Thread by @kurteichenwald

1. "You could be next."

The @GOP has made it clear it has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Russia/Trump, and no amount of evidence is enough to justify removal of a corrupt president. They will not protect Americans.

So key message from Dems should be: "You could be next"...

@GOP 2...the President of the United States attempted to compel a foreign nation - one he claims is corrupt - to investigate and possibly jail an American citizen. If Trump believed a crime had been committed, he would have turned to the FBI. Instead, he tried to outsource to a...

@GOP 3...foreign nation. Even if you are irrational enough to believe that there was no pressure on Ukraine, no attempt at extortion or bribery, that action is undeniable. He was taking an act with the ultimate outcome potentially being an American citizen and political rival....

@GOP 4...locked up in a foreign prison. This is *exactly* the kind of action taken by dictators, except they do not have to hide their actions by trying to engage in them in secret by pressing a foreign nation. This *alone* without any other facts is an impeachable abuse of power....

@GOP 5...and the @GOP, @LindseyGrahamSC, @DevinNunes et. al. have all made it very clear that they *do not care* if a president outsources criminal investigations of Americans to foreign states. Worse, they *do not care* if this is set up for "announcement first, defense someday"...

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes 6...when you have an outsourcing of investigations, corruption is inevitable. Next, it could be me. It could be you. Do you really want to live the rest of your life in a Russian or Ukrainian or Syrian prison cell, simply because you angered Trump? The @GOP *will not care.* ....

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes 7...given their willingness to avoid all evidence, people like @LindseyGrahamSC will shrug as the Trump Administration extradites Americans overseas to be tried in corrupt foreign courts as the result of investigations instigated in other countries by our president...

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes 8...if Trump wins reelection, which he might, the @GOP senate has made it clear that no action, no crime, no corruption is off the table. Will Trump send troops into the offices of the New York Times, or Amazon, or any other company that angers him to arrest his "enemies"...

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes 9...and then extradite them to Siberia, in an investigation he instigated? Will he send "critics" he despises? Will he go after democrats as a whole unit? If acquitted by a party refusing to look at evidence *there will be no limit to what Trump can do* without consequence...

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes 10...will it be safe to be a prominent Trump critic or political opponent, given he has been freed to do anything?

"Next time, it could be you." That needs to be the phrase @TheDemocrats need to deliver in every Senate and House election...

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats 11...we are truly at the verge of a collapse of all checks and balances, with an Administration that believe it can tell Congress and the courts to go to hell, knowing that the most corrupt party in American history will cheer him for it.

Once the "see no evil" party sends....

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats 12...the "all-clear" for any act of corruption, anything is possible.

Sound far fetched? It has already been done by the Republicans. In the 2000s, Americans falsely concluded that a Canadian citizen was a terrorist and asked for evidence from Syrian government....

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats 13...the Syrians brutally tortured another Canadian they held before he falsely said, "Yes, this other Canadian is a terrorist."

The man, Maher Arar, was headed home to Canada, was seized by American authorities at JFK Airport....

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats 14...and, *because we had no basis on which to hold him* the US outsourced the investigation to Syria, a place the man had never been. He was shipped there, beaten, burned, raped, tortured in every horrible way imaginable. And only after this man was wrecked did we say....

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats 15..."Oh. Maybe we're wrong." Canadian government had to pay $10 million settlement to Arar, US government refused to pay, claiming "national security." And *no Republican cared.*

Outsourcing of criminal investigations by Trump is corruption of the highest order. It puts every..

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats 16...American who might criticize Trump in danger. And, just like they did before when we outsourced the torture of a Canadian citizen, @LindseyGrahamSC @RNC and the @DevinNunes of the world will go on Fox and declare that Trump was right to rob us of our rights, to submit us...

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats @RNC 17...to any abuse by pushing foreign nations for corrupt criminal prosecutions of critics and opponents. There is not a single Republican who will stand up for our rights, who will protect us, so long as they get tax cuts.

We are all in danger. "Next time, it could be you"...

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats @RNC 18...every house race, every senate race, where a Republican has argued that there is nothing abusive about the President of the United States attempting to get an American citizen charged with a crime and locked up simply because they are his opponent, needs to focus on the....

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats @RNC 19...power @GOP has granted Trump to violate our every right. Want your guns? Not in lots of overseas nations, where you might be sent. Want a lawyer? Sorry - you're not in the US anymore.

"Next time, it could be you." And GOP will not protect us.

They all must be voted out...

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats @RNC 20...and if you are "well, I don't like this dem or that dem" - always remember that those who supported the most left-wing candidate in Hitler's first national German elections and the supporters - as well as the candidate - died in a concentration camp because they didn't....

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats @RNC 21...think the other candidate was progressive enough.

Now, I am not saying Trump is Hitler or that we are heading into Nazi Germany. I *am* saying that our rights are at stake, we have no defense, and failing to fight back at the ballot box could be disastrous....

@GOP @LindseyGrahamSC @DevinNunes @TheDemocrats @RNC 22..people always say, "It can't happen here." It can. The president tried to secretly get American citizens locked up in a foreign nation on the basis of a conspiracy theory.

It can happen, & @GOP will do nothing to stop it.

And next time, it could be you.

Vote them all out.