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#241 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 391 weeks ago

slcpunk

STATEMENT BY FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTORS

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:

· The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort;

· The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct; and

· The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.

Attempts to fire Mueller and then create false evidence

Despite being advised by then-White House Counsel Don McGahn that he could face legal jeopardy for doing so, Trump directed McGahn on multiple occasions to fire Mueller or to gin up false conflicts of interest as a pretext for getting rid of the Special Counsel. When these acts began to come into public view, Trump made “repeated efforts to have McGahn deny the story” — going so far as to tell McGahn to write a letter “for our files” falsely denying that Trump had directed Mueller’s termination.

Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates — obstruction in its most literal sense. Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful. The Special Counsel’s report states: “Substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging McGahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special Counsel terminated, the President acted for the purpose of influencing McGahn’s account in order to deflect or prevent scrutiny of the President’s conduct toward the investigation.”

Attempts to limit the Mueller investigation

The report describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation.

First, the President repeatedly pressured then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his legally-mandated decision to recuse himself from the investigation. The President’s stated reason was that he wanted an attorney general who would “protect” him, including from the Special Counsel investigation. He also directed then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to fire Sessions and Priebus refused.

Second, after McGahn told the President that he could not contact Sessions himself to discuss the investigation, Trump went outside the White House, instructing his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to carry a demand to Sessions to direct Mueller to confine his investigation to future elections. Lewandowski tried and failed to contact Sessions in private. After a second meeting with Trump, Lewandowski passed Trump’s message to senior White House official Rick Dearborn, who Lewandowski thought would be a better messenger because of his prior relationship with Sessions. Dearborn did not pass along Trump’s message.

As the report explains, “substantial evidence indicates that the President’s effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct” — in other words, the President employed a private citizen to try to get the Attorney General to limit the scope of an ongoing investigation into the President and his associates.

All of this conduct — trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others — is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions.

Witness tampering and intimidation

The Special Counsel’s report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and intimidation, including the dangling of pardons, was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements; other such behavior was done via private messages through private attorneys, such as Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani’s message to Cohen’s lawyer that Cohen should “sleep well tonight, you have friends in high places.”

Of course, these aren’t the only acts of potential obstruction detailed by the Special Counsel. It would be well within the purview of normal prosecutorial judgment also to charge other acts detailed in the report.

We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment. Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. In our system, every accused person is presumed innocent and it is always the government’s burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.

As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.

#242 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 391 weeks ago

slcpunk
mitchejw wrote:
PaSnow wrote:
Randall Flagg wrote:

I’ve repeatedly told you you’re wrong on this. Fusion GPS didn’t contract with Steele until they were hired by the DNC. You can verify any of that on your own.

I guess Jr just got opposition research too.

Give it up. You’re being a hypocrite and are too partisan to see it. You literally just called Clinton paying a foreign agent for dirt Opposition research and then denied Jr taking a meeting was similar. C’mon dude. Try to stay logically consistent.

There's a major difference between following campaign members, doing background checks & investigations, and speaking with others who may have insights into them, as opposed to seeking and accepting hacked/illegally stolen items. Huge difference. Plus AFAIK legally Trump was supposed to report this info to the FBI, per campaign law. They gave thiem the benefit of the doubt cause they're too stupid to know & too reckless to ask.

Yea...I agree. You hit the nail right on the head here.

Half truths are what he does best.

More accurately "lying."

Flagg, Buzz and their benighted ilk want to talk about stupid shit. Typing up lengthy diatribes and viotriolic posts chock full of lies in hopes that you won't notice the crazy things Trump is doing almost every day. Don't get distracted by the angry clown show, while our country is essentially on fire.

#243 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 392 weeks ago

slcpunk

We're smack dab in the middle of a constitutional crisis as this point.

Let's look at what's happened over the last week (there are even more sub threads inside each one of these news bits, but I don't have time to go through them all) :

1) Mueller has written two letters to Barr, expressing his anger of his lies about the report. Turns out Barr did exactly what I said he was doing. Working as a cover up stooge for our wanna-be-dictator-president. A few people from Mueller's team also expressed outrage over what Barr did.

2) Last I checked, we're up to 700 former federal prosecutors, both Republican and Democrats, who signed a statement asserting that Mueller's conclusions alone would produce felony obstruction charges against Trump if he weren't in the White House.

3) Barr ignored his subpoena to appear before the House Judiciary Committee. Because of this The Judiciary Committee just voted to hold Barr in contempt.

4) The Department of Justice has also ignored a subpoena to provide the un-redacted version of Mueller's work. Trump now claiming executive privilege over the entire report and any associated documents.

5) The White House has ordered their former counsel Donald McGahn not to comply with his subpoena.

6) In a stunning move, the Republican Senate Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed Trump Junior. We know he lied about the Trump Tower meeting for some time, lying to Congress the last time he was questioned. Cohen testified that Junior, at the direction of Trump senior, met at least 10 times to discuss Trump Tower Moscow, during the election. Something they all lied about. Junior's world is about to get considerably shittier. About time...

7) Trump is suing Deutsche bank in order to block subpoenas issued by The House.

8) Mnuchin said he would not turn over the President's tax returns. Ignoring federal law.

(On a side note, and not surprisingly Trump spoke with Putin about a week ago, tweeting about his conversation with Putin and how they discussed the "Russian Hoax." So our president still stands eagerly beside Putin and thumbs his nose at our country and our intelligence agencies.)

Does this sound like an innocent person to you?  A man who first proclaimed the Mueller report cleared him (just like his nitwit supporters celebrated) but now is doing everything he possibly can to stop the report from being reviewed in its pre-redacted form.

As I said, this is a full blown constitutional crisis in my opinion. This is serious and everything this country stands for is in grave danger because of this group of lawless criminals. Trump and his gang are acting as authoritarians, dismissing all checks/balances and violating the principles this country was founded on. The executive branch is not above the other branches of government, period.

People who believe(d) the Mueller report not only cleared Trump, but ended this saga are spectacular in their naivete or willful ignorance. All hell is breaking loose right now and it's only going to accelerate towards what I'm guessing is an explosive and frankly frightening ending.

#244 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 393 weeks ago

slcpunk
buzzsaw wrote:

Nothing is going to change until people hold both sides to the same standard.  Right now both sides play the game and you guys keep buying into it and feeding it further.  Nothing is going to change until you decide you want it to.  The ball has been and continues to be in your court.  Start holding your own side accountable.  Start there.  Otherwise you're just a spoke in the wheel.

You're a one trick pony. We get it.

But you're wrong here.

This isn't "both sides", this is one of the most corrupt presidents in our lifetime. He attacks our allies. He's a national security threat. He coddles and admires dictators. He's a pathological liar. He's a racist.  He's under various ongoing criminal investigations. He's a threat to our democratic ideals. A threat to free speech. His communications with Russia so alarming, that our allies notified our intelligence communities about it. A tax cheat. He's obstructed justice according to the Mueller report. But most of all, he's a traitor to this country.

But yea sure "both sides." roll

#245 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 393 weeks ago

slcpunk

The Mueller Report Should Shock Our Conscience

I’ve finished reading the entire Mueller report, and I must confess that even as a longtime, quite open critic of Donald Trump, I was surprised at the sheer scope, scale, and brazenness of the lies, falsehoods, and misdirections detailed by the Special Counsel’s Office. We’ve become accustomed to Trump making up his own facts on matters great and small, but to see the extent to which his virus infected his entire political operation is sobering. And the idea that anyone is treating this report as “win” for Trump, given the sheer extent of deceptions exposed (among other things), demonstrates that the bar for his conduct has sunk so low that anything other than outright criminality is too often brushed aside as relatively meaningless.

If I were to list all the important lies in the report, I’d be reproducing much of the report itself. So let’s focus on the most important elements. We already knew that Michael Flynn lied about his communications with Russia, George Papadopolous lied about his contacts with a person he believed to be connected to Russia, Roger Stone lied about his attempts to obtain information from WikiLeaks, Michael Cohen lied about Trump’s continued efforts to negotiate a deal with Trump Tower Moscow, and that Trump had repeatedly misled the American people about those same dealings.

We had previously known that Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, had lied about his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, a person the FBI has assessed as having contacts with Russian intelligence. But now we know the significance of those lies. They included covering up the ongoing transmission of internal Trump polling data to Ukrainians and a Russian oligarch, covering up communications about a proposed Ukrainian “peace plan” that would entail granting Russia a “backdoor” means for Russia to control eastern Ukraine. Moreover, because Manafort deleted messages and sometimes used “encryption applications” when he sent messages, we may never know the full extent of his communications — or his lies.

When asked about the Trump team’s contacts with Russia, key members of his campaign staff and administration responded with blatantly false statements. These statements may not have been deliberate (they could have believed internal lies and repeated them innocently), but they were nevertheless completely and totally wrong. Hope Hicks said, “It never happened. There was no communication between the campaign and any foreign entity during the campaign.” When asked about any “contact or coordination” between the campaign and Russia, Reince Priebus said, “Even this question is insane. Of course we didn’t interface with the Russians.”

The campaign did, indeed, interface with the Russians — including in Trump Tower, when Donald Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner met with a Russian lawyer in the explicit hope of gaining dirt on Hillary Clinton.

Moreover, as the Russian investigation continued, the lies multiplied. One of the most banal and petty came from Sarah Sanders, who simply made up claims to help justify Trump’s termination of James Comey:




Trump himself of course got in the act. He famously edited Donald Jr.’s draft statement disclosing his Trump Tower meeting to disguise his real purpose, and — even more significantly — tried to order Don McGahn to lie to the public about McGahn’s claims that Trump had directed him to fire Robert Mueller:




These lies have multiple consequences. First and most obviously, they demonstrate that the president’s word simply can’t be trusted. Yes, I know that there are readers who will immediately respond that “we already knew that” or that his dishonesty is already “priced in.” But don’t forget — as recently as last year, 76 percent of Republicans still believed that Trump told the truth “all or most of the time.” I personally know many people who believe that Trump’s ability to “tell it like it is” is one of his chief appeals.

Second, the extent of the lying across the Trump team shows that Trump’s lies can’t be contained to Trump. Even honest people who believe and repeat Trump’s words or the words of key members of his team can find themselves deceiving the public. Those who resist Trump’s efforts to deceive can find themselves overruled and publicly shamed. It was to Donald Jr.’s credit that his instinct — after news of the Trump Tower meeting started to leak — was to be transparent. It is Trump’s shame that he forced his own son to put out a misleading statement instead.

Third, the lies help demonstrate why the underlying investigation was so very necessary. When our intelligence agencies are aware of Russian efforts to interfere in the election and tilt it toward Trump, they know Trump officials are in contact with Russians, and they know that Trump officials are lying about those contacts, then it makes cries of “witch hunt” sound hollow indeed — especially when the actual results of the investigation demonstrate that the special counsel declined to prosecute multiple individuals who had Russian contacts, including members of Trump’s own family.

I’m old enough to remember the closing days of the 1996 campaign, when the Clinton administration was already beset by an avalanche of scandals. Bob Dole looked into the cameras and asked a pointed question — “Where is the outrage?” The same question applies today, but to a different audience. The lies are simply too much to bear. No Republican should tolerate such dishonesty.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/t … onscience/

#246 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 393 weeks ago

slcpunk
PaSnow wrote:

**ATTN FLAGG, CONSPIRACY POST**

This NRA thing is gettin wierd.


dat.jpg

#247 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 393 weeks ago

slcpunk
mitchejw wrote:

Where are all those fiscal conservatives right now?

(Don't expect an answer)

They'll show back up once a Democrat is elected and their base won't even bat an eye.

#248 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 393 weeks ago

slcpunk

Crazy liberals with their conspiracies....


#249 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 393 weeks ago

slcpunk
bigbri wrote:

Haha, I’m not uncomfortable. You wish you had the ability to do that, I’ll give you that much. I’m not gonna trade rage-filled comments with you. Relax. You’re so angry. Go have a beer or get laid or something.

Only one of those is an option I'd imagine...

#250 Re: The Garden » US Politics Thread » 393 weeks ago

slcpunk
Smoking Guns wrote:

Lol... I really don’t care but I would focus more on beating trump vs impeachment. He isn’t getting impeached just like I told you years ago.

How do you know? It's starting now and even Republicans are calling for it.

If not Trump, then who? He's done more than enough to earn it. We all knew it, because he did it in the open, the Mueller report confirms it.

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