I think the democrats will be OK with it when the senate acquits Trump, everybody knows what the senate verdict will be, Mitch kinda let the cat outta the bag on that one! He must have said it at Trump's insistence, he has better sense than to do something dumb like that before the trial even begins. I don't think they will impeach Trump again, though they will have plenty of public investigations between now and the election. The SCOTUS is gonna rule on Trump's taxes in June and he's not gonna like it at all, also witnesses like McGhan and a host of others will be compelled by the courts to testify. They will also cover the same Ukraine scandal that Trump was acquitted by the senate on, only with more witnesses who have direct knowledge and will make the GOP senate own their verdict in a most unpleasant way.
They want Donald leading the republicans into a disaster in 2020, they might not whittle down his base much, but they will motivate the majority of Americans to go to the polls and might even convince some Trumpers to stay home. The democrats can win it all in 2020, the sham impeachment trial with the subsequent investigations and testimony will be very hard on the GOP senate majority. Trump and the republicans will need a lot of Russian help and have to do a Helluva lot of cheating to win in 2020 after the "spring and summer of fun" the democratic house investigations will have with this bunch. If the democrats win it all in 2020, it will be the end of the GOP and prison for hundreds including Trump, Russia and Putin will also be in serious trouble. Trump the GOP and the Russians are gonna be desperate and will use any means to win, they have to, it's life in prison for many and life and death for some.
Even Mitch McConnell and his wife could go to prison if the democrats win it all, they have a pretty serious scandal to cover themselves. Donald has exposed and gotten a lot of people into serious shit, it's all or nothing in 2020 for many.
The courts convict and sentence, not the government, but they choose what is investigated and charged. A new senate, house, special prosecutor, DOJ, or FBI, might investigate this stuff along with much else. Where there's smoke there is fire and it looks like a lot is burning here, Mitch might be looking at prison too along with his wife. Desperate people do desperate things, Mitch could lose more than his senate majority after 2020...
I can see some democrats, not to mention a few public officials who would simply love to, do "Mitch and his bitch"! Mitch might win his senate seat but lose his ass in 2020, he might be very desperate, if half of the article attached is true. There is fertile ground for investigation here, no Benghazi required, a grand jury and a court of law should do nicely for this.
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For instance...
This Is Still Happening: Elaine Chao
An ongoing roundup of Trump administration malfeasance.
Foreign entanglements, self-dealing, pay to play—the secretary of transportation might be in trouble if everyone else weren’t so bad.
slate.com
Donald Trump said during the 2016 campaign that he would only “hire the best people.” In reality, his administration has been beset by levels of corruption rarely seen outside of the worst dictatorships and global sports governing bodies. Given their boss’s open venality and complete lack of accountability, it’s been hard to keep track of everything that Trump officials have themselves gotten away with.
This Is Still Happening is a new feature in which Slate will attempt to offer an update on Cabinet-level corruption, what could be done to bring the officials to account, and what Democrats are doing in response (generally, nothing). The first installment is about a figure who has mostly flown under the public radar, Elaine Chao.
The Official: Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao
What Is Still Happening: Chao, who is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and who previously served as George W. Bush’s labor secretary, faced back-to-back-to-back-to-back scandals this summer with a series of pieces about her and her husband’s various public grafts.
First, at the end of May, the Wall Street Journal published a
report that Chao had failed to divest her shares in a crushed stone, sand, and gravel company, which supplied construction materials to the transportation sector, a year after she had promised to do so. In the meantime, she had netted more than $40,000. (She has reportedly divested since the report came out.)
A few days later, in early June, the New York Times published a
5,500-word feature on her family’s shipping company, its deep ties to the government of China, the money it has provided Chao and her husband and his campaigns, and Chao’s apparent efforts to use her positions to bolster the business. Among the highlights of that piece: Chao repeatedly sought to include family members and relatives affiliated with the company in meetings with top Chinese officials during overseas trips (this was reportedly stymied by State Department officials); in a response to a Senate confirmation questionnaire, Chao failed to list multiple honorary awards, titles, and appointments she had received in China; her agency has proposed U.S. maritime program budget cuts that would hurt competitors of her family’s business; she took at least 21 meetings or interviews with Chinese-language media in her first year in office, including multiple appearances with her father, the company’s former chairman; she attended an event celebrating a company deal that involved transit projects that fell under her oversight; she did not recuse herself from any decisions affecting the shipping industry. The Times also reported that 13 members of Chao’s family had given $1.1 million to McConnell’s campaigns and political action committees tied to him between 1989 and 2018. The paper noted that Chao’s father had given the couple a gift of between $5 million and $25 million in 2008 that catapulted McConnell to become the 10th wealthiest senator.
One week after the Times story, Politico
reported on Chao’s apparent efforts to boost her husband’s political career through favorable Department of Transportation treatment for McConnell-friendly Kentucky communities. Among the highlights of that piece: Chao had an aide on her payroll specifically working as an intermediary to McConnell’s office and dedicated to Kentucky transportation projects; Owensboro, the Kentucky community where the special adviser was from, received an $11.5 million federal grant for a highway-widening project after it was rejected by the previous administration; days before launching his 2020 Senate campaign, McConnell held an event in Owensboro touting his work for the community; after Chao met with a top county official, her department approved “a $67 million discretionary grant to upgrade roads in rural Boone County, another McConnell stronghold northeast of Louisville.”
more...