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The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter whoknew
- Start date
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
If you want to see what a coordinated nonsense campaign looks like in real time go to Twitter and just type "Judge Sullivan" into the search bar.
It's a glorious pastiche of Dunning-Krugers, liars-for-hire, unblinking Trump drones, Russian bots, and then the usual cast of hucksters, scammers and grifters.
My favorite is the schlubs penning their own friend of the court briefs.
It's a glorious pastiche of Dunning-Krugers, liars-for-hire, unblinking Trump drones, Russian bots, and then the usual cast of hucksters, scammers and grifters.
My favorite is the schlubs penning their own friend of the court briefs.
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sho nuff
Footballguy
BladeRunner
Footballguy
If you think that's bad you should check out the liberals on the PSF at footballguys.com. oy-vey!
It's like the Borg, but on the internet!
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BladeRunner
Footballguy
No it's not.
It's a hive-minded bubble of group-think all based on the fact that an election was lost that was FOR SURE 200% GUARANTEED supposed to be theirs.
So instead of accepting the results of a valid election, they have been trying every day to overturn it via nefarious ways using fake news, sham investigations, outlandish collusion theories and outright made up dossiers riddled with lies, inconsistencies and half-truths.
I now say it's time to move on and accept the "L". And also hope for the best but prepare for the worst in the upcoming election. We don't need yet another 4 more years of sky-screamers.
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Stuart_Little
Footballguy
It's cute when the Trumpophiles just assume everyone else is as gullible as they are.
the moops
Footballguy
This. And he was a cooperating witness, so they likely gave him a sweet deal thinking he would cooperate
Chaz McNulty
Footballguy
Do you believe Trump is a pillar of honesty? Do you think there has ever been a more dishonest president that has been caught in more lies and extreme exaggerations then Trump. If so, which president?BladeRunner said:
Snotbubbles
Footballguy
It's all moot.Sinn Fein said:
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
I don’t think it’s moot for Mike Flynn, man’s still on the hook, and possibly for more than when he walked into the courtroom in December 2018.
Snotbubbles
Footballguy
Either the judge dismisses the case based on the DOJ motion or Trump pardons him. Either way he's off the hook.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Oh sure the pardon pathway. That's been the claim all along but they're going through an awful lot of trouble to take this route - for some reason.
ren hoek
Footballguy
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/05/14/american-sheldon-adelsons-us-spy-julian-assange/
The real collusion was multiple states conspiring to imprison & torture Julian Assange. While Mueller spent 2 years demonizing him as a Russian agent, the US conspired with Ecuador, Britain, and embassy staff to record his talks with lawyers, doctors, journalists, politicians. They mic'ed up women's bathrooms. They mused about kidnapping & poisoning him. They talked about taking diapers out of the trash to see if the kid's DNA matched Julian's. If the political mainstream in this country had a conscience they'd be howling to the moon over what they've done to Assange.
The "rule of law" crowd, of course, is nowhere to be found. The TrumpRussia legal geniuses as far as I can gather can't find it in themselves to give a #### about this, correct me if I'm wrong. They sure are quiet about Trump asserting the right to extradite "enemies of the people" and torture them until they die. This is end of the republic stuff. It's sad man, it really is.
The real collusion was multiple states conspiring to imprison & torture Julian Assange. While Mueller spent 2 years demonizing him as a Russian agent, the US conspired with Ecuador, Britain, and embassy staff to record his talks with lawyers, doctors, journalists, politicians. They mic'ed up women's bathrooms. They mused about kidnapping & poisoning him. They talked about taking diapers out of the trash to see if the kid's DNA matched Julian's. If the political mainstream in this country had a conscience they'd be howling to the moon over what they've done to Assange.
The "rule of law" crowd, of course, is nowhere to be found. The TrumpRussia legal geniuses as far as I can gather can't find it in themselves to give a #### about this, correct me if I'm wrong. They sure are quiet about Trump asserting the right to extradite "enemies of the people" and torture them until they die. This is end of the republic stuff. It's sad man, it really is.
BladeRunner
Footballguy
(I'm a Trump hater and will do anything no matter how low to get him)Mr. Ham said:
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Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
(Thought this probably belonged here as well.)
Seems like a good time to review some actual evidence...
tl;dr
While we found significant evidence that the Trump campaign had extensive ties with Russian intelligence and others close to Vladimir Putin, we were unable to establish sufficient evidence to charge conspiracy. In part due to false testimony, 5th Amendment claims, destruction of evidence, executive branch privilege claims, and other interference with the investigation .
Despite extensive evidence provided related to obstruction of justice, due to the Constitutional issues related to charging the President with a crime we chose not to reach a decision about whether to charge him. However, this decision should specifically not be read as exonerating the President.
[Conspiracy]
The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed "information warfare." The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton.
At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign.
The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016
The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.
The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations.
2015. Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with a Trump Organization real-estate project in Russia known as Trump Tower Moscow. Candidate Trump signed a Letter of Intent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016 Trump Organization executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump.
Days after the June 9 meeting, on June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents.
July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC.
Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a "backdoor" way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting.
Fall 2016. On October 7, 2016, the media released video of candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier, which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta's emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and other U.S. government institutions were at the time continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere in the presidential election. That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement "that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." Those "thefts" and the "disclosures" of the hacked materials through online platforms such as WikiLeaks, the statement continued, "are intended to interfere with the US election process."
Post-2016 Election. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration. The most senior levels of the Russian government encouraged these efforts. The Russian Embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-Elect and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there.
On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump on a joint assessment—drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Security Agency—that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day.
President Trump reacted negatively to the Special Counsel's appointment. He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson (Jeff) Sessions unrecuse from the Russia investigation and to have the Special Counsel removed, and engaged in efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions are described and analyzed in Volume II of the report.
while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges.
[issues impacting that decision]
the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference. The Office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false statements statute. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his interactions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period. George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about, inter alia, the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about the Trump Moscow project. [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] And in February 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that Manafort lied to the Office and the grand jury concerning his interactions and communications with Konstantin Kilimnik about Trump Campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine.
Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination
Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege
And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well-numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United States.
Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records.
the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.
[Obstruction]
Soon after the firing of Comey and the appointment of the Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was being investigated in an obstruction-of-justice inquiry. At that point, the President engaged in a second phase of conduct, involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. [obstruction]
we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. 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. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.
Seems like a good time to review some actual evidence...
tl;dr
While we found significant evidence that the Trump campaign had extensive ties with Russian intelligence and others close to Vladimir Putin, we were unable to establish sufficient evidence to charge conspiracy. In part due to false testimony, 5th Amendment claims, destruction of evidence, executive branch privilege claims, and other interference with the investigation .
Despite extensive evidence provided related to obstruction of justice, due to the Constitutional issues related to charging the President with a crime we chose not to reach a decision about whether to charge him. However, this decision should specifically not be read as exonerating the President.
[Conspiracy]
The IRA later used social media accounts and interest groups to sow discord in the U.S. political system through what it termed "information warfare." The campaign evolved from a generalized program designed in 2014 and 2015 to undermine the U.S. electoral system, to a targeted operation that by early 2016 favored candidate Trump and disparaged candidate Clinton.
At the same time that the IRA operation began to focus on supporting candidate Trump in early 2016, the Russian government employed a second form of interference: cyber intrusions (hacking) and releases of hacked materials damaging to the Clinton Campaign.
The presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump ("Trump Campaign" or "Campaign") showed interest in WikiLeaks's releases of documents and welcomed their potential to damage candidate Clinton. Beginning in June 2016
The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.
The Russian contacts consisted of business connections, offers of assistance to the Campaign, invitations for candidate Trump and Putin to meet in person, invitations for Campaign officials and representatives of the Russian government to meet, and policy positions seeking improved U.S.-Russian relations.
2015. Some of the earliest contacts were made in connection with a Trump Organization real-estate project in Russia known as Trump Tower Moscow. Candidate Trump signed a Letter of Intent for Trump Tower Moscow by November 2015, and in January 2016 Trump Organization executive Michael Cohen emailed and spoke about the project with the office of Russian government press secretary Dmitry Peskov. The Trump Organization pursued the project through at least June 2016, including by considering travel to Russia by Cohen and candidate Trump.
Days after the June 9 meeting, on June 14, 2016, a cybersecurity firm and the DNC announced that Russian government hackers had infiltrated the DNC and obtained access to opposition research on candidate Trump, among other documents.
July 2016 was also the month WikiLeaks first released emails stolen by the GRU from the DNC. On July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks posted thousands of internal DNC documents revealing information about the Clinton Campaign. Within days, there was public reporting that U.S. intelligence agencies had "high confidence" that the Russian government was behind the theft of emails and documents from the DNC.
Separately, on August 2, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort met in New York City with his long-time business associate Konstantin Kilimnik, who the FBI assesses to have ties to Russian intelligence. Kilimnik requested the meeting to deliver in person a peace plan for Ukraine that Manafort acknowledged to the Special Counsel's Office was a "backdoor" way for Russia to control part of eastern Ukraine; both men believed the plan would require candidate Trump's assent to succeed (were he to be elected President). They also discussed the status of the Trump Campaign and Manafort's strategy for winning Democratic votes in Midwestern states. Months before that meeting, Manafort had caused internal polling data to be shared with Kilimnik, and the sharing continued for some period of time after their August meeting.
Fall 2016. On October 7, 2016, the media released video of candidate Trump speaking in graphic terms about women years earlier, which was considered damaging to his candidacy. Less than an hour later, WikiLeaks made its second release: thousands of John Podesta's emails that had been stolen by the GRU in late March 2016. The FBI and other U.S. government institutions were at the time continuing their investigation of suspected Russian government efforts to interfere in the presidential election. That same day, October 7, the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence issued a joint public statement "that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." Those "thefts" and the "disclosures" of the hacked materials through online platforms such as WikiLeaks, the statement continued, "are intended to interfere with the US election process."
Post-2016 Election. Immediately after the November 8 election, Russian government officials and prominent Russian businessmen began trying to make inroads into the new administration. The most senior levels of the Russian government encouraged these efforts. The Russian Embassy made contact hours after the election to congratulate the President-Elect and to arrange a call with President Putin. Several Russian businessmen picked up the effort from there.
On January 6, 2017, members of the intelligence community briefed President-Elect Trump on a joint assessment—drafted and coordinated among the Central Intelligence Agency, FBI, and National Security Agency—that concluded with high confidence that Russia had intervened in the election through a variety of means to assist Trump's candidacy and harm Clinton's. A declassified version of the assessment was publicly released that same day.
President Trump reacted negatively to the Special Counsel's appointment. He told advisors that it was the end of his presidency, sought to have Attorney General Jefferson (Jeff) Sessions unrecuse from the Russia investigation and to have the Special Counsel removed, and engaged in efforts to curtail the Special Counsel's investigation and prevent the disclosure of evidence to it, including through public and private contacts with potential witnesses. Those and related actions are described and analyzed in Volume II of the report.
while the investigation identified numerous links between individuals with ties to the Russian government and individuals associated with the Trump Campaign, the evidence was not sufficient to support criminal charges.
[issues impacting that decision]
the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference. The Office charged some of those lies as violations of the federal false statements statute. Former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his interactions with Russian Ambassador Kislyak during the transition period. George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy advisor during the campaign period, pleaded guilty to lying to investigators about, inter alia, the nature and timing of his interactions with Joseph Mifsud, the professor who told Papadopoulos that the Russians had dirt on candidate Clinton in the form of thousands of emails. Former Trump Organization attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to making false statements to Congress about the Trump Moscow project. [Redacted: Harm to Ongoing Matter] And in February 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that Manafort lied to the Office and the grand jury concerning his interactions and communications with Konstantin Kilimnik about Trump Campaign polling data and a peace plan for Ukraine.
Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination
Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege
And the Office faced practical limits on its ability to access relevant evidence as well-numerous witnesses and subjects lived abroad, and documents were held outside the United States.
Further, the Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated—including some associated with the Trump Campaign—deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records.
the Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report.
[Obstruction]
Soon after the firing of Comey and the appointment of the Special Counsel, however, the President became aware that his own conduct was being investigated in an obstruction-of-justice inquiry. At that point, the President engaged in a second phase of conduct, involving public attacks on the investigation, non-public efforts to control it, and efforts in both public and private to encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation. [obstruction]
we did not draw ultimate conclusions about the President's conduct. 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. At the same time, if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.
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ren hoek
Footballguy
Mate: Hidden Over 2 Years: Dem Cyber-Firm's Sworn Testimony It Had No Proof of Russian Hack of DNC
To explain how Russia could have stolen the emails without any trace of them actually leaving the DNC server, Crowdstrike President Shawn Henry improbably told Congress that GRU could have taken "screenshots" of each email as DNC staffers read them. That's a lot of screenshots!
Shawn Henry admitted his firm Crowdstrike has no evidence hackers exfiltrated DNC emails. Most outlets have ignored this bombshell. One outlet that should definitely not be ignoring it is MSNBC. Not only was it the top Russiagate promoter; it also employs Henry as an analyst.
Contradiction between Crowdstrike & Mueller. CS' Shawn Henry says DNC data staged for exfiltration April 22, "but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left." Mueller: "On April 22, 2016, the GRU copied files from the DNC network to GRU-controlled computers." //
What's come into focus the past few weeks is how disingenuous many leading figures were about the real depth of "Russian interference". And why people were right to refuse to accept their conclusions without seeing the actual evidence first. Only now 2+ years later do we find out the whole thing was garbage.
To explain how Russia could have stolen the emails without any trace of them actually leaving the DNC server, Crowdstrike President Shawn Henry improbably told Congress that GRU could have taken "screenshots" of each email as DNC staffers read them. That's a lot of screenshots!
Shawn Henry admitted his firm Crowdstrike has no evidence hackers exfiltrated DNC emails. Most outlets have ignored this bombshell. One outlet that should definitely not be ignoring it is MSNBC. Not only was it the top Russiagate promoter; it also employs Henry as an analyst.
Contradiction between Crowdstrike & Mueller. CS' Shawn Henry says DNC data staged for exfiltration April 22, "but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left." Mueller: "On April 22, 2016, the GRU copied files from the DNC network to GRU-controlled computers." //
What's come into focus the past few weeks is how disingenuous many leading figures were about the real depth of "Russian interference". And why people were right to refuse to accept their conclusions without seeing the actual evidence first. Only now 2+ years later do we find out the whole thing was garbage.
sho nuff
Footballguy
Claiming no proof of Russian hack is false. I showed that with the quotes from the Henry testimony.(a ling post full of the actual quotes that was largely ignored) No proof of seeing it exfiltrated was it...though proof they were preparing for that.
To claim the whole thing was garbage is ridiculous and ignores most of his actual testimony.
To claim the whole thing was garbage is ridiculous and ignores most of his actual testimony.
ren hoek
Footballguy
No it isn't. That's the whole point of differentiating between "circumstantial evidence" and "proof". Here, Crowdstrike is making an estimate.sho nuff said:
And again, this is the same group that Ukrainians called "delusional" for asserting that Russia hacked their artillery systems. You understand difference between evidence and proof, so no, it isn't false at all, it's absolutely correct.
Max Power
Footballguy
I just read the Mate piece. Good stuff.
Contradiction between Crowdstrike & Mueller. CS' Shawn Henry says DNC data staged for exfiltration April 22, "but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left."
Mueller: "On April 22, 2016, the GRU copied files from the DNC network to GRU-controlled computers."
Contradiction between Crowdstrike & Mueller. CS' Shawn Henry says DNC data staged for exfiltration April 22, "but we just don't have the evidence that says it actually left."
Mueller: "On April 22, 2016, the GRU copied files from the DNC network to GRU-controlled computers."
TheMagus
Footballguy
Muller Report page 40
The government has other information besides what came from Crowdstrike. I believe Crowdstrike is only mentioned one time in the whole report. Notice all the redactions in the footnotes for "Investigative Technique". It is sort of bizarre how the counter-narratives always revolve around Crowdstrike. The FBI did their own investigation and analysis and has access to way more information than Crowdstrike.
The Mueller report and Crowdstrike testimony are completely consistent. Both are careful to distinguish between what data they can prove is exfiltrated and which data was copied by other means. There are more details about this in the actual transcript as myself and others have quoted multiple times.
Mate is being misleading at best.
sho nuff
Footballguy
Actually no, they have evidence of the hack...again read the quotes i posted from the testimony. No direct evidence of the removal. It was not an estimate.
Yes its the same group that apparently messed up before...that is not evidence or proof of being wrong now.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
ren hoek
Footballguy
Aaron Maté @aaronjmate
@RepAdamSchiff rejected this Assange overture 5 months after Shawn Henry testified Crowdstrike had no evidence Russia stole DNC emails. Assange says his source wasn't Russia. I wonder if Henry's testimony -- which Schiff kept secret until now -- factored in Schiff's rejection?
@RepAdamSchiff rejected this Assange overture 5 months after Shawn Henry testified Crowdstrike had no evidence Russia stole DNC emails. Assange says his source wasn't Russia. I wonder if Henry's testimony -- which Schiff kept secret until now -- factored in Schiff's rejection?
Ah! Now we see the violence inherent in the system!
Turns out Flynn's name was never "unmasked" because it was included from the beginning...
Sam Quentin
Footballguy
sho nuff
Footballguy
BladeRunner
Footballguy
Nope. Not at all.
The only consistent about those two is how inconsistent they are and filled with lies.
Snotbubbles
Footballguy
A Court is there to adjudicate disputes. There is no longer a dispute in this case. The judge is now wasting judicial resources. Time to move on.
The Z Machine
Footballguy
That's incorrect. Government lawyers represent "the people". The intesest of the public is not being served by dropping the case against someone that has plead guilty to either lying to the FBI or lying to the court. Also, lawyers for the government should seek to maintain the integrity of the justice system, not undermine it.
Max Power
Footballguy
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
Rao is IMO a lock for Flynn but 10 days is awfully short for Flynn’s defense lawyers at Barr LLC to make their case.
Max Power
Footballguy
roadkill1292
Footballguy
Seems like the case for plaintiffs has already been made.
Max Power
Footballguy
Sullivan has to make his case for why he won't grant the DOJ's motion to dismiss.
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
I may not be understanding the current disposition of the case correctly, but it seems to me that's an easy bar to clear: "Because under legal precedent that I am bound by, I'm not supposed to grant motions to dismiss that are contrary to the public interest, and argument on that issue is still pending."
Max Power
Footballguy
Who is the argument between? DIdn't the prosecutors drop from the case? and who decides what is in the best interest of the public? This case had legal procedural problems from the start.
Flynn's team is using this legal avenue and now a group of judges will rule on it.
The judge decides what's contrary to the public interest. In order to make that decision, he'll receive argument from the amicus curiae designated to represent the public interest as well as from the government attorney designated to oppose it.
The point is that the district court judge isn't sitting on his hands. He's scheduled briefing and oral argument to help him decide whether the dismissal would be contrary to the public interest. After that happens, he'll make a ruling. If Flynn doesn't like the ruling, he can appeal at that point. In the meantime, I don't see how the court of appeals can lawfully intervene before that process plays out. (They can't say: "You need to dismiss regardless of whether it serves the public interest." Or: "You need to dismiss without having the chance to evaluate whether it serves the public interest." Or: "We haven't heard argument about whether dismissal serves the public interest, but we nonetheless find that it does, so we instruct you to dismiss." What can they say?)
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SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
The Watergate Prosecutors have filed an amicus brief with the DC Circuit, just as they did with Sullivan.
- I don't think it will work this time. I agree with them, but Rao is in the bag and Henderson is not promising for those opposing the Barr unitarian/authoritarian POV.
There's still a chance if the DCC rules against Sullivan that the Circuit takes it up en banc, which is what happened with McGahn. Really this action by the 3 judge panel goes against standard practice as I understand it.
- I don't think it will work this time. I agree with them, but Rao is in the bag and Henderson is not promising for those opposing the Barr unitarian/authoritarian POV.
There's still a chance if the DCC rules against Sullivan that the Circuit takes it up en banc, which is what happened with McGahn. Really this action by the 3 judge panel goes against standard practice as I understand it.
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Max Power
Footballguy
FBI Director Wray opens internal review into how bureau handled Michael Flynn case
The FBI announced Friday that Director Chris Wrayhas ordered an internal review of the handling of the bureau’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, which will include examining whether current FBI employees "engaged in misconduct."
“FBI Director Christopher Wray today ordered the Bureau’s Inspection Division to conduct an after-action review of the Michael Flynn investigation,” the bureau said in a statement.
The review will be handled by the bureau’s Inspection Division, the FBI said. That division is similar to an internal affairs office in a police department.
The bureau said the “after-action review” will have a two-fold purpose: evaluating the FBI’s role in the case and determining whether any “current employees engaged in misconduct,” as well as identifying whether any “improvements” might be warranted to FBI procedures.
“Although the FBI does not have the prosecutorial authority to bring a criminal case, the Inspection Division can and will evaluate whether any current onboard employees engaged in actions that might warrant disciplinary measures,” the FBI said
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-director-wray-opens-internal-investigation-into-how-bureau-handled-michael-flynn-case
The FBI announced Friday that Director Chris Wrayhas ordered an internal review of the handling of the bureau’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, which will include examining whether current FBI employees "engaged in misconduct."
“FBI Director Christopher Wray today ordered the Bureau’s Inspection Division to conduct an after-action review of the Michael Flynn investigation,” the bureau said in a statement.
The review will be handled by the bureau’s Inspection Division, the FBI said. That division is similar to an internal affairs office in a police department.
The bureau said the “after-action review” will have a two-fold purpose: evaluating the FBI’s role in the case and determining whether any “current employees engaged in misconduct,” as well as identifying whether any “improvements” might be warranted to FBI procedures.
“Although the FBI does not have the prosecutorial authority to bring a criminal case, the Inspection Division can and will evaluate whether any current onboard employees engaged in actions that might warrant disciplinary measures,” the FBI said
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-director-wray-opens-internal-investigation-into-how-bureau-handled-michael-flynn-case
I don't know a lot about Henderson, but what little I do know suggests that she's a decent judge -- not a crackpot like Rao. (She did rule against the House in its attempt to subpoena Don McGahn, but I think I agree with her about that.)
BladeRunner
Footballguy
This makes sense. Thanks!The judge decides what's contrary to the public interest. In order to make that decision, he'll receive argument from the amicus curiae designated to represent the public interest as well as from the government attorney designated to oppose it.
The point is that the district court judge isn't sitting on his hands. He's scheduled briefing and oral argument to help him decide whether the dismissal would be contrary to the public interest. After that happens, he'll make a ruling. If Flynn doesn't like the ruling, he can appeal at that point. In the meantime, I don't see how the court of appeals can lawfully intervene before that process plays out. (They can't say: "You need to dismiss regardless of whether it serves the public interest." Or: "You need to dismiss without having the chance to evaluate whether it serves the public interest." Or: "We haven't heard argument about whether dismissal serves the public interest, but we nonetheless find that it does, so we instruct you to dismiss." What can they say?)
SaintsInDome2006
Footballguy
In the face of threats he might be fired. More authoritarianism.
How many investigations is this now? 5? 6? 7?
