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Mueller investigation

Cheerful Charlie said:
Just listening to Rachel Maddow. Mueller had reservations about pronouncing anything officially on Trump because he claimed technically he cannot indict a sitting president. Since making a claim about Trump's guilt or innocence meant Trump could not have a chance to legally defend himself officially, Mueller felt obligated not to put Trump in that position.

But Barr has officially stated that Mueller had a legal obligation to state whether or not Trump was seen as guilty of anything, and could have been indicted if he had not been president. Oops. Now that Barr has officially made that determination, Mueller is obligated to openly report his findings. Mueller will be asked by the House Democrats to appear and state just that, according to the official AG finding he is legally obligated to make a determination of guilt or innocence.

It may well be that because Mueller had made the decision he did, Barr may have used that as an excuse to officially end the Mueller investigation. But Barr's determination may cause that investigation to be declared open and Mueller's findings presented, Trump being officially indictable or not. if Trump is indictable, he could be impeached because of those findings.

Stay tuned. This may be about to get very exciting. Barr may have screwed Trump good and hard accidentally.
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Yeah, all that. And Amy Klobuchar was brilliant, getting Barr to step on his tongue - actually instructing Congress to talk directly to Mueller. Oooops!
I would be SO SAD if Barr ended up like John Mitchell - in jail. (not!)
 
So according to the report, the RNC was hacked by the Russians too. Why is no one talking about this?
 
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Trump, Putin discussed Mueller report and agreed no collusion, White House says

Epic troll.
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The tragicomedy rolls on... an apt analogy from this morning's talking heads; "Congress is like an English Bobby with no gun. They can yell "stop!", and if the subject doesn't stop, all they can do is yell "stop!" again.

That's why they need to hold nonstop hearings from now until November 2020. It's the only way the public is going to get any inkling of the extent to which Cheato has perverted our government.
 
Koyaanisqatsi said:
blastula said:
No, it's actually the law then once decided in court.
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Sigh.
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Oh joy, a sigh from Koy, which can only mean a wall of irrelevant text is to follow.


No, it's not. Only Congress can make a law. What you mean is that it becomes a precedent, which is not the same thing.


Here's the Supreme Court's own explanation (emphasis mine):



Iow, they don't make laws; they determine whether or not a law (or executive action) has violated the Constitution and if so they invalidate it, but that is not the same thing as establishing something.

There is no decided law right now that says whether or not a president can pardon themself.
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Again, not a law, unless you're referring to the Constitution, which is the highest law and it does, in fact, prevent it for the reasons already given. You need to understand what "plenary" power is. In this case, there are other sections of the Constitution--such as the impeachment clause--that limit the seemingly unlimited plenary power of the pardon clause.

Iow, you can't just point to the pardon clause and say, "See? It's unlimited." That's false, because there are other clauses that limit it.

If Trump issues a pardon for himself tomorrow, what would stop him or affirm him? The court.
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Well, first would be the Office of the Pardon Attorney, who would investigate and then say, "No. You can't do that." Why? Because:

[H]e shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
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A pardon necessarily requires the recipient to tacitly admit guilt of a federal crime. Thus, if he issued himself a pardon, he'd likewise be confessing to a federal crime, which axiomatically would be a case of impeachment. He would effectively be convicting himself and thus impeaching himself at the same time.

The piece that neither of you read, however, continues:
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I wasted my time and read it and it's irrelevant to the fact that the issue has not been decided.
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It has. What you mean is, it hasn't been tested, though as that piece you "wasted" your time on pointed out, the test was in fact already conducted when Nixon did not simply pardon himself. If he could have, he would have.

That's the fun part about our jurisprudence. It can operate in the negative as easily as it can in the positive.

Regardless, I hope Trump actively tests it soon as it would be the end of his Presidency no matter what.
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Zzzzz. There was no coherent response to anything i said, especially the part about the Pardon Attorney, whose approval is not a legal requirement for issuing a pardon, and Trump has bypassed it for several pardons already.

Actual legal experts disagree on the issue of self-pardon - get a clue from that alone.
 
blastula said:
Oh joy, a sigh from Koy, which can only mean a wall of irrelevant text is to follow.


No, it's not. Only Congress can make a law. What you mean is that it becomes a precedent, which is not the same thing.


Here's the Supreme Court's own explanation (emphasis mine):



Iow, they don't make laws; they determine whether or not a law (or executive action) has violated the Constitution and if so they invalidate it, but that is not the same thing as establishing something.

There is no decided law right now that says whether or not a president can pardon themself.
Click to expand...

Again, not a law, unless you're referring to the Constitution, which is the highest law and it does, in fact, prevent it for the reasons already given. You need to understand what "plenary" power is. In this case, there are other sections of the Constitution--such as the impeachment clause--that limit the seemingly unlimited plenary power of the pardon clause.

Iow, you can't just point to the pardon clause and say, "See? It's unlimited." That's false, because there are other clauses that limit it.

If Trump issues a pardon for himself tomorrow, what would stop him or affirm him? The court.
Click to expand...

Well, first would be the Office of the Pardon Attorney, who would investigate and then say, "No. You can't do that." Why? Because:

[H]e shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
Click to expand...

A pardon necessarily requires the recipient to tacitly admit guilt of a federal crime. Thus, if he issued himself a pardon, he'd likewise be confessing to a federal crime, which axiomatically would be a case of impeachment. He would effectively be convicting himself and thus impeaching himself at the same time.

The piece that neither of you read, however, continues:
Click to expand...

I wasted my time and read it and it's irrelevant to the fact that the issue has not been decided.
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It has. What you mean is, it hasn't been tested, though as that piece you "wasted" your time on pointed out, the test was in fact already conducted when Nixon did not simply pardon himself. If he could have, he would have.

That's the fun part about our jurisprudence. It can operate in the negative as easily as it can in the positive.

Regardless, I hope Trump actively tests it soon as it would be the end of his Presidency no matter what.
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Zzzzz. There was no coherent response to anything i said, especially the part about the Pardon Attorney, whose approval is not a legal requirement for issuing a pardon, and Trump has bypassed it for several pardons already.

Actual legal experts disagree on the issue of self-pardon - get a clue from that alone.
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Ford pardoned Nixon... He did not need to test his ability to self-pardon, which was already questionable at that point since the courts drew an opinion prior to that regarding "no one is above the law".
 
ZiprHead said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Trump, Putin discussed Mueller report and agreed no collusion, White House says

Epic troll.
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You seem to like that.

Don't you find it strange that Trump will talk with Putin about Mueller but will not talk with Mueller about Putin?
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I expect a troll to troll, so his behavior isn't strange to me.

He isn't a capable administrator, but he is very capable at tweaking the nose of the press and the left. Since I think we won't find any solutions in politics, I look for amusement instead.
 
Jason Harvestdancer said:
ZiprHead said:
Jason Harvestdancer said:
Trump, Putin discussed Mueller report and agreed no collusion, White House says

Epic troll.
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You seem to like that.

Don't you find it strange that Trump will talk with Putin about Mueller but will not talk with Mueller about Putin?
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I expect a troll to troll, so his behavior isn't strange to me.

He isn't a capable administrator, but he is very capable at tweaking the nose of the press and the left. Since I think we won't find any solutions in politics, I look for amusement instead.
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Wow, you're so deep. Maybe we should just start calling you Puddles.
 
Complete vindication apparently requires locking up the Report and keeping Mueller from testifying. On to the courts we go.

article said:
President Donald Trump on Wednesday asserted executive privilege concerning the full, unredacted report from special counsel Robert Mueller just as Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler, were voting to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for not turning over the unredacted report and underlying materials in response to a committee subpoena.
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Okay, set bullshit meter to low... very low... and continue

"Faced with Chairman Nadler’s blatant abuse of power, and at the Attorney General’s request, the President has no other option than to make a protective assertion of executive privilege," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
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Blatant abuse of power? Such as that mentioned by Mueller in the report and saying Congress is the venue to deal with it?! If no push back by the Republicans, the entire party needs to be impeached.
 
Not to spoil everybody's fun, but none of this matters at all because Pelosi has once again reiterated that impeachment is off the table. In fact, she said as much before the report was even made available. So what was all of this for?
 
PyramidHead said:
Not to spoil everybody's fun, but none of this matters at all because Pelosi has once again reiterated that impeachment is off the table. In fact, she said as much before the report was even made available. So what was all of this for?
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Pelosi said impeachment was off unless something big was found... and currently they are looking for something big.

- - - Updated - - -

Keith&Co. said:
PyramidHead said:
So what was all of this for?
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Yeah, yeah, 1 conviction, six guilty pleas, 17 indictments, not counting all the spin-off investigations from that investigation, totally purposeless. Wheels spinning and all that.
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He means, if they won't impeach, why investigate?
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Pelosi said impeachment was off unless something big was found... and currently they are looking for something big.

- - - Updated - - -

Keith&Co. said:
Yeah, yeah, 1 conviction, six guilty pleas, 17 indictments, not counting all the spin-off investigations from that investigation, totally purposeless. Wheels spinning and all that.
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He means, if they won't impeach, why investigate?
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I'm not saying the investigation shouldn't have happened, and the convictions and pleas were a positive outcome. My point in raising the question was: it seems like many Democratic lawmakers and pundits are just now coming around to the idea that Trump should be beaten electorally in 2020 rather than removed from office via impeachment for collusion with Russia. If nothing else, the party is going to need to come up with a better strategy in a short timeframe, and right now the current strategy seems to be "throw all our weight behind someone objectively worse than the last losing candidate we nominated".
 
Listening to Thom Hartman who, during breaks from the regular program, is reading for viewers the Mueller Report.

He got to this part and it kind of struck me. From section one, page eleven:

"the authority to investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the Special Counsel's investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses."

This, it seems to me, overrides the OLC memo that says the president cannot be indicted. If not override, at the least it's at odds with the memo. Being that this was stated by someone who is second-in-command over the DOJ (Sessions recused) and has authority over the OLC, doesn't this authorise Mueller to bring indictments?
 
ZiprHead said:
Listening to Thom Hartman who, during breaks from the regular program, is reading for viewers the Mueller Report.

He got to this part and it kind of struck me. From section one, page eleven:

"the authority to investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the Special Counsel's investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses."

This, it seems to me, overrides the OLC memo that says the president cannot be indicted. If not override, at the least it's at odds with the memo. Being that this was stated by someone who is second-in-command over the DOJ (Sessions recused) and has authority over the OLC, doesn't this authorise Mueller to bring indictments?
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Whether Mueller can or can't would have to go to SCOTUS. The Trump Admin wouldn't just sit by. It would take forever.

Which is why Mueller poked Congress and said, they are clearly mandated with handling this sort of situation.
 
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