Pop! Goes the weasel

[phrodeau]

And maybe someday you will wake up and realize you have been lead astray by the Dems and their faithful lackeys the MSM. (main stream media)

Yeah, CNN isn’t worth watching any more since they let that Giuliani guy say whatever he wants.

 

[Bodington]

Drinking the Kool-Aid

Hah! CNN is not worth watching because for two plus solid years they kept assuring their viewers that Trump was toast. Once the Mueller investigation would be concluded the public would finally be privy to the corruption of the Trump administration. CNN kept assuring its viewers that Trump was acting like a guilty man. CNN kept asserting that the walls were caving in on Trump and he knew it. Then the Mueller Report became public and low and behold nothing has come of it. There is nothing in the report that could support articles of impeachment. Aren’t you Trump haters not a little disappointed?

But the Dems and their faithful lackeys, the MSM are undaunted. They tried to revive the canard of Justice Kavanagh alleged sexual misconduct but that fell flat on its face seemingly within minutes but not before some of the Dem candidates for the Presidency made asses of themselves by calling for the impeachment of the this fine jurist. And now we have this latest flap of a supposed criminal telephone call between Pres Trump and the President of Ukraine.

This latest “scandal” prompted Pelosi to announce formal impeachment hearings would commence. However you noticed the wily Speaker did not call for a vote to formalize the impeachment hearings because she doesn’t have the votes. There are possibly as many as 40 Dems Representatives that have no stomach for impeachment because their reelection would become problematic in Nov 2020.

You Trump haters may think you really got Trump on this phone call “scandal” but you are just drinking the Kool-Aid prepared by the Dems and the MSM. Never mind any polls concocted by the MSM purportedly showing that support for impeachment is growing, they are just bogus. If the Dems actually persist with impeachment hearings it will spell doom for them not only in the Presidential race but also in the Congressional elections as well.

Incidentally a lot of you Trump haters and others as well may not be aware of the origins of the phrase ‘drinking the Kool-Aid’. It originated from a news event occurring in South America during Nov of 1978. A charismatic cult leader induced 900 of his followers to enter into a horrifying suicide pact by drinking Kool-Aid laced with cyanide prepared by the cult leader aides. I submit if the Dems proceed with impeachment this phrase is apt in describing such action.

 

[phrodeau]

Wow, you’re nuts.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Your summary is crap.

Maybe someday you'll wake up and realize how the con man is playing you (quite successfully so far).

^^ Has never been able to say how exactly the con man is playing me or how getting to keep more of my money and having an easier time making more money is actually really bad.

I wonder why that is

 

[Bodington]

Wow, you’re nuts.

When you can’t rebut with facts there is always the option to resort to ad hominem attacks. My own answer would be: I’d love to engage in a battle of wits with you but it seems like you’re unarmed.

 

[phrodeau]

When you can’t rebut with facts there is always the option to resort to ad hominem attacks. My own answer would be: I’d love to engage in a battle of wits with you but it seems like you’re unarmed.

The Mueller investigation directly led to several indictments and convictions, and the Mueller report lists several cases of obstruction of justice by Trump, which is being considered as part of the case for impeachment. That’s two wrong parts of your post.

A book with new allegations of sexual harassment by Kavanaugh was released two weeks ago, and despite Trump’s urging to sue for libel, Kavanaugh has not done so.

Also, Pelosi doesn’t need to hold a vote to start hearings.

 

[bodysong]

Sen. Angus King says his staffers read aloud the transcript
released by the WH of the conversation between Trump &
Ukraine’s president and it lasted 10min. 40sec. but the call
lasted 30min.

“If there was no translator…what’s in the other 20min.
of that discussion?” he asked.

— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) October 2, 2019


Speaking to CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Tuesday, King asserted
that according to an analysis by his staff, roughly two-thirds of
the call time remain unaccounted for.

The 75-year-old King (who was a Democrat before 1993) told
Cooper, “I had two staff members from my office the other day
read it aloud, and we timed it. They read it in normal speaking
pace. It took them ten minutes and 40 seconds; the phone call
was 30 minutes. Now, we don’t know what is missing.”

The senator, however, noted that some of that time might have
been taken up by translators. The 41-year-old Zelensky speaks
English as well as Russian and Ukrainian, but English is not
his native language.

King told Cooper, “The president of the Ukraine speaks
English. If there was no translator, that raises a question
of what’s in the other 20 minutes of that discussion.”

https://www.alternet.org/2019/10/ma...n-with-zelensky-we-dont-know-what-is-missing/

 

[bodysong]

Trump claims Schiff 'helped write' whistleblower complaint – live

Trump led a rambling joint press conference with
the Finnish president, Sauli Niinistö, in which he
accused the Democrat Adam Schiff, the chairman
of the House intelligence committee, of co-authoring
a whistleblower complaint detailing Trump’s attempts
to dig up dirt on Joe Biden’s family by pushing the
Ukraine president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to commission
an investigation into the former vice-president’s son.
Trump cited no evidence for this allegation.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...chment-ukraine-pompeo-briefing-latest-updates

 

[Bodington]

The Mueller investigation directly led to several indictments and convictions, and the Mueller report lists several cases of obstruction of justice by Trump, which is being considered as part of the case for impeachment. That’s two wrong parts of your post.

A book with new allegations of sexual harassment by Kavanaugh was released two weeks ago, and despite Trump’s urging to sue for libel, Kavanaugh has not done so.

Also, Pelosi doesn’t need to hold a vote to start hearings.

My facts rebuttal:

Twenty-five indictments presented in two separate batches were issued against various Russian citizens and Russian corporations alleging various election violations. Everyone knew right from the get go that these indictments were worthless, not worth the printing costs to produce them. For one thing the US does not have an extradition treaty with Russia and thus, everyone knew these indictments would not see the light of day in an American court. Mind you Putin did offer to cooperate with the Mueller investigation by directing Russian officials to interrogate the accused Russians and produce the results of such interviews to the Mueller team. The latter did not take advantage of Putin’s offer. See: https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-putin-mueller-investigation-20180716-story.html

The criminal actions alleged surely had no impact on the election. You might get a flavor of how ineffective to the outcome of the 2016 elections were by the following report: See: https://nypost.com/2018/02/16/russians-staged-pro-trump-anti-clinton-rallies-across-us/

In any case none of these indictments allege any Trump campaign worker or for that matter any American citizen were involved in any of the alleged crimes. Even more embarrassing to the Mueller team was the fact that one of the indictments against a Russian company alleged a crime at a time when the accused company had not yet come into existence. The company hired American lawyers to defend itself and appeared in court ready to proceed with the legal action. With egg on their face the Mueller team lawyers got a postponement. Considering such an egregious foolish error, which a rookie prosecutor would be ashamed of, one wonders how serious was the Mueller team in the investigation of this aspect of their mandate.

There were some indictments against Americans alleging hacking emails, lying to investigators and tampering with witnesses. One of the accused was George Papadapolous for lying to the Mueller team who pleaded guilty and sentenced to 14 days. Wow! Now that was a real dastardly criminal nabbed by the Mueller team. Sure got a bang for your buck on that one.

Then we have the case of Michael Flynn, a three star retired general who pled guilty in Court to lying to the FBI on Dec 1, 2017. Almost two years have passed and he still has not been sentenced. To me that sure seems like a violation of the right to a speedy trial provision in the US Constitution. And you Trump haters have the gall to allege that Pres Trump has no respect for the constitution and is shredding it. Hah!

Aside from the news reporting, I sincerely believe there might be some shame harbored by some of the participants on what has happened to this man. I believe it was in the last court appearance where the Judge was practically begging Flynn to change his plea. However Flynn has been bankrupted by legal expense, lost his home, dignity and integrity so seems to have no stomach for fighting on. At ago Mueller team! Saving America.

There is an ongoing indictment against Roger Stone, a long time friend to Pres Trump alleging lying and goodness knows what else. He is fighting the charges and we’ll see if anything comes of it.

Now there have been two cases where the Mueller team did catch two bone fide criminals but even in those cases there were questionable tactics utilized by the Mueller team. Paul Manafort was charged with inter alia conspiracy to launder money. The trouble is that all his criminal charges occurred long before he signed on to the Trump campaign and had nothing to do with the 2016 election or allegation of Russian collusion. He was sentenced to 73 months. Gee had he not joined the Trump campaign he would still be a free man today, since there was no ongoing criminal investigation against him until the Mueller team came into being. Seems like his real crime was supporting Pres Trump.

The other case was Michael Cohen long time personal lawyer to Donald Trump. To catch Cohen, the Mueller team raided his office, home and even a hotel suite wherein apparently he was lodged. This is very disturbing in that it raises the question of violation of attorney-client privilege. We are led to believe that the Mueller team obtained all the necessary proper legal permissions to justify this raid, but we have yet been privy to the actual justification. Without such explanation what is the lay person to believe? If the government can raid the office of the lawyer for the President of the United States what’s them to stop raiding the offices of lawyers representing anyone else?

Now Cohen pleaded guilty inter alia to lying to Congress in Dec 2018 and started serving his three year sentence in May of this year. In between that time he was called to testify before Congress again. And incredibly, believe it or not he perjured himself again! He claimed that he never sought a job at the White House with the Trump administration. But the WH has denied such claim, and declared that he did indeed seek a high level job, but was rebuffed by Pres Trump.

During his testimony, Cohen was eager to malign the President. He described Pres Trump as a racist, a con man, and a cheat, and expressed remorse and shame for representing the President. However despite such calumny, he did not recant his assertion that he has never visited the Czech Republic. The allegation that Cohen was in Prague in July of 2016 to meet with Russian officials in the Russian embassy was the “smoking gun” evidence presented to the Mueller team to substantiate the charge that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. It was based on the McClatchy News story that their unnamed source knew a source (also unnamed) that had ties with an eastern European intelligence agency (you guessed it also unnamed) who claimed they detected a ping from Cohen’s cell phone that pin pointed his location to be in Prague at the relevant time. Of course this flimsy evidence contained no corroboration. There were no records of him having booked a hotel room in any Prague hotel, and his passport did not show any visit to the Czech Republic. Besides that, Cohen had a credible alibi in that he was in California during the refevant time.

One other troubling thing about Mueller’s tactics in dealing with Cohen was the insistence to him pleading guilty to violating campaign finance laws for the principal purpose of influencing the 2016 presidential election. Now this was no skin off Cohen’s nose in that his subsequent sentencing would not be augmented with addition of this charge. But as a legal matter this is so wrong in so many ways. Now the nexus of this charge had to do with the payment of $130K to Stormy Daniels, a porn actress, for her silence not to disclose a one night stand she had with Trump back in 2006. First of all it is problematic whether the payment is a true campaign finance expense. It certainly did come from the coffers of the Trump campaign. Since the payment can be argued to have been made partly at least for the reason to influence the election then I guess it can be argued that it was a campaign expense. However the point then is who paid thus expense? It was certainly not commingled with the bulk of monies raised by the Trump campaign. It has been admitted that Trump reimbursed Cohen for this payment and this would mean there is no violation of the campaign finance laws. A candidate can spend as much of his own money as he desires on his own campaign.

Now when Mueller’s report came out, there were no additional indictments issued or recommended. Although Mueller equivocated in public statements and testimony whether the conclusion was predicated on the DOJ policy and understanding that a sitting President can not be indicted, Mueller’s final assertion on the matter was that the DOJ policy had no influence on the conclusion of the Report. The Report had two sections, first part dealt with the possibility of collusion with Russia and the second part dealt with the possibility of obstruction of justice by the President.

In the first instance Mueller couldn’t find any evidence of collusion that would justify an indictment. In the second case Mueller also could not recommend an indictment for obstruction of justice, but they did muddy the waters by suggesting seven incidences where a prosecutor might be willing to indict. Mueller left it up to the AG to determine whether the evidence was sufficient to recommend an indictment. Mueller felt justified in punting in that his Report was directed to the AG who actually was not required to reveal it to the public. AG Barr in his testimony before congress, explained in succinct legal terms why each of the seven instances of evidence cited by Mueller was not sufficient to warrant an indictment. I’ll elaborate on two of them.

First one is the suggestion that the firing of James Comey, was a possible obstruction of justice. I think to even consider the possibility that Comey’s firing could in any way be construed as an obstruction is astonishing to assert. Comey was the FBI director, ergo in an administrative position, who was not involved in the day to day workings of the Crossfire Hurricane operation. He was not indispensable the investigation continued after his firing. Or to look at it in another way, had Comey died instead of being fired would any one say the investigation was obstructed or hampered in any way? Of course not. The investigation would have continued with a new head of the FBI. Hell even if one of the actual working FBI agents in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation had died or otherwise been taken off the case, the investigation would continue. I trust you can now see the absurdity of this so called obstruction of justice.

This was the same sort of argument AG Barr used to dismiss another claim of obstruction. Pres Trump apparently toyed with the idea of firing Mueller for conflict of interests and ordered WH counsel to do so. As AG Barr argued firing someone for perceived conflict of interest can not be obstruction of justice because the action presupposes a replacement will take over. The other instances of supposed obstruction of justice had been likewise dismissed by Barr. On the other hand there was lots of cooperation by Trump to assist Mueller’s investigation. No executive privilege was asserted, every WH staff member was made available. Over a million pages of documents were accessible to the Mueller team. If that was obstruction of justice I wonder what would full disclosure look like?

Now I gone to great lengths to demonstrate why the Dems can not at all utilize the Mueller Report to support articles of impeachment. If you truly wish to effectively impeach the President you really need to be able to allege real crimes. The Mueller Report doesn’t do it. Neither does this phone call to the president of Ukraine cut the cake.

As for your mention of Justice Kavanaugh you seem to raise a new bar required to prove one’s innocence. You seem to imply that Trump was urging the Justice to sue for libel to prove his innocence, and that as the Jurist has refused he is guilty. Mind you this new allegation is DOA- (dead on arrival) in that the alleged named victim of the alleged assault has no recollection of the event.

As for Ms Pelosi, of course she’s not required to hold a vote prior to instituting investigation of impeachment, although that has been the procedure in prior impeachment efforts. My point is that she does not have the votes now. True she might get there, but if not, this impeachment proceeding against the President is a colossal exercise in futility.

 

[bodysong]

It is Trump's Swamp, now.
It has a recreation of the La Brea Tar Pits.

As the president broke another political barrier, his party leaders
made no public effort to rein him in. Critics have argued that
reaction has only emboldened the president, while doing lasting
damage to the party and the presidency. Trump allies argue the
president’s rule-breaking rhetoric is not as important as his policies,
which they support.

But the silence this time also reflects a sharper dilemma for
Republicans. As Democrats pursue an impeachment investigation,
Republicans have been struggling with how best to shield themselves —
and the unpredictable president who may decide their political fortunes —
from the steady drip of new revelations. With little guidance from the
White House, lawmakers have tried to say as little as possible, blame
Democrats or express vague optimism about the investigative process.

Some Republicans appeared eager for the controversy to simply not exist.

The question of whether to dodge or defend is perhaps most critical
for the Republican senators in competitive races next year. Those
Republicans have little incentive to criticize the president because
they can’t risk alienating Trump’s base voters.

https://www.boston.com/news/politic...nother-norm-gop-responds-with-silence-support

 

[bodysong]

Oct. 4, 2019

The ousted U.S. ambassador to Kyiv could be crucial to the impeachment
inquiry. Laura King and Sabra Ayres profiled Marie Louise Yovanovitch,
the 60-year-old career diplomat whom Trump recalled early from Kyiv
and then badmouthed to Zelensky.

“The former ambassador from the United States, the woman,
was bad news,” Trump said, according to the White House
memo of the call.

And Ukrainian officials tell Wilkinson that Trump’s delay of U.S.
aid weakened Ukraine in its fight against Russia. To Trump, that
may have been a feature, not a bug.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2019-10-04/impeachment-trump-strategy-voters-polls

 

[bodysong]

October 4, 2019

Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, ran a “shadow shakedown”
in Ukraine, according to evidence former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt
Volker provided to lawmakers during more than eight hours of closed-
door testimony Thursday, Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., told reporters
once the deposition on Capitol Hill ended.

According to Swalwell, who attended the marathon deposition,
Volker provided evidence that President Donald Trump, through
Giuliani and other State Department officials, withheld aid to the
country and asked Ukraine to look into former Vice President
Joe Biden as well as matters related to the 2016 election.

Volker abruptly resigned last week after being named in a
whistleblower complaint about a July phone call during
which Trump discussed with Ukrainian President Volodymyr
Zelenskiy an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
The whistleblower’s complaint alleged that Volker went to
Kyiv to try to guide Ukraine officials on how to handle
Trump’s demands for them to investigate the younger
Biden’s nearly five years as a member of the board that
manages Ukraine’s Burisma, a natural gas producer.

“We saw further evidence that there was a shadow shakedown
going on, and that the lead, the lead deputy for the president was
Rudy Giuliani. You had an experienced diplomat working for free,
special envoy Mr. Volker, who, in many ways, was a front for work
that was being done on the side parallel to his efforts by Rudy Giuliani,”
Swalwell, a member of the House Intelligence Committee said.
Volker testified to members of the House Intelligence, Oversight
and Foreign Affairs committee.

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/e...-investigations-of-biden-deeper-than-thought/

 

[phrodeau]

(edited)

AG Barr in his testimony before congress, explained in succinct legal terms why each of the seven instances of evidence cited by Mueller was not sufficient to warrant an indictment. I’ll elaborate on two of them.

First one is the suggestion that the firing of James Comey, was a possible obstruction of justice. I think to even consider the possibility that Comey’s firing could in any way be construed as an obstruction is astonishing to assert. Comey was the FBI director, ergo in an administrative position, who was not involved in the day to day workings of the Crossfire Hurricane operation. He was not indispensable the investigation continued after his firing. Or to look at it in another way, had Comey died instead of being fired would any one say the investigation was obstructed or hampered in any way? Of course not. The investigation would have continued with a new head of the FBI. Hell even if one of the actual working FBI agents in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation had died or otherwise been taken off the case, the investigation would continue. I trust you can now see the absurdity of this so called obstruction of justice.

This was the same sort of argument AG Barr used to dismiss another claim of obstruction. Pres Trump apparently toyed with the idea of firing Mueller for conflict of interests and ordered WH counsel to do so. As AG Barr argued firing someone for perceived conflict of interest can not be obstruction of justice because the action presupposes a replacement will take over. The other instances of supposed obstruction of justice had been likewise dismissed by Barr. On the other hand there was lots of cooperation by Trump to assist Mueller’s investigation. No executive privilege was asserted, every WH staff member was made available. Over a million pages of documents were accessible to the Mueller team. If that was obstruction of justice I wonder what would full disclosure look like?

Only two? And two of the weakest cases?

You might be interested to know that there were more than seven instances of obstruction in the Mueller report, and that evidence is stronger for many of them than the two you cover.

And I'm surprised that you are satisfied with Barr's opinion and don't form your own. A lot of people see things differently.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map

 

[Bodington]

Only two? And two of the weakest cases?

You might be interested to know that there were more than seven instances of obstruction in the Mueller report, and that evidence is stronger for many of them than the two you cover.

And I'm surprised that you are satisfied with Barr's opinion and don't form your own. A lot of people see things differently.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map

If you had read my post thoroughly you would have noticed that I did acknowledge that the Mueller Report did cite seven instances of possible obstruction of justice. My post was long enough that I felt some brevity was required, and so I restricted myself to debunking just two of them. From your reply I take it that you concede that the two instances I have cited do not justify an indictment for obstruction of justice by the President. Lest you think I just cherry-picked the weakest instances why don’t you cite the one or two instances that you feel strongly merit an indictment of obstruction by the President. I would suggest you would have some great difficulty in doing so, considering the President did not evoke executive privilege at all even in instances where a fair minded person would concede the privilege would legitimately apply. It is reported that a million documents were made available to the Mueller team as well as over 500 witnesses gave testimony. If the President did obstruct justice, I would say that he sure did a piss poor job of it.

Now to be fair to you in formulating your opinion, you apparently relied on, and cited an article in a publication known as Lawfare by one of its staff writers, who is not identified as possessing a law degree, and who wrote in the beginning of her argument:

“As Mueller describes, the special counsel’s office “gathered evidence … relevant to the elements of those crimes and analyzed them within an elements framework—while refraining from reaching ultimate conclusions about whether crimes were committed,” because of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC)’s guidelines against the indictment of a sitting president.”

Now that assertion is absolutely false. When Barr testified before Congress, he said that he had asked Mueller point blank whether his recommendations or non recommendations were influenced by the DOJ guidelines, and Mueller replied no. When Mueller testified before the Judiciary Committee of the House, for a morning and an afternoon sessions he did in the morning session in replying to a question by Ted Lieu (D-CA) say that the non recommendation for indictment was in consideration of the said DOJ guideline that you can not indict a sitting President.

However, as soon as the afternoon session started, before anything else happened, Mueller stated that his answer to Lieu was inaccurate, and that his non recommendation of indictment for obstruction of justice was not in any way affected by DOJ guidelines. One of the most amusing clips I have ever witnessed was an interview of Rep Lieu afterwards, where he was livid at the change in Mueller’s testimony. He sinisterly implied that some dark forces got to Mueller during the lunch break to force the change of testimony. I guess the good congressman could not envision that perhaps the people that got to Mueller were his legal friends who had his best interests at heart. They might have reminded Robert Mueller that he was under oath, and thus subject to perjury if he were to lie.

That blatant falsehood in your referenced article in of itself makes the rest of the following contents suspect. But again I welcome you to point out exactly what you think is absolutely persuasive to conclude that there was any obstruction of justice committed by the President.

As for my relying on AG Barr’s opinion, at least he does have a law degree, and he is after all the Attorney General of the United States, with impeccable credentials to be in the position he is in. Now the Dems and their faithful allies, the political pundits of MSM have dismissed Barr’s opinions by insinuating he is a lackey to the President. However, none of the MSM reporters are curious enough to ask a Dem to pinpoint Barr’s fallacy in any of the legal conclusions he has articulated. And of course none of these political pundits can articulate the actual fallacy of Barr’s assertions either.

 

[phrodeau]

That isn’t what Mueller said, and I have to wonder who told you that.

“I want to go back to one thing that was said this morning by Mr. Lieu who said, and I quote, ‘You didn't charge the president because of the OLC opinion.’”

“That is not the correct way to say it,” Mueller said. “As we say in the report and as I said at the opening, we did not reach a determination as to whether the president committed a crime.”

Mueller considered the OLC guideline, and therefore didn’t make a determination of the cases.

As for which cases appear strongest, those would be Trump’s manipulations of McGahn and Manafort.

 

[Bodington]

That isn’t what Mueller said, and I have to wonder who told you that. Mueller considered the OLC guideline, and therefore didn’t make a determination of the cases.

As for which cases appear strongest, those would be Trump’s manipulations of McGahn and Manafort.

Well I don’t know what to say to you. Your conclusion flies in the face of what Mueller said even as you quote him accurately. If it is a fact that Mueller refrained from concluding the President did not commit crimes because of the OLC guidelines then pray tell what was the point of his clarification of his initial response to Lieu? In my post I just gave my interpretation, but you apparently heard something differently. I suggest your hatred for the President takes on the fervor of strict emotion. You just ignore facts and its implications as you blithely continue believing that the President is vile.

 

[JackLuis]

I think Muller took a Constitutional Principle view of the facts, and left it up to the House of Representatives, to make the determination if Trumpski was indictable. He laid out the general scope of the issues he investigated and left it up to the Constitution's remedy for a dip shit fool of a PeeResident.

Now the issue becomes, does Congress have the right to see the full investigations and further investigate this 'Benghazi in Red?.' If so then Barr has to pony up the full report and background to the Committees.

Also the issue of how wide a swath of corruption will be investigated, litigated and disposed of? Already Lumpy has thrown Barr, Pompeo and Pence under the bus. Rudy has hired a lawyer too.

I'd like to see Barr under oath answer the question, "Does he think the law is as written in the US Codes?" If so why has he not indited anyone for obstruction in the matter of the Tax returns?"

And if the Treasury Department has illegally with held the returns why has he not arrested those responsible so that they can meet justice under the law?

His lack of action may be an impeachable offence in it's self. This would rid us of the Munchkin in a swoop. (Sorry Goldman Sachs..., not sorry.)

As for impeached AG's, does John Mitchel ring a bell? 18 months in the slammer and disbarment. Ole John didn't do half the shit that Barr has done, so maybe five years would teach him a lesson?

 

[phrodeau]

Well I don’t know what to say to you. Your conclusion flies in the face of what Mueller said even as you quote him accurately. If it is a fact that Mueller refrained from concluding the President did not commit crimes because of the OLC guidelines then pray tell what was the point of his clarification of his initial response to Lieu? In my post I just gave my interpretation, but you apparently heard something differently. I suggest your hatred for the President takes on the fervor of strict emotion. You just ignore facts and its implications as you blithely continue believing that the President is vile.

I’m sorry that you can’t make the distinction.

 

[Bodington]

I’m sorry that you can’t make the distinction.

Apparently neither did Rep Lieu (D-CA) make such distinction as you have made. Here is the link to the clip of Lieu that I referred to in my previous post. See: https://freebeacon.com/politics/ted-lieu-on-mueller-testimony-i-don’t-know-who-got-to-him/

 

[phrodeau]

Apparently neither did Rep Lieu (D-CA) make such distinction as you have made. Here is the link to the clip of Lieu that I referred to in my previous post. See: https://freebeacon.com/politics/ted-lieu-on-mueller-testimony-i-don’t-know-who-got-to-him/

Page not found.

It’s simple, really. There’s a road called investigation, a fork in the road called determination, one fork leads to indictment, the other to exoneration. And there’s a roadblock on the indictment road, called OLC.

Lieu said that Mueller was stopped by the roadblock, and Mueller corrected him, saying he stopped before he got to the fork.

 

[bodysong]

Trump’s Ukraine Extortion Was Also a Mafia-Style Shakedown
by Rudy’s Clients

October 7, 2019

(Rudy) Giuliani and his "clients"

Parnas and Fruman, along with a third partner, approached an
executive at the state-owned Ukrainian energy firm with an
offer to sell him up to 100 tanker shipments a year of liquefied
natural gas, while touting their connections with Trump. The
Ukrainian “perceived it to be a shakedown,” the AP reports.

John Dowd — the former Trump lawyer who also represents
Parnas and Fruman — tells the AP the whole approach was
completely aboveboard. “It wasn’t a shakedown; it was an
attempt to do legitimate business that didn’t work out.”

But given the circumstances, the two legitimate businessmen
could not possibly have proposed an innocent transaction.

Ukraine was under military threat from Russia. Its government
was desperately seeking both diplomatic support from Washington
(in the form of a meeting between the two presidents, which would
a signal to Russia to back off) as well as military aid. They wouldn’t
have needed to threaten to break somebody’s legs, and almost certainly
didn’t make any threats, because the threat was already coming from
Russia.

Any deal the Ukrainians made with people representing the American
government was inherently extortive.

And Parnas and Fruman were absolutely representing Trump at the time.

As BuzzFeed reported in July, Parnas and Fruman held at least four
meetings with Ukrainian prosecutors to urge investigations of
Trump’s enemies, and met with both President Trump and
Donald Trump Jr.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019...rick-perry-impeachment-parnas-fruman-gas.html

 

[Bodington]

Page not found.

It’s simple, really. There’s a road called investigation, a fork in the road called determination, one fork leads to indictment, the other to exoneration. And there’s a roadblock on the indictment road, called OLC.

Lieu said that Mueller was stopped by the roadblock, and Mueller corrected him, saying he stopped before he got to the fork.

I would alter your fork of the road analogy slightly. There are two principles that shape our system of criminal justice: (1) everyone is presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and (2) it is better that 10 guilty men (or persons for the political correct) go free than to convict one innocent man. Therefore, it is quite improper for a prosecutor to proclaim some one is exonerated when in reality there is simply not sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. Thus the forks in the road of prosecution are to indict or not to indict. The OLC guideline is not a roadblock, but merely directs jurisdiction of an indictment of a sitting President. The House investigates and the Senate tries in the procedure known as impeachment.

All this is not to say that the sitting president is immune from prosecution of a crime, but he must be first thrown out of office. Then he can be tried in a regular court. Theoretically it is easier to remove a sitting President, as it only requires 67 votes out of 100 in the Senate to remove him, whereas in a criminal court it requires 12 votes out of 12 to convict.

Your analogy brings to mind one of Yogi Berra’s humorous sayings: “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” In our case, Mueller did not take it.

 

[Bodington]

I think Muller took a Constitutional Principle view of the facts, and left it up to the House of Representatives, to make the determination if Trumpski was indictable. He laid out the general scope of the issues he investigated and left it up to the Constitution's remedy for a dip shit fool of a PeeResident.

You’re in essence correct, but you overlook the fact that the Dems are not using the Mueller Report for their impeachment proceedings. And that is not difficult to understand in that the case against Trump for collusion with Russia lacks evidence and the case for obstruction is so weak that only the most virulent Trump haters would buy it. Or to put this in another way, if Pelosi and her crew do actually articulate articles of impeachment, I’m almost certain that they would not include the allegation of obstruction of justice in their manifesto. They just would invite ridicule in doing so.

Now the issue becomes, does Congress have the right to see the full investigations and further investigate this 'Benghazi in Red?.' If so then Barr has to pony up the full report and background to the Committees.

The only thing missing in the Mueller Report was Grand Jury testimony and evidence in ongoing prosecution i.e. the case against Roger Stone. The former is prohibited by law from public exposure and the reason for omission of the latter should be empirical enough even for the dense amongst us. So if the House wants to subpoena Barr for the release of the rest of the Mueller Repot- good luck with that. I think even the ninth circus court would not rule in the Dems favor.

Also the issue of how wide a swath of corruption will be investigated, litigated and disposed of? Already Lumpy has thrown Barr, Pompeo and Pence under the bus. Rudy has hired a lawyer too.

I don’t think you need to fret about that. The Dems in pursuit of their dream of ousting the President will leave no stone unturned. They’ll even haul in piles of extraneous stones to turn them over as well. This phone call to the Ukrainian President is just one of such examples.

I'd like to see Barr under oath answer the question, "Does he think the law is as written in the US Codes?" If so why has he not indited anyone for obstruction in the matter of the Tax returns?"

And if the Treasury Department has illegally with held the returns why has he not arrested those responsible so that they can meet justice under the law?

I believe the question of whether Pres Trump and/or the IRS have to reveal his tax returns is actually being litigated as we write now. Bill Barr is the Attorney General of the United States not a Judge so your accusation of some kind of wrongdoing by the AG is without merit.

His lack of action may be an impeachable offence in it's self. This would rid us of the Munchkin in a swoop. (Sorry Goldman Sachs..., not sorry.)

I think I’m quite confidant in asserting that by not doing something that you are not allowed to by law is not an impeachable offence.

As for impeached AG's, does John Mitchel ring a bell? 18 months in the slammer and disbarment. Ole John didn't do half the shit that Barr has done, so maybe five years would teach him a lesson?

The impeachment of John Mitchell only serves to reinforce the proposition that an AG can be impeached. He was impeached for conspiracy, obstruction of justice and perjury. Now your throw away line is that Mitchell had dome only half the shit AG Barr has done. Can you elaborate? So far the worst I have heard from Dems is the assertion that Barr is a puppet for Pres Trump.

Now here is the sequence events whereby I see how AG Barr comes into the picture. Shortly after Pres Trump assumed office, he made a startling bold accusation. He said in essence that Pres Obama had ordered surveillance over his campaign. There was a universal outcry to that notion. In the abstract it is unfathomable to even think that a President of the United States would be ordering surveillance on the opposition party during an election campaign. After all that was the nexus for the Watergate scandal that brought down the Nixon Presidency. There it was alleged that a crew of Nixon’s acolytes broke into the DNC office to obtain information on Dems campaign agenda.

Even our side was skeptical of Trump’s claims, and I admit I was personally dubious. Although I opposed the Obama presidency, I couldn’t conceive that he would be so dreadful. I recall seeing Tucker Carlson in a subsequent interview challenge the President to provide some proof to substantiate his serious charge. The President merely replied to the effect just wait and see as it all plays out.

OK so some time passes, and after some leaked news reports, lo and behold we are appraised of the fact that there was indeed surveillance of the Trump campaign by the FBI. The said FBI started their Crossfire Hurricane Operation investigation in July of 2016 shortly after Trump became the official Republican standard bearer for the Presidential election of 2016. Subsequently the FBI acquired FISA Court approval to wiretap Carter Page a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign.

Oh but we were told not to worry. This was merely standard operation procedure by the FBI to investigate infiltration by a foreign adversary into our election processes. James Clapper the former Director of National Intelligence said so in the View. See:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/22/fbi-spy-trump-james-clapper-responds-602723

However this kind of justification has come into question. For one thing Carter Page is still walking the streets a free man notwithstanding the extensive investigation by the FBI and the MSM characterization of him as a sinister Russian agent. I bet you Trump haters are unaware that Page submitted to an extensive ten hour interrogation by the FBI in March, 2017 where he appeared without a lawyer. And as I said he still walks the streets as a free man not even being charged with lying to the FBI; the crimes that the Mueller team nabbed Flynn and Papadapolous with.

There are even more murky details emerging in this sordid affair. Such as if the FBI genuinely believed Russia was infiltrating the Trump campaign then it was incumbent upon them to alert the leaders of the Trump campaign accordingly. This was done for example in the case of Sen Dianne Feinstein’s (D-CA) office where the there was discovered a Chinese spy in her employ. Once alerted of this national security risk the said spy was summarily dismissed.

So enter AG Barr to the scene, as he testified in the Congressional hearings to inform and rehash the findings of the Mueller report. He unequivocally stated that obviously the Trump campaign was spied upon so he was determined to ascertain whether there was legitimate justification for such spying. And of course the shit has now hit the proverbial fan as a result. At this point the public knowledge suggests corruption by the Obama administration, They appear to have undermined the election of 2016 and had set in place land mines for Trump to explode.

That being the case, inevitably the Dems along with their faithful lap dog allies the MSM have imploded. As a result they seem to be compelled to embark on a mission to destroy the integrity of Mr Barr. They are desperately employing the Goebbels Big Lie theory; you know the one that goes- tell a lie, the bigger the better, repeat it often enough and the lie becomes the truth and the truth becomes the lie. The quoted posting I’m referencing to is a quintessential example.

Meanwhile certain people are getting nervous. The erstwhile James Clapper in a traditional CYOA mode asserted that what he did he did not think it was illegal but beside he was acting on the orders of the Obama administration. What comes around goes around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAbZpuT6eb4

You Trump haters are definitely a despicable lot, and you surely are not amiable drinking companions in a bar. I apologize for this last ad hominem attack but it was delivered sincerely.

 

[magicalmoments]

Haters are despicable, very true.
Hater in chief, trump, is the most despicable of them all.

 

[Bodington]

Well this thread sure had a very short shelf life. Not unexpected of course because the underlying accusation that the President had a quid pro quo telephone conversation with the President of Ukraine was false. Dems were caught flatfooted when Pres Trump had no problem in releasing the transcript of the call which clearly demonstrates the falsehood perpetrated by the so called whistleblower. We have learned that the whistleblower is a registered Democrat with ties to Joe Biden. We have learned he did not even have first hand knowledge of the call. We have learned that the whistleblower had submitted his complaint first to Adam “Shifty” Schiff before submitting it to the IG. And before we learned from NY Times of this fact, the shifty one had with a straight face advised on various national television news shows that neither he nor his office had ever been in touch with the whistleblower. And this is the guy that is your fair, evenhanded full of integrity chairman of the committee assigned by Pelosi to pursue an impeachment inquiry or investigation. Give me a break!

And the impeachment inquiry stinks to high heaven. In the past two impeachment procedures of the President; i.e. Nixon and Clinton, there was a vote by the full House to authorize impeachment proceeding and in both case a fair number of Representatives from the Presidents party voted for the impeachment. In fact that was why Nixon resigned as he did not have enough support from Republicans to defeat impeachment. Clinton was able to survivor since no Dem Senator would vote to convict. Pelosi of course did not issue a vote because she does not have the votes. There are 31 newly elected Dems in the House who had won in districts that Trump carried in the 2016 elections. Should they vote for impeachment then they’re toast in 2020 elections.

The other thing that smells is that the investigation is being undertaken by the intelligence committee. Up to now every impeachment proceeding of any federal official has been conducted by the judiciary committee which proceedings are held in open chambers. The intelligence committee has held close door sessions which shields the public from knowing how lacking in evidence the Dems really have in prosecuting a successful impeachment.