Would Trump do it again? Accept help from foreign meddlers.

[lpetrich]

'I think I’d take it': In exclusive interview, Trump says he would listen if foreigners offered dirt on opponents - ABC News

Asked by ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in the Oval Office on Wednesday whether his campaign would accept such information from foreigners -- such as China or Russia -- or hand it over the FBI, Trump said, "I think maybe you do both."

...
"It's not an interference, they have information -- I think I'd take it," Trump said. "If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI -- if I thought there was something wrong. But when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research, 'oh let's call the FBI.' The FBI doesn't have enough agents to take care of it. When you go and talk, honestly, to congressman, they all do it, they always have, and that's the way it is. It's called oppo research."

Pelosi: Trump's comments prove he doesn't "know right from wrong" - CNNPolitics

"The President gave us once again evidence that he does not know right from wrong," she said at her weekly press conference. "It's a very sad thing, a very sad thing that he does not know right from wrong."

She repeated her belief that Trump has participated in "a criminal cover up."
And she mentioned legislation that will mandate campaigns to report foreign offers of assistance.

"It's so self-evident as a matter of ethics but we'll have to codify it," she said.

Doesn't tRump have *any* honor?

 

[Elixir]

'I think I’d take it': In exclusive interview, Trump says he would listen if foreigners offered dirt on opponents - ABC News

Asked by ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in the Oval Office on Wednesday whether his campaign would accept such information from foreigners -- such as China or Russia -- or hand it over the FBI, Trump said, "I think maybe you do both."

...
"It's not an interference, they have information -- I think I'd take it," Trump said. "If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI -- if I thought there was something wrong. But when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research, 'oh let's call the FBI.' The FBI doesn't have enough agents to take care of it. When you go and talk, honestly, to congressman, they all do it, they always have, and that's the way it is. It's called oppo research."

Pelosi: Trump's comments prove he doesn't "know right from wrong" - CNNPolitics

"The President gave us once again evidence that he does not know right from wrong," she said at her weekly press conference. "It's a very sad thing, a very sad thing that he does not know right from wrong."

She repeated her belief that Trump has participated in "a criminal cover up."
And she mentioned legislation that will mandate campaigns to report foreign offers of assistance.

"It's so self-evident as a matter of ethics but we'll have to codify it," she said.

Doesn't tRump have *any* honor?

A rhetorical question, of course. And what about the Republicans in the Senate?

 

[lpetrich]

Trump would take foreign 'oppo.' Top election cop wants to be '100% clear' that's illegal. - NBC News

Federal Election Commission Chair Ellen Weintraub spoke out on the issue in a statement released on Twitter to make it "100% clear to the American public" that accepting such an offer is illegal.

"This is not a novel concept," Weintraub said. "Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation."

Weintraub's statement went on to say that anyone accepting foreign assistance risks a federal investigation and should report any offer to authorities.

Ellen L Weintraub on Twitter: "I would not have thought that I needed to say this. https://t.co/T743CsXq79" / Twitter

Back to that NBC article:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted Trump on Thursday and said that his remarks to Stephanopoulos showed "once again that he doesn’t know right from wrong."

“That’s probably the nicest thing that I can say about him, because if he doesn’t know the difference, it might explain some of his ridiculous behavior,” Pelosi said. “There is no ethical sense that informs his comments and his thinking.”

 

[lpetrich]

Donald Trump tries damage control after offer to foreign spies - CNNPolitics

President Donald Trump threw up a smokescreen of deflection and confusing counter attacks Thursday as a furor mounted over his staggering comment that he would be open to dirt dug up on his 2020 opponents by foreign powers such as Russia or China.

The President even implied -- clearly erroneously -- that he had been merely referring to the content of his conversations with foreign dignitaries such as the Queen of England and Prince Charles when he made the remark in an ABC News interview.

The "Prince of Whales"

This was more than a mere candidate calling on Russia to find Hillary Clinton's emails. It went further than dumping on US intelligence agencies by believing Russian President Vladimir Putin's smirking denials of election interference. Or Trump's claims that the Kremlin's 2016 interference caper is one big Democratic hoax.

This was the President of the United States -- the man charged with protecting the Constitution, American democracy and the Western world -- sitting at the Resolute desk in the Oval Office, saying he would accept damaging information from Russia and China on his 2020 Democratic foe.

...
"The fact is that the phony Witch Hunt is a giant scam where Democrats ... and other really bad people, SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!" the President wrote in one tweet.

...
The Democratic Party's 2020 presidential candidates competed with one another to hit the impeachment talking point -- suggesting the growing power of the argument even though the Russia investigation is not a dominant 2020 issue.

Quoting Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Kamala Harris.

 

[Ford]

It's almost like he's got some sort of guarantee from Russia that all the dirt they have on him won't be used against him.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Why wouldn’t he do it again? There were no consequences for the first times.

 

[SLD]

'I think I’d take it': In exclusive interview, Trump says he would listen if foreigners offered dirt on opponents - ABC News


Pelosi: Trump's comments prove he doesn't "know right from wrong" - CNNPolitics

Doesn't tRump have *any* honor?

A rhetorical question, of course. And what about the Republicans in the Senate?

There’s a special place in hell for his enablers. The entire Republican Party owns tRump. The world has always been infected with shitbirds like tRump. But it takes a real motherfucker to help him with his quest.

There’s only one way this has to end. That’s with this country virtually prostrate, economically crushed, militarily overextended, just hopefully not occupied and utterly destroyed.

SLD

 

[repoman]

 

[ideologyhunter]

Pres. Shithole has given us another priceless jewel today, among his attempts to lie his way out of the clear meaning of his foreign oppo remarks. In a tweet about all the contacts he has with foreign nationals, he informs us that he has spoken with the PRINCE OF WHALES. Very stable genius gets yet another low grade in English. Whales. Sweet fancy Moses.

 

[Sarpedon]

I made that mistake when I was ten or so.

 

[lpetrich]

That seems almost like an autocorrector's mistaken correction. But that amusing flub aside, it has to be significant about the pResident that he treats Prince Charles as a significant leader. Almost as if he thinks that Britain has not changed much since the reign of King George III.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Well, with Gen X Ivanka and austere Acqua di Gio model Jared as attaches, what's to criticize?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Trump is making it okay to collude with his base. Politically. He's testing the waters and right now Republicans are okay with subservience to Russia because they are okay with subservience to white male authoritarians. Once he has slowly shifted the goalposts with the Republican dittoheads from "I didn't collude" to "it's okay to collude," impeachment will be impossible.

Does anyone remember this?

That will take over the base and Republican politicians will continue to support him or risk political losses.