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The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (9 Viewers)

moleculo said:
I accept the Mueller report.  I don't accept that Barr has the authority to make any prosecutorial decisions related to the president, that power only resides with the House.  Therefore, the House is well within their rights to seek clarity on anything.  Investigations must proceed.
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What will they find that Mueller and his team didn't?

 
Ilov80s said:
Seems like a Republican member of Congress putting the AG and President on blast like this should be a major story everyone is covering and talking about.
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I thought he was heavily reported on when he came out with this opinion originally.  It’s not like he has new information.

 
John Blutarsky said:
So you think they will find something Mueller and his team didn't after all the time and resources they put into this investigation?
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I think they need to open the door to impeachment for obstruction of justice.  I think there should be the formality of congressional hearings towards that end.  Maybe you want to call it an investigation - go for it. I think of it more as a trial.  You don't convict someone on the basis of a police report - the report is evidence A in a trial, right?  Muellers report is like that.  You still have to have the formality of a trial.

 
moleculo said:
I think they need to open the door to impeachment for obstruction of justice.  I think there should be the formality of congressional hearings towards that end.  Maybe you want to call it an investigation - go for it. I think of it more as a trial.  You don't convict someone on the basis of a police report - the report is evidence A in a trial, right?  Muellers report is like that.  You still have to have the formality of a trial.
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Good luck with that.

 
John Blutarsky said:
So you think they will find something Mueller and his team didn't after all the time and resources they put into this investigation?
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It's quite possible.   You have to remember that Mueller's mandate was very narrow - just looking at whether criminal charges could be filed.   Congress's mandate is much wider - whether the President committed impeachable offenses, which may or may not be criminal.

Watergate is a good comparison.  There were two parallel investigations going on - The Special Prosecutor and the Senate Select Committee.  Jaworski ended up naming Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator, which is basically the same thing that Mueller did by describing 10 instances of obstruction of justice but saying he couldn't indict the President because of the DOJ rules.   Meanwhile the Senate Select Committee was interviewing the same witnesses that Jaworski did, which is how we found out about the White House taping system which led to the impeachment charges.

It would obviously have been better if Congress had done their job two years ago and held their hearing in parallel with Mueller but they didn't so here we are.  Who knows what might come out of them?  Maybe nothing, maybe something.  You don't know until you hold the hearings.

 
Marauder said:
It's quite possible.   You have to remember that Mueller's mandate was very narrow - just looking at whether criminal charges could be filed.   Congress's mandate is much wider - whether the President committed impeachable offenses, which may or may not be criminal.

Watergate is a good comparison.  There were two parallel investigations going on - The Special Prosecutor and the Senate Select Committee.  Jaworski ended up naming Nixon as an unindicted co-conspirator, which is basically the same thing that Mueller did by describing 10 instances of obstruction of justice but saying he couldn't indict the President because of the DOJ rules.   Meanwhile the Senate Select Committee was interviewing the same witnesses that Jaworski did, which is how we found out about the White House taping system which led to the impeachment charges.

It would obviously have been better if Congress had done their job two years ago and held their hearing in parallel with Mueller but they didn't so here we are.  Who knows what might come out of them?  Maybe nothing, maybe something.  You don't know until you hold the hearings.
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What do you mean narrow? Charges were brought against people that had nothing to do with Russia.

 
John Blutarsky said:
moleculo said:
I accept the Mueller report.  I don't accept that Barr has the authority to make any prosecutorial decisions related to the president, that power only resides with the House.  Therefore, the House is well within their rights to seek clarity on anything.  Investigations must proceed.
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What will they find that Mueller and his team didn't?
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What Mueller put in his report is quite sufficient to support impeachment and (eventually) criminal prosecution of Trump, so there's no need to find stuff that Mueller didn't. But if Congress is going to consider impeaching him, they probably still want to hear from witnesses directly instead of just going by what's in Mueller's report. As an analogy, I believe that district attorneys sometimes interview witnesses before making prosecutorial decisions even if police officers have already taken statements from those witnesses.

To answer your question, though, the Mueller report didn't include anything that occurred after the middle of March 2019. Trump has continued to obstruct justice after that, so that's part of what they might find that Mueller didn't.

 
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jonessed said:
I thought he was heavily reported on when he came out with this opinion originally.  It’s not like he has new information.
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Was it? I don’t remember him breaking it down as clear as this and attacked Barr and Trump is sharply as well delivering a strong rebuttal to anyone who was using the Mueller report as a defense of Trump. Perhaps I missed everything he said before. Holding a town hall (and getting a wrk reception) in a very conservative GOP stronghold to criticize the Republican President in such a severe manner is pretty amazing imo.

 
BroadwayG said:
John Blutarsky said:
British ex-spy will not talk to U.S. prosecutor examining Trump probe origins: source

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-steele/british-ex-spy-will-not-talk-to-u-s-prosecutor-examining-trump-probe-origins-source-idUSKCN1SY20K

The source close to Steele’s company said Steele would not cooperate with Durham’s probe but might cooperate with a parallel inquiry by the Justice Department’s Inspector General into how U.S. law enforcement agencies handled pre-election investigations into both Trump and Clinton.
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Seems ridiculous for Durham to question someone that has already been interviewed by Mueller.
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It seems ridiculous for Durham to be asked to investigate something that is really in the IG's proper domain rather than his own.

But since he was asked, it's not ridiculous for him to interview witnesses he'd like to hear from. Steele doesn't have to volunteer to answer his questions -- whether he should is debatable. (There's a stronger case for answering the IG's questions since that investigation is perfectly appropriate.)

 
John Blutarsky said:
What do you mean narrow? Charges were brought against people that had nothing to do with Russia.
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What I mean by narrow is that Mueller was focused on whether crimes were committed and whether criminal charges could be brought against anybody in the Trump campaign.   In the case of whether Trump committed obstruction of justice, he laid out the evidence but decided, due to the DOJ policy, he could not make a traditional prosecutorial decision.   Congress is not bound by that, their constitutional responsibility is to decide if the President committed any impeachable offenses.  Some people believe they could go straight to an impeachment vote based purely on the evidence that Mueller has laid out in his report.  I'm of the belief that they should be more cautious and interview the witnesses themselves.

 
John Blutarsky said:
But Barr didn’t do the investigation. Mueller did. If that evidence is damning why didn’t Mueller say that and take action %?
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He didn't take action because of DOJ policy of not indicting a sitting president. That's in the report. He left it to Congress to act. 

ETA. do you find it odd that the guy who didn't do the investigation and didn't review the evidence found during the investigation rendered any sort of opinion on the investigation?

 
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The Commish said:
He didn't take action because of DOJ policy of not indicting a sitting president. That's in the report. He left it to Congress to act. 

ETA. do you find it odd that the guy who didn't do the investigation and didn't review the evidence found during the investigation rendered any sort of opinion on the investigation?
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He read the report and gave his so-called summary. How was Barr supposed to review the evidence? That is what Mueller and his team did.

 
Ilov80s said:
Was it? I don’t remember him breaking it down as clear as this and attacked Barr and Trump is sharply as well delivering a strong rebuttal to anyone who was using the Mueller report as a defense of Trump. Perhaps I missed everything he said before. Holding a town hall (and getting a wrk reception) in a very conservative GOP stronghold to criticize the Republican President in such a severe manner is pretty amazing imo.
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Yes.  It was.

 
The investigation may still be going on if Barr was not sworn in. He, definitely, had something to do with stopping it when Mueller did. Trump didn't want a media crap storm, brings in his guy, and all of a sudden the investigation "is concluded." American people are deluded if you don't think Barr cut it short. Is that not obstruction? Could be.

 
Mario Kart said:
The investigation may still be going on if Barr was not sworn in. He, definitely, had something to do with stopping it when Mueller did. Trump didn't want a media crap storm, brings in his guy, and all of a sudden the investigation "is concluded." American people are deluded if you don't think Barr cut it short. Is that not obstruction? Could be.
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How did Barr cut short Mueller’s investigation? You claim he definitely did.

 
John Blutarsky said:
He read the report and gave his so-called summary. How was Barr supposed to review the evidence? That is what Mueller and his team did.
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By picking it up and reading it?  I know Mueller's team did it.  Barr didn't.  And the fact that Barr didn't isn't a big deal until he goes out and "exonerates" Trump and levies his "verdict".  It's completely irresponsible wouldn't you agree?  If your argument is, "he read the report and based his opinion on that" then he was COMPLETELY out of bounds to make ANY comment with regard to obstruction other than "That's for Congress to review and decide next steps on".

 
The Commish said:
By picking it up and reading it?  I know Mueller's team did it.  Barr didn't.  And the fact that Barr didn't isn't a big deal until he goes out and "exonerates" Trump and levies his "verdict".  It's completely irresponsible wouldn't you agree?  If your argument is, "he read the report and based his opinion on that" then he was COMPLETELY out of bounds to make ANY comment with regard to obstruction other than "That's for Congress to review and decide next steps on".
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Good luck with that.

 
The Commish said:
By picking it up and reading it?  I know Mueller's team did it.  Barr didn't.  And the fact that Barr didn't isn't a big deal until he goes out and "exonerates" Trump and levies his "verdict".  It's completely irresponsible wouldn't you agree?  If your argument is, "he read the report and based his opinion on that" then he was COMPLETELY out of bounds to make ANY comment with regard to obstruction other than "That's for Congress to review and decide next steps on".
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💯

 
John Blutarsky said:
The Commish said:
By picking it up and reading it?  I know Mueller's team did it.  Barr didn't.  And the fact that Barr didn't isn't a big deal until he goes out and "exonerates" Trump and levies his "verdict".  It's completely irresponsible wouldn't you agree?  If your argument is, "he read the report and based his opinion on that" then he was COMPLETELY out of bounds to make ANY comment with regard to obstruction other than "That's for Congress to review and decide next steps on".
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Good luck with that.
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You didn't answer any of my questions here...actually, I'm not sure what this response even means in the context of what you replied to. 

Are you saying "good luck in getting Barr to actually read the evidence before making a judgment"?  Are you saying "good luck in getting him to keep his opinion to himself about evidence he didn't read"?

 
John Blutarsky said:
Good luck with that.
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I’ll tell you how you can know: Mueller states at the beginning, citing DOJ policy and two clauses in the US Constitution, that the DOJ did not have jurisdiction to make an indictment determination.

You don’t even have to read the whole report, just the beginning.

When Barr wrote his letter he didn’t tell the American people that. He hid that fact.

 
The Commish said:
You didn't answer any of my questions here...actually, I'm not sure what this response even means in the context of what you replied to. 

Are you saying "good luck in getting Barr to actually read the evidence before making a judgment"?  Are you saying "good luck in getting him to keep his opinion to himself about evidence he didn't read"?
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Id say good look getting a legit conversation and answer from ol Beave there.

What we have seen the last day or so are legit questions and posts being made...and crickets from those being asked.

 
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SaintsInDome2006 said:
I’ll tell you how you can know: Mueller states at the beginning, citing DOJ policy and two clauses in the US Constitution, that the DOJ did not have jurisdiction to make an indictment determination.

You don’t even have to read the whole report, just the beginning.

When Barr wrote his letter he didn’t tell the American people that. He hid that fact.
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I see the gang's all here -- weird no one's tacking this one.

 
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Ilov80s said:
Republican Congressman just shredded apart Barr, the Trump team handling of the investigation and acknowledges there’s the makings of shady things happening between Trump’s core team and Russia.

https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1133410107461689345?s=21
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Ilov80s said:
And for anyone who isn’t familiar with Rep. Amash, he’s not some independent leaning Republican. He’s generally considered one of the most extremely conservative members of the House.
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Packed house, theater sized venue, standing ovation.

Republican district, in Michigan.

Because standing up for principle and making coherent arguments is bad politics, right?

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
SaintsInDome2006 said:
I’ll tell you how you can know: Mueller states at the beginning, citing DOJ policy and two clauses in the US Constitution, that the DOJ did not have jurisdiction to make an indictment determination.

You don’t even have to read the whole report, just the beginning.

When Barr wrote his letter he didn’t tell the American people that. He hid that fact.
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I see the gang's all here -- weird no one's tacking this one.
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Absolutely as one would expect.  

 
Ilov80s said:
Seems like a Republican member of Congress putting the AG and President on blast like this should be a major story everyone is covering and talking about.
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Seems like a presidential campaign being investigated and prosecuted because of a false conspiracy theory bought by his political opponents should be something a "principled" "liberty advocate" is concerned about, but he's been pretty mum on that.  This has always been political- there's tons of exposure in antiTrump fanfare and he knows it.  

That being said, his arguments about obstruction and impeachment are at least technically sound.  I think impeaching Trump for his response to a phony conspiracy theory that haunted his administration and destroyed his political capital for 2 years, as opposed to blatant war crimes and corruption and collusion with other countries, is about as bogus as it gets.  The pretenses of the investigation are so extraordinary and beyond the pale- compared to Trump's "obstruction" of an investigation that was given multiple years and unlimited resources to complete at great personal cost to his ability to conduct policy as the President of the United States, and Barr's "cover up" of a report that was released a few weeks later- that some response was warranted.  

In other words, Trump had every right to be pissed off over the origins of the collusion investigations and feel like they cast an unfair cloud over his administration.  As it turned out, there was no collusion, it was a complete myth, and his political associates were maligned as traitors to their country- for years!- based on a total fabrication.  It was based on a lie.  The notion that he obstructed the investigation into a fairy tale, while certainly relevant, is tiddlywinks by comparison.  

 
ren hoek said:
Seems like a presidential campaign being investigated and prosecuted because of a false conspiracy theory bought by his political opponents should be something a "principled" "liberty advocate" is concerned about, but he's been pretty mum on that.  This has always been political- there's tons of exposure in antiTrump fanfare and he knows it.  

That being said, his arguments about obstruction and impeachment are at least technically sound.  I think impeaching Trump for his response to a phony conspiracy theory that haunted his administration and destroyed his political capital for 2 years, as opposed to blatant war crimes and corruption and collusion with other countries, is about as bogus as it gets.  The pretenses of the investigation are so extraordinary and beyond the pale- compared to Trump's "obstruction" of an investigation that was given multiple years and unlimited resources to complete at great personal cost to his ability to conduct policy as the President of the United States, and Barr's "cover up" of a report that was released a few weeks later- that some response was warranted.  

In other words, Trump had every right to be pissed off over the origins of the collusion investigations and feel like they cast an unfair cloud over his administration.  As it turned out, there was no collusion, it was a complete myth, and his political associates were maligned as traitors to their country- for years!- based on a total fabrication.  It was based on a lie.  The notion that he obstructed the investigation into a fairy tale, while certainly relevant, is tiddlywinks by comparison.  
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You spin longer than this top I had as a kid.....

 
ren hoek said:
Seems like a presidential campaign being investigated and prosecuted because of a false conspiracy theory bought by his political opponents should be something a "principled" "liberty advocate" is concerned about, but he's been pretty mum on that.  This has always been political- there's tons of exposure in antiTrump fanfare and he knows it.  

That being said, his arguments about obstruction and impeachment are at least technically sound.  I think impeaching Trump for his response to a phony conspiracy theory that haunted his administration and destroyed his political capital for 2 years, as opposed to blatant war crimes and corruption and collusion with other countries, is about as bogus as it gets.  The pretenses of the investigation are so extraordinary and beyond the pale- compared to Trump's "obstruction" of an investigation that was given multiple years and unlimited resources to complete at great personal cost to his ability to conduct policy as the President of the United States, and Barr's "cover up" of a report that was released a few weeks later- that some response was warranted.  

In other words, Trump had every right to be pissed off over the origins of the collusion investigations and feel like they cast an unfair cloud over his administration.  As it turned out, there was no collusion, it was a complete myth, and his political associates were maligned as traitors to their country- for years!- based on a total fabrication.  It was based on a lie.  The notion that he obstructed the investigation into a fairy tale, while certainly relevant, is tiddlywinks by comparison.  
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Amash says there is evidence in the Mueller Report beyond obstruction but to indicate there were worrisome connections between the Trump team and Russia

https://twitter.com/justinamash/status/1133410139632021509?s=21

Also I get what you mean by saying there’s a lot to be had politically by being anti-Trump but what does Amash have to gain? He’s consistently been among the most conservative voters in Congress, he serves in about the most conservative district you could find outside of the Bible Belt, and his campaign was funded/supported by Trump’s Sec of Ed (whose family basically runs the GOP in Michigan). Devos has withdrawn her financial and political support and is likely going to back his challenger. What is he gaining politically from this?

 
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How can we be so sure there was no collusion?  I mean, the investigation didn't find enough evidence to prove it, but the investigation was obstructed.  

Maybe team Trump was successful in their obstruction efforts? 

#manafortflipflop #Trumpinterview #whatliesdidtheFBInotfind

 
Amash received several standing ovations at his town hall yesterday. His constituents seem proud of him. I think any attempt to primary him may fail badly. 

 
Bucky86 said:
BREAKING: Justice Department says Special Counsel Robert Mueller will make an on-camera statement at 11amET.
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Think I might turn on the boob-tube for this. It should be heartwarming or heartbreaking reality TV......

.....or could end up being a neutral statement, which won't really get this country anywhere further along this fiasco.

 
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