You are dealing here with a president happy to tear the law and the truth — and, for that matter, you — to pieces. Do you feel no responsibility to set the record straight when Trump distorts it day after day? You claim that, under the rules, it would have been wrong for you to say that Trump broke the law. But that’s not what your boss, the attorney general, says.
But you can make up for that by going before Congress and doing what comes naturally to you: You can tell the truth. You say you want your written work to "speak for itself." But a document cannot respond to Barr's distortions and Trump's lies. Only you can speak for it, and, yes, explain it.
So this ridiculous piece by E.J. Dionne is pretty much the same piece written by numerous people on the left. The left is completely convince themselves that Robert Mueller did not actually write what he believed. How else can Dionne and others suggest that Barr's summary (which quite literally quoted Robert Mueller's two main conclusions) was actually a distortion?
If you actually read what Mueller wrote about the possible actions of obstruction, it certainly isn't as clear cut at some people would like to suggest. Mueller writes:
- Several features of the conduct we investigated distinguish it from typical obstruction of justice cases.
- First, the (obstruction) investigation... involved facially lawful acts within his Article II authority, which raises constitutional issues.
- Second, unlike cases in which a subject engages in obstruction of justice to cover up a crime, the evidence we obtained did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference. Although the obstruction statutes do not require proof of such a crime, the absence of that evidence affects the analysis of the President's intent and requires consideration of other possible motives for his conduct.
- The term "corruptly" sets a demanding standard. It requires a concrete showing that a person acted with an intent to obtain an improper advantage for himself or someone else, inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others.
- The evidence we obtained about the President's actions and intent presents difficult issues that would need to be resolved if we were making a traditional prosecutorial judgment.
The idea that Robert Mueller had made some sort of decision, but simply didn't want to tell anyone what it was, seems to fly in the face of his report. He specifically provides unanswered questions, including questions about whether or not the issues he lists are actually obstructions, and then admits that these questions are not only difficult, but that he did not go to any lengths to try to resolve them.
Under normal DOJ operating standards, if investigators came back with difficult issues of law that needed to be resolved, those issues would be turned over the DOJ officials who are tasked with making difficult prosecutorial decision (such as the AG, DAG, And AAG of legal counsel). Investigators would not make that call.
As the former Director of the FBI, Robert Mueller oversaw lots and lots of investigations, but ultimately the decision to prosecute would have been left up to the Department of Justice. Moreover, when you use the resources of the Department of Justice, including Grand Juries, and other authority provided by the DOJ, then that investigations is ultimately owned by the DOJ. As Barr factually points out, the DOJ does not sit Grand Juries and conduct investigations with DOJ resources to turn that information over to other entities to make a call.
Moreover the laws of the Special Counsel are also very clear. Any Special Counsel is first and foremost an employee of the Department of Justice, supervised and under the authority of the Attorney General (or in this case the Deputy Attorney General). Any report created by Special Counsel goes to the Attorney General as non-public report. By every and all legal and logical accounts, any questions unresolved would be left up to the DOJ to make a call. Nobody else.
As it stands, that is exactly what Barr and Rosenstein did. Not because they were overstepping any laws, rules, protocol, or regulations; but because they were following them. Is it possible that Robert Mueller has a different opinion that he failed to share? His report suggests not. But if he did, and it was different than what the Department of Justice found, Mueller's opinion would NOT be the one that carried the day. He would be overruled as a matter of DOJ policy and by the fact that he is pretty much outranked by people with way more experience and knowledge of these laws.
So the law of Special Counsel, along with the laws, rules, and regulations of the Department of Justice does not allow for these difficult questions to be answered by other entities. Certainly Congress can investigate the same situation on their own. But they are not entitled to the underlying investigation of Special Counsel. Not under any semblance of the law. Nor does it make any sense in the world that the best place to have difficult questions of law answered would be in Congress, where we already know that those questions would be answered by an almost exclusive partisan Party line vote. That gets us no closer to the truth.
Robert Mueller saved his best statement the other day to be his last when he reminded everyone that the purpose of his investigation was to determine to what degree the Russians interfered in our election. So perhaps if Mueller was the one asking questions, he might as why the guts of his report is being ignored by Congress (and everyone else for that matter), for no other apparent reason other than it doesn't accuse the President of anything?
38 comments:
Bashing Fox News is the new strategy.
Deeply sobering. Eliot Cohen writes:
““Dishonor. Not to to the late senator, nor to his father and grandfather of the same name, who rendered the same distinguished service in war and peace. Their deeds and reputations are far beyond such mean contrivances. But dishonor indeed to the civilians and officers who hold the lives of young Americans in their hands and went along with this. That the president might wish such behavior is not surprising—he is mean, petty, and vindictive, and even if he did not order this (and he quickly tweeted a denial that he had), he signaled that he wished it. It is what is known in strongman governments as “working toward the Leader.” It is the effect of a personality that contaminates and corrodes every valuable thing he touches.”
“....When large elements of the chain of command yield to illegitimate and morally corrupt demands of this kind, there is reason to fear veins of rottenness in the whole structure. When naval officers can agree to dishonor the memory of a real hero, who suffered five years of torment and refused early release, a statesman who in his first career was blood of their blood and flesh of their flesh, and who is buried on the grounds of the Naval Academy itself, the service is in a bad way.”
“The saddest part of this presidency is not the behavior of the commander in chief of the armed forces. Everyone knew what he is and how he was likely to behave from well before he won the presidency. The saddest part is what he reveals about individuals in high places, and institutions that we once thought relatively free from moral rot. What this episode shows is that the black fungus of fear, and ambition, and servility is more pervasive than might have been imagined. It stains uniforms even as it has stained business suits. The president has merely brought it to the surface.
The first stanza of the Navy Hymn ends, “Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee/For those in peril on the sea.” Unfortunately, the peril they face is now shown to be far greater than one might ever have imagined.” (Eliot Cohen)
It is the effect of a personality that contaminates and corrodes every valuable thing he touches
Funny you didn't see this when Obunghole was weaponizing the IRS, DOJ and every other federal agency he could.
Sucks when the emperor isn't on your side
Roger continues to obsess about the bad orange man
How does he sleep at night?
Don't know but I'll say it may involve a padded room.
Deeply sobering. Eliot Cohen writes:
The same Eliot Cohen who said everybody in the military were war criminals?
C.H. TruthJune 3, 2019 at 1:36 PM
Roger continues to obsess about the bad orange man
How does he sleep at night?"
Alone, after cheating on his first and 2nd Wife.
Hey, Denney.
"Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), one of the primary authors of the Green New Deal, took thousands of dollars from oil and gas lobbyists after publicly pledging to spurn “their dirty money.”
In December, Markey announced he was taking the No Fossil Fuel Money Pledgeahead of his 2020 reelection campaign. The pledge, a byproduct of the liberal group Oil Change USA, has become an environmental litmus test for Democratic candidates and elected officials. A majority of Democratic presidential candidates have taken the pledge, along with Markey’s fellow Green New Deal author, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)."
Lol@SocialismDemocrats
We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.
Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.
The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:
· The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort;
· The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct; and
· The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.
Attempts to fire Mueller and then create false evidence
Despite being advised by then-White House Counsel Don McGahn that he could face legal jeopardy for doing so, Trump directed McGahn on multiple occasions to fire Mueller or to gin up false conflicts of interest as a pretext for getting rid of the Special Counsel. When these acts began to come into public view, Trump made “repeated efforts to have McGahn deny the story” — going so far as to tell McGahn to write a letter “for our files” falsely denying that Trump had directed Mueller’s termination.
Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates — obstruction in its most literal sense. Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful. The Special Counsel’s report states: “Substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging McGahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special Counsel terminated, the President acted for the purpose of influencing McGahn’s account in order to deflect or prevent scrutiny of the President’s conduct toward the investigation.”
Attempts to limit the Mueller investigation
The report describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation.
First, the President repeatedly pressured then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his legally-mandated decision to recuse himself from the investigation. The President’s stated reason was that he wanted an attorney general who would “protect” him, including from the Special Counsel investigation. He also directed then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to fire Sessions and Priebus refused.
Second, after McGahn told the President that he could not contact Sessions himself to discuss the investigation, Trump went outside the White House, instructing his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to carry a demand to Sessions to direct Mueller to confine his investigation to future elections. Lewandowski tried and failed to contact Sessions in private. After a second meeting with Trump, Lewandowski passed Trump’s message to senior White House official Rick Dearborn, who Lewandowski thought would be a better messenger because of his prior relationship with Sessions. Dearborn did not pass along Trump’s message.
As the report explains, “[s]ubstantial evidence indicates that the President’s effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct” — in other words, the President employed a private citizen to try to get the Attorney General to limit the scope of an ongoing investigation into the President and his associates.
All of this conduct — trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others — is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions.
Mean Drunk Staggered on Stage at a College Commencement .
"“We’ve got to deal with what has been investigated and reported. Just today before this graduation ceremony started we heard from the Special Counsel Robert Mueller who said there were multiple systemic efforts to interfere in our election and that allegation deserves the attention of every American but what we’ve seen from the administration is the complete refusal to condemn a foreign power who attacked our democracy,” Drunk Clinton said.
Witness tampering and intimidation
The Special Counsel’s report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and intimidation, including the dangling of pardons, was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements; other such behavior was done via private messages through private attorneys, such as Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani’s message to Cohen’s lawyer that Cohen should “[s]leep well tonight[], you have friends in high places.”
Of course, these aren’t the only acts of potential obstruction detailed by the Special Counsel. It would be well within the purview of normal prosecutorial judgment also to charge other acts detailed in the report.
We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment. Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. In our system, every accused person is presumed innocent and it is always the government’s burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.
As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.
In Reality, Mueller had unlimited time, money, inbestigatore, Liberal Lawyers.
He wanted for nothing.
Well, he lacked facts.
Socialist have Secured the Democrat Party.
Hi, lonely Alky.
I see that you switched again. Your view is now this Economy IS an issue in the 2020 Presidential election .
Well Roger...
Who knew that there was a list of crazies out there who believe that everyone in the DOJ is wrong, because they wouldn't make the suggestion that Trump should be indicted for actions...
THAT HAVE NEVER BEEN PROSECUTED IN 240 PLUS YEARS!!!
Oh wait, we all knew that, because you have posted the same fucking nonsense 100 times.
Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a candidate for the presidential nomination, was booed by members of the crowd at the California Democratic Party convention Saturday in San Francisco when he said that turning to socialism would not help Democrats beat Donald Trump in 2020.
"If we want to beat Donald Trump and achieve big progressive goals, socialism is not the answer," he said, triggering a chorus of boos and jeers."
If your only political argument is "orange man bad" then you are in deep shit.
Monday, June 3, 2019
The braindead still don't get it..
Yep....you and your kind are all old white men, brain dead and won't fall down.....sad...
Denise, I do believe you are the oldest guy here.
Denise, I do believe you are the oldest guy here.
.and you are the dumbest!!!!!!
@SaraCarterDC
The more documents unearthed, the more serious it becomes.What do you think? FBI Failed to Document Four Clinton Witness Interviews. Barr Should Reopen Clinton Probe.
https://saraacarter.com/fbi-failed-to-document-four-clinton-witnesses-barr-should-reopen-clinton-probe/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=social-pug
Nice white flag surrender monkey Denise.
Oh wait, we all knew that, because you have posted the same fucking nonsense 100 times.
like i've been saying for a while now...
...mail order bailed for a reason.
alky be cray cray.
Anonymous Sara A. Carter said...
@SaraCarterDC
And the goat fucking asshole declares his unabashed stupidity again position twitter trash that originates from russian bots.....You win again asshole.!!!!!
The list of crazies who believe that the FBI/DOJ are politically motivated to investigate the Russian intervention into the election is a lot shorter than the 400 ex prosecutors said there is enough evidence to justify an indictment IF the department of justice policy is not to indict an incumbent President.
You are spending your time covering up the ass of Trump.
Get a life.
your time covering up the ass of Trump.
And that is massively huge fat ass to boot.....the sound of slurping is unmistakeable especially from the goat fucking idiot without a job......such a waste of resources....!!!
"Ocasio-Cortez suggested Sunday that there remains too many Democrats running for president, and she said that Delaney should “sashay away,” which means, according to Urban Dictionary, to leave a room like a drag queen.
“Since there’s so many people running for President (& not enough for Senate), instead of obsessing over who‘s a ‘frontrunner,’ maybe we can start w some general eliminations,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote. “This awful, untrue line got boo’ed for a full minute. John Delaney, thank you but please sashay away.”
So calling a Democrat a Drag Queen is the new normal.
lo iq "anonymous" are you really as fucking stupid as you appear or is it just an idiotic act?
Asking for a friend.
ROFLMFAO !!!
Roger...
Answer me this one simple question.
How could you get a unanimous verdict of guilty from a Jury, when the entire leadership at the Department of Justice rejects the notion that there is even a case to bring?
Remember Roger, a prosecutor can only bring charges when they believe that they can garner A UNANIMOUS VERDICT OF GUILTY. Their personal opinions really don't matter one single bit.
So when (in history) has a Federal prosecutor brought charges against someone, when their bosses state that there is actually no crime?
Denise last year much of the USA was in a Drought. And you pointed to it as "evidence" of GW.
This year you pointed to heavy rain fall as "evidence" of GW.
Are you sure?
He needs probicle cause. Opinion is not probable cause. The spoken words, ordering the commitment of a crime, are a criminal offense.
If you believe that the department of justice, would be acting in defense of the accused. No prosecutor will use an opinion on the character of the alleged criminal.
The opinion of entire leadership at the Department of Justice are probably not allowed to be considered by the jury.
Your question is nonsense.
This is the opinion from the failing Washington Post.
I'm pretty much on line with this. We can't impeach for incompetents.
Conventional wisdom on the left is jelling: President Trump deserves to be impeached. The only remaining questions are whether impeachment is tactically wise; and, if not, whether Congress is morally bound to proceed anyway.
That last would be a tough call — if the case for impeachment was in fact so clear. But tactics aside, there remains a principled case against a rush to impeach.
The strongest argument for impeachment may be that Trump is unfit for office. He lies; he divides; he flouts constitutional norms, embraces dictators and spews hateful rhetoric. He is ignorant and impetuous, temperamentally and philosophically unfit.
All true. In fact, our editorial board said as much when he was nominated in 2016. “Uniquely unqualified to serve as president,” we wrote. “A Trump presidency would be dangerous for the nation and the world.”
I think we’ve been proved right. But that is precisely the point: We thought his unfitness was evident before he was elected, and Americans chose him anyway. (No, he didn’t win the popular vote. But he won.) He is endangering the future of the planet — but we knew he was a climate denier. He ripped children from their parents at the border — but his racism and anti-immigrant animus, like his contempt for the Constitution, were no secrets.
To impeach him now for what the electorate welcomed or was willing to overlook isn’t the democratic response. The right response is to defeat him in 2020.
The second article of impeachment might be that Trump encouraged and benefited from foreign interference in the 2016 election. This, too, is unforgivable. But, again, the broad outlines were known before the election — he invited Russia’s help, he crowed about WikiLeaks’ publication of stolen Democratic emails — and, again, he was elected anyway.
What about his refusal since the election to admit the obvious truth about Russian assistance or to defend the nation against future attack? What about his cozying up to the chief perpetrator, Russian President Vladimir Putin?
Disgusting, and suspicious.
But before impeaching on this ground you would also have to consider his administration’s policy. U.S. Cyber Command has been staffed up, and a warning cyber operation was launched against Russia before the 2018 midterms. Sanctions imposed for Russia’s occupation of part of Ukraine remain in place, and Ukraine was provided with defensive weapons. Not enough has been done, but the government hasn’t been inert, either.
The same disconnect between rhetoric and action exists on the question of obstruction of justice. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III laid out 10 episodes of potential obstruction, and they paint a damning portrait.
But they can’t obscure a couple of basic facts: Mueller found no underlying crime that would explain an attempt to obstruct; and Trump in the end did not prevent Mueller from completing his work.
Yes, Trump told his lawyer to fire Mueller; but then-White House counsel Donald McGahn didn’t do it, and Trump didn’t follow through — though he could have. Yes, Mueller makes clear that obstruction is possible as a criminal charge without an underlying crime, and many former prosecutors say they see indictable crimes in the second volume of his report. But Trump, though he refused to testify, allowed the report to be completed and allowed it to be (mostly) shared with Congress. Are we going to impeach a president for wanting to obstruct?
The next article might encompass Trump’s overweening use of executive power. But given that Congress could have barred the repurposing of funds for the wall and chose (by not overriding a Trump veto) not to; could reclaim the power that it has ceded to the president to make trade policy or sell weapons to dictators, and chooses not to — this might be a difficult claim for Congress to sustain with a straight face.
Trump is taking his contempt of Congress to new levels now by refusing to acknowledge any legitimate congressional oversight role. His recalcitrance is being challenged in court; if he loses and still refuses to cooperate, impeachment might well be the only response left to Congress, and the right one.
In the meantime, Congress is duty-bound to continue investigating the president’s misdeeds and abuses of power. If consolidating that effort in one impeachment inquiry would make it more coherent, and would strengthen the House’s standing in court, it should do so. Maybe a persuasive case for impeachment will take shape; none of these are easy calls.
But Trump should not be impeached for inclinations, no matter how vile, that were not acted upon. He should not be impeached out of frustration with the pusillanimous failure of Republicans in the House and Senate to stand up for congressional prerogative and constitutional norms.
And Congress should think very hard before impeaching Trump for the high crime of being who we knew he was before we elected him.
We can't impeach for incompetents.
i'm just going to leave this right here...
Blogger Roger Amick said...
He needs probicle cause.
not quite alky. or as trump would say -
WRONG.
even before the burden of probable cause needs to be met (per the 4th amendment) an actual crime has to have been committed.
that's what you're lacking here.
an actual crime. first you need a crime. then you need probable cause to arrest and indict someone for that crime.
and this is why, if you read the bozo's post opinion you yourself posted, it does not recommend impeachment.
there's no crime. there never was a crime. you assholes, as hard as you might have tried, couldn't even lure trump into committing a crime through entrapment. that's how you destroyed flynn, and that's how you put popadop in the clink for a long weekend, but trump never took your bait.
trump beat you clowns again.
...and just when you thought democrats couldn't get any more ridiculous in their "objection of justice" asshattery, jabba the nadler is calling upon perennial fuckstick john dean to testify before the house TDS committee.
The opinion of entire leadership at the Department of Justice are probably not allowed to be considered by the jury.
You do realize Roger, that charges would never be even brought if the leadership at the DOJ did not believe that they were valid charged. Ultimately prosecutors in the DOJ are not independent of the A.G. or other leadership. Mueller literally had no authority without the agreement of Rosenstein (and then Barr).
The idea that prosecution somehow falls outside of the DOJ leadership and that a Judge would not allow those opinions to be heard, is possibly the dumbest thing you have ever suggested.
But (again) the fact that the "bad orange man" was the one to nominate Bill Barr and Rod Rosenstein somehow leads you believe that they should be seen differently than how the DOJ and leadership has otherwise been established since the conception of the Department of Justice.
Everything in our government is now under question liberals. Every standard. Every regulation. Every chain of command. Everything. All because of the "bad orange man".
@JohnWHuber
After his disaster of a press conference last week I’m starting to wonder if *Mueller* has read all of the Mueller report
Jeff Carlson
@themarketswork
Similar thoughts. I also wonder who wrote Vol I and who wrote Vol II.
Distinctly differing reads.
MK Bancroft
@MRJBIII
I wonder if Weissmann has dirt on old Mueller because Mueller appeared to under duress reading a speech he apparently did not write.
“Isn't it ironic that the man who kept prosecuting people for process crimes committed false statements in his own report” – Trump lawyer John Dowd on Mueller report (6-3-19)
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