Digby, this week Rex Tillerson said that he would shed some of his $180 million worth
of Exxon stock to be Trump's secretary of state.
I'm not terribly impressed by that, although that number is slightly more than my stock
holdings.
I'm not terribly impressed with the idea that someone whose literally only job he's ever
had is with Exxon for 40 years.
This guy has been raised to believe that oil and the acquisition of oil is the fundamental
fulcrum for human existence.
I'm not terribly impressed that he's shed himself of Exxon money, as opposed to an Exxon
ideology.
Aside from that, it raises this question of the tremendous amount of conflicts of interest
that seem to be not a bug but a feature of the Trump administration.
It certainly looks that way, starting with Trump.
He's refusing to divest.
He's hinting around that he's going to do something, but none of it seems adequate.
Now keep in mind that Trump's ethics advisor is Tom Delay's former lawyer.
He was a member of the Federal Election Commission who went in and completely decimated the processes
for federal election laws violations.
He is an ideologue himself.
He has told Trump that the president can't have a conflict of interest.
He says it that way.
That starts with him.
There's been zero reason to believe that anyone working for him would not similarly be tainted,
if it's out there, or that they would consider that they really have to do much about it.
Now Tillerson is interesting because there's also this connection with Russia, which again
comes up.
What's going on there?
I don't know what it is, but it's odd.
In Tillerson's case, it's purely about oil.
Exxon had a big oil leasing deal with Russia going.
Half a trillion dollars.
Yeah, it's gigantic.
Russia then invaded Crimea and sanctions were put down, and that deal went by the wayside.
Now it is presumably, upon Trump taking office, those sanctions will be lifted.
It certainly looks like they're going to be.
That deal will go forward.
I don't know how the naming of Tillerson has affected the Exxon stock that he's going to
be selling, but one has to assume that he's not going to lose money, okay, by selling
his Exxon stock.
I just have a feeling that he's going to do okay just by the naming of him as the secretary
of state.
This is where get into these dicey things.
We know what they're going to do.
Right.
We know how much money he has at stake.
Beyond that, it's as you say, this is an ideology, the energy ideology.
Trump has certainly espoused that as well.
Just take the oil.
We need it.
We take it.
We do whatever we have.
In fact, he used to say that he would have taken the oil wells in Iraq and then had Exxon
come in and rebuild ... he would burn the oil wells and then have Exxon come in, they
could rebuild them in a week.
This is all part of Trump's involvement across the board with the masters of the universe,
Goldman Sachs and the like, and the energy sector, and all the big corporate giants,
multinationals around the world, Exxon being the king of all of them.
Tillerson does seem to be a target of the Democrats, and I don't know whether or not
they're going to be able to stop him, but it would be interesting if they did.
Indeed.
Well, listen, we only have about a minute and a half left, but with that short of amount
of time, I know you've written a piece about does impeachment begin now.
Give us just the top line of this.
Is it rational to begin to develop a process and to develop thinking that would be focused
on impeaching Donald Trump?
Absolutely.
The Republicans would have done it; they were already planning to do it.
The Democrats should do the same thing.
He's already committed impeachable offenses.
He's riddled with conflicts of interest.
We have no idea where any of that is going to go, but I think that being prepared is
the right thing to do.
Robert Kuttner wrote an interesting article for the Huffington Post in which he laid out
a process, which is you get a group together, you form it to put together a dossier.
You just keeping adding to it.
You release it to the press.
You release these things to the committees in the congress.
You do it.
If the opportunity comes along, and I suspect it will, for that to be pushed, they will
be ready.
That's what the Republicans do.
You have Paul Ryan; he set out to be ready for this eventuality in 2018.
Jason Chaffetz was prepared to impeach Hillary Clinton on the first day.
The Democrats should do the same thing.
I think it's essential with Trump.
This is somebody ... you don't take chances on that, or adhere to some kind of niceties
about it.
Just do it.
I hope the Democrats take Kuttner's advice with that.
From your mouth, Digby, to not just our listener's ears as it were.
Thank you so much for your time today.
Really appreciate it.
Thanks for having me, Sam.
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