Ex-President Jimmy Carter Defends Trump, Says Mueller’s Time is Up

When the President is in a meeting, open door or not, he's the President of the US, not Donald Trump, ordinary citizen. What he says matters to foreign relations and American business. US diplomats were summoned to several African nations to explain the reason for the vulgarity aimed at them. Our companies are competing with Chinese companies for business in Africa. Trump's statements undercut negotiations and gave China an advantage there. The President shouldn't damage American business prospects like that, nor cause diplomatic issues.

Whether you agree with his sentiments or not doesn't really matter whether or not Congress can censure Trump for saying it. They could, if they chose to do so. They are an equal branch of government and a check on the Executive Branch.

We've become so tribal in our politics, many don't see a Republican Congress providing any checks on a Republican President right now, even if there is reason. The balance of power and the ability to check on other branches of government is critical to our democracy and required by the Constitution. The real concern is that Trump seems to keep pushing unless he gets significant, harsh pushback. He doesn't seem to get "subtle."

 

Pundits spin, and that's the way I see what Pierson did with Carter's opinion. I think it's important to point out spin.

We agree on Carter's statement.

 

I don't want to speak for LangleyMan, but in court proceedings yesterday, a direct connection between Gates and Manafort to a known Russian intelligence officer came out, as well as the fact that they knew he was Russian intelligence when they met with him about Trump's campaign. That is proof of collusion between the campaign and Russian intelligence. It has also been proven that Manafort offered to give Trump campaign updates to a Russian oligarch. Add to it the recently uncovered information about Cambridge Analytica meeting with Lukoil (Russian energy company) about their interest in using data to target American voters, and the Russian collusion connections become a spiderweb.

 

And you know this is true just how?

 

Court documents filed yesterday… related to the upcoming sentencing of Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan.

http://www.businessinsider.com/muel...w-emailing-former-russian-intelligence-2018-3

 

Which implies exactly what? I love the phrase "with ties to." What does that mean?

 

I think you know what it means. You also know this came from court documents issued from the Mueller investigation.

Would it be OK with you if Robbie Mook was having frequent meetings with Russian intelligence trying to help HRC get elected and harm the Trump campaign? Seems you just indicated that you weren't OK with her doing something like that, but you're deflecting when it comes to Trump's campaign doing it.

 

There's nothing there. NADA. Trump won. It's over. You have midterms this year. I'd really focus on that.

 

LOL! This is not a ballgame.

You're welcome to believe whatever you like, even in the presence of facts to the contrary.

BTW, I'm not a Democrat, but I am quite interested in the midterms, even without your advice. But thanks, I will focus on that, and anything else that interests me in the meantime.

 

And what do you seek to accomplish with this witch hunt?

 

This is so much BS it's not even funny. By any measure racism is at an all time low in America compared to history.

 

This is a political message board. I'm not involved in a witch hunt, nor do I seek to accomplish anything having to do with a witch hunt.

Since this thread is about Carter's opinion on the Mueller investigation, I'm discussing aspects of the thread with others. New information from the Mueller investigation was released last night…. and here we are.

 

Not trying to be argumentative, but he has a point. We do have racists in this country, and they aren't hiding as much as they did. They are being exploited to cause division. It's a Russian active measure to cause chaos in this country and weaken us.

I get your point too. Things are better racially than they were, but racism hasn't been eliminated.

 

You're not involved but Mueller and his allies/paymasters are. While Mueller on the surface is an accomplished man, it's becoming more and more apparent that as an FBI chief he was in over his head and is likely as corrupt as they come when it comes to the pursuit of power. His record at the FBI was abysmal. He was never a field agent. His acumen was as a US attorney.

 

Will ideologues never get tired of misquoting people and inventing news stories? I saw Jimmy Carter's interview on the PBS News Hour, and both the opening post and the right-wing blog it links to contradict President Carter's own words. Yes, President Carter did say that he wished the Mueller investigation would come to a close, but he qualified that by adding that, the Mueller investigation should not be prematurely ended before the investigation is finished. Jimmy Carter did not call the investigation a witch hunt, and he uttered some disparaging remarks about Trump.

As to Trump's possible impeachment, no one with an IQ above room temperature wants that. Why? Because the next two in line for the presidency are Mike Pence and Paul Ryan. Donald Trump may be a danger to American democracy, but he is a bumbling fool who has had little success in pushing his agenda so far. Pence and especially Ryan have enough brains to do our country real damage. Don't forget that Ryan wants to scrap Medicare and Pence is a religious fanatic with no tolerance for people who do not support his authoritarian views.

 

Well, he's acting as an attorney now, and I don't think he is over his head at all. He's assembled a team of expert lawyers that left multi-million dollar jobs to work with him, sacrificing for their country. On the other hand, Trump is working very hard to undermine Mueller's credibility, and can't get a good lawyer to represent him. That should tell you something about the status of the Mueller case.

Mueller is lauded by members of both political parties. He may have flaws. He's human, after all.

I just wish he'd hurry up, but with that said, I'd rather him be thorough than fast.

 

Hmmm wonder why he was only charged with lying to investigators about a couple of emails to a "person with connections" to an intelligent officer, why not treason? Surely to god this is the smoking gun we've been waiting on for a year and a half now? I'm certain much more charges are coming soon because this has been going on what 8 or 9 months since this guy was charged. Amazingly everybody, except a few partisan hacks, that's looked at all this classified stuff have said there is nothing real there. If this guy was colluding they have the emails, he obviously wasn't hiding the fact that he was emailing "person with connections" to an intelligent officer.

 

Didn't Van der Zwaan make a plea deal? That's why he's only been charged with lying to investigators. It's similar to Flynn only pleading to one count of lying to the FBI, when he did some really bad stuff like conspiring to kidnap and illegally rendition a legal US resident to Turkey for money.

I think you're misinformed if you think people have looked at classified stuff and said there is nothing real there, unless by "people," you mean Trump partisans. Most of the classified stuff hasn't been released and Mueller's team isn't leaking. There is a ridiculous amount of Russian connections with the Trump campaign.

Gates is cooperating with Mueller. Gates knew Konstantin Kilimnik was GRU intelligence and worked with him in Ukraine. Gates told Van Der Zwaan that Kilimnik was Russian intelligence, so he is verification. Kilimnik, being a foreign national, is prohibited from contributing anything to an American campaign, and is a direct connection between the Trump campaign and GRU intelligence. Yet, he was in touch with Gates during the campaign, as late as September 2016. That's collusion, so that's at least one smoking gun. That being said, I haven't seen a direct connection between Trump, himself, and the Russian government … yet, but then Mueller isn't finished yet.

Now, Dowd has admitted Trump was looking to pardon Flynn and Manafort because he was worried about what they might say. It begs the question, why is Trump worried, if he didn't have any contacts with Russians?

 

Noted.

Noted.

Do you have anything suggesting Mueller isn't on to something? I don't have any idea what Mueller knows or doesn't know. He isn't saying.

"Keep up" with John Nolte, the Breitbart hack? Don't insult our intelligence with this crap.

You claimed Trump didn't collude with the Russians and Mueller is trashing Trump. You don't know if Trump colluded or not, and I submit Mueller could do Trump dirt by suggesting he's become a "person of interest."

Trump is pulling the Republican Party into a dead end with his antics. Millennials don't relate to the homophobia, racism, sexism, "war on marijuana," bathroom fears, and the other BS he's pushing. What do you think is going to happen over the next decade as old people die off?

Trump is Dead Man Walking if Democrats nominate a 50-something white male who asks quite simply, "Had enough yet?"

 

That racism is less than it was doesn't mean the country isn't racist.

 

Not a trumpette as you call them in some kind of derision, but since I voted for carter, both times, carter is right. He always had integrity, honesty, and good sense. Unlike you current democrat today.

 

Being in a single meeting with a Russian equivalent to a CIA or FBI agent is a very very long stretch to collusion of the type that is alleged.
Nor is the offer of a campaign "update" anything that can remotely be called collusion.

Despite your insistence to the contrary Mueller has yet to charge Trump with the crime you seem to think exists.

 

Also noted is the fact that you leave out replies in order to give the impression issues are being ducked which is essentially dishonest and against forum rules. Anything to "win", right?

Yes. Of course I do. Democrat congressional sources that admit the case for Trump collusion is as dead as Elvis Presley. Everyone seems to know this but you, and I'm sure you do also but refuse to admit to the obvious.
http://www.newsweek.com/mueller-investigating-everything-russia-collusion-trump-former-reagan-783311

Don't make such grandiose assumptions about your ability to stay abreast of things. Whether you angrily reject a source of not the information still exists.

What I do know is no one has been able to demonstrate collusion between Russia and Trump. And I provided evidence of Mueller leaking information to the press to smear Trump but you childishly refuse to look. That's your problem.

Look at the amazing numbers the Roseanne Barr reboot show was able to pull in and how the program portrays a working class family
that happens to be Trump fans. You simply refuse to acknowledge what you cannot stand.
I remember during Reagan he had that same sort of popularity (albeit Trump is a much rougher and cruder version) and the left
just couldn't believe or accept his popularity.

I suggest you take some aspirin and go lay down.

 

Please, his prosecution of Flynn was a witch hunt and the plea is unlikely to stand. Have you really looked at Mueller's record at the FBI? Pathetic doesn't even begin to describe it. And his team of multimillion dollar lawyers is about as partisan as it gets.