Obama Knew About Wiretapping Trump - Newt Gingrich

I think you mean

should prosecute -> should not prosecute

No, not exactly. I am mainly trying to understand and paint some black box guesses at the motivations for the various machinations that are already in motion. Maybe it should be that way or maybe it should not. I am trying to be more charitable towards the trump camp— as charitable as i can.

if trump wanted to catch obama he might be better off (imho) starting with the little guys and working up, as was the strategy (iirc) in the watergate investigation. that investigation seemed to work well, ending with the resignation of Nixon.

Trump is taking a different tack. Why seems to be a very pertinent question to ask, given that the Watergate investigation model exists and yields somewhat deterministic results.

Let’s do this: why do you think Trump is departing from the watergate model? and how much is he departing from that model in practice?

If something begins to smell enough, a special prosecutor might be demanded by congress. I’m not certain that Trump can pull it off by himself. it would seem better if someone else did most of the heavy lifting. The political groundwork would need to be laid, hearings would need to be held, and the entire process may take weeks, months or even years.

So trump can either shoot his wad upfront or not and then work behind the scenes. which one is more effective? undoubtedly it would have been a political calculus that would need to be made.

Trump can’t be chasing after the small guys at every turn. There are too many of them and they are too small, likely to be portrayed as being picked on by a big bully trump in the press. no, trump is good at painting the broad picture goal and then letting others work out the details. the broad picture goal in this case is to trace the breadcrumbs back to obama. obama is already wavering— an indicator of weakness, and a sign that trump is on the right track in at least some way.

but trump can’t be dealing with this 24/7 for the next 2 years. he needs to point to the target and let others do the hard work of hitting that target. In this case, the target is obama— the head of the snake, strategically. take out obama and you take out the snake. it is a political target. obama needs to be placed on the defensive and kept there while trump is then free to implement his agenda in congress and in the courts.

i’m not quite saying that it would be necessarily optimal for obama to be pardoned but that (1) it may be difficult to prove obama’s guilt in the current political climate with a jury; (2) someone would need to turn (plea bargain with) obama’s lieutenants; (3) someone would need to turn the layers that worked under obama’s lieutenants who actually did the front line work. that needs to be done in reverse order and with considerable care to achieve the desired outcome (taking down obama in one way or another).

to me it just seems from trump’s perspective at least that it need not be so important for obama to be imprisoned as it is for obama to be politically isolated and neutralized. i am merely trying to take the very long term (multiple decade) perspective. in that perspective, sacrifices could be made. the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, etc. if given a choice between spending political capital to jail obama, or guaranteeing the USA has a decent health care replacement for obamacare, and presuming that there is not sufficient political capital to do both reliably, then trump might feel compelled to sacrifice the notion of jailing obama for the benefit of the health of countless generations of American citizens to come.

Am I certain of this? No. Is it ok to discuss, to put forward alternative goals and tradeoffs, and to suggest pathways to success for goals thus chosen, here in this august forum? I hope so. I’m open to your ideas if you begin with similar scope, even if not similar premises (but if so, i would encourage you to state the premises of your starting situation).

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