Quote Originally Posted by Poopadoop View Post
First, we don't know what he's possibly guilty of. That's one thing.
Thank you for admitting that. That's the exact circumstance that results in a 'witch hunt'. If we don't know what he did, then why are we investigating? That's not how justice is supposed to work. You don't just get to say "I don't like this election result, go sniff up the ass of everyone involved and find out if we can put any of them in jail"

Second, just because they don't find the smoking gun on day one or week one or year one of the investigation doesn't mean they have nothing and are just farting around wasting taxpayer money.
You kinda need the smoking gun, or at least a shred of evidence of some kind, in order to start the investigation. You can't go around initiating probes because you don't like someone. If that's not what happened, then how come the public hasn't heard a shred of evidence from this leaky investigation?

Plenty of investigations take longer than this one and end up proving someone guilty.
Dude...that's a BAD THING. There is a reason cops aren't allowed to follow any one driver for more than a limited number of miles. If you follow someone long enough, you WILL find a reason to pull them over. The longer you dig, the more dirt you have on your hands. You can use circumstantial evidence and loose interpretations of obscure laws to indict anyone for anything.

There is no doubt in my mind that someone will end up arrested/indicted as a result of this investigation. There's no way Mueller is going to button this up without someone going down.

So sorry, but there's no time limit on how long they get to uncover the evidence, where if it takes longer than 'x' you get to conclude the person must be innocent.
Sorry but this is woefully glib. The DOJ works for the public. They are spending the public's money seeking out justice on behalf of the public. The DO have some degree of accountability.

How might he go about that? Assuming of course that's a good strategy. And in what way has he been doing the opposite?
Well, first of all, he wouldn't ever agree to talk to Mueller. Yet, he gave a press conference the other day saying he was eager for the meeting. He wouldn't be commenting to the press or tweeting anything about Russia, but he is doing the opposite. In fact, everything Trump is doing seems to suggest an impatience with the investigation. And by complaining about it, he's bringing the fact that it exists into the forefront of the media discourse.

We never heard this much about Hillary's emails. That was one they wanted swept under the rug. Notice the differences in how that was handled, and how Trump is handling this Russia situation. Whenever they asked Hillary about her emails, she had a canned, deflecting, non-answer response.

Or it could be to try to discredit it in any way possible, which is exactly the opposite.
I see Trump making denials. And his comments discrediting the investigation are largely cliche (witch hunt, etc). If he wanted to discredit the investigation, he'd be using his power as president to decimate the FBI. There may be some bad optics involved, but I do believe that Trump could find a way to control the narrative just enough so as not to alienate his base of support. There is clearly more than just a little corruption going on at the FBI. If you want an example outside of this political arena....do some research into the FBI's relationship with Whitey Bulger.

If you believe the government's preferred narrative that Zip Connolly was simply a rogue agent who turned dirty....you are in-fucking-sane.

How do you know he isn't?
Mueller has already talked to everyone I listed. He wouldn't talk to those people unless he was prepared to ask everything he could possibly want to ask. You don't get second chances at witnesses.

Also, what's your interpretation of Mueller wanting to interview Trump himself? Just wanting to shoot the breeze?
It is inevitable that the investigator would want to talk to the subject of the investigation. The fact that Mueller wants to talk to Trump is indicative of nothing other than Mueller was present for his "Detective 101" class.

But again, you don't get second chances at witnesses. And you usually don't go for the top dog until you're done with all the underlings. So if Mueller wants to talk to Trump, all it signifies is that his investigation is almost over. That's it.

Ya because that's what every arch-criminal says - sure I'm a criminal but so-and-so was worse. Lock THEM up, not me! Lol, right.
Deflecting attention from your own crime would be a viable strategy, if you were a criminal. I would probably recommend leaving out the part where you say "sure I'm a criminal".

Basically, your argument starts out with 'he's innocent' and tries to see everything through that prism.
Not exactly. I believe deeply in a system of justice that values the concept of "Innocent until Proven Guilty". So yes, my argument starts with "he's innocent". That's not politically motivated. Every single accused person should get the exact same blank slate. There was even a week or so in my early teens where I thought "OJ wouldn't do that, why would he fuck up being rich and famous just to stab some skank?"

Now I'm open to ANY evidence at all that proves, or at this point even implies guilt. But despite two years of this nonsense, despite volumes of surveillance collected illegally, despite close Trump allies having every reason to roll over on the President (Manafort), and despite an unprecedented level of leaks coming out of the justice department......I haven't seen a shred of anything linking Trump and Putin.

So I'm still kinda stuck on "he's innocent".

I'm not saying he's guilty, but you already have the case decided in your mind based on whatever theories happen to suit.
I haven't decided anything. I'm open to having my mind changed by facts, or evidence. What I've done in this thread is merely speculate about what would happen if Trump was guilty, and what would happen if he was innocent. And then try to match actual known events to each potential narrative.

Let's just see what happens.
I'll bet I can guess. Meuller uses some round-about silliness to accuse Trump of obstruction of Justice in relation to his asking Comey to go easy on Flynn. But it will be mild, and congress will not act. The logic being "how can it be real obstruction if there was no collusion? How can you obstruct an investigation into a non-event? Trump was just being business-man Trump when asking Comey to (appropriately) expediently dispense with a politically motivated investigation"

It will hang over Trump in 2020, but he'll likely brush it off like everything else. Because anyone who is really put off by the indictment was already prepared to vote against Trump, even if the dems nominated a Blender to be their candidate. And anyone already planning to vote on Trump will not be compelled by an obstruction charge that can be explained away so easily.

So in the end, it's all big fat nothingburger