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Amid relentless scrutiny over possible ties between his presidential campaign and Russia, an extraordinary suggestion has emerged - that Donald Trump could pardon himself or his family.
Source: BBC News
US President Donald Trump has insisted he has the "complete power" to pardon people, amid reports he is considering presidential pardons for family members, aides and even himself.
A Democratic Party spokesman has called the reports "extremely disturbing".
The US authorities are probing possible collusion between the Trump team and Russia. Intelligence agencies think Russia tried to help Mr Trump to power.
Russia denies this, and the president says there was no collusion.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Mr Trump and his team were looking at ways to pardon people close to him.
Source: BBC News
(Score: -1, Insightful) by bradley13 on Monday July 24 2017, @02:24PM (31 children)
I'm not sure what I think of President Trump, but this Russia stuff has been beyond silly for a long time. The latest: a member of Trump's campaign meets with someone who claims to have dirt on his political opponent.
How many political campaigns have something like that happen? 100%, or only 99.9%?
The fact that the campaign member was Trump's son? Irrelevant. The fact that the person claiming to have dirt on Hillary was a Russian? Irrelevant.
According to TFA, the context of Trump's interest in the limits of his pardoning authority are simple: "With the Russia investigation continuing to widen, Trump’s lawyers are working to corral the probe and question the propriety of the special counsel’s work." In other words, he's tired of the witch hunt, and wondering if it might be possible to just end it. Likely that would be a politically stupid move, but one can hardly blame him for asking.
And there's this: "Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon" Some advisor needs to be fired.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @03:00PM (3 children)
I missed the part about Trump's son, but the part about Sessions does not seem "beyond silly".
Sessions: "I never had meetings with Russian operatives or Russian intermediaries about the Trump campaign”
Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, on the topic of Sessions:
Intercepted communications between Kislyak and Russia indicate that Kislyak and Sessions met, at least, twice during the campaign and "discussed campaign-related matters, including policy issues important to Moscow".
I certainly have alarm fatigue about the whole Russian:Trump connections, but officials need to be called-out when they are caught lying.
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Monday July 24 2017, @06:27PM (1 child)
Agreed. With how deep into DC culture Sessions is, this does not surprise me.
Where crime exists, and I am sure it exists (Flynn), justice needs to be swift.
But this constant "muh Russia" behind every damn blade of grass is insane. Hell even if Russia meddled, it is fair game. Lest we forget Iran, Ukraine, Argentina, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc etc etc. Don't dish out unless you can take, our fault for doing a shitty job at defense.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @09:54PM
Well it is nice to see you crazies slowly making the transition to reality, but again the issue is not that Russia meddled but that the current POTUS was likely complicit and lied about such ties.
It just blows my mind to see propaganda work so well against you party liners.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Monday July 24 2017, @11:01PM
He learnt from Capone that you have to keep your taxes secret, but he hasn't learnt from Clinton that you shouldn't lie about silly investigations.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @03:04PM
I hope the Trump family's legal team gives them advice of this quality... Yes, keep watching Fox n Friends, Mr. Trump. Yes, you're innocent, keep talking. Yes you can fire Mueller. Yes, you can hire more family members. Yes, they can talk to Russian agents. Everything's fine, keep on at it.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Monday July 24 2017, @03:05PM (6 children)
I'll put it this way: The Democrats and their media mouthpieces at MSNBC have not done themselves any favors by making overblown claims about Trump's interactions with Russia.
On the other hand, I'm reasonably certain at this point that there is something there. I don't think it's what the Democrats claim, though, which is essentially that Trump is a Manchurian Candidate. What I am reasonably certain is going on, and there's substantial public information behind each of these steps:
1. Trump runs his personal finances like a giant Ponzi scheme. This completely matches everything we know about his business dealings: His longstanding philosophy is that if you owe a bank $100,000, you have a problem, but if you owe a bank $100,000,000, the bank has a problem.
2. He ran out of suckers in the New York and European banking worlds. Therefor, he turned to Russians to lend him money.
3. The Russians who would lend him yuge sums are not nice people who would, say, politely sue him in court if he didn't pay them back. This would not be even close to the first time Trump cut deals with mobsters.
4. In desperation, Trump hatches a plan to become president, with the idea that he can pay back his Russian creditors with money looted from the US Treasury. He figures that in a reasonably corrupt country like the US, that should be entirely possible (so far, it is).
5. The Russians, wanting their money back, helped him with his plan to the best of his ability.
Notice that this scenario doesn't need to involve Putin at all, just Trump trying to save his kneecaps.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @03:59PM (5 children)
This would be plausible, but it ignores evidence that state-level actors were involved (I think it was the FIS?). I guess you could argue that the Russian government is so corrupt that mobsters can co-opt government resources... but in my personal opinion that is a stretch.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 24 2017, @04:41PM (4 children)
That evidence amounts to claims by a private security firm hired by the Democratic Party to find evidence of Russian involvement in the election. And lo and behold, they found exactly what they were paid to find. Those findings have not been subject to independent verification: For instance, the FBI were not allowed to examine the affected servers at the DNC. And with the hack we did get some details about, the DNC was breached by a fairly simple phishing attack that a large number of Soylentils could have easily cooked up in their spare time, which could have been easily prevented by 2-factor authentication/. Which means that claims of a state-level actor have more to do with "Whoa, I don't understand how this happened, it must have been a super-genius working for the Russian government." than "Here's exactly what the FSB did, and how we know it was them."
By all appearances, the DNC is pretty clueless when it comes to technology, in large part because their tech work is done primarily by a firm that was chosen primarily because they had donated substantially to the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton. Choosing your contractors for their political loyalties rather than their competence is not a recipe for success.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 24 2017, @04:48PM (3 children)
That evidence amounts to claims by a private security firm hired by the Democratic Party...
Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security [soylentnews.org]
"The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations. "
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday July 24 2017, @04:49PM
fixed link:
Joint Statement from the Department Of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security [dhs.gov]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @06:28PM (1 child)
Notice how Texalon doesnt respond?
Hes purposefully ill informed. He will ignore ALL contrary evidence and continue to spew his lies in the hopes that he can help sway opinion. Cause repeating lies over and over again will get the sheeple lined up behind you.
(Score: 2) by digitalaudiorock on Monday July 24 2017, @10:19PM
Exactly! This is what I've been saying here an in related threads. We've all actually seen and heard the heads of these agencies say as much on fucking camera, yet the trolls keep rolling out there "nothing to see here but a bunch of leaks" bullshit in lock step with Trump's Twitter feed, and doing so in excruciating detail as if all sorts of research went into it. For Holy fucks sake...as if we're all drinking their fucking kool aide. This is fucking SN, not Breibart, though a really really noisy troll minority is making it very hard to tell.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Whoever on Monday July 24 2017, @03:08PM (9 children)
Only irrelevant to hard-line Trump supporters or people of such little imagination that they cannot see the problems this brings.
There is also significant evidence that Trump's wealth has come from the Russian Mafia (which in turn is controlled by the Russian Government). You still don't see a problem?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Monday July 24 2017, @04:11PM
+1000. The idea that an explanation would be needed is almost unimaginable. Even the likes of Lindsey Graham can see that. I have no clue what's going on with SN lately, and the level of right wing cool-aide apparently being doled out in bulk. I've seen multiple occasions recently where it's been suggested that the likes of McCarthyism would be a good thing. It's getting like fucking Breitbart around here FFS.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 24 2017, @04:59PM (1 child)
The link in the chain that is by far the weakest is the link between whichever Russians have dealt with Trump's organization, and Vladimir Putin. If the Russian mob is anything like the mob elsewhere in the world, they don't work for the government as much as do their own thing with an understanding by the government about what will or will not trigger a government response.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday July 25 2017, @04:46AM
I think that you mean "like the mob in western countries". The mob in Russia is much closer to the government. It's not a simple case of the government looking the other way.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Monday July 24 2017, @06:54PM (1 child)
"There is also significant evidence that Trump's wealth has come from the Russian Mafia "
[citation needed]
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday July 25 2017, @04:54AM
How childish. This isn't Wikipedia.
I'll resist the urge to post a link to LMGTFY, instead, I'll provide some reading material for you:
http://www.msnbc.com/brian-williams/watch/report-russian-mob-money-helped-build-trump-business-empire-1002228291948 [msnbc.com]
or this one:
https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate [newrepublic.com]
or this one:
http://www.oregonlive.com/today/index.ssf/2017/05/donald_trump_closely_tied_to_r.html [oregonlive.com]
(Score: 1) by J053 on Tuesday July 25 2017, @12:44AM
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 26 2017, @12:29AM (2 children)
You do realize that vague insinuation of a problem is not actually a problem? Perhaps the real problem here is suddenly deciding that all conversations with Russians are proof of treason. We would normally call that a "witch hunt".
(Score: 3, Informative) by Whoever on Wednesday July 26 2017, @01:49AM (1 child)
There was only a vague insinuation of a problem early on in the Watergate scandal too.
In this case, there are many financial ties between Trump and the Russian mafia, going back decades. There is a lot more than a vague insinuation of a problem.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 26 2017, @02:42AM
No. There were several people who got caught and arrested for breaking and entering at the very start. That's felony crime not vague insinuations. The FBI quickly became involved and figures in the Nixon administration were quickly incriminated (G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, for example, were indicted along with the people who actually committed the break in at the Watergate complex). Perhaps you ought to look at a timeline of the subsequent events to the Watergate break in and see how quickly it fell apart for the Nixon administration. Eight months later Congress had authorized investigations of the Nixon administration over this matter. And a bit over two years later, despite considerable stonewalling, Nixon was facing certain impeachment and conviction, if he stayed on as president.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @03:56PM (1 child)
No, this is the very heart of the matter. As an analogy, imagine an Imam tells a girl how she should dress, and especially how she should not go out in public wearing that short skirt. Now imagine a father tells a girl how she should dress, and especially how she should not go out in public wearing that short skirt.
Context matters a lot. There is a reason why there are federal campaign contribution laws against international funding sources, but not against domestic ones.
The presumption is that US people are a collective group trying to figure out the best outcome for themselves. As such, if an American were to find out dirt on a candidate they didn't like and share it with the Trumps, they are looking out for their own interests and indirectly for the American people as a whole. On the other hand, if there was a Russian who found out dirt on a candidate they didn't like and share it with the Trumps, they are looking out for their own interests and indirectly working for the Russian people as a whole. There is a big difference, from the perspective of the US government and the American people.
This is completely ignoring accusations of breaking US laws (e.g. hacking computers... even if it were as simple as password guessing on a poorly designed website).
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 26 2017, @12:31AM
So what? A "big difference" doesn't mean much, if the dirt is real and sufficiently dirty.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Non Sequor on Monday July 24 2017, @05:15PM (4 children)
Let's flip it a different way. Let's say that Trump and company are innocent, but the Russian government has staged a variety of things to create leads. They might have misdirected a couple of minor assets (Russian lawyer and Goldstone) with indirect Russia ties to set up a meeting that looks unusual. They may have directed Kislyak to report over monitored channels to say that Sessions discussed the campaign. Passing information about the Wikileaks dump to Stone would be another way to create an impression of collusion. They may have planted sources to generate an unverifiable dossier. Putin may have deliberately sought a conversation with Trump off the record wholly to create more gossip.
All of these actions have low risks and a low cost to benefit ratio. Actually controlling the American president would be a huge benefit to Russia, but the risks are massive because getting caught will precipitate an international response. All of the actions above have predictable outcomes because the parties involved are relatively psychologically predictable and the pattern of media and partisan response is also predictable. Organizationally, the presidency is crippled and without a secure majority in congress, sowing distrust cripples legislative progress. Any chance of Trump playing to his more centrist economic impulses are crippled if democrats are unwilling to cut deals. Russia may have incapacitated the US at relatively low cost.
This type of storyline is much more interesting than the narratives that either party is pushing.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @06:56PM (3 children)
Interesting idea, but all that puts the Trump administration into a position where they would antagonize Russian interests to demonstrate that they weren't working together.
This ignores how the Democrats have bent over for the Republicans even when they had a super majority. The Democrats seem to lack a spine or pretend to be powerless against the Republicans.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Monday July 24 2017, @08:25PM
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 26 2017, @12:35AM
Yet another predictable response which can be gamed. For example, what happens if the attempt to antagonize Russia also antagonizes the EU and India?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:00AM
I think it's educational what sort of issues the two parties have been willing to compromise on. Neither seems interested in weakening the intelligence agencies, for example.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Monday July 24 2017, @07:06PM
Boo hoo! He has long enthusiastically participated in this same sort of thing for far more vapid and scurrilous reasons. To complain when he faces the same sort (although Trump went far beyond this) of scrutiny is just the whining of an over-privileged crybaby.
(Score: 4, Informative) by https on Monday July 24 2017, @07:28PM
Apparently, a working memory of a fortnight is discouraged when discussing American politics. Not being American, I'm breaking your silly customs.
Junior was well aware that their contact was a Russian operative because Goldstone told him so [nytimes.com] as part of setting up the meeting.
Matt Tait (who was not privy to Goldstone's emails) correctly deduced [lawfareblog.com] that the information most likely came from the Russian intelligence apparatus and was a legal dumpster fire waiting to be lit - and explicitly warned against touching it. He was shocked and surprised, but smart enough to stay away.
Offended and laughing about it.