re: #128 NO SMOCKING GUN!

I kind of doubt that if Trump decides to make a state visit to Moscow in December or January, that the Secret Service has the authority to forbid it. His flights on AF1 to battleground states weren’t planned months in advance; his campaign just decides where to send him a few days ahead of time and he goes.

What would be his rationale? He would be a lame duck. I get what you’re saying, and you are right about not everything in his schedule being known months in advance, but a trip to a foreign country? Let’s say you’re right: nobody can forbid it. The president goes off to Russia. He still has a secret service detachment and a press pool following him around. He has a train of other folks who have to travel with him and be near him. His immediate family. The folks who travel with the immediate family. Military liaisons, someone presumably from central intelligence, etc. Russia would have to permit Trump to show up and be open to the idea of him defecting. If they took him in, that would be the end of any chance of them getting out from under sanctions, and those sanctions would likely be permanent. We’d essentially do to Russia what we did to Cuba, but with better reason.