Doubtful. But it’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility.
What crimes is the Biden administration going to charge Trump with that are so important he would want to distract from the stuff he wants to do while a high profile investigation and trial takes place? He wants to heal the country but the first thing he does is prosecute a high profile Republican president? There isn’t a lot of upside for him other than potentially allowing for a bunch of left wing nut jobs to do a touchdown dance on internet message boards when Trump is convicted of something.
The DOJ is investigating a Trump bribery/pardon scheme right now. Has nothing to do with Biden really, at least not right now. However, I would imagine that it would likely be a congressional investigation with referrals to the DOJ for charges. But they have been so weak handed the last several years that it’s hard to say if they would even be functional enough to do it. That aside, the biggest issue I think lies in what it would mean if justice isn’t sought. If every illegal thing they have done or tried to do is now precedent for acceptable presidential and WH behavior, then there are going to be some big problems in the future. The next time someone like this becomes president it will end up being far worse.
Conviction isn’t a certainty either.
It definitely isn’t.
For example if you want to charge him with obstruction for firing Comey, you have to overcome the argument that he had the power to fire Comey at any time as a power of his job. There isn’t much in the laws and decisions on this stuff and it may be that the courts don’t want to wade in and define limits to presidential power because it violates justiciability. I doubt the administration even goes there and Trump’s lawyers are probably telling him the same.
I’m not sure that’s the sort of thing people go to when they say the Trumps needs to pay for their crimes. Personally, my first thought are the bribery and favor schemes through the Trump properties.
Pence isn’t a dumbass. He’s a strange guy but he is politically savvy, enough to get him elected governor and to orchestrate his own pick as VP by putting pressure on the administration. He’s going to do what helps his career, not what helps Trump out. Maybe he does fear retribution from Trump, but he also should fear backlash from a move like pardoning Trump. Trump only commands his diehards while a pardon could bring massive numbers to the polls like this election and crush him. Not sure if he even still believes he can follow Trump in the Oval because I think it’s highly doubtful, but becoming a lighting rod won’t help.
If Pence has aspirations of getting into the WH himself then I think that’s nothing more than a pipe dream really. He’s about as charismatic and appealing as a lutefisk sandwich. Tucker Carlson, Ivanka and even…sadly…Don Jr…probably have better odds at winning a presidential race. And let’s say Trump does get charged with crimes that he committed while president…how does that make Pence look then? Being able to separate himself from that stain is probably just as tough to pull off and I just don’t see him having the personality or likability to do it. That letter to the public that was rumored to be from Pence, the one about safeguards within the WH and calling for the public to remain calm, that one had Trump cultists fuming at Pence at the time…and it wasn’t even proven to be from him.
Who knows what’ll happen, but I think it’s fair to say Trump is pretty desperate right now and he is going to pull every trick he has while he still can.
