Discussion: If Dems Win House, They Will Likely Issue Subpoenas To Trump Aides On Russia

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By all means, they should do that. But let’s keep it a bit sotto voce for the next few weeks, eh? Will make it more of a fun surprise for the recipients when it happens. :innocent:

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Sure will. After all, everyone knows it’s “fake news” and should be ignored. Many people are saying this…

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What’s that old saying about chicks and eggs? Sotto voce indeed, and hang that rose up, eh?"

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And since Trump repeatedly brayed that the Democrats will lose and it’s really going to be a red wave, guess what? A lot of his people believe him! So no need to rush to the polls, it’s cool, we got this thing! Bwa ha ha ha ha!!!

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The go-to strategy for a Republican administration is to ignore the subpoenas and force the House to retain its own counsel to bring a contempt proceeding.

That’s what Karl Rove did when he was called to testify about deleting emails.

Panic, motherfuckers. #TrumpRussia

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I’m sure they’ll enjoy the time out of the slammer.

I hope the Democrats, if they take the House, will also start hauling some agency heads into hearings to explain why they’re undermining the clear intent of all manner of legislation.

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This election, one hopes, will give Democrats the chance to show that a real political party can both walk and chew gum at the same time. Investigations of the Trump administration’s innumerable crimes (that shouldn’t impinge too much on Mueller), plus rolling back the out of control executive orders, putting through legislation to solve the country’s many problems, cutting back on power give-aways to the executive like ability to impose tariffs, break treaties, start wars, …

The Republicans, ever since seizing power, have cut back on Congress’s working hours. Democrats could make a point of reversing this, and show statistics and graphs. (Yes, I’m a nerd.) A good graph is worth a thousand words of governo-blather about bill numbers, acronyms, obscure Congressman name-pairs … well, just listen to the debate performance of Al Gore in 2000.

In short, if the election goes well this November and Democrats gain control of at least one house of Congress, this is no time to refuse to “look back”, as they’ve been doing since Nixon took his helicopter ride into history.

And this, in a nutshell, is why Republicans are desperate to have someone like Kavanaugh on the bench. I fully expect a complete lack of cooperation from the White House and Trump associates, as they explicitly or implicitly call out executive privilege, refuse to comply with document requests, subpoenas, etc. With Kavanaugh, they have a reasonable shot at getting a ruling that the President really is above the law and does not need to comply with Congressional requests.

“Democrats also plan to be careful not to infringe on special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, as well as not to oversaturate the American people in Russian minutiae at the risk of seeming less concerned with the more immediate bread-and-butter issues.”

Let us hope. There is such a thing as oversaturation. And I think there are precious few voters who would put concern regarding Russian interference in the election above their hopes for adequate healthcare for their families, a fair wage for a day’s work and consumer protections that have some teeth. Just how it is. People, like armies, march on their stomachs.

I would wait until the indictments come out. During Iran Contra Congress just had to know everything before any trials. So in their haste they gave Oliver North and others immunity. Then they were tried and convictions overturned because Congress had given them immunity. I would even wait for the trials to occur before I would start hauling people up to Congress to testify.