I said that Trump should pardon Flynn and pardon Manafort and pardon Papadopoulos and pardon Julian Assange. And then I said it all again here.
Trump whines on twitter about the witch hunt (which it is), but he doesn’t use the powers that he has as President to put a stop to it.
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Lion of the Blogosphere 
He should pardon Manafort for defrauding the IRS?
Jack
August 22, 2018 at 8:50 AM
Yes if he pays his taxes that he owes.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 9:01 AM
From a lefty virtuous standpoint, it sets a bad precedence for the average joe prole who cheats on his taxes.
“Let me lie about my taxes and if the IRS catches me, I’ll just pay them”
JS
August 22, 2018 at 9:53 AM
That’s the way it is anyway, You’re thirty times more likely to die in a car accident than be prosecuted for tax fraud. Tax fraud prosecutions are very rare, and an alarmingly high number of them are used against Republicans and people involved with them as a punishment by the left-controlled deep state.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 9:59 AM
Timothy Geithner cheated on his taxes before becoming Treasury Secretary: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2009/01/a-word-about-timothy-geithner/79/
Dave Pinsen
August 22, 2018 at 12:27 PM
“Let me lie about my taxes and if the IRS catches me, I’ll just pay them”
Unless one is obviously and blatantly committing tax fraud, the IRS is usually content not to pursue charges as long as one pays back taxes. But if it’s a business or rich person then they will absolutely prosecute you.
destructure
August 22, 2018 at 3:11 PM
There are only a thousand or less fraud prosecutions per year, and probably tens of millions of people actually committing fraud.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 3:37 PM
Ronaldo didn’t pay 17 million US in taxes. He paid 6.6 million of that and then was fined 21 million and got no jail time. Here we have to put people in prison arbitrarily it seems, Manafort gets prison but most others don’t
ttgy1
August 22, 2018 at 6:25 PM
They looked at the charges years ago, and Justice Department concluded it wasn’t sufficient to file charges. Then years later they dredge them back up just because he worked for Trump. I think most people would agree that is unfair and would be worthy of a pardon. Trump’s tweet suggests pardon will be forthcoming. He should do Flynn and Pap along with it. Nothing he does will ever stop the media from complaining, but the media also can’t get any worse than it already is. So he should just do the right thing and stop worrying about what the media or GOPe might say.
PerezHBD
August 22, 2018 at 9:48 AM
>>Nothing he does will ever stop the media from complaining, but the media also can’t get any worse than it already is. So he should just do the right thing and stop worrying about what the media or GOPe might say.
Agree. Pardon them all now. Not Cohen. He’s a squealing weasel. Let him do his time.
Daniel Heneghan
August 22, 2018 at 6:05 PM
Maybe if you disguised your advice to Trump in a post about things Instagram has ruined, he would take it.
Hermes
August 22, 2018 at 9:35 AM
I expect he would do just that . Hopefully this month. And let Cohen rote.
Bruno
August 22, 2018 at 10:11 AM
Also, while he’s at it Trump should fire Sessions, then fire Rosenstein, and keep firing until someone in line for AG is willing to fire Mueller. If not, then at the very least revoke Mueller’s security clearance, and sign an EO moving his office to Nome, Alaska.
This slow drip, drip, drip of constant news stories is worse than the bang of a bunch of pardons and firings. Just rip off the band-aid. It would dominate a few news cycles, but as long as the economy’s good voters will forget before midterms.
Doug
August 22, 2018 at 10:29 AM
I’m opposed to firing Sessions. He’s the most loyal, in spite of everything, of Trump’s cabinet picks. The problem is that he’s proven to be over his head in running the DoJ. He should be swapped out for some other position in the administration, assuming that a suitable replacement could be found to take over DoJ, and frankly, I’ve no idea who that would be. So…Sessions should stay.
Mike Street Station
August 23, 2018 at 6:07 AM
Trump is letting the Deep State kill his presidency by a thousand tiny cuts. He should stop playing defense (whining on Twitter) and take action against the Swamp foes that normal Americans would support. Use power of pardon, gut the entire intelligence agency etc.
Molgdbug Was Right
August 22, 2018 at 10:35 AM
My new conspiracy theory is that the Deep State set up Trump to discredit anti-immigration/anti-globalist politicians for decades. For all that Bernie is a lefty nutbag on some issues, his policies on immigration, protectionism and foreign policy aren’t that far from what Trump supporters want. And unlike Trump, Saunders comes without the baggage of decades of organized crime connections, tawdry affairs, and mismanaged buinesses. It is obvious that the open borders globalists have gone too far and are seeing a massive populist backlash all across the globe. They don’t want a Bernie Saunders in the WH, and are scared to death of a competent right-winger like Salvini in Italy. Who better than a corrupt clown like Trump to discredit populism in the US? (Or Farage in the UK for that matter).
Peter Akuleyev
August 22, 2018 at 10:36 AM
Bernie Sanders is a pathetic slobbering old fool. The only job fit for him is running mad in an asylum.
Nothing gives me more joy than his supporters drowning their sorrows over “what might have been”. ROTFL.
mpt
August 22, 2018 at 11:10 AM
“his policies on immigration, protectionism and foreign policy aren’t that far from what Trump supporters want.”
Nonsense. He’s slightly more pro-American than the mainstream Democrats, but that isn’t saying much. He’s pro-amnesty, pro-refugee, and only opposed to immigration to the extent that it would undermine his socialist goals. And the movement he leads is solidly radical in terms of both economic and social policy. The divide in the Democratic Party is not between advocates of “identity” versus “economics.” It’s between two groups with differing views of economics, but largely the same anti-white philosophy.
“decades of organized crime connections, tawdry affairs”
Many have looked for actual wrongdoing as far as the mafia goes. None have found anything, probably because there’s nothing to find. As for the “tawdy affairs,” nobody cares.
“My new conspiracy theory is that the Deep State set up Trump to discredit anti-immigration/anti-globalist politicians for decades… are scared to death of a competent right-winger like Salvini in Italy. Who better than a corrupt clown like Trump to discredit populism in the US?”
I agree that Trump is a clown, and, having voted for him in 2016, I am considering a vote for Cruz in 2020. At the beginning of his candidacy I suspected that he might be a “Manchurian candidate,” but it became clear over time that he was in it to win. If he wanted to lose the election, he would have done so. Your theory forgets that in mid-2015, there was no populist alternative to Trump. The Republican candidates other than him aligned on the same political spectrum as they had for the past generation, half were “moderates,” the other half were “true conservatives” who occasionally mentioned immigration but mostly talked about the need for tax cuts and Jesus, alienating those who didn’t believe in that stuff, but who would prove open to voting for a populist candidate without that baggage. Trump was the only one.
Alexander Turok
August 22, 2018 at 7:11 PM
The BBC is all over this. Its timing is clearly to do with the mid-term elections. I doubt any of this will play in flyover country. If the Republicans can win in November, Trump needs to stop faffing about and go to war on the Dems. Sessions out, Kobach in. Mueller, Rosenstein etc arrested. I’ve seen reports that African Americans are switching to Trump. Maybe he can pull off an even more spectacular win than in 2016?
lioncub
August 22, 2018 at 10:37 AM
Blacks don’t care if Trump had an affair. It actually makes them identify with and sympathize with him. Clinton became more popular with blacks after the Lewinsky scandal.
destructure
August 22, 2018 at 3:20 PM
Correction: What I actually read was that the criticism of his affairs and sexual assaults made him more popular with blacks because it “humanized” him and they identified with him.
destructure
August 22, 2018 at 3:26 PM
Trump is just maintaining optics (which are all on his side) until the midterms where the R’s will hold the House comfortably and gain possibly double digit seats in the Senate. Any proactive moves he makes before then will be to release the dirt (which he has on everyone) on specific Dem targets to help the Republican opponent over the line in specific races.
After midterms, with much stronger Trumpist majorities in the House and Senate, and Mueller finished, the hammer will drop.
Andrew E.
August 22, 2018 at 10:50 AM
I’ll be very surprised if the GOP picks up house seats. They’ll be lucky not to lose their majority.
destructure
August 22, 2018 at 3:29 PM
The GOP will lose seats in the midterm, but the GOP Congressman who remain will be more Trumpist since that is where the battle is being fought in GOP primaries this year: With Trump or Against him? So far, the Trumpie candidates are winning their primaries.
Mike Street Station
August 23, 2018 at 6:12 AM
The Left planned to use public records and campaign ‘disclosure’ laws all along as a force multiplier weapon for the Administrative/Deep State that they control. Are you a member of the Cathedral? Did you go to extraordinary lengths to hide records? Oh, nothing to see here.
Are you an enemy of the Cathedral? Well, in that case the entirety of your private life becomes an mandatory disclosure and should you impede that disclosure you are guilty of ‘campaign’ disclosures. The absence of rational boundaries in such things as campaign finance (speech) laws empowers such power grabs but objections to that effect were hand waved away.
The campaign finance laws should have been gutted years ago as ‘void for vagueness’ what we see now the very eventuality that doctrine exists to protect against.
Curle
August 22, 2018 at 11:01 AM
I don’t know what to think about any of this until Otis the Sweaty comments.
Two in the Bush
August 22, 2018 at 11:11 AM
Now you’re talkin’
SWPL2
August 22, 2018 at 11:22 AM
Hear hear!
driveallnight
August 22, 2018 at 3:09 PM
Pardoning those people won’t prevent impeachment if the Dems take the House. And why would he pardon a rat like Cohen, who’s already turned against him? Why do a traitor a favor?
Brendan
August 22, 2018 at 11:17 AM
Now that Cohen has turned against Trump… but if Trump had sent the strong message that he will pardon people, that probably wouldn’t have happened. The message being sent form the White House is that trump thinks that pardoning people will give Democrats more power, so he will throw everyone under the bus because of that.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 11:19 AM
An impeachment requires a two-thirds supermajority. Dims will never have the votes. And Republicans will never vote to impeach as long as he has an 80% approval among Republican voters. It would be political suicide.
destructure
August 22, 2018 at 3:39 PM
“Impeachment” is like a grand jury indictment, it’s the first step to removing a president.
The second step is that there’s a “trial” in the Senate which requires a 2/3 guilty vote. After Clinton was impeached in the House, all Democratic Senators found him not guilty.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 3:42 PM
Thanks for clarifying. If Dims get the House then that will probably be what happens here, too. While Clinton may have been found “not guilty” it neutered his presidency and he had no political power afterwards. I’m guessing that’s what the establishment is after with Trump. I don’t know if it will work though. It may be seen as politically motivated and backfire. It’s already seen that way and might merely enrage and inflame Trump’s supporters. Trump would really be powerful then. As long as Trump maintains an 80% approval among Republicans, he’s going to be influential.
destructure
August 22, 2018 at 4:11 PM
If there is any message of Trump to Cohen towards trying to find the emails from sourced linked to
Foreign nationals, it’s the end
Bruno
August 22, 2018 at 1:18 PM
As you know, Obama blatantly interfered in the UK referendum, telling lies about future trade relations between the two countries. He did this on TV! Why was he not impeached?
lioncub
August 22, 2018 at 1:38 PM
Riiighhhtttt…
Because it is illegal to talk to foreigners.
map
August 22, 2018 at 2:40 PM
This whole thing really is amazing.
1) Why is Cohen stating that he directed money to said parties at the behest of a “Federal candidate” instead of outright identifying Trump? Instead, you have Lanny Davis identifying Trump to the media. This means that there is no identifying of Trump at all in the legal record. This is very odd. I wonder why it is the case?
2) Even if Trump did direct the payment, what does any of this have to do with the campaign? A campaign finance violation requires monies moved into and out of campaign finance accounts. Everything was paid out of personal accounts only. By this legal reasoning, if CNN pays a reporter to write a glowing editorial about Federal candidate Hillary Clinton, then that would be an illegal campaign contribution as well.
3) You still have the oft observed fact that Cohen’s “Bank fraud” charge did not actually defraud any bank. Can someone point to the bank that lost money dealing with Cohen?
4) You still have the oft observed fact that there is no crime here at all. Paying a woman off to prevent her from saying she had sex with you is not illegal. Otherwise, the NDA itself would be illegal.
5) It’s amazing how much the Dems have flipped on their support for the intelligence agencies and criminal prosecutors. As late as 2015, they were talking about the Cocaine Importing Agency and all the poor people rail-roaded by prosecutions. Now, prosecutors and intelligence officers are the most above-board and greatest of all citizens. Maybe prison reform and prosecutor practices need to be heavily reviewed.
6) The level of damage done to the legal system by Mueller and the SDNY is incalculable.
map
August 22, 2018 at 1:47 PM
“Paying a woman off to prevent her from saying she had sex with you is not illegal.”
That suggests an interesting loophole. Prostitution is illegal. So how do porn companies get around it? They don’t pay the actors to have sex. Technically, they’re paying the actors to film them having sex.
Could one not get around prostitution laws by paying someone not to disclose they’ve had sex? Yeah, I know that’s absurd. But is it any more absurd than what the porn industry is doing?
destructure
August 22, 2018 at 3:48 PM
Many years ago I read in the newspaper about a prostitute that made videos of herself having sex with clients and then let the client keep the video. When she was arrested she claimed she was a porn actress and was being paid to make porn videos. The police did not believe that story and arrested her anyway. I never heard what happened to that case.
MikeCA
August 22, 2018 at 5:10 PM
Did her clients get off?
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 5:11 PM
Porno companies get around because you’re paying someone to have sex with a third party in an arms-length transaction. Bob cannot legally pay Alice to have sex with him. But he can pay Alice to have sex with Charlie (as long as it’s done for reasons not related to benefiting Charlie, i.e. a gift).
As for paying for other services, prostitutes already try to bypass this by declaring that “any money exchanged is for time spent together, any sexual activity is incidental.” Predictably this rarely holds up in court. The law ways that if Alice genuinely wouldn’t have had sex with Bob had it not been for the transfer of money, then it constitutes prostitution. Even if the money is nominally for some other non-sexual service.
Alice can sleep with Bob for non-pecuniary reasons, then Bob legally can pay her after the fact to sign an NDA. But if Bob offers up front to pay for the NDA, and immediately after Alice has sex with him, and they never had any prior romantic relation, and Alice has a history of only sleeping with men following this transaction, then Alice and Bob are in hot water.
Doug
August 22, 2018 at 5:26 PM
First Amendment Protections.
map
August 22, 2018 at 5:43 PM
I see what you did there, lion
driveallnight
August 23, 2018 at 5:31 PM
Trump should use prison reform to leverage a cleanup of the FBI, law enforcement and district prosecutor.
map
August 22, 2018 at 4:07 PM
I looked at a part of the federal prosecutor’s detailing of the evidence (not sure what the whole thing is called) and it seems to come down to whether the payments were made to protect Trump’s rep as Donald Trump, or as a candidate. If the former, no crime. If the latter, a crime.
Amirite on this?
gothamette
August 22, 2018 at 3:22 PM
1. The payoff has to be to benefit the campaign and not Trump’s personal non-campaign reputation.
2. Trump had to have directed it. You can spend any amount of money you want to help a candidate (look at all of theses PACs out there) as long as the candidate himself doesn’t control the money.
Each side spent hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning (according to WaPo, $2.4 billion total spend on the presidential election of 2016), obsessing over a few hundred thousand dollars is nitpicking for the purpose of a coup against Trump, who the MSM and the deep state hate.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 3:40 PM
“1. The payoff has to be to benefit the campaign and not Trump’s personal non-campaign reputation.”
I think that’s the heart of the matter.
gothamette
August 22, 2018 at 3:54 PM
1. The payoff has to be to benefit the campaign and not Trump’s personal non-campaign reputation.
That’s a very high bar that requires knowing Trump’s mind. It can’t be proven unless 1) Trump specifically said it and 2) someone who heard him say it testifies to that effect.
destructure
August 22, 2018 at 3:53 PM
This is what I’d argue.
“I’m contrite – I had my wife and son’s feelings to consider.”
gothamette
August 22, 2018 at 4:20 PM
Even if witnesses testify that Trump said that the payoff was for the campaign, it is still hard to see how it is a crime.
Suppose Trump bought a $5k suit, and said that it was to look good in a campaign appearance? Would that be a campaign finance crime? No.
If Trump were making the payoff to protect the wife and kid, he might also say that he was doing it for the campaign in order to also protect the wife and kid. So Trump saying that it was for the campaign does not mean that it was for the campaign.
Roger
August 23, 2018 at 12:23 AM
Read the article at amgreatness.com about Trump and “slut-shaming.” It’s excellent.
gothamette
August 23, 2018 at 8:56 AM
The political advice from the original post down through the comments is awful.
First, pre-emptively pardoning people during an active investigation would look terrible. Trump’s team made the relatively smarter decision of letting things play out; there’s a risk to that strategy, but it’s wiser in terms of expected benefits/costs (if nothing else, it strengthens the president’s chance of getting re-elected — assuming the move pays off). Second, the pardon is not magical. Many of these actors face exposure to state crimes, which Trump cannot pardon. Moreover, if they were pardoned, then they can be forced to testify (where they risk more legal exposure for lying; pardoning them for such secondary offenses would harm the president’s approval ratings and chances for re-election).
Firing Mueller, let alone prosecuting him, is just silly. Good luck removing Rosenstein.
Vince
August 22, 2018 at 3:45 PM
“First, pre-emptively pardoning people during an active investigation would look terrible.”
No matter what Trump does it looks terrible to the MSM. The worst that would happen is that the MSM would temporarily amp up the volume of Trump hate from 10 to 11, and it it would dial back to 10 a week later because a volume of 11 is not sustainable.
If Trump truly believes his tweets, then he should have taken action on them and pardon people who don’t deserve to be prosecuted.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 3:48 PM
Remember, the issue is the cuck republicans in Congress, not the Democrats.
map
August 22, 2018 at 4:09 PM
i agree. trump should fire mueller, sessions, and rosenstein and pardon manafort, cohen, et al on the same night, preferably a saturday.
let the Dims stew in their own insanity and stupidity.
rape survivor
August 22, 2018 at 4:39 PM
Why was Special Counsel appointed in the first place? Because Trump fired James Comey. Part of Trump’s annoyance at Comey was an investigation into Flynn, who Trump was warned against hiring in the first place. I realize people here are keen to blame “the MSM” and the Deep State, but so much of this is of Trump’s own making. Omarosa and Cohen are creatures who come directly out of Trump World.
Vince
August 22, 2018 at 4:53 PM
People voted for Trump World over Hillary World, they knew what they were voting for.
Trump’s mistake was in not firing Comey on day one. Talking to him at all was a huge mistake.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 5:11 PM
James Comey did more than Russia, more than Clinton’s deplorables comment, more than Wikileaks to help Trump get elected, yet he’s supposed to be fired on day one? For what? FBI Directors are slated to have ten year terms in order to (ostensibly) insulate themselves from politics, which I suppose is a deep state ploy.
Besides, isn’t Trump supposed to follow the path blazed by Bill Clinton? Did Clinton threaten to fire Reno? He couldn’t threaten to fire Starr because he was appointed under rules to prevent those kinds of shenanigans (rules put in place because of Nixon).
Vince
August 22, 2018 at 8:48 PM
You might be right, but an early pardon to Manafort could have resulted in state charges, where Trump could not pardon him.
Roger
August 23, 2018 at 12:25 AM
Trump should have replaced Sessions the second he recused himself. That would have been legit on the grounds that Sessions recusal makes him unable to perform his duties. But after two years of investigation that ship has sailed.
destructure
August 22, 2018 at 4:00 PM
“Trump should have replaced Sessions the second he recused himself.”
It would have been difficult to get that past the Senate (just two cucked Republican Senators and we’d be without any AG at all) which would have to approve whomever Trump replaced him with. (Chris Christie?)
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 4:16 PM
To get elected, Trump will need talent, and everyday he allows this farce to go on will make it more difficult. Which is exactly the deep state’s goal.
Alexander Turok
August 22, 2018 at 7:24 PM
Doesn’t it depend on the results of the midterms? How does Trump secure his agenda and bolster confidence of conservatives (worldwide, not just in the US) if he just rolls over to this witch hunt by the Deep State? You say this strategy is not going to happen. So what’s your opinion on how to respond to this unprecedented level of abuse against a democratically elected President? Do nothing?!
The lioncub
August 23, 2018 at 1:27 AM
a dozen people were convicted in whitewater, but starr investigated vince foster’s death and then the lewinsky thing.
could lion do a post explaining why the special counsel’s investigation of bill clinton was NOT a politically motivated witch hunt.
rape survivor
August 22, 2018 at 4:36 PM
I’m not saying it wasn’t. Clinton did commit perjury,however, he really shouldn’t have done that. If he had just said “yep, I got a blowjob, and I enjoyed it a lot,” nothing would have happened.
Lion of the Blogosphere
August 22, 2018 at 5:08 PM
Quite clearly, Clinton wanted to get away with all of it. It’s easy to say he made a miscalculation after the fact, but I’m sure these guys often times stonewall and get away with it. Trump hasn’t fired Mueller and Sessions because his team has calculated that more bad than good will come of it. They’re not mistaken, either.
Vince
August 22, 2018 at 8:50 PM
OT: Just wild, wild. Watch the video. Some will say, “it’s just 300”, but there another 300 broke through 2 weeks ago. 300 here, 1,000 there, soon talking about great numbers.
https://www.rt.com/news/436579-ceuta-migrants-storm-border/
Daniel Heneghan
August 22, 2018 at 6:03 PM
And the real ennemies of Trump are thirty people in the press and the media : Chris cilliza, Jennifer Rubin, Eugene Robinson etc and a bunch of anchor. I wonder why they aren’t targeted by supporters themselves ?
Bruno
August 22, 2018 at 8:43 PM
proving my theory: ‘how straightforward the game when one has trust in one’s players’
toomanymice
August 22, 2018 at 8:55 PM
What do you think Lion about this Paula Duncan juror ?
Bruno
August 23, 2018 at 6:18 PM
In the NYT : « Trump’s Lawyers Urged Him to Postpone Even Pardons in Russia Inquiry »
Trump seems to get bad advice . First coopération. Then, no pardon.
Bruno
August 24, 2018 at 4:43 AM