Sorry. But Rosenstein is a bit smarter. A refusal to follow this directive leaves him jobless and leaves Mueller under the supervision of an actual adult, who might set an actual limit or two. Heck the probe might actually end in the near future if Mueller had actual supervision.
In a separate statement, DOJ spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores added that “the Inspector General will consult with the appropriate U.S. Attorney if there is any evidence of potential criminal conduct.” Flores also noted the probe will “include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.”
80 comments:
"if there evidence of potential criminal conduct."
Flores noted “include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation in how the FBI conducted its counterintelligence investigation of persons suspected of involvement with the Russian agents who interfered in the 2016 presidential election.”
If. In legal terms "if" requires evidence of illegal conduct. Determining intent is a very high bar to climb. You are grasping at leaves.
The President does not have the ability to order an investigation. If the President fires Rosenstein, and inserts someone else who will give the order to prosecute a politician opponent this could work its way to the Supreme Court if someone who has standing files a suit. The parallels to Watergate are getting worse for the President. You're actually supporting an extra legal challenge to the powers of the President that you hope that he will win.
The next President could use the same authority to prosecute Donald Trump. Your loyalty to this President will come to haunt you.
alky, one of my favorite things about the trump presidency is his ability to drive you stark raving fucking mad.
hey alky - there's a commenter over on the AoS blog that has perfectly encapsulated how you and every other liberal thinks when it comes to trump:
The left's new rules, as summarized by Adirondack Patriot:
It's all academic because this is how the left thinks:
1. It is illegal to defeat a Democrat.
2. Anything we do to stop an illegal act is legal and a morally necessary.
3. The only way a Democrat can lose is if someone (in this case, Donald Trump) did something illegal, such as collude with Russians, because no Republican is qualified to legally defeat a Democrat.
4. Everything we do to stop Trump is legal, regardless of the law.
Speaking of cray, cray, shithole living Animals.
"Senator McConnell & Speaker Ryan: If Mr. Trump continues along this disastrous path, you will bear major responsibility for the harm done to our democracy. You do a great disservice to our Nation & the Republican Party if you continue to enable Mr. Trump’s self-serving actions. https://t.co/uAhgL6wfIC
— John O. Brennan (@JohnBrennan) May 20, 2018"
Stopping Robert Mueller to protect us all
The “deep state” is in a deep state of desperation. With little time left before the Justice Department inspector general’s report becomes public, and with special counsel Robert Mueller having failed to bring down Donald Trump after a year of trying, they know a reckoning is coming.
At this point, there is little doubt that the highest echelons of the FBI and the Justice Department broke their own rules to end the Hillary Clinton “matter,” but we can expect the inspector general to document what was done or, more pointedly, not done. It is hard to see how a year-long investigation of this won’t come down hard on former FBI Director James Comey and perhaps even former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who definitely wasn’t playing mahjong in a secret “no aides allowed” meeting with former President Clinton on a Phoenix airport tarmac.
With this report on the way and congressional investigators beginning to zero in on the lack of hard, verified evidence for starting the Trump probe, current and former intelligence and Justice Department officials are dumping everything they can think of to save their reputations.
But it is backfiring. They started by telling the story of Alexander Downer, an Australian diplomat, as having remembered a bar conversation with George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign. But how did the FBI know they should talk to him? That’s left out of their narrative. Downer’s signature appears on a $25 million contribution to the Clinton Foundation. You don’t need much imagination to figure that he was close with Clinton Foundation operatives who relayed information to the State Department, which then called the FBI to complete the loop. This wasn’t intelligence. It was likely opposition research from the start.
In no way would a fourth-hand report from a Maltese professor justify wholesale targeting of four or five members of the Trump campaign. It took Christopher Steele, with his funding concealed through false campaign filings, to be incredibly successful at creating a vast echo chamber around his unverified, fanciful dossier, bouncing it back and forth between the press and the FBI so it appeared that there were multiple sources all coming to the same conclusion.
Time and time again, investigators came up empty. Even several sting operations with an FBI spy we just learned about failed to produce a Delorean-like video with cash on the table. But rather than close the probe, the deep state just expanded it. All they had were a few isolated contacts with Russians and absolutely nothing related to Trump himself, yet they pressed forward. Egged on by Steele, they simply believed Trump and his team must be dirty. They just needed to dig deep enough.
“I can’t think of a prior example of a sitting president ordering the Justice Department to conduct an investigation like this one,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. “That’s little more than a transparent effort to undermine an ongoing investigation.”
If Mr. Trump were to follow through with the demand, Mr. Vladeck added, “it seems to me that the recipients of such an order should resign — and that we’re heading for another Saturday Night Massacre.”
too embarrassed to post your link, alky?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/20/us/politics/trump-mueller.html
i can see why.
I can’t think of a prior example of a sitting president ordering the Justice Department to conduct an investigation like this one
I can't think of another case where the chief law enforcement arm of the federal government spied on the opposition presidential campaign at the behest of the sitting president.
I wrote earlier in a calm response to the actions of the President have possibly exceeded his authority to demand an investigation into the actions of the Obama administration.
It's not stark enough for you to understand. I'm not going to try and educate a hate filled racist.
https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/stephen-i-vladeck
I can't think of another case where the chief law enforcement arm of the federal government spied on the opposition presidential campaign at the behest of the sitting president.
Nice opinion but it's not based upon reality.
The FBI has not acted out in a political process of investigating since the death of J. Edgar Hoover.
Trump Demands Inquiry Into Whether Justice Dept. ‘Infiltrated or Surveilled’ His Campaign https://nyti.ms/2IB0vvJ
Trigger septic gene pool Alky
After year of investigation, Trump can rightly claim some vindication
In early 2017, President Trump was widely ridiculed for alleging that the Obama administration placed his campaign under surveillance. The response from experts on CNN and other sites was open mockery. Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper came forward to assure the media that he could categorically deny the allegation and stated, “There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign.” The range of media analysis seemed to run from whether Trump was a clinical paranoid or a delusional demagogue.
We now know there was, indeed, surveillance ordered repeatedly on Trump campaign figures before and after the election. Rather than acknowledge the troubling implications of an administration investigating the opposing party’s leading candidate for president, the media shifted to saying that there was ample reason to order the surveillance.
That remains to be seen but much of the coverage brushes over the fact that no charges were brought against the principal target, Carter Page, or that the secret warrants for surveillance were based in part on a dossier paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, a fact known but not fully disclosed by the FBI to the secret FISA court. The documented Russian interference, thus far, has been largely a Russian operation out of St. Petersburg that special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has said was carried out without the knowledge of Trump campaign officials.
Now the plot has thickened even further with the added disclosure of not just national security letters to gather documents related to Trump figures but also at least one confidential informant who met with campaign figures like Page and George Papadopoulos to gather information. In response to the New York Times report, Trump declared that the FBI planted “at least one” spy in his campaign to frame him. Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani ratcheted up the rhetoric and said, if the story is true, that former FBI Director James Comey should be prosecuted.
The record does not currently support such a criminal conspiracy. However, if Trump and his counsel can be accused of overplaying the known facts, the media can be equally accused of ignoring the implications of the known facts. It should be a serious concern that the Obama administration used secret counterintelligence powers to target officials in the campaign of the opposing party. That is a practice we have widely criticized in other countries from Turkey to Russia to Iran.
Worse yet, the New York Times wrote that the decision was made to use the secret FISA court and counterintelligence personnel to conceal the operation for political purposes. According to the report, FBI officials consciously decided not to seek conventional criminal warrants or pursue a criminal investigation because it might be discovered and raised by Trump during the campaign. Thus, as Trump campaigned against the “deep state,” FBI officials hid their investigation deeper inside the state. FISA was not designed as a convenient alternative for the FBI and the Justice Department to avoid political costs or scrutiny.
I can't think of another case where the chief law enforcement arm of the federal government spied on the opposition presidential campaign at the behest of the sitting president.
Nice opinion but it's not based upon reality.
See above.
The president followed up on his April 26th tirade on Fox and Friends. You're supporting a policy that would give the President to investigate the investigators. He's desperate.
"The FBI has not acted out in a political process of investigating since the death of J. Edgar Hoover."
Prove it.
Triggered septic gene pool Alky
Trump has more than once declared that politically motivated investigations are above and beyond the authority of the FBI.
In his tweet tirade he demanded a politically motivated investigation into the actions of the previous administration.
Yet you all support his demand for a politically motivated investigation.
The hypothetical position you have put yourselves into an argument against everything you claim to support.
"After year of investigation, Trump can rightly claim some vindication"
I'll take Jonathan Turley over some old drunk in West Covina every damn day.
Trump has no evidence to support his allegations.
"Yet you all support his demand for a politically motivated investigation."
Talk to the two-bit community organizer behind ALL of this.
"Trump has no evidence to support his allegations."
Prove it.
President Trump Winning Bigly, Again.
China Agreement expanses Farm Commodity Buys by $10's of Billions.
You're limited to insults. It's petty and clear evidence that you can't provide anything else.
Trump has no evidence to support his allegations.
You mean except for the identified spy and the rigged FISA warrants?
LorettaMay 21, 2018 at 6:44 AM
"Trump has no evidence to support his allegations.
Prove me incorrect.
Both the New York Times and the Washington Post stories provided evidence that the President has no evidence to support his allegations.
Unlike Mueller's Russia Collusion investigation there is evidence that senior official in the department of justice and the FBI have committed one or more crimes.
Including perjury, obstruction of justice, and abuse of power.
"Both the New York Times and the Washington Post stories provided evidence that the President has no evidence to support his allegations."
I'll take Jonathan Turley over some old drunk in West Covina every damn day.
"You mean except for the identified spy and the rigged FISA warrants?"
Bingo.
You mean except for the identified spy and the rigged FISA warrants?
Your opinion. It's worth noting that you are extremely politically motivated to form your personal opinion.
https://law.utexas.edu/faculty/stephen-i-vladeck
Vs Turley
Go for it
Both the New York Times and the Washington Post stories provided evidence that the President has no evidence to support his allegations.
LOL, quite the contrary, it was those stories (despite their furious spinning) that lead Trump to call for the investigation.
Not to mention what would be in the IG report when it comes out.
The purpose of the leaking was to soften the anticipated blow of the IG report.
In that purpose, it failed bigly.
"Your opinion. It's worth noting that you are extremely politically motivated to form your personal opinion."
LOL.
Rich I tell ya.
Your opinion.
The deceptive and falsified affidavits to obtain the FISA warrants are a matter of public record.
So is the existence and identity of the FBI spy.
So basically Roger's definition of an opinion is any fact he doesn't want to hear.
With zero retweets, Roger uses hashtags #impeachtrump and #notmypresident.
LOL.
Unlike most of you I look at both sides and form my own opinions. I try to base them on logic and legal information.
Alky, help yourself , you should have learned this in college. You can not be on both sides of the exact verbatim issue.
Either you believe Trump is a lying Nazi or you don't.
"Unlike most of you I look at both sides and form my own opinions. I try to base them on logic and legal information."
LMAO!!!!
You don't follow me on Twitter dumbshit.
There you go again. Insults are all you have.
"You don't follow me on Twitter dumbshit."
Oh yes I do.
"There you go again. Insults are all you have."
LOL.
Rich I tell ya.
Trump tweeted in March 2017 that former President Barack Obama had conducted surveillance the previous October at Trump Tower, the New York skyscraper where Trump ran his campaign and transition and maintains a residence. Comey later testified to Congress that internal reviews found no information to support the president's tweets.
Unlike most of you I look at both sides and form my own opinions. I try to base them on logic and legal information.
As you demonstrably proved on this very thread that is exactly what you don't do.
You're opinions are nothing but cognitive dissonance, and barely concealed hackery.
Trump tweeted in March 2017 that former President Barack Obama had conducted surveillance the previous October at Trump Tower
We now know that is all true and that Comey committed perjury.
Well Rog...
If Comey testified to it, then it must be either true or fake but accurate, huh? After all, Comey did suggest that "good people lie, and that where he did lie, it was because he was a good person". So even if he wasn't telling the truth (and who knows anymore with him), at least we know his lying was for good cause.
So basically Roger's definition of an opinion is any fact he doesn't want to hear."
We see him on the fainting couch, pussy hat on, hillary pin on his bib and fingers in ears.
https://m.facebook.com/groups/2225037811?view=permalink&id=10156391010102812
If he testifies claiming that the investigation into the Russian intervention was based upon credible information that the Russians were aggressively targeting Clinton, you will not believe him.
I will believe his testimony under oath says it was politically motivated I would believe him.
If he testifies claiming that the investigation into the Russian intervention was based upon credible information that the Russians were aggressively targeting Clinton I will believe him.
I don't think that he's a liar.
CH if the final document makes the President a person of interest. Will you believe it? I will.
If the final document clears the President, will you believe it?
I will.
Be consistent or be exposed as a partisan asshole blogger.
For the first time in ages, I was curious about the FB link.
I get an error that the link is broken or expired.
You have to remove your block
I got about 60 congratulations on my Liverversity on June 2nd.
Based on the meeting with the president the director of Justice as asked the Dean Spector general to expand its current investigation to include any irregularities with the federal bureau of an infant investigation or the Department of Justice tax X concerning trump's campaign
It was also agreed that the White House chief of staff Kelly will immediately set up a meeting with the FBI DOJ and D and I together with congressional leaders to review highly classified and other information they have requested
If he testifies claiming that the investigation into the Russian intervention was based upon credible information that the Russians were aggressively targeting Clinton, you will not believe him.
If who testifies?
At this point in time, I need one of two things, Rog... Either evidence that there was actual collusion, or a good explanation as to what the reasons were to start the investigation into the Trump campaign the first place. So far we have seen neither.
(Btw... the obtuse suggestion that Russian actions independent of Trump justify investigating Trump is nonsense and embarrassing).
Bottom line:
The FBI has withheld information, been dishonest with the information that they have released, and redacted information that the Congressional Intelligence committees have security clearance to see.
Case in point: They demanded that not releasing the information on this informant was a matter of national security, life and death, etc, etc... when it turns out that the only issue was that this guy has a history of spying on campaigns. It's a political embarrassment. Not a national security issue.
So to the point that someone from the FBI just decides we should "take their word for it" - I am not willing to do so anymore.
No more than you are apparently willing to accept Trump as his word that there was no collusion.
At this point, what's good for the goose should be good for the gander. Perhaps we need a special counsel to check into collusion between the Obama Administration, Clinton camp, DOJ, and FBI to take down Trump?
The President is confused.
I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump Campaign for Political Purposes - and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama Administration!
I hereby demand, and will do so officially tomorrow, makes no sense.
Scott: At this point in time, I need one of two things, Rog... Either evidence that there was actual collusion, or a good explanation as to what the reasons were to start the investigation into the Trump campaign the first place. So far we have seen neither.
There have been 19 indictment. Muller has been running a tight ship so we don't know yet what they know.
The FBI has withheld information, been dishonest with the information that they have released, and redacted information that the Congressional Intelligence committees have security clearance to see.
Do you understand why the FBI protects sensitive sources? They can do that for entirely legitimate reasons a director Wray said yesterday. You don't want to understand that because you want to shield the President from potentially harmful information.
Do you understand why the FBI protects sensitive sources?
Not from congressional oversight. They neither have the right or a legitimate reason to defy a subpoena.
Alky, your drowning in your hate.
C.H. TruthMay 21, 2018 at 3:37 PM
For the first time in ages, I was curious about the FB link.
I get an error that the link is broken or expired."
Like Alky bkoken.
He blamed the link not working on you.
Schumer said the President is an authoritarian banana republic dictator
If they are always going to keep it secret.
The link only works if you have a Facebook account
There have been 19 indictments
Not a single one having to do with Collusion.
In fact, the only indictment written regarding Russian interference stated flatly that no Americans were wittingly involved and no criminal acts by Americans were alleged.
There is logically no more reason to believe that any of those indictments prove Trump/Russia collusion, as there is reason to believe those indictments prove FBI/DOJ/Clinton/Obama collusion.
Do you understand why the FBI protects sensitive sources? They can do that for entirely legitimate reasons a director Wray said yesterday. You don't want to understand that because you want to shield the President from potentially harmful information.
No Rog... I am saying get it all out there. I am not wanting to shield anyone from any harmful information. If it's harmful against Trump. Get it out there. If it's harmful against Obama. Get it out there. If it's harmful against the FBI or the DOJ. Get it out there.
Only one of us here wants to keep American in the dark on these things.
If you can't guess.... it's you.
Yes, we the people deserve the truth, damn who gets thier Ox butchered.
"The link only works if you have a Facebook account" @asshole Alky
Keep blaming others. I have a FB Account. Your broken stupid Ludite ass fucked it up.
Former Clinton pollster Mark Penn blasted Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation on Monday, warning the special counsel’s team of a looming “reckoning” and calling for the probe to end.
Rather than a fair, limited and impartial investigation, the Mueller investigation became a partisan, open-ended inquisition that, by its precedent, is a threat to all those who ever want to participate in a national campaign or an administration again," Penn wrote in an op-ed for The Hill.
He continued, “Stopping Mueller isn’t about one president or one party. It’s about all presidents and all parties. It’s about cleaning out and reforming the deep state so that our intelligence operations are never used against opposing campaigns without the firmest of evidence.”
"Only one of us here wants to keep American in the dark on these things.
If you can't guess.... it's you."
He's a hack. Period.
Former Bush ethics czar Richard Painter: Trump White House "well beyond" Watergate
Former Bush ethics czar Richard Painter: Trump White House "well beyond" Watergate.
IN an interview with CBSN's Elaine Quijano, former White House chief ethics counsel Richard Painter said that there is "far more evidence of abuse of power and obstruction of justice" against President Trump than there ever was against President Richard Nixon.
"We're well beyond that point and yet the House and the Senate won't do anything at all," he said on Monday's "Red & Blue."
Painter says that there appears to be "very strong evidence" that Mr. Trump violated the Emoluments Clause through his company's business dealings with foreign governments and potential violations of the First Amendment through his attempted travel ban.
"Going after President Trump's abuse of power and violations of the constitution needs to be the number one priority," he said.
Painter served in the Bush administration from 2005 to 2007 and is now running for U.S. Senate as a Democrat in Minnesota against Sen. Tina Smith, who replaced former Sen. Al Franken after his resignation in January.
He called Mr. Trump's behavior "unprecedented even in the most conservative circles of the Republican Party" and called on congressional Democrats to be more assertive in calling out the president.
"I think this president is a great risk to our democracy and he has shown that since he was elected," he said.
Painter said he personally believes that Mr. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence should be removed from office. He also said the president's "abuse of power in office, his violation of the constitution, his rhetoric ... borders on fascist."
If it's out there and harmful to Trump you won't believe it because it is a false and politically motivated. The only one who wants all of the evidence to be issued is me and considered valid.
At this point, what's good for the goose should be good for the gander. Perhaps we need a special counsel to check into collusion between the Obama Administration, Clinton camp, DOJ, and FBI to take down Trump?.
You're in support of a politically motivated investigation of the investigations who were motivated by the evidence that the Russians intervened in the election and possible collision.
This is how a dictator operates. Trump is turning the United States into a banana republic.
Richard Painter says there is more evidence against Trump than there was against Nixon http://www.cbsnews.com/news/richard-painter-says-there-is-more-evidence-against-trump-then-there-was-against-nixon/
The appointment of Robert Mueller violates the Appointments Clause of the Constitution. Mueller is not an inferior appointee, but a principal appointee as understood under our constitutional.
His powers are more akin to an United States attorney, not an assistant United States attorney. Moreover, his boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, treats him as a principal officer -- that is, Mueller is mostly free to conduct his investigation with few limits or restraints. The parameters of his appointment were extraordinarily broad in the first instance, and have only expanded since then. Indeed, Mueller is more powerful than most United States attorneys, all of whom were nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate as principal officers.
Furthermore, Rosenstein mostly rubber stamps Mueller's decisions and is not involved in the regular management and oversight of Mueller to any significant extent, underscoring Mueller's role not as an inferior officer but a principal officer.
As such, Mueller's appointment violates the Appointments Clause. Mueller would've had to be nominated for Senate confirmation like any other principal officer in the Executive Branch. Rosenstein did not have the constitutional power to appoint a principal officer on his own anymore than the President himself does. To do otherwise is to defy the procedure established by the Framers for making such consequential executive appointments.
It follows, then, that every subpoena, indictment, and plea agreement involving the Mueller investigation is null and void. Every defendant, suspect, witness, etc., in this matter should challenge the Mueller appointment as a violation of the Appointments Clause.
https://www.conservativereview.com/news/levin-muellers-appointment-was-unconstitutional/
Painter, a nobody looking to cash-in.
Levin, a reluctant Trump supporter.
Roger AmickMay 20, 2018 at 4:41 PM
He's looking at a Monday night massacre."
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