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Mueller investigation

Underseer said:
Toni said:
Underseer said:
None of those options include the assumption of a pardon?

Is that because you think a pardon is unlikely to happen?
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Absolutely there will be a pardon or an attempt at a pardon.

Question is: if Manafort turns and gives them real dirt on Trump or closer Trump associates, will Trump pardon him before he can spill all? How does that work, if you have dirt on the guy who pardons you? Is the pardon valid?
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Well, that's kind of the pickle Trump is in. If he pardons Manafort, then Manafort can no longer plead the Fifth, but I expect Trump doesn't understand that.
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He can still make with contempt of court. Just another pardon to deal with that.
 
Pardoning others to protect himself is probably not legal. That he has a power to do something doesn't mean it's legal anytime he uses the power. A president or any government official can't use their powers for corrupt purposes.
 
blastula said:
Pardoning others to protect himself is probably not legal. That he has a power to do something doesn't mean it's legal anytime he uses the power. A president or any government official can't use their powers for corrupt purposes.
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It only matters if there's an actual check on that power. Who would prevent it? Congress, SCOTUS? I think trump may have actually accomplished one thing....he broke the system.
 
Worldtraveller said:
blastula said:
Pardoning others to protect himself is probably not legal. That he has a power to do something doesn't mean it's legal anytime he uses the power. A president or any government official can't use their powers for corrupt purposes.
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It only matters if there's an actual check on that power. Who would prevent it? Congress, SCOTUS? I think trump may have actually accomplished one thing....he broke the system.
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As I understand (so take with a grain of salt) there is already statutory prohibition against using pardon power to obstruct justice. Trump's "I'm not obstructing justice, I'm just trying to wreck this investigation in self defense!" riff will only go so far. At some point - hopefully right after Mueller comes out with a report - nobody in DC will ever have endorsed, defended or liked the policies of Donald Dumpf.
 
Jimmy Higgins said:
Loren Pechtel said:
whollygoats said:
So...I'm hearing that no defense was mounted.

'Zat true?

If so, can somebody parse that meaning? Flip or pardon?
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If you go to trial and mount no defense there are two reasonable scenarios:

1) You believe the prosecution's case is weak enough the jury won't convict. (Perhaps he's hoping for a trumpet on the jury.)

2) You had a defense planned but the judge scuttled it for some reason.
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4) You are so unbelievably guilty that it all hinges on a scattered obfuscated closing argument. Or they are waiting for the State trial because they know a pardon is coming.
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If you know you're going to be convicted anyway you're almost certainly better off taking a plea than going to trial.
 
Loren Pechtel said:
Jimmy Higgins said:
4) You are so unbelievably guilty that it all hinges on a scattered obfuscated closing argument. Or they are waiting for the State trial because they know a pardon is coming.
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If you know you're going to be convicted anyway you're almost certainly better off taking a plea than going to trial.
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Unless you've got the goods on someone who can pardon you... or you think so.
 
blastula said:
Pardoning others to protect himself is probably not legal. That he has a power to do something doesn't mean it's legal anytime he uses the power. A president or any government official can't use their powers for corrupt purposes.
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It's legal. Bush I did it.
 
Trump can't be prosecuted for obstruction of justice while in office. He would have to be impeached and convicted by Congress, which would likely fail even with Democratic control of both houses of Congress. Two thirds of the Senate would be needed for removal from office, and the Dems will be lucky to take control at all. They are considered likely to retake the House, but impeaching Trump there won't help with the Senate. After Trump is out of office in 2020, he could be tried in a legal process for crimes committed while in office, although the Justice Department might decline to bring charges in order to spare the country a lot of drama and embarrassment. (I hope not, but whoever wins control of the White House probably won't want the distraction. Attention and focus will be needed to repair all of the damage done during Trump's toxic tenure.)

Also, the question of Manafort losing his 5th Amendment privilege is far from clear, since anything he says under oath could be used to incriminate him on state charges. It is likely that, if there is even the slightest possibility of Manafort weaseling out of giving testimony under oath, he'll go for it.
 
Copernicus said:
Trump can't be prosecuted for obstruction of justice while in office. He would have to be impeached and convicted by Congress, which would likely fail even with Democratic control of both houses of Congress. Two thirds of the Senate would be needed for removal from office, and the Dems will be lucky to take control at all.
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Envision this though - Dems take control of the House and Senate, but the house Democrats don't start impeachment proceedings. They reinstate the House Intelligence committee's investigation into Russiagate. Then Mueller issues a report showing in black and white, how Trump's minions conspired with Russian Intelligence to sway the 2016 elections, and House intelligence issues a report that concurs. This makes it nearly impossible for even Faux Nooz to deny it. THEN the house begins impeachment proceedings. Now we are coming up on the 2020 elections and as in 1973, the republicans start peeling away to save their own skins.

I think impeachment would look likely enough to Cheato that he'd step down while he still has Pence in place to pardon him.
 
Copernicus said:
Trump can't be prosecuted for obstruction of justice while in office. He would have to be impeached and convicted by Congress, which would likely fail even with Democratic control of both houses of Congress. Two thirds of the Senate would be needed for removal from office, and the Dems will be lucky to take control at all. They are considered likely to retake the House, but impeaching Trump there won't help with the Senate. After Trump is out of office in 2020, he could be tried in a legal process for crimes committed while in office, although the Justice Department might decline to bring charges in order to spare the country a lot of drama and embarrassment. (I hope not, but whoever wins control of the White House probably won't want the distraction. Attention and focus will be needed to repair all of the damage done during Trump's toxic tenure.)

Also, the question of Manafort losing his 5th Amendment privilege is far from clear, since anything he says under oath could be used to incriminate him on state charges. It is likely that, if there is even the slightest possibility of Manafort weaseling out of giving testimony under oath, he'll go for it.
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The decision to not prosecute Nixon was an absolute disaster.

That led to Reagan pulling his stunts and not getting prosecuted, which led to Bush II committing war crimes and not getting prosecuted.

Having a current president guilty of treason/conspiracy/espionage is just a natural progression. We as a nation chose this because upsetting Republicans seemed like the worse option.

I'm from Illinois, so I know what I'm talking about when I say that you need to put a lot of chief executives in prison before they start to take a hint. Our presidents are just going to become more and more criminal until we start putting a lot of them in jail and do so regularly. If we don't start putting presidents in jail, then Trump's treason is just the tip of the iceberg. It's going to keep getting worse.
 
It’s difficult to imagine anything worse than a foreign government controlling the Oval. That’s pretty much THE worst case scenario. We’ve had plenty of corrupt politicians defiling our various office over the decades, but a full-on traitor doing the bidding of another country’s ruler while systematically destroying US supremacy is hard to top.
 
FOX News: ZOMG, Mueller is part of teh Bengazzis!!!!!!!!!!

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/08/wa...aims-bob-mueller-panicking-involved-benghazi/

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Koyaanisqatsi said:
It’s difficult to imagine anything worse than a foreign government controlling the Oval. That’s pretty much THE worst case scenario. We’ve had plenty of corrupt politicians defiling our various office over the decades, but a full-on traitor doing the bidding of another country’s ruler while systematically destroying US supremacy is hard to top.
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Liberals are exactly as bad because Obama was sent here as a terrorist spy-baby!!!!!!~!!!!~`!!!!!
 
Underseer said:
Worldtraveller said:
Another point of evidence?

https://www.bizjournals.com/seattle...sell-jets-iran-trump-nuclear-deal-boeing.html

It does seem awfully coincidental.
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Once again, Trump is doing things that hurt America but help Russia. What an amazing coincidence. It's almost as if he keeps doing that on purpose or something.
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In the world of medicine, one occurrence is "in my experience", two occurrences means "in an emerging trend", and three occurrences is "in case after case after case...". (NASA and expeditionary Doctor Howard Donner)
I'm not sure if there's a meme for half a hundred cases, such as with Trumputin.
 
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