Out to get Trump via the Stormy Daniels route
I didn’t watch the 60 Minutes interview with Stormy Daniels, but I listened to most of it, and I’ve read some of the commentary. My take is similar to that of Professor Jacobson at Legal Insurrection:
The Stormy Daniels story is not about Stormy Daniels. It’s about removing Trump from office in one of two ways:
(a) getting Trump under oath in the hope that he will lie, providing a basis for impeachment should Democrats regain control of the House and Senate, or prosecution.
(b) providing material for Special Counsel Robert Mueller to use to try to pressure Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen into turning on Trump.
Point “a” is something like what happened to Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones deposition, which you may recall is how the Lewinsky affair came out in the first place as well as the basis for the charges that he perjured himself. The approach described by Professor Jacobson that the anti-Trump forces are hoping will play out comes under the general umbrella of “it’s not the crime, it’s the coverup.”
Another approach is based on two questions mentioned at Vox as being “the two most interesting questions posed by this imbroglio”:
How many other sexual partners has Trump paid hush money to?
How many foreign intelligence services know about one or more of those women?
My personal opinion is that none of this will sink Trump, but I think the points raised by Professor Jacobson have a somewhat greater likelihood of doing so than those listed at Vox.
But virtually any of Trump’s acts could be an impeachable offense if power shifts in Congress and the forces opposing Trump gain ascendance. And I think Mueller is determined to uncover some impeachable or prosecutable offense as well. If not this one, then another, and he and his crew won’t rest till they find one.
Trump is uniquely vulnerable to this sort of thing because of the life he’s led. And he’s uniquely impervious to it as well, because of the life he’s led. It’s a strange paradox that no doubt is frustrating (so far) and yet tempting to the people who would dearly love to remove him. One day they may strike pay dirt, but so far they haven’t succeeded.
That seems correct to me. He has lived a very public life for all his time as an adult. None of this stuff is surprising. So far all these salacious allegations are no more than allegations. Even if they are true they are of no harm to him.
If everyone knows and no one is surprised, how can any of this be used to extort or coerce behavior from POTUS Donald Trump? If it can’t be used in that way, and I believe it cannot, then it is of no value or threat.
Could it be that, aside from a hardly disguised sexual appetite and a penchant for verbal acid attacks, Trump walks a straighter line than most think?
Which isn’t to say Trump is exactly scrupulous, but after he announced in 2016 I figured he would be toast in short order. Surely some lethal scandal would emerge as soon as he was in the cross-hairs of serious oppo research.
Nasty stuff did come out — the Trump U scam, the pussy-grab, the nonchalant stiffing of contractors, etc. — but nothing with the heft to sink Trump by 2016 rules. Nothing which came close to Hillary’s email server and the Clinton Foundation scandals.
And nothing devastating has emerged since. Given his opponents’ motivation and power and their willingness to lie, it’s increasingly hard for me to believe there is such a terrible scandal hidden in Trump’s past.
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Don’t be too sure I’m as crooked as I’m supposed to be. That sort of reputation might be good business, bringing high-priced jobs and making it easier to deal with the enemy….
–Sam Spade in “The Maltese Falcon”
What Steve & Huxley said.
I think the bar for impeachment has gotten much higher, and it will be hard for the anti-Trumpers to find a situation that will clear it, because of the weight-handicap from the Left’s prior double-dealing.
Sex scandals? Financial shenanigans? National security lapses? Bribes and general corruption?
Gotta top the ones from the Clintons, all totally ignored or dismissed by the Democrats.
Collusion with our enemies? Campaign irregularities (to say the least)? Lying to the public?
Gotta top the ones from Obama, ditto and redoubled.
Add the inoculation against hyped “scandals” by the Dems’ treatment of Romney and Pence (among the few other pols with practically zilch blackmail-worthy pasts, they stand out currently).
The Dems may get enough Congresscritters who will impeach and convict, but the Republican / Conservative public won’t support them anymore, as we did with Nixon. — who is looking less and less reprehensible, in comparison, as the days go by.
Breaking… in more ways than one?
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/storm-clouds-media-casts-doubt-on-stormy-daniels-story
Females in porn make most of their money doing headline tours as strippers and high end escort work. Sometimes they generate vast sums of cash.
The actual porn doesn’t pay that much, but it serves as wonderful advertising.
Some “investigative journalist” (if any still exist) should look at whoever may have served as pimp or madam for Stormy Daniels. And who has she been in contact with in recent months.
Paul Mirengoff has some good “legal” analysis here.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/03/stormy-weather.php
“Daniels is dishonest. So is Trump. But she should bear the burden of proving that someone threatened her. In my view, she cannot meet that burden through her word alone.”
A straw here, a straw there, pile enough of them upon the camel’s back…
Most people accept that, where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
The Lé¨ft may be hopeful of eventually unearthing a smoking gun with which to achieve a conviction of Trump in a Senate tÅ•ial but I doubt they’re counting on it. What they’re counting on is that accumulating enough “misdemeanors”… and RINOs will have the political cover to join the dems in removing Trump.
Never-Trump RINOs lust for a President Pence.
My guess would be that Stormy was happy to accept the $130,000 to keep quiet………until some progressive big bucks operator offered her a lot more for her to tell her story. That, of course, would be well concealed. Is there any other reason why she wants to tell her story now? It was consensual sex between two consenting adults some 12 years ago. The Donald’s reputation as a womanizer is well known. Was talked about during the campaign and is public knowledge. Stormy’s story just doesn’t shock anyone who knows that Trump likes sex and has engaged in it with a large number of willing partners.
Those who support Trump (and I do) don’t care about his performance in the bedroom 12 years ago. What matters is his performance in getting this country moving again. So far, he seems to be doing a pretty good job in spite of all the Dem and RINO opposition.
If there is any Republican voter who is apathetic about the mid-terms, I would be surprised. The constant anti-Trump drumbeat, of which the anti-second amendment rallies this weekend are a prime example, certainly angers me and frightens me. Republicans need to turn out and vote in record numbers this November. There are much worse things ahead if the Dems take the House or Senate back.
A new post by John at PLB has some good comments – zingers, poetry, doggerel, and somewhat searching questions.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/03/a-stormy-confession.php
Still laughing at what this has got to be doing to Bubba Clinton. All he got was a fat intern. Oh, and he’s got Hillary while Trump is stuck with Melania.
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[Keats cheats and advice on how not to get back at an erstwhile rival for the lovely lovelorn Melania]
Ode to Melania
No, no, go not to Cooper, knife to twist
Nor Wolf Blitzer – Stormy Trooper, for his poisonous whine
Don’t suffer fine Slav cheekbones to be kiss’d
By Nightline, or sour grapes of Creepsonline
* * *
(another commenter, less classically trained)
Stormy Daniels is a “star,”
A porno queen who didn’t go far.
She was mediocre when on screen she’d hump,
So now it’s fame for trashing Trump.
CNN’s her latest producer,
A media venue set to seduce her.
But Anderson Cooper won’t give her a leer,
That’s because that dope is ————-.
But that channel’s got a lot at stake,
By reputation their “news” is fake.
So they show their version of “A Star is Born,”
By peddling a hag who’s known for porn.
…
* * *
The moral superiority of media is laughable. Just shocking that a known playboy had a consensual one night stand with a pro. Voyeurs, all of them.
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I thought the same thing. Selective moral outrage is like calling someone a racist. It’s lost it’s sting.
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I read part of the transcript, so didn’t benefit from Anderson Cooper’s anemic charm, but I believe Storm Cloud asserted that she only had one actual “encounter” with Trump. That is considered an affair in these days of anything goes?
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It is not possible to embarrass “60 Minutes”. Couldn’t they have brought back Dan Rather for this story?
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Rather would have shown the faxed receipt Trump got for paying for her services.
A reminder that Bill Clinton is not the only Democrat president to benefit from the media’s convenient lapses in journalistic fervor.
Nothing really new is revealed, just a reinforcement of the old adage that if the Left didn’t have double standards, it wouldn’t have any at all.
https://conservativetribune.com/dems-trump-daniels-ignore-fdrs/
“If it seems like all the liberal media and Democrats can talk about these days is former porn star Stormy Daniels, well, that is because essentially all they have talked about the past few weeks has been an alleged affair a dozen years ago between Stormy and Donald Trump.
To be clear, adultery and infidelity are wrong, and if then-businessman/TV star Trump really did have a consensual affair with Daniels, that was wrong. But it is also a private matter best left to be handled by Trump and his wife, Melania, not gloriously relished and rehashed in public by the media.
Except that is exactly what the media has done with their relentless obsession and trashing of Trump in regard to Daniels, which also rings rather hollow and hypocritical given how the liberal media has handled rumors and confirmations of affairs by previous presidents who just happened to also be popular Democrats.
For example, the U.K. Daily Mail reported in 2012 on a number of alleged affairs carried out by Democrat icon and former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, affairs which were said to be held in FDR’s “love nest,” a cottage in Hyde Park in upstate New York.”
AesopFan, 2:56 pm — “[I]t will be hard for the anti-Trumpers to find a situation that will clear it [the bar for impeachment], because of the weight-handicap from the Left’s prior double-dealing.”
I think this gets refuted pretty nicely by . . . AesopFan!
AesopFan, 12:10 am — “a reinforcement of the old adage that if the Left didn’t have double standards, it wouldn’t have any at all.”
The left will totally forget any sins of the Clintons and Obama, because they will totally forget anything that’s inconvenient to their agitprop du jour. They will call anyone questioning them unfortunate names, and the enemedia will back them to the hilt.
You can take that to the bank, folks.
Neo, you missed the porn star’s massively dilated pupils while under the bright lights. She was high as a kite during that interview. Another main stream media milestone.
This makes it harder for Trump to swing more conservative democratic voters in the future (and definitely for GOP candidates in general). But big companies and foreign governments have already sized him up. Trump hasn’t really accomplished anything that took great effort on his part or that gave him really bad press. So tax reform and big spending but no reform of entitlements. Relaxation of regulations but no basic legislative changes to EPA, HHS, IRS, etc. He has done little in immigration reform but talk (He still hires H1B housekeepers),.
For year two he will need to get something done with wide impact (that is not the Mexican wall). This should be real health insurance reform and possibly a new optional private choice in Social security.
The Stormy’s of the world just build on an image of a guy with no fixed principles or staying power.