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Traitor Trump
- Thread starter Fat Bruno
- Start date
argh! said:
That's virtually the same as what Mueller said in the report.
That doesn't mean that there was enough evidence to conclude that Trump did commit a crime. In fact, the DOJ concluded that there wasn't enough to say Trump committed a crime and obstructed justice.
Mueller has received criticism for the prior statement in the report, because it is not the job of a prosecutor to conclude/say that someone committed a crime. That's not what prosecutors do. They only investigation and analyze to determine if a crime was committed and there is enough evidence to charge.
One of the big problems in this area is that, with the intersection of governing, politics and law, it's not clear what obstruction would be.
Also, while it is true that obstruction can occur without an underlying crime, it is rare when someone is charged with obstruction in such a situation. In this case, Trump has the argument that it's very wrong for someone to want to charge him for exercising his constitutional rights to fire people in his administraton and defend himself politically, by asserting that it was illegal interference. This with the background that it was being pursued by an illegitimate investigation of a manufactured crime, i.e. hoax that was largely pushed by Clinton's opposition research, a questionable Fisa warrant, and questionable investigation (and attempts to set up) a very junior unpaid campaign official.
Now, impeachment is a different story. Different rules. Much more politics. My views on impeachment have changed over the decades. Impeachment of an elected president, especially one who has the US economy, jobs, etc. humming and who has significant support, should not be done except in very extreme circumstances. Those circumstances are not met here, in my view.
I agree with Pelosi that the Dems should focus on other things other than impeachment.
PlayerRep said:
don't agree. i think he is saying, in the least 'political' way he can, that if trump wasn't the president, he would have been indicted. geez, even your boys at fox news agree with that.
i agree with pelosi, too. impeachment right now would be a waste of time and money.
argh! said:
You can think what you want, but that's not Mueller said. He did not say that Trump would have been indicted had he not been the president. He said that DOJ policies don't permit indictment of a sitting president. He also didn't mention the word impeachment.
Many people think that if Mueller thought Trump could/should have been indicted had he not been the president, he should have said that. He left that question unanswered, so the two top lawyers in the DOJ answered it for him.
So Tourist, because you don't agree with Mueller or his report and his statements today about POTUS that he must be part of the deep state? Now I am starting to understand the whole deep state attacks by Hannity and the Fox noise, they are all made up out of whole clothe. Got it. :thumb:tourist said:
PlayerRep said:
PlayerRep said:
With Missoula being the focal point of our common ground, the 'intersection' reference flashed me back to the good old days, and Malfunction Junction(South, Brooks, and Russell being governing, politics, and law). :lol: Thought I'd lighten up the discussion a bit.
This is the view of the Wall St. Journal editorial page. This is pretty much my view too:
"Yet Mr. Mueller’s analysis of the obstruction evidence in his own report makes clear that no investigation was obstructed. Not the FBI’s counterintelligence probe, and not his own. No witnesses were interfered with, and Mr. Mueller was allowed over two years to issue nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants and interview anyone he wanted, including anyone in the White House.
Mr. Trump sometimes showed his exasperation, and bad judgment, in suggesting to more than one adviser that Mr. Mueller be fired, but no one acted on it. The special counsel probe rolled on without interference. Yet on Wednesday Mr. Mueller would only say that “if we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” Since when do prosecutors make it their job to pronounce whether someone they investigate is exonerated? Their job is to indict, or not, and if not then keep quiet."
This is the specific information on what Barr and the DOJ says that Mueller told them previously. This is what I was discussing in above posts:
"Here’s what Barr told Senators during his May 1st testimony:
“We were frankly surprised that they were not going to reach a decision on obstruction and we asked them a lot about the reasoning behind this. Mueller stated three times to us in that meeting, in response to our questioning, that he emphatically was not saying that but for the OLC opinion he would have found obstruction.”
Barr said there were others in the meeting who heard Mueller say the same thing – that the OLC opinion played no role in the special counsel’s decision-making or lack thereof. The attorney general repeated this in his news conference the day Mueller’s report was released to the public:
“We specifically asked him about the OLC opinion and whether or not he was taking a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the OLC opinion. And he made it very clear several times that was not his position.”
Yet, on Wednesday Mueller was telling a different tale. He seemed to argue that he could not have accused the president of obstruction because he was handcuffed by the OLC opinion. Why, then, did Mueller allegedly inform Barr that a special counsel can abandon the opinion if the facts merit it?
“He (Mueller) said that in the future the facts of a case against a president might be such that a special counsel would recommend abandoning the OLC opinion, but this is not such a case.”
Mueller did not abandon the OLC opinion in this case because he surely knew the facts and evidence did not support the law of obstruction. Instead, in his 448-page report, he implied presidential obstruction in a remarkable achievement in creative writing.
He set forth in luxurious detail “evidence on both sides of the question.” But this is not the job of any chief prosecutor, anywhere.
Mueller was not retained to compose a masterpiece worthy of Proust. He was hired to investigate potential crimes arising from Russian interference in a presidential election and make a reasoned decision on whether charges were merited.
The special counsel publicly besmirched the president with tales of suspicious behavior instead of stated evidence that rose to the level of criminality.
This is what prosecutors are never permitted to do. Justice Department rules forbid its lawyers from annunciating negative narratives about any person, absent an indictment."
This is the view of Greg Jarrett, a Fox legal analyst. I quoted this mainly for the background on what Mueller had said about the DOJ opinion that a president can't be charged, not for Jarrett's views.
Overall, at this point, I'm fine with what Mueller has done and said. I could quibble about some things, but overall I think he was a stand up guy who did a good job in a tough and important situation.
"Yet Mr. Mueller’s analysis of the obstruction evidence in his own report makes clear that no investigation was obstructed. Not the FBI’s counterintelligence probe, and not his own. No witnesses were interfered with, and Mr. Mueller was allowed over two years to issue nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants and interview anyone he wanted, including anyone in the White House.
Mr. Trump sometimes showed his exasperation, and bad judgment, in suggesting to more than one adviser that Mr. Mueller be fired, but no one acted on it. The special counsel probe rolled on without interference. Yet on Wednesday Mr. Mueller would only say that “if we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” Since when do prosecutors make it their job to pronounce whether someone they investigate is exonerated? Their job is to indict, or not, and if not then keep quiet."
This is the specific information on what Barr and the DOJ says that Mueller told them previously. This is what I was discussing in above posts:
"Here’s what Barr told Senators during his May 1st testimony:
“We were frankly surprised that they were not going to reach a decision on obstruction and we asked them a lot about the reasoning behind this. Mueller stated three times to us in that meeting, in response to our questioning, that he emphatically was not saying that but for the OLC opinion he would have found obstruction.”
Barr said there were others in the meeting who heard Mueller say the same thing – that the OLC opinion played no role in the special counsel’s decision-making or lack thereof. The attorney general repeated this in his news conference the day Mueller’s report was released to the public:
“We specifically asked him about the OLC opinion and whether or not he was taking a position that he would have found a crime but for the existence of the OLC opinion. And he made it very clear several times that was not his position.”
Yet, on Wednesday Mueller was telling a different tale. He seemed to argue that he could not have accused the president of obstruction because he was handcuffed by the OLC opinion. Why, then, did Mueller allegedly inform Barr that a special counsel can abandon the opinion if the facts merit it?
“He (Mueller) said that in the future the facts of a case against a president might be such that a special counsel would recommend abandoning the OLC opinion, but this is not such a case.”
Mueller did not abandon the OLC opinion in this case because he surely knew the facts and evidence did not support the law of obstruction. Instead, in his 448-page report, he implied presidential obstruction in a remarkable achievement in creative writing.
He set forth in luxurious detail “evidence on both sides of the question.” But this is not the job of any chief prosecutor, anywhere.
Mueller was not retained to compose a masterpiece worthy of Proust. He was hired to investigate potential crimes arising from Russian interference in a presidential election and make a reasoned decision on whether charges were merited.
The special counsel publicly besmirched the president with tales of suspicious behavior instead of stated evidence that rose to the level of criminality.
This is what prosecutors are never permitted to do. Justice Department rules forbid its lawyers from annunciating negative narratives about any person, absent an indictment."
This is the view of Greg Jarrett, a Fox legal analyst. I quoted this mainly for the background on what Mueller had said about the DOJ opinion that a president can't be charged, not for Jarrett's views.
Overall, at this point, I'm fine with what Mueller has done and said. I could quibble about some things, but overall I think he was a stand up guy who did a good job in a tough and important situation.
Yukon said:argh! said:Yukon said:
yep, knew about the russian misinformation campaign to benefit trump, and didn't say anything, giving the donald a big advantage with those unable to figure out fact from fiction. like yukon, it appears.
https://www.factcheck.org/2019/03/dossier-not-what-started-all-of-this/
Correct, what apparently started the intel investigation, according to some, was the reporting by Australia to the US, of what Popadopoulus had apparently said to the Aust. ambassador to the UK. I.e. that the Russians had some dirt on Clinton. However, note the timing below. It will be interesting to see what Durham/Barr determine on this subject.
Note, however, in the Mueller report, and in the media, it has come out that Popadopoulus never passed along that information to anyone in the Trump campaign. While Pop may have learned this from a person with connections to Russia, Mifsud, it is possible that Pop just made this up, based on stuff already in the media. Pop had a habit of making up stuff and exaggerating, and saying he knew people who didn't know or didn't know well.
Regardless of what Pop supposedly said, what propelled the investigation, and what was the bulk of what was used to get the Fisa warrant against Page, was the Dossier. And, the Fisa application doesn't say that the Dossier unverified and from opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Only a very obscure and vague footnote in the middle of the application, which doesn't name anyone.
Fusion is believed to have hired Steele in about June of 2016. He started running all over Europe talking to, and paying, secondary and tertiary sources regarding Russian stuff. By July 2016, Steele had already talked to dozens of reporters. He was trying to feed the general story to the media. In July 2016, Bruce Ohr's wife, who worked for Fusion, was already feeding her husband, who was a fairly senior person at DOJ, info from what became the Steele Dossier. Steele was also feeding Dossier info to the US State Department.
Strzok started the Russian intel investigation on Popadopolous in July 2016, according to some memo. Note that Strzok is the "bad" top FBI agent, who had the affair and all the texts with her lover.
Note, however, in the Mueller report, and in the media, it has come out that Popadopoulus never passed along that information to anyone in the Trump campaign. While Pop may have learned this from a person with connections to Russia, Mifsud, it is possible that Pop just made this up, based on stuff already in the media. Pop had a habit of making up stuff and exaggerating, and saying he knew people who didn't know or didn't know well.
Regardless of what Pop supposedly said, what propelled the investigation, and what was the bulk of what was used to get the Fisa warrant against Page, was the Dossier. And, the Fisa application doesn't say that the Dossier unverified and from opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign and the DNC. Only a very obscure and vague footnote in the middle of the application, which doesn't name anyone.
Fusion is believed to have hired Steele in about June of 2016. He started running all over Europe talking to, and paying, secondary and tertiary sources regarding Russian stuff. By July 2016, Steele had already talked to dozens of reporters. He was trying to feed the general story to the media. In July 2016, Bruce Ohr's wife, who worked for Fusion, was already feeding her husband, who was a fairly senior person at DOJ, info from what became the Steele Dossier. Steele was also feeding Dossier info to the US State Department.
Strzok started the Russian intel investigation on Popadopolous in July 2016, according to some memo. Note that Strzok is the "bad" top FBI agent, who had the affair and all the texts with her lover.
Yukon said:
After the investigation of the investigators gets done, the trail will IMO lead straight to Obama. He wanted to know everything, so apparently he was told. His actions/inactions will be damning. The list of co-conspirators will be long. Can't sweep this under the rug. Genie is out of the bottle. Again, this was a failed coup, and treason. To quote Pondera County Sheriff Walt Hammermeister in a conversation with Duncan McKenzie, Death Row murderer, on a trip from prison to a District Court hearing, "I'm greasin' a rope for you, Duncan." Lots of ropes will need greasing.
Doing some more research tonight.
The FBI knew about the Steele dossier, and had met with Steele, in early July, 2016, weeks ahead of when the Australian ambassador went to the State Dept in London regarding the earlier conversation between the diplomat and Papadopolous.
"On July 5, agent Michael Gaeta, the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome (who had worked with Steele on the FIFA soccer investigation when Steele was still with British intelligence), met with Steele at the latter’s London office. Steele permitted him to read the first of the reports that, over time, would be compiled into the so-called dossier. An alarmed Gaeta is said to have told Steele, “I have to report this to headquarters.”
It is inconceivable that Gaeta would have gone to the trouble of clearing his visit to London with the State Department and getting FBI headquarters to approve his trip, but then neglected to report to his headquarters what the source had told him — to wit, that the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Kremlin to undermine the 2016 election.
As I have previously detailed, after the hacked DNC emails were published, Steele (whose sources had not foretold the hacking by Russia or publication by WikiLeaks) simply folded this event into his preexisting narrative of a Trump–Russia conspiracy.
Prior to early July, when the FBI began receiving Steele-dossier reports (which the State Department would also soon receive), the intelligence community — particularly the CIA, under the direction of its hyperpolitical director, John Brennan — had been theorizing that the Trump campaign was in a corrupt relationship with Russia. Thanks to the Steele dossier, even before Downer reported his conversation with Papadopoulos to the State Department, the Obama administration had already been operating on the theory that Russia was planning to assist the Trump campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Clinton. They had already conveniently fit the hacked DNC emails into this theory.
Downer’s report enabled the Obama administration to cover an investigative theory it was already pursuing with a report from a friendly foreign government, as if that report had triggered the Trump-Russia investigation. In order to pull that off, however, it was necessary to distort what Papadopoulos had told Downer.
To repeat, Papadopoulos never told Downer anything about emails. Moreover, the Mueller report provides no basis for Papadopoulos to have known that Russia was planning the anonymous release of information damaging to Clinton in order to help Trump; nor does the Mueller report allege that Papadopoulos actually told Downer such a thing.
The State Department’s report to the FBI claiming that Papadopoulos had “suggested” these things to Downer was manufactured to portray a false connection between (a) what Papadopoulos told Downer and (b) the hacking and publication of the DNC emails. That false connection then became the rationale for formally opening the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation — paper cover for an investigation of the Trump campaign that was already under way.
On July 5, agent Michael Gaeta, the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome (who had worked with Steele on the FIFA soccer investigation when Steele was still with British intelligence), met with Steele at the latter’s London office. Steele permitted him to read the first of the reports that, over time, would be compiled into the so-called dossier. An alarmed Gaeta is said to have told Steele, “I have to report this to headquarters.”
It is inconceivable that Gaeta would have gone to the trouble of clearing his visit to London with the State Department and getting FBI headquarters to approve his trip, but then neglected to report to his headquarters what the source had told him — to wit, that the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Kremlin to undermine the 2016 election.
As I have previously detailed, after the hacked DNC emails were published, Steele (whose sources had not foretold the hacking by Russia or publication by WikiLeaks) simply folded this event into his preexisting narrative of a Trump–Russia conspiracy.
Prior to early July, when the FBI began receiving Steele-dossier reports (which the State Department would also soon receive), the intelligence community — particularly the CIA, under the direction of its hyperpolitical director, John Brennan — had been theorizing that the Trump campaign was in a corrupt relationship with Russia. Thanks to the Steele dossier, even before Downer reported his conversation with Papadopoulos to the State Department, the Obama administration had already been operating on the theory that Russia was planning to assist the Trump campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Clinton. They had already conveniently fit the hacked DNC emails into this theory.
Downer’s report enabled the Obama administration to cover an investigative theory it was already pursuing with a report from a friendly foreign government, as if that report had triggered the Trump-Russia investigation. In order to pull that off, however, it was necessary to distort what Papadopoulos had told Downer.
To repeat, Papadopoulos never told Downer anything about emails. Moreover, the Mueller report provides no basis for Papadopoulos to have known that Russia was planning the anonymous release of information damaging to Clinton in order to help Trump; nor does the Mueller report allege that Papadopoulos actually told Downer such a thing.
The State Department’s report to the FBI claiming that Papadopoulos had “suggested” these things to Downer was manufactured to portray a false connection between (a) what Papadopoulos told Downer and (b) the hacking and publication of the DNC emails. That false connection then became the rationale for formally opening the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation — paper cover for an investigation of the Trump campaign that was already under way."
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/fbi-trump-russia-investigation-george-papadopoulos/
The FBI knew about the Steele dossier, and had met with Steele, in early July, 2016, weeks ahead of when the Australian ambassador went to the State Dept in London regarding the earlier conversation between the diplomat and Papadopolous.
"On July 5, agent Michael Gaeta, the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome (who had worked with Steele on the FIFA soccer investigation when Steele was still with British intelligence), met with Steele at the latter’s London office. Steele permitted him to read the first of the reports that, over time, would be compiled into the so-called dossier. An alarmed Gaeta is said to have told Steele, “I have to report this to headquarters.”
It is inconceivable that Gaeta would have gone to the trouble of clearing his visit to London with the State Department and getting FBI headquarters to approve his trip, but then neglected to report to his headquarters what the source had told him — to wit, that the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Kremlin to undermine the 2016 election.
As I have previously detailed, after the hacked DNC emails were published, Steele (whose sources had not foretold the hacking by Russia or publication by WikiLeaks) simply folded this event into his preexisting narrative of a Trump–Russia conspiracy.
Prior to early July, when the FBI began receiving Steele-dossier reports (which the State Department would also soon receive), the intelligence community — particularly the CIA, under the direction of its hyperpolitical director, John Brennan — had been theorizing that the Trump campaign was in a corrupt relationship with Russia. Thanks to the Steele dossier, even before Downer reported his conversation with Papadopoulos to the State Department, the Obama administration had already been operating on the theory that Russia was planning to assist the Trump campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Clinton. They had already conveniently fit the hacked DNC emails into this theory.
Downer’s report enabled the Obama administration to cover an investigative theory it was already pursuing with a report from a friendly foreign government, as if that report had triggered the Trump-Russia investigation. In order to pull that off, however, it was necessary to distort what Papadopoulos had told Downer.
To repeat, Papadopoulos never told Downer anything about emails. Moreover, the Mueller report provides no basis for Papadopoulos to have known that Russia was planning the anonymous release of information damaging to Clinton in order to help Trump; nor does the Mueller report allege that Papadopoulos actually told Downer such a thing.
The State Department’s report to the FBI claiming that Papadopoulos had “suggested” these things to Downer was manufactured to portray a false connection between (a) what Papadopoulos told Downer and (b) the hacking and publication of the DNC emails. That false connection then became the rationale for formally opening the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation — paper cover for an investigation of the Trump campaign that was already under way.
On July 5, agent Michael Gaeta, the FBI’s legal attaché in Rome (who had worked with Steele on the FIFA soccer investigation when Steele was still with British intelligence), met with Steele at the latter’s London office. Steele permitted him to read the first of the reports that, over time, would be compiled into the so-called dossier. An alarmed Gaeta is said to have told Steele, “I have to report this to headquarters.”
It is inconceivable that Gaeta would have gone to the trouble of clearing his visit to London with the State Department and getting FBI headquarters to approve his trip, but then neglected to report to his headquarters what the source had told him — to wit, that the Trump campaign was conspiring with the Kremlin to undermine the 2016 election.
As I have previously detailed, after the hacked DNC emails were published, Steele (whose sources had not foretold the hacking by Russia or publication by WikiLeaks) simply folded this event into his preexisting narrative of a Trump–Russia conspiracy.
Prior to early July, when the FBI began receiving Steele-dossier reports (which the State Department would also soon receive), the intelligence community — particularly the CIA, under the direction of its hyperpolitical director, John Brennan — had been theorizing that the Trump campaign was in a corrupt relationship with Russia. Thanks to the Steele dossier, even before Downer reported his conversation with Papadopoulos to the State Department, the Obama administration had already been operating on the theory that Russia was planning to assist the Trump campaign through the anonymous release of information that would be damaging to Clinton. They had already conveniently fit the hacked DNC emails into this theory.
Downer’s report enabled the Obama administration to cover an investigative theory it was already pursuing with a report from a friendly foreign government, as if that report had triggered the Trump-Russia investigation. In order to pull that off, however, it was necessary to distort what Papadopoulos had told Downer.
To repeat, Papadopoulos never told Downer anything about emails. Moreover, the Mueller report provides no basis for Papadopoulos to have known that Russia was planning the anonymous release of information damaging to Clinton in order to help Trump; nor does the Mueller report allege that Papadopoulos actually told Downer such a thing.
The State Department’s report to the FBI claiming that Papadopoulos had “suggested” these things to Downer was manufactured to portray a false connection between (a) what Papadopoulos told Downer and (b) the hacking and publication of the DNC emails. That false connection then became the rationale for formally opening the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation — paper cover for an investigation of the Trump campaign that was already under way."
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/fbi-trump-russia-investigation-george-papadopoulos/
