Announced Trump's arrest before the inauguration? Seriously? Should he have gone and arrested Jill Stein as well while he was at it? Obama didn't misplace his faith in the IC or Congress, he misplaced his trust in the American people, he thought Trump would lose, he wasn't banking on Congress or the Intelligence Agency to do shit, he was banking on us voting against him.
But back to the idea of arresting Trump before anything was firmly known, and honestly, us here don't know if what is known now is worth arresting someone for, let alone back in November or December.
There's a couple of things to unpack here. First is, does a candidate being the preferred candidate of another country immediately disqualify them from the Presidency? If so where the hell does that leave us? Which countries opinions matter here, like if Iran would have rather had Hillary and Russia would have rather had Trump, would they both be disqualified? Is it just Russia?
Second, while I'm dismayed at the attacks Trump's made on the EU, NATA and the relationship he's forging with parties looking to break up the EU is there anything inherently wrong about Americans deciding they'd rather ally themselves with Russia over Europe? Is that a position one just can't be allowed to even have?
Going after a foreign power for meddling during an election is one thing but do we really want the government to do that to it's own candidates without super solid evidence? This time it was Trump, and yeah I wish he was ousted, but maybe next time it'll be someone we like that has possible ties to someone we don't like, do you trust a Republican government to then not turn around next election and use possible ties with a foreign government to arrest your candidate before an election?
This is all iffy stuff to me. If they were sitting on damning evidence that Trump was really compromised then yes they should have gotten him with something, but if all they have is smoke I don't think that merits arresting people. If Trump's not actually a Russian plant but legit hates the EU and wants to see it break up and his supporters support that, is that wrong enough to oust someone? Does merely influencing an election disqualify the nominee even if there was no cooperation between the two, if Russia meddled for both candidates would they both be tainted as Russian plants and be disqualified? At some point, while we must protect our system as best as we can, we still have to have some faith that despite outside opinions, money and actions that the voters still have some semblance of a clue and the right to choose. Whether it was Russia directly airing anti-EU, pro-Russian sentiments or a candidate who just happens to agree with that if that's what the voters want and vote for, well then the problem's not totally on Russia's end. I'd have a much bigger problem with the Russian angle if it was actually all super secret, if Trump was actually a Manchurian Candidate, but nope, he's an outspoken bigot attracted to strongmen who hates the global order and that's how he ran, hard to say people were really "conned."
Which is why I do agree with going after people on procedure, I'm not sure if it should be illegal to simply have contact with business interests around the world, I don't even know if it should be illegal to talk policy before you're President. For example, I doubt people would be up in arms if Clinton had met with European leaders to discuss policy directions she wanted to take together if she were elected President, nor would people be as angry if she was talking to Asian leaders to make a version of the TPP she'd support(assuming it wasn't the original she liked all along). These people are connected, if we set the bar too low for what counts as collusion, treason and the like then we're going to catch everyone high up in government or Business, might even catch actors and shit who meet the Queen of England to talk about poverty or some shit in that web. But procedure. Lying in hearings, this is something solid I can get behind going after people for.