There is an news report circulating around the web from TV14 in Egypt accusing the US president of funding money to the Muslim Brotherhood. This is not what this thread will be about, but is the catalyst for my question.

Let's assume we have a president that is actually caught red handed doing something like this. Reagan was caught up in the whole Iran Contra thing so it's not something that would be isolated to a president from one party or the other.

But for this exercise we are going to say that president 45 is being investigated for funneling money to a known terrorist entity. Do you think that political party would play into how it was being reported? I'm fairly sure that political party would definitely play a part in how the impeachment process would go. But do you think if that there was almost irrefutable proof that 45 was guilty that his party would stand behind him anyway? would MSNBC spin in his favor if democrat? Fox if he were republican? What if up to this point he had been a media darling and well respected president?

I suspect it depends on how reliably the activities were established and how accepted it is that the receiving entity is terrorist. If both are more than 'not very', then the prez gets thrown under the bus (as he should be). It gets more complicated in the Egyptian case where the terrorist organization happens to be the president's political party.

For what it's worth, Egypt's president was recently ousted by the military, which resulted in violent clashes with his supporters. The military has some very good reasons to want to discredit the ex-president's party right now, and tying them to US funding would be a pretty good way to paint them as hypocrites.

However, if there was really obvious evidence that a US president had been privately funding an undisputed terrorist group, and this was undisputedly illegal, he'd probably get away with merely being forced to resign. No president's ever been successfully impeached, not even Richard Nixon.

I assume a lot depends on what terrorist entity had been funded for what end, or under what rationale.

A lot of peoples reaction will depend, if they consider that terrorist organisation as archenemy or our bastards or whereever in between.

I assume in general rightwingers will easier forgive funding terrorists to destabilize enemy goverments (as Iran Contra was), while leftwingers more easily forgive it, if it was to prevent some situation from escalating or to keep them from interfering in some important project.

Well, arguably the difference between "freedom fighters" and "terrorist group" boils down to whether you support them or not. In that respect, this isn't really a hypothetical. America has a long history of supporting horrible groups doing horrible things because it appeared to be in our national interest. To be frank, we armed and trained the Taliban, back when we needed them. You mentioned Iran Contra, which was blatant, but even Jimmy Carter, one of the most pacifist presidents ever, was connected to some pretty terrible organizations down in South America.

If history is any guide, the American public and the media are both perfectly willing to turn a blind eye as long whatever happens seems generally in line with American interests.

I think it would be a much different picture if the funds were going to a group targeting America --although the case of the Taliban proves that you don't have much control over the long term picture when you're dealing with groups of that nature.

But if for instance say it was a group like Hamas, An organization that the US has clearly labeled a terrorist group. Do you think 45 could weasel his/her way out of it? How would he/she do it?

Hum... no, not really... not when people dare to speak accurately. Freedom Fighters are defined by their goal: removing a foreign influence or oppressive government. Terrorists are defined by their strategy-scale methods: inflicting terror upon the general populace.

A guerilla campaign, strictly against a military, even if using standard terrorist tactics such as roadside bombs, is not terrorist. It doesn't have to be freedom-fighting either, depending on the campaign's goals.

In Iraq, say, some groups are definitely terrorist. Probably, others are not. I suspect that few of them are freedom fighters, though some are.

This hypothetical president could perhaps be able to draw this distinction usefully. Maybe not. The most likely defense would be that they're on our side - the public would be a great deal less patient for an argument that funding our enemies is okay just because they aren't terrorists.

Arguably many Palestinian groups are both. As are many seperatist movements.

If the US goverment would aid Hamas, the first question would be, what did they expect in return. For instance if the US goverment clandestinly sent a treasure chest to the Hamas, in exchange for them not not interrupting some peace talks for a defined time, that might or might not be a good tactic, but it would be paying terrorist, whithout paying for terrorism. If the US goverment intends to outbid Iran as sponsor, to deprive Iran of a pawn in imerialist power games, it would be different. If the US goverment pays Hamas, to keep Israeli counterstrikes going, to bolster US weapon exports, it would be again different.