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Post by Old Badger on Apr 3, 2019 23:36:36 GMT -5
We knew this was coming, didn't we: "Members of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team have told associates they are frustrated with the limited information Attorney General William P. Barr has provided about their nearly two-year investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether President Trump sought to obstruct justice, according to people familiar with the matter. The displeasure among some who worked on the closely held inquiry has quietly begun to surface in the days since Barr released a four-page letter to Congress on March 24 describing what he said were the principal conclusions of Mueller’s still-confidential, 400-page report... "Barr told lawmakers that he concluded the evidence was not sufficient to prove that the president obstructed justice. But members of Mueller’s team have complained to close associates that the evidence they gathered on obstruction was alarming and significant. 'It was much more acute than Barr suggested,' said one person, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the subject’s sensitivity." linkThe worst part is that Barr now is hiding the report behind an ostensible need to redact information that it would be illegal to make public, such as grand jury proceedings. But this is a lie: "Summaries were prepared for different sections of the report, with a view that they could made public, the official said. The report was prepared 'so that the front matter from each section could have been released immediately — or very quickly,' the official said. 'It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself.' Mueller’s team assumed the information was going to be made available to the public, the official said, 'and so they prepared their summaries to be shared in their own words — and not in the attorney general’s summary of their work, as turned out to be the case.'” Barr did not need to write his own summary and bury the report for "weeks not months" but he did. Why is that? The obvious answer is clear: the report will be "politically devastating" as Rudy Giuliani predicted, so Barr was helping his boss by allowing a false storyline to gain currency and sit there for weeks unchallenged. This was tried with Watergate and failed. Barr himself tried it with Iran-Contra and failed. It will fail again. The House Judiciary Committee will issue a subpoena in the next few days if that report doesn't get to the Chairman's desk, and both Mueller and Barr will be called on to testify. They cannot hide "alarming and significant" criminal evidence from the public forever, not even in the Age of Trump.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 9, 2019 10:30:21 GMT -5
Barr has promised that the redacted Mueller report should be released with a week, and that redactions will be color-coded to identify the reason for the redaction: (1) grand jury material, (2) information that could reveal investigators’ sources and methods, (3) information that could affect ongoing investigations, and (4) details that would impact the privacy of people “peripheral” to Mueller’s investigation. Anyone who thinks that the redacted portions and the underlying information will be kept secret for long has not been keeping up. The whole think will come out sooner or later, probably sooner. There's more than one unredacted copy around, and if necessary the House Judiciary Committee could open an impeachment inquiry and get everything as part of that process, as recommended by prominent legal experts just today. BTW, Sunday's WP already was inviting pre-orders for the printed report as soon as it's released. A guaranteed best-seller for their publishing arm!
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 11, 2019 15:40:06 GMT -5
So the first Democrat has been indicted: "Washington attorney Gregory B. Craig, who served as White House counsel for President Barack Obama, was charged Thursday with lying to federal officials who were examining whether he should have registered as a foreign lobbyist for legal work he did for the Ukrainian government in 2012. The indictment stems from work Craig did with GOP lobbyist Paul Manafort while Craig was a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the law firm he joined after ending his tenure at the White House. Manafort, the former campaign chairman to President Trump, pleaded guilty last year to charges related to his Ukraine lobbying." linkBasically, Skadden Arps was hired to do a report on how Manafort client and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's administration handled the prosecution of his leading opponent in the 2010 election, Yulia Tymoshenko. The report was presented as "independent" but Manafort eventually admitted that he and other consultants had used it as part of a PR campaign to burnish Yanukovych's image, especially in the US. After Craig contacted the NYT over their coverage of the report the DOJ raised questions about whether Skadden Arps should have registered as a lobbyist for Ukraine. Craig convinced them that their work did not require registration, partly because they were paid only a few thousand dollars to produce the report. But the investigation into Manafort showed that the firm had been paid $4.6 million, which had been routed by Manafort through an offshore account to hid the source. Manafort eventually pleaded guilty to lying about this, while the firm agreed to turn over the money without admitting to criminal wrong-doing. Another lawyer at the firm pled guilty to lying to the FBI about this last year. There's a lesson here: Quit working with sleazy lawyer-consultants on accounts with sleazy foreign governments or be prepared to go to jail.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 18, 2019 21:44:44 GMT -5
Well, despite Baghdad Bob Barr's efforts to spin the Mueller report to minimize the criminality, the report itself is quite clear: “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law." In fact, the report identifies 10 areas where Congress should consider taking action over such "corrupt exercise" of presidential powers: “Conduct involving FBI Director Comey and Michael Flynn” “The President’s reaction to the continuing Russia investigation” “The President’s termination of Comey” “The appointment of a Special Counsel and efforts to remove him” “Efforts to curtail the Special Counsel’s investigation” “Efforts to prevent public disclosure of evidence” “Further efforts to have the Attorney General take control of the investigation” “Efforts to have McGahn deny that the President had ordered him to have the Special Counsel removed” “Conduct toward Flynn, [Paul] Manafort, [REDACTED]” “Conduct involving Michael Cohen” link
Trump's bluster, obfuscation, and outright lies cannot obscure the simple fact that he acted illegally to impeded an investigation into a campaign riddled with foreign influence designed to install him in the White House, or if not him then Bernie Sanders...anyone but Hillary Clinton. This story will continue to get worse for Trump, as it should. It's how hard to see how the House Democrats can avoid an impeachment inquiry, much as they have tried to do since returning to the majority. The tick-tock has begun in earnest.
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Post by goldenbucky on Apr 18, 2019 21:52:59 GMT -5
...and this isn't even the end of it.
Not to impeach now looks like to a more radical choice than impeaching.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 18, 2019 22:04:17 GMT -5
...and this isn't even the end of it. Not to impeach now looks like to a more radical choice than impeaching. Just what Daughter #2 said to me earlier this evening after reading her way through the report! Really, Mueller has laid out the case and advised Congress to do the job assigned to it by the Constitution. Dem leaders may be uncomfortable with this, and before seeing the report I would have agreed that they probably should not take this direction. But now that the facts are out there--and who knows what else those redactions would show--it would be a dereliction not to open an impeachment hearing. I suspect it will happen, misgivings or no.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 18, 2019 22:45:25 GMT -5
George Conway, Kellyanne's smarter husband, nails it: 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.”... 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.”...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... 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..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... What the Mueller report disturbingly shows, with crystal clarity, is that today there is a cancer in the presidency: President Donald J. Trump. link
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 18, 2019 23:13:16 GMT -5
I like the way Anderson Cooper identifies specific lies Trump and Sarah Sanders told the public, as revealed in on-the-record testimony:
If--and it's an if--Sarah S ever holds another press briefing expect her to spend a lot of time defending her outright lies and answering questions about why any of the reporters present should believe a single word coming out of her Good Christian mouth.
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Post by badgerjon66 on Apr 20, 2019 7:47:48 GMT -5
So, has Mueller now slipped into the "bad guy" category? He failed, after 2 years of unlimited and highly unethical "investigatory witch-hunt" to either find or create any credible evidence of Trump:Russia "collusion. He was able somehow to completely avoid seeing any of the ample evidence of Clinton:Russia collusion, and he did---contrary to every tradition in American Jurisprudence---smear a target he could not indict, so maybe that will save his reputation in the swamp. Meantime here are signs that we might, maybe, see a real AG actually investigate grossly unethical and criminal actions of the DOJ/FBI/IC coup attempt. I wonder if Brennan, Clapper, Comey et al might be a bit nervous. They all recorded a lot of lies on tape. I am sure the dem media/establishment is in the process of launching another smear campaign---Trump chewed gum in class in the 5th grade?--but right now they are floundering pitifully. Maybe time for another Hillary book, with another list of those who conspired against her.
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Post by goldenbucky on Apr 20, 2019 14:34:49 GMT -5
So, has Mueller now slipped into the "bad guy" category? He failed, after 2 years of unlimited and highly unethical "investigatory witch-hunt" to either find or create any credible evidence of Trump:Russia "collusion. He was able somehow to completely avoid seeing any of the ample evidence of Clinton:Russia collusion, and he did---contrary to every tradition in American Jurisprudence---smear a target he could not indict, so maybe that will save his reputation in the swamp. Meantime here are signs that we might, maybe, see a real AG actually investigate grossly unethical and criminal actions of the DOJ/FBI/IC coup attempt. I wonder if Brennan, Clapper, Comey et al might be a bit nervous. They all recorded a lot of lies on tape. I am sure the dem media/establishment is in the process of launching another smear campaign---Trump chewed gum in class in the 5th grade?--but right now they are floundering pitifully. Maybe time for another Hillary book, with another list of those who conspired against her.
The only thing "floundering pitifully" in this post is its author. Wise up and lay off the propaganda for a bit.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 20, 2019 22:02:54 GMT -5
So, has Mueller now slipped into the "bad guy" category? He failed, after 2 years of unlimited and highly unethical "investigatory witch-hunt" to either find or create any credible evidence of Trump:Russia "collusion. He was able somehow to completely avoid seeing any of the ample evidence of Clinton:Russia collusion, and he did---contrary to every tradition in American Jurisprudence---smear a target he could not indict, so maybe that will save his reputation in the swamp. Meantime here are signs that we might, maybe, see a real AG actually investigate grossly unethical and criminal actions of the DOJ/FBI/IC coup attempt. I wonder if Brennan, Clapper, Comey et al might be a bit nervous. They all recorded a lot of lies on tape. I am sure the dem media/establishment is in the process of launching another smear campaign---Trump chewed gum in class in the 5th grade?--but right now they are floundering pitifully. Maybe time for another Hillary book, with another list of those who conspired against her. Too much time with Hannity again, jon. Actually, Mueller--one of the most ethical people to serve in government ever, as opposed to the current faux-President of the US--just reported on a catalog of illegal and unethical behavior by Trump and those around him. Because Mueller is ethical, he stopped short of charging Trump and his associates with conspiring with the Russians to undermine our elections, mainly because key witnesses either refused to testify (Trump himself, most notably), lied when they did (e.g., Manafort), and/or destroyed records that might have substantiated such charges. Hence the "did not establish" locution rather than "did not find" in his conclusion on that issue. On obstruction he made it clear that, given DOJ policy on indicting a sitting President, he was leaving it to Congress to decide what action to take on the 10 instances of obstruction outlined in the report. He also reported that he has preserved all the evidence for a possible future prosecution once Trump is out of office and no longer shielded by the DOJ policy, a possibility he specifically mentioned in the report. Mueller's a hero, Trump's a villain, and your post is a laughable joke that it took you two days to concoct.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 20, 2019 22:40:52 GMT -5
"Robert Mueller’s report effectively accused Donald Trump of obstructing justice by witness tampering, one of the offences that led Republicans to impeach Bill Clinton 20 years ago. Mueller’s team found Trump repeatedly made efforts to 'encourage witnesses not to cooperate with the investigation' into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, the special counsel’s final report said. Mueller found evidence that Trump acted with the intent of hindering the investigation – a necessary component for prosecuting witness tampering and obstruction of justice generally. In addition, Mueller found that Trump asked senior advisers to tell Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, to 'stay strong', and asked for two senior White House officials who were witnesses in the investigation to create fake records that would help protect him... "Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in December 1998 on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The obstruction charge said he committed witness tampering by trying to 'corruptly influence' the potential testimony of his secretary Betty Currie, and urged the former White House intern Monica Lewinsky to submit a false affidavit in a lawsuit against him. Clinton was acquitted by the Senate. But 14 current Republican senators, some of whom were then serving in the House, voted either to impeach or convict Clinton on the obstruction charge. Some specifically cited his actions toward the witnesses when explaining their votes." linkIf this thing eventually gets to a Senate trial let's check to see if these 14 worthies have changed their views on obstruction/witness tampering since 1998: Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley, Lindsey Graham, Pat Roberts, Mike Crapo, Mike Enzi, James Inhofe, Richard Shelby, Roy Blunt, Richard Burr, Jerry Moran, Rob Portman, Roger Wicker, John Thune. My money's on yes--they have made a 180-degree change in opinion.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 22, 2019 10:15:45 GMT -5
E. J. Dionne gets it just right: "Mueller’s report is devastating. It portrays a lying, lawless president who pressured aides to obstruct the probe and was happy — 'Russia, if you’re listening . . . ' — to win office with the help of a hostile foreign power. It also, by the way, shows the president to be weak and hapless. His aides ignored his orders, and he regularly pandered to a Russian dictator. Mueller’s catalogue of infamy might have led Republicans of another day to say: Enough. But the GOP’s new standard seems to be that a president is great as long as he’s unindicted. "And never mind that the failure to charge Donald Trump stemmed not from his innocence but from a Justice Department legal opinion saying a sitting president can’t be indicted. Mueller explained he had 'fairness' concerns — a truly charming qualm in light of the thuggishness described in the rest of the report — because the no-indictment rule meant there could be no trial. The president would lack an 'adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.'” linkMuch of the media missed the crucial point in the second paragraph because Barr was crafty. On the pretense of letting Congress and the public know the results of the inquiry while the text was being redacted, he issued a statement that seemed to exonerate Trump and his campaign of working with the Russians to secure his election, even though there's plenty of evidence in the report that that actually happened. Then he made the unilateral decision that, lacking a conspiracy, there could not be charges of obstruction over the inquiry itself, even though this is legal nonsense. Barr allowed that story to hang out there for weeks, finally released a text with about 1,000 redactions just after Congress had left town for a long recess, then gave a press briefing that repeated his previous misleading letter. We now know that this was done in collusion--yes, that's the right word--with the White House. All of this was simply PR to divert attention from a report that paints a damning portrait of Trump, his campaign, and his Administration. So, now comes the part where the Democrats have to educate the public on what the report actually says. This will take months, but we've seen this process before, in 1973-74. "This means the House Judiciary, Intelligence, and Oversight and Reform committees should and will begin inquiries immediately. Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) took the first step on Friday by subpoenaing the full, unredacted Mueller report, which the administration immediately resisted. Mueller himself has rightly been asked to appear before both Judiciary and Intelligence. Nothing is gained by labeling these initial hearings and document requests part of an 'impeachment' process. But impeachment should remain on the table. Because Trump and Barr will resist all accountability, preserving the right to take formal steps toward impeachment will strengthen the Democrats’ legal arguments that they have a right to information that Trump would prefer to deep-six. "In an ideal world, the corruption and deceitfulness Mueller catalogued would already have Trump flying off to one of his golf resorts for good. But we do not live in such a world. Defending democratic values and republican government requires fearlessness. It also takes patience." Amen.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 22, 2019 21:29:06 GMT -5
"Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, said Sunday there is 'nothing wrong' with a campaign accepting information from Russians, defending the Trump team’s efforts to obtain damaging material about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 race. 'There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians,' Giuliani said in an interview on CNN’s 'State of the Union.'“ linkNothing wrong? Where to start! "With his comments, Giuliani was 'offering a green light' for campaigns to accept in-kind contributions from foreign governments, said Richard Hasen, election law expert at the University of California at Irvine...In terms of good campaign practice, as soon as a campaign hears that a foreign government or a foreign entity wants to give help to the campaign, the appropriate thing to do is to go straight to the FBI and to decline that offer,' Hasen said." You'd think any loyal American would do just that. But not Rudy: "In Sunday’s interview, Giuliani told host Jake Tapper that 'any candidate in the whole world' would accept negative information on an opponent. Pressed by Tapper on whether that includes information 'from a hostile foreign source,' Giuliani replied, 'Who says it’s even illegal?'" You know who? Federal election law, that's who: "Campaigns are not allowed to solicit or accept foreign contributions, defined as 'anything of value' under campaign finance laws and regulations." What a traitorous jerk. I am so embarrassed to share my Italian heritage with this schifozz’ disgraziat’, this pezzo di strunz' (pardon the Italian-American).
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Post by Nadge on Apr 24, 2019 16:59:10 GMT -5
"Rudolph W. Giuliani, President Trump’s personal attorney, said Sunday there is 'nothing wrong' with a campaign accepting information from Russians, defending the Trump team’s efforts to obtain damaging material about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton during the 2016 race. 'There’s nothing wrong with taking information from Russians,' Giuliani said in an interview on CNN’s 'State of the Union.'“ linkNothing wrong? Where to start! "With his comments, Giuliani was 'offering a green light' for campaigns to accept in-kind contributions from foreign governments, said Richard Hasen, election law expert at the University of California at Irvine...In terms of good campaign practice, as soon as a campaign hears that a foreign government or a foreign entity wants to give help to the campaign, the appropriate thing to do is to go straight to the FBI and to decline that offer,' Hasen said." You'd think any loyal American would do just that. But not Rudy: "In Sunday’s interview, Giuliani told host Jake Tapper that 'any candidate in the whole world' would accept negative information on an opponent. Pressed by Tapper on whether that includes information 'from a hostile foreign source,' Giuliani replied, 'Who says it’s even illegal?'" You know who? Federal election law, that's who: "Campaigns are not allowed to solicit or accept foreign contributions, defined as 'anything of value' under campaign finance laws and regulations." What a traitorous jerk. I am so embarrassed to share my Italian heritage with this schifozz’ disgraziat’, this pezzo di strunz' (pardon the Italian-American). Yet Bill Clinton took cash directly from the Chinese. Hillary and Bill together have gotten billions in cash from a large number of countries, many of them unfriendly. Can't believe they have gotten away with this so far. Need to be prosecuted. Trump didn't do anything like that. Nothing.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 24, 2019 17:56:53 GMT -5
Yet Bill Clinton took cash directly from the Chinese. Hillary and Bill together have gotten billions in cash from a large number of countries, many of them unfriendly. Can't believe they have gotten away with this so far. Need to be prosecuted. Trump didn't do anything like that. Nothing. Complete BS. You get your news from untrustworthy sources, such as Fox and the NY Post, I assume, cuz there's not an iota of evidence to support any one of those statements. On the other hand, we know that: (1) the Russians interfered in our elections; (2) they did so explicitly to help Trump (and Sanders), while hurting Clinton; (3) Trump campaign officials met with Russian government agents in bumbling attempts to conspire with this intereference; (4) Trump tried to cover up these attempts in at least 10 identifiable actions; and (5) all of the above broke US laws.
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 27, 2019 13:12:27 GMT -5
"How Rosenstein tried to mollify Trump, protect Mueller and save his job" link
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Post by Old Badger on Apr 30, 2019 22:59:01 GMT -5
Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III wrote a letter in late March complaining to Attorney General William P. Barr that a four-page memo to Congress describing the principal conclusions of the investigation into President Trump “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of Mueller’s work, according to a copy of the letter reviewed Tuesday by The Washington Post...'The summary letter the Department sent to Congress and released to the public late in the afternoon of March 24 did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office’s work and conclusions,' Mueller wrote. 'There is now public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation. This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full public confidence in the outcome of the investigations.' ” linkBarr misled the public, Mueller saw it, and was ticked off. Now why would Barr do that? Well, why the hell do you think Trump put Barr in that job in the first place? So, now Mueller will be called to Capitol Hill to testify, and of course one of the major storylines will be about Barr's unconscionable lying. Barr should resign, but this is the Trump Administration, so lying is A-OK as long as it's in the service of the Corrupter-in-Chief. Whatever reputation Barr had it's now been dropped into the pigsty where all Trumpist reputations go for burial.
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Post by Old Badger on May 1, 2019 10:06:52 GMT -5
Here's the letter, released today, just in time for Barr's Senate testimony: Muller Letter of March 27. Key point: "Mueller wrote that he had stated in a meeting on March 5 and reiterated again on March 24 that 'the introductions and executive summaries of our two-volume report accurately summarize this Office’s work and conclusions.' Mueller wrote that release of those would ' alleviate the misunderstandings that have arisen and would answer congressional and public questions about the nature and outcome of our investigation.'” Of course they would. That's exactly why Barr held back the report for a full month. The whole point was to create misunderstandings, not alleviate them. Trump, Barr, and the other sycophants around this "president" understand that once you get the Big Lie out and repeat it incessantly, with help from State (Fox) News and Sinclair Radio the truth has little chance of making a dent in public perceptions. Every PR person learned this lesson from Goebbels, few have been willing to go this far, but Trump and Barr have a long history of doing just that (remember: this is not Barr's first rodeo as A-G; he did the same thing with Iran-Contra). Speaking of sycophants, Lindsey Graham is in full blowjob mode this morning, kneeling in front of the guy he used to call a "race-baiting xenophobic bigot." Now he says, “After all this time and all this money, Mr. Mueller has concluded there was no collusion. For me, it is over.” It's hard to hear him with all four inches of The Donald's you-know-what almost reaching his throat, but it might be a good idea for someone to remind him that Mueller never looked at "collusion" (it's not a legal term), but did find evidence that there were attempts at both conspiracy and obstruction of justice. They should put Graham's face on a $3 bill as a memorial, but first they'll have to wash out his mouth.
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Post by Old Badger on May 1, 2019 13:02:33 GMT -5
Not all Republicans are Trump toadies, like Barr and Graham; take this one:
William Barr and his horrible hearing, by Jennifer Rubin, WP op-ed
So far, Attorney General William P. Barr’s testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee has done himself and the administration no favors. To the contrary, former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal observes, “Barr has been evasive and misleading from the first paragraph. It’s conduct totally unbecoming of an attorney general. He’s not even very good at misleading.” Fordham law professor Jed Shugerman was more blunt. "This is nuts . . . just bonkers, " he told me mid-morning.
Among Barr’s worst moments: Claiming there was a difference between seeking to remove special counsel Robert S. Mueller III for “conflicts” (which never existed), or firing him; claiming, despite the language of Mueller’s letter, that he did not think Mueller found Barr’s four-page letter from March 24 misleading; claiming that he did not release Mueller’s summaries because the entire report had to be released (yet Barr released his own four-page letter, which he refused to characterize as a “summary”); and claiming that Mueller refused to reach a prosecutorial decision (despite the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) guidelines prohibiting prosecution of a sitting president) because of insufficient evidence.
Again and again, the attorney general resorted to word games. He didn’t lie, he now argues, when he told committee members that he was unaware of the Mueller team’s objections because he was referring to the team, not to Mueller. (Isn’t Mueller part of his own team?) On the difference between removing Mueller for phony conflicts and firing him, Shugerman says, “I cannot understand his explanation on Trump manufacturing a conflict of interest as distinguishable from firing. Both are impeding an investigation.”
“Barr’s testimony has been disgraceful,” constitutional scholar Laurence H. Tribe tells me. “He’s betraying his oath as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, acting as though he were Donald Trump’s personal defense attorney.” Tribe continues, “He has been purposely misleading, both on ‘collusion’ and on whether Mueller would’ve recommended indicting President Trump if only he had thought the evidence warranted doing so — something Barr knows full well [Justice Department] policy flatly prohibited.” Tribe adds, “Even when Barr isn’t dissembling, he’s manifestly slippery and evasive. Barr’s answers manifest the kind of sophistry that gives lawyers and the legal profession a bad name. It’s quite clear that Barr would be shredded by the kind of cross-examination by staff that he has told the House Judiciary Committee he wants to avoid.”
The attorney general seems determined to incinerate his professional reputation. Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti says, “Barr is deliberately misleading the U.S. Senate by making statements that are highly deceptive but technically accurate. This underscores the importance of asking carefully worded questions, and explains why Barr is reluctant to submit to questioning by a lawyer for House Judiciary.”
What is clear that the Justice Department’s delaying tactics on allowing Mueller to testify must end. If need be, Mueller must be subpoenaed. “If there was any chance DOJ could prevent Mueller from testifying it’s gone now,” says former prosecutor Joyce White Vance. “Congress is entitled to hear from Mueller directly to see if he agrees with Barr’s characterization of his concerns and his comments.”
If Democrats before had suspected Barr was being intentionally deceptive, acting more like a slick lawyer defending a client than an attorney general presenting the findings of a prosecutor appointed by his own department, this performance will convince them he is intentionally fencing with Congress to minimize the president’s wrongdoing. One cannot read the 10 categories of conduct and Mueller’s recitation of the OLC letter without concluding that the special counsel was leaving the matter to Congress. Barr, in denying the plain meaning of Mueller’s report and deciding a prosecutorial decision had to be made, ignores history (e.g., special prosecutor Leon Jaworski made a referral to Congress during the Watergate scandal) and twists Mueller’s words (in particular, intimating that Mueller wasn’t affected by the OLC letter).
We’ll see how the rest of his day goes and whether he shows up before the House Judiciary Committee. An honorable person would resign, but having proved himself a political hack, Barr surely will not and, therefore, may face impeachment hearings. He’s become Trump’s lawyer (a clumsy one at that) and has ceased to abide by his oath to enforcement the laws (including his own department’s OLC guidelines). He can no longer function credibly as attorney general.
[Barr is not an honorable person; never has been, never will be. He's just a political hack with a law degree.]
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Post by Old Badger on May 1, 2019 13:20:47 GMT -5
Amy Klobuchar puts Barr on the spot, and he sweats:
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Post by Old Badger on May 1, 2019 15:43:36 GMT -5
Hirono has no reason to hold back, so she doesn't. She summarizes the sleazy behavior of Barr to a T:
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Post by Old Badger on May 1, 2019 16:53:37 GMT -5
This is how an actual prosecutor interrogates a witness: Short version: Harris: Has the White House suggested you investigate anyone? Harris: ask? Harris: infer? Harris: hint? Harris: instruct? Harris: compel? Harris: order? Harris: command? Barr: Ummmm... Harris: English, do you understand english? Graham: Time's up One tweeter: "Many voters at Harris events say they first became interested in Harris after the Kavanaugh hearings. Some say her ferocity/composure on that stage make them think she can handle Trump. Similar performance with Barr just now." No wonder Barr came out of that Senate hearing and decided not to go before the House tomorrow, where he'd have to face questions by Committee Counsel, not just Members. That's not the end of it: "Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are discussing holding Attorney General William P. Barr in contempt of Congress, according to several lawmakers and officials familiar with the plan. During a pair of closed-door meetings Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, the committee decided that it would probably make a push for a Barr contempt citation if he skips a scheduled Thursday hearing or ignores their subpoena for the full report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III." link
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Post by Old Badger on May 1, 2019 17:10:02 GMT -5
Here's a misleading point that Barr keeps making, but is just wrong: He says that Trump couldn't be shown to have committed obstruction of justice because the DOJ could not charge him with an underlying crime. This is false. Numerous people have been charged and found guilty of crimes through the Mueller investigation. Trying to cover up their crimes--think of Flynn or Manafort--still would be obstruction. In fact, Nixon was impeached on an obstruction charge in the Watergate case, even though he certainly hadn't broken into the DNC offices, and apparently knew nothing about it until after the fact. This is just spin by Barr. Someone should call him on it.
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Post by Old Badger on May 2, 2019 9:54:53 GMT -5
Barr failed to show up for a scheduled House hearing today, and the DOJ is refusing to release the full Mueller report to Congress. Both are violations of a House subpoena. I suspect we're looking at a contempt citation next week on one or both counts. The House actually can fine Barr for every day he fails to comply, and in extremis can order the Sergeant at Arms to arrest him; in fact, at one time the House had its own jail to hold those found in contempt, just like a courthouse. Both fines and arrest have been sanctioned decades ago by the SCOTUS, though with Roberts & Co. who knows whether "settled" law ever is settled, "original intent" being subject to re-interpretation whenever party interest require. In any case, the past few weeks, and especially the past two days, have shown beyond all doubt that as terrible an A-G Jeff Sessions was he was a moral giant next to Barr.
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Post by Old Badger on May 2, 2019 11:13:55 GMT -5
“He lied to Congress. The attorney general of the United States of America was not telling the truth to the Congress of the United States. That’s a crime.” -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi
That's the pithy summary of Barr's performance re: the Mueller report. Of course, in lying to Congress he also was lying to the American people. But that's not a crime, as Donald Trump and the rest of the WH Mafiosi remind us every day. So, since Barr can't be sanctioned for lying to all of us, he should be for lying to our Representatives in Congress assembled. It's the least we can do to preserve what little dignity is left to our country and its governing institutions.
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Post by Old Badger on May 2, 2019 16:41:33 GMT -5
Speaks for itself:
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Post by Old Badger on May 6, 2019 15:30:31 GMT -5
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Post by Old Badger on May 6, 2019 15:58:49 GMT -5
"More than 370 former federal prosecutors who worked in Republican and Democratic administrations have signed on to a statement asserting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings would have produced obstruction charges against President Trump — if not for the office he held. The statement — signed by myriad former career government employees as well as high-profile political appointees — offers a rebuttal to Attorney General William P. Barr’s determination that the evidence Mueller uncovered was “not sufficient” to establish that Trump committed a crime." linkDid anyone really believe Barr? He could barely contain the smirking look that reeks, "I'm lying, you know I'm lying, and I know you know I'm lying. What're you gonna do about it?" Here's the crux of the letter, with a link to the full text: We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country. Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice. The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include: · The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort; · The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct; and · The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign... As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report. medium.com/@dojalumni/statement-by-former-federal-prosecutors-8ab7691c2aa1
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Post by Humboldt on May 6, 2019 17:20:27 GMT -5
They all miss the point in that all thiese accusations were merely political attacks, mostly by the far left media, and our great president was merely fighting back vs these political attacks. Barr said just that in his summary and initial interview and was spot on
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