I ran a column yesterday on the release of the report of the Inspector General’s report and its implications. Much of the report was anticipated. However, among the most notable elements, was the final confirmation that the Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal server for State Department business not only contained classified information but was successfully intercepted by at least one foreign intelligence agency. That finding directly contradicts Clinton’s repeated denials through the campaign. The media however has barely noted the finding despite widely repeating Clinton’s prior denials of both classified content and any interception by foreign powers.
The report refers to the plural “Foreign actors” as obtaining access to Clinton’s emails — including at least one email classified as “secret.” The line is buried in the report but states unambiguously: “Documents provided to the Committees show foreign actors obtained access to some of Mrs. Clinton’s emails — including at least one email classified ‘Secret.'”
There is also a May 2016 email from FBI investigator Peter Strzok that says “we know foreign actors obtained access” to some Clinton emails, including at least one “secret” message “via compromises of the private email accounts” of Clinton staffers.
In the face of a clear refutation of her prior position, Clinton only responded with three words “but my emails” to mock the use of a personal gmail account by Comey.
Hillary Clinton✔@HillaryClintonBut my emails.
Kyle Cheney✔@kyledcheneyIG found that on numerous occasions, COMEY used a personal GMail account to conduct official FBI business, according to source briefed on the report.
“Trump: I want Americans to sit up to attention like North Koreans – video”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/jun/15/trump-i-want-americans-to-sit-up-to-attention-like-north-koreans-video
“In an interview with Fox & Friends on the White House lawn, Donald Trump says that when the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, speaks, ‘his people sit up to attention’, adding: ‘I want mine to do the same.'”
“Trump praises Kim on Fox & Friends: ‘I want my people to do the same'”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jun/15/antsy-and-bored-trump-nearly-left-kim-summit-in-peril-report-says
“He later told a reporter he had been “kidding”. The reporter didn’t “understand sarcasm”, he said.”
So he says.
Anonymous, your ability to think logically is severely impaired. If you believe every statement Trump makes as true then you have to believe the second statement. Trump is a humorous guy and at times can be quite witty and sarcastic. When his comments meet your brain they are slamming into concrete.
With Manafort going to jail , Trump’s fixer Cohen possibly cooperating with prosecutors at the SDNY, and with the NY AG lawsuit exposing Trump’s foundation scam it’s a matter of time before this man is disgraced out of office.
Expect the attacks on law enforcement to pick up as they get closer to the truth.
Thanks for a recitation of your hopes and dreams. It’s been an education.
Ah Nutchacha nailed poor MakeAmericanSentimentalandStupidAgain.
Less than 1% of Cohen’s materials with Trump have been ruled to be protected by attorney-client privilege.
Trump foolishly put him on an island, and he either cannot or will not defend himself much longer.
He’s going to flip on Trump and we will finally learn how the Russians compromised him.
All this “flip” nonsense – presumes that those who are going to “flip” actually have something to say.
Considering Cohen has already stated publicly that he would do anything to protect Trump, the chances are high he has knowledge of criminality.
It has been reported that Cogen was in touch with Russian officials trying to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/what-could-michael-cohen-tell-robert-mueller
Provide us a fact of Trump’s criminality. I could just as easily call you a criminal or a rapist. Would that make it true? Maybe because I can’t prove you aren’t.
Have you ever taken a logic course ?
Saying you would do anything to protect someone – does not prove either that there is criminality or that you know of it.
One of the problems with Mueller’s attempts to “flip” people, is that it only works if there were crimes and those people know of them.
Otherwise Mueller is just torturing people for no reason.
All kinds of things have been reported, few have proven true.
Most have been disproven at this point.
Dangerously incompetent. That’s why I didn’t vote for her. She didn’t have enough sense to anticipate a hacker situation. Either that or she didn’t care. It might have been a combination of carelessness and ineptitude.
The only explanation I can come up with is that she didn’t care because controlling records was more important. She is a former First Lady. She went through extensive training in classified information. She signed documents upon employment, and at the end that she had handed over all work related materials upon exit, that had particular significance to her as a lawyer. Her motivation was hiding incriminating documents. She could speak freely. Discuss anything that would burn her if it came out, because she had power over the delete button.
There is no way that anyone with a reasonable intelligence would not understand that backing up classified information to the Cloud could get hacked, or that Blackberries get hacked in hostile nations. She had been told all this.
My father worked at times in a SCIF. He told me there was this sign, in red letters. It read, “Feeling lonely tonight? Want to talk to someone? Then forget to lock your safe.” Or something along those lines. It was not something you treated casually, unless you wanted to end up in some oubliette.
https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1007290170339741697
Oh now we’re going after Horowitz!
Funny how no one in Washington or New York is clean enough to investigate any facet of Trump or his campaign.
https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1007391719569219584
I guess the fair thing to do is let Trump investigate himself and any other members of the cabal and wait for the report. Maybe Putin and Kim can help. And the guy from Turkey and the Philippines could be a big help.
The fair thing to do for the American people is for Hillary and Co. be charged with crimes and go on trial. What a message for anyone thinking of a political career. Hillary had been up to shenanigans for years (Whitewater, Cattle Futures, lying to Congress re Benghazi). She thought the Presidency was hers. What she didn’t understand was how the middle class was being trampled. Add to that Obama care, which nobody thought would work. Remember the guy that said it woud never have passed if the people weren’t stupid. Well, we weren’t. The best thing Trump did was take away the Mandate, making your medical costs double. Pay the Mandate, then pay whatever medical professions you use.
Remember “lock her up”? Prepare for hearing it a whole lot more.
yeah well you can be sarcastic but the tentacles of what we call the Deep State reach far and wide
one day liberals will feel the bite too. deep state is neither right nor left but corporatist just as those who were called fascists in decades past
when the ox gores some democrat you whiners will cry cry cry. like the johnny cash song
Yes, yes…Ok we admit it. Hold on to your red hats, we ARE the ones who change the cross-street lights from walk don’t walk. We also make sure that pizza gets 10 minutes late. We could go on for days on how we made Trump lie everyday, or had him hire the “Best People”… Now you know the tip of the iceberg, we are everywhere and are watching you. People on the streets are wearing Hillary T-shirts under their clothes and are plotting their next move just to make sure that Hillary is President for life. I know this must scare you, but don’t be afraid, come to our side and you get a check from Soros.
FW – laugh all ya want with your idiot comics in the bubble – Maher, Colbert, etc. but here’s the deal: we will never, ever support the Establishment Demented Candidates. Independent Progressive – DNC’s worst nightmare
Stop with the “we”, loser, no one wants to be associated with you.
YNOT, too bad too sad for you and your ilk. Our numbers are growing and we will continue to call out the Establishment Dims for what they are: corrupt, party of war, corporations over people and constitution….
So listen to your Deep State acolyte MadCow all you want and hunker down in your safe space of stupidity.
I think the evidence Horowitz found is pretty damning.
I think his remarks send a very mixed message.
He explicitly states that there was no bias, and then repeatedly states there was.
He says the investigation was rife with corruption, but essentially reached an acceptable outcome anyway.
Once you accept the investigation was corrupt – even merely that in significant ways it violated standard practices and procedures – you are done. You can no longer with confidence state anything about the outcome.
But aside from his efforts to placate both sides, mostly the report is good.
dhlii – we got the redacted version of the OIG report. Changes had been made.
https://twitter.com/paulsperry_/status/1007386147318849536
PAUL MANAFORT JAILED FOR WITNESS TAMPERING
A federal judge ordered Paul Manafort to jail Friday over charges he tampered with witnesses while out on bail — a major blow for President Trump’s former campaign chairman as he awaits trial on federal conspiracy and money-laundering charges next month.
“You have abused the trust placed in you six months ago,” U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told Manafort. “The government motion will be granted, and the defendant will be detained.”
The judge said sending Manafort to a cell was “an extraordinarily difficult decision” but said his conduct — allegedly contacting witnesses in the case in an effort to get them to lie to investigators — left her little choice.
“This is not middle school. I can’t take away his cellphone,” she said. “If I tell him not to call 56 witnesses, will he call the 57th?” She said she should not have to draft a court order spelling out the entire criminal code for him to avoid violations.
“This hearing is not about politics. It is not about the conduct of the office of special counsel. It is about the defendant’s conduct,” Jackson said. “I’m concerned you seem to treat these proceedings as another marketing exercise.”
Manafort was led out of the courtroom by security officers. He turned and gave a last look and wave to his wife, seated in the well of the court. She nodded back to him.
Edited from: “Paul Manfort Ordered To Jail After Witness Tampering Charge”
Breaking News: today’s WASHINGTON POST
Is there something to be done about this guy? I mean it looks like a classic troll. I mean I don’t mind scrolling through these endless “articles. ” And I’m sure that’s what everybody else is doing. So if that’s what we’re left to — so be it.
‘fraid so, SteveJ. This one and L4D seemingly have nothing better to do with their lives than to post endless “articles” to soothe their TDS.
Scrolling past them is the only solution, apparently. That, and not engaging them. It certainly makes no sense to spend energy correcting their screeds. Their Soros paychecks are too important to them.
Actually Peter Hill and L4d / anonymous are part of a set of four Democrats here who attempt to make something resembling an argument. From the rest, you get adolescent taunts, 2 and 3 paragraph emotional blurts, status signalling, dopey and unfiltered talking points, conspiracy rubbish, and verbose junk you’d expect of someone whose lithium dose isn’t set right. The comment boards here are an indicator that political discussion among Democrats is in a deeply decadent phase.
In Mueller I trust.
You, ha!
Well Wally, I’m sure Nii is heart broken to hear that you don’t trust him.
Nutchacha,
Since you’re so smart I probably don’t have to tell you. But the word “insufferable” is almost always linked with “bore”.
Says the man who posts one gassy cut-and-paste after another.
Yeah, from the two most distinguished newspapers. But in this age of anti-intellectualism, that’s a sign of ‘gassiness’.
Maybe I should only read Trump’s tweets. His word is the truth (to cult members).
Yeah, from the two most distinguished newspapers.
A.M. Rosenthal retired in 1986. Meg Greenfield died in 1999. Do try to keep up.
Nutchacha, while we’re on the subject, what are your two favorite news sources?
And your mind-bending alternative reality is what? Careful thought? Only in your own mind and the voices that you hear. Wake up and smell the swill and swamp gas that you are protecting.
Steve thought “Res isa loquitar” means “A safe space for Trumpers”.
manafort, that’s all you got? and he could have been reeled in any time. why now?
Paul Manafort should have gotten himself out of the country. I would have. All it takes is a private plane or a private yacht.
” a major blow for President Trump’s former campaign chairman ”
Has nothing to do with Trump and Manafort was short lived as campaign chairman. If we compare those that surround Trump with those that surrounded Obama or Hillary we would have to put a halo over Trump’s head.
The court can not properly order you not to contact witnesses.
Tampering with a witness is not the same as contacting them.
BTW law enforcement “tampers” with witnesses all the time.
Go read a transcript of a government interview of a witness.
Further the conduct of prosecutors is ALWAYS paramount.
Our declaration of independence makes it crystal clear that when government is lawless it is your right to take the law into your own hands.
It is the obligation of the courts to prevent the prosecutors from running amuck.
If it fails to do so, we can not expect defendents to behave lawfully.
As best as I have been able to tell from the leaked facts – Manaforts contact was stupid but legal.
It looks bad merely because it was sureptitious.
“The court can not properly order you not to contact witnesses.”
This is something I have been questioning, but need a more in-depth response from an attorney that understands the subject. My understanding is that he is in jail for breaking a judge’s order. That is understandable but was the judges order lawful and not too broad. The judge had to have a reason and I would like an in-depth analysis of that reason and its legality.
Federal rules and regulations are different than those of the various state’s judiciary processes.
Just to be clear – courts do alot of things they can not do.
And they get away with doing things they can not do.
And lots of things that are bad ideas – like defendants directly contacting witnesses turn from bad ideas to standards and traditions to judge made law.
Regardless the fundimental issue is constitutional.
I would further note thatwe have to be careful about what we “understand” to be true.
Mueller indicted Manafort for witness tampering.
The indictment does not provide what I would view as probable cause that Manafort engaged in witness tampering. Mueller recovered a message that Manafort sent.
But the claim that it was witness tampering is based on the recipients assessment of Manaforts intentions.
That is several bridges too far for me. But Mueller sold a grand jury, and I doubt he sweated to do so.
I beleive given the indictment the issue was out of the Judges hands.
An indictment means that the GJ found probable cause and it was take a ballsy judge to say the GJ was wrong.
I would also note that Manafort is forum shopping.
He has had grief from the VA judge so he used the DC judge to toss Manafort in jail.
This is also troubling because it radically impedes Manaforts ability to defend himself.
It is going to be very hard for him and his lawyers to prepare from Jail.
I think one needs a good constitutional lawyer and the judge’s transcript to truly evaluate the boundaries in this case. It is likely that the judge overreached.
I am not sure the judge overreached.
If a Grand Jury indicted – then I think her hands are tied.
The legal standard for revoking bail is met.
The problem is that the indictment itself states conduct that thought stupid is not criminal.
And you can not concoct criminality from the feelings of a witness about what was in the mind of another.
We constantly err – particularly on the left when we try to argue that legal acts are crimes because of our perception of what was in the minds of those acting.
If an act is legal – the criminal inquiry is done. Our guesses as to the motives of another do not make a legal act illegal.
Do you know the exact orders of the judge? If not you can’t draw a conclusion on her actions. After knowing her orders one then has to determine if they are legal and if violating means a person can be legally incarcerated.
I know that Manafort was indicted.
I know that an indictment is prima facia evidence that probable case exists that the person indited committed the crime.
I know that is the only standard that needs to be met to revoke Manafort’s bail.
The judge may (and appears to have) used different reasoning.
But just as Trump can not have obstructed justice for doing something he is constitutionally allowed to do, even if he had a bad reason for doing it, the judge need not be correct in her reasoning – so long as the law – even law she did not consider, justifies her actions.
I beleive what has occurred is WRONG.
Some responsibility lies with the grand jury.
But fundimentally this is an ethics violation for Mueller.
But no one is going to get anywhere with that. Prosecutorial ethics is nearly no existant, and we are unlikely to return to that soon.
As I said we don’t know the exact orders of the judge that were violated or if they were legal. Maybe one of the lawyers here know the details and the law.
Though what is reported talks about orders.
Muellers strongest argument is that Manafort was indicted for another crime while on bail.
That is a slam dunk for revoking bail.
The judge would have to decide that the indictment was invalid, and no judge is likely to do that even if it were true – as it appears to be.
The revocation of bail is too muddy. My understanding is that Manafort violated an order by the judge in the case.
To fully understand it one has to read the actual order along with any testimony since along with having a fine understanding of the law. There has been too much hanky-panky by government officials so one has to be quite suspicious of his reincarceration.
I am completely avoiding the judges orders issue.
So long as Mueller was able to indict, the judge was obligated to revoke bail.
I do beleive there is a problem – but the problem is with Mueller’s indictiment.
The message Mueller provided as support does NOT constitute probable cause of Witness tampering.
It is prosecutorial misconduct on the part of Mueller.
I have issues with the Judges orders, judges like to order all kinds of things that they can not do.
There is no judges order exception to constitutional rights.
“So long as Mueller was able to indict, the judge was obligated to revoke bail.”
Defendants get bail all the time. Manafort was out on bail. Bail was revoked because a judge said he violated her order. That makes the judges order important for if the order didn’t follow the law or violated his rights he should not be in jail. The second issue would be whether or not he violated her lawful order.
Defendants who are charged with additional crimes committed while on bail have bail revoked – that is completely indpendent of the question of violating a judges orders.
I do not beleive Manafort should have had his bail revoked – because his actions were stupid, but not a crime. That places the onus entirely on Mueller.
With respect to Judges orders – a judges ability to impose their will on a criminal defendent is (or should be) severely limited. The judge can limit the prosecution – the prosecution is government and has no rights. The judge can not limit individuals rights without finding them guilty of a crime.
Manafort is free to contact the witnesses against him. He is more free (by right) to persuade them to change their testimony than the prosecution – though in practice we invert that. He is not free to use force to get them to change their testimony. Nor is he free to bribe them or threaten them.
He is fully free to persuade them.
“Defendants who are charged with additional crimes committed while on bail have bail revoked ”
The judge ordered bail revoked based on the judge’s belief that Manafort violated the orders from that same judge. Therefore what one needs to know is exactly what the orders were, if they complied with the law and his rights and if the decision that the orders were violated was correct.
All the rest of your comments are tangential and miss the point.
Allan, I am not missing your point. I am deliberating ignoring it.
Though I think the judge erred with respect to the orders she subject manafort to.
And my comments are not tangenetial.
If there are 10 ways to revoke Manafortes bail – problems with one do not get Manafort out of jail.
He was indicted for another crime while on bail. He is going to jail.
Any misconduct – and I beleive there was miconduct in revoking his bail, most focus on the indictment – not the judges order.
“Allan, I am not missing your point. I am deliberating ignoring it.”
You do that well but that doesn’t help a conversation to move forward. My understanding is that the judge revoked bail, not Mueller and did so because the judge felt Manafort disregarded her order. This is either a fact or not. If something else occurred don’t disregard the statement, challenge it providing your version of what happened.
If my facts are correct then: One needs to know exactly what the orders were, if they complied with the law and his rights and if the decision that the orders were violated was correct. I reiterate the other comments are at best tangential if my facts are correct.
Bail revokation is handled by judges.
What I am saying is that the moment Mueller successfully indicted manafort for an act that occured while he was out on bail the law required the Judge to revoke.
That is independent of all the other arguments that you are making – which I am not disputing.
If there are 10 reasons Manafort’s bail can be revoked.
If does not matter if the one the Judge fixated on is sketchy.
So long as ONE exists that is difficult to surmount.
It does nto matter which of 10 reasons the Judge chose to revoke bail.
What matters is that there is ONE reason that Manafort can not overcome.
This is essentially the obverse of the Trump obstruction of justice claim.
It does not matter if Trump fired Comey for the wrong reason,
so long as he was permitted to fire Comey for the right reason (or no reason at all).
I do not know exactly what occured in the bail revokation hearing – though I beleive it has been reported on and my understanding is the Judge fixated on Manafort failing to comply with the spirit of her no contact order. I.e. Manafort contacted someone she did not prohibit him from contacting, but he should have known that the spirit of the order prohibited him from contacting them.
I beleive that legal argument is crap.
I beleive the no contact order is unconstutional – though I doubt SCOTUS would find that.
But all the judges errors do not matter.
Because she can say – there is probable cause that you committed another crime while on bail, your bail is revoked. Without the indictment – the judge would have had to decide whether the contact constituted probable cause. But the indictment on its face constitutes probable cause.
It is not the Judges job to second guess the grand jury.
But it is an ethics violation for Mueller to knowing misrepresent legal witness contact as witness tampering.
But again it is not an ethics violation that anyone is going to do anything about.
One of the problems with a century of progressive destruction of the rule of law is the loss of individual rights.
Courts do not even think – are my actions violating the rights of anyone.
There is negligable oversight of judges, possibly less of prosecutors.
You can pretty much bet that were there is no oversight there will be misconduct.
“Bail revokation is handled by judges.”
Dhlii, I didn’t read past a sentence or two because you go off on tangents. The only question I have is whether or not my understanding is correct. Did the Manafort, when he was released on bail, violate the order given by the judge and is that why he was put back in jail? That doesn’t require paragraphs of information.
If I am correct then: One needs to know exactly what the orders were, if they complied with the law and his rights and if the decision that the orders were violated was correct.
What you call a tangent is the law as it is.
Though I did actually come up with one major point in your favor – or actually Alan Dershowitz and some others did.
Mueller aparently identifed 56 witnesses to Manafort and his lawyers.
The person Manafort contacted was NOT one of those.
The judge went into an eroneous digression that providing a list does not define the scope of witness tampering. That is in error.
And in fact though the media has reported who is likely the witness who was contacted and that person is NOT on the list of 56 mueller witnesses. Mueller has not actually identified the specific witness that was tampered with.
In fact Mueller has broadly resisted providing any information to the defense in any of the cases he is prosecuting. Thus far he is losing on this issue – it is a pretty well established rule of law that you can not be prosecuted on secret evidence that you are not allowed to know.
Regardless, you can not tamper with a witness that you do not know is a witness.
All this is the more reason Muellers indictment is bogus AND a violation of ethics.
But my key point remains.
If the prosecutor provides probable cause that you have committed a crime while on bail.
Your bail will be revoked.
An indictment is probable cause.
There is a serious error here – but it is Mueller’s not the judge.
He has indicted Manafort for a crime that for multiple reasons he did not committ and Mueller knows or should know.
“What you call a tangent is the law as it is.”
The law involves many books and interpretations. I am dealing with only one thing but you keep putting many feet on it and run around all over the place.
It seems you may be agreeing that the reason Manafort’s bail was revoked was that he violated the judge’s order.
If you agree with that then at least the following questions need to be answered.
1. Exactly what were the orders?
2. Did the orders comply with the law and his rights?
3. Did he actually violate the orders?
I know you are only dealing with one thing.
One of the fundimental princliples of law is that courts do not resolve problems they do not have to.
You can get to revoking Manafort’s bail many ways.
You only need ONE.
Any that involve the judges orders will be highly complex and subjective.
Disobeying Court orders (with few exceptions) is not a crime.
that said they they should not judges are given tremendous discretion regarding their orders.
Bail is not a right. The court can revoke it on a whim.
Trying to analyse the courts orders is a perilously subjective task and one in which even if you win, you can still lose as an appelate court can just not care.
Judges are given tremendous discretion in orders.
“I know you are only dealing with one thing.”
That is right. One thing at a time and the first thing is to start with the judge since we don’t know if she can be influenced by others and that is important.
I am not trying to pretend to know why the court did what it did. So no – I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing.
I am discussing why the court COULD do what it did.
If the judge picked a different reason – I do not care.
So long as ONE legitimate reason exists, even if that is not the reason the Judge picked.
The matter ends.
No I am not running arround all over the place.
You are the one who wants to speculate on information we do not currently have,
such as what were the courts orders.
That may be knowable. But neither you nor I currently have that information.
We (or atleast I) have read Mueller’s indictment.
While I think it is flawed – and I have more reasons to beleive so today.
From the perspective of what the court can do, and what an appeals court will uphold.
An indictment for another crime commited while on bail is sufficient to revoke bail and
will nearly always have that result.
If the court had other reasons – those ADD to something already sufficient.
Further from what I have read the discussion of court orders was essentially a discussion
or the exact same conduct as the indictment.
Judges have broad discretion. She could second guess Mueller and the grand jury with respect to the indictment. But it is highly unlikely that she would.
As noted I take no position with respect to your remarks regarding the courts orders
EXCEPT that there is no need to consider the orders to revoke Manafort’s bail.
Your proposed questions do NOT need to be answered.
Manafort and his lawyers best option is to challenge the indictment itself.
I am not sure if that is possible. But there are serious problems with it.
I do not think it can survive the rough equivalent of summary judgement.
But so long as the indictment remains the Judge needs no other basis to revoke Manafort’s bail.
Further even if she did not Mueller could likely appeal and would probably win.
“I am not trying to pretend to know why the court did what it did.”
I think knowing that is necessary.
You should find a theme in many of my posts.
There is no useful purpose served trying to divine what is going on in the minds of others.
An act is legal or not based on the facts of the act, not speculation as to why.
With respect to Manafort’s bail.
What the judge said, and what her orders may have been – while potentially interesting,
are NOT critical to whether Manafort’s bail gets revoked.
Commiting a crime while on bail gets your bail revoked – the standard of proof is probable cause.
An indictment for an act committed while on bail os all the proof necessary to revoke bail.
If Manafort wants his bail restored he must challenge the indictment – not the orders of the court.
I think there are excellent grounds to do so.
For the most part the relevant questions are the same as those related tot he court orders.
Except that we have the indictment.
We know what Manafort’s alleged conduct was
and we now know that the person Manafort contacted was NOT identified by Mueller as a witness.
That essentially means that Mueller indicted Manafort – not for witness tampering,
but for trying to find witnesses for Manafort.
“There is no useful purpose served trying to divine what is going on in the minds of others.”
I agree but that is why I wanted to know her exact order, if it was legal and respected his rights, along with knowing what she said when bail was revoked. That doesn’t deal with anyone’s mind.
While I am interested in the same facts you are.
My interest is small.
Because so long as the indictment exists, Manafort is not getting Bail.
L4D quoted from Mueller’s brief – where Mueller cites the law.
Mueller actually has the law correct.
The core problem is that the indictment itself is improper.
Manafort’s message does not involve inducements or threats.
It is not even primarly his own statements.
It was directed to a person that Mueller had not identified as a witness.
At its most egregious the message can be interpreted as persuasion.
Which is perfectly legal.
The judge had nothing to do with getting the indictment.
The law says that an indictment for a crime committed while on bail is sufficient to get bail revoked.
and the law is probably correct.
That means that if there is a bad outcome that has to be cause by problems with the indictment itself.
If you are going to infringe on ones rights based on an indictment,
Then the appropriate constraints on indictments must exist.
While there are good reasons why indictment should be more difficult to get.
An argument can be made for liberal indictment.
But you can not use a process that allows no adversarial representation to result in the infringement of rights.
I do not beleive the judges order was lawful.
But that is irrelevant – manafort was indicted – that is the end of the judges discretion.
There is misconduct, but it is of Mueller for seeking an indictment for something that is not a crime.
Persons indicted can be given bail. See my earlier comment.
This is not about being indicted,
this is about committing another crime while on bail.
An indictment FOR AN ACT WHILE ON BAIL is prima fascia evidence that you committed another crime while on bail.
I have seen plenty of instances where that has not resulted in revoking bail – but only because the system is overloaded and does not even grasp that a defendant has committed another crime while on bail.
The courts are permitted to, and expected to revoke bail for defendants where there is probable cause they have committed another crime while on bail.
An indictment for an act while on bail is probable cause.
The core issue is that the indictment is prosecutorial misconduct.
The allegation Mueller makes is not a crime atleast not by the evidence Mueller provided in the indictment.
That is prosecutorial misconduct.
Unfortnately it is not a winnable claim of misconduct.
But it is still a claim and one I would hold Mueller or anyone else accountable for
“This is not about being indicted,
this is about committing another crime while on bail.”
Without regard to the rest of your rhetoric which is nonproductive, the question is what the other crime was. Was it that Manafort violated the judge’s order or not. You seem to shy away from the question of fact. If there is a different version of the facts that I don’t recognize say so and skip the verbiage that leads nowhere. If my facts are correct then: What one needs to know is exactly what the orders were, if they complied with the law and his rights and if the decision that the orders were violated was correct.
This is all not that difficult.
The crime was witness tampering.
I have not reread the indictment, but I do not recall it refering to the judges order.
Regardless a violation of a judges order is a civil matter (one that sometimes has incarcertation as a punishment), but it is NOT a crime.
I am not shying away from the Judges order.
I am quite explicitly saying that it is irrelevant.
Witness tampering is a crime – whether the judge issued a no contact order or not.
The judges order is an irrelevant fact to the indictment for witness tampering – I do not think the indictment even notes the order.
There is ONE factual question – did Manafort’s contact constitute witness tampering.
I think that it is pretty clear it does NOT, but what I think is irrelevant.
Mueller convinced a Grand Jury that it did.
That makes the responsibility entirely Mueller’s.
A GJ is an ex parte process – that means the accused has no right to representation.
There are ethical rules for Ex Parte processes – the only party present – in this case the prosecutor, is ethically OBLIGATED to present their case in the light most favorable to the PARTY NOT PRESENT.
Essentially the standard is somewhat similar to summary judgement all doubt must be interpretted against the prosecutor.
That is the ethical rule.
But it is not followed and you will get no where challenging it.
It the same time it is still perfectly legitimate to say – this is unethical bullying on the part of Manafort.
This is a dick measuring contest. Prosecutors are supposed to dispassionately follow the law, Not pummel into submission those that do not kowtow to them.
But Mueller is from the school of kowtow. That is evident by his handling of this investigation, and by his handling of past cases.
That is a very big deal. That means this is likely a death match between Mueller and Trump (and any fleas like Manafort that get in the way get destroyed).
It dramatically raises the stakes.
It means Mueller will act provacatively – hoping Trump will make a mistake.
But it also means Mueller is prone to make mistakes.
It means the odds of Mueller reporting – I could not find anything is slim to none.
He will continue doggedly until he finds or manufactures the proof he needs,
or until he is discredited and destroyed.
Mueller is unlikely to come out of this as a neutral arbiter of justice.
He will either have trump’s scalp or trump will have his.
The judge is a bit player.
“The crime was witness tampering.”
My understanding was that the judge ordered Manafort not to speak to the witnesses. He violated the order so she threw him in jail.
That leads to the need to know exactly what the orders were, if they complied with the law and his rights, and if the decision that the orders were violated was correct.
I do not understand why this is so hard for you.
You are fixated on what the judge may or may not have ordered – to the exclusion of being able to see anything else.
If Manafort was indicted for murdering someone while on bail.
Bail would be revoked. there is not some rule – that the judge must order Manafort not to murder people.
The one aspect of this that brings things back to the judge – though really it brinks in back to Mueller – not the judge, is it is NOT Manafort’s job to guess who Mueller’s witnesses are.
Mueller’s indictment for witness tampering harbor’s a collection of premises that are rejections of fundimental pricinples of our law.
One of those errors is that Mueller is presuming that Manafort is already proven guilty.
Mueller is saying that Manafort can not go out and seek out his own witnesses.
That he can not try to find people who share his view of the facts,
At the core to Mueller’s indictiment is the question of fact – did the Hapsburg group lobby in the US.
Contra Mueller that is NOT a known fact. It is a question of fact, and one Manafort is entitled to prove otherwise. Further it is clear that Manafort’s view is shared by some journalists in the world.
It therefore can not be a crime for Manafort to seek out others who would be willing to testify that Hapsburg did not lobby in the US.
The person he contacted was NOT on Mueller’s list of witnesses.
There was no reason for Manafort to beleive he was tampering with a witness.
“I do not understand why this is so hard for you.
You are fixated on what the judge may or may not have ordered – to the exclusion of being able to see anything else.”
It is really very easy though you seem to be confusing yourself. My interest is in why Manafort’s bail was removed. I am and have not been discussing the original accusations. Bail was revoked because the judge said he violated her orders. That is the only part that is presently under consideration by me. You want to deal with tangents and I don’t.
Why the judge chose to remove Manafort’s Bail ?
Or why the law permitted and possibly required removing Manafort’s bail ?
Those are NOT the same.
The law allows and probably requires bail to be revoked if there is probable cause that a crime was committed while on bail. Any indictment for an action while on bail is probable cause that a crime was committed.
I am not discussing the origiinal accusations either.
Are you not aware than Mueller sought and received a superceding indictment that added witnesses tampering for conduct AFTER Manafort was granted bail ?
By indicting Mueller pretty much took the issue of bail out of the judges hands.
What I am dealing with is not tangent. Manafort is highly unlikely to get bail restored without vacating the indictment for witness tampering.
Proving there was something wrong with the judges orders or that he did not violate them will get him nowhere.
“Are you not aware than Mueller sought and received a superceding indictment that added witnesses tampering for conduct AFTER Manafort was granted bail ?”
Yes. I just want to know where to point the finger.
The responsibility for Mueller’s actions is with Mueller
dhlii – you don’t want to lay some of the blame on Wiseman?
I use Mueller generically for the SC’s office.
“The responsibility for Mueller’s actions is with Mueller”
Absolutely.
You can have bail revoked without violating a judges orders.
“You can have bail revoked without violating a judges orders.”
That is true, but tangential to the case under discussion.
“That is true, but tangential to the case under discussion.”
Nope. It is tangential to the issue you want to discuss.
It is not merely germain, but stand alone sufficient with respect to Manafort’s bail.
He was indicted for comitting a crime while on bail.
Absent the judge taking the rare but bold stand that the indictment is invalid,
his bail is being revoked.
I do not know why the court went into a discussion of the courts orders.
Probably because courts tend to be self obsessed.
Had I been the judge I would have revoked his bail, on hearing of the indictment,
and told Manafort’s lawyers I would consider restoring bail if they defeated the indictment.
I personally thing the indictment is not merely invalid, but prosecutorial misconduct.
But it is still presumed valid until actually found otherwise.
And that ends the bail revocation issue.
Any discussion of the judges orders is academic.
” It is tangential to the issue you want to discuss.”
That is right. I am discussing only a single point. The broader issue has many legs so I am looking to see how far the misconduct may have gone. The Flynn case already convinced me about Mueller and the IG, Nunes report, etc. have already convinced me about the FBI. Now I want to look at the judge.
Obviously I can not stop you from digging into the weeds, when there is a sequoia standing in your way.
I prefer to deal with the tree – solve it, and the other problems got away at the same time.
Don;t and getting arround the twigs does no good.
dhlii – sometimes those pesky weeds need to be dealt with. 😉
You can kill all the weeds, you will still not get arround the Sequia
“I can not stop you from digging into the weeds”
You don’t know where and when to dig.
I do not know all that much about the judge.
But from what I can see she is not particularly interesting.
She is a typical federal judge who doesn’t seek to make waves and believes what prosecutors tell her.
Most of the time that does not create problems.
The VA judge is much more interesting, and is expecting Mueller to prove what he says.
I would also note Mueller is having problems in NY too, where he is trying to go to trial without providing the defense with the evidence against it.
“I do not know all that much about the judge.”
At this time I only care about the judge’s words and deeds limiting my scope to the order.
If an earthquake knocks your house over,
the debate over whether the carpenter who came by the day before properly measured your front door is academic.
Mueller successfully indicted Manafort for witness tampering,
And offense that occured while Manafort was on bail.
That is probable cause that Manafort committed a crime while on bail.
That ALONE is sufficient to revoke bail.
I do not think that the Judge should be allow to manufacture other reasons.
But my oppinion on that is NOT the state of our law.
I am capable of both arguing that the law is wrong and knowing what the law actually is concurrently.
I think that is a sign of objectivity.
I was actually paying attention to this closely as it happened.
I had decided that I Mueller did not indict – he was likely to lose the bail revokation, or if he won lose on appeal. But that if he successfully indicted, even if the judge sided with Manafort, Mueller was appealing and winning.
The CRITICAL issue is NOT the judges prior orders.
It is whether the evidence of Manafort’s actions are probable cause of a crime.
I do not hink they are. but Mueller convinced a GJ and that meets the legal standard of probable cause that a crime has been committed.
“The CRITICAL issue is NOT the judges prior orders.
It is whether the evidence of Manafort’s actions are probable cause of a crime.”
Manafort was accused of a crime. Manafort provided bail and was released on bail. The judge ordered him not to speak to witnesses. He is said to have violated the order and therefore bail was revoked.
If my facts are correct then: What one needs to know is exactly what the orders were, if they complied with the law and his rights and if the decision that the orders were violated was correct.
The primary count against Manafort though linked to the court order is a separate issue.
An indictment is probable cause that Manafort committed another crime while on bail.
Look, I do not think he did. I think the actual evidence is so strong that Mueller has committed prosecutorial miscondict indicting Manafort.
But that is outside the scope of the judge.
and indictment is probable cause that a crime has been committed.
In this case the crime alleged was committed while on bail.
It is not an indictment for an additional past crime that Mueller has found.
It does not matter whether the crime was witness tampering or homocide by vehicle.
It does not matter what the judge ordered.
HOWEVER whether the specific crime alleged was possible depends on the information Mueller provided Manafort.
Neither the Judge nor Mueller can bar Manafort from seeking out his own witnesses – which is increasingly what this prosecution looks like – and attempt to bar manafort from finding favorable witnesses.
“An indictment is probable cause that ”
One of my questions is whether or not there has been an overzealous investigation. It certainly seems that way when we look at Flynn’s case. However, the first thing that needs to be determined is what the judge ordered and whether or not it denied Manafort his legal rights and if it was an appropriate order. Then we have to see on what grounds Manafort’s bail was revoked and if there may have been too much investigative zealousness there as well.
I say this though I have a suspicion I might not like Manafort. I am very much concerned that a lot of these investigations have been out of bounds and meant to protect people and their prejudices rather than what they should be doing.
Five days ago Tiara Boy blathered, “The court can not properly order you not to contact witnesses.”
The witness at issue, Alan Friedman, is cooperating with Mueller and ratted Manafort and Kilimnik out to Mueller as soon as Manafort and Kilimnik contacted Friedman. This was explained to you six days ago, Tiara Boy. And you’re still blathering to the contrary six days later. Now hear this: Manafort cannot order Friedman not to cooperate with Mueller. Meanwhile, you’re still just-plain flat-out wrong about the conditions to which Manafort agreed for his pre-trial release to house arrest with an ankle bracelet for monitoring his movements. One of those conditions to which Manafort agreed was not to contact any witnesses in the case against him. That’s exactly what Manafort did. Judge ABJ really had no choice but to revoke Manafort’s bail and put him in pre-trial detention. Let me put it to you in terms that even you can understand: Manafort was in breach of contract. Do you get it now, ridiculous creature?
I would suggest getting your facts straight as they matter.
While the media is reporting the person Manafort contacted as Friedman that is NOT known from the SC or court.
What is KNOWN is what Manafort sent to this person
And that does not constitute Witness tampering.
What is ALSO known is that this person is NOT one of Mueller’s identified witnesses.
Again that means this can not be witness tampering.
It is correct that this person contacted Mueller after being contacted by Manafort.
It is correct that this person reported they FELT like they were being improperly influenced.
The subjective self representations of this person do NOT constitute evidence of the intentions of Manafort, What matters is the actual content of the message – which is NOT witness tampering.
Mueller’s indictment constitutes a false legal assertion that Manafort is not allowed to try to find witnesses to defend himself.
While Manafort CAN contact Mueller witnesses – that was NOT the case.
From Mueller’s brief to Judge ABJ:
On June 8, 2018, a grand jury sitting in the District of Columbia returned a Superseding Indictment charging Manafort and his longtime associate, Konstantin Kilimnik, with attempted witness tampering and conspiracy to commit witness tampering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1512(b)(1) and (k). See Doc. 318 ¶¶ 48-51. Counts Six and Seven of that Superseding Indictment “‘conclusively determine[] the existence of probable cause’ to believe the defendant” committed a federal crime while on pretrial release. Kaley v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 1090, 1097 (2014) (quoting Gerstein v. Pugh, 420 U.S. 103, 117 n.19 (1975)); see also United States v. Smith, 79 F.3d 1208, 1210 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (“[T]he indictment alone would have been enough to raise the rebuttable presumption that no condition would reasonably assure the safety of the community.”). Probable cause to believe that Manafort committed a crime, in turn, triggers a rebuttable presumption “that no condition or combination of conditions will assure that [Manafort] will not pose a danger to the safety of any other person or the community.” 18 U.S.C. § 3148(b). Manafort’s challenge to the strength of the government’s evidence of witness tampering is thus both misplaced and unavailing. See Kaley, 134 S. Ct. at 1098 & n.6 (explaining that “[t]he grand jury gets to say—without any review, oversight, or second-guessing—whether probable cause exists to think that a person committed a crime,” and recognizing that this “unreviewed finding . . . may play a significant role in determining a defendant’s eligibility for release before trial under the Bail Reform Act”).
The portion of the Mueller brief that you cite is absolutely correct.
The Judge has little if any discretion here.
The fundimental problem is in the area Mueller identifies as Manafort’s challenge.
The problem is that the indictment itself is garbage.
But Manafort must challenge the indictment directly.
In a just world Mueller would be censored for seeking and securing an indictment based where the facts as HE CLAIMS THEM do not meet the required elements of the crime.
At the very least Manafort should be able to get the indictment dissmissed.
Which is what his lawyers should do.
At the same time Mueller’s own brief demonstrates the egregious flaws in out system.
We all know that prosecutors can get GJ’s to indict over anything. They can manufacture crimes from thin air, and get an indictment.
This is one instance where Mueller has gotten an indictment for conduct that by the facts supplied by Mueller in the indictment is NOT A CRIME.
Essentially Mueller’s brief accuratley states that any prosecutor at any time can assure that any defendent is jailed prior to trial by getting an indictment against them for a crime committed while on bail.
As we know that Prosecutors can successfully get GJ’s to indict a ham sandwich.
We have a standard by which a prosecutor can always assure that the defendant is jailed prior to trial.
This behavior on the part of Mueller/Weinstein is unsruprising.
Mueller has a multidecade long reputation for expansively reading and applying the law, and getting bitch slapped by the courts for doing so. For aggressiving haunting the innocent – driving one defendant to suicide.
Mueller is already being questioned toughly by multiple other courts for improper conduct.
For failing to provide the defense with information and evidence it is obligated to.
Mueller epitomizes justice in the USSR – but that is not where we are.
Manafort is facing a wide range of charges – many of which are either made up, or on the evidence that Mueller offers bogus.
There is no “conspiracy to Defraud the United States” crime.
All of Mueller’s money laundering claims are tax evasion – if they are even illegal.
They are not money laundering which requires facts that have not been asserted.
An indictment does not require the same standard of proof as a conviction at trial.
But it does require that every element of a crime is asserted and meets the probable cause standard.
Mueller has not done that.
L4D
You are horribly ignorant of the facts, and you can not tell the difference between things reported in the press and what is actually on the record.
What is known is that Manafort sent a secure message to a person who is NOT one of Muellers 56 listed witnesses.
That secure message provided a link to a news article and a couple of words saying Hapsburg only did business in europe.
That the recipient contacted Mueller and reported that he felt “intimidated”.
Those are the only known facts, and all can be found in the Mueller indictment.
Those facts are NOT sufficient for witness tampering.
They do not even come close.
Those facts ARE unethical conduct on the part of Mueller.
It is REMOTELY possible that Mueller either intended or now intends to use this person as a witness.
But Mueller had NOT identified them as such previously.
Mueller is NOT permitted to bar Manafort from contacting Meuller’s witnesses – though he must be careful doing so and generally would be stupid to do so directly.
Stupid is not criminal.
Mueller is NOT permitted to bar Manafort from contacting people who are NOT identified as Mueller’s witnesses.
Witness tampering is a crime that has specific elements. All must be present.
In this instance NONE are present.
This is not actually misconduct on Manafort’s part.
It is Misconduct on Mueller’s part. It is actually unethical.
It is even arguably witness tampering on Mueller’s part and would be but for the fact that this person contacted Meuller.
You would do better to bother to find out the actual facts before commenting.
You can “explain” all you want.
Your “explanations” do not conform to the facts, the law, and typically include facts that are not known and ignore facts that are known.
You’re raising issues to be heard at trial as though the mere raising of those issues ought to preclude a trial.
Tell it to the jury, not the Judge, Tiara Boy.
“You’re raising issues to be heard at trial as though the mere raising of those issues ought to preclude a trial.”
You are clueless about the law and the constitution.
If I allege that you are a peodophile does that mean that you must suffer under that accusation until a Jury decides otherwise ?
That is not how our system of justice works. This is also going to be an issue with Trump/Russia more generally.
To open an investigation at all, the govenrment must have a credible allegation.
That is a low standard – but it is more than my accusing you.
It is arguable as an example whether the Steele Dossier even meets the low standard necescary to open an investigation – though it likely does.
Investigations proceed in steps and each step requires meeting a higher standard before proceeding.
Requesting information voluntarily from banks etc. interviewing potential witnesses – requires meeting a slightly higher standard than “credible accusation”.
Deploying measures like informants “spys” requires meeting an even higher standard.
Getting a warrant (or an indictment) means meeting the standard of probable cause.
While lower that the standard needed to convict, that standard is still fairly high.
Further it requires proof that a crime has been committed – i.e. that every element of that crime is present.
and that the person being indicted or searched committed that crime.
Because GJ proceedings are not adversarial prosecutors are never tested as to whether they evidence they have presented actually meets the Probable cause standard or whether every required element of the crime has proof.
Defense attorney’s can challenge the indictment, and the charges. They can do so before the case is presented to the jury.
Defense challenges to facts alleged by the prosecutor have to meet very high bar because facts are to be decided by juries.
But the defense can trivially challenge whether the required facts – the elements of the crime, have even been alleged.
If the prosecutor/indictment does not find every element of the crime is present,
that charge must be dropped.
No one is required to stand trial for a crime that the prosecutor can not BEFORE TRIAL demonstrate to the standard of probable cause has occurred.
“Now hear this: Manafort cannot order Friedman not to cooperate with Mueller.”
First, we do not actally know this it Friedman.
That is the press reports, but Friedman is NOT an identified Mueller witness,
Nor is the person in the indictment identified as Friedman.
But accepting that the press reports are likely correct.
Manafort “ordered” nothing. He linked to a new article and highlighted one item in the article.
That is not an order, that is not a direction to not cooperate, that is not a threat, it is not intimidation.
Even if the news article is completely wrong – it is still reasonable for Manafort to offer it.
You really, really, truly, truly do not understand. The news article at issue was ghost written by Paul Manafort and Friedman as well as Vin Weber, btw, already know that the “opinion” expressed in Manafort’s article is false. The Hapsburg Group was, in fact, lobbying in the United States. Ergo, Manafort and Kilimnik were attempting to induce false testimony–a.k.a. suborning perjury.
“You really, really, truly, truly do not understand. The news article at issue was ghost written by Paul Manafort and Friedman as well as Vin Weber, btw, ”
That is an assertion not a fact. And an irrelevant one.
It is still a news article.
“already know that the “opinion” expressed in Manafort’s article is false. The Hapsburg Group was, in fact, lobbying in the United States.”
Bzzt wrong – that is a question of fact. and in fact one that has NOT been proven.
“Ergo, Manafort and Kilimnik were attempting to induce false testimony–a.k.a. suborning perjury.”
Bzzt, wrong,
Your argument is because I beleive that manafort is guilty that means that the fact must prove he is guilty, therefore any argument by Manafort that the facts are different is witness tampering.
You are litterally arguing for USSR style star chambers.
All the things you claim are “facts” are things Mueller is obligated to PROVE,
which is why we have trials and witnesses.
It is also why the defense is entitled to present its own evidence to DISPROVE the things you think are facts.
IF Manafort grabs a megaphone and goes out on the courthouse steps and claims that the Hapsburg Group did not lobby in the US.
Would that be witness tampering ?
No – it would be an excercise of free speech.
If as you Claim Manafort was able to write a story favorable to him with claims of facts that are false, and get it published – guess what – still not witness tampering.
In fact if Manafort in a private conversation with a witness baldly LIED to the witness.
Still not witness tampering.
witness tampering requires an overt attempt to compell the witness to change their testimony.
Threats, intimidation, bribery, inducements.
None of those are present.
The indictment should have failed.
Further Friedman – or whoever was contacted was not identified by Mueller as a witness.
You can not tamper with a non-witness.
“Meanwhile, you’re still just-plain flat-out wrong about the conditions to which Manafort agreed for his pre-trial release to house arrest with an ankle bracelet for monitoring his movements. One of those conditions to which Manafort agreed was not to contact any witnesses in the case against him.”
False. Mueller identified 56 witnesses he intended to use.
The person Manafort contacted was NOT one of those.
There is actually an ethical problem for Mueller her – as the prosecution is required to provide their witnesses.
BTW Mueller is being hammered by the courts in NY for refusing to provide his witnesses.
This is actually a constitutional issue – no court order can waive Manaforts right to know the evidence and witnesses being used against him.
You can not agree to an unconstitutional condition.
You also do not understand bail very well. Unconvicted persons are INNOCENT as far as the law is concerned. We have alot of dubious law that allows the government to restrict the rights of those charged with crimes, but generally it requires a finding that there is some risk they will not show up.
Unfortunately the courts have used a very low standard for that.
As with most of our civil rights the right to prepare our defence and to be treated as innocent until convicted have been whittled away to almost nothing.
Manafort BYW has NOT violated the condictions he agreed to.
He has violated conditions Mueller has made up.
Even the judge noted that Manafort contacted someone not on Mueller’s witness list.
But made the ludictrously stupid statement that she should not have to add every potential Mueller witness to the lest of people Manafort can not contact.
The exact opposite is true. The “rule” is not Manafort can not contact anyone except those few he is allowed to. It is that he must be careful about contacting those Mueller has identified as HIS witnesses.
Manafort is free to contact any other living human on the planet.
He is free to seek out anyone he thinks MIGHT be a witness for him.
Mueller’s and your and unfortunately the courts logic is
Your guilty, we have already decided that, trying to find witnesses to support your position is therefore witness tampering – because your guilty and we all know that.
If you do not understand how that turns our law and constitution topsey turvey, you are an idiot.
But that is already established.
You are not merely Late 4 Dinner – you are far behind on everything.
As I have argued with Alan – despite her digression into other nonsense, the Judge did have no choice.
Mueller indicted Manafort for commiting a crime while on bail.
That is the end of the legal debate.
To remain on bail Manafort must successfully challenge the indictment.
There is good reason to beleive he can do so.
In a proper world Mueller would be disciplined by the Bar for unethical conduct.
But prosecutors are almost never held accountable for ethical violations.
Regardless, Mueller indicted Manafort for conduct that by the facts MUELLER offered is not witness tampering. AND Mueller indicted for contact with a person that was not a Mueller witness. –
“Mueller indicted Manafort for commiting a crime while on bail. That is the end of the legal debate.”
As I have argued with Alan – despite her digression into other nonsense, the Judge did have no choice. I believe that statement wrong. We are not talking about parole. We are talking about bail. The individual is still considered innocent so he may or may not lose bail.
L4D cut and pasted from Mueller’s brief on the issue – she is useful for somethings.
That brief cited the relevant law.
Other lawyers have noted that probable cause of committing a crime while on Bail is legally sufficient to have bail revoked.
and that an indictment is probable cause a crime has been committed.
With respect to how things SHOULD be I agree with you – as well as Alan Derschowitz.
But that is not how they are.
Each case has its own features. Obviously, things are not entirely the way they should be. I think most can recognize that with the IG report and how the special counsel was appointed along with how things were handled and developed. I don’t always believe that justice is blind, even though it is supposed to be, and I don’t always believe that justice has been provided, even if that was the intention. That some lawyers believe differently is understandable but we should look at all the lawyers in this case whether on Mueller’s team or in the FBI and note that they don’t always act in the fashion they should act.
I think the Mueller probe is an obscenity as were some of the FBI probes. I think the make-up of Mueller’s investigators and the way they handled themselves is an obscenity as well. Though they aren’t torturing people the way Stalin did they are using some of Stalin’s tactics; abuse in obtaining confessions and having those confessions publically announced along with using the media to help in obtaining confessions through hook and crook. In essence, they are terrorizing a subsegment of the population.
But we are dealing with the revocation of bail in Manafort’s case. My understanding is bail was revoked because Manafort apparently violated the judge’s orders not necessarily because of an additional crime. Though I have no love for Manafort I don’t even know if he committed a crime in the first place, what the judge’s order was or if it was legal or if Manafort violated the order or committed any other crime. My faith in the justice department is very limited. All I know is that bail is given because man is innocent until proven guilty. Bail is used for ensuring the individual appears in court. I don’t think Manafort’s status changed at least in that regard so I believe that even the judge’s call might be wrong.. Bail might also be used to protect the public but I don’t see Manafort being any threat to the public.
Though our government has tended toward autocracy under more than one President I think the day Obama took office was indeed a transformational change as the rule of law didn’t just degenerate a bit more. It seems to have been thrown out the window. Obama learned his lessons well from what was taught by the leftist thugs that we faced in the past and continue to face today.
Mueller is not stalin – agreed.
Mueller’s brief on Bail Revocation got the law correct.
The judge was obligated to do as Mueller asked.
dhlii – isn’t there something called judicial discretion which would have kept Manafort out of jail. For example, Hollywood star sexpot fails a drug test while on probation, should be sent to jail. Judge, using judicial discretion, allows Hollywood star sexpot to remain out of jail and on original probation but gives a stern, yet ineffective lecture to her (actual example). Doesn’t a federal judge have the same discretion? Just asking for a friend. 🙂
If you have followed my posts, I beleive that any discretion beyond such trivial things as a police officer ending a traffic stop prematurely to go after a bank robber violates the rule of law and violates equal protection.
Requiring the rigid enforcement of our laws drives us in multiple was to limited government.
Enforcing the laws we currently have without discretion would instantly turn the country into a police state.
It is unlikely we could afford the increase in law enforcement necescary to do so.
Enforcing current laws without discretion would piss people off at government.
Just look at what happened when Trump/DHS enforced the law regarding illegal immigrants which resulted in the separation of families.
All hell broke lose. Unfortunately Trump caved before we fixed the law. So we are back to lawlessness.
Do not get me wrong – I think that separating families is a bad thing. but currently the only legal means of avoiding it is “catch and release” and that is not any more law abiding.
I am a pro-immigration libertarian. But I understand the implications of my personal positions.
I am very angry with the left on immigration – as they are not really proponents of “open borders”.
They wish to hypocritically pretend there are cost free feel good fairy dust solutions to our immigration issues. There are not.
I would support democrats taking a principled stand – so long as they did not pretend away the other effects of that principled position.
But they don’t. Democrats want unlimited immigration, with magical high paying jobs that do not cost any citizens their jobs, and do not increase our entitlement rolls.
I am sure that as things are there was plenty of room for discretion.
But there should not be.
Enforce the law as it is. Change it if it is wrong.
dhlii – immigration is a wedge issue they thought they could use into the midterms. Now it is gone. However, the clamor was because they needed something to deflect from the damage being done to the Democratic Party by the OIG hearing.
Politics is complex. Both sides are using the immigration issue as well as others.
I am not a republican and not much fan of republicans.
Being less awful than democrats is not much of a selling point.
dhlii – we have a theatre in the square in our town and I was watching a couple try out various seats on various sides to see which were best for their season tickets. When the show was over, I happen to go out next to them and as I explained to them, as a long time season ticket holder, there were just less good seats, there were no bad seats.
The end decision of bail revocation is up to the judge.
Who is obligated to follow the law and Mueller can appeal if she does not.
I expect the government to enforce the law.
Especially bad laws.
I expect the courts to enforce the law.
Discretion – choice on the part of those in government apply the law is lawlessness.
One of the important means to get to limited government and the rule of law, is to have to actually live with our laws as they are applied uniformly without discretion.
I expect the judge to be independent of the bureaucracy.
I expect the judge to follow the law, even bad law, scrupulously.
The power to change bad law rests with use through the legislature.
Allan – alleged committed a crime while out on bail.
Detective Lt. Columbo asks to many questions. But it smokes out the suspects.
“Trump supporters are all poor to middle class, uneducated, lazy POS…”
Can’t you just smell the utter contempt from these employees at the FBI?
https://twitter.com/YoungDems4Trump/status/1007394026994089985
Bob:
Should FBI Agents never have opinions? Should they have known that Trump was going to ‘Make America Great Again’..??
Every once in a while during the course of my work life, I’ll print out something I’ve seen and leave it in the staff lounge for people to peruse if they were interested. In the 23 years since I was issued an e-mail account, the number of political appeals and discussions I’ve received or participated in via e-mail or voicemail sums to about 2. One time I got a chain e-mail from an old co-worker imploring me to write my congressman to save funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Another time, a trio of faculty members was permitted to spam the entire campus with some pseudo-pacifist appeal. Any discussion in the staff lounge at one placed I worked was dominated by partisan Democrats. it was the same 4 people who took their morning coffee at the same time. At the others, people didn’t talk politics on their down time.
And you want to tell me why these chatterboxes all that the same opinions? What, are Republicans unfit for federal law enforcement?
Peter, You must think that the FBI is a place where political opinions about who should be President or how one will stop one candidate from being President is just a usual normal occurrence. Apparently, you don’t understand how to separate your work from your private life. I would fire an employee on the spot for that type of activity.
FBI agents – and ALL government employees should keep their political oppinions out of their work.
These people were using government resources for personal and political exchanges, and visa versa.
Equally important, if you feel strongly politically then you should not participated in a government investigation where your political views could cloud your judgement.
FBI agents are permitted to have whatever opinions they want.
But there is a long list of agents involved in this who should have removed themselves from the case.
One really simple issue – any agent or DOJ lawyer using private emails for government communications should have removed themselves from the Clinton case.
It appears that would be all of them.
When a top level FBI official says “He’s not going to be elected. We’ll stop it”, that goes well beyond having “an opinion”.
i support trump. feel free to assume i too am poor and uneducated. just a man of the people. not like these high and mighty fbi agents. but the writing on the wall says mene mene mene tekel upharsin
Applicants are judged by what degree(s) they have, what school they went too, what philanthropic organizations have you given your time. The elite in DC are pompous asses.
What does POS mean?
Sandi, it can mean Point of Sale, or Piece of Sh#t. I’ll let you guess what it stands for in this context.
🙂
“Paul Manafort jailed by judge for alleged witness tampering”
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44500034
In Mueller I trust!
Why?
He’s a combat wounded Marine. He’s incorruptible.
Whitey what about whitey?
http://archive.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/07/24/a_lingering_question_for_the_fbis_director/?page=1
Hopefully, Trump will pardon Manafort. The Witch Hunt should have no victims.
Agree. But Manafort’s crimes are over 10 years old. Nothing to do with the 2016 election.
A pardon will be meaningless. If he is pardoned, he can be tried for state charges.
Plus he won’t be able to plead the fifth to avoid testifying against Trump if he is pardoned.
What do you expect him to say about Trump? You are running on empty.
He will talk about how Trump is compromised by Putin’s knowledge of his crimes.
Why do you think Trump and Giuliani have put Cohen on an island?
Use Occum’s Razor.
Cohen and Trump must have committed crimes that Putin knows about.
At least understand what you are talking about. Occam’s Razor depends on the use of a lesser number of assumptions and that is all you do, assume.
Let’s hear fact not assumptions. As I said, you are running on empty.
Occam’s razor does not work as you think.
It does not as an example require presuming space aliens are the cause of everything – because that involes the fewest assumptions.
All roads lead to Obama.
Huh! George, did you forget to take get your smart pill this morning?
i disagree. i think obama was a small fry compared to the clintons. he had backers, he was a phantom, they are dynasts
“Clinton’s Use Of A Personal Email System Led To…”
the exposure of lies by Obama about the fact of his complicity.
Comey knew that Obama lied and that prosecution of Hillary would compel prosecution of Obama.
Bill Plante interviews Obama:
Plante, March 7: Mr. President, when did you first learn that Hillary Clinton used an email system outside the U.S. government for official business while she was secretary of state?
Obama: The same time everybody else learned it through news reports.
___________________________________________________________
“FBI analysts and Prosecutor 2 told us that former President Barack Obama was one of the 13 individuals with whom Clinton had direct contact using her clintonemail.com account,” the report says in a footnote on page 89. “Obama, like other high level government officials, used a pseudonym for his username on his official government email account.”
In 2015, President Obama told America he only learned that his secretary of state Hillary Clinton was illegally using a private email server to conduct public business after The New York Times published a story saying so. Today’s release of a Department of Justice inspector general report shows that was a lie.
“FBI analysts and Prosecutor 2 told us that former President Barack Obama was one of the 13 individuals with whom Clinton had direct contact using her clintonemail.com account,” the report says in a footnote on page 89. “Obama, like other high level government officials, used a pseudonym for his username on his official government email account.”
The report also says Obama Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey knew that Obama had lied. It was in 2015 that Obama had disclaimed knowledge that Clinton used a private, rather than government, email address. In 2016, while drafting a public statement explaining why the FBI wouldn’t prosecute Clinton during her run for the presidency, Comey changed the statement’s wording to hide that Obama had communicated with Clinton through her private email address, the report says.
“A paragraph [in Comey’s statement] summarizing the factors that led the FBI to assess that it was possible that hostile actors accessed Clinton’s server was added, and at one point referenced Clinton’s use of her private email for an exchange with then President Obama while in the territory of a foreign adversary,” the IG report says. “This reference later was changed to ‘another senior government official,’ and ultimately was omitted.”
George:
The report actually said “Obama Federal Bureau Of Investigation”..??
Are we supposed to forget that Comey was a Bush holdover?
Where does this text come from and why won’t you say?
Are we supposed to forget that Comey was a Bush holdover?
He wasn’t. Comey was a career employee who had spent 18 years at the Department of Justice before decamping for a financial sector job in New York in 2005. With scant doubt, he was appointed in 2013 consequent to Mueller’s endorsement.
Correction: Comey wasn’t a ‘holdover’ but he was in Bush’s’ Justice Department. From Wikipedia:
“Comey was the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York from January 2002 to December 2003, and the United States Deputy Attorney General from December 2003 to August 2005 in the administration of President George W. Bush”.
And remember, it was actually James Comey who appointed his friend Patrick Fitzgerald as Special Counsel to go after Scooter Libby — who Trump recently pardoned.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/comey-plame-spinning-scooter-libby-article-1.3981071
“We believed then, as we do today, that it was absurd to have treated the leak as a criminal matter. Everything we have learned since Libby’s trial suggests that the investigation itself was a miscarriage of justice, not to mention an interminable distraction and a colossal waste of time and money.
It has been well known for years that it was Richard Armitage who leaked Plame’s name to conservative columnist Robert Novak, who in the process made her a public figure. Armitage, Secretary of State Colin Powell’s deputy, was hardly a neocon war hawk trying to punish her husband for challenging WMD intelligence.
It is also now well-established that neither Libby nor Cheney outed Plame to reporters, despite Plame’s, Comey’s and special counsel Fitzgerald’s repeated assertions.
What makes Libby’s prosecution all the more unjust is that Fitzgerald knew about both the CIA’s damage assessment and the identity of the original source of the leak before his inquiry began. But in the course of the four-year investigation, he subpoenaed at least 10 journalists — and put me, Judith Miller, in jail for 85 days — to pursue a noncrime that had caused no harm to national security.”
He was a career employee. He worked for seven different administration. He was only caught scamming around on his boss during the very last one, which is why he was put out on the curb. Robert Mueller has been employed by 8 different administrations. Rod Rosenstein has worked for five. They are agents of the permanent government and thick as thieves.
correction. Comey’s worked for 6 administrations.
So anyone with real experience shouldn’t be trusted?
It’s funny you say that because a story surfaced yesterday saying that White House staffers have been peeling off so fast that Trump is now trying to recruit from ‘Job Fairs’.
So anyone with real experience shouldn’t be trusted?
It doesn’t seem to occur to you that we’ve been observing these three stooges and taking note of how they’ve behaved of late.
It sounds like that moronic rational that ‘anyone with experience shouldn’t be in government’. Like the government would function better if run by total amateurs. And right now we have the ultimate amateur running our government. Goodbye friends. Hello enemies.
They are corrupt. It appears Peter Hill likes corrupt people.
Allan, maybe your family started in Eastern Europe. My family was all Western Europe. The United States has long, historic ties with Britain and France. And Germans compose the largest ratio of White Americans.
Canada has been the friendliest neighbor any country could have. Canadians mix among us all the time and we don’t even notice. So this idea we must hate these countries is completely irrational. It’s a sanity check that Trumpers are flunking.
Peter, when are you going to stop making things up. You are confused by your own lies. It’s your idea to hate these countries and your idea to love stupidity. I can’t help you with that.
Experience is one valuable attribute for most any job.
It is not the sole qualification.
One of the problems with government work where job security is guaranteed is that accumulating experience is assured – without accumulating skill or ever demonstrating competence.
The more I learn about Mueller the more troubling he becomes.
Multiple times he has hounded innocent people for years.
He near universally goes after everyone like a pit bull without any concern for whether he actually is persuing anything legitimately, and after he has hounded someone innocent for years,
there is no appology and no understanding that he has done anything wrong.
In Muellers mind, anyone Mueller goes after is a criminal, and there is never any basis for reconsideration.
And all investigations are to be pursued as blood sport.
PH re “So anyone with real experience shouldn’t be trusted? ” Not if their history indicates putting profit above country or other corrupt dealings.
George ain’t too bright.
Allan — Did you find the information you desired regarding the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings? With the format here on my 2.5″ wide mobile device, where over one inch of that on the left is not written upon, I can’t readily check older threads.
Apologies to others for the off-topic comment.
David, I didn’t need anything but I thought it relevant to the conversation at the time especially since your name appeared on the paper. You should skip trying to read things on the blog and read them in the email format. That makes it much easier after you post once providing your name and address.
I receive far too much email as it is. Also, it is likely that I will read and write comments on this site less frequently for some time; summer.
The problem is that your inability to follow what is being said can make you sound a bit incoherent. Of course, that excuse can be used to hide one’s incoherence.😀
Peter “Shill” seems to be in Overtime Mode, absolutely frantic about this story and vomiting up DNC Talking Points like a fat man who ate a ton of spoiled sushi at Kuso Karae’s All-You-Can-Eat Discount Sushi Restaurant.
ROTFLMAO!
Sorry Peter, but all your silly bloviations are doing nothing except exposing the depth of enslavement to the Left.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Or the Right. Or the Down.
It is difficult to tell.
Aw gosh, Squeeky, sorry you saw through me.
And explain again why you use the name of a Charles Manson disciple.
To entrap silly people who can’t spell.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Well no mature adult who wants to be taken seriously would use that name.
It sounds like an idea some metal-head thought was deviously funny.
Thank you for admitting that it is deviously funny!
🙂
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
PS: No mature adult who wants to be taken seriously would post the silly, spun, contrived, and often false DNC Talking Points that you do. You have shown yourself to be unable to engage in intelligent discussion. I am not sure whether you are just really gullible and stupid, and believe all the BS pumped out by the Democratic Left, or whether you are just a shill who could care less about the truth or relevance of what you say as long as it supports the Democratic Party.
I suspect the latter. Which, is a pretty common character flaw among Democrats. C’mon, do you really think Nancy Pelosi believes that borders are racist, or does she just lie and say it to gin up the base?
Ms. Pelosi is not my congresswoman and she may not be Minority Leader that much longer. But she no doubt has strong support in her congressional district.
shit how did he know i used to be a metal head? peter smarter than he seems. yes i like the name too it’s amusing, tough cookies petey
STRZOK QUESTIONED SUBSTANCE OF RUSSIA PROBE
An attorney for Strzok defended him on Thursday and cited evidence in the report about how strongly he pushed for aggressive investigative techniques in the Clinton email investigation.
There’s also at least one key message that suggests Strzok and Page not only didn’t join the Russia investigation with clear evidence in hand of wrongdoing by Trump or his campaign, but, instead, with open skepticism about whether they might discover any wrongdoing.
The two officials texted back and forth about offers to join Mueller’s team at the time of his appointment. Although Strzok ultimately went on to join Mueller’s unit, here’s how he responded to a message from Page that mentioned the prospect that Trump might be impeached:
“you and I both know the odds are nothing,” he wrote. “If I thought it was likely I’d be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concern there’s no big there there.”
Strzok later told investigators, as the IG report goes on to describe, that “My question [was] about whether or not this represented a large, coordinated conspiracy or not.
Edited from: “The Huge Justice Department I.G. Report Is Out. What Comes Next?”
Today’s NPR
THIS SUGGESTS THAT STROZK WASN’T JUMPING ON STEELE REPORT
yes that is correct. but what does that mean to you?
to me it just makes it worse. they hated trump just because he was trump.
they knew it was all baloney
A huge portion of the country was concerned about Trump. Several conservative pundits became Trump’s biggest critics. Yet Trump supporters like to pretend he was widely respect all through the campaign.
The “conservative pundits” who criticized Trump were/are ALL neo cons / neo libs – they are total sell outs. Frum, Wills, etc. etc. mad that he beat out their selected boy “low energy Jeb” and the others who would have supported the TPP and endless wars..
Autumn:
You have presented yourself as a ‘Stein supporter, I believe. So why are you defending Trump against conservative pundits..??
If you were really as Stein supporter, that would make you a liberal. And liberals aren’t in the habit of defending Trump from conservative pundits.
PH – nope I do NOT identify as a “Liberal” I am an indie Progressive and as such we all are about calling out the liars who support the neo cons / neo libs
I did not vote for him.
I do not respect him.
I was still happy when Clinton lost.
We got the lessor of two evils.
COMEY BROACHED SPECIAL COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE CLINTON
“In one passage, the report rejects the decision-making process Comey described to Congress that led him to declare publicly not long before Election Day in 2016 that the FBI had reopened its Clinton email investigation.
“Comey’s description of his choice as being between ‘two doors,’ one labeled ‘speak’ and one labeled ‘conceal,’ was a false dichotomy,” the report said. “The two doors were actually labeled ‘follow policy/practice’ and ‘depart from policy/practice.'”
Comey chose to depart. Before that, he declined to tell Lynch or then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates about his intentions, and before that, Comey broached the prospect of calling for a special counsel in the Clinton investigation because he didn’t think Lynch could credibly handle the case. But Comey never did issue such a call, as the IG report describes, and only invoked the idea as a “bargaining chip.”
Comey has been defending himself in the year since his firing, including on Twitter, in his book and most recently in a column in The New York Times published online Thursday immediately after the report was officially released”.
Edited from: “The Huge Justice Department I.G. Report Is Out. What Happens Next?”
Today’s NPR
COMEY SEEMED TO HAVE AN ‘ANTI-CLINTON’ BIAS
For months Trumpers have contended that Comey was hostile to Trump. But report suggests that Comey was really hostile towards Clinton to the point of being insubordinate.
It seems that Comey was being pressured by Trumpists in the New York office to make his second statement revealing the re-opening of the Clinton e-mail investigation. These would be the same Trumpists who were leaking to Giuliani. DiGenova will be exposed soon enough for his part in the FBI and its nefarious Trumpist blackmailers. Watch this space.
Don’t expect Mr Turley to focus on the key points of any investigation into the defrauding of the American people by Trump and his cultish lieutenants both in the media; the FBI and in the bulky shape of Manafort who is being held up as a poor soul involved in some silly financial dealings by the Trumpists, but is key to the Russian conspiracy to subvert American democracy and install Trump as the autocrat-in- chief.
Very good analyses of this Russian conspiracy is to be found on Ryan Goodman’s twitter a/c and Seth Abramson’s too.
Citations for your allegation that “Trumpists” pressured Comey.
Trump, “The system is rigged.”
Trump, “She never should’ve been allowed to run.”
Trump, “Crooked H; lock her up.”
Don’t pretend that you’ve never before read nor heard these citations from Trump.
So you are saying that the public remarks of an unelected political candidate carry more weight with the FBI directory than they public remarks of the president ?
Did Trump twist Comey’s arm ? Did he order him – oh wait, he was not president yet, he couldn’t.
trump leakers should be punished if they broke the law. but you are imagining the russian conspiracy thing
you Dems and never trumpers still dont get it. the russians didnt break a single law buying political ads. the us does this abroad all the time and it’s not even espionage. businesses do it,, it’s legal. citizens united. a thing yous guys often complain about. legal!
see the deeper play of the Russians against America has been to expose how our “Deep State” works against our democracy. the judoka Putin has used the over reaction of the FBI and democrats against the American system itself, deepening the rift between red state and blue, by providing a pretense for the blue staters to go after and punish and harass and torment the red state candidate who won fair and square
thus showing us red staters how phony, on a certain level, the system has become.
we won an election but the blue staters dont accept the outcome of the election
some democracy.
in a way, maybe we should hate Putin just for shattering our illusions about “democracy”
he’s far more clever even than you putin haters make him out to be
I’m old enough to remember Hillary declaring that “anyone who doesn’t accept the results of the election is a threat to democracy”.
Please read the IG’s report.
None of your speculation is in there – because it did not happen.
No Comey did not have Anti-Clinton Bias.
What he had was a penchant for manipulating himself to the center of just about everything.
His “Higher loyalty” is to James Comey. It is self evident that throughout his carreer though he effectively ran this sales pitch of James Comey the man with integerity – and that he likely beleived it himself, that he had not clue what actual integrity was.
The IG use different words, but the point is exactly the same and more important reveals what is wrong with the left.
Comey chose the “rule of man” over the “rule of law”
Government MUST follow the rules in all things – even where the outcome is not going to be what is hoped. This is very important – we can change bad law when we find it.
When those in government place their own concept of integrity above the law, we are lawless.
“His “Higher loyalty” is to James Comey. ”
Those on the looney left can’t understand that because their minds aren’t logical and they collect data not based on validity rather based on how the words defend their loony beliefs.
Comey’s loyalty to himself meant that he had to follow which way the wind was blowing. It blew towards Clinton. However, since it was possible that Trump might win he had to protect himself so he covered a few more bases. Unfortunately for Comey he isn’t that skilled and hasn’t developed the necessary talents for such actions since his entire career seems to have been geared to advance himself even at the expense of the FBI.
The entire left is unable to distinguish between moral and ethical conduct and following their feelings.
If you are in government and you have a choice between following the law and doing what you believe is right.
You have 3 options:
1) Quit
2) Follow the law
3) do what you believe is right.
Only 1 and 2 are moral or ethical.
As a private citizen you can “do what you believe is right” though that might leave you afoul of the law.
Inside of govenrment you can not substitute your personal concept of right and wrong for the law.
That is the distinction between the rule of law, not man.
I’m remembering Andrew Greeley’s take on Joseph Bernardin: “Joseph Bernardin, Archbishop of Chicago for four years at the time of this writing, is running to be Archbishop of Chicago. He has run for the job so long he can’t stop running now that he has it. Sammy Glick in Crimson”. For unaccountable reasons, financial sector poobahs were for eight years willing to puke money all over this quondam government lawyer. I’d wager they’d have done it again. In any case, at age 56, he was already past the median retirement age for police officers and I’d wager (give > 20 years as a federal employee) had the option to stay in the federal medical insurance pool if he left the government. Yet, he was willing to serially soil himself to keep his job.
Ha! National Propaganda Radio “news” – paid for by your contributions and Big Pharma, Big AG, MIC – no different than any of the other MSM. Only redeeming quality are the features,
Book recommendation: “The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don’t Think for Themselves” by Curtis White
“The Middle Mind is pragmatic, plainspoken, populist, contemptuous of the Right’s narrowness, and incredulous before the Left’s convolutions. It is adventuresome, eclectic, spiritual, and in general agreement with liberal political assumptions about race, gender and class. The Middle Mind really rather liked Bill Clinton, thoroughly supported his policies, but wished that the children didn’t have to know so much about his personal life. The Middle Mind is liberal. It wants to protect the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and has even bought an SUV with the intent of visiting it. It even understands in some indistinct way that that very SUV spells the Arctic’s doom. Most importantly, the Middle Mind imagines that it honors the highest culture, and that it lives through the arts. From the perspective of the theorized Left academy (of which I confess myself an ineluctable member—with reservations), the Middle Mind’s take on culture is both well intended and deeply deluded.”.
Kudos JT, that post was the best spin on 500 plus pages on the investigation that has been shown or written in the last 24 hours ever. Hats off to you, you’re cherry-picked word salad on Hillary is the best so far, outside of State TV or FOX NEWS that anybody could or should have written. To spin that report all on Hillary was a work of art. Your work to keep your base and get 200 comments just by throwing the name Clinton is beyond perfect. You know your base sir, and again great work on throwing smoke and mud.
You do realize that the chances Turley voted for Trump are approximately zero. I mean I know we have a secret ballot. But for you to infer otherwise about Turley is pretty comical.
Professor Turley is an intelligent well-informed individual. Of course he didn’t vote for Trump.
Never said he did, My point is he will pick nat shit out of pepper against Hillary, and say nothing to see here with Trump.
Why would he do that if he doesn’t like Trump?
And who exactly do you think “his base” is at this blog? “The base” here is an appreciation of a professor who does pretty good work. Sorry you don’t like it.
I seriously question if Turley voted for Clinton. Turley argued against Obamacare in Federal Court.
“I seriously question if Turley voted for Clinton.”
Well that’s because you’re a confused individual.
That’s not my problem.
Maybe Professor Turley took a walk on the wild side and voted for Stein or Johnson.
As a GW law school alum who has followed JT over the years, it is ludicrous to think that he voted for and is supporting Trump. It’s even more ludicrous to think that, even if he did or is, that it would impact on his opinions. He’s an extraordinarily competent, honest lawyer and teacher.
We will never know, unless JT decides to tell us, but his feelings about the Clinton corruptions are pretty clear.
OVERSHADOWED BY I.G. REPORT:
SUIT DECLARES TRUMP FOUNDATION AN ‘EMPTY SHELL’
NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL FILING DESCRIBES ‘NO OVERSIGHT’
“The Trump Foundation is “an empty shell,” the suit says, with no employees and no oversight by its board of directors, which has not met for nearly 20 years. This has allowed Mr. Trump to run it “according to his whim, rather than the law.”
A couple of examples: In 2013, the foundation gave $25,000 to “And Justice for All,” a political organization supporting the re-election of Florida’s attorney general, Pam Bondi. But on its federal tax form, the foundation claimed that it did not contribute money to any political campaign, and that it had donated $25,000 to a Kansas-based nonprofit, Justice for All, even though it had not. The foundation later attributed the false report to an accounting error.
Days before the 2016 Iowa caucuses, Mr. Trump held a fund-raiser on behalf of military veterans, raising about $5.6 million, half of which went directly to his foundation. The money was then managed not by philanthropists but by top Trump campaign staff members, who handed it out to veterans’ organizations across Iowa just before the caucus — converting the donations into illegal campaign contributions.
“This is not how private foundations should function,” said Ms. Underwood in her statement about the suit. That’s the understatement of the day.
Mr. Trump lashed out at the lawsuit on Twitter, attacking “sleazy New York Democrats” and, in particular, Eric Schneiderman, the former state attorney general who aggressively pursued Mr. Trump but who resigned last month following reports that he had physically abused several women. Unfortunately for Mr. Trump, the suit was brought by Mr. Schneiderman’s replacement, Ms. Underwood, who is not a politician but a career prosecutor with sterling credentials. Ms. Underwood’s office has asked the court to order the Trump Foundation to pay $2.8 million in restitution and to bar Mr. Trump from serving as a director, officer or trustee of any nonprofit for 10 years. The lawsuit also seeks to bar Mr. Trump’s three eldest children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, from the boards of nonprofits based in New York or that operate in New York for one year.
That’s a start. But Ms. Underwood only has jurisdiction to file civil lawsuits in cases involving charities like the Trump Foundation. She cannot bring criminal charges against them for, say, violating campaign finance laws. So she also sent lengthy referral letters to the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Commission, detailing extensive conduct that could, and clearly should, trigger further investigation. In other words, Mr. Trump, who is already dealing with multiple federal inquiries into his campaign’s involvement with Russian efforts to swing the 2016 election as well as into possible crimes by his personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, may soon find himself in even deeper trouble.
Though they were fantasies in so many other ways, most of Donald Trump’s scams — from bankrupt casinos to phony universities — never really pretended to be in the public interest. But his foundation, like his presidency, does. And like everything else with the Trump name slapped on it, neither is remotely what it purports to be.
Edited from: “Opinion: Donald Trump’s Charity Begins And Ends At Home”
Today’s NEW YORK TIMES
IN A NORMAL NEWS CYCLE THIS DEVELOPMENT WOULD BE A BOMBSHELL!
For months Trump supporters have made wild allegations concerning the Clinton Foundation. But this A.G. filing yesterday reveals that the Trump Foundation was basically a personal slush fund for Donald Trump. Furthermore, said foundation was used to distribute illegal campaign donations in Iowa which quite arguably justifies an investigation.
Thank you for writing about this, JT is to busy with….BUT….BUT….. Hillary.
The alleged misconduct in the TF is rounding error in the misconduct in the CF.
Further TF could not possibly have engaged in “Pay for Play” which is by far the most serious and obviously true allegation regarding CF.
I do not expect this to lead anywhere by taxes, fines, penalties.
If Trump broke laws via his Foundation he should certainly be investigated. Meanwhile though NOTHING has been done about the Clinton Foundation – stealing from some of the most impoverished people on Earth
Project Veritas..??
Is that the same project whose leader was jailed in New Orleans for impersonating a telephone technician??
CONTENT PH, CONTENT. Even a stopped clock is right twice a day – credit where it’s due.
But since you prefer establishment media
Yes, O’Keefe was arrested on a trumped-up charge and was denied true justice because of a corrupt Democratic Senator. He exposed Creamer, Hillary’s dirty tricks guy and his videos exposed vandals that were going to interrupt D.C.’s trains and spread foul air into buildings when Trump was inaugurated. We all know that you support dirty tricks and dirty actors. His last set of videos exposed teacher union presidents who protected teachers from being fired when they raped or beat up a student. Multiple union presidents were caught on tape saying things like “we bend the truth”, we shift blame to the students and we backdate the reports. Anyone in his right mind would be applauding O’Keefe for exposing this type of abuse of students at our schools but Peter Hill doesn’t care about the truth or the welfare of our children. All he cares about is his uneducated partisan beliefs.
Maybe Peter Hill is one of those teachers that may have raped or beaten a student and maybe that is why he doesn’t like O’Keefe. Who knows, but there seems to be a sickness behind his partisanship.
Impersonating a telephone technician is not a crime.
PV engages in undercover investigative journalism. Something the rest of the media has quit doing.
They get some pretty damning stuff.
It is particularly damning because it is not couched, it is just their targets speaking the minds honestly.
https://twitter.com/parscale/status/1007388927022501889
Funny these charts don’t reference any source.
Funny how the NY AG hasn’t probed into the Clinton Family Charity slush fund. Even when she was Secretary of State where there were valid concerns that Hillary was selling access and influence, and her family charity was accepting foreign donations despite agreeing not to, and her husband was being paid upwards of half a million dollars for short little speeches. Sorry, but there is nothing that tongue chewing old Bubba has to say that’s worth $500k or $750k for 30 minutes of his ‘thoughts about the world.’
Among her previous posts was a stint in Janet Reno’s Justice Department. Paul Greenberg once wrote a very amusing column about Reno complete with editorial caricature. Title: “Ms. Magoo”.
Underwood’s old, so may be more professional than the current generation of Democratic lawyers. OTOH, her resume suggests liberal ideologue and partisan Democrat. She may be acting in good faith, but the smart money’s not on the proposition.
garbage suit. lawfare. baloney
The entirety of the claims against the TF do not amount to $2M.
At worst this is all accounting errors, and will result in fines.
It is going to be nearly impossible to make a criminal case out of this.
The entire claim is rounding error in the clinton foundation corruption.
It is irrelevant whether TF served your idea of a public purpose.
There are only three fundimental issues related to TF.
1). Does any of its financial conduct circumvent tax laws ? If that is the case, there will be taxes, due, interest, and penalties. If the misrepresentation is large enough – which seems unlikely based on the suit, then TF could lose tax exempt status entirely – more taxes, interest and penalties.
2). Does any of this represent misrepresentation to the TF donors ? That would be a form of fraud. My expectation is that TF donors are pretty much exclusively the Trump’s and that TF is a vehicle to allow them to engaged in charity without it being taxed. If that is the case there is no fraud. Regardless, you have to find someone harmed.
3). Does any of this represent some kind of pay for play scheme – such as what was self evidently going on with the Clinton foundation ? That can only be true for activities after Trump was elected. There can be no “pay for Play” until Trump is a public servant with government power to dispense.
You can not bribe a private party to perform an act they may legitimately do.
““The Trump Foundation is “an empty shell,” the suit says, with no employees and no oversight by its board of directors, which has not met for nearly 20 years. ”
Do you know anything about anything, Peter? Many private individuals have similar trust’s and have no employees. They can be run by one person and do not require an entire board. They are essentially empty shells so the statement while probably being correct is used to dupe people that know very little into believing that such a Trust is illegal. They got you, Peter, again and again. You are one of the most duped people on the blog.
I hope you realize there is more than one Trust under his name but the Trust in question is the one that he started to shut down to eliminate the problems noted in the Clinton Foundation.
The money the foundation used to donate to charities came from family and close friends. Recipients of that money: Red Cross, Make-a-Wish, the Salvation Army, Disabled American Veterans, Green Beret Foundation, America’s VetDogs, September 11 Memorial And Museum, and many others. My understanding is the donations amounted in the many millions that went from the pockets of the donors to these places. I would say that money was well spent.
For 2016 just under $3Million dollars was given to these organizations and others like them. That is where most if not all the money went (Foundations have to pay to meet certain governmental requirements though even those payments might have come from personal money and not the Trust’s monies. The family received no salaries. I’d like to know which charity should not have been given the money. Taking another year at random year the D.J. Trump Foundation gave to over 75 distinct charitable organizations just shy of $2Million.
What’s your problem, Peter? Clinton kept her foundation open and collected money while she was Secretary of State both for her charitable foundation that wasn’t very charitable and to line her own pockets. The Trump Foundation didn’t have travel expenditures and high salaries. Instead, virtually all the money donated went directly to the charities mentioned along with other legitimate charities.
The only person I know of who denies the I.G. report from the State Department on Clinton’s recklessness in this matter is Clinton herself. Most people, regardless of political party, accept it. It’s pretty clear she committed an offense that justified dismissal — and that she wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same to someone else for doing something far less egregious.
However, she had already left the State Department by the time the report came out, so there was nothing more to be done.
I haven’t seen a lawyer specify criminal statutes and fit Clinton’s actions to those statutes in a persuasive manner. So I don’t know what you want to do with her, other than hand her an embarrassing defeat — a defeat that she deserved and required special skills in the area of incompetence to accomplish.
“The only person I know of who denies the I.G. report from the State Department on Clinton’s recklessness in this matter is Clinton herself.”
And Peter Hill. 😉
Laurence, the report doesn’t clear Trump in any way.
The report has almost nothing to do with Trump.
That is the next IG report coming.
Though this foreshadows. Given that Horowitz has already asserted that Strzok’s actions in Oct. 2016 regarding Wiener’s laptop were likely driven by animus against Trump, you can expect the IG Report on the Trump investigation to START with the assumption that Strzok was biased, AND Acted on that bias.
The Clinton report found lots of bad conduct.
Frankly I think it found a pattern of bad conduct so egregious it poison’s the entire investigation.
One single not well explored finding undermines the investigation – Dozen’s of those involved – including Obama, Lynch, Comey, and agents out the wahzoo were using private email for government communications.
Comey specifically sent atleast one classified document via private email.
It is not possible for those who engaged is a smaller scale version of the same misconduct to investigate clinton’s conduct.
You can not expect pick pockets to find a burglar guilty.
The IG’s report is NOT on Clinton’s recklessness.
It was NOT reopening the investigation.
It was an investigation of the investigation.
The purpose was not to determine if Clinton violated the law,
but if the FBI/DOJ conducted the investigation properly.
The conclusions are damning From start to finish there is evidence of misconduct throughout.
While the IG finds that some of that misconduct harmed Clinton – specifically the fact that what is supposed to be a private investigation took place very publicly.
I am less inclined to have sympathy.
Most of us grasp Clinton conduct is extremly reckless and arrogant.
We can disagree over whether it was criminal or not, or even if it was – which bothe the IG and Comey found, whether it should be prosecuted – which both concluded it should not.
Being guilty of a crime that the government chooses not to prosecute is NOT being innocent.
The negative consequences of Clinton’s conduct were well deserved.
If she lost the election over the Email scandal – that would be appropriate.
Much of the left’s attack on Trump is that he is arrogant and reckless.
Well so is Clinton – CRIMINALLY Reckless.
Further her misconduct was as a public servant.
That makes it worse.
In his famous July 2016 announcement Comey provided the statutes she violated but he then misstated that conviction under those statutes requires evidence of intent. The wording of the statutes clearly states intent is not a factor in guilt.
“Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.”
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1924
Both Hillary and Comey violated this statute.
“knowingly removes” is an interesting phrase — particularly when it was written in 1924.
Lot’s of luck with that in a modern court.
Clinton sent Classified documents over an insecure fax to her maid at home.
That pretty much meets “knowingly remove”.
Regardless we can go back and find out what those words meant in 1924.
I do not think that helps you.
All “knowingly remove” means is no unintentionally remove.
But my emails – evil witch is elated Comey is under fire – anything to deflect from her own venality.
Verified account @mtracey
Michael Tracey Retweeted Hillary Clinton
Hillary can write as many sassy tweets as she wants, but setting up a private server to conceal official records, destroying those records, and then obfuscating about it for years is not comparable to using gmail
The FBI determined that the private server was NOT set up to conceal anything or to intentionally violate any laws. That’s what people like you either don’t understand or don’t care about. There was NO intent to commit any crimes. It shouldn’t have been done, but that’s negligence, not criminal intent. This was the finding of the FBI. Hannity’s and Limbaugh’s endless harping won’t create facts establishing criminal intent.
JT: well, he’s just a big fat and consistent disappointment, because he missed the thrust of the entire IG’s report just to throw red meat.
The FBI determined that the private server was NOT set up to conceal anything or to intentionally violate any laws.
LMAO
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1007635630950666240
ha ha ha – the same FBi who let Crowdstrike analyze and give them a report? Crooked Shilery had a private server so she could evade FOIA
you dont NEED intent under the relevant statute just negligent carelessness
that was one of the subtleties most people miss. and still do.
comey fudged those words around but they are basically synonomous
DOJ still could have indicted her and STILL CAN
Tom Fitton and Judicial Watch on it
“This is a big Update. Thanks Mr. IG, but Judicial Watch is ready to take it from here. We have, are, and will continue to do the heavy lifting on these DC swamp scandals! TF”
More of this stupid leftist motivation garbage.
Only Hillary and God know WHY she did what she did.
We do know WHAT she did.
Our laws are not about WHY. They are about bad ACTS.
If you murdered your wife to save the trees – still murder.
What we do know about WHY clinton did what she did is what she wrote.
She wrote that she did so to circumvent government record keeping requirements that would expose he official emails to FOIA requests.
That is illegal. It is not a crime, but it is a violation of the law.
It also was an INTENTIONAL violation of the law. She KNEW she was supposed to use government resources for official communications and she chose not to do so DELIBERATELY, to thwart he law.
That is all the intent that any criminal prosecution ever needs.
You do not need to intent to “kill col. mustard in the dining room with the candlestick” to have “mens rea”.
All you need is to intend to do wrong. The fact that something even worse than you intend happens leaves you criminally culpable for that worse thing.
Regardless, I do not even want to here this garbage from the left about “intentions”.
According to you wing nuts – Trump is guilty of a crime – for perfectly legal justifiable constitutional acts, because you are sure that he have bad intentions.
Clinton acts in clear violation of the law – but is not guilty of a crime, because ? She did not intend Harm.
Tell that to the drunk who plows into a family.
18 USC 793(f) does not require intent 18 USC 793(e) does not require any more intent than is trivially provable.
Deutsch took a government laptop with classified information home. That information was never intenet accessible, He intended no harm, the only risk was that foriegn spies would burglarize his home.
Deutsch was convicted.
Petreaus took Classified binders home for the purpose of writing his memoirs. A paramour might have read some parts. He intended no harm, the only risk was foriegn spies would burglarize his home.
Petreaus was convicted.
Was Clinton headed to Leavenworth ? Unlikely. Was she going to be convicted ? Likely.
Like Deutsch she probably would have her sentence commuted.
But her conduct was egregious and criminal, and disqualified her from public office.
The IG’s report is pretty damning to Comey and he deserves it.
In many ways the entire investigation was clearly botched.
But Comey’s mishandling did not harm Clinton in any way she did not deserve.
Comey exhonerated Clinton – the voters did not.
Even the IG damning Comey’s handling of the Weiner laptop – it is improper for the FBI to tell the public it is re-opening an investigation just before an election.
At the same time it is NOT improper for the public to know that a laptop with 300+K of additional Clinton emails many of which were classified was found running arround with the Perv Weiner, completly unsecured.
Maybe the public should not have known the investigation was re-opened.
But they certainly were entitled to know that the emails were discovered.
The entire claim of the left regarding Clinton is that her shit does not stink.
That if it does – we are not entitled to know.
And regardless she intended that it would smell like roses, so the fact that it smells like shit is our fault not hers.
I.G. REPORT SAYS COMEY HAD NO JUSTIFICATION FOR LETTER TO CONGRESS
REPORT ALSO STATES THAT STRZOK WAS ‘NOT’ PRO-CLINTON
KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM WASHINGTON POST EDITORIAL
“But examining the actions the FBI took, the inspector general concluded that Mr. Strzok “was not the sole decisionmaker” and, in fact, “advocated for more aggressive investigative measures” against Ms. Clinton. “We did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that improper considerations, including political bias, directly affected the specific investigative actions we reviewed.” The inspector general also concluded that the decisions made on how to conduct the Clinton investigation were reasonable.
This only supports what was obvious to anyone watching the campaign, during which the FBI took steps that hurt Ms. Clinton while not going public with its investigation of possible Russian efforts to help Mr. Trump.
The missteps began with then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch failing either to fully recuse herself from decision-making in the Clinton email probe or to take full responsibility for the investigation. That led then-FBI Director James B. Comey to conclude that he should make an extraordinary public announcement in July 2016 that the probe had come to a close, which, while clearing Ms. Clinton of any criminal wrongdoing, contained a strong rebuke of her actions. The inspector general found that the conclusion not to prosecute Ms. Clinton was legitimate but that the public spectacle was not.
Even less defensible was Mr. Comey’s decision, shortly before the election, to announce that the FBI was reviewing more Clinton-related emails on a laptop the agency had obtained. The inspector general noted that the laptop’s contents had sat, unexamined, for weeks. Once they were assessed, they did not change the FBI’s previous conclusions. There was no justification for going public so close to Election Day.
“While we did not find that these decisions were the result of political bias on Comey’s part, we nevertheless concluded that by departing so clearly and dramatically from FBI and Department norms, the decisions negatively impacted the perception of the FBI and the Department as fair administrators of justice,” the inspector general found”.
Edited from: “Key Takeaways From Justice Department I.G. Report”
Washington Post Editorial, today’s WASHINGTON POST
The Report notes that the FBI inexcusably allowed Anthony Weiner’s laptop to sit unexamined for weeks. Then, after examination, the FBI found nothing to alter previous conclusions.
Therefore James Comey had no justification to send that letter to Congress 11 days before the election. This finding is most significant. It illustrates that Comey’s actions needlessly sabotaged Clinton’s campaign.
THEREFORE TRUMP’S CLAIMS OF A RIGGED ELECTION ARE TOTALLY BOGUS!!
It’s still probable that Trump, Giuliani and the New York office of the FBI whipsawed Comey into sending that letter to Congress 11 days before the election. IOW, Trump rigged the election against Clinton.
Yes, Late4Dinner, it was widely alleged at the time that Giuliani’s friends in the New York office orchestrated that last minute investigation of Weiner’s laptop as an October surprise.
Peter Hill – start reading at the bottom of page 300 where it says Timeline and keep going. You will be disabused of the idea of any political surprise by NYO.
Excerpted from Rolling Stone:
The IG report quotes former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, reporting: “Yates stated that one of the reasons that the FBI ‘gave for why they felt like [Comey] had to go to Congress is that they felt confident that the New York Field Office would leak it and that it would come out regardless of whether he advised Congress or not.'”
Excerpted from an article in The Hill:
Horowitz revealed that his office is conducting an investigation into FBI employees who “improperly received benefits from reporters, including tickets to sporting events, golfing outings, drinks and meals, and admittance to nonpublic social events.”
As part of their review into the Clinton investigation, Horowitz’s team uncovered “numerous FBI employees, at all levels of the organization … who were in frequent contact with reporters.”
Those unauthorized contacts, investigators say, are cause for “profound concerns” and a product of a “cultural attitude” within the bureau.
The office will issue a separate report on those investigations, according to the report.
The FBI’s New York office will be particularly closely watched. Democrats have long accused President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, of receiving nonpublic information about the investigation from agents there.
Are you trying to say that Hororwitz used the word “reporter” as a code for “Guiliani”
What is it with this left wing nut fixation on mind reading ?
So we are to take Yates speculation about what Comey was thinking over the reasons that Comey gave to Horowitz ?
It is bad enough you wing nuts can not distinguish between words and action, but now we are supposed to treat mind reading as more significant than action ?
L4D enables David Benson – read the actual report, like I have. Do not let Rolling Stone filter it for you.
All kinds of things get alleged.
I would suggest reading the IG’s report.
If what you are saying were true – it would likely be in there.
The SDNYC FBI office had been chomping at the bit to go after Clinton for a long time.
The Clinton Foundation investigation which was quashed originated there.
The “October Suprise” resulted from Wiener transmitting porn to an underage girl.
I think it is pretty ludicrous to claim that Guiliani set that up.
Wiener’s conduct stupidly sending selfie porn is infamous.
When that investigation started the warrant for the laptop was for porn – which they found.
But SDNYC also found hundreds of thousands of emails, many of which tied to the Clinton Email investigation, and Notified the FBI in washington – as they were required. This all occurred in mid september and is covered in great detail in the IG’s report.
The deviations from procedures and delay in dealing with that discovery is one of the more damning indictments in the report.
Excerpted from The New York Times article linked on the previous page:
Among Mr. Horowitz’s original tasks was to identify whether F.B.I. agents improperly disclosed information about the Clinton case to reporters. But his inquiry was stymied, he said, because improper contacts with journalists were so common. “The large number of F.B.I. employees who were in contact with journalists during this time period impacted our ability to identify the sources of leaks,” he wrote.
The report omitted any discussion of a potential leak of information in fall 2016 to Mr. Giuliani, who was then one of Mr. Trump’s key campaign surrogates but not yet his lawyer. Shortly before Mr. Comey announced the discovery of new emails in the Clinton case, Mr. Giuliani appeared on Fox News and hinted that major news was about to break: “I mean, I’m talking about some pretty big surprises,” he said.
Mr. Horowitz has indicated that another report addressing leaks is forthcoming. It is not clear whether Mr. Giuliani’s remarks will be addressed.
You make this bizarre logical leap that the omission of something that you beleive to be true is somehow proof of something.
The IG was not going to report contact between FBI agents and Gulliani without documentary or testimonial evidence of contact.
TNYT will report something based on unattributed hearsay. The standards for the press and the IG’s report are not the same.
The absence of something in the IG’s report does not mean it did not happen – but it does mean there is no evidence. ‘
The presence of something in a TNYT article does not mean it happened or it did not. It just means someone says it did.
Read the report.
Your speculation is completely impossible.
Tiara Boy said, “Read the report. Your speculation is completely impossible.”
IG Horowitz wrote, “The large number of F.B.I. employees who were in contact with journalists during this time period impacted our ability to identify the sources of leaks.”
TNYT reported that, “The [IG] report omitted any discussion of a potential leak of information in fall 2016 to Mr. Giuliani . . .”
TNYT also reported that, “Mr. Horowitz has indicated that another report addressing leaks is forthcoming.”
L4D tells Tiara Boy, “Read The New York Times. Your pronouncements on the subject of impossibility are completely ineffectual.”
TNYT is NOT the IG report.
We can argue the merits of either.
But there is no arguments that the standards for a news story are much less rigorous than an IG report.
The IG report produced evidence of contact between FBI agents and reporters.
It produces no evidence of contact with Guiliani.
I would immagine if it found contact, the IG would report it.
TNYT reporting something means nothing more than someone has said that.
I thought that James Comey, not Trump or Giuliani, was the FBI Director in the fall of 2016.
If Comey was “whipsawed into sending that letter to Congress 11days before the election” by Trump and Giuliani, it does not speak well of Comey ( or any FBI Director) to allow a campaign to play puppet master.
It is known from the email exchanges that both Strzok and McCabe knew about the Abiden/ Weiner laptop in late September 2016.
I have not read the IG Report; did it address when Comey himself first learned about the laptop emails?
Either Comey was
involved in the delay (from late September to late October 2016) in reopening the Clinton email investigation, or Strzok and McCabe concealed the knowledge about the laptop from Comey for a period of time.
Disclosing the reopening of the investigation in late September would have been ancient history by the Nov. 8 election; reopening it 11 days before the election made it a much more controversial decision.
Tom Nash said, “. . . [I]t does not speak well of Comey (or any FBI Director) to allow a campaign to play puppet master.”
Not “a” campaign, Tom. “The Trump campaign.” Remember that Comey claims that he’s the one who requested the IG report on leaks from the FBI in 2016. Horowitz says that there’s a report on leaks from the FBI in 2016 forthcoming. So don’t be overly surprised if Horowitz eventually reports that active FBI agents from the New York office leaked to retired FBI agents from the New York office who leaked to Giuliani who leaked to the Wall Street Journal and Fox News.
Oh, I forgot. The all-powerful TRUMP CAMPAIGN
was playing puppet master and pulling Comey’s strings.
I made the mistake of making more of a general comment that A campaign….ANY campaign….should not be dictating or influencing FBI decisions for political purposes.
But it was evidently only the Trump campaign that could cow an FBI Director into doing its bidding, if you accept Late4Lunch’s “reasoning”.
Tom Nash – Comey says that if he knew, he got a drive-by notification of the laptop. This might be true, considering Strozk’s bias. However, a large group was given a heads-up by the NYO, but it all fell under Midyear (Clinton Email team) to get the search warrant. In fact, there is a back and forth about how broad the warrant should be.
Thanks, Paul. The lingering question that I have is “what did Comey know and when did he know it” ( about the Clinton emails on the Weiner/ Abedin laptop).
That is, was he aware of laptop issue in late September, as was the case with Strzok and McCabe, or did Strzok and McCabe delay telling Comey about this development?
My best guess is that all 3 of them learned of this by late September, and sat around with their thumbs up their noses until late October to reopen the investigation.
I’ll have to review all of the comments here to see if that specific question has been addressed.
Tom Nash – according to the IG, Strozk put it on the back burner because he was concentrating on the Russian problem (investigation of Trump). The problem with the IG is his scope is limited in these investigations. Had the NYO not sent a letter in Oct, this would not have gotten off the burner. Even then they decided to go only for Hillary’s emails on the laptop. There were 300k emails on that laptop, probably still are, but they went after 6 thousand. They did not go after the ones from the beginning of the SoS. They never explain how Hillary got Secret emails off her government computer and onto Huma’s. Those secret emails are supposedly unable to come off those computer, which means they either took a picture and then retyped from the picture or retyped them for the SoS, who forwarded them to Huma, who forward them to Weiner, who had them on the same computer with his wiener pics.
You can go look at RCP’s election polling – the Comey letter to congress had no effect on the election.
But I would note that Horowitz attributes the delay in handling Weiners laptop primarily to Strzok, and he concludes that decisions was driven by Strzok’s BIASED desire to prioritize the Trump investigation over the Clinton email one.
Essentially your argument becomes Strzok’s hatred of Trump backfired and injured Clinton.
Is that really what you want to say ?
Tiara Boy said, “Essentially your argument becomes . . .”
Stop right there, ridiculous creature. You are not Nii. You have not yet earned the privilege of telling L4D what her argument becomes. In order to exercise that privilege, you, Tiara Boy, must first demonstrate an intellectual capacity on a par with Nii.
dhili, you have been dissed by a blogger who is in a continuous dream state and not aware of what happens around her. Lucidity is not one of her strong points.
Logic is logic.
Are you claiming that my argument is a non-sequitur ? Please demonstrate.
Are you looking to get into an IQ contest ?
What kind of nonsense is your post ?
L4D enables David Benson – anyone can say anything they want about your arguments, such as they are. There isn’t a school one has to go to where one qualifies for the privilege. This is a ridiculous contention.
Comey made the announcement to deflect what he anticipated would be future harping by the likes of McConnell, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al, that the FBI tried to help HRC by hiding facts from the public. This is because they believed she would win the election, which she did, via the popular vote, but not the Electoral College. Comey’s actions benefitted Trump, no doubt, but because he will be a key witness against Trump, he is under attack. The FBI also helped Trump by NOT making public announcements about his campaign being under investigation for ties to Russians.
I don’t think that the “harping by the likes of McConnell, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al” could possibly have equalled or exceeded the harping by those with TDS.
If Comey was considering the “harping scale”, he badly miscalculated the capacity for endless whining by those disappointed with the results of the election.
Comey’s predicament was unprecedented. And don’t you dare even think, Ptom, about pretending that Trump and his MAGA cultists haven’t been harping and carping and heaping up coals high atop Comey’s 6′-8″ head the whole way through. There’s only one person who can try the limits of L4D’s patience that sorely, Gnash; namely, he who will not be deterred, Robert Swan Mueller The Third.
Comey managed to piss off both campaigns.
If you fail to remember that fact, Out2Lunch, read contemporaneous press accounts.
Either those reasons for the anger at Comey are/ were legitimate, or they are not.
I happen to think that he screwed up royally in the way he intervened at least twice, and put himself and the FBI in the improper role of DOJ top dog.
If I thought it was worthwhile, or that it would unlock your seized-up mind, I’d repost some of the comments about Comey before he was fired.
I don’t give a rat’s a** about your “patience”, or your adoption of Comey since he was fired.
I will occasionally comment on your hypocrisy, and your non-stop spinning.
If you carefully read my comment ( which you were ostensibly replying to), you’ll see that I said that the blowback from those with TDS would be far greater than any possible blowbackfrom “McConnell, Hannity, et al”.
If in fact Comey was motivated by repercussions or blowbackfrom either campaign, he’s A. not doing his job properly, and B. he badly miscalculated the depth and length of TDS by people like you.
L4D enables David Benson – Mueller is being deterred by the Russians and, although Manafort is in jail, that is just an indication that Manafort is getting to him.
L4D,…
I’m sorry that I only did a quick read of your post earlier.
Upon a cateful re-reading, I see that you wrote that there’s only one person who can try the limits of your patience that sorely, and then you go on to say that that person is “namely he who will not be deterred, Robert Swan Mueller the Third”.
I mentioned recently that patience with the Mueller investigation is wearing thin, so you have a lot of company if you feel that Mueller is sorely trying your patience.
Excerpted from New York Magazine:
“Giuliani explained that this investigation should be conducted by “honest FBI agents from the New York office who I can trust implicitly.” The IG report contained details that support the rumor that the New York office was a major source of anti-Clinton leaks.”
Giuliani is referring to the special counsel’s investigation. Giuliani wants Mueller replaced with . . . wait for it . . . “honest FBI agents from the New York office who I can trust implicitly.”
L4D says, “Fat chance, Rudy. Get real, already.”
If the IG report supports your claim – CITE IT.
BILLY SQUIER?
EVERYBODY, have you heard
if you’re in the game,
THEN SZTROKE’S THE WORD
Rather than Read WaPo – read the report.
More accurately Horowitz finds that the gameplaying and rule violating that pervaded the investigation from the begining dictated bad decisions from end to end.
While Horowitz is critical of many of the things you note. Quite often he notes that the bad choices were quite frequently driven by prior bad choices.
Since Clinton was never charged she could now be. What a feces storm that would be. “Lock her up!”
Trump made it practically very difficult to prosecute Clinton by turning “lock her up” into a political slogan and by telling her to her face in the debates that she was going to jail. Any prosecution of Clinton by a Trump administration, justified or not, would be viewed as political retaliation. So you have Trump to thank for that.
re “would be viewed as political retaliation.” – by whom? Republicans, Libertarians, real Progressive Independents and anyone who cares about rule of law would be elated if she were locked up.
Silly Autumn, you skipped some steps, steps that are important for “anyone who cares about rule of law.” Before anyone can “lock her up,” she has to be criminally charged, tried and convicted. (OK, I’ll give you Paul Manafort, but that is pre-trial detention, not “serving time.”) That is why there would be perception issues with a Trump administration prosecuting her after Trump has said she should be locked up. Too bad you don’t seem to care about those steps (or about the perception issues). These steps apply to Trump as well, and even to people like you!
No, I”m not that silly – I fully realize that no one should be locked up (indefinite detention comes to mind – thanks Obama!) However, the “lock her up” slogan was good in that it brought attention to the fact that the woman is a venal POS. So let’s have her indicted – there are numerous charges that could be used – and NOT tried in DC — somewhere it might actually be a fair trial.
Or hey, maybe allow the Libyans to extradite her for destroying their country. She seemed so pleased with the “justice” Ghaddafi received.
“somewhere it might actually be a fair trial”
Somewhere like Kansas, or Oklahoma, or Texas no doubt…..
Charging Clinton would be trivial.
Convene a grand jury.
There is far more than necescary.
I agree with that. Trump f’d that up. Because she should be prosecuted. you are right in that assessment
Disagree – bringing that witch to justice would unite the country and restore faith in rule of law.
Who cares what the idiots who follow Rachel MadCow think? They would don their p#ssy hats and crawl into communal safe spaces.