Legal question: IF he is found guilty what happens next?

[BigmanPigman]

The GOP has control of all 3 branches. Does he fire everyone, invoke executive privilege, will he be impeached (doubt it), will he resign (again, doubt it), what about the collusion, what about Ryan and McConnell,...Chris Hayes and his quests don't really know either. Is it ALL partisan?

[doc03]

1. Nothing nt

[gldstwmn]

2. Actually shouldn't the next

step be if he is brought up on charges? Will that trigger impeachment?

[angrychair]

3. Court of public opinion

His name, Pence, Sessions and so on, has to be so politically toxic that there is little alternative but to act. At the end of the day, it matters more what the American people think than what they think.

What is in doubt is if the American people give a shit or rather choke back another Big Mac and watch reality tv.

Given Americans inability to pick their ass up off a coach for a couple hours, once every 4 years, color in some circles on a card and drop that card in a box I am not hopeful.

[BigmanPigman]

6. I read that was who Roger Ailes targeted as his audience 25 years ago.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Impeachment is ultimately a political process.

If Mueller has the goods and the Republicans don't impeach him there will be presumably be a backlash that allows us to win the House in 2018 and then we will impeach him. If the Republicans refuse to supply the votes in the Senate we use the issue in 2020 to win the presidency, the senate, and state legislative seats.

[Old Terp]

7. Especially important that we win the state offices (executive and legislative) in 2020

because there is a census in 2020 that will be underfunded and will have undercounts in areas that have our base. Minorities will be undercounted. The results from the census (due by the end of the year) will be used for redistricting (or gerrymandering as it may be). We need to control as many states as we can so that new districts are not created that make it hard for us to win. I don't really want us to gerrymander. I want fair, geographically compact districts. But, in addition to get out the vote, we need to have all our people be counted in the census.

[Crash2Parties]

18. Unless the election in '16 was rigged in red states.

Via Crosscheck style voter elimination lists,
Voter ID laws,
Diebold style known insecure vote tally systems
and
completely skewed districting (itself ill-gotten).

Because if it was rigged in 2016, you can be damn sure Republicans are tying up the lose threads & fine tuning the process for 2018, 2020 and onward.

[marylandblue]

5. Judiciary is our last hope

And they are probably not happy with Trump anyway. The prevailing theory is that Trump cannot have a criminal trial while still president. But this has never been tested in court. If it did go to court, the SCOTUS may rule he can be tried. If so, the GOP has the option of impeaching him, or having a president run the country from a jail cell.

An alternative version is that he could be indicted, and as we've seen with other politicians, the pressure to resign when indicted becomes enormous even if the politician is later found innocent. Indictment is easy, you can indict a ham sandwich as they say. If indicted, the cloud over Trump becomes a hurricane, and the GOP may have no choice but to impeach him and hope they can get their agenda through with President Pence.

[bresue]

11. Oh, Please don't say President Pence....

I almost (and I say that conservatively) would prefer Dump!!!

Why? Pence is so easily led around, that GOP would run all over him. And the religious fanaticism can be much worse....

[BigmanPigman]

15. I know...6 of one, half dozen of the other. We are screwed no matter how you look at it.

[unblock]

8. First they'll indict him, then the Supreme Court will decide if he can be tried

There's never been a criminal trial of a sitting president (though the Supreme Court did determine that the civil case against bill Clinton could go to trial while he was president.)

There are done who think presidents can't be tried while in office -- the trial would have to wait until they're no longer president. I'm not sure where they find that "president is above the law" clause in the constitution. Perhaps it is based on the pardon power, especially if they think the president can pardon himself (which clearly goes against the intent of the founders, but not the letter of the constitution).

Regardless, congress would in theory consider impeachment at that point, though i wouldn't hold my breath for the republicans to do that.

[marylandblue]

10. Even Republicans may have a breaking point at indictment

They forced Tom DeLay to resign when he was indicted. So there is hope.

[bresue]

12. I just barily remember that...good point!

[JTFrog]

13. It's possible. They united today to approve a new round of Russian sanctions 97-2.

And to limit Trump's ability to do anything about it.

We will have to wait and see.

[MiddleClass]

9. Two ways

Sealed indictment – nothing – midterms – wipeout

sealed indictment – nothing – Republicans wakeup – start investigating impeachment – midterms – wipeout

Democrats finish the job

[MiniMe]

14. Nothing unless the House decides he should be impeached

Everything right now depends on the house

[justiceischeap]

16. The GOP is in a sticky situation here

The 1998 GOP Congress voted unanimously that Obstruction of Justice is an impeachable offense (Bill Clinton). They can't very well turn around now and say it isn't without admitting 1998 was a mistake or completely partisan.

If they do nothing, IMO, they can't survive politically because that will become the news cycle--their double standard on impeachment. It's impeachable if a Democrat does it but not a Republican. There's just no good way to spin that with moderates, NeverTrumpers and Independents.

[BigmanPigman]

17. Good point.