Now is the time for those GOP members who do want to keep their jobs in the 2018 election to start making hay over the clearest broken promise of Trump not pimping for emoluments while in office.
This is the safest tactic, considering its memes appeal to the xenophobia of base Republicans and allows rogue activity claiming it’s about ‘American jobs’.
A House investigation into Trump emoluments could be as conclusive as say …. Benghazi. Right up the retiring Trey Gowdy’s alley.
And FoxNews would obviously be OK with it. They have no Asian anchors and rarely have Michelle “Debbie-Duterte” Malkin on.
And dumbshit less-informed moderates would buy into it as bipartisan and (alternative) fact-finding. Plenty of space for useless whataboutism.
Much better than that idiot Nunes running around trying to obstruct justice.
Even snowflakes in DK would be as happy as Republicans because … no Russians!
Of course they didn’t. Why insult “Cocaine Mitch”?
Who really is the rump leader of the GOP?
Pence has been overcompensating by being a Trump sycophant, trying to appear Presidential.
For example note his visit to post-storm Texas, doing actual stunt debris-clearing rather than Trump’s faux-Santa appearances in water bottle give-aways.
Washington (CNN)
a) Vice President Mike Pence and his advisers are operating as a sort of de facto political unit within the White House and
b) allies of President Donald Trump are none too happy about that fact.
"Republican officials now see Mr. Pence as seeking to exercise expansive control over a political party ostensibly helmed by Mr. Trump, tending to his own allies and interests even when the president's instincts lean in another direction. Even as he laces his public remarks with praise for the president, Mr. Pence and his influential chief of staff, Nick Ayers, are unsettling a group of Mr. Trump's fierce loyalists who fear they are forging a separate power base."
February 2017
The Associated Press reported that China is about to grant Trump something he has been seeking for a decade: the valuable trademark right to the Trump brand name in the Chinese market. Granting that right would, in effect, be giving the Trump Organization the ability to make much more money in that market, again raising ethical questions.
The issue isn't just potential violations of the organization's promises. It is the bar against foreign emoluments, or compensation due to one's office or employment, which comes straight out of the Constitution. In Article I, Section 9, the Constitution specifies, "no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under [the United States] shall, without Consent of Congress, accept ... any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State."
Historically, constitutional scholars have interpreted this section as an anti-bribery clause, but there is virtually no case law to know how it would be used in practice. But many legal scholars worry any foreign deals could be perceived as an attempt to get in the president's good graces. There is, however, one part of the provision that hasn't gotten much attention: congressional consent. Norm Eisen, an attorney who co-wrote a lawsuit challenging President Trump on emoluments, said the framers "left a safety valve." He suggested that the president should let Congress "do the oversight" and decide whether the organization's and the president's choices are "emolument[s] or not."
www.npr.org/...
While bashing companies for investing in foreign countries, Donald Trump’s own company has shown no inclination to invest and build only in America. In fact, a significant percentage of his company’s hotels and major real estate properties are located abroad.
"Mr. Trump is either inexcusably hypocritical or inexcusably ignorant of economics,” according to Donald J. Boudreaux, a professor of economics at George Mason University. “There is zero economic difference between, say, a U.S. car company's investments abroad in factories and Mr. Trump's own investments abroad in hotels: both are meant to improve the bottom line of companies headquartered in the U.S. by taking advantage of profitable economic opportunities outside of the U.S."
www.forbes.com/...