[Winstonm]

 hrothgar, on 2019-April-25, 09:59, said:

https://www.lawfareb...ole-impeachment

As much as I respect the law (my oldest daughter is a lawyer), I am quite concerned that we are assuming a model of which the GOP is trying hard to destroy, putting in its place a model where law is there as decoration only, used as a propaganda piece to subvert dissent.

The SCOTUS has a history of some truly horrific rulings, and that seems to be the direction it once again is moving.

It is easy to forget that for any law to be viable, there must be two associated musts: 1) an ability to enforce, and 2) a willingness to enforce.

When the head of the executive branch refuses to obey the law, the only option is impeachment and removal. Without that, the era of total lawlessness is upon us.

[Winstonm]

Has it occurred to anyone else that what we have done is elect Harold Hill as professor president.

"Oh, yes, we've got trouble! Right here in "Middle Merica". That starts with "M", and that rhymes with "them", and them is Mexican.

Trust me. All we need to do now is start a boy's band build a wall and everything will be hunky dory.

[Chas_P]

 barmar, on 2019-April-24, 09:06, said:

There's so much work that Congress needs to do, do we really want them to waste time on a quixotic activity like impeachment?
Going through the full impeachment process could divide the nation even more than we already are. And for what end? It will probably just reinforce the opinions most people already have, not change many minds.

Wow! A second voice of reason in the WC.

[Winstonm]

Speaking of wow

Quote

A controversial Madrid-based campaign group, supported by American and Russian ultra-conservatives, is working across Europe to drive voters towards far-right parties in next month’s European Parliament elections and in Spain’s national elections this Sunday, openDemocracy can reveal today.

Our findings have caused alarm among lawmakers who fear that Trump-linked conservatives are working with European allies to import a controversial US-style ‘Super PAC’ model of political campaigning to Europe – opening the door to large amounts of ‘dark money’ flowing unchecked into elections and referenda.

[Winstonm]

 Chas_P, on 2019-April-25, 18:29, said:

Wow! A second voice of reason in the WC.

Even the Fox bandwagon doesn't buy your BS.

Quote

Fox News legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano is not going easy on President Trump.

In a scathing op-ed and accompanying video published Thursday, Napolitano said that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election and Trump’s efforts to cover it up showed a clear pattern of criminal behavior.

Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano. (Photo: Richard Drew/AP)
“When the president asks his former adviser and my former colleague K.T. McFarland to write an untruthful letter to the file knowing the government would subpoena it, that’s obstruction of justice,” Napolitano said in his video. “When the president asks Cory Lewandowski, his former campaign manager, to get Mueller fired, that’s obstruction of justice. When the president asks his then White House counsel to get Mueller fired and then lie about it, that’s obstruction of justice. When he asked Don McGahn to go back to the special counsel and then change his testimony, that’s obstruction of justice. When he dangled the pardon in front of Michael Cohen in order to keep Cohen from testifying against him, that’s obstruction of justice. Why not charge him?”

[Chas_P]

 Winstonm, on 2019-April-25, 20:25, said:

Even the Fox bandwagon doesn't buy your BS.

Napolitano is certainly entitled to his opinion, but I suspect that Mueller's, Barr's, and Rosenstein's will have a much greater effect.

From The Washington Post:

Quote

Ultimately, Mueller did not make a determination as to whether the president broke the law, based partly on the Justice Department’s long-standing policy that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime while in office. Attorney General William P. Barr reviewed Mueller’s findings last month and declared that both he and Rosenstein had determined the president had not obstructed justice.

From Conrad Black:

Quote

Ahead of last week’s release of the redacted Mueller report, Attorney General William Barr in his summary explained the criteria for a charge of obstruction. Those criteria include evidence of a corrupt act with corrupt intent in contemplation of a legal proceeding. The attorney general, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, a favorite of congressional Democrats who was supposedly considering recording Trump two years ago to canvass the cabinet to see if he was mentally unfit to be president, and the special counsel all agreed that none of the necessary ingredients for the president to be guilty of obstruction was present.The extravagant, knife-edge judgment call the House of Representatives Democrats have been pretending to be considering about whether to impeach or not is bunk—self-improvised therapy to cushion their psychological plunge from confidence they could take down the president, to the grim awakening to the legal vulnerabilities of the Obama Administration and the Clinton campaign in confecting this monstrous fraud of Trump-Russian collusion.

[Winstonm]

This seems to have a lot of merit:

Quote

This is the argument Duke political scientist Ashley Jardina makes in her book White Identity Politics. Drawing on a decade of data from American National Election Studies surveys, Jardina claims that white Americans — roughly 30 to 40 percent of them — now identify with their whiteness in a politically meaningful way. Importantly, this racial solidarity doesn’t always overlap with racism, but it does mean that racial identity is becoming a more salient force in American politics.

Except that racism by exclusion is still racism.

[y66]

[hrothgar]

 Chas_P, on 2019-April-26, 08:12, said:

Napolitano is certainly entitled to his opinion, but I suspect that Mueller's, Barr's, and Rosenstein's will have a much greater effect.

Mueller (all but) recommended impeachment and / or prosecuting Trump if he leaves office
Barr has been caught directly lying about the contents of the report
Rosenstein is all over the place, but as yesterday is looking might compromised.

[Chas_P]

 hrothgar, on 2019-April-27, 04:16, said:

Rosenstein is all over the place, but as yesterday is looking might compromised.

From The New York Times:

Quote

Mr. Rosenstein shot back at critics, saying that he and other lawyers cared about facts, whereas “in politics, belief is the whole ballgame. In politics — as in journalism — the rules of evidence do not apply.”

[Winstonm]

Guest Judge Ogden Nash:

Quote

I find it very difficult to enthuse
Over the current news.
Just when you think that at least the outlook is so black that it
can grow no blacker, it worsens.
And that is why I do not like the news, because there has
never been an era when so many things were going so
right for so many of the wrong persons.

[cherdano]

 Chas_P, on 2019-April-27, 08:18, said:

From The New York Times:

Quote

Mr. Rosenstein shot back at critics, saying that he and other lawyers cared about facts, whereas “in politics, belief is the whole ballgame. In politics — as in journalism — the rules of evidence do not apply.”

Why are you insisting on pointing out that Rosenstein is dumb?
OF COURSE rules of evidence do not apply in politics. I AM allowed to draw conclusions about politician X from the transcript of an interview with politician X even though that would be inadmissible hearsay evidence in a trial. I am allowed to make judgments of the sort "Bernie Sanders seems out of his element on foreign policy hence I'd prefer someone else as president" or "Sarah Sanders is repeatedly and blatantly lying" even before I have irrefutable evidence leaving no reasonable doubt about this statement.

[Winstonm]

 cherdano, on 2019-April-27, 11:12, said:

Why are you insisting on pointing out that Rosenstein is dumb?
OF COURSE rules of evidence do not apply in politics. I AM allowed to draw conclusions about politician X from the transcript of an interview with politician X even though that would be inadmissible hearsay evidence in a trial. I am allowed to make judgments of the sort "Bernie Sanders seems out of his element on foreign policy hence I'd prefer someone else as president" or "Sarah Sanders is repeatedly and blatantly lying" even before I have irrefutable evidence leaving no reasonable doubt about this statement.

I would venture a wager that Chas_P has not even read the Mueller report so he doesn't know what it said. Right up front it says that his phrase "could not establish" does not mean he found "no evidence of", only that criminality could not be established sufficiently to charge. (Not getting cooperation from Manafort - after Individual-1 dangled a pardon - could have made it impossible to get that evidence. Which would be obstruction, which DOJ, in a Catch-22, said internally cannot be used to indict a sitting president)

Just as criminal justice - because it takes away a person's liberty - has the high bar for conviction of "beyond a reasonable doubt", no such harsh constraint is on civil law where "preponderance of the evidence" is all that is required - just ask O.J. the difference.

[y66]

What evidence and beliefs are we talking about? The overwhelming evidence of obstruction that Mueller found and documented or the belief by Rosenstein and Barr that the case for proving obstruction requires proof of conspiracy which is absurd?

[Winstonm]

 y66, on 2019-April-27, 11:46, said:

What evidence and beliefs are we talking about? The overwhelming evidence of obstruction that Mueller found and documented or the belief by Rosenstein and Barr that the case for proving obstruction requires proof of conspiracy which is absurd?

From his posting history, it appears Chas_P is one of those about whom Individual-1 said he wouldn't lose their support if he shot someone on 5th Avenue.

[barmar]

 Winstonm, on 2019-April-27, 11:35, said:

I would venture a wager that Chas_P has not even read the Mueller report so he doesn't know what it said. Right up front it says that his phrase "could not establish" does not mean he found "no evidence of", only that criminality could not be established sufficiently to charge. (Not getting cooperation from Manafort - after Individual-1 dangled a pardon - could have made it impossible to get that evidence. Which would be obstruction, which DOJ, in a Catch-22, said internally cannot be used to indict a sitting president)

And even in a criminal case, being found "not guilty" is not really a determination that you didn't do it. It just means that the evidence presented wasn't sufficient to convince the judge or jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

OJ being the most well known example. Everyone knows he did it, and the evidence was sufficient in the civil case, but he got off in the criminal case because the bar is higher.

[awm]

It seems as if the result of Mueller’s investigation was:

1. There was definitely obstruction, or at least sufficient evidence to indict were Trump not president. However, they could not charge Trump with this because of DOJ policy. Further, Mueller did not want to state “Trump obstructed justice” since (without a normal trial) Trump could not clear his name. So the report is essentially asking Congress to “try the case” in absence of a court.
2. While there was some evidence for conspiracy, Mueller could not gather enough to indict. This is in part due to the obstruction (key witnesses kept lying) and again doesn’t really “clear” Trump of anything.
3. The spin/misdirection by the new attorney general may ITSELF qualify as obstruction.

Anyway, Congress will certainly be interviewing Mueller and a number of his employees and it will be interesting to see if their story matches the above (or is more similar to Barr’s interpretation).

Another interesting question is why Mueller issued his report when he did. Usually the investigation ends with evidence of guilt, evidence of innocence, reason to believe that despite uncertainty about guilt/innocence no more evidence can be gathered, or ends due to external pressure. The third possibility (no more evidence to be gathered) was definitely not the case since we know there’s this continuing court case with Mueller trying to get evidence from a foreign company. And we also know it wasn’t “evidence of innocence” at least for obstruction where Mueller was clear that he didn’t exonerate. So either Mueller felt he had sufficient evidence of guilt (but didn’t want to say so due to DOJ policy) or he was externally pressured (Barr?) to end early. This will also be interesting to pursue.

[kenberg]

The O.J. case has been mentioned. Jimmy Hoffa was the case I thought of. back when Robert Kennedy was AG he was putting major effort into getting Hoffa. I recall JH in a TV interview gloating about how often he had been investigated but not convicted.

Analogies are always risky, but the O.J. case concerned one action on one night, the Hoffa case was a pattern of behavior. Of curse Hoffa eventually got convicted, but again it is interesting that his first conviction was for jury tampering,which is to say he was caught trying to avoid conviction for his earlier activities. A form of obstruction, I would call it.

Whether we speak of Hoffa or O.J., or many others, the fact is that it is difficult to convict those with wealth and connections. Nobody ever doubted that Hoffa was connected to the mob, the problem was to convict him on a specific act. Usually you get them, that's if you get them at all, for some crime that is in some sense a side issue. Jury tampering, obstruction of justice, lying to a grand jury etc. Capone was convicted of tax evasion, not murder or bootlegging.
It's not pretty. It would be good to convict people for the crime that is at the root of it all rather than the peripheral crimes committed in the cover-up. But with the powerful, it doesn't usually go that way.

Trump is a scumbag. Don't need any report to conclude that. Now we get down to the lawyers. Not a place I like to be. Perhaps it is true that if the glove doesn't fit we must acquit. Or maybe we can say screw the glove, I recognize what happened here.

[y66]

Talk about damning by association. It is to Trump's credit and his followers' that Charles Manson, Jim Jones and Hannibal Lecter have not been mentioned or were redacted.

[kenberg]

 y66, on 2019-April-28, 10:42, said:

Talk about damning by association. It is to Trump's credit and his followers' that Charles Manson, Jim Jones and Hannibal Lecter have not been mentioned or were redacted.

Yes, and where is Clarice Starling when we need her?

But I was thinking about various crimes and how they get prosecuted. Trump says that Paul Manafort has been treated really badly. Well, yes, in that he would not have been caught except for the investigation into Trump. My guess is that there are a lot of Paul Manaforts out there happily laundering money etc but it takes serious effort to successfully prosecute them so unless their name comes up in an investigation with a very large budget and considerable profile they just mosey on unnoticed. Poor Paul, he should have stayed away from Trump. As we all should, although the reasons are different for us.