Nicker on 28/3/2019 at 17:08
Well now that the Mueller Probe has finished we can.... Sorry? What was that? (
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/27/mueller-grand-jury-1238861) "The Grand Jury is continuing robustly?"
Quote:
The special counsel grand jury that investigated Russian collusion into the 2016 presidential election is “continuing robustly” despite the end of Robert Mueller's probe, a federal prosecutor said in court Wednesday.
The revelation — while laced with uncertainty — indicates that the ongoing cases Mueller handed off after concluding his probe could still feature significant developments, legal experts said.
I guess that the Fat Lady is still just warming up.
Starker on 29/3/2019 at 03:50
The Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee asked Adam Schiff to resign and they got just a bit more than they bargained for:
[video=youtube;6qIyhuTQ9Y4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qIyhuTQ9Y4[/video]
Meanwhile, there's been a week of the report being delivered and it has still not been released. Compare this to previous similar investigations where the report was publicly released just days after, never mind immediately delivered to the Congress along with the underlying evidence. Just how damaging is this report that they are so desperately trying to keep it under wraps?
Dia on 29/3/2019 at 12:28
Quote Posted by Starker
Just how damaging is this report that they are so desperately trying to keep it under wraps?
Billions of Americans are wondering the same thing. If Trump is so innocent and if, as so many of his supporters keep claiming, the report proves Trump's innocence, then why is it being withheld from the public? Surely the Trump administration would be in a serious rush to publish the damned thing if it proved Trump was not guilty, right? I'm just frustrated with all the idiots who claim that the report exonerates that orange creature when not one damn sentence from the report has even been leaked yet. I'd like to know where those people are getting their information.
demagogue on 29/3/2019 at 12:59
Some of Barr's summary was direct quotes. But if the report is literally 100s of pages long as alleged, there's plenty of room for cherry picking whatever you want it to say.
Starker on 29/3/2019 at 13:10
I don't think he quoted a whole sentence anywhere, though?
Starker on 29/3/2019 at 20:31
Anything for his friends, it seems:
Vae on 29/3/2019 at 21:02
For perspective...
1) The chances that the AG misrepresented what was said in the Mueller report are extremely unlikely...considering the AG's legal responsibility, and Mueller's lack of public reaction to the AG's clear statement of no collusion conspiracy in the summary. Therefore, as I've previously mentioned, the idea that Bill Barr is misrepresenting this conclusion is only grasping at straws in order to desperately keep an undignified political attack going for as long as possible.
2) There isn't any burden for the President to exonerate himself...This is because there were never any charges brought against him in the first place. The Mueller summary only dispels the illusion of a Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory, which was piggy-backed onto a general counter-intelligence investigation, and perpetuated by anti-Trump partisans.
demagogue on 30/3/2019 at 02:55
Vae, I'm a lawyer, and I'm telling you our job is to give spin in favor of our clients, and this AG is the kind of lawyer that thinks, or is acting like he thinks, that the Trump admin is his client. He's in the same kind of position of a company lawyer that sides with the executives before the best interest of the company as a whole when there are allegations the executives were involved in misconduct. It would be odd, if he has that mindset, if he didn't spin it. It's the job of the other side to give their spin. And the truth is supposed to emerge from the clash of narratives presented to the deciders, in this case the grand jury on the legal side and the voters on the political side. We have an adversarial legal system; so it's supposed to work like that by design.
Edit: Here's a more nuanced view of Barr's arguments.
(
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/03/25/problems-with-william-barrs-conclusion-that-trump-didnt-obstruct-justice) Legal experts question William Barr's rationale for exonerating Trump
Quote:
A big question hanging over William P. Barr's nomination to be attorney general this year was whether, once he got the job, he would do President Trump's bidding. Barr had made statements critical of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation, and he even wrote a long memo rejecting the need for the obstruction of justice portion of Mueller's inquiry. Trump also repeatedly made clear his desire for a loyalist to oversee the investigation.
On Sunday, Barr made a big decision in Trump's favor. And he did so in a way legal experts say is very questionable.
In his four-page letter describing the report's major findings, Barr noted that Mueller didn't conclude that Trump committed obstruction of justice but that Mueller also said, pointedly, that he wasn't exonerating Trump either.
Then Barr stepped forward to offer his own exoneration.
“After reviewing the Special Counsel's final report on these issues; consulting with Department officials, including the Office of Legal Counsel; and applying the principles of federal prosecution that guide our charging decisions,” Barr wrote, “Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and I have concluded that the evidence developed during the Special Counsel's investigation is not sufficient to establish that the President committed an obstruction-of-justice offense.”
He further explained. “In making this determination, we noted that the Special Counsel recognized that ‘the evidence does not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference,' and that, while not determinative, the absence of such evidence bears upon the President's intent with respect to obstruction.”
There are a few reasons this conclusion is problematic.
The first is Barr's rationale. Legal experts say it's odd that he emphasized the lack of an underlying, proven crime, given that's not necessary for obstruction of justice.
“I think this is the weakest part of Attorney General Barr's conclusions,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles. “You do not need to prove an underlying crime to prove obstruction of justice. Martha Stewart is quite aware of this fact.”
“For example,” added former federal prosecutor David Alan Sklansky, now of Stanford University, “if the President wrongfully tried to block the investigation into Russian interference in the election because he wanted to protect the Russians, or because he didn't want people to know that a foreign government had tried to hack the election in his favor, that would constitute obstruction.”
Gene Rossi, another former federal prosecutor, said the lack of an underlying crime does matter. “However, the existence of an underlying crime is not an essential element of the crime of obstruction. End of story,” he said. “To the extent the attorney general suggests such an element, he is dead wrong.”
It's important to note that Barr doesn't quite say this means there can't be obstruction of justice, but it is a point of emphasis.
And the article goes into more detail from there.
Nicker on 30/3/2019 at 03:35
Hannity has no shame.
[video=youtube;VTNK2iLRAwU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTNK2iLRAwU[/video]
Starker on 30/3/2019 at 06:25
Funny how the right-wingers cry that Lord Dampnut's collusion with Russia is all made up (never mind the indisputable proof that Lord Dampnut's son accepted help from Russians who were representing the Russian government, they did in fact meet said Russians, did not reject them at any point, did not go to the FBI, hid the truth from the American people, and on top of that, lied about it), while at the same time making up conspiracy theories about how Democrats run satanic pedophile rings from pizza parlors, how there is a deep state conspiracy in one of the more conservative organisations of the country, and let's not forget that racist birther crap that Lord Dampnut himself peddled for years.
Quote Posted by Vae
For perspective...
1) The chances that the AG misrepresented what was said in the Mueller report are
extremely unlikely...considering the AG's legal responsibility, and Mueller's lack of public reaction to the AG's clear statement of no collusion conspiracy in the summary. Therefore, as I've previously mentioned, the idea that Bill Barr is misrepresenting this conclusion is only grasping at straws in order to desperately keep an undignified political attack going for as long as possible.
2) There isn't any burden for the President to exonerate himself...This is because there were
never any charges brought against him in the first place. The Mueller summary only dispels the illusion of a
Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory, which was piggy-backed onto a general counter-intelligence investigation, and perpetuated by anti-Trump partisans.
For perspective...
1) John Mitchell served a federal prison sentence for his role in a similar scandal, so it's not like AGs are saints who never lie and never do anything wrong. And we don't know what Barr left out about the report and on what Barr based his interpretation that Lord Dampnut didn't obstruct justice. Mueller's lack of public reaction can simply be explained with the fact that he isn't allowed to comment on it. I guess we'll find out more if he gets subpoenaed.
2) There being no charges doesn't mean that Lord Dampnut is therefore cleared of any wrongdoing. Even without there being sufficient proof to charge him with a crime, his public conduct alone has been unethical and corrupt. And we don't even know yet what Mueller found. Also, there never was a
Trump-Russia Conspiracy Theory, only the extremely suspicious behaviour of Lord Dampnut and his associates who were in some cases willing to lie about their contacts with Russians even when it meant jail time for them.