US Politics The Mueller Investigation - report is out

[cduggles]

Post edited per forum guideline #1

 

[JGrimez]

^I repeated what the poster before me said. His comment is still there.

 

[JGrimez]

All the Republicans were behind Uranium One, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill which, ironically, is something complain of the left doing against your wanna-be neo-con savior.

I'm not a Republican, I like to expose government corruption no matter the letter. Your claim is that Trump is working for Russia. So Obama/Clinton/Mueller supplied Putin (illegally) with uranium. They must also be working for Russia. Bill Clinton got $500K from a Kremlin bank lol. Am I the only one that thinks all that is relevant considering the alleged shocking allegations against Trump? If Trump is guilty of foreign collusion I agree take him down, but take down everyone (let's start with who we have evidence on).

He's collaborated with Russia in exactly the ways that have allowed it to illegally occupy Crimea

Russia took Crimea under Obama, and that's another story but it was in retaliation to a Western-backed coup in Ukraine.

without a global response.

Blame the UN?

They are ecologically ruining their nation. They are ruining the electoral integrity of many countries THAT AREN'T AMERICA. I am not going to even touch that one because we have the first amendment and I don't think what they did with their little ad campaign here was that serious. WHAT RUSSIA HAS BEEN DOING, with technology and hacking and interfering in national/private affairs OUTSIDE OF ELECTIONS IS A MAJOR CONCERN. DPRK/RUS and China are the major world powers to fear right now and their imperial push outward is dangerous.

Actually if you were seriously concerned about these type of violations of national sovereignty, electoral interference, spying etc you would point the finger at the United States, Israel, few others like UK. Everyone is doing this type of stuff on different levels, that's another reason why the Mueller investigation seemed like nonsense from the start. All of a sudden "Russian election interference" became a problem? It's not that big of a problem, it wouldn't have been brought up if Clinton had won. It was the only angle they had to de-legtimize Trump's shock win.

Why do you think we're allying ourselves with Saudi Arabia, Israel, India?

India is a rising power. Saudi Arabia is an ally because they want war with Iran and have oil. Israel is a complicated situation, you could equally say they are our ally or they are our controller. America's foreign policy has generally been a combination of acquiring resources and combating communism, but lately it has been to take out Israel's enemies. USA gives billions of tax$ in aid to Israel a year, they then spend this on weapons with profits going to Israeli-linked companies and individuals. Soon it will be illegal in the USA for me to say this, as antisemitism legislation is being passed (SC, FL soon CA) that will literally make it illegal to criticize the state of Israel or its foreign policy.

The gov't of Russia is illegitimate and has been ever since the revolutions in 1917. The Russian Empire is what existed prior to then, and what should exist now. The Russian Federation and everything in the last 102 years has been a real shitshow. I invite you to pick up any number of books to self-educate on this.

You should read books from elsewhere and learn who was behind the slaughter of Nicolas II (plus who exactly you're allying yourself with).

 

[Captain.Heroin]

So Obama/Clinton/Mueller supplied Putin (illegally) with uranium. They must also be working for Russia.

"Mountain out of a molehill" implies you are making a big deal out of nothing, this was my point and I think you glossed over it.

Actually if you were seriously concerned about these type of violations of national sovereignty, electoral interference, spying etc you would point the finger at the United States, Israel

...and this is where I'm done listening.

 

[JGrimez]

"Mountain out of a molehill" implies you are making a big deal out of nothing, this was my point and I think you glossed over it.

That's the definition of the Mueller investigation.

Just imagine for a second that Trump had done any of the following:

paid a British spy to pay Russians for dirt on his presidential opponent (Hillary)
sold uranium to Putin and then turned a blind eye when he illegally exported it (Obama, Clinton, Mueller)
flew on a plane to personally hand over uranium to Russians (Mueller)
had dinner at Putin's house (Bill Clinton)
gave a speech in Russia for a fee of $500,000 paid by a Kremlin-connected bank (Bill Clinton)

some of those are innocuous and I don't really have a problem with, but let's be fair with regards to Donald?

 

[Captain.Heroin]

JG all those things are off topic.

We are being fair in regards to DJT. I have said several positive things about him. Over the years, that is. Not many, but several.

I think you have an insane slant/angle that only a truly twisted person could adopt. I'd like to think I have my head screwed on straight but I probably don't so don't take my view of your views too personally.

 

[TheLoveBandit]

^I repeated what the poster before me said. His comment is still there.

The only distinction being, perhaps that JG stated it at CH, while CH kept his in general terms not specifying an individual.

JG all those things are off topic.

JG we just touched on the fact that ALL those kinds of points would be kept out of this thread. Why would you then make the statement you did listing them? NONE of it is relevant to the Mueller investigation or report. NONE of it. You know it. Stop that. You want to argue in THIS thread? Keep it on topic.

= = = =

Word is, the Mueller investigation is wrapped up and there are several referrals for separate investigations. Perhaps those go to Trump or his cabal, perhaps those go to the 'deep state' that launched the investigation. How about we wait and see who they are looking into and for what* before we start guessing who ought to be in jail for something. That's the best shot Dems have coming out of the Mueller report with no collusion or prosecutable obstruction, is hoping there is a referral against the Trump group based on the finding which are not collusion or obstruction. Those pointing to a fraud investigation can hope those referrals mean corruption in the gov't exists and has been identified and will be addressed. NONE of that is known at this point, so it is just supposition.

*I do wonder how much there will be in terms of leaks going forward. We know there was a LOT done in recent years, but with a change in who is in power, will the leaks change either in volume or tone? Obviously, the media (sans Fox?) is anti-Trump, and it doesn't appear Barr is friendly with anyone either. It will be interesting to see how things are managed in coming months.

 

[cduggles]

Housekeeping: Post edited, forum guideline #1

Edit:

The only distinction being, perhaps that JG stated it at CH, while CH kept his in general terms not specifying an individual.

This being the relevant distinction according to the definition of ad hominem, but I'm guessing not everyone can make the distinction.

 

[cduggles]

This thread is about the Mueller investigation (i.e., starting with the appointment of Special Counsel), the subsequent Mueller report, and the ensuing ruckus.

There are other threads to post in about the events leading up to the appointment of the Special Counsel.

Please post accordingly.

----------------------------------

Democrats may hold AG Barr in contempt of Congress. What is that and can it actually be used?

WASHINGTON – At every investigative avenue pursued by congressional Democrats is the Trump administration ready for a fight...

...But this week, the fight escalated as congressional Democrats said they could be forced to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress if he did not cooperate with a subpoena for an unredacted copy of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Trump campaign and Russian interference in the 2016 election. The Justice Department missed Wednesday's deadline to hand over the subpoenaed report, writing to Nadler that the committee had not "articulated any legislative purpose for its request."

Barr also refused on Wednesday to testify before the House Judiciary Committee about special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation because of a dispute about how he would be questioned.

Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., said "the next step is seeking a contempt citation against the attorney general," adding that the committee could vote within days on whether to hold Barr in contempt for not turning over the unredacted report and underlying evidence.

On Friday, Nadler made another offer to Barr, again requesting the unredacted Mueller report and underlying evidence. He gave Barr a Monday deadline and said if the Justice Department again defied the subpoena, the committee would be forced to "move to contempt proceedings and seek further legal recourse."

But what is contempt of Congress, how does it work and could it actually lead to charges against Barr or other Trump officials who defy requests from Capitol Hill?

What is contempt of Congress?

While Congress is given powers to investigate and subpoena individuals and entities, it typically does not just arrest people for not cooperating.

Instead, Congress can hold a person in contempt if their actions are viewed as obstructing legislative business or a congressional investigation.

Lawmakers have three routes:

• Inherent contempt: The Supreme Court has ruled that lawmakers have inherent contempt powers to have an individual held until the person "provides the testimony or documents sought, or until the end of the session," reads a 2017 report from the Congressional Research Service, Congress' policy research arm. Using this process is incredibly rare and hasn't been done in modern times, not since the 1930s.
• Criminal contempt: Congress also has the option to use its "criminal contempt" powers, a law that allows lawmakers to charge an individual with a crime. This is the process listed above with regard to Barr that's more common and would have to be passed through one of the chambers in Congress.
• Civil judgment: The third option is going through a civil process in the courts. Lawmakers can seek a civil judgment, asking a judge to enforce a subpoena.

The most common method used by Congress has been criminal contempt; a charge is a misdemeanor and punishable by jail time of between a month and a year and a fine.

But it's not as easy as simply charging someone. The measure doesn't have to pass in both the House and Senate and can start in committee, meaning in this case, Nadler could bring the issue before the House Judiciary Committee.

After it passes with a simple majority, it would move to a full vote in the House.

Once approved, the House speaker or the Senate president pro tem then turns the matter over to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action," according to the law.

Hurdles and executive privilege

While Congress has broad investigative powers, there are limits. The Supreme Court has said that congressional inquiries should have a legitimate legislative purpose and should not be used for political purposes to embarrass, expose wrongdoing or target a particular person or group.

And holding someone in contempt of Congress has caveats and drawbacks. Jailing someone until they testify or offer up documents might seem like an easy solution but the CRS notes that Congress is not allowed to hold someone past the "end of the current session of Congress." The process could also likely end up worsening tensions between each branch of government and give the public a front-row seat to the chaos. Plus some, like Barr, have armed security and it's unclear what would happen if Congress attempted to arrest him.

And while a civil claim could be the path of least resistance, it could be time-consuming and delay an investigation. Even criminal contempt has a catch: It's up to the Justice Department to actually take up a criminal case against someone. In the past, the Justice Department has declined to prosecute criminal contempt-of-Congress cases.

There's also the question of executive privilege, which President Trump said was being considered to block his current and former aides from testifying before lawmakers.

It isn't clear whether Congress' contempt powers could trump the president invoking executive privilege as neither the White House nor Congress has sought a resolution to the question from the Supreme Court, both sides fearing they might lose.

Congress would have a harder time investigating presidents for decades to come if the high court ruled against it and if the White House lost, it would open the door for a multitude of congressional inquiries.

It's been used before, including on Obama officials

Congress rarely holds people in contempt. But it has done so in the past to force witnesses to appear or produce documents.

The last time Congress used its inherent contempt powers was in 1934 when the Senate held William MacCracken, a former member of Herbert Hoover's administration, after he refused a subpoena. The Senate had nowhere to hold MacCracken so he was imprisoned at a hotel, according to the Washington Post.

But Congress has voted on contempt charges more recently, even discussing using it against members of the Trump administration last year after former White House adviser Steve Bannon refused to answer questions.

Other examples include in 2012 when the House voted to hold then-Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for declining to provide documents and in 2014 after IRS official Lois Lerner invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination during a congressional hearing. In both cases, the Justice Department declined to bring criminal cases.

While a contempt charge normally moves through the criminal justice system and the courts, there's one final method that has gotten attention in recent days, given the president's reluctance to cooperate with congressional investigations.

Lawmakers can elect to pursue a contempt-of-Congress charge in an impeachment proceeding, which is a political process to remove the president from office that moves through Congress instead of the courts.

A contempt-of-Congress charge was one of the three articles of impeachment filed against President Richard Nixon in 1974 after he defied subpoenas for documents and information that Congress said it needed for an impeachment inquiry.

Just in case you were wondering what Congress can do to individuals like Barr who disregard Congressional requests.

 

[JessFR]

For what it's worth, since the mueller report, I've become increasingly skeptical that there was any collusion. Russia definitely tried to help him win, but collusion? No.

 

[tathra]

my understanding is that the trump team was all too willing to collude, but were all too incompetent to actually be able to do it. their own ineptitude is the only thing thats saved their asses.

same for obstruction, they wanted to and tried, but kept bumbling the attempts, along with staff being insubordinate and refusing to obstruct as they were ordered to

 

[JessFR]

my understanding is that the trump team was all too willing to collude, but were all too incompetent to actually be able to do it. their own ineptitude is the only thing thats saved their asses.

same for obstruction, they wanted to and tried, but kept bumbling the attempts, along with staff being insubordinate and refusing to obstruct as they were ordered to

Id have to recheck. But my recollection from reading the report is that by and large, their ineptness and refusal to obey orders largely prevented acts of obstruction. But had little to do with collusion.

My impression was that there was little evidence of attempts at serious collusion.

 

[cduggles]

Kushner to Interns: Trump Team Too Disorganized to Collude With Russia

In off-the-record remarks, the president’s son-in-law offers a unique defense.

BY JENNA MCLAUGHLIN | JULY 31, 2017

WASHINGTON, DC - JULY 24: U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior White House advisor, Jared Kushner, departs following a meeting with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence July 24, 2017 in Washington, DC. Kushner was expected to explain his role in a June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer arranged by Donald Trump Jr. where damaging information against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was expected to be revealed. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Donald Trump’s election team could not have colluded with Russia because they were barely talking to each other, according to Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and top White House advisor.

“They thought we colluded, but we couldn’t even collude with our local offices,” Kushner told congressional interns during a private talk at the Capitol Visitor Center in Washington on Monday afternoon.

Kushner’s meeting with the interns had been rescheduled from two weeks ago, shortly after which he had to appear before Congress to give testimony about the Russia investigation.

A source provided a copy of written notes on Kushner’s talk and question-and-answer session to Foreign Policy.

For investigators attempting to determine whether Trump’s associates knowingly worked with Russia to interfere with the 2016 U.S. presidential election, a defense claiming chaos and confusion might be the key difference between criminal behavior and incompetence.

This month, news broke that Donald Trump Jr. met with a Russian lawyer tied to the Kremlin to discuss “dirt” on Hillary Clinton. But Trump Jr. says the meeting wasn’t valuable, and Kushner later said he didn’t even read the emails about the meeting and left early.

President Trump has said that “most people would have taken that meeting,” which he described as “opposition research.”

After his talk, Kushner answered questions from interns on issues including the investigation into the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia and his SF-86 clearance forms.

“We don’t know where it’s going,” he said, when asked about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russia.

Kushner also downplayed his failure to report more than a hundred instances of foreign travel and contacts with foreign officials on his security clearance forms, which he updated twice to include meetings with Russian officials. “There are 127 pages on the SF-86, but there are only two you guys have to worry about,” he said. “Make sure you guys keep track of where you travel.”

Kushner said he didn’t track contacts because he didn’t expect to get into politics, though he worked on his father-in-law’s campaign from the early stages.

He also bragged about the release of an Egyptian-American charity worker who had been trapped in Cairo. The worker, Aya Hijazi, was freed when President Trump publicly embraced autocratic President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.

Kushner said they made a “great deal” with Sisi, who had “basically destroyed the Muslim Brotherhood,” by taking him aside and asking for a better arrangement.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Before the lecture, the intern director warned those present not to leak the contents of the speech, which was given off the record. The director had apparently heard rumors that attendees wanted to livestream the event or hand off notes to their congressional offices to leak to journalists.

“I’m a lot more comfortable talking to you guys today ’cause there isn’t any press,” Kushner said.

Please note the date on this story is 07/31/17.

 

[JGrimez]

JG we just touched on the fact that ALL those kinds of points would be kept out of this thread. Why would you then make the statement you did listing them? NONE of it is relevant to the Mueller investigation or report. NONE of it. You know it. Stop that. You want to argue in THIS thread? Keep it on topic.

That really does depend on how you view it. If you view the Mueller investigation as a legitimate inquiry as to whether any American officials colluded with Russians - then what I'm talking about is directly related to the investigation and the overall topic.

If you view the Mueller investigation as simply a way to get Trump - then any Russian collusion commited by other officials would be off-topic.

It's telling that nobody will admit that if Trump was caught doing any of those things - people will point to as further proof of Russian collusion. I can stop bringing it up but I'm just looking for some honesty here.

 

[JGrimez]

So I've just gotten word that my previous post in this thread will remain unapproved.
I wasn't told exactly why - even tho my post (at least the majority of it) was on-topic.
So removing it for being "off-topic" was a lie.

So that's it for me, I'm not going to waste my time writing detailed and informative posts here that can just be removed on a lie and without justification - I see that censorship, and protecting the feelings of people who are wrong - is more important than truth, respect for others' opinions and open discussion.

Good luck enforcing the echo chamber (and being on the wrong side of history).
Peace and love (to the ones that value free speech and actual tolerance).

Goodbye.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

We're discussing JUST the report. We can talk about implications thereof, collusion etc OR THE LACK THEREOF.... etc. all in the Trump thread, which is still very possible because I'm not a genius that happens to know everything who am I to say "collusion had to happen", cut to the Conway meme of Collusion Illusion Delusion.... then save it for the other thread.

JUST THE REPORT here.

Sorry JG.

 

[Ganjcat]

Surely people are just tired of hereing this stuff true or not if i here the god damn word "Russian collusion" or " Brexit" im gonna just brexit.. Yeah thats some shit material right their

 

[Ganjcat]

So I've just gotten word that my previous post in this thread will remain unapproved.
I wasn't told exactly why - even tho my post (at least the majority of it) was on-topic.
So removing it for being "off-topic" was a lie.

So that's it for me, I'm not going to waste my time writing detailed and informative posts here that can just be removed on a lie and without justification - I see that censorship, and protecting the feelings of people who are wrong - is more important than truth, respect for others' opinions and open discussion.

Good luck enforcing the echo chamber (and being on the wrong side of history).
Peace and love (to the ones that value free speech and actual tolerance).

Goodbye.

perhaps its your grammar i would reread every paragraph and update your wording

 

[JGrimez]

We're discussing JUST the report. We can talk about implications thereof, collusion etc OR THE LACK THEREOF.... etc. all in the Trump thread, which is still very possible because I'm not a genius that happens to know everything who am I to say "collusion had to happen", cut to the Conway meme of Collusion Illusion Delusion.... then save it for the other thread.

JUST THE REPORT here.

Sorry JG.

Alasdairm wrote a list of the egregious things that he found in the REPORT.
My reply went point by point refuting all the claims that were in the REPORT.
If this was a legitimate qualm with an "off-topic" post then the section of my post that was "off-topic" would have been removed and everything else that I wrote (which was a lot) related to the REPORT would have remained.

Instead, my entire post was removed.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Ok I'll look into it buddy just hang in there, it's not the end of the world and Republican Jesus still loves you!