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The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (8 Viewers)

Don't Noonan said:
nothing showing Trump colluded with Russia to try and rig 2016 election
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I hate to be pedantic here - not trying to test your patience - but I have already seen evidence that suggests Trump worked with Russia to try and influence the 2016 election.

And, I certainly seen evidence that more tightly connects senior members of the Trump campaign to a conspiracy to defraud the United States.

Is it enough to convict?  :shrug:

But, I won't be disappointed in whatever Muller releases - assuming we all get to take a look at what he finds.  If Mueller says:  "There was no connection between the Trump campaign, and the Russians who hacked the emails, and WikiLeaks who leaked the emails."  I am fine with that result.  If he releases a report to Barr, and then we get an executive summary from Barr, with Barr's conclusions - yeah, I might be disappointed in that result.

On one level - Mueller has done part of what he has been tasked to do - investigate Russian interference in the election.  He showed that with the indictment of the Russian hackers.  So, really all we are left to wonder about is how much coordination took place by the Trump campaign and others involved in the hack and release of the emails, and the systemic and targeted dissemination of fake news.  If the russians did all that on their own - at least we will know about it, and put measures in place to keep our elections safe in the future.

 
Don't Noonan said:
anything substantial that could come up
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Interesting.  If you were to have kept it limited to just Trump directly colluding with Russia I would have agreed with you.  But adding in things like money laundering or fishy business deals, etc etc the odds skyrocket for me.  

 
stlrams said:
If they did we would have indictments vs trump.
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Not necessarily as it’s an area of law that appears to be unsettled (indicting a sitting President) In addition if they feel evidence is beginning to point in a certain direction and there is more, they won’t necessarily risk losing out on other sources by pushing too quickly before they have what they feel is a rock solid case.

 
JuniorNB said:
Yeah I would find it very hard to believe that Don Jr is not getting indicted. He was the ringleader of the very Russian coordination that everyone else is going to jail for. Mueller has to play it smart though. If he'd of indicted him six months ago, Trump would have probably shut the whole thing down. He knows he's dealing with a man-child plus a cowardly Senate that will do anything he says. Just remember that Mueller is the smartest person in the room.
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Love these mueller fanfic posts.  Who went to jail for Russian coordination?  

 
This is an interesting "out" for Barr - and Trump:

“The rules I think say the special counsel will prepare a summary report on any prosecutive or declination decisions, and that shall be confidential and be treated as any other declination or prosecutive material within the department,” Barr told the committee.

Declination memos are written by Justice Department officials when they decline to file charges against individuals, essentially ending an investigation. They are closely guarded secrets.

If DOJ regs say the decision not to prosecute someone is confidential - and not disclosed - then it stands to reason, Barr would use that to bury any conclusions related to Trump who certainly not be prosecuted - at this time.  Barr will likely release any findings related to cases that have been resolved - ie no outstanding judicial review remains.  But, and cases that were not filed, or are still pending - would presumably be held by the Executive branch and not shared with anyone else.

This also underscores the importance of the House conducting its own investigation - that mirrors Mueller's, but does not necessarily rely on Mueller.  The decision to impeach Trump will never be made by Mueller, and Mueller's findings may never be shared with Congress.

 
Again, the idea that they can bury this is a joke.  They're fools, so they might try, but it won't work.  Mueller and his investigators will give it to Congress word by word in sworn testimony if they have to.

 
This is kind of funny in a nerdy-lawyer-kind-of-way.

https://twitter.com/ZoeTillman/status/1090025939810037762

Stone is due to be arraigned in DC tomorrow.  His attorneys filed motions to be admitted in the DC court pro hac vice (allows a non-bar member to appear before a court for a specific case).  It is somewhat procedural - but you have to follow all the procedures.  And, thus far the Judge determined that the lawyers have not fulfilled all of the requirements, and gave them until 9:00 am tomorrow to comply if they want to be heard.

I expect they will get everything in order by the morning, but kind of amusing to see them scrambling a bit now.

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
Again, the idea that they can bury this is a joke.  They're fools, so they might try, but it won't work.  Mueller and his investigators will give it to Congress word by word in sworn testimony if they have to.
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I doubt Mueller will disclose anything that he is not supposed to disclose via the directive he received initially from Rosenstein.  He strikes me as very much a rule-follower.  And, if the rules say he is to deliver a report to the AG, and keep the findings confidential, then that is what he will do.

Mueller does not work for Congress.  Unlike Kenneth Starr, Mueller is not a creature of a congressional act.  Mueller was hired by the executive branch, and answers to the executive branch.

 
Sinn Fein said:
I doubt Mueller will disclose anything that he is not supposed to disclose via the directive he received initially from Rosenstein.  He strikes me as very much a rule-follower.  And, if the rules say he is to deliver a report to the AG, and keep the findings confidential, then that is what he will do.

Mueller does not work for Congress.  Unlike Kenneth Starr, Mueller is not a creature of a congressional act.  Mueller was hired by the executive branch, and answers to the executive branch.
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Your lack of faith continues to baffle me.  Are you afraid they'll get away with it? 

We have our flaws, but letting people like this escape the crimes under investigation on some BS technicality isn't one of them.  If they did what they're suspected of, they'll be dealt with and we'll get all the details.

 
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Dinsy Ejotuz said:
Your lack of faith continues to baffle me.  Are you afraid they'll get away with it? 

We have our flaws, but letting people like this escape the crimes under investigation on some BS technicality isn't one of them.  If they did what they're suspected of, they'll be dealt with and we'll get all the details.
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I want to believe you are right. The bad guys win sometimes tho

 
Dinsy Ejotuz said:
Your lack of faith continues to baffle me.  Are you afraid they'll get away with it? 

We have our flaws, but letting people like this escape the crimes under investigation on some BS technicality isn't one of them.  If they did what they're suspected of, they'll be dealt with and we'll get all the details.
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:shrug:

In many ways they already "got away with it".  Trump was elected.  Two Supreme Court Justices have been appointed.  If anyone steps down in the next two years, a conservative will appoint another justice, and the senate will confirm.  Nothing now will change any of that.

But, in the larger picture here - Congress has a responsibility to act.  Thus far, they, under GOP leadership, chose not to act.  They agreed to be subservient to the Mueller investigation - but they were under no obligation to do so - other than their own sense that competing investigations could hinder both investigations.  The solution was not to stop investigating - it should have involved an agreement to stand down, but get the full results of the Mueller investigation.

Right now - there is no legal mechanism for Mueller to deliver a report to congress.  While he is in the position, he is bound by the letter authorizing his appointment.  Once he leaves the position, he will relinquish control of any of the investigative materials.

Much of his investigation, will be subject to legal battles over executive privilege - any testimony from executive branch personnel.  I am not suggesting those are winning arguments for Trump - but they are battles that will play out, eventually in the aforementioned Supreme Court.

I have already said - I think Mueller has set out specific allegations in his various charging documents to charge a lot of people with conspiracy to defraud the United States.  To the extent that rises to the level of Trump - that is the responsibility of Congress to investigate - what did he know, and when did he know it?

We already have specific allegations in the SDNY that Trump committed felonies - Congress should be acting on that...

We already know that Mueller believes:

1.  Russia interfered in the 2016 election by hacking emails

2.  Wikileaks interfered in the 2016 election by releasing emails

3.  Stone interfered in the 2016 election by coordinating with wikileaks

4.  Senior Trump campaign official interfered in the 2016 election by coordinating with Stone to coordinate with WikiLeaks

5.  SOMEONE interfered in the 2016 election by directing a Senior Trump campaign official to coordinate with Stone

And, this is all before you get into the Trump Tower meeting, or the Trump Moscow project, or meetings with Kislyak, or any number of other things that Congress should be investigating.

 
Glenn Greenwald‏ @ggreenwald

Yesterday, @RoKhanna became the first (and I believe only) member of Congress to question the wisdom of Trump's decree of who rules Venezuela, so he's instantly smeared as - you'll never guess - a Russian asset by CNN contributor @michaeldweiss. Don't call it McCarthyism!

 
dkp993 said:
Interesting.  If you were to have kept it limited to just Trump directly colluding with Russia I would have agreed with you.  But adding in things like money laundering or fishy business deals, etc etc the odds skyrocket for me.  
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This is the narrative Trump supporters have been trying to push from the very beginning.  Most understand the breadth of the investigation and want to know as much as possible and punish those who broke the law understanding that a smoking gun linking Trump directly to collusion himself is highly unlikely (why they keep pushing that narrative I guess).  I've probably said two dozen times in this thread alone if/when he goes down it will be for something other than collusion but the trump supporters will be able to say "ha, told you....no collusion" as trump's thrown in prison for any number of things from obstruction to campaign finance infractions to witness tampering etc.

 
Sinn Fein said:
And, this is all before you get into the Trump Tower meeting, or the Trump Moscow project, or meetings with Kislyak, or any number of other things that Congress should be investigating.
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I'm not even sure what you're arguing?  You seem to think they can be guilty of all those things and walk free.  I'm just saying I put the chances of that at basically zero.

 
Sinn Fein said:
I doubt Mueller will disclose anything that he is not supposed to disclose via the directive he received initially from Rosenstein.  He strikes me as very much a rule-follower.  And, if the rules say he is to deliver a report to the AG, and keep the findings confidential, then that is what he will do.

Mueller does not work for Congress.  Unlike Kenneth Starr, Mueller is not a creature of a congressional act.  Mueller was hired by the executive branch, and answers to the executive branch.
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What of the House subpoenas Mueller and compels him to speak on what he found?

 
Sinn Fein said:
This is an interesting "out" for Barr - and Trump:

“The rules I think say the special counsel will prepare a summary report on any prosecutive or declination decisions, and that shall be confidential and be treated as any other declination or prosecutive material within the department,” Barr told the committee.

Declination memos are written by Justice Department officials when they decline to file charges against individuals, essentially ending an investigation. They are closely guarded secrets.

If DOJ regs say the decision not to prosecute someone is confidential - and not disclosed - then it stands to reason, Barr would use that to bury any conclusions related to Trump who certainly not be prosecuted - at this time.  Barr will likely release any findings related to cases that have been resolved - ie no outstanding judicial review remains.  But, and cases that were not filed, or are still pending - would presumably be held by the Executive branch and not shared with anyone else.

This also underscores the importance of the House conducting its own investigation - that mirrors Mueller's, but does not necessarily rely on Mueller.  The decision to impeach Trump will never be made by Mueller, and Mueller's findings may never be shared with Congress.
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The odd piece about this is that the violation of the confidentiality tradition was part of the memo which Trump cynically used to fire Comey which led to Mueller.

But I think you need to check the OSC law which calls for the AG to report to Congress. This is a good Lawfare article from March about the possibilities.

- Barr might resist initially as you point out. However something to keep in mind is that Congress will demand the full report and Barr will have to give a reason for denying that. I really don’t think privacy/confidentiality will withstand the demands, and I’ll add in Watergate it was Judge Sirica who ordered the counsel’s report released. 

 
It's not just "Trump supporters" that are pointing out that the conspiracy theory was false.  It was an unfounded narrative that drove wild speculation about the President being installed by a foreign country.  It's caused the most toxic political divide probably ever, with millions of people thinking the President is a traitor to his country.  People have gotten carried away with this thing.  I can't believe this is a normal headline in the New York Times, complete with a little Russian tracker chart.  

https://i.imgur.com/dOkezqu.png

I don't know if people are just scared to disagree with the hivemind because there's zero incentive to doing so here, but it's troubling how no one seems to have a problem with how this has engulfed the country.  Is there no one else on this board waiting for people to finally let go with this crap?  

 
ren hoek said:
It's not just "Trump supporters" that are pointing out that the conspiracy theory was false.  It was an unfounded narrative that drove wild speculation about the President being installed by a foreign country.  It's caused the most toxic political divide probably ever, with millions of people thinking the President is a traitor to his country.  People have gotten carried away with this thing.  I can't believe this is a normal headline in the New York Times, complete with a little Russian tracker chart.  

https://i.imgur.com/dOkezqu.png

I don't know if people are just scared to disagree with the hivemind because there's zero incentive to doing so here, but it's troubling how no one seems to have a problem with how this has engulfed the country.  Is there no one else on this board waiting for people to finally let go with this crap?  
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Sure, several. Butcher boy, knowledge dropper, Opie, bunches of them.  It’s not just a hive-mind, it just happens that people like me and Ivan Karamazov, and Yankee23Fan, and Maurile Tremblay, and SaintsInDome2006, and bigbottom want to get a report from an investigator that explains the issues behind our concerns, and guys like you, butcher boy, knowledge dropper, Don’t Noonan, and Opie don’t.   

 
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ren hoek said:
It's not just "Trump supporters" that are pointing out that the conspiracy theory was false.  It was an unfounded narrative that drove wild speculation about the President being installed by a foreign country.  It's caused the most toxic political divide probably ever, with millions of people thinking the President is a traitor to his country.  People have gotten carried away with this thing.  I can't believe this is a normal headline in the New York Times, complete with a little Russian tracker chart.  

https://i.imgur.com/dOkezqu.png

I don't know if people are just scared to disagree with the hivemind because there's zero incentive to doing so here, but it's troubling how no one seems to have a problem with how this has engulfed the country.  Is there no one else on this board waiting for people to finally let go with this crap?  
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It continues to have things proven that it isn’t crap though Ren

 
Henry Ford said:
Sure, several. Butcher boy, knowledge dropper, Opie, bunches of them.  It’s not just a hive-mind, it just happens that people like me and Ivan Karamazov, and Yankee23Fan, and Maurile Tremblay, and SaintsInDome2006, and bigbottom want to get a report from an investigator that explains the issues behind our concerns, and guys like you, butcher boy, knowledge dropper, Don’t Noonan, and Opie don’t.   
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No, more like guys like Junior, Bucky, Juxatrot, Sinn Fien, Orten to Tanner, Sho Nuf, Fish and hundreds more on this forum are already convinced he is guilty where guys like myself, knowledge dropper, opie, ren, go birds believe in innocent until proven guilty and are waiting to see the report but suspect it is a big nothingburger.  Glad to hear you are waiting to see the report too Henry.  👍

 
Don't Noonan said:
No, more like guys like Junior, Bucky, Juxatrot, Sinn Fien, Orten to Tanner, Sho Nuf, Fish and hundreds more on this forum are already convinced he is guilty where guys like myself, knowledge dropper, opie, ren, go birds believe in innocent until proven guilty and are waiting to see the report but suspect it is a big nothingburger.  Glad to hear you are waiting to see the report too Henry.  👍
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I have always been waiting to see the report and have been saying it for almost two years. 

 
Henry Ford said:
I have always been waiting to see the report and have been saying it for almost two years. 
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All of us have.  That doesn’t mean we cannot speculate based on what is known.  And I’m doing so...saying it’s all nothing looks like a stretch just based on the indictments already having come down.

Ive also maintained that it may not ever really reach Trump.

 
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Who needs a report?  Helsinki.  Along with, "We are not innocent." "We are killers too."

He never asked about Russia meddling with our election.  He did not care.

He is a traitor.  It is on tape.  Go to youtube.

 
However, on Monday, Stone argued that the reason for the indictment against him was much simpler. “Look, I honestly believe that they’re going to try to charge the president and the vice president with some hoped-up frame of Russian collusion,” Stone said on Monday night. “That way they can make [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi president. She can make Hillary Clinton vice president and then step aside. It’s a nightmare but I think that’s what they have in mind.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/roger-stone-mueller-will-try-to-charge-trump-pence-with-hoped-up-frame-of-russian-collusion.amp

 
Mile High said:
However, on Monday, Stone argued that the reason for the indictment against him was much simpler. “Look, I honestly believe that they’re going to try to charge the president and the vice president with some hoped-up frame of Russian collusion,” Stone said on Monday night. “That way they can make [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi president. She can make Hillary Clinton vice president and then step aside. It’s a nightmare but I think that’s what they have in mind.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/roger-stone-mueller-will-try-to-charge-trump-pence-with-hoped-up-frame-of-russian-collusion.amp
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He's really gunning for a gag order.

 
Henry Ford said:
Probably had slightly more to do with this. 

https://thehill.com/opinion/international/381246-Did-Californias-Ro-Khanna-get-duped-by-Russias-propaganda%3F
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Can you explain how Khanna was duped by Russian propaganda?  Ukraine does have a vibrant neonazi movement.  The Azov battalion does have strong ties to neonazi figures.  This opinion writer smeared John Conyers as 'Putin's Man in Congress' in 2015.  I know it's enough for bucky to post oops and a laughing emoji, but where was Khanna 'duped' here?  

 
Mile High said:
However, on Monday, Stone argued that the reason for the indictment against him was much simpler. “Look, I honestly believe that they’re going to try to charge the president and the vice president with some hoped-up frame of Russian collusion,” Stone said on Monday night. “That way they can make [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi president. She can make Hillary Clinton vice president and then step aside. It’s a nightmare but I think that’s what they have in mind.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/roger-stone-mueller-will-try-to-charge-trump-pence-with-hoped-up-frame-of-russian-collusion.amp
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He forgot "and the first thing Pelosi is going to do is take your guns". 

 
ren hoek said:
Can you explain how Khanna was duped by Russian propaganda?  Ukraine does have a vibrant neonazi movement.  The Azov battalion does have strong ties to neonazi figures.  This opinion writer smeared John Conyers as 'Putin's Man in Congress' in 2015.  I know it's enough for bucky to post oops and a laughing emoji, but where was Khanna 'duped' here?  
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Are you trying to have some coherent English language remark here ?

 
ren hoek said:
Can you explain how Khanna was duped by Russian propaganda?  Ukraine does have a vibrant neonazi movement.  The Azov battalion does have strong ties to neonazi figures.  This opinion writer smeared John Conyers as 'Putin's Man in Congress' in 2015.  I know it's enough for bucky to post oops and a laughing emoji, but where was Khanna 'duped' here?  
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Maybe he was a Khanna chameleon. 

 
Mile High said:
However, on Monday, Stone argued that the reason for the indictment against him was much simpler. “Look, I honestly believe that they’re going to try to charge the president and the vice president with some hoped-up frame of Russian collusion,” Stone said on Monday night. “That way they can make [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi president. She can make Hillary Clinton vice president and then step aside. It’s a nightmare but I think that’s what they have in mind.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/politics/roger-stone-mueller-will-try-to-charge-trump-pence-with-hoped-up-frame-of-russian-collusion.amp
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Every time I listen to this idiot and Jerome Corsi I’m reminded that we actually elected a President who took guys like this seriously, who met with them, who read what they had to write and agreed with it. 

 
Slapdash said:
Are you trying to have some coherent English language remark here ?
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Are you having some problems with basic reading comprehension?  I asked Henry in plain english how Khanna was 'duped' by 'russian propaganda'.  The author links to his own pieces and quotes Azov Battalion spokesmen.  But it's not clear where Khanna's statements about the Azov Battalion's affiliation with neonazism were untrue, or inspired by 'Russian propaganda'. 

Going back to Michael Weiss' McCarthyite smears against Ro Khanna, can people acknowledge that this Trump/Russia thing has bred a culture of extreme paranoia of Russian infiltration?  That a CNN employee can smear a sitting Congressman as a Russian agent with no evidence at all and it's just accepted as normal?  

 
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