Mueller investigation

[ZiprHead]

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?

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.

Why would it have to go to SCOTUS? It's an internal policy, not a law or regulation.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

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?

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.

Why would it have to go to SCOTUS? It's an internal policy, not a law or regulation.

Because the Attorney General or Trump will argue that the President can not be indicted. And sadly because Judge Wapner is dead, there is only one other venue to answer whether a sitting President can be.

 

[Arctish]

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?

The Atlantic just published a conversation between a reporter and Representative Jamie Raskin, a former constitutional-law professor who sits on the House Judiciary Committee. According to Raskin, House Democrats could arrest the attorney general after they find him in contempt for refusing to release the unredacted Mueller report. There's an very interesting part of the conversation that strongly hints at some high-stakes political maneuvering wrt impeaching the President:

Berman: Do you expect that the Judiciary Committee will follow this same process for each of the potential refusals to comply? Barr also refused to appear before the committee. Do you expect a second contempt process to begin if he continues to refuse to testify, and then would that same process also apply to McGahn and anybody else who refused to testify?

Raskin: Well, let’s broaden the question. The president essentially is trying to pull a curtain over the executive branch of government, and to systematically thwart and defy the will of Congress. The word on the street is that they are begging for an impeachment, and they think this is the proper way to get it. And I just want to say about that: If we are going to impeach the president, we are going to do it on our own schedule and at our own pace. We are not going to be pulled into it just by a series of provocations from the president.

In our last two Judiciary meetings, I counted Republicans invoking impeachment a dozen times. If they are so eager for impeachment and they think the time is right, they should go ahead and introduce impeachment articles on their own. Otherwise, they’re going to have to trust our strategic and constitutional judgments.

I think Pelosi is wise to resist pressure to go off half-cocked. It's better to keep impeachment off the table unless and until Congress sees the full report and knows exactly which charges will stick and which ones can't be adequately supported.

 

[Gun Nut]

Why would it have to go to SCOTUS? It's an internal policy, not a law or regulation.

Because the Attorney General or Trump will argue that the President can not be indicted. And sadly because Judge Wapner is dead, there is only one other venue to answer whether a sitting President can be.

Trump will argue, sure... so what? It's not his call. The AG can argue... and that happens to be his call. The AG gets to decide who is indicted and who is not for any or no reason. The opinion made by the office of legal counsel is just an opinion, and binds no one... it is just the defensibly that the AG uses to not indict. He can just as easily indict and simply say the opinion is outdated / does not apply in this case / simply doesn't feel like applying it... That's the beauty of an "opinion"... you can do whatever you want with it.

 

[ZiprHead]

Why would it have to go to SCOTUS? It's an internal policy, not a law or regulation.

Because the Attorney General or Trump will argue that the President can not be indicted. And sadly because Judge Wapner is dead, there is only one other venue to answer whether a sitting President can be.

A question for all: If you were going to fight an indictment of Bonespurs in the SCOTUS, how would you go about doing it? What part of the constitution would you cite to make your case?

 

[Gun Nut]

Why would it have to go to SCOTUS? It's an internal policy, not a law or regulation.

Because the Attorney General or Trump will argue that the President can not be indicted. And sadly because Judge Wapner is dead, there is only one other venue to answer whether a sitting President can be.

A question for all: If you were going to fight an indictment of Bonespurs in the SCOTUS, how would you go about doing it? What part of the constitution would you cite to make your case?

Amendment XXVIII, of course!

 

[Elixir]

Why would it have to go to SCOTUS? It's an internal policy, not a law or regulation.

Because the Attorney General or Trump will argue that the President can not be indicted. And sadly because Judge Wapner is dead, there is only one other venue to answer whether a sitting President can be.

A question for all: If you were going to fight an indictment of Bonespurs in the SCOTUS, how would you go about doing it? What part of the constitution would you cite to make your case?

I'd just point to Section I of the Russian Constitution.
It PROVES that power "residing in the people" means having a dictator who controls everything. And that's the system we live under. Everybody go home.
Case Closed /turtle.

 

[ZiprHead]

An interesting conversation with Malcolm Nance about the Mueller report.

 

[ZiprHead]

The first Republican that breaks rank.

Michigan GOP Rep. Justin Amash said Saturday he had concluded President Donald Trump committed "impeachable conduct" and accused Attorney General William Barr of intentionally misleading the public.

Amash's comments recommending Congress pursue obstruction of justice charges against Trump were the first instance of a sitting Republican in Congress calling for Trump's impeachment.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

The first Republican that breaks rank.

Michigan GOP Rep. Justin Amash said Saturday he had concluded President Donald Trump committed "impeachable conduct" and accused Attorney General William Barr of intentionally misleading the public.

Amash's comments recommending Congress pursue obstruction of justice charges against Trump were the first instance of a sitting Republican in Congress calling for Trump's impeachment.

Holy shit. Michigan, no less.

 

[ZiprHead]

Mueller Speaks

I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/mueller-statement-russia-investigation-may-29-2019/index.html

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I will close by reiterating the central allegation of our indictments, that there were multiple, systematic efforts to interfere in our election. And that allegation deserves the attention of every American.

https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/mueller-statement-russia-investigation-may-29-2019/index.html

More to the point:

"If we had confidence the President did not commit a crime, we would have said so."
[h=2][/h]

 

[Keith&Co.]

And Trump tweeted in response:

Nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you.

He said he wasn't allowed to indict, not that there wasn't enough evidence to do so.

The case is not closed. The case was punted to Congress because he could not close it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Nothing changes from the Mueller Report. There was insufficient evidence and therefore, in our Country, a person is innocent. The case is closed! Thank you.

Yup, that's good obfuscation there.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Meanwhile, from the White House:

A senior White House official downplayed Mueller’s comments today, saying that his statement did little to add new information to what was already known about the probe.

“It was news one month ago,” the official said.

I agree... Mueller didn't add anything new. What he did was reiterate things like, the Report doesn't clear Trump of crimes and that Congress should deal with Trump's actions.

On the issue of whether the next step is impeachment, Trump aides don’t believe that Mueller did more than repeat what was in the report, the official said.

“Nothingburger,” is how the official described it.

They are seriously sticking with the "Nothingburger"?

 

[southernhybrid]

Trump currently has a 90% approval rating from Republicans! That's why they are playing down the Mueller report. I doubt many of them have even read it.

 

[J842P]

Yeah guys, sorry, but Trump wins this one. It was bad strategy to put so much hope into the Mueller investigation to begin with. But Trump is going to be able to spin this exactly as he needs to.

 

[Ford]

It was bad strategy to put so much hope into the Mueller investigation to begin with.

Well for starters, the Mueller investigation was not started by the Democrats. From the top down, it was a GOP operation. Mueller - a lifelong Republican - was assigned the task by the deputy AG. Also a lifelong Republican appointed by the administration and confirmed by the GOP Senate.

From the get-go, this was an investigation of the administration by the Republicans. The notion that it was somehow a liberal conspiracy to take down Trump is absurd.

 

[J842P]

It was bad strategy to put so much hope into the Mueller investigation to begin with.

Well for starters, the Mueller investigation was not started by the Democrats. From the top down, it was a GOP operation. Mueller - a lifelong Republican - was assigned the task by the deputy AG. Also a lifelong Republican appointed by the administration and confirmed by the GOP Senate.

From the get-go, this was an investigation of the administration by the Republicans. The notion that it was somehow a liberal conspiracy to take down Trump is absurd.

Right, well, I haven't claimed it is.

 

[Shadowy Man]

It was bad strategy to put so much hope into the Mueller investigation to begin with.

Well for starters, the Mueller investigation was not started by the Democrats. From the top down, it was a GOP operation. Mueller - a lifelong Republican - was assigned the task by the deputy AG. Also a lifelong Republican appointed by the administration and confirmed by the GOP Senate.

From the get-go, this was an investigation of the administration by the Republicans. The notion that it was somehow a liberal conspiracy to take down Trump is absurd.

Like truth matters anymore...