Well, multiple members of the Trump campaign have literally pleaded guilty to lying about involvement with Russia; that story does have that going for it :)
You'd think that after 4 years of intense scrutiny by the media, with a 2-year Special Counsel Investigation, people would finally let this go. If you don't see the parallel between this pipe dream and the QAnons of the world, I can't help you.
Well, it doesn’t help that the “infamous dossier” literally states that a sitting President can’t be charged for the crimes that were investigated. And the author explicitly stated that he did not find Trump or his campaign innocent of the described crimes.
Note: this opinion is independent of the current president, and I'm not stating any opinion on President Trump's conduct.
This seems like a really bad standard to apply to the president. I'd argue that morally there are two relevant factors when it comes to finding someone guilty: the damage that would be done to others by failing to punish the perpetrator, and the damage that would be done to the alleged perpetrator by punishing them. We choose different standards depending on those two factors. For example, in civil cases, someone specific has lost something and someone else has gained at their expense. And you're not seeking to imprison someone, but to take away some of their wealth. So we pick a standard of evidence (preponderance of the evidence) that's lower than in criminal cases (with a very high injury to the perpetrator and typically lower injury to the community).
In contrast, an impeachment is not a prison sentence. It would injure a president only insofar as that president would no longer keep the most prestigious title and position of power in American society. And failing to impeach for serious corruption or crimes (say, if a president were conspiring with China to weaken America's standing overseas) could be catastrophic. So I think a much weaker presumption of innocence is in order.
If you're talking about Flynn, he was entrapped by the FBI, his lies weren't material, his lawyer had a conflict of interest, when his new lawyer uncovered all of that in discovery, the prosecutor moved to dismiss (because they had committed misconduct), Sullivan, in AN UNPRECEDENTED MOVE, appointed his own Amicus to say they couldn't dismiss the case.
Flynn was then charged for lying when he plead guilty, because ht wasn't actually guilty. Seriously. This is a Kafka trap.
On top of that, it's now clear Sullivan was getting e-mail, exparte, and ENTERING THEM into evidence!!!
