Koyaanisqatsi
Veteran Member
There are no doubt such conversations being had, but they would not be at the State level. Trump already knows he will have to resign. Whether or not he does so, of course, is the open question, so the next steps will likely be along these lines (and I'd bet even money the first has already been attempted): Trump is offered a resignation deal or else Kushner gets indicted; Trump refuses; Kushner gets fucked. Next, Trump is offered a resignation deal or else one of his sons (likely Jr) gets indicted; Trump refuses; Jr. gets fucked. Next, Trump is offered a resignation deal or else Ivanka gets indicted; Trump agrees; Trump resigns.
Ivanka is the trump card, pun intended. He wouldn't give a fuck about Kushner or his sons, but he'd do anything for the real and only love of his life. By that time, too much damage would be done for him to be able to save anyone via pardons--and there will likely be, as you note, State indictments worked out as well, rendering pardons moot regardless--and the next step, of course, would be to impeach and once the indictments against Kushner and Trump Jr. (and Ivanka's as a leak) are made public, Trump's "strong approval" among the Republican voters that matter (ie., NOT his core) will plummet below 50% and that's the signal to vulnerable GOP Senators in regard to their re-election in 2020 to voter against Trump during impeachment.
That's if Mueller is planning the full jugular treatment that the intelligence community no doubt is fully behind. The problem being, once again, that there are evidently many more Republicans in Putin's pocket than just Trump. Putin booby-trapped it all nicely, with multiple assets in the Senate as a backup/mutually assured destruction contingency.
It is important to note that at this point, certainly, everyone in the corridors of power that matter know ALL of the big picture items that are at play in all of this. They may not know all of the minutia that Mueller is culling together, but they certainly know how big the iceberg is and where it's headed. That's why we saw zero counterpoints against Cohen by any Republicans, just a lot of empty dumbshow.
So, everyone already knows that Trump is a dead man walking. What is currently being discussed is how to properly execute him without tanking the economy and/or without revealing publicly the full extent of how our government was extensively breached by Russian influence.
It's one thing to speculate and write pieces that talk about what is likely or is not likely, etc., but it's a very different thing to have it presented by a special prosecutor with various forms of physical evidence proving it, so what I'm talking about is not just "well, we all know that already," it's "they not only know it, they have met the full legal burden of proof behind it and it's no longer in the realm of armchair pundit assumptions and internet arguments, it's concrete and incontrovertible."
It's twenty smoking guns and that's why nothing of any substance was raised against Cohen and why there's been a pause in the run up to who gets fucked next. Mueller is very carefully and deliberately tightening the noose.