Gosh I was just reminded of why I hate the Chris Mathews show and it's host.

[politicaljunkie41910]

I haven't watched his show in a while and the TV was on MSNBC. So Mathews and his guests were discussing the Mueller latest and whether Trump was a Subject or a Target, yada yada yada....whether the Special Counsel can indict a sitting president yada yada yada, and Joyce Vance the Former US Atty makes a statement that "there's a reason people try to cover things up for an investigation, there's a reason people commit obstruction, they are trying to cover things up because usually, they have something to hide."

Then Mathews steps in with his theory based on that during Watergate, Erlichman and those guys didn't know they had broken the law until their Counsel told them.

He then said, My theory is: Trump somehow got the word during the transition period, after the election, that there's this thing called the Logan Act. One day someone told him, "You can't be working with foreigners during an election. You're not allowed to negotiate with foreign powers when you're not in office." And Trump, having not known previously anything about the Logan Act suddenly thought "Hey, I've been doing a lot of that. I've been doing this all along", and then began to try and backtrack and cover up his tracks. And during the time he was trying to cover it up, he began to wonder what Flynn knew. And what Manafort knew. And what Gates Knew. And he began to behave in a way to obstruct justice because he was afraid that he had broken the Logan Act which, which he didn't know about and which hasn't been enforced since the flood under Noah, and when did they ever enforce that law, and could that be the reason he covered it up?"

So who wants to bet IF Trump ever goes before the Special Counsel, we can expect to see some form of the Tweety Defense, i.e. "I never knew anything about the Logan Act, I'm not a politician; I build buildings. No one told me anything about a "Logan Act". And besides, when has anyone every prosecuted anyone for violations of the Logan Act?

[Hoyt]

1. Sounds like a plausible theory to me, but not sure ignorance of law is a defense

in this situation.

[obnoxiousdrunk]

2. Trump using the Tweety defense. Lol

[shanny]

5. iirc ignorance of the law isn't a defense in any situation

[Hoyt]

8. Actually, it is. Health care providers can get out of allegations of fraud in some

situations if they could not reasonably be expected to know what they were doing was wrong.

And juries often buy that defense. In fact, mental illness is sort of an ignorance defense.

I would think it would be easy to convince a jury that trump is ignorant, but hopefully they wouldn’t let him off the hook.

[wishstar]

3. FBI met with Trump campaign officials in summer 2016 to warn them about foreign contacts

Tweety's stupid theory ignores the fact that FBI informed them all as soon as Trump was Repub candidate that foreign interests might try to contact the campaign and that they should notify the FBI. FBI even personally notified Hope Hicks that Russians were trying to contact her due to her close proximity to Trump and requested she report any emails from foreigners.

Trump & Co. failure to notify FBI and constant lying about Russian contacts was precisely because of their knowledge of wrongdoing and not ignorance of wrongdoing.

[Blue_true]

4. B O O M !!! nt

[NoMoreRepugs]

6. Tweety knows he is becoming more insignificant

by the day - expect more buffoonery out of his pie hole on a more constant basis.

[tblue37]

7. It's the money laundering for gangsters and other financial crimes that he is

mainly trying to cover up, and he knows all about those.

[PJMcK]

9. Exactly

Matthews is wildly speculating. The Logan Act? Really?

Hey, Chris! It's much simpler.

Trump knows about all of the connections to Russians. He has his own. He knows about all of the underhanded financial dealings he's been involved with. He knows about all of his personal behavior that is covered up by Cohen's NDAs. And there's probably so much more.

Trump has always been able to wiggle out from under trouble. Maybe not this time and it certainly won't be for violating the Logan Act.

[gratuitous]

10. So Tweety's argument is . . .

Trump didn't know nothin' 'bout no Logan Act, but did know that it hasn't been enforced since the flood under Noah? Does Mathews even hear himself? Because that's some prime bullshit right there.

[politicaljunkie41910]

16. Just to be clear, it was Tweety's testimony that the Logan Act hasn't been enforced since the flood

and that no one has ever been prosecuted under the Logan Act. I made the point that if push came to shove, I can envision Trump citing Tweety's statement as his legal defense, should the investigation ever reach this point in time. Heck if Tweety raised it, he must believe it has plausibility, though he's not a lawyer the last time I checked.

[Orsino]

11. Matthews is assuming that Trump has a plan.

Trump doesn't have a plan, and never did.

[ProfessorGAC]

14. I Think It's Been Abundantly Clear. . .

. . .that the entire gang did not expect to win the election.

So, they probably didn't even believe they needed a plan.

[Orsino]

15. Oh, Trump has people close to him who do have plans.

But they will never amount to coherent policy beyond "let's break stuff."

When Trump opens his mouth, he is bluffing, and he's doing it to avoid detailed questioning. He is a narcissist who loves attention but is terrified by scrutiny, and is seeking the praise that will never come--and if it did, it wouldn't be enough.

That's it. There's no plan. There are big conspiracies, but these are concerned with managing around him or possibly using him. He's kind of a zero.

[leftynyc]

12. Ignorance of the law is no defense

That's a well established legal principle.

[BSdetect]

13. Have no9t watched Tweety since 2016. He is stupid. Ignore him.

[Grammy23]

17. If ignorance of the law would pass for a defense,

Our prisons would be empty because of the defendants who claim total ignorance of any laws prohibiting whatever they did. How Convenient.

However, I think this strategy just crashed and burned if the FBI came to the trump campaign in the summer of 2016 to warn them about the dangers of getting to be too cozy with foreign entities. I am thinking the FBI probably documented that. As in, they have proof.