All the president's loyalists: Impeachment net snares Trump's top advisers

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/09/26/impeachment-trump-top-advisers-001484

The president’s senior aides are about to face the punishing spotlight of an impeachment inquiry, the beginning of personal and professional costs spreading throughout the Trump orbit.

By DARREN SAMUELSOHN 09/26/2019 05:01 AM EDT

Donald Trump has done it again: He’s dragged some of his closest aides and advisers into a scandal packed with potentially devastating personal consequences.

That’s good news for white-collar lawyers who charge by the hour.

But an investigation into allegations that Trump pressured his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate Joe Biden is hardly the kind of thing to be embraced by the wider world around Trump, a growing list that includes Vice President Mike Pence; some of his most important Cabinet officials such as secretary of state Mike Pompeo, attorney general Bill Barr and acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; and his own personal attorney at the center of it all, Rudy Giuliani.

They all face a long road ahead with the prospect of hefty legal bills, reputational scars and damaged political prospects hanging over them for years.

It isn’t a new phenomenon. Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Michael Flynn all can attest to what happens when their own conduct gets scrutinized over the course of a high-level investigation that all started because of Trump.

President Bill Clinton’s top aides suffered as well during six years of special counsel probes and an impeachment battle. Watergate, of course, popularized “All the President’s Men” for the sheer breadth of people swept up in President Richard Nixon’s ultimate downfall.

“While it’s not quite Watergate, which is where Nixon got drawn into it by his senior staff, this is a situation where I think even more offensively the president seems to have embroiled his close confidants in his own mischief,” said Philip LaCovara, a former top prosecutor on the special counsel team that examined Nixon’s conduct.

For starters, all of the people in the president’s world with ties to the Ukraine scandal can expect to get hauled up for congressional hearings — where the questioning in a Democratic-led impeachment investigation is sure to be anything but friendly.

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[Roland99]

1. And that's how you take down a narcissist!

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. looks like an OP, to me

[gristy]

6. Ah, yes. The Prisoner's Dilemma

What is the Prisoner's Dilemma?
The prisoner's dilemma is a paradox in decision analysis in which two individuals acting in their own self-interests do not produce the optimal outcome. The typical prisoner's dilemma is set up in such a way that both parties choose to protect themselves at the expense of the other participant. As a result, both participants find themselves in a worse state than if they had cooperated with each other in the decision-making process. The prisoner's dilemma is one of the most well-known concepts in modern game theory.

Key Takeaways
A prisoner's dilemma is a situation where individual decision makers always have an incentive to choose in a way that creates a less than optimal outcome for the individuals as a group.
Prisoner's dilemmas occur in many aspects of the economy.
People have developed many methods of overcoming prisoner's dilemmas to choose better collective results despite apparently unfavorable individual incentives.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/prisoners-dilemma.asp

[Iliyah]

2. But will the WH block the appearances and or

tell the potential subpoena witnesses/defendants to say nothing . . ., i.e. one example Corey L. (which made the GOP's look stupid).



I would like to know in American history, has shithole and cronies surpass Pres. C in lawyering up.

[C_U_L8R]

3. Blocking witnesses at an impeachment hearing

Wouldn't be a very smart move. But then, Trump isn't very smart.

[Danascot]

7. OK White House and related officials

Start offering your testimony to Congress in exchange for leniency. This is a limited time offer. If you don't, others will.

That's what's so great about having dozens of them involved. Some of them will rat out the others to save themselves.