I'm not sure I agree with this, depending on my perhaps fuzzy understanding of history. Nixon was in office for over a year after the Massacre. Wasn't it that impeachment proceedings didn't begin in earnest until the smoking gun tape, and then that is what resulted in resignation?

I thought the only one who can fire Mueller was Rosenstein, since Sessions recused himself? I also thought Rosenstein has stated he wouldn't fire Mueller? Trump would have to fire and replace Sessions and have the new AG fire Mueller. The bottom line: I don't think Trump can just fire Mueller as you seem to be implying.

The formal impeachment hearings began a few days or weeks before the tapes came out, pending my investigation of that question.

Kevin, DVaut knows knows that, but he's assuming Trump can find a compliant Acting AG.

Sure, but then it just moves the question as to why he is listening to Priebus instead of following his (assumed) instincts to fire Mueller.

I have my answer: a mix of hubris, ignorance, and calculating that the deplorables will manufacture a defense for him regardless so he can try to freeroll his way to a chance at being declared innocent.

I understand the other side of it though: I think the reasoning for firing Mueller almost immediately is that the government, their millions of dollars of budget to hire a bunch of lawyers and their subpoena powers can uncover a lot of ****, so why is Trump allowing THAT to proceed since he is exposing himself to risk they'll uncover an as-of-yet undiscovered bombshell. I think that's what Riverman is asking; why let any investigation go forward at all, there might be leaks, etc. etc.

Part of what's appealing about Trump to these people is that he can say anything, even obvious lies or complete gibberish, and get away with it. Trump creates the world. He's God.

Right. Implied is a Saturday Night Massacre scenario.

After investigation, the Smoking Gun tape came out two weeks after the Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment.

if he was confident of being able to fire mueller consequence-free he'd have done it already

I think the mistake you guys are making is assuming Trump has a somewhat realistic understanding of himself. He doesn't. We all know he's a total narcissist dumbass moron, but he genuinely believes he is a genius. And he also probably has no idea how illegal tons of **** he's done is. So I think, as others have said, he hasn't fired Mueller simply because he doesn't know how much trouble he's in.

I would add Trump's tendency to do whatever the last person he spoke to told him to do. Was Sessions or Bannon pushing him to fire Comey?

Oh OK. What the hell was Congress doing for a year then, and how might that inform us as to whether or not the needle has moved in the time following a Mueller firing?

This of course. Trump is scared ****less of following through on his threat. If he ****s it up, it can cost him and his family everything they own and their freedoms. His lawyers know that too and I'm sure they remind him all the time. He can do the usual and not listen to them, but...

This is easily the most detrimental decision of his life and it looks like he hasn't been rushing to make it so far.

Yeah. He can't be impeached yet and he can pardon people for federal crimes, but maybe he'll start tweeting about stuff he and his family did that breaks state laws, but he thinks it was just him being smart.

It'd be a sweat though waiting to see what his reaction to his family getting indicted would be.

This is valid. So what you're saying, I think, is that Nixon obstructed justice and it wasn't for another year before Congress ultimately impeached. And so if Congress doesn't act on the firing of Mueller (like the Saturday Night Massacre), they may still act later if really unflattering information suggesting criminality (like the Smoking Gun tapes) comes to light.

I think this fair but forgets that:
1) Nixon released the tapes only after SCOTUS ruled he had to (that's the answer to the 'what happened during that year?' -- it was the legal battle over the release of the tapes), and the tapes pretty clearly demonstrated Nixon vocalizing his ideas to cover up the Watergate break-in
2) Democrats controlled Congress and the impeachment proceedings; they didn't need a single GOP vote in the House and only needed something like 12 GOP Senators, or ~1/4th of the GOP caucus in the Senate, to convict. Nixon resigned only when it became a fait accompli Democrats would get the votes to convict in the Senate. Had the makeup of Congress been much different, Nixon likely would have fought on for much longer
3) Congress and the political environment was far less partisan than it is today

So now we're replacing #1 with leaks of unknown severity and clarity, and presented to the public through a media that has far friendlier, powerful, Trump-positive players and outlets (e.g., Fox) than the 1974 press. We're replacing a Congress controlled by Democrats with one controlled by the GOP. And we're replacing a far more moderate GOP with a far more aggressively partisan one.

So the leaks are going to have to be of Nixon-on-tape-openly-conspiring-to-commit-crimes level of proof, but probably like more drastic and obvious such that it moves his political allies to drop the hammer rather than a coalition of mostly his political opponents and some of his allies.

Obviously if we're arguing this is happening > 2018 iff Democrats seize control of Congress then perhaps we have a different calculation and a lot might change then. But under the current makeup of Congress, I think you have to plug in the variables from Nixon but account for an environment (Congress, press, highly partisan Republican voters) way more friendlier to Trump.

Yes, but impeachment was viewed as much more extreme back then until the GOP significantly lowered the bar with Clinton. That said, the smoking gun tape showed that Nixon was basically a scheming liar, for those who didn't already know.

Still, I've heard it argued that it took so long because the midterms were starting to loom and it wasn't a pretty picture, so then the GOP leadership had their talk with him, saying he would likely be impeached. Now, Nixon had some big flaws as a politician, and Vietnam wasn't going well, but he crushed in '72. Trump is less popular (heard today his Gallup favorable is at 36%, with high negatives) and I cannot imagine a scenario where he doesn't completely hurt the GOPs chances in 2018.

Something people mistakenly assume here and basically everywhere else is that everyone who voted for Trump is a staunch supporter. (While his GOP-registered numbers are still pretty high, many "independents" voted for him.) A good number of those voters just don't know much and were hoping that a plain-spoken business man would do well, especially after all that Clinton corruption. Maybe this is 25% of Trump voters, maybe 40%, but he's losing them fast and if his support is at 35% or less come 2018, he is done, and I cannot imagine a world where he fires Mueller and stays above 35%, practically where he is now.

The interesting academic exercise is if Trump came in, tried to govern in a united manner, said some decent things, started with a serious infrastructure plan, ect. That's the concerning hypothetical, but we're living in a world where Trump has 3 hours of private meetings with Putin after emails leak that his son was meeting with Russian criminals to get dirt on Hillary, he's blabbing incoherently and planting trial balloons with the subtlety of mortar rounds to the NYT, and even his legal team is jumping ship.

We're playing this game in beginner mode, when Dvault and others are worried about what it would be like on hard mode. He's not the gopher from Caddy Shack--he's just a regular dumb gopher. Put some cheese in a trap and he'll snatch at it and get caught, easy peasy.

Well, the USA becoming isolated and being turned into a second tier economy and Russia supplanting it as the world's dominant superpower would presumably have a pretty big impact on people's lives.

Depends on what "it" is. Trump knows and has been choosing to not get it out for months. He even chose to discuss pardons (and admit some kind of generic guilt for him and the others around him, which is the LAST thing they ever do) before opening the can of worms Mueller's team has. Trump could be dumb, but the others involved aren't, and they're making the same decision.

Based on just the known reports, it doesn't take much to see that "it" is really really bad. Like Treason bad. Like completely owned by Putin bad. Like billions worth of money laundering bad. And likely even billions worth of loans to Trump & Jared (I've seen some eye popping reports on his numbers of 1.8-4 bill) bad.

State level indictments, which already seem to be set up in a few states, like NY, VA, etc. that I can think of.

I understand.

As for voters writ large, most enjoy isolationism and protectionism and receding from global affairs is highly in vogue right now. So go evangelize that message in the 2018 midterms ("Trump is isolating the US!") and see how far that goes. Threatening to turn America into an extraction economy where we all become coal miners and work oil rigs and leave services, finance and technology to others is a big reason Trump was able to flip a bunch of Rust Belt voters into his column.

If you're trying to convince me becoming a Russian client state is a bad idea, I agree. If you're trying to convince normal people becoming isolated and embracing early 20th century production activities are a bad idea, you've got a far harder job.

Yet again: The better issues are ones that are personal to people and threaten their livelihoods and well being. That's health care, not Trump scandals up to and including Russia. And not rhetoric that entrenches regressive yearnings like lambasting Trump for wanting to return to outmoded economic thinking. That's *popular* right now.

Well there's a share of Rosneft in there somewhere

Legit lol.

russia has a smaller gdp than canada

they cant make anything other than weapons, all they know how to do is export raw materials. the average wage is $600/month, and the ruble is so heavily dependent on external factors such as the price of oil that it might be $300/month tomorrow. russia is a busto basket base and is only significant in geopolitics due to their large investment in military and espionage

sort of a rich man's north korea full of hopeless alcoholics with no job skills

The problem in that scenario is that there are likely no Trump supporters in the higher levels of the DOJ. So he'd had to appoint someone new to do the firing, but my guess is that if tried that, you'd find at least 3 R Senators to vote against the nomination.

Trump literally appoints the higher levels of the DOJ. Granted that's one of many things he's terrible at, but it's happening.