Month: February 2024

🧵Sen. Chris Van Hollen praises new national security memorandum issued by the President, saying it models provisions in an amendment he offered with 18 colleagues. It does 3 things, he says: It said that we should make sure that US security assistance is aligned with our values

— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) February 9, 2024

Biden released an important national security document that nobody seems to know about because they are obsessed with bullshit as usual:

Here’s the whole thread:

🧵Sen. Chris Van Hollen praises new national security memorandum issued by the President, saying it models provisions in an amendment he offered with 18 colleagues. It does 3 things, he says: It said that we should make sure that US security assistance is aligned with our values and it specifically said that we are finding a way to ensure that recipients of US military assistance will comply with international humanitarian law and with international law as applicable. 

The other major provision in our amendment was that recipients of US security assistance of military assistance will cooperate in the provision of humanitarian assistance in areas of conflict where they are using U.S.-provided weapons. 

And third, we had robust reporting requirements. To hold accountable countries for those commitments, as well as require reporting on some other things. And all of the these key elements from the amendment have now been incorporated into the national security memorandum issued by the President.

It requires all recipients of US military assistance to provide written assurance that they will comply with international humanitarian law and other international law as applicable. 

In other words, as a condition of receiving US military assistance, they will now promise in writing that they will comply with international humanitarian law and other international law as applicable. 

…Number two, as a condition of receiving US military assistance, every country will agree to provide credible assurances in writing, that they will help facilitate US supported humanitarian assistance in the areas of conflict where they’re using US weapons, &not arbitrarily deny or restrict the provision of such humanitarian assistance.

..as part of that component, enforcement provisions contained in the national security memorandum that require that if there’s a violation of those promises, that the Secretary of State must report to the president within seven days, and there are a menu of options available to the President to enforce those provisions. 

And promises a whole range of things, including suspending US security assistance to a country that is in a violation of those commitments, and that that report needs to also be made to Congress. 

Third, and very importantly, for accountability purposes, this requires that the executive branch, the Defense Department & the State Department, provide a report to the US Congress on a whole range of important measures starting with a report on whether any of the recipient countries have violated their commitments under the first part, in other words, commitment to comply with international humanitarian law or if they violated their commitments to help facilitate US supported humanitarian assistance into these conflict zones. 

It asks for a determination on each of those measures on the issue. They’ve asked for a determination on the issue of whether or not international humanitarian law has been violated. 

It also importantly asks for an assessment and analysis of the extent to which any recipient country is using American weapons in a manner that’s inconsistent with best practices for preventing civilian casualties and civilian harm, & specifically references an ongoing effort by the Defense Department to develop civilian harm reduction strategies. 

..in our amendment, we applied it to every recipient of security assistance in the supplemental. Our goal has been all along to expand this universally. To every country that receives US security assistance. In other words, this is a very important and dramatic new policy that will be applied worldwide, going forward. 

One other point I should make with respect to the reporting requirements, Is that the reporting prioritizes a report within 90 days on any area where US weapons are being used in the conflict zone. 

So that would cover Ukraine, it would cover the situation in Gaza. 

It would cover other areas around the world where US weapons are being used in conflict zones. That report is due within 90 days. 

And very importantly, it covers a reporting period on the use of US weapons in those conflict zones, starting on January 1 of 2023. 

So the report on the use of US weapons in these conflict zones will cover all of 2023 and 2024. 

Up until the time that the report is issued. So when you take these 3 pieces together—the upfront written promises required in every country that receives US military assistance that they comply with international humanitarian law and other international law that’s applicable, 

The second promise that they will help facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid into conflict zones and not arbitrarily restrict the ability to distribute humanitarian aid; when you take into account the enforcement mechanisms; and very importantly, when you take into account the reporting requirements, which will give us the information on facts as to whether or not these..promises are being kept— if you take that together, this is in my view a historical step that will much better align US security assistance with American values. 

We’re pleased that the Biden administration decided to issue this national security memorandum modeled after our amendment. & because we’ve succeeded in getting the provisions of the amendment adopted as a matter of US government policy, we will no longer be seeking a vote on the amendment, because we’ve accomplished our goal now with the assistance of the President and his administration. 

The first round of commitments that need to be made are by countries currently engaged in armed conflict conflict; they have to be made within a period of 45 days. 

This national security memorandum will give the Biden administration much more leverage to ensure that every recipient of US military assistance, including the Netanyahu government, has to make the commitment to use those weapons in compliance with international humanitarian law they have to make the commitment to facilitate U.S.-supported efforts to provide the delivery of humanitarian assistance. And there are the enforcement measures…& they’re backed up by reporting requirements that will hold these countries accountable. 

So I do believe that this will give the Biden administration much more leverage to…have the tools now to reduce the unacceptable, high, extreme levels of civilian casualties, & remove many of the roadblocks that are in the way of getting humanitarian assistance to 2 million Gazans who have nothing to do with Hamas. 

With respect to the President’s comments (that Israel conduct of the war in Gaza has been “over the top”), I share his view. I have said from the very beginning, that what happened on October 7 was a horrific attack. …the Government of Israel has not only the right but the duty to defend itself and make sure there are no more October 7s. I’ve also said that a just war still needs to be waged justly and that in Gaza, we’ve seen extremely high..levels of civilian casualties, unacceptable levels of civilian casualties. 

We now have over 27,000 Palestinians killed, over two thirds of them, women and children.

And we also have seen continued political obstacles put in the way of getting desperately needed humanitarian assistance to innocent people in need. 

So I’m glad that the President will now have these additional tools to use to backup U.S…urgings and pleas, and I’m really glad that these tools will be available worldwide and applied to any recipient of US military assistance. 

…I do want to end where I started, by thanking President Biden, & thanking his team for this effort, where they translated our amendment into this national security memorandum and we’ve gone through the different elements of it. 

And I just want to again thank them because it’s been a long, but good conversation with them….Earlier, 26 of us had written to the President expressing a very expressing a variety of concerns about what was happening in Gaza and posing a lot of questions, and the administration..reached out and following up on that, we had a number of meetings with the White House. More recently, 25 of us wrote to the President laying out 5 ideas for improving the delivery of humanitarian assistance, partly based on a trip that I took to the Rafah border area along with my colleague, Jeff Merkley. So I think you’ve seen a broad and deep concern from members of Congress about the situation in Gaza, about the very high levels of civilian casualties, and the desperate humanitarian situation. 

So that’s why we introduced the amendment, to make sure we addressed these kinds of issues. (not only in Gaza, but expanding it globally). And we think that what what the President has done here is a very important step to align US security assistance with American values,  make it clear where we stand, and make it clear that we have enforceable provisions to ensure that these commitments are met. 

Call me crazy but this seems like a big deal. I know it’s not as important as Biden mistaking a country (which Trump does at every single campaign stop) but it would seem to me to be important. But yeah, Biden is old.

Some psycho busy-body might decide she needs to have her genitals checked.

This makes me see red. And it’s all in the name of “protecting” girls:

A Utah high school student needs police protection after a state school board member publicly singled out and suggested the student was transgender — without evidence — inciting threats from her followers on social media.

Natalie Cline later apologized — but not before many commenters personally attacked the player, the student’s school district had to provide extra security for her,and the lawmaker who wrote the state’s anti-transgender athlete bill weighed in sharing private information possibly in violation of her own measure.

The latest post from Cline, who has repeatedly come under fire for her controversial posts, came late Tuesday, setting off 16 hours of hateful speculation that continued even after she deleted it Wednesday afternoon. It also prompted a strong statement from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson condemning Cline’s “unconscionable behavior” and calling for the school board to take action against her.

Cline’s original post included a flyer for a high school girls’ basketball team in Salt Lake County. On her public Facebook page, the ultra-conservative and outspoken member of the Utah State Board of Education wrote “Girls’ basketball” — implying that one of the players was not female, suggesting she shouldn’t be able to play. The girl is a minor. To protect the identity of the athlete, The Salt Lake Tribune is not naming the school.

The comment section quickly became filled with people calling out the player, naming her, threatening her and referring to her with vulgar language. Some identified her school and said they were going to call the principal.

[…]

Last month, the father of a junior varsity girl’s basketball player confronted administrators, demanding one of the girls not be allowed to play because he believed she was transgender. The girl was not the same athlete from Cline’s post.

Other similar incidents have occurred — including another in 2022 where two parents challenged the gender of a girl who had beaten their children at a track meet — but the Utah High School Activities Association has so far not released data on their frequency. The USHAA determined in that first case, after pulling the accused student’s records back to kindergarten, that she has always been female.

That is also the case with the girl Cline questioned, according to Equality Utah. Cline later updated her apology to include that, but continued to discuss the girl’s body.

“She does have a larger build, like her parents,” Cline wrote. “We live in strange times when it is normal to pause and wonder if people are what they say they are because of the push to normalize transgenderism in our society.”

My God, this woman is a psychopath who should be kept away from children. It’s so twisted and cruel that I have a hard time believing that anyone would put up with this nonsense. And just because she deleted her post doesn’t mean she learned her lesson. In her “apology” she wrote:

In that new post she wrote: “To protect the player, I have removed the post. My deepest apologies for the negative attention my post drew to innocent students and their families.”

But she also continued by saying “good faith efforts” to be inclusive of all girls’ differing bodies have “been taken advantage of” and “leads to suspicion about girls who are more buff than most.”

No, normal people do NOT police girls bodies for suspicious signs of buffness. What in the hell is wrong with this woman?

There’s a lot more to this story which you can read at the link. There is serious push back from some in the legislature but it’s the same legislature that overrode a veto to ensure that transgender kids would be discriminated against, threatened and publicly humiliated. Apparently, non transgender girls (athletes!) are also to be threatened publicly humiliated for “looking buff.” It’s pretty clear that these sick people are just obsessed with the genitalia of teen-age girls. It’s dystopian sci-fi in real life.

I know you recall that time he was at the CDC and said that he could have been a scientist because he “really understands that stuff” and “they all said so.” Get a load of this one from a few years back:

Trump told this to governors at the White House last week: "Believe it or not, a long time ago, I was told I have a great ear for music by somebody. I took a test. They said, 'He has a wonderful aptitude for music.' I said, 'I do?'" pic.twitter.com/6G7uKCuiXe

— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) February 17, 2020

He also aced the cognitive test you know. Better than anyone. All the doctors say so.

If you want analysis of today’s Supreme Court arguments in the Colorado Ballot case, just turn on any cable news show and you’ll get a snoot-full. They all pretty much come to the same conclusion: Trump will win this one, the only question is whether it will be unanimous or near unanimous. The justices were all “skeptical” apparently.

Here’s Ian Millhiser at Vox which I think represents the overall view. But he makes the case that Trump’s lawyer was absolutely terrible and it won’t make any difference:

Two things were obvious Thursday morning in the Supreme Court, where the justices pondered whether former President Donald Trump is disqualified from seeking the presidency because of his role in inciting the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.

One is that Jonathan Mitchell, the lawyer representing Trump, was in way over his head. During Mitchell’s time at the podium, the justices took turns ripping apart his arguments — or even criticizing him for abandoning stronger legal arguments in favor of weaker ones. Mitchell also made embarrassing concessions, admitting that he had no historical evidence to support some of his key claims.

The other obvious thing is that it didn’t matter: Trump is going to win. After Mitchell stepped down from the podium, after emphasizing two arguments that nearly all the justices appeared to view as weak, most of the Court spent the rest of the argument trying to come up with a better reason to rule in favor of Trump.

In this case, Trump v. Anderson, the Colorado Supreme Court determined that Trump must be removed from its presidential ballot under a provision of the 14th Amendment that prohibits former high-ranking officials who engage in an “insurrection” from serving in office again.

The Court appears likely to rule that this decision was wrong because state courts, as opposed to federal courts or Congress, may not determine that a presidential candidate is ineligible. As Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, said at one point, the question of who can seek the highest federal office “sounds awfully national to me,” and thus should be resolved in a federal forum.

Most of the justices piled on with similar arguments. One leading concern, raised by several justices, is that there could be competing decisions reaching competing conclusions if each state is allowed to determine whether a candidate is ineligible for the presidency.

There’s much more at the link if you’re looking for detail. I think it very effectively lays out the case for why the Supremes aren’t going to let this happen.

So that’s that. I don’t think anyone thought this court was going to go along with this. It’s is a Pandora’s Box of legal complications. The big case is the immunity case and we’re still waiting to see if Trump will appeal it to the High Court by Monday — and if they’ll take it. A whole lot hinges on that one since a criminal president with a radical faction in the Senate behind him could effectively end our democracy. Stay tuned.

The WaPo’s Jeff Stein:

Due largely to an unexpected surge in immigration, the U.S. economy will be about $7 trillion larger – & federal revenues about $1T bigger – the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Wednesday 

That impact is over 10 years, to be clear. It does not take into account any legislation that Congress may or may not approve 

Here’s the CBO statement cbo.gov/publication/59…

CBO Director Phillip Swagel: “More workers means more output, and that in turn leads to additional tax revenue” 

Who knew that immigrants during full employment would be so good for the country? Why, these people are paying taxes and everything!

I’m sure you have noticed that none of the objections to “the invasion” include the usual lament of “they’re stealing out jobs!” because even they know how fatuous that is in this situation. They have exposed their true reason: they aren’t white. The anti-immigrant fervor is all about allowing people who don’t look like them to come into the country and put taco trucks on every corner. This is what they hate. And it’s obvious.

I have always wondered how these people planned to fill all the jobs that immigrants are currently doing, We’ve had an answer recently. Child labor Prisoners too. And some of them are even touting how beneficial slavery was to the enslaved so I’m guessing that’s probably on the agenda too. Anything but foreigners. You know, people like our ancestors.

Trump keeps saying he’ll be a dictator for one day so that he can close the border and “drill, drill, drill” which, as Philip Bump points out in the Washington Post, he came up with on the fly during a Sean Hannity interview. Apparently the cult just loves it:

On Wednesday, UMass Amherst released the results of a poll conducted by YouGov in which respondents were asked about the concept. The framing of the comment was stark, excluding Trump’s specific plans for using his theoretical dictatorial power. It was just, “Trump recently said that if elected, he would be a dictator only on the first day of his second term. Do you think that this is a good or bad idea for the country?”

A plurality of respondents said this was “definitely bad” with 6 in 10 saying it was “definitely” or “probably” bad. Among Republicans, though, a third said it was “definitely good” with three-quarters saying it was at least “probably” good.

Again, this isn’t “Trump wants temporary absolute powers to build a wall on the border.” It is “is it good or bad if Trump has absolute powers for a fixed time period.” And three-quarters of Republicans responded that this was probably a good idea.

He further points out that there are other studies that show this authoritarian strain in American culture but that groups seems to be larger than we might have thought.

And it’s mostly white men. Surprise.

Being dictator for a day makes no sense of course and Trump doesn’t have a clue what he means by that. It’s just an applause line. But the agenda his henchmen are working on will require dictatorial powers and I’m quite sure that he’ll be more than willing to use them.

Where were you when?

It’s tiresome by now, these “where were you when” events. The JFK assassination (or MLK’s or RFK’s) or the first moon landing or the Challenger disaster or September 11 were days you never forgot. Nowadays it’s U.S. Supreme Court decisions like Dobbs. If you are reading this between 10 a.m. and noonish EST, you may be missing today’s “where were you when” event at the U.S. Supreme Court (Washington Post):

The Supreme Court on Thursday will confront the critical question of Donald Trump’s eligibility to return to the White House, hearing arguments in an unprecedented case that gives the justices a central role in charting the course of a presidential election for the first time in nearly a quarter-century.

The justices will decide whetherColorado’s top court was correctto apply a post-Civil War provisionof the Constitution to order Trump off the ballot after concluding his actions around the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol amounted to insurrection.Primary voting is already underway in some states. Colorado’s ballots for the March 5 primary were printed last week and include Trump’s name. But his status as a candidate will depend on what the Supreme Court decides.

Zero hour is approaching, so I’m cutting this short. Oral arguments available live here.

Enjoy this fiery celebration of book-burning from Valentina Gomez Noriega (funny, for some reason she’s going by Valentina Gomez), Republican candidate for Secretary of State in Missouri in the August 6 GOP primary. Missouri Democrats failed to field a candidate. Terrific.

Just like Hitler, Pinochet, Mao…book-burning is on brand now for the GOP. https://t.co/XKzb3A5rfa

— Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) February 7, 2024

The entire Republican Party has devolved into a Stooge scene. I gotta go see if Trump’s Supreme Court picks are going to set fire to the 14th Amendment.

.@ElieNYC : “Tomorrow we will see the level of intellectual gymnastics from the conservatives that I swear, Simone Biles will copy in Paris this summer. That's how much twisting and turning they're going to have to do to keep trump on the ballot.” pic.twitter.com/B7yIDpouqF

— Abby D. Phillip (@abbydphillip) February 8, 2024

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For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.

Republicans want their new weapon

With the 2022 Dobbs decision abolishing womens’s federal right to an abortion, Republicans lost a campaign issue they’d campaigned on reliably for decades. It was like the Pentagon’s identity crisis after the Cold War ended. The Pentagon spent the 1990s not knowing who it should be planning to fight.

Republicans have failed again and again since 2022 to block abortion protection amendments in the states, even as fringe right legislators all but lock women with doomed pregnancies into iron maidens as they bleed out. Abortion is on its way to being a third rail in Republican politics. The issue is now a political loser.

"We don't want to solve the problem because then we can't run an election campaign around the urgent need to solve that problem" is, I think, a whole new level of Republican Congressional dysfunction

— Anne Applebaum (@anneapplebaum) February 6, 2024

To replace abortion, the GOP settled on Great Replacement theory, an isotopic variant of the Southern Strategy. Republicans stoke fears of brown-skinned hordes of immigrants pouring across the U.S. southern border to knock white Americans off the top of the social ladder. It’s not about race as much as power and status. Race is just the icing.

Do all the white-knuckle right wing guys demanding mass deportations of immigrants not know whose labor fuels our economy?

Not just Christmas trees in WNC. Also nearly every major farm. Poultry plants. Meatpacking. Home construction. It goes on. https://t.co/kl5WXRO4Ne

— Carolina Forward (@ForwardCarolina) February 7, 2024

Speaking with Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), Greg Sargent reflects on the irony that in 2013 Republicans felt they could never win another presidential election if they did not fix the immigration system. Then they elected the most anti-immigrant president in history who now demands they not fix it after they spent months in negotiations with Democrats to arrive at the bill they killed this week at Donald “91 Counts” Trump’s bidding.

In 2006, Dems endorsed a bipartisan immigration/border bill, which Republicans rejected.
In 2014, it happened again.
In 2018, it happened again.
In 2024, it happened again.

Maybe the GOP doesn't want to solve the problem? https://t.co/x8g1916rQK

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen) February 7, 2024

Steve Benen (MaddowBlog):

The senators who spent four months negotiating a bipartisan compromise on border policy and security aid probably didn’t see the political freight train coming. Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, who took the lead in the talks on behalf of his party, predicted last month that the bill could garner up to 70 votes in the chamber, but within hours of unveiling the legislation, it was obvious that far-right opposition was simply too great.

On Monday, the day after the text of the bill reached the public, GOP officials lined up to condemn the package in no uncertain terms. By most measures, the odds that the legislation would fail were roughly 99%.

A day later, they reached 100%. NBC News reported:

Republican senators made it clear Tuesday that they will kill the border security bill their party negotiated with Democrats, a stunning turnaround less than 48 hours after it was released by Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., and blessed by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. McConnell, R-Ky. — overruled by his Senate GOP members, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and former President Donald Trump — conceded it has no path to passage.

The “Gang of Eight” in the Senate negotiated an immigration bill weighted toward Republican priorities. But now they won’t take yes for an answer.

Lankford/Murphy/Sinema: As part of a radical hostage strategy, Republicans told Democrats to embrace a bipartisan compromise on immigration and border policy or the GOP would make it easier for Russia to take part of Eastern Europe by force. The resulting deal received strong Democratic support, before being rejected by Republicans in both chambers.

Republicans privately say they would not likely get a more restrictive bill than this one, Bennet tells Sargent. Republicans just trashed it. They want their new weapon.

Sargent asks why Democrats don’t make more of the fact that our booming economy is dependent on immigrant labor. Immigrants disproportionally work in “essential” economic sectors. What needs fixing is how we manage the flow. Trump wants none of it. And none of Them.

Their conversation on the topic is here.

NEWS –> Numerous GOP senators admitted in private that the bill they ultimately killed was a serious effort to secure the border and said they'd never get a tougher one, Sen Michael Bennet told me.

Bennet said this and much more on today's pod.

Listen👇https://t.co/5tevfQTDyI

— Greg Sargent (@GregTSargent) February 8, 2024

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I don’t think he’s going to survive this:

Lankford: I had a popular commentator that told me flat out, if you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you. Because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election. pic.twitter.com/axg08BeCiG

— Acyn (@Acyn) February 7, 2024

My friend James Lankford, knowing that minutes later his entire party will vote against our bipartisan bill to fix the border, explaining what it means to be a United States Senator.

One of the most important speeches I've heard in 10 years in the Senate.
Proud of you, friend. pic.twitter.com/yaufAmHQxb

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) February 7, 2024

He doesn’t seem to know which party he’s in. And they don’t want this. They want Emperor Donald Trump.

In his newsletter today, Dan Pfeiffer discusses the political ramifications of the DC Circuit’s ruling yesterday that Trump is not entitled to immunity for his crimes. (You can subscribe at the link.) An excerpt:

If there is one thing we know about Donald Trump it’s that he never lets anything go. He still takes time at his rallies to complain about the Mueller investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. I know our collective sense of time might be warped, but that investigation began SEVEN years ago. 

Even if the Supreme Court rules against Trump or refuses to take up his appeal, he is never going to stop talking about why he should be immune from prosecution. Each missive is more unhinged than the last. Here’s what he posted on Truth Social (via an account that reposts his “Truths” to Twitter):

This reads like a bomb threat from a particularly illiterate person at the end of a coke binge. As a general rule, we should amend the Constitution to bar people who communicate in all caps from the presidency. It’s truly disqualifying.

In terms of politics, Trump’s insistence on immunity is not only politically self-sabotaging but also contradicts public opinion. The vast majority of Americans believe Trump has committed a crime. According to a recent Navigator Research poll, 63 percent of Americans — including 30 percent of Republicans — believe Trump has committed a crime. 

When you step back for a minute, this is a truly stunning stat. That poll paints a stark picture: a considerable portion of voters actually believe Trump has broken the law, yet they’re still considering casting their vote for him come November. It’s a puzzling contradiction. But here’s the kicker: when the majority already see you as a wrongdoer, trying to pitch the idea of immunity becomes a tough sell. .

Also, and I find this very reassuring as an American, most voters oppose the concept that a president should be immune from prosecution. A PBS Newshour poll found that only 35% of voters support Trump having immunity from criminal prosecution from actions he took while in office.

We’re living in an era of extreme polarization where most issues tend to split the population right down the middle, with each side digging into their partisan trenches. It’s not often we come across an issue where the scales tip so heavily, with only 35% in favor and a significant 64% opposed. Trump’s staunch advocacy for the minority viewpoint presents us with a unique opportunity, and frankly, it’s one we shouldn’t pass up.

He goes on to say that research done on this subject shows that certain arguments work the best, this one in particular:

No one is above the law, not even a former president. When someone breaks the law, they should face repercussions. There shouldn’t be one justice system for everyday Americans and another for the rich and powerful where they pay no consequences for their crimes.

Pfeiffer adds:

Most of us aren’t crafting political ads; instead, we’re engaging in everyday conversations with friends and family to persuade them. That’s why it’s crucial to highlight Trump’s attorney’s admission about Trump’s belief that a president can’t be prosecuted for murder. This powerful example cuts through the noise and resonates with everyone—well, maybe except Trump himself. 

In my personal experience, that argument is very effective. I had occasion to use it on a Trumper and he refused to believe it until I pulled it up on my phone. He was taken aback, to say the least. A lot of times these people just haven’t heard anything but Fox propaganda.

And I cannot help but note, once again, that for some reason we have never had this problem in our entire history until now. Nixon was a criminal and his successor pardoned him. Why would he have done that if a president has immunity? Bill Clinton was accused of committing perjury in a dismissed civil case and agreed to a plea deal with the special prosecutor one=ce he was out of office by giving up his law license. Why would he have done that if a president has immunity?

No, Trump is the biggest criminal we’ve ever had as president. He is totally corrupt, a disgusting adjudicated rapist, he stole classified documents and he tried to illegally overturn the election inciting an insurrection. Please. This is a first. And god help us, it had better be the last. If he isn’t held accountable I’m pretty sure it won’t be.