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The Russia Investigation: Trump Pardons Flynn (6 Viewers)

zftcg said:
I wonder if Mueller thought a subpoena world lead to Trump firing him and decided it wasn't worth forcing the issue. I generally trust his judgment but would definitely love to hear him explain his reasoning.
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Honestly, I thought it was pretty apparent that the Mueller team thought there was more than enough to indict and didn't really feel like Trump's testimony was necessary. 

This clause sums it up nicely. 

SaintsInDome2006 said:
we determined that the substantial quantity of information we had obtained from other sources allowed us to draw relevant factual conclusions on intent and credibility, which are often inferred from circumstantial evidence and assessed without direct testimony from the subject of the investigation.
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zftcg said:
I wonder if Mueller thought a subpoena world lead to Trump firing him and decided it wasn't worth forcing the issue. I generally trust his judgment but would definitely love to hear him explain his reasoning.
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His report said, basically, that he wanted to release his findings before George R.R. Martin released his next book, which precluded going through protracted litigation of constitutional issues to enforce a subpoena.

 
Sinn Fein said:
Re: subpoena for Trump

I agree with Mueller.  It would not have been worth the time and effort. Based on how he answered questions in written form (or in some cases did not answer the questions) you can guess how the actual deposition would have gone. And, it could have taken two years to get there.

I think Congress can try to compel his testimony - but it will take the remainder of his term to fight it out. 

Not all legal fights are worth the time and money.
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Yeah the only thing you would get would be perjury and that’s if he ever really answered anything.

 
What the Dems need to do is regain the narrative that Mueller's report did not completely exonerate Trump on conspiracy and make sure everyone knows that Trump attempted to obstruct justice numerous times but was saved by many of those that worked for him by  failing to follow orders. Forget about impeachment. Some simple ads showing videos of Trump's blatant lies and bringing in Mueller to testify before the Senate and the House could just convince enough "sensible minds" that Trump's corruption is just too much and swing the 2020 election to the Democratic candidate.

 
prefontaine said:
Honestly, I thought it was pretty apparent that the Mueller team thought there was more than enough to indict and didn't really feel like Trump's testimony was necessary. 

This clause sums it up nicely. 
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I respect Mueller, but maybe he could have been a little more direct rather then requiring everyone to parse his words like the Delphic ####ing oracle. Congress needs to have him testify stat.

 
prefontaine said:
As the proceedings against Manafort progressed in court, the President told Porter that he never liked Manafort and that Manafort did not know what he was doing on the campaign.851
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all I could find quickly and I don't see more in that section so I must have read it in another.
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I was actually prepared to be disappointed in terms of detail, but as it turns out a lot of questions are answered.

Thomas Barrack and Roger Stone both recommended Manafort to candidate Trump.873 In early 2016, at Manafort's request, Barrack suggested to Trump that Manafort join the Campaign to manage the Republican Convention.874 Stone had worked with Manafort from approximately 1980 until the mid-1990s through various consulting and lobbying firms. Manafort met Trump in 1982 when Trump hired the Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly lobbying firm.875 Over the years, Manafort saw Trump at political and social events in New York City and at Stone's wedding, and Trump requested VIP status at the 1988 and 1996 Republican conventions worked by Manafort.

According to Gates, in March 2016, Manafort traveled to Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to meet with Trump. Trump hired him at that time.877 Manafort agreed to work on the Campaign without pay. Manafort had no meaningful income at this point in time, but resuscitating his domestic political campaign career could be financially beneficial in the future. Gates reported that Manafort intended, if Trump won the Presidency, to remain outside the Administration and monetize his relationship with the Administration.
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Mr Anonymous said:
Lol, you're a piece of work. If I thought anyone would take your word speaking for me I'd correct you, but watching this is more fun.
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Stop with the personal crap in the first line.

Ive posted only what was said and when it was said.  I asked you specifically about the report today and obstruction when this conversation started and went to the (hiding something more serious) part.  I’m not speaking for you, I’m repeating the conversation and explaining what i found odd.  

 
lazyike said:
What the Dems need to do is regain the narrative that Mueller's report did not completely exonerate Trump on conspiracy and make sure everyone knows that Trump attempted to obstruct justice numerous times but was saved by many of those that worked for him by  failing to follow orders. Forget about impeachment. Some simple ads showing videos of Trump's blatant lies and bringing in Mueller to testify before the Senate and the House could just convince enough "sensible minds" that Trump's corruption is just too much and swing the 2020 election to the Democratic candidate.
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Facts and details are kryptonite to Trump. Basically quoting chapter and verse to any deed that he or minions did should do it. For me the quintessential Trump moment is the interview where they asked him about Sater and he got up and walked out.

Just an example:

Sanders told this Office that her reference to hearing from “countless members of the FBI” was a “slip of the tongue.”482 She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made “in the heat of the moment that was not founded on anything.
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- Just asking him repeatedly about this will drive him through the roof.

 
So there's a question I've been pondering for the last oh hour or so? How do you deal with crazy? Do you respond or do you just let it flesh itself out? Obviously, I'm staying on topic and talking about Trump not an individual poster here. Obviously.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
If I'm not mistaken everyone of the opening summaries to each of the segments is unredacted. Barr could have released each one the day of the report's release almost 3 weeks ago now with absolutely zero commentary.
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Didn't you watch Barr this morning? Trump was "sincere" and like Trump said all along, no collusion. Plus the illegal spying.

How anyone can say Barr isn't a political hack of the worst kind I'll never understand. Shameless. Despicable. 

 
zftcg said:
I respect Mueller, but maybe he could have been a little more direct rather then requiring everyone to parse his words like the Delphic ####ing oracle. Congress needs to have him testify stat.
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Ha. Yeah, it would be nice if law-talking guys just talked like normal peeps. But if you read the report - it's daunting I know - but they laid out the Obstruction stuff pretty clearly.

Here's all the information. It's unfair for us to tell you if he's guilty, but if we thought he wasn't guilty, we'd definitely tell you. But we can't tell you. 

 
zftcg said:
I respect Mueller, but maybe he could have been a little more direct rather then requiring everyone to parse his words like the Delphic ####ing oracle. Congress needs to have him testify stat.
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Fwiw I think that was the purpose of the summaries. They're plain, short and simple and have direct conclusions.

Which Barr didn't release.

 
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prefontaine said:
Ha. Yeah, it would be nice if law-talking guys just talked like normal peeps. But if you read the report - it's daunting I know - but they laid out the Obstruction stuff pretty clearly.

Here's all the information. It's unfair for us to tell you if he's guilty, but if we thought he wasn't guilty, we'd definitely tell you. But we can't tell you. 
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True, but he also couldn't have been blind  to the political consequences of speaking so indirectly. He allowed people (with agendas) to fill in the gaps.

 
Mr Anonymous said:
So there's a question I've been pondering for the last oh hour or so? How do you deal with crazy? Do you respond or do you just let it flesh itself out? Obviously, I'm staying on topic and talking about Trump not an individual poster here. Obviously.
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It's a great question. No sarcasm intended.

In a street fight you do whatever you can to get out of it because it's hard to beat crazy which would lends credence to your flesh itself out possibility.  I think this is way too important to run though. Really, the only solution besides waiting for 2020 is to convince enough republicans that what happened isn't right.  :twocents:

 
After Page delivered his commencement address, Russian Deputy Prime Minister and NES board member Arkady Dvorkovich spoke at the ceremony and stated that the sanctions the United States had imposed on Russia had hurt the NES.569 Page and Dvorkovich shook hands at the commencement ceremony, and Weber recalled that Dvorkovich made statements to Page about working together in the future.
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The next piece is redacted due to grand jury testimony.

On July 8, 2016, while he was in Moscow, Page emailed several Campaign officials and stated he would send “a readout soon regarding some incredible insights and outreach I’ve received from a few Russian legislators and senior members of the Presidential Administration here.”577 On July 9, 2016, Page emailed Clovis, writing in pertinent part:

Russian Deputy Prime minister and NES board member Arkady Dvorkovich also spoke before the event. In a private conversation, Dvorkovich expressed strong support for Mr. Trump and a desire to work together toward devising better solutions in response to the vast range of current international problems. Based on feedback from a diverse array of other sources close to the Presidential Administration, it was readily apparent that this sentiment is widely held at all levels of government.578
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Despite these representations to the Campaign, 
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[Redacted Grand Jury]

[Redacted Grand Jury]

[Redacted Grand Jury]

[Redacted Grand Jury]

 The Office was unable to obtain additional evidence or testimony about who Page may have met or communicated with in Moscow; thus, Page’s activities in Russia — as described in his emails with the Campaign — were not fully explained.
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jamny said:
Actually, not even Sechin but Baranov. Has it been confirmed that he met with Sechin or Divyekin? Sorry if I'm too far behind in this.
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Baranov, Andrey

Director of investor relations at Russian state-owned oil company, Rosneft, and associate of Carter Page.
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Page said that, during his time in Moscow, he met with friends and associates he knew from when he lived in Russia, including Andrey Baranov, a former Gazprom employee who had become the head of investor relations at Rosneft, a Russian energy company.572 Page stated that he and Baranov talked about “immaterial non-public” information.573 Page believed he and Baranov discussed Rosneft president Igor Sechin, and he thought Baranov might have mentioned the possibility of a sale of a stake in Rosneft in passing574 Page recalled mentioning his involvement in the Trump Campaign with Baranov, although he did not remember details of the conversation.575Page also met with individuals from Tatneft, a Russian energy company, to discuss possible business deals, including having Page work as a consultant.
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Trump is a cancer on the presidency. Congress should remove him.

link

So it turns out that, indeed, President Trump was not exonerated at all, and certainly not “totally” or “completely,” as he claimed. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III didn’t reach a conclusion about whether Trump committed crimes of obstruction of justice — in part because, while a sitting president, Trump can’t be prosecuted under long-standing Justice Department directives, and in part because of “difficult issues” raised by “the President’s actions and intent.” Those difficult issues involve, among other things, the potentially tricky interplay between the criminal obstruction laws and the president’s constitutional authority, and the difficulty in proving criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

Still, the special counsel’s report is damning. Mueller couldn’t say, with any “confidence,” that the president of the United States is not a criminal. He said, stunningly, that “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.” Mueller did not so state.

That’s especially damning because the ultimate issue shouldn’t be — and isn’t — whether the president committed a criminal act. As I wrote not long ago, Americans should expect far more than merely that their president not be provably a criminal. In fact, the Constitution demands it.

The Constitution commands the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” It requires him to affirm that he will “faithfully execute the Office of President” and to promise to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” And as a result, by taking the presidential oath of office, a president assumes the duty not simply to obey the laws, civil and criminal, that all citizens must obey, but also to be subjected to higher duties — what some excellent recent legal scholarship has termed the “fiduciary obligations of the president.”

Fiduciaries are people who hold legal obligations of trust, like a trustee of a trust. A trustee must act in the beneficiary’s best interests and not his own. If the trustee fails to do that, the trustee can be removed, even if what the trustee has done is not a crime.

So too with a president. The Constitution provides for impeachment and removal from office for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” But the history and context of the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” makes clear that not every statutory crime is impeachable, and not every impeachable offense need be criminal. As Charles L. Black Jr. put it in a seminal pamphlet on impeachment in 1974, “assaults on the integrity of the processes of government” count as impeachable, even if they are not criminal.

And presidential attempts to abuse power by putting personal interests above the nation’s can surely be impeachable. The president may have the raw constitutional power to, say, squelch an investigation or to pardon a close associate. But if he does so not to serve the public interest, but to serve his own, he surely could be removed from office, even if he has not committed a criminal act.

By these standards, the facts in Mueller’s report condemn Trump even more than the report’s refusal to clear him of a crime. Charged with faithfully executing the laws, the president is, in effect, the nation’s highest law enforcement officer. Yet Mueller’s investigation “found multiple acts by the President that were capable of executing undue influence over law enforcement investigations.”

Trump tried to “limit the scope of the investigation.” He tried to discourage witnesses from cooperating with the government through “suggestions of possible future pardons.” He engaged in “direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.” A fair reading of the special counsel’s narrative is that “the likely effect” of these acts was “to intimidate witnesses or to alter their testimony,” with the result that “the justice system’s integrity [was] threatened.” Page after page, act after act, Mueller’s report describes a relentless torrent of such obstructive activity by Trump.

Contrast poor Richard M. Nixon. He was almost certain to be impeached, and removed from office, after the infamous “smoking gun” tape came out. On that tape, the president is heard directing his chief of staff to get the CIA director, Richard Helms, to tell the FBI “don’t go any further into this case” — Watergate — for national security reasons. That order never went anywhere, because Helms ignored it.

Other than that, Nixon was mostly passive — at least compared with Trump. For the most part, the Watergate tapes showed that Nixon had “acquiesced in the cover-up” after the fact. Nixon had no advance knowledge of the break-in. His aides were the driving force behind the obstruction.

Trump, on the other hand, was a one-man show. His aides tried to stop him, according to Mueller: “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

As for Trump’s supposed defense that there was no underlying “collusion” crime, well, as the special counsel points out, it’s not a defense, even in a criminal prosecution. But it’s actually unhelpful in the comparison to Watergate. The underlying crime in Watergate was a clumsy, third-rate burglary in an election campaign that turned out to be a landslide.

The investigation that Trump tried to interfere with here, to protect his own personal interests, was in significant part an investigation of how a hostile foreign power interfered with our democracy. If that’s not putting personal interests above a presidential duty to the nation, nothing is.

White House counsel John Dean famously told Nixon that there was a cancer within the presidency and that it was growing. What the Mueller report disturbingly shows, with crystal clarity, is that today there is a cancer in the presidency: President Donald J. Trump.

Congress now bears the solemn constitutional duty to excise that cancer without delay.
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George T. Conway III is a lawyer in New York.
 
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Any American doing any kind of justifying the actions of or backing up Trump, Barr, Congressional Republicans, Senate Republicans, and/or Elmo, needs to really relearn what "America" is about. Shameful, truly shameful.

 
Anyone find out yet what Krist Novoselic was doing standing behind Barr this morning? Also, was it just me or was Rod Rosenstein blinking "help me" in Morse code?

 
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>>The report describes actions and events that the Special Counsel’s Office found to be supported by the evidence collected in our investigation. In some instances, the report points out the absence of evidence or conflicts in the evidence about a particular fact or event. In other instances, when substantial, credible evidence enabled the Office to reach a conclusion with confidence, the report states that the investigation established that certain actions or events occurred. A statement that the investigation did not establish particular facts does not mean there was no evidence of those facts.<<

- Frame it.

 
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Rove! said:
used clearly fictional and politically motivated narratives as a pretext.
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The President's draft termination letter also stated that morale in the FBI was at an all-time low and Sanders told the press after Comey's termination that the White House had heard from “countless” FBI agents who had lost confidence in Comey. But the evidence does not support those claims. The President told Comey at their January 27 dinner that “the people of the FBI really like [him],” no evidence suggests that the President heard otherwise before deciding to terminate Comey, and Sanders acknowledged to investigators that her comments were not founded on anything.
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>>>The investigation did not always yield admissible information or testimony, or a complete picture of the activities undertaken by subjects of the investigation. Some individuals invoked their Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination and were not, in the Office’s judgment, appropriate candidates for grants of immunity. The Office limited its pursuit of other witnesses and information — such as information known to attorneys or individuals claiming to be members of the media — in light of internal Department of Justice policies. See, e.g., Justice Manual §§ 9-13.400, 13.410. Some of the information obtained via court process, moreover, was presumptively covered by legal privilege and was screened from investigators by a filter (or “taint”) team. Even when individuals testified or agreed to be interviewed, they sometimes provided information that was false or incomplete, leading to some of the false-statements charges described above. 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. In such cases, the Office was not able to corroborate witness statements through comparison to contemporaneous communications or fully question witnesses about statements that appeared inconsistent with other known facts.

Accordingly, while this report embodies factual and legal determinations that the Office believes to be accurate and complete to the greatest extent possible, given these identified gaps, 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.<<<

 
Seth Abramsom just concluded his day-long thread with 452 tweets. A stunning feat of posting that will not soon be forgotten.

 
moleculo said:
Note that I say we should move on because Republicans on the Senate are spineless weasels, partisan hacks who wouldn't to the right thing unless they could personally benefit.  It is what it is. 

I think Trump is dirty as hell, guilty as hell, and I'm not going to say what I think of those who support him out of fear of suspension.

The reality of the situation is that its an uphill climb.  It always has been.  The standard of evidence has never been "beyond a reasonable doubt," it's "beyond an unreasonable doubt to a partisan hack".  Mueller wasn't able to find that.  So we move on.
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Then let the senators who put party over country go on record and let history and the voters judge them.  

It is every bit as complicit for Democrats o refuse to impeach for political reasons as it is for Republicans to vote against impeachment for political reasons. 

Do. Your.  Jobs. 

 
timschochet said:
Got a compromise for you Bostonfred. The Democrats should say that impeachment is a bipartisan effort. They will pursue it so long as some Republicans are willing to join them. 
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Failed impeachment proceedings will result in a Trump re-election.  That’s why Pelosi said it’s not going to happen.

 
prefontaine said:
I've pretty much decided I like Don McGahn. 
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McGahn single-handedly kept Trump on the rails. I hope Trump can show at least some bit of gratitude, because McGahn earned every last bit.

In reading the report, McGahn came off as part Silvio from The Sopranos and part Artie from The Larry Sanders Show. 

 
timschochet said:
Got a compromise for you Bostonfred. The Democrats should say that impeachment is a bipartisan effort. They will pursue it so long as some Republicans are willing to join them. 
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No. No compromise.

Congress doesn't have an obligation to go begging for votes and abdicate responsibility if they can't get them.  Congress has a responsibility to support and defend the constitution. 

Note that I said congress. Not Democrats.  Congress has a responsibility.   This isn't the Democrats deciding what to do.  This is Congress deciding what to do.  Stop giving in to the narrative that the only people who decide this are Democrats. 

Even if i agreed with your approach, Democrats seeking compromise couldn't trust any Republican senator to vote for impeachment. They either do this or they don't. 

And if this is a purely political exercise - which it shouldn't be - then Democrats reaching across the aisle for support just offers cover to Republican senators who are afraid of political blowback.  

What I do support is that Congress continue to gather evidence in their remaining investigations before drafting articles of impeachment.  That is part of their job. 

Figuring out how to game this for political gain is not their job, and when we support congresspeople doing so, we don't get to complain when they continue to do so. 

 
Sinn Fein said:
This investigation was clearly justified on Russian interference - and determining if that interference included coordination with the Trump campaign.  The obstruction of justice investigation was likewise warranted - and probably proven.
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An email hack is an email hack.  So you beef up security and don't click bad links.  Problem solved.  There is no evidence that the facebook memes / twitterbot stuff had a meaningful impact.  There was no need for all this.  

The email releases shed light on how our elections actually work- it gave people insight into a deeply corrupt system.  It's not a bad thing.  That's how we get a better society- we watch systems fail and demand something better. 

I don't think an investigation should originate from information paid for by an opposition political campaign.  Both the initial hacking report and the dossier were literally paid for by the DNC.  That's a nice racket they have there.  Cook up some bogus intel, and then spy on people they don't like.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
It's been an interesting thought exercise, and I think it's lent credence to the claim that Trump has been an illiberal influence in this country. And that's illiberal meaning, anti small "L" classical liberalism, the sorts of freedoms and traditions and respect for rule of law which have generally set us apart as a nation and which conservatives and liberals here have traditionally held in common. I think this is "new" and not all a part of the usual partisanship we have seen for decades.
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Once that cat's out of the bag it's real hard going back, as seen in the countries that's been running/flirting with caudilloism, such as most of Latin America, parts of Africa, Eastern Europe. Not too late yet, though, IMHO to fix it *cough* 2020 *cough*. Still, as seen recently in e.g. the Philippines, Hungary, Argentina, Brasil etc. that "strong man" urge can rear it's ugly head again pretty quickly

 
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