Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on what stood out in the Democratic National Convention in terms of the future for the Justice Department under a possible Biden Administration. I have been highly critical of President Donald Trump’s treatment of the Justice Department and his disregarding of the principles of separation of the White House from ongoing investigations. Critics however often seem to embrace the seem disregard for core, defining principles of legal process. Highlighting the message of Sally Yates and Kamala Harris on justice issues is discomforting for those of us who want to see the Justice Department’s independence and objectivity respected and reinforced.
Here is the column:
National conventions have long served as what magicians call the turn. As explained in the movie “The Prestige,” every magic trick has three stages. First comes the pledge, when the magician “shows you something ordinary.” Then comes the turn, when he “makes it do something extraordinary” like vanish. Finally, he has “to bring it back in the hardest part” known as the prestige.
In American politics, candidates make the pledge to voters on the extremes of their parties during primaries. Then comes the turn, when the more extreme nominee disappears at the convention. The turn was not as tough for Joe Biden, who was fairly moderate as a senator, as it was for Kamala Harris, who was ranked by GovTrack as the most liberal senator to the left of even Bernie Sanders.
Nonetheless, in perhaps the neatest trick of all, the Washington Post’s David Byler recently described Harris as a “small ‘c’ conservative.” The concern for some of us is that the prestige, when earlier objects might reappear after the election, particularly regarding the Justice Department and the legal system. There is reason to worry about what might be revealed, post-election.
One of the Democratic convention speakers was former deputy attorney general Sally Yates, widely viewed as the leading candidate for attorney general in a Biden administration. She was presented as the personification of a new Justice Department’s commitment to the rule of law. Yates declared: “I was fired for refusing to defend President Trump’s shameful and unlawful Muslim travel ban.” The problem is, she wasn’t. She was fired for telling an entire department not to defend a travel ban that ultimately was upheld as lawful.
I was highly critical of the travel ban, particularly in the failure to exempt lawful residents. However, I also said Trump’s underlying authority likely would be found constitutional. Despite revisions tweaking its scope and affected countries, opponents insisted it remained unlawful and discriminatory. They continued to litigate on those same grounds all the way to the Supreme Court, where they lost two years ago.
The Supreme Court ruled in Donald Trump versus Hawaii that the president had the authority to suspend entry of noncitizens into the country based on nationality and had a “sufficient national security justification” for his order. It also held that, despite most of the banned countries being Muslim-majority, the ban “does not support an inference of religious hostility.”
That is why Yates deserved to be fired. Yates issued her order shortly after learning of the travel ban and despite being told by Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel it was a lawful order. She never actually said it was unlawful, only that she was not sure and was not convinced it was “wise or just.” Rather than working to address clear errors in the original ban, she issued her categorical order as she prepared to leave the department in a matter of days. Yates maintained afterward that she believed the ban might still be discriminatory, even with revisions. Four years later, Trump is still banning travel from many of these same countries under the same underlying authority.
Yates was due to retire from Justice within days when she engineered her own firing. It made her an instant heroine and allowed her to denounce Trump at this week’s convention for “trampl[ing] the rule of law, trying to weaponize our Justice Department.” But that’s precisely what she did when she ordered an entire department not to assist the recently elected president – a move which, at the time, even Trump critics described as troubling. She could have resigned but chose to “go rogue,” months before (as Yates recently declared) then-FBI director James Comey went rogue in the Michael Flynn matter. (Comey actually may have learned a lesson from Yates: A good firing can be better than completing a term in office.)
The person who likely would have the greatest influence in recommending the next attorney general is Harris. The Biden campaign lauds Harris as a former prosecutor and California attorney general. However, Harris has a disturbing view of the separation of law and politics. While Trump has been legitimately criticized for demanding prosecutions and improperly commenting on pending cases, Harris has long been accused of the same disregard for legal process.
She campaigned on a pledge to prosecute Trump upon taking office, inspiring “lock him up!” chants at rallies. She publicly called Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson a “murderer” after he was cleared of that charge by state and federal investigators, including a lengthy investigation by the Justice Department under Attorney General Eric Holder. This followed the recantation of eyewitness accounts and the disproving of claims that Michael Brown was shot with his hands up.
Harris has a history of such sentencings before verdicts. In Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing, she declared him guilty of rape without hearing from witnesses — then called for his impeachment after his confirmation as a Supreme Court justice. She also campaigned on a promise to vote to remove Trump from office, roughly seven months before his impeachment by the House, and nine months before she sat in judgment in the Senate trial, after swearing to be an unbiased juror.
Harris has shown a willingness to “weaponize” legal issues, including reversing her positions when polls shifted. During the campaign, Harris was confronted with clips where she once laughed about the controversy over her jailing of parents for the truancy of their schoolchildren and mocking calls to “build more schools, less jails!” She was equally strong on jailing nonviolent offenders. With those positions now anathema to Democrats, Harris has assumed diametrically opposite positions with indignant passion.
This month, however, came the magic turn for the Biden campaign. Asked if he could foresee his administration prosecuting Trump, Biden correctly said, “The Justice Department is not the president’s private law firm. The attorney general is not the president’s private lawyer. I will not interfere with the Justice Department’s judgment.” That is the correct answer and, to his credit, Biden has tended to emphasize legal process over politics.
The concern, however, is whether his administration’s Justice Department would be shaped by Harris or led by Yates. The thing about magic and politics is that both require the audience’s cooperation. With Yates’ self-promoting sleight of hand, few in the media wanted to cry out that she palmed the facts. As one character in “The Prestige” explained, “You’re looking for the secret. But you won’t find it because, of course, you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to work it out. You want to be fooled.”
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can find his updates online @JonathanTurley.
“On the flip side, Bill Barr has done a tremendous job in a very tough spot. The nation owes him an enormous debt of gratitude.”
I saw this comment lower down. If Barr and Durham do not reveal the true extent of the attempted coup then our nation is lost for good. It is starting to appear that that is indeed the case. What just happened with Kevin Clinesmith should be setting off alarm bells…Viva Frei and Robert Barnes explain:
Yes ivan it may end up a whitewash and the statutes of limitations run and hardly anyone is punished
Why should Biden and Obama have de facto immunity? Let their lawyers negotiate it for them like any other accused person if they were behind the faking of evidence and bogus FISA investigation and the slanders which were all built upon that. They should not be allowed get out of jail free cards before the investigation has been fully performed. And yet Barr seems to have said so openly already
Nixon did not have immunity, why should they? Illegal harassment of a rival campaign. And worse than using retired FBI, they used active personnel to do their illegal bidding.
No one should have de facto immunity. Everything should be revealed.
I agree with Barnes- Barr is a phony. This means that the golden opportunity to clean up our system of justice/government is gone. Trump has failed to expose the coup despite having all the power and information necessary to do so. To not have done this before the end of his first and possibly only term is a catastrophic failure that falls 100% on his own shoulders. It’s inexcusable. The swamp won.
Considering that Trump was the object of the coup, it leaves one to wonder. If the CIC can’t punish illegal activities agaisnts himself, why not?
It almost makes you wonder– who is above the POTUS? Why would the AG fail to take full corrective action on a serious political crime like this with long lasting constitutional implications?
Excuse me but this is how “conspiracy theories” are born. The facts do not add up. The missing factor is inferred.
Perhaps there is a more powerful executive voice which is completely covert and it has spoken.
Perhaps the message is, here are your rubicons, and if they are crossed, you will end up like JFK and not Caesar. they just tell him, if he went too far, they would execute him JFK style?
We were pondering this possibility before the election and now we ponder again.
However, I don’t put too much stock in this hypothesizing, because it can become an excuse for inaction. They want us inert. Right now in the next 3 months, There is only one thing to be done. Muster the vote for Trump as much as possible and prevent a blue takeover of POTUS and both houses of Congress. if that happens our goose is really cooked.
So its best not to frolick too much in the muck of this emerging question mark.
“Why would the AG fail to take full corrective action…”
“Excuse me but this is how “conspiracy theories” are born. The facts do not add up. The missing factor is inferred.”
“So its best not to frolick too much in the muck of this emerging question mark.”
The facts do add up. That’s the problem. No missing factor need be inferred. This question mark has been there for four years. The answer is there for anyone willing to look and spend time analyzing rather than frolicking.
Ivan’, you supposed left Democrat disillusioned by the party – yeah right – what kind of coup conspiracy includes killing off the supposed kingpin of the conspiracy with an election eve announcement while protecting the supposed target of the coup from exactly the same kind of announcement?
WTF is wrong with you?
@Ivan-Thanks for the link, very interesting and probably true. Remember what Jonathan Gruber said “The stupidity of American voters”.
@Ivan- that comment was from me, and you do raise a good point. Unfortunately the first 3 years were wasted by the ineffectual Jeff Sessions and swamp denizen Rod Rosenstein. Barr and Durham are on the clock with no time outs, like when New England was down 28-3 in the Super Bowl a few years back. Will they be able to pull it out? The deficit may be too big to overcome but I don’t think that they are going to tank it. To pull it out, Barr needs to do his best Tom Brady. Who but the rabid Rams fan remembers who started that game for LA?
Spot on though, that the most important thing is to get the facts out in the open now for all to see. Otherwise they will be lost forever. Like with Comey and Hillary, the tough calls on where to push the investigation and who to prosecute all seem to go in favor of the home team. Can Barr and Durham overcome both the deficit and the crowd noise? One thing that would make a huge difference is the rabid home field crowd – the media – which was complicit in the original acts and are now part of the cover up. Barr and Durham have to be worried about getting out of the stadium alive and they also know that there won’t be a next year if Yates and Harris take over as coach and GM. If, on the other hand, Barr and Durham are able to pull it out, their courage and fortitude will go down as a critical inflection point in our history. Or they will be out of the playoffs, much like Jared Goff in 2019.
Agreed. The problem for me is that video I posted above…watch it in full. In particular watch from 13:00 onwards- It should make your head explode.
@Ivan- It is massively concerning that Clinesmith’s statement eviscerated the elements of the crime. Clinesmith definitively wasn’t acting alone. He was a career guy that knew exactly where the bread was buttered. It would be a travesty if they let him take a relatively minor fall to protect his bosses. The exact opposite of General Flynn where they put on the squeeze to keep moving up the chain. Did you ever see Covington’s notes on their conversations with the DoJ? It’s a wonder Flynn’s head didn’t explode from the pressure. Well actually it did, at least figuratively.
My first reaction is that in an allocution the defendant is required to describe and acknowledge the crime, so Clinesmith’s statement seemed beyond the pale. I’m not that familiar with practice and what is required for colloquies and allocutions so maybe it is just the colloquy and they’re working something behind the scenes. Hope so, anyway. But it did seem really strange. Otherwise we’re all doomed.
Clinesmith’s statement is ridiculously disingenious.
He received a document from CIA.
He added the word NOT to the document changing the meaning 180, and he submitted the document to the court.
His Belief’s about page are irrelevant.
The FACT is CIA said that Page was an asset. When Clinesmith altered what CIA provided and forwarded it to the court – he committed a crime – no matter what he might have beleived about Page.
Clinesmit might be entitled to personally beleive CIA was incorrect.
He was not entitled to alter evidence to conform with his belief.
Even if CIA actually made an error – which they did not.
Clinesmith STILL committed a crime.
They will go down perhaps as having protected the Agency and the FBI and two heavy hitters, Biden and Obama. And their remaining lives will be thick with gratitude from the powers that be for whitewashing this
As Barnes said, if they were serious they would have used Klinesmith to conduct further investigations and climb the ladder. As it is, seems like they have stopped with the lowest rung
This reminds me of the mortgage fraud ratings scandal. Instead of prosecuting any big fish at all, Holder rounded up a few hundred mortgage brokers, very lame! But Holder is riding high today, Wall Street thanks him greatly!
This is like when you are going after a drug kingpin in South America but it’s actually not desirable for the powers that be so DOJ just pulls some dope dealers off the corner and lock them up and say “problem solved”
They wonder why we are cynical
Many say Biden wants to unite the Obama wing of the party with his supporters. Sally Yates would help do that. But when a presidential candidate says he would shut the country down to control covid, then the A.G. needs to be able to educate the president in constitutional powers.
AG is an inherently political position. Professor Turley is a liberal, who believes that there are rules which can insulate the AG from political realities. This is an ideal perhaps, and quaint.
And, there are rules that can provide a cushion against politics. But nobody should be fooling themselves that the position and its activities are not pervaded with political considerations.
So, Turley does not like the Harris-Yates system of justice, would he prefer the Bill Barr system of justice? Ya know, the kind where someone pleads guilty multiple times in writing and in front of a Federal judge and then wants to drop all charges? Oh, Oh..maybe the kind where you fire a SDNY lawyer because they were investigating his personal client the POTUS. Or maybe Turley just loves the fact that a USAG can act as a personal attorney for one client.
Seems he does.
Don’t forget that “fixer” Barr also bold-face lied to the American people about Mueller’s findings, to try to get a leg up on the news cycle.
+10
That never happened either. You’re 0-2!
The world’s flat!! 0-3!!
“Don’t forget that “fixer” Barr also bold-face lied to the American people about Mueller’s findings, to try to get a leg up on the news cycle.”
Mueller in an illegitimate investigation FOUND NOTHING.
Even the actual russians that he indicted – their lawyers showed up in court and Mueller had to make the case – and he lost.
OOPS
John, the Mueller report won’t go away just because you don’t like it. You’re making a huge claim. Refute the report point by point otherwise you’re all batter no clam.
I do not have any problems with the actual facts that Mueller found.
Except for his (and your) ludicrously stupid efforts to add spin, I do not have problems with most of Mueller’s findings.
There was no THERE THERE
Not only does the Mueller report completely undermine the collusion delusion – even with Mueller’s wasted effort to try to find obstruction of a non crime by acts within the presidents authority that interfered with nothing.
Essentially Mueller spends 300 pages bemoaning the fact that Trump called his investigation a witch hunt – which it obviously was.
But worse, Horowitz as well as subsequent FBI declassified documents undercut Mueller.
Horowitz is clear, after mid jaunary 2017 there was no basis to continue an investigation. Mueller’s appointment and his investigation are therefore a violation of the constitution. The US Government is not free to investigatye whatever it wishes.
Rosenstein did not have reasonable suspicion of a crime – and therefore could not appoint Mueller.
Further absent reasonable suspicion – every subpeona and warrant that Mueller issued is a violation of the constituion.
The FISA court has already nullified the last two FISA warrants – the ones in effect when Mueller was “investigating”
None of this is some viewpoint – it is the facts, it is the law.
Just as DOJ can not prosecute Flynn – because there was no longer a case against him – the same is true after Mid January for the entire collusion delusion.
Let’s go through your post and isolate the factual from the opinion. It may be surprising to you which is which…
:Not only does the Mueller report completely undermine the collusion delusion – even with Mueller’s wasted effort to try to find obstruction of a non crime by acts within the presidents authority that interfered with nothing.”
That’s sheer opinion on your part. You’re making a wild claim here based on your personal reading of the report. Straight opinion. Why don’t you go find just one line in the Mueller report that even lands in the same hemisphere as what you’re maintaining.
“:Essentially Mueller spends 300 pages bemoaning the fact that Trump called his investigation a witch hunt – which it obviously was.”
Again…, straight opinion. How about you cite the begining and ending page numbers that land in the same hemisphere as your claim?
“Horowitz is clear, after mid jaunary 2017 there was no basis to continue an investigation. Mueller’s appointment and his investigation are therefore a violation of the constitution. The US Government is not free to investigatye whatever it wishes.”
Citations, man. Otherwise you’re just talking out of your butt.
“Rosenstein did not have reasonable suspicion of a crime – and therefore could not appoint Mueller.”
Obviously false. Because reality. He did have suspicion of a crime and he did appoint Mueller.
“The FISA court has already nullified the last two FISA warrants – the ones in effect when Mueller was “investigating”
Closest thing to a fact in your post. Although, I don’t trust your layperson opinion in the latter half of your sentence.
“Just as DOJ can not prosecute Flynn – because there was no longer a case against him – the same is true after Mid January for the entire collusion delusion.”
One hundred percent opinion on your end. You’ve done a great job at establishing your opinion here. It’s obviously anti Mueller report, it’s vociferous, and not at all subtle. But it’s entirely opinion and could’ve been related in exactly one sentence rather than by taking a visit to the vomatorium of fox news talking points..
My reading of you is that you love the sound of your own words. I do a lot of editing in my day to day work. Your post is highly annoying because, like someone new to a subject, you don’t know what you don’t know but maintain at the same time you’re an expert. Clearly that is *not* the case. And you’re literally terrified of being wrong. The sign of someone who inwardly suspects he’s wrong and has to be brash publicly to try to convince himself of his own ‘rightness’. It’s glaringly obvious.
It’s all okay though, man. You’re just another bozo on the bus with the potential for the infinite.
And your boy is going to lose big in November.
“That’s sheer opinion on your part. You’re making a wild claim here based on your personal reading of the report. Straight opinion. Why don’t you go find just one line in the Mueller report that even lands in the same hemisphere as what you’re maintaining.”
Nope, the absence of evidence IS evidence of absence.
We have had the DOJ, CIA, FBI, Mueller, the House and senate committes, the world press, all looking for actual evidence of collusion
And what we end up with is Mueller’s – well I turned over every single grain of sand, but maybe had I looked behind every electron their might have been something.
Regardless, the problem is YOURS and Mueller’s not mine. To make a claim of collusion – or whatever – the burden is on you.
The Mueller report nowhere asserts that it could prove anything. It failed to meet its burden.
That is a FACT, not an opinion.
““Essentially Mueller spends 300 pages bemoaning the fact that Trump called his investigation a witch hunt – which it obviously was.”
Again…, straight opinion. How about you cite the begining and ending page numbers that land in the same hemisphere as your claim?”
Nope, fact. Barr properly disposed of the idiotic obstruction claim in a paragraph.
No underlying crime, no act outside Trump’s authority, no obstruction – it is a logical and legal impossibility.
One sentence summary of 300 pages – less the whining.
“”Horowitz is clear, after mid jaunary 2017 there was no basis to continue an investigation. Mueller’s appointment and his investigation are therefore a violation of the constitution. The US Government is not free to investigatye whatever it wishes.”
Citations, man. Otherwise you’re just talking out of your butt.”
Read the repport. Not only is it covered, it has also been covered in the Senate testimony of Yates and Rosentstein who are now blaming Comey (and Mueller) for decieving them. Rosenstein has testified that “if I knew then what I knew now, /i would have shutdown Mueller”.
Oops, bad fact for you.
Regardless, I do not owe you cites.
You bought, still buy, and are still selling the “collusion dellusion” – YOU are the one without integrity or credibilty.
In a court of law – and in public, we are free to dis-beleive those with a history of lying. We do not require every witness to prove every fact they assert – only those without credibiltiy or intergrity.
““Rosenstein did not have reasonable suspicion of a crime – and therefore could not appoint Mueller.”
Obviously false. Because reality. He did have suspicion of a crime and he did appoint Mueller.”:
Circular reasoning – fallacy.
Regardless, as noted before – Horrowitz found that reasonable suspicion ended with the interview of the steele dossier primary sub source.
But going further – WHAT was the crime ? The FBI went through all of this and ended with NOTHING in mid jan 2017.
The papadoulis downer thing fizzled by late august – after Downer and papdoulis were intervieed.
The Steele Dossier died which the primary sub source disowned it all.
What is the crime ? What is the evidence ? You can not use papadoulis, and you can not use Steele, and there isn’t anything else.
““The FISA court has already nullified the last two FISA warrants – the ones in effect when Mueller was “investigating”
Closest thing to a fact in your post. Although, I don’t trust your layperson opinion in the latter half of your sentence.”
I do not expect you to trust anything.
Regardless, the court did nullify the last two FISA warrants. There remains to this day nothing to predicate an investigation that was not part of those warrants. So if those warrants are bogus ALL subsequent warrants and subpeonas using the same information are.
So what other basis do you have ? What do you have that was not part of the FISA warrant that was available to Rosenstein, and later to Mueller ? And if you had this hypothetical thing then why was that not also in the last two FISA applications ?
““Just as DOJ can not prosecute Flynn – because there was no longer a case against him – the same is true after Mid January for the entire collusion delusion.”
One hundred percent opinion on your end. You’ve done a great job at establishing your opinion here. It’s obviously anti Mueller report, it’s vociferous, and not at all subtle. But it’s entirely opinion and could’ve been related in exactly one sentence rather than by taking a visit to the vomatorium of fox news talking points..:”
Nope, it is actual fact. This is well documented. The FBI moved to close XFR on Jan. 4 – because there was no longer reasonable suspicion required for an investigation of Flynn.
Strzok asked that it be kept opened on the 5th. Problem is that you can not keep an investigation open merely because you want to.
If there is no longer the reasonable suspicion required for the investigation, then the investigation is DONE.
Anything otherwise is a violation of the constitution and Flynn’s civil rights.
You seem to be under the delusion that the government can investigate anyone because they feel like it.
But you did not seem to buy that when Trump asked Ukraine to investigagte Biden.
The standard is reasonable suspicion. Once it is lost, your done. The investigation is over as a matter of fact and of law.
That is not oppinion.
Of course it is anti-mueller report. you have not been paying attention.
Everything died in Jan. 2017.
Even Strzok’s texts reveal as much. He had no enthusiasm for the Mueller investigation – because he already knew it was going nowhere.
There was no there there.,. there was not even the predicate for an investigation.
So you have lost the FISA warrants. You can not produce anything else to provide the foundation for any warrant.
You have lost Papadoulis, You have lost Flynn and you have lost the Steele Dossier all as of Mid Jan 2017.
You have no legitimate basis for continuing.
Yes I am after Mueller – and Rosenstien. And the facts demonstrate they acted lawlessly.
“My reading of you is that you love the sound of your own words.”
And their you go again – stick to the actual issues – not random musings about someone thousands of miles away you have never met.
“I do a lot of editing in my day to day work.”
So what ?
Why should I beleive you ?
Why should I care ?
I write for a living. I also work in the field of logic. If I screw up my logic on some projects – people could die.
You can beleive that, or not, I do not care. Just as I do not care about your claims about yourself.
Stick to facts that you can prove. Not musings about yourself or others.
“Your post is highly annoying”
So what ?
“because, like someone new to a subject”
We have all being dealing with this subject for 4 years. None of us are new to it.
You do not seem to have paid any attention.
“you don’t know what you don’t know but maintain at the same time you’re an expert.”
Back to mind reading again.
I make no claims about myself – I have asserted facts.
If my IQ is 80 – the facts are still correct.
If my IQ is 148 – the facts are still correct.
You have this bug up your ass about experts. You seem to think they are imbued with infallibility and therefore you must confine expertise to some priesthood.
In the real world I am an acknowledged and respected expert in a number of fields – SO WHAT ? My credentials do not matter much.
Whether I am correct does.
“Clearly that is *not* the case.”
Because you say so ?
“And you’re literally terrified of being wrong.”
Does pretending to telesense the emotions of others ever work for you ?
You must watch way to much Star Trek TNG. Are you counsellor Troy ?
“The sign of someone who inwardly suspects he’s wrong and has to be brash publicly to try to convince himself of his own ‘rightness’. It’s glaringly obvious.
It’s all okay though, man. You’re just another bozo on the bus with the potential for the infinite.”
Does this stuff ever work for you ? If you want to be taken credibly when discussing issues of fact, do you think it is wise to be imitating a gypsy mind reader ?
There is a difference between coerced into a guilty plea for a process crime which had no basis in evidence and neither do the facts support a SDNY lawyer was fired for other than legitimate reasons.
We will soon know if Bill Barr is the scary guy you all present him to be. If Durham only takes the scalp of Klinesmith, then it was a cover up and a white wash. The statutes of limitations will run before long and the Russiagate cabal will all walk. It seems Biden and Obama already have defacto immunity, which is hard to understand. Nixon sure didn’t.
I know you guys hate Barr and won’t understand this remark, but others will.
@Mr. K- I for one certainly take your point. The abuse of power by the DOJ and FBI against an opposing candidate and in ‘resistance’ to the peaceful transition of power is foundational to our republic and goes well beyond any particular candidate or party. This is a situation where an independent and probing press is critical. Sadly they were complicit in the conduct and are now part of the cover up.
remains to be seen. I have been impressed with barr so far but I am very disturbed if he has arbitrarily excluded biden and obama from the current investigations. this was not the right way to go. i can understand why he would do it but we deserve better.
worse than Nixon, & did he have a pass for his illegal spying on a rival campaign? i think not
I expect that Durham/Barr will stick meticulously to the law narrowly.
There is alot of bad conduct in this. There is alot that should get people fired, barred from public service, brought before the Bar for ethics violations,
There is alot that stinks.
But based on what I know thus far there is not alot that is actually criminal.
“So, Turley does not like the Harris-Yates system of justice, would he prefer the Bill Barr system of justice? ”
1000 times over.
“Ya know, the kind where someone pleads guilty multiple times in writing and in front of a Federal judge and then wants to drop all charges?”
The innocence project has exonerated thousands of people on death row. Just about every single one of them confessed at one time.
The innocence project DOES NOT reverse convictions on technicalities. They reverse convictions by PROVING that the imprisoned convict did not commit the crime they were convicted of.
Flynn was entitled as a matter of law to withdraw his plea at any time up to and in some circumstances after conviction – he has done so.
This is actually quite common Criminal defendants constantly seek to withdraw guilty pleas.
In this case DOJ correctly determined that the entire prosecution was without foundation – that FBI had determined that Flynn had done nothing wrong. Regardless of Strzok asking to not to close the case – the case was closed. Law enforcement may not continue to investigate after reasonable suspicion has gone. The interview was therefore not part of a legitimate investigation and therefore it is irrelevant whether Flynn lied or not. There is no crime of lying to a federal agent – if there was Comey woud be guilty for lying to Trump, to Flynn, …
The crime is misleading an investigation. If the FBI has insufficient basis for an investigation you can lie like a seive.
It is actually a Civil rights violation to prosecute someone when there is not crimes. It is also an ethics violation and a crime.
Barr was obligated to drop the charges, and Sullican was obligated to accept – both under Rule 48(a) and on the basis of the information that has subsequently been declassified. This information was also available to Van Grack. Van Grack was obligated to drop the charges years ago – actually to never bring them in the first place. He was also obligated by Brady to provide the information to Flynn, and he was obligated by a different case to provide the terms of his plea deal with Flynn to other defendants – and he failed to do so.
there is a special place in hell for people who prosecute others for lying who are lying to the court, lying to the defendant, and lying to other courts.
“Oh, Oh..maybe the kind where you fire a SDNY lawyer because they were investigating his personal client the POTUS.”
The lawyer was fired because his position was temporary and he refused to transfer. His replacement has the same cases open.
Further the NY AG has made it perfectly clear she is out to get Trump by any means necescary.
If there is a case to be made – someone will make it.
The fact is that despite massive investigations no one has found any illegality of Trump or his family or close associates.
Cohen went down because of his own Taxi medialion scam.
I think SCOTUS was wrong to allow prosecutors access to Trump’s taxes – they have not made a cases of probable cause that there is a crime to be investigated.
“Or maybe Turley just loves the fact that a USAG can act as a personal attorney for one client.”
He doesn’t.
great article professor Turley
@Mr. K – Indeed it is. Independence of the AG is critical, two of the most egregious examples of its absence being JFK and his brother, and Obama and the Wingman. On the flip side, Bill Barr has done a tremendous job in a very tough spot. The nation owes him an enormous debt of gratitude.
—————————
BTW, I just finished Storm of Steel by Ernst Junger. Amazing memoir of a German army soldier who survived 4 years in the front line trenches of WWI. His compatriots were killed several times over in horrible conditions. As terrible as it was, it is awe inspiring to think what people can endure with fortitude, courage, and a strong dose of luck in the worst situations imaginable. And then he lived to be 102. When we think things are tough, there’s a lesson in there for all of us. Thank you for the recommendation.
You are welcome. My best follow up recommendation for Junger is, “On Pain”
https://www.telospress.com/new-from-telos-pressernst-jungers-on-pain/
it has a lot to offer purely as a text, but if you can locate it in the context of the prewar times, and the horrible aftermath, and the arc of Junger’s long life, it’s even more meaningful
Now, there is another work I always think of when I mention on Pain, which will may seem a strange companion work to recommend. it is Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”
among the many tedious works of that type, it is a rare delight, a life affirming existential masterpiece which stands out like a diamond in the dung. when I finally read it, I wondered, how could a work of genius like this be catalogued along with so many other tiresome, over-rated, yet inferior works.
I recommend letting at least 3 months pass after reading On Pain, before you try “Man’s Search for Meaning”
Did you think I was joking you when I said repeatedly
Constitutionaliasm vs Socialism
Freedom vs slavery.
Now we got a VP one corona breath away from the Presidency in the making. So go ahead vote socialist regressive fascist. We can always fall back on our military and it’s Oath of Office.
Surprised that Jonathan Turley has not yet commented about Facebook prohibitions.
It is amazing to me how many liberals refuse to accept the obvious facts staring them straight in the face. Without the Obama administration and all of the abuses of power and attacks on the rule of law there would be no president Trump. It wasn’t just HRC who was rejected in 2016. It was eight years of leftist ideology. It was the fundamental transformation of America. Despite the media claims most Americans are proud of their country. They don’t want it transformed into a socialist paradise like Cuba. Donald Trump was elected to right the ship of state the Democrats had gleefully aimed toward the cliff at full speed. He has done so with a skill that exceeded all expectations. These fake polls that show Biden ahead when he can’t even take questions from reporters. The reports of high ranking Democrats war gaming post election scenarios. They reveal the Democrats know they have no real chance of defeating Trump. The fact that Pelosi called congress back to push her post office conspiracy theory while doing nothing to assist the citizens in time of economic crisis reveals their disdain for the people of America. They want power. They want it for their own personal benefit and the rest of us can go to hell. That’s not a winning message no matter how good the sleight of hand may be and how much the audience wants to be fooled.
Fact #1: Trump won the slimmest of technical victories in a low turnout election in ’16 and will need all the cards to draw right to pull off an overt voter suppression victory in order to gain an equal technical victory in ’20. All this is taking a *huge* step back with the exit of Kellyanne Conway.
Let’s talk again in late November.
“Fact #1: Trump won the slimmest of technical victories in a low turnout election in ’16”
304:227 is not a slim victory.
“and will need all the cards to draw right to pull off an overt voter suppression victory in order to gain an equal technical victory in ’20.”
Is someone holding a gun to your head to prevent you from voting ?
Is that where you set the bar for what constitutes voter suppression?
304:227 just shows the inequity in electoral votes in the EC. And yes, when 80k votes across 3 states outweighs 3 million votes nationally it’s as slim a victory as is possible. No one on the Trump campaign thought they were going to win…, they were all handing out business cards to fox news at trump tower on election night.
“Is that where you set the bar for what constitutes voter suppression?”
I do not set the bar. The law does. There is no actual crime of voter supression.
There is an actual crime of voter intimidation – it requires force or threat of force.
There is very little that government has a legitimate right to involve itself in that does not involve force or threat of force.
If Republicans will baseball bats are parading at polling stations – call me. That would be voter intimidation.
“304:227 just shows the inequity in electoral votes in the EC.”
That is how elections are decided. If you do not like it change the constitution.
“And yes, when 80k votes across 3 states outweighs 3 million votes nationally”
Yes, it does. our founders did that deliberately. They were terrified of the tyranny of the majority. They specifically constructed the constitution to empower different minorities – not blacks and hispanics, but farmers versus city dwellers.
It has worked well. If the US elected everyone directly, we would starve – because no one passing laws would have a clue how to keep from F’ing up farmers.
” it’s as slim a victory as is possible.”
Nope it is a pretty substantial victory.
If you win a football game 21-0 and each touchdown was only by inches – you still win 21-0 and it is still a route.
In hockey if the puck strikes the post and goes in – it is still a goal. If the goalie stops the puck drops it and it goes in – it is still a goal.
In basketball the ball can ring the hoop severaltimes before falling in – still a score.
You also forget that to reach that “narrow” victory in the rust belt – Trump had to shift almost 3M votes from red to Blue – Obama won the states Trump turned red by over 2.5M votes. This was a huge gain.
“No one on the Trump campaign thought they were going to win…, they were all handing out business cards to fox news at trump tower on election night.”
So ?
NYT printed headlines that said Dewey won. There has never been a president Dewey.
Re my original point: Trump won 3 states by really small vote counts and it enabled him to win with less votes overall than Romney lost with.
In no way is that a substantial victory. It shocked even the trump campaign.
shocked us all, but it counted on the books
you don’t like the EC you guys can try and change the laws. meanwhile, its the way it works
i favor it myself. soon ca and texas and NY and maybe a few other coastal behemoths, will be so big with popular votes in their swelling populations, they will be in a position to elect all on their own and blow the rest of us off. EC is more important than ever– especially to us peasants here in “flyover land”
All I did was cite the mechanism with which Trump had an extremely thin win. As to the EC…, sure it’s unfair a vote in Wyoming carries 3x the weight of one in California. I don’t like the fact the EC didn’t accurately reflect a the will of the people in the last election. But I know the EC exists and is considered standard law. End of story.
I don’t contest the fact that Trump won in ’16. That has nothing to do with my pointing out it was not a substantive win. That’s just factual reality. Totally instructive for going in to this election as well. Biggest lie out there is that Trump had an impressive win. He’s behaved as if he did, lied about it regularly, etc. Fact is, he barely won and caught him by surprise.
I realize it’s a standard deflection tactic to immediately try to turn the conversation to: ‘all you lefties just hate that Trump won’. Sure I hate it. Trump’s an a%^hole. I don’t have good feelings about the guy. Are those feelings worse with him being president than when Trump ripped off a guy I subcontracted for, causing me to get ripped off on some work as well? Who knows?
I’ll love seeing him lose though. Worst president in my lifetime by far and I never thought I’d say that after Bush jr.
Bug, these very same Trumpers would be apoplectic if their guy had won the vote and lost the EC twice in the last 5 elections. They know it and we know it. In fact, they have won the popular vote for President once in the last 7 elections. It’s a dying party and they know that too, which is why they cheer every corrupt move to hang on to power, from stealing a SC seat, blowing up all records for filibusters while Obama was in office, suppressing the votes of students, blacks, and the poor, to now having their candidate and the president trying to sabotage the coming election and casting doubt on it’s legitimacy.
+10
“Bug, these very same Trumpers”
Not a trumper.
“would be apoplectic if their guy had won the vote and lost the EC twice in the last 5 elections.”
Because you say so ?
“They know it and we know it. In fact, they have won the popular vote for President once in the last 7 elections.”
So ?
“It’s a dying party and they know that too”
That does not explain why you are so hyterical.
Why do you oppose voter ID – 80% of americans support it ?
Why do you oppose purging registered voters ? Federal law requires it. Further federal law prohibits removing anyone who has voted in the past 3 elections. It also requires sending notice before purging a registered voter, and then waiting another 2 years.
Anyone who voted ONCE in the past 8 years – will not be purged.
Anyone who replies to a notice that they are being purged – will not be purged.
Anyone purged who shows up to vote – will be allowed to vote on signing an affidavit.
Yet you oppose this and call it “voter supression” – the only conceivable reason to oppose this – is because you are engaged in fraud.
We know that mail in voting is the most fraudulent form of voting there is – we are now revoting elections in NJ because there was so much Fraud. We have elections all over NY where the fraud is over 20%
And this is the mess you want to impose on the nation ?
According to you it is safe to go to home depot for a wrench, but not safe to go to a poll – 3 months from now ?
You rant like a lunatic that Trump is ruining the Post office to win the election – but the post office does not have a roll in elections.
The post office only became an issue because YOU do not beleive you can win a normal election.
Why are YOU so hysterical ?
If republicans lose an election that is conducted honestly – something no one trusts YOU to be able to do.
We are all hear listing to your dishonest games over everything in creation. We are all here listening as you continue to try to sell the “collusion delusion”
We hear you say that the DOJ/FBI did nothing wrong – except commit a fraud on the FISA court ?
We hear you say that the FBI is somehow supposed to keep secret an investigation that Clinton’s malfeasance assured was all over th news. Had she not lied about Benghazi OR not kept her official government email on a bathroom mail server – there would have been no investigation.
Had Huma Abedin not backed up Clinton’s classified email to her husband’s dick pic laptop – there would be no public scandal.
It is not anyone else’s fault that democrats are incapable of following th law and not behaving like they can do whatever stupid thing they please without consequences.
I’m sorry were you talking to me? Can you repeat that?
If Trump loses the EC, he will exit. All the jibber jabber of the Democrat leadership suggesting he is a fascist planning a takeover is a ridiculous scare tactic to rile you up and try and motivate you to vote. It is based on nothing. Not even Trump’s most idiotic Tweeter remarks could seriously suggest that he would not respect the EC.
And yet here is Al Gore, inventor of the internet he says, saying scary stuff.
https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/08/25/al-gore-it-doesnt-matter-if-trump-accepts-election-loss-military-will-respond-to-the-command-of-next-potus/
Of course that is literally so– the command will respect the EC as everyone else will too including Trump. The EC says who will be POTUS. Nobody will dispute that. Trump or not Trump, they will have the say.
There may be some legal issues along the way, such like as ones that Gore lost in his particular situation, or whatever. I am sure lawyers are ready to gin up all kinds of petty beefs over voting. But it will work out ok.. If the courts have a legit role, they will make decisions promptly and we will have a fair election, for whatever faults and bumps in the road there may be. There is zero worry, realistically, about this, and ginning up paranoia over it is just irresponsible and quite frankly sickening.
The great danger now is not Trump it is legions of urban hoodlums and BLM riot squad organizers looting at will the major cities for 3 months coming and now looking for more pickings in smaller cities like Kenosha. This is despicable and Democrat party could call it back but they dont. It just keeps getting worse as guys like Gore spin out the paranoia about things that are pure conjecture, as “inconvenient facts” on the ground are presently ignored.
There is also a danger that if we do as we are and change the way elections are held at nearly he last minute that the results will be a mess – that we will have 2000 on steroids, that no one will know for sure who won the election.
that there will be competing claims – and competing claims of fraud – and that many of those may be true.
That there will be claims of foreign interference – and that whether true or false their will destroy any credibility to the results.
And the left is rushing deliberately head long into this.
If we have a mail in mess – as is near certain – unless Trump or Biden wins in a commanding way – such that claims of fraud are implausible, we are risking a mess that could destroy the country.
2000 should have proved – our courts and not equiped for this.
The rioting and looting of the moment will seem minor if we have an election without a result.
Kurtz, the primary player in sowing paranoia about the election is Trump and his followers, like those here who have been repeating his claims of voter fraud – I think you’ve done that – for years. As this election approaches he’s been ratcheting that up.
Don’t you read the news?
We have numerous issues that effect the reliability and credibility of our elections.
As you noted 3 states were decided by 80,000 votes in 2016.
The 2000 election was decided by less than 200 votes in FL
NH 2016 was decided by 2000 votes.
Myriads of house and senate elections were decided by razor thin margins.
We are going to continue to have close elections into the future.
Whether you like it or not BOTH parties – as well as numerous independent actors foreign and domestic engage in election fraud.
Given the amounts of money that are effected by the outcome of elections – donations are tiny in comparison to the businesses and individuals and countries that have financial and other interests in the outcome of even small US elections, fraud is inevitable.
It is possible to make election fraud nearly impossible. It is not even all that hard.
But YOU the left and democrats not merely refuse to improve that, you actuvely seek to make it worse.
As a result we are with certainty headed for a disaster.
Imagine Kenosha, Portland, Seattle, …. on a national scale – possibly with groups from each side clashing.
That is what we will see when we have an election result that is not trusted.
It is not so important who wins an election, as it is that the people who did not win accept the outcome.
If they do not we get the last 4 years – on steriods.
Trump legitinately won in 2016. But the left has spent the past 4 years attempting to prove election illegitimacy on a basis that netiehr occured not is preventable, nor is an actual problem
Whatever the left me think no one has claimed that significant fraudulent votes got Trump elected.
No one who voted for trump lied about who they were, had a gun to their head, was coerced.
You might not like their choice but it was a free choice.
No one beleives 80,000 people illegally voted for Trump, that non-voters voted for Trump, that dead people voted for Trump,
That Ballots for Clinton were altered to be ballots for Trump.
We can not say the same of Votes for Clinton, and we certainly will not be able to say the same of votes for Biden.
We have had numerous “vote by mail elections” that have just gone horribly wrong.
You do not understand or do not care how bad that will be one a national scale.
If we can not accept the result of an election – we have no government. It is that simple.
I have no problem with the EC giving flyover states a way to counteract the swelling populations of the coastal areas. I live here, you live there, it’s politics. We stand by what advantages we still have. There is a community interest among people of in each state that is a legitimate political basis for association.
likewise, contiguous states in the middle.
If you invite us to bend the knee to the coastal megacities, we decline.
Say whatever you like, it will not change minds out here, that’s for sure.
To score a touchdown in football the ball merely has to pass the plane of the goal line.
These are the rules for football. The constitution sets the rules for elections.
In those states that Trump won narrowly – he had to change 2.5M votes just to win narrowly.
Hillary did not challenge Trump in the rust belt – because she took it for granted Trump could not move nearly 3M votes – and yet he did.
Trump won Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan by a combined 77k votes. Not each, combined.
It does not matter if the vote was 77K difference or 77 different. That is how the constitution was written and if one does not like the way it is set up, there are processes laid out in the constitution as to how to change it. However, if you ever want to see this country even further divided than it is now, make it a majority vote without regard to the E.C. and you will have 35+ states and their citizens disenfranchised. Then, after some majority leader in the senate changes the rules to allow for everything to pass by simple majority, citizens from 35+ states will have no voice in D.C. at all. The country would be much like California is today with the center to right voters with no voice in Sacramento. I know it is difficult for anyone that does not support the liberal agenda and supported Clinton to understand this now, but it won’t take long to see any damage done if the E.C. is ever eliminated.
Ron, putting aside your ludicrous prediction on what happens if the EC changes – most voters are already ignored as candidates only visit the contested states, or about 8-10 of them – winner take all delegates contests is not in the constitution. Each voter in a small state would have close to exactly the same influence as a voter in the big ones if the EC was abolished – not likely – or changed to representational as they are in Maine and Nebraska,
O.K. So maybe further division would not occur. But if you are a moderate or conservative in CA, is there any reason to vote? The house districts have been gerrymandered to reduce the number of competitive house seats and increase democrat chances, just like in red states protecting republicans. So if your moderate right, support the G.O.P. candidate and live in districts 55%+ democrat, why vote?
But what I think means nothing! What you think means nothing. It is what is in the constitution that controls elections. The outcome is determined by constitutional articles concerning the election of the President We can debate the issue until hell freezes over, but until that document is amended, all our debate means nothing. Maybe it would be appropriate to debate that issue when an amendment is put forward for approval.
Parts of your analysis are correct – but they are irrelevant and make assumptions that are meaningless.
The constitution CLEARLY did not intend this equal influence you presume.
Slaves were counter as 3/5 of a person for the purpose of representation – but not allowed to vote. Clearly southern state voters were afforded votes with more weight than northerners.
Every start gets two senators – regardless of population – that clearly makes some voters votes have more weight than others.
The constitution has numerous provisions to empower distinct minorities to get veto power in some way or another.
Regardless, your entire argument devolves to “my way is better”
You are free to beleive that. But that is actually an oppinion – not a fact.
The fact is that our founders hated democracy – and did not create one.
You do not like that choice – so change it.
In the mean time – it is what it is.
The EC as we know didn’t exist when the Constitution was written. Neither were there political parties at that point. It’s been a work in progress.
From my understanding, the electoral college or electors in the constitution, article II, section 1, meet in their states after the popular vote and voted for the president and the vice president. We can go into the reasons for the E.C. but one of the main reasons they put that between the people and the election was some founding fathers did not trust the people and did not want the election decided by some fluke that the people voted for. There were others that did not want to center of power to be only in Mass, Penn and New York as they wanted the other states to have influence into the election. (Much like some of us today do not want the center of power only in CA, NY, IL, FL, and TX.). The only change since that time was the twelfth amendments changing the way the VP and President was chosen . Instead of voting twice, once for President and once for VP, they now vote once for both with the two being on the same ballot.
Now if I am wrong and there has been other changes that you speak of, please let me know as I am unaware of anything else that has changed.
Washington was electied in 1789 with 68 of 69 electoral votes.
Aspects of the process were different – the constitution has been amended several times regarding presidential elections.
You are free to do so again.
Parties were not in the constitution – and are not today.
So ? He lost NW by 2600 votes and there were over 6000 votes cast in NH by people who were not residents of NH and therefore eligable to vote.
He lost NV by 27,000 votes.
Winning NH & NV was the expected Trump route to victory – he could have lost PA, WI, and MI and still won with NH and NV.
There are lots of ways to game this. He won some close states, he lost some close states.
Further Trump won by 36 EV, he could have lost any 2 of those 3 states and still won narrowly.
He won narrowly as it is. There was no “expected” path to victory. There was an ‘only’ path to victory — and it happened. An acquaintance wrote an article about election night at Trump tower for Esquire, a sort of journal entry sort of piece observing the different personalities and groups in the Trump circle. No one expected to win…, they were handing their business cards to fox at the party. Some left halfway through to trade the market fall off that began to happen as the world realized trump was doing well in the returns. Carl Icahn ran out to put a billion in the Asian markets overnight. it actually rallied the market to where at began at the beginning of the evening, rare for an election night since the markets always take a dip on American presidential elections as the market recalibrates itself around the results no matter which party wins. Also, Wall St. writ large was in favor of HRC. They weren’t a fan of Trump’s unpredictability going in…
Botton line, even though the cliche has been far overused in the description of Trump’s victory it still applies: Trump had to pull an inside straight to win. That’s what happened. He lost the popular vote by 3 million, won the EC by 80 thousand. This is factual reality. And that’s where Trump begins this election. He’s lost a good chunk of voters he can’t afford to lose and it began to happen immediately after he took office (around his position on the Muslim travel ban). He won with fewer votes than Romney lost with. It was a low turn out election. He knows he needs another one to win this time, hence his little adventures with the Post Office. He literally has to squash as many mail in votes as he can because the early estimates of them are that they’ll break roughly 75/25 against him.
It’s fascinating. Trump is treating it as a reality show, unfortunately he’s forgetting the first rule of reality TV…, that being the villain can get to the championship through manipulation and backstabbing but once there and facing someone who has the respect of the majority they lose in a rather big way because there is no constituency to split enough to pull out off a TKO. No Jill Stein this time. No Gary Johnson. Biden ahead in the polls with roughly a 2x lead over any lead HRC ever had in ’16 in the run up to the election.
Not looking good for trump bear.
“He won narrowly as it is.”
Nope
“There was no “expected” path to victory.”
Yep – Had Trump lost the rust belt and won NH and NV he still would have won
That was the “expected” path to a Trump victory.
“There was an ‘only’ path to victory — and it happened.”
Nope, there were several paths to victory. The NH, NV was presumed to be the most likely.
The Rustbelt victory Though Trump telegaphed what he was doing surprised everyone – including Clinton.
I Never expected Trump to win PA, I knew on election day when he did the election was over and that he would win by a large margin.
” An acquaintance wrote”
So what. There are all kind of stories.
There is the one where Melania told him early on that he should not run unless he wanted to be president, because if he ran he would win.
You keep trying to pretend this was all some kind of accident.
It was not. Elections are like war – all kinds of things do not go as expected, but the skill of the commanders is nearly always critical to victory.
Those of you on the left want to pretend Trump stumbled into being president.
He did not. He has numerous strategies for winning the GOP primary and the general election. He grasped that there were multiple millions of people who either did not vote, or voted democratic that he could appeal to, and get to vote.
He took advantage fo the Tea Party movement. He took advantage of the media. As Ted Cruz has noted – even though most republican candidates underestimated Trump in the primary – he managed to get $3B in free media from the press. He was unbeatable, except that no one understood that while it was happening.
But Trump did not blunder drunkenly into that.
The left has tried to make hay over Bolton’s claim that everything in the Trump administration was about getting re-elected.
That can be rephrases as everything in the Trump administration was about keeping Trump’s promises to the american people.
Doing what the people wanted – not what the experts like Bolton wanted.
Bolton wanted war with Iran. And damn near got it. As much as people supported Trump’s reversals on Iran – no one wanted War with Iran.
Many of us cheered Trump’s jabs at Iran – so long as they did not lead to war.
Bush ran on a platform in 2000 about keeping us out of Clinton’s “nation building” – and then did exactly what he promised not to.
Obama promised to get us out of Afghanistan and Iraq – and instead got us into Libya and a host of other countries.
Trump is very slow to keep those promise – but he IS acting to do so.
Credibility and integrity will likely get Trump re-elected – that is WHY the left rants that Trump is some massive liar.
The problem is most people know that is false.
Nov. 2020 is coming.
And afterwards we will get to hear you tell us once again how Trump did not expect to win.
By protecting the citizens of the rest of the country from being silenced by a relatively small number of densely populated urban areas, the electoral college did exactly what it was supposed to do. I have always found it ironic that the progressive sanctity around protecting the vulnerable and the right to be heard depends entirely on the identity of the vulnerable group and the content of the message. Or more precisely, whether the it advances the left’s political agenda.
It is common knowledge in progressive circles that Stacey Abrams would have resigned as governor of Georgia if Joe Biden would have picked her as his running mate.
Interesting you begin talking of sleight of political hand right here, JT. After nearly 4 years of playing the ‘it doesn’t quite rise to the level of illegality or impeachment’ 3 card monty you specialize in, Yates would make a fine AG. And the same eye that led her to immediately know Flynn was problematic, as well as the travel ban’s flawed legal foundation being extremely shaky will make her an almost perfect candidate for AG in the aftermath of Trump’s crime scene in a porta potty of an administration.
Hope this doesn’t cause too much stomach distress for you next time you hang with Barr for cocktails. But just think, railing against Yates will probably keep you on the relevant side after the catastrophic mistake of siding with Trump on so many questionable issues. However that strategic tact may be short lived as it’s really an all or nothing for the Repub orthodoxy this election after cowtowing so hard to Trumpism. Trumpy bear either a) is successful with his overt voter suppression this time around and the party goes one step past lack of pretense in submitting to a carnival barker, or b) has to reshape itself to fit the changing demographics that become increasingly less susceptible to shaky power grab tactics that the repubs have so mastered in the initial changing of the tide.
Either way, watching you dance on the head of a pin in the downfall of the repub orthodoxy that originally brought you in is quite a masterclass in itself. Time to ask for a trade, JT. Yates is a far more solid mentor than Barr would ever be. The same (I’ll admit) evil geniuses that realized Trump needed someone like Barr and put them together are the same ones that realized you, the defense lawyer who maintains he’s a democrat but is really overtly republican, was a genius branding exercise…
Except the demographics don’t support your position anymore. Relevancy calls and it no longer values the harrumphed up Reagan doctrinaire. Peace be with you as you navigate the slopes, JT.
“After nearly 4 years of playing the ‘it doesn’t quite rise to the level of illegality or impeachment’ 3 card monty you specialize in, ”
It did not even come close.
If the house wanted to impeach they needed to conduct real hearings, with real witnesses from all sides, proper cross examination and if they wanted evidence they could subpeona it and let the courts sort out the constitutional issues – they failed to do so.
“Yates would make a fine AG.”
ROTFL
“And the same eye that led her to immediately know Flynn was problematic”
Which he was not. We have the transcripts – one wonders why Rice was not on the phone with Kislyak saying the same things.
Flynn did not bring up or discuss Sanctions. Even had he does so that would not have been illegal.
Yates claim that Flynn lied to Pence was error. Her claim that he could be blackmailed was absolutely ludicrously stupid.
“as well as the travel ban’s flawed legal foundation being extremely shaky”
And yet it was not – SCOTUS upheld it. This was not even a close call.
Yates confused policy that she did not like with unconstitutionality which is exactly why should should not be AG.
Turley correctly notes she was free to resign. She was not free to direct DOJ to refuse to defend the EO’s.
“Trump’s crime scene in a porta potty of an administration.”
Then you should be able to list actual crimes – with evidence.
“next time you hang with Barr”
I disagree with Barr on myriads of policy issues, but he has been very solid on the law, and frankly has pushed back against Trump on issues he probably should not have.
Snowden probably should not be Pardoned, but some deal should be made and he should be allowed to come home.
Asange agreed to testify in the US in return merely for safe passage, and we should allow him to do so.
We should not prosecute journalists for doing their job. That said Asange knows things that it is greatly in the public interest to find out.
“is successful with his overt voter suppression this time around”
Is someone using force to prevent you from voting ? If not then there is no illegal voter supression.
Both parties put extrodinary effort into assuring that their own voters vote and that those of the other party are demoralized and don’t.
80% of the country supports measures like voter ID including 70% of blacks.
Leftist claims of voter supression are manufactured nonsense.
How are Republicans “supressing voters” – by requiring proof that a voter may legally vote – you know like the proof that a driver may legally drive
Buy purging dead people, fake names, people who have moved out of state and people who have not voted in a decade from the voter rolls as federal law requires, and yet almost no states actually do ?
What is it you think is “voter supression”
No one not on the far left cares about your vague and meaningless terms bandied arround without any specificity.
“has to reshape itself to fit the changing demographics that become increasingly less susceptible to shaky power grab tactics that the repubs have so mastered in the initial changing of the tide.”
We keep getting told that demographis is a positive destiny for democrats.
And yet Trump took from democrats blue collar worlers they have abandoned,
and he is eroding democratis hold on minorities.
It seems that democrats are on the wrong side of trends.
Thanks for your great insights, John. I’d adhere to what you said if it wasn’t so gottdamned crazy.
The actual facts appear crazy to those who bought the collusion delusion.
Oh you mean the people who read reports out of the Senate.
The transcripts from the senate hearing confirm the facts I have asserted – the actual video’s of Horowitz confirm what I have asserted.
As to congressional “Findings” – as someone noted it tool something like 10 Tries to find out that Hillary had been hiding evidence regarding Benghazi. We already know that FBI lied to the very Senate Committee you are citing. FBI documents declassified recently from 2017 confirm that the FBI lied in its testimony to the Senate that the Senate relied on is 2018.
As to Russian “interference” – as noted by myself and others – all Charges by Mueller against Russians were ultimately Dropped – because Mueller could not even persuade a Judge he had enough evidence to start a trial.
Practically every week something is declassified that demonstrates that something that was purportedly true proves to be false.
The purported Russian Spy that Manafort was unwittingly working with – turns out he was an informant for the US state department.
Over and over and over the Facts as they come out destroy the entire collusion delussion.
This just looks ever worse with Time.
Sally Yates is now turning on James Comey for “going rogue” in his pursuit of Flynn – and you are still trying to defend it ?
Pretty much NOTHING you have claimed has over time proven true.
I do not care what various reporters have said.
I do not care what the DOJ/FBI have said.
Horowitz was overall pretty good – but he findings of fact are what is most important – the evidence he has uncovered.
Even Mueller – despite pages and pages of spin and numerous misstatements, ultimately the factual findings of Mueller Damn your narative.
And you still want to argue ?
What are you a glutton for punishment ?
Or are you just unable to face facts ?
It is tedious reading the ranting of a left wing nut.
Do you know what an actual fact is ?
Please next time you post put some actual substance in your comment.
There is almost nothing to your entire post beyond – I like democrats, I do not like Trump and destiny favors democrats .
You are free to your own preferences. Your predictions are without evidence.
I do know what an actual fact is. That’s why I give no credence to your opinion.
“I do know what an actual fact is.”
Can;t tell from your posts.
Enlighten us – provide actual facts that support your arguments.
I have argued with facts – you keep talking about 3 card monty and pretending that there are fact supporting your arguments without actual offering them.
I am waiting to be show that you are credible.
That you have something to offer besides fact disconnected spin.
Likewise.
I have provided you ACTUAL FACTS.
I have provided a list of the acts that Horowitz Found the FBI actually performed.
In Bug world is having a Confidential Human Informant wear a wire to sureptitiously record the conversation with another person Spying ?
In Bug world is recording the conversation between incoming NSA Flynn and Russian Ambasador Kislyak Spying ?
In Bug World is requiring Cell and Phone provideds to turn over past present and future call records Spying ?
In Bug World is requiring ISP;s to turn over past present and future emails Spying ?
In Bug world is monitoring the phone calls and electronic communications of someone Spying ?
Horowitz found all of these and MORE.
Further they were all documented in news reports PRIOR to Horowitz, and have been confirmed in numerous other ways – such as testimony.
What do you need ? A magic decoder ring ? James Bond ?
In John Say’s shallow world, when Trump accuses Obama of “spying” on him, he means that any human source using subterfuge to verify if one of his campaign members is working with Russians – as was the legitimate purpose of the FBI investigation as judged by Horowitz – proves his point. Of course that obviously happened and equally of course that was not what the accusation was about. It was about Obama supposedly going fishing for anything he could get on Trump and his campaign. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN AND HOROWITZ SAID SO.
This is the 3rd time I have brought this obvious fact to John Say’s feeble attention and he has neither responded to it or clarified his zombie like charge.
He thinks he’s clever, Book. He thinks that if he lobs a million different things floating around his head that he’s speaking factually. His conceptual mind doesn’t have control of his creative mind. He thinks talking loud and putting his hands over his ears is being open to facts. Basically it just shows he’s desperately holding on to false narratives because he’s terrified to let it go. He’s actually carrying around a lot of pain around it, it’s pretty clear.
“He thinks he’s clever, Book. He thinks that if he lobs a million different things floating around his head that he’s speaking factually. His conceptual mind doesn’t have control of his creative mind. He thinks talking loud and putting his hands over his ears is being open to facts. Basically it just shows he’s desperately holding on to false narratives because he’s terrified to let it go. He’s actually carrying around a lot of pain around it, it’s pretty clear.”
More mind reading. Grow up your not telepathic.
Keep your facts straight and you will have no problems with me.
You rant about sticking to the point – yet here you are proclaiming that you KNOW a person who is just words on your computer screen – who you have never met.
Why should anyone beleive you about other things – when you are wont to make nonsensical claims about someone you have never met.
You should take your own advice and stick to the point. You suck at telepathy, mind reading distance psychoanalysis. …
More importantly doing so is objectively stupid.
And by doing so and admitting it you undermine your credibity elsewhere.
Your idiotic speculation about me merely demonstrates that you engage in idiotic speculation about everything.
That you can not distinguish reality – the words in front of you from beseless speculation – how little you know about someone who you never met and is likely thousands of miles away.
“In John Say’s shallow world”
There is only one world – the real one. You do not appear to be in it.
“when Trump accuses Obama of “spying” on him, he means that any human source using subterfuge to verify if one of his campaign members is working with Russians – as was the legitimate purpose of the FBI investigation as judged by Horowitz – proves his point.”
While you are heavy on spin. and attributing to Horowitz more than he said.
Spying is spying – whether there is a legitimate basis or not.
The US spies on Russia. All of us grasp that. We support that.
But the constitution prohibits the US government from spying on US citizens without a warrant.
The CIA need not get a FISA warrant to spy on Russians.
The FISA court exists to prevent the US govenrment from doing to US citizens what it can do to foreigners elsewhere i the world at whim.
You say Horowitz blessed this – but you are obviously wrong. As noted spying on americans requires a warrant.
Much of this was done without a warrant. None of it was done with a VALID warrant.
So says Horowitz – there were 17 serious errors with the FISA warrant application – fixing any one of them would likely have resulted in the denial of the warrant – the origianl warrant application without those errors WAS DENIED.
Warantless spying on americans is a violation of civil rights. It is no different than Watergate – or breaking into Elsberg’s psychiatrists office – except that Nixon had to hire crooks because the FBI and CIA refused to do his bidding. Obama corrupted the CIA FBI, DOJ which is far worse.
” Of course that obviously happened and equally of course that was not what the accusation was about.”
You can not seem to stick to facts.
Spying occured PERIOD. That is a fact, and you have wasted myriads of words trying to hide from that.
I do not give a crap about Obama’s motives, Trump’s motives, your motives. We START with the facts – spying occured.
Trump was correct about that. Everyone denying it was clueless, wrong or lying.
The latter is serious – because many of those denying the spying KNEW the facts – the rest of us might not have – but they did.
So THEY lied. Again I do not give a crap what you think their motives were. They LIED.
Next, once we can determine that someone has lied – there is no reason to take anything they say credibly.
There is not reason to contemplate their motives – whatever their motives might be – they are bad. We know that, because they are liars.
“It was about Obama supposedly going fishing for anything he could get on Trump and his campaign. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN AND HOROWITZ SAID SO.”
Not only did it – but YOU just said so.
“This is the 3rd time I have brought this obvious fact to John Say’s feeble attention and he has neither responded to it or clarified his zombie like charge.”
Sorry BTB but I am not suffering from cognative disonance. I can not warp reality to suit my politics.
You have just accepted that what Horowits said took place – what we all KNOW took place was spying.
You are now pretending that having lied yourself, and others having lied repeatedly that we MUST accept that there is an innocent explanation.
No actually we do not. by default we presume that those who have been caught in liars DO NOT have innocent explanations.
I actually just need you to STFU. Stop the vomit draft spewing of fox news talking points all jammed into one post. Pick a point, one related to the posts you’re trying to answer, and stick with it. Stop being a know it all blowhard all over the blog. It’s embarrassing to watch.
+1
He doesn’t seem to care that no one except maybe his mother or insomniacs would bother reading his typical screed.
“He doesn’t seem to care that no one except maybe his mother or insomniacs would bother reading his typical screed.”
And yet you do, and reply.
Regardless, you keep trying to make this about me – someone you know nothing about.
Stick to things you know something about – the evidence so far is that is pretty limited.
Regardless, the internet exists and primary source abound. You can be sure that what you write is correct before writing it.
But doing so does require some care – because 20 something reporters are clueless.
“I actually just need you to STFU. Stop the vomit draft spewing of fox news talking points all jammed into one post.”
Seig Heil!!
You are not my boss, you are not my god, You do not give orders that I am obligated to obey.
Facts are not talking points. I know that is confusing to those on the left.
“Pick a point”
Why ? You make numerous errors in your post.
I am free to tear them apart one at a time
Point by stupid point.
“one related to the posts you’re trying to answer”
You fail to grasp that you are mostly in control of my posts.
You make mistakes, errors, mistatements of fact, and I correct them.
Get your facts straight and you will not have any problems with me.
“and stick with it. Stop being a know it all blowhard all over the blog. It’s embarrassing to watch.”
You should be embarrased.
Regardless, keep your facts straight and it is unlikely I will ever reply to you.
And John, you’re not looking for facts. I gave you one at the top of this thread and you didn’t even address it.
You’re just looking for an argument to ram every discussion on this board through your limited libertarian world view.
“And John, you’re not looking for facts.”
Because you say so ?
I am looking FOR facts,
But in the context of this argument
I am looking AT facts.
“I gave you one at the top of this thread and you didn’t even address it.”
There are so many errors in your post – as guess I missed one – enlighten me ?
Which of the half dozen or so false assertions you have made did a fail to address ?
“You’re just looking for an argument to ram every discussion on this board through your limited libertarian world view.”
With respect to the “collusion dellusion” – much of what I have to say is not especially libertarian.
The facts are what they are – they do not care if you are republican, democrat, libertarian or zorastrian.
The requirement of sustained reasonable suspicion to open and continue an investigation – is not libertarian – it is the law and constitution.
As is the requirement of probable cause both that a crime has been committed and that the search/seizure will result in further evidence ALSO a constitutional and legal requirement.
Clue: it was labeled “fact #1”.
I like to be all subtextual like that. Ha.
Are you two ?
“You’re just looking for an argument to ram every discussion on this board through your limited libertarian world view.”
If this were true – it would still be irrelevant.
It does not matter what my world view is, or what yours is. It does not matter what my motives and beleifs are, or yours.
What matters is whether the facts each of us offer are correct and whether the arguments that we make from those facts are valid.
If communism actually worked better than all other ideologies – it would be the better world view.
If socialism actually worked better than all other ideologies – it would be the better world view.
If progressivism actually worked better than all other ideologies – it would be the better world view.
If conservatism actually worked better than all other ideologies – it would be the better world view.
If liberalism (classical liberalism, aka libertarianism) actually worked better than all other ideologies – it would be the better world view.
Fortunately we have answers to the above queries.
All forms of statism fail proportionate to the size of the government they produce.
That is the history of the world.
Then why are you afraid to discuss one ‘fact’ at a time?
“Then why are you afraid to discuss one ‘fact’ at a time?”
Non sequitur.
If your comments only contain one factual error – my responses will only address one factual error.
What has fear got to do with any of this ?
Why do you presume to know anyone else’s emotions,
One way of avoiding making errors is not speculating on about the motives, emotions, etc of people you do not know.
It just makes you look foolish.
Given that Turley has designed this blog as a platform to lean right and toward Trump and pick and expose all the shortcomings of the left, how about, Trump’s boys organizing a ‘letter of interest’ regarding a $750 mil + loan to Kodak that took the stock from $2 to $15 overnight, including billions made by insider trading. It seems that Kushner and Trump’s boys were in on it at the beginning and those in the know made out big time. The stock dropped to $5 once this came out. This is the most blatant form of payoff that involves the stock market. The government/Trump in this case makes an announcement that it will do something; something that will pump a stock. The insiders/pals of the government to whom much is owed, typically in the form of campaign contributions, get the word and perform the old ‘pump and dump’. Look at oil and gas stocks etc. Look carefully.
So far all accusations against Obama and his team have been just as those against Trump and his team. Mueller and a Republican lead Senate investigation flat out stated that Trump was ‘not innocent’, openly welcomed aid from Russia-but did not seek it, did not collude but did cooperate, etc. The closest either side comes to a given is Trump=175,000 deaths and a tanked economy.
I don’t know if your claims are correct but it’s not like Obama was any different. His administration decided the GI Bill could no longer be used at Phoenix College. The stock dropped faster than Bill Clinton’s pant around an intern. His cronies came in and purchased the grossly undervalued asset. Then the administration announced the GI Bill could once again be used at Phoenix College enriching those “in the know” like big campaign contributors. Then there was the practice of getting reduced fines for making contributions to leftist political organizations rather than paying government mandated settlements. It was simply good business to comply with practice and the Holder DOJ diverted billions from the taxpayers to crony organizations.
The attempt to blame Trump for the Covid deaths is shameful. He put in a travel ban and Democrats screamed racism. Five states, all run by Democrats, ordered nursing homes to accept Covid positive patients. This action caused Covid deaths to skyrocket. It doesn’t reach the bar of criminal but they should be held liable in civil court. Further, name a politician who wouldn’t have used this opportunity to claim more power for the central government rather than leave it to the states. Take your time, I’ll wait. And once again Russia. Yawn.
It’s a long fall off that moral high horse Democrats love to sit upon. Some day you folks will realize that most establishment politicians are jerks, regardless of party.
Jan 21: “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China.”
Jan 30: “We think we have it very much under control.”
Feb 02: “We pretty much shut it down, coming from China.”
Feb 14: “We have a very small number of people in the country, right now, with it. It’s like around 12… Some are fully recovered already. So we’re in very good shape.”
Feb 25: “People are getting better, they’re all getting better.”
Feb 26: “And the 15 in a couple of days is gonna be down to close to zero.”
Feb 28: “Coronavirus. This is the new hoax… You’ll be fine.”
Feb 28: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle, it will disappear”
Mar 02: “They’re going to have vaccines very soon.” Mar 03: “Not only the vaccines, but the therapies. Therapies is sort of another word for cure.”
Mar 04: “We’re talking about very small numbers in the United States.”
Mar 06: “I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault… I like the numbers where they are.”
Mar 06: “Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. They’re there. And the tests are beautiful…. the tests are all perfect…”
Mar 07: “It came out of China, and we heard about it. And made a good move: We closed it down. We stopped it.”
Mar 08: “We have a perfectly coordinated and fine tuned plan at the White House.”
Mar 10: “It’s really working out, and a lot of good things are gonna happen. Just stay calm. It will go away.”
Mar 12: “It’s gonna go away.”
Mar 13: “No, I don’t take responsibility at all.”
Mar 16: “I’d rate it a 10. I think we’ve done a great job.”
Mar 17: “This is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic.”
Trump is directly responsible for two thirds of the Covid-19 deaths. Yes, he banned flights from China early on, and then went on to do nothing but thwart calls to take charge, advise the American public that there was no problem-just a couple of cases, etc. Trump is on record for six weeks of diminishing the problem with asinine remarks and statements about how it is nothing, under control, etc while the virus took hold. Yes, other governors and local politicians made mistakes but this was a national emergency and where it was seen, in the world, early as an emergency the impact was far, far, far less. Canada, right next door, took it seriously and per capita suffered and continues to suffer far less, less than half per capita. The US was not alone in reacting too late, however, no other country had a leader that pooh poohed the severity so openly and with such BS and authority as the US. You can bring up Brazil and a few others but that just illustrates the company Trump keeps.
Had Trump jumped on the virus six weeks earlier, a hundred thousand + would still be alive and the economy in far less shambles. Had Trump responded two weeks earlier, tens of thousands of lives would have been saved. The only response Trump supporters have is, ‘He put in a travel ban and Democrats screamed racism. Five states, all run by Democrats, ordered nursing homes to accept Covid positive patients. This action caused Covid deaths to skyrocket.’ Five states, one travel ban, and nothing else. Trump, “I am not responsible.” was his response when governors were pleading for help. You can bring up the odd state and call it all the fault of Democrats, but-and this is the formidable and pivotal word ‘but’-this was a national emergency, Trump was President, and his response for six weeks was, “I am not responsible.”, and that it was nothing. After that he continued to support the non wearing of masks. The wearing of masks has been directly connected to the drop in cases, in the US and around the world. It took Trump months to follow the examples set by the more responsible. Nope, you can dig and pick until you find one or two moves by Trump that were appropriate but almost all of Trump’s efforts were to use the crisis to tout how great a guy he is and how great a job he was doing. Trump’s supporters here are at their most perverse when they point to Trump doing something appropriate, after months of refusing to take charge as any leader should.
Take off your blinders and read more than FoxNews. Trump is a failure, always has been, and always will be. He succeeds and game shows but has gone bankrupt six times and failed at over a dozen businesses. He is primarily a success at selling dupes a bill of goods. His fame and fortune was built of ‘flipping’ real estate. He has always dealt with the mega wealthy and knows nothing of the average person. What fools those Americans that support Trump are. Be a Republican, conservative, patriot, and all the other ideological things you wish, but Trump. Trump is not America, Republican or Democrat. Read the paper and take note of how the Republicans are jumping ship. Not one former President or high ranking member of a former Republican administration is showing support. That might be at Trump’s request as having Bush support Trump would be more like throwing gasoline on a fire, could only make it worse. Across Republican land, it’s getting mighty quiet. The rats are deserting the sinking ship.
What would Isaac know about “Republican land?” Almost certainly Isaac does not live in a red state. Either Canada, or, the Pac NW, am I right?
We are out here in flyover and “quiet” does not quite describe the attitude of fierce determination that is shared.
As for rats they are always welcome to jump ship. The craft is lighter faster and cleaner without their pestilence aboard.
Almost certainly Isaac does not live in a red state.
Almost certainly is not permitted by the group home supervisor to shlep around by himself.
You calling Kellyanne a pestilence? Lots of pestilence jumping the Republican ship these days, lots of Trumper pestilence jumping ship as well. The ship will be becoming lighter and lighter in the coming weeks. After Trump gets his walking papers, it will not even be necessary.
The only redeeming quality Bush had and seems to have maintained is that he quickly and quietly left the scene. Bush understands that there is nothing American in rubbing it in and embarrassing the ‘Party’. That won’t be the case with Trump. Trump will continue to disgrace, embarrass, and offend America until his last breath. Tabloid Trash Trumps, the next generation. We still have Donny Jr., Eric, and Bling Bimbo Ivanka. What a dynasty.
No but i am calling her husband a pestilence and those who cavort with him shamelessly contrary to the interests of the people
we gonna see how it turns out. you’re very confident isaac. can you even vote here? If not put a cork in it and stop being the Canuckistani foreigner “influencing” our elections
“Given that Turley has designed this blog as a platform to lean right and toward Trump and pick and expose all the shortcomings of the left,”
Really ? In what world ?
Turley – and several other posters that you think are “on the right” are liberals – in the correct sense of the word.
I would fully agree that Turley’s blog is anti-progressive – but progressives just make $h!t up as they go.
Turley is not favorable to Trump – he is just willing to note that some acts of Trump are constitutional – if not wise.
The left wants to pretend that law is whatever they want it to be for the moment.
That the test of legal legitimacy is whim.
That often what is legal for those they support is not for those they oppose.
“how about, Trump’s boys organizing a ‘letter of interest’ regarding a $750 mil + loan to Kodak that took the stock from $2 to $15 overnight, including billions made by insider trading.”
If you wish to investigate that – go ahead. Insider trading requires insider foreknowledge. If someone who knew about the Kodak loan bought kodak stock prior to the loan – prosecute them. If you do not trust the DOJ – Kodak is in NY and the NY AG can investigate and prosecute.
I would note that pretty much anything that government does that effects the economy creates the opportunity for insider trading.
Why do you think congressional investments out perform the market ? It is certainly not because congress is better than hedge fund managers at predicting stock prices.
“It seems that Kushner and Trump’s boys were in on it at the beginning and those in the know made out big time. The stock dropped to $5 once this came out. This is the most blatant form of payoff that involves the stock market. The government/Trump in this case makes an announcement that it will do something; something that will pump a stock. The insiders/pals of the government to whom much is owed, typically in the form of campaign contributions, get the word and perform the old ‘pump and dump’. Look at oil and gas stocks etc. Look carefully.”
No one is stopping you from looking. Given the nature of government I would be shocked if Someone did not engage in insider Trading.
It need not be Kushner, it can just as easily be some career federal employee who got wind of this deal.
Regardless, I have zero opposition to investigaing and prosecuting anyone caught insider trading.
“So far all accusations against Obama and his team have been just as those against Trump and his team.”
In what world ?
Did Trump arrange to sell guns to mexican drug lords ?
Did Trump use the IRS to go after political opposition ?
Trump’s executive orders have been found constitutional. Many of Obama’s were found not constitutional 9-0.
I can go on and on.
“Mueller and a Republican lead Senate investigation flat out stated that Trump was ‘not innocent’, openly welcomed aid from Russia-but did not seek it” Nonsense. The Republican Senate investigation does not say as you claim and regardless erred because it was mislead.
Graham is refering I beleive it was Priestep for lying under oath to the Senate when he testified – testimony that the Senate relied on.
Most of the recently declassified documents were not available to the Senate investigation. The Senate only recently found out that A foreign power sought to aide the Clinton campaign in 2015 – that the FBI was directed by DOJ to provide a defensive briefing and that the matter was dispatched quietly. Had the FBI done as they did with Trump it is near certain Clinton would have received substantail foreign campaign assistance.
“did not collude but did cooperate, etc”
I have no idea what that even means.
The entire country knows that BEFORE THE ELECTION – Trump publicly asked the Russians to turn over emails from Clinton’s bathroom email server. That never happened. Regardless we all knew about Trump’s request prior to the election and voted accordingly.
Today the country knows that Natalia met with the Trump campaign on the promise of delivering dirt on Clinton.
Provided nothing and wasted 15 minutes discussing Russian adoption. We also niw know that Natalia met with Glenn Simpson – AKA the purveyor of the Steele Dossier immediately prior to and after the Trump tower meeting.
We also NOW know that while the Clinton Campaign bought and paid for dirt on Trump that not only the campaign but the entire country beleived came from Russian inteligence, it turns out that it was all made up by a russian expatriot in the US working for democratic think tank Brookings.
We also know that Mueller LOST his prosecutions of actual russians – not dreaming they might actually try to defend themselves.
So the actual fact is that the Mueller investigation is actually WORSE that Crossfire huricane.
It started at a time the FBI had already concluded there was not sufficient predicate to continue investigating Trump.
Klinesmith’s recent plea is especially damning to Mueller – as it occured during the Mueller investigation, not XFH.
So it is Mueller and his team who submitted actually doctored evidence to the FISA court.
And you wonder why Turley and lots of others are increasingly dubious of idiotic left wing nut legal claims of malfeasance ?
Because they keep turning out to be both bogus and malfeasant.
. The closest either side comes to a given is Trump=175,000 deaths and a tanked economy.
Dead on! It’s interesting you didn’t even mention Biden as a force in the Justice Department, just Yates and Harris. They will politicize up the wazoo, and leave Biden in the shadows. Obama could actually control, i.e. politicize, when he claimed to be “hands off” because people knew it was a plain lie, but they approved anyway! He played politics the way Biden never could, and never even tried. He fades before your eyes as a leader. That’s why the joint interview last night on ABC was a huge mistake. Biden is bland enough on his own, but Harris practically obliterated him.
JT, please Go …….. jump in a lake, or something.
Thanks.
Di you have an Argument ?
yeah, he said lake or something. Got a feeling he wanted to say something else.
This section of JT’s blog is for comments.
Not everyone is here to debate…
If you do not have an argument to support it your opinion is not worth much.
Sadly Nikola Tesla has passed. If he were still alive maybe he could build a machine to make them all disappear. What a turn that would be.
Biden is incapable is accepting or rejecting anything except lunch.
An excellent post.
This is what is most troubling about the left.
We have heard from Day one that Trump is lawless, and yet it is Trump that was the victim of the DOJ/FBI being used as a prosecutorial weapon.
Turley fixates on Harris and Yates history of political lawlessness – But Biden is equally bad.
There remains to this day no evidence that Shokin was corrupt. There is however a great deal of evidence that Biden’s demand for Shokin’s removal WAS corrupt. This is more than just about Hunter Biden, Hunter and Archer were put on the Burisma board specifically to Stop prosecutions.
And that worked. Joe Biden and John Kerry used the power of the US government to thwart criminal prosecutions in Ukraine by firing Shokin and painting him as corrupt – The entire Shikin is corrupt nonsense came from Biden, and Biden/Kerry managed state department DOJ/FBI resources – so just like the Clinton Email mess and the Crossfire huricane mess we have the State/DOJ/FBI being used to serve the political and personal ob objectives of members of the administration.
Recently it has become clear that Biden was himself involved in XFH and the effort to setup Flynn.
How are we to Trust that Biden will allow DOJ/FBI to do their job without political interferance ? That is NOT his MO. Appointing Yates or someone like her would accomplish the same purpose without the need for personal interferance.
Regardless, is there anyone who thinks that a Biden presidency would not be a return to weaponizing the apartatus of government to persecute political enemies ?
Whatever one may think of Trump’s rants, this is the one thing he has NOT done.
He ranted and raved about DOJ/FBI about Comey, McCabe, Strzok, about Mueller and his band of “angry democrats” but despite having the power to do so he never actually interfered. He may have publicly mused about it. But he did not do it.
What he has done has been upheld as constitutional.
For all Trump’s cries of “lock her up” Trump left Clinton alone after the election. Do you expect the same from Biden/Harris/Yates ?
Does anyone doubt that in short order the same F’d up aand politically driven CIA/FBI/DOJ/State will be back in operation.
Spying on and threatening to lock up journalists. Bullying countries to profit the politically connected, Weaponizing the government against political enemies.
John Say is wrong again.
IG Horowitz found no evidence of partisan abuse by the FBI in their investigation of the Trump campaign and that includes spying.
Let’s check your filter. Did you see any evidence of abuse by the FBI, partisan or otherwise?
I did notice that the FBI protected Trump from public knowledge of the investigation into his campaign while Hillary was not given that benefit, so that could be interpreted as partisan. It certainly advantage Trump, and Nate Silver of 538 found it decisive and gave the presidency to the loser.
That’s very thin gruel. Regardless, that was nearly 4 years ago and a lot of physical evidence has come to light regarding Crossfire Hurricane and Crossfire Razor. Is there anything in that evidence that concerns you regarding the FBI conduct?
IG Horowitz found no evidence of partisan abuse by the FBI in their investigation of the Trump campaign and that includes spying. He released his report in Dec 2019.
Giving the election of the President to the loser is never thin gruel.
IG Horowitz found no evidence of partisan abuse by the FBI in their investigation of the Trump campaign and that includes spying. He released his report in Dec 2019.
I guess your handlers at Correct-the-Record told you to just lie brazenly.
You’re dodging the question. I didn’t ask you what Horrowitz reported and even that report provided a ton of evidence regarding FBI misconduct. I asked you about all of the evidence that’s been uncovered and what you believe that evidence reveals about the FBI. If you find yourself unable or unwilling to concede the actual evidence proves the FBI’s conduct was abusive and likely violated numerous ethical and legal boundaries, then your opinions are useless.
Giving the election of the President to the loser is never thin gruel.
Newsflash! Clinton was and will always be the loser of the 2016 election for President of the United States. Thinking otherwise is not even thin gruel, it’s delusional.
I agree with the Horowitz report Olly.
you should read it first.
Not what NYT or Wapo or NBC says bit the actual report.
Let’s try again. Andrew McCarthy sums it up very well.
Bear in mind: The incumbent Democratic administration had opened an election-year investigation of its Republican opposition, and the FBI had heavily relied on bogus evidence generated by the Democratic campaign to claim that Page was a spy for Russia. With that as background, there would be only two possible explanations for the FBI’s failure to inform the court that Page was working for the CIA when the bureau had claimed he was working for the Kremlin: willful abuse of power or monstrous incompetence.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/clinesmiths-guilty-plea-the-perfect-snapshot-of-crossfire-hurricane-duplicity/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NR%20Daily%20Monday%20through%20Friday%202020-08-24&utm_term=NRDaily-Smart
Dear Olly Doofus – The “election year investigation” was kept secret from voters by all the Deep State actors you all claim were conspiring. They included Comey, Strzock, McCabe, and Bruce Ohr. How stupid are you? The issue isn’t if the FBI investigating during an election but making it public, which they did to Hillary, not the Mango Mussolini.
Further Page and the FISA court were secondary concerns which neither triggered or kept going the investigation, and Horowitz found f..kups but no partisan conspiracy in that effort either.
Maybe you should read something other than the confirmation bedtime stories you get from the NR, etc. Why don;t you read the actual report?
You keep hiding from the fact that the FBI did NOT make the Clinton investigation public.
Clinton’s conduct did.
The FBI did not secretly discover that Clinton mishandled classified information – the FBI was not investigating – though they should have been – YEARS before.
Judicial Watch discovered the clinton Basement email server, and the presence of classified information as a result of a FOIA requiest that Clinton FOUGHT.
When you rob a bank and get caught on the nightly news, Everyone KNOWS you are being investigated for bank robbery.
When your top aides husband gets caught sending 13yr olds dick pics and the NYPD finds classified emails on his laptop – Everyone KNOWS you are being investigated.
You are demanding that the FBI engage in some kind of equity, but revealing that they were engaged in an improper poolitical investigation and found nothing ?
“Further Page and the FISA court were secondary concerns which neither triggered or kept going the investigation”
Ha, Ha.
I have some swampland for sale.
I have provided you MULTIPLE youtube video’s of Horrowitz testifying that refute your bogus claim.
Why do you repeat this nonsense.
You seem to fixate on ridiculous meanings of words.
Horowitz was asked about spying – he responded that the term spying was nebulous.
And noted specific things that actually occured.
Years worth of emails were secretly monitored and seized from multiple ISP’s.
Phone records were obtained.
In atleast Flynn’s case phone calls were tapped.
Multiple Confidential informants wearing wires were sent in.
Horowitz confirmed these and other acts that constitute spying.
Are you saying those are not spying ?
What is it that you think IS spying ?
The videos John Say posted were of GOP politicians pontificating about irrelevancies – how human sources seeking gain knowledge about targets and FISA warrants – with Horowitz giving ambiguous one word responses. I quoted the actual report which proves John Say is wrong again.
PS As I said in my post above, but which John is too dense to understand, “Spying” in the context Trump accused Obama of doing to him means looking into his campaign activities to gain partisan advantage, Of course human sources will have to use subterfuge to gain knowledge, but the Horowitz report specifically exonerates the FBI of “spying” for partisan advantage.
Read the report.
“PS As I said in my post above, but which John is too dense to understand, “Spying” in the context Trump accused Obama of doing to him means looking into his campaign activities to gain partisan advantage, Of course human sources will have to use subterfuge to gain knowledge, but the Horowitz report specifically exonerates the FBI of “spying” for partisan advantage.”
BZZT wrong. There is not special context, The use of Confidential human sources is spying.
It is spying whether it is done legally or illegally
it is spying whether it is done to fain partisan advantage, or just to F’up your potential successor.
Ir just because you can do it.
No Horowitz does NOT exonerate anyone of spying for partisan advantage.
AGAIN Horowitz notes REPEATEDLY that the rules for IG inquiry bar him from speculating about the motives or intentions of the FBI or DOJ actors. When asked he repeatedly confirmed queries by Senators that it was reasonable to conclude bat motives from the facts, but that his report was not permitted to do so. Nor was he permitted to question the judgement calls of any of the actions he examined.
If 19 out of 20 agents would have acted differently from Strzok – Horowitz was still required to conclude that Strzok’s actions were reasonable. Horowitz noted under questioning that many of the actions taken were unusual, abnormal, and even formed a pattern of disturbing conduct. But he was required to look at each and not decide whether it was normal, or what he would do, or what 19 out of 20 FBI agents would do, but whether it was never done, whether it was absolutely prohibited.
“Read the report.”
Please – you clearly have not. Your except was an edit from a reporter, not from the report itself.
You do not need to get more than a few pages in before you should be saying “oh f$%k”
Tomorow Barr should direct the FBI to start spying on Biden/Harris and their campaign
We know that China wants Biden elected – the Intelligence community tells us so.
We know that the Biden’s have billions in ties to China.
We know that Biden as VP was very friendly with Xi and china and that he enacted policies favorable to china.
Biden has already admitted he would undo the “sanctions” that Trump has imposed on China.
Further we have lots of credible allegations that Biden has been inappropriate with teenagers,
He has been accused of raping atleast one woman.
There is credible evidence that he used his power as VP to get his son out of hot water in Ukraine.
There is also evidence that Both Hunter and Archer got their million dollar jobs in the Ukraine in return for the political influence of their fathers – John Kerry and Joe Biden.
That is far stronger a basis for Trump to direct Barr to spy on the Biden campaign than Obama ever had.
If you are going to continue to deny what Obama actually did – then what the hell, Trump might as well just do the same.
Are the specific things that Horowitz said actually occured – in his testimony and in his report SPYING
Yes or No ?
No games,
Is it spying if the FBI sends a source to record the conversations of a subject without that subject knowledge ?
Is it spying if the FBI sends a source that the target does not know is working for the FBI to elicit inculpatory remarks from that subject ?
Is it spying for the FBI to use a warrant to obtain past emails and other communications of a subject, or those the subject communicates with ? of those 2 hops away from the subject ?
Is it spying for the FBI to use a warrant to monitor future emails and other communications of a subject, or those the subject communicates with ? of those 2 hops away from the subject ?
ARE YOU CAPABLE OF BEING HONEST ?
“The videos John Say posted were of GOP politicians”
And Horowitz agreeing.
“pontificating about irrelevancies”
False and oppinion – not relevant.
“how human sources seeking gain knowledge about targets and FISA warrants – with Horowitz giving ambiguous one word responses.”
Like YES
“I (mis)quoted the actual report (nope an edited quote from a reporter) which proves John Say is wrong again.”
I provided an actual quote from the report – right in the start – the summary of findings – which you refuse to address.
Read the actual report – not the news.
Tired of your idiotic revisionist history.
FIRST – we all know what spying is. We do not need Mueller or Horowitz to tell us the definition of spying.
NEXT – We all know much of what actually occured now.
We KNOW about Halper,
We KNOW about Azra Turk.
We KNOW about the recordings that were made.
In many cases with have the transcripts.
Further – not only do we know these things – now from primary sources,
But we also know them from Horowitz’s report.
So all you are doing is playing WORD GAMES. No Horowitz did not find 007 in bed with Melania trying to seduce her into the secret codes for Trump’s Deutch Bank accounts.
Several Trump campaign people – while in the campaign and after, were approached by Confidential Human Sources at the direction of the FBI wearing Wires and recorded without there knowledge. Atleast one of these was a high ranking member of the Trump campaign.
None of them provided the FBI with anything that was not exculpatory.
Separately the FISA warrant resulted in cell, email, and other communications monitoring, as well as gathering – past present and future.
Again confirmed by primary sources, by Horowitz, and by the media.
This and other FBI actions are what is commonly called SPYING.
Horowitz said as much but in his report used very specific different words – and explained he reasons for doing so.
All spying is NOT alike. Different Spying actions require different legal predicates. It was his job to determine whether those predicates has been met. In SOME cases he found they had. As an example Horowitz found that the use of CHS by FBI was properly predicated.
It was STILL SPYING.
Conversely Horowitz found that the FISA warrant application was NOT properly predicated and therefore every action that was undertaken using it – AKA SPYING was impromper.
Further Horowitz found that all legal predication for the investigation ceases when the FBI interview of the Steele Dossier primary subsource stated that it was all gossip and made up.
Therefore after mid january 2017 any continued investigation of Trump or the Trump campaign was illegal, and a violation of civil rights.
What is it that you think IS spying?
John,
You’re not going to get the answer you’re looking for. Similar to the Benghazi or IRS targeting investigations, Book and his fellow travelers are only wired for their truth, facts be damned. Yesterday, I attempted something similar with Book. I asked him for his opinion on what the evidence available revealed about the FBI’s conduct. His answer was precisely what the political class wants from their trove of useful idiots: I agree with the Horowitz report. Never mind that the Horrowitz report has a treasure trove of footnotes that are damning to the FBI and senior Obama administration officials.
It’s actually a very sad reflection on the demoralization of our culture. As Yuri Bezmenov said: The art of duping the masses into doing things to their own disadvantage and making them believe it is “the will of the people,” is as ancient as mankind itself. To achieve the desired effect, the subverter must first—make idiots of normal people and divide them, before turning the people into a homogenized mass of useful and united idiots.
Olly;
We are either headed for the collapse of the left or the collapse of society.
I am betting on the former. But I could be wrong.
WE are seeing the same idiocy that brought Mao to power.
Orwell’s 1984 was supposed to be a warning – not a howto guide.
We are either headed for the collapse of the left or the collapse of society.
My opinion is we are somewhere between 1763 and 1774. The loyalist’s supporting the Left’s agenda seem ignorant to how this will end. Whether it be by peaceful means or hostile, a nation that is rooted in freedom, liberty and the security of rights will never accept a government that defies those principles.
The left does not understand that democracies are unstable – which is why the US is not a democracy.
There is a radical difference between limited self government and majority rule.
Again the left just does not understand that.
Majority rule.democracy inherently means that you will create a situation in which the vast majority of people are NOT happy with government,.
There are social science estimates that law and government that does not have the support of 90% of people is not sustainable.
That as little as 11% fo people who will refuse to obey whatever laws have passed make government impossible.
The left does not grasp that even if they gain control of government they STILL can only do what the vast majority of people will at the very least accept – if not support.
It is trivial to create opponents, enemies, it is impossibly difficult to bring people together.
If the left passes 10 laws – each of which are violently opposed by 10% of the people – but not exactly the same 10% in each case, ultimately you have more than 50% of people opposed to government.
As we saw with health care – it is trivial to get people to agree that change is needed – it is NOT possible to get them to form any consensus on specific changes. ObamaCare remains – pretty close to in name only. Because so many people were opposed to one aspect or another.
Olly, grow up. You’re not Tom Paine, Trump is not George Washington, and Biden is not King George. If there’s anyone in this who has to have everything in gold leaf and worshiping sycophants at all meetings it’s your boy.
Grow up? And be like you, a loyalist? Nope.
The metaphor is incorrect – what the left is pushing more strongly resembles Mao than revolutionary loyalists.
Regardless, I realized something today.
For all the rioting and looting and nonsense – it is all actually quite small.
This is not the LA riots, this is not the 1968 summer of rage.
This is not the civil rights movement or the vietnam war protests.
While the media is fawning over the extreme left – people as a whole are NOT joining in.
Democratic politicians have chosen to get behind the left lunatic fringe. Or at the very least not distance themselves from it.
Trump is closing the polls, he has rapidly closed the betting odds.
Your alienating the american people.
John Say should be more precise in his wording. We are not a pure democracy – nor a pure capitalist market economy – but we are a form of democracy know as a republic, which is representative democracy. A republic is a subset of the larger category of democracies.
“John Say should be more precise in his wording.”
Because you say so ?
“We are not a pure democracy”
We are not a democracy at all – we are a republic.
“nor a pure capitalist market economy”
What even does that mean ?
The economy is not the domain of the government.
The US constitution in numerous places severely limits the role of government in the economy.
But even if it does not – the constitution defines the role of government – everything else it the private domain – not governments business.
Our founders specifically intended that, Check the 9th amendment, check the privileges and imunities clause in the constitution, check the privileges and imunities clause in the 14th amendment.
“but we are a form of democracy know as a republic”
Nope – a democracy is a radically different political structure – republics are not democracies.
democracy literally means the people rule.
You talk about my failure to use language precisely – and yet you can not manage to accurately describe our government.
“which is representative democracy. A republic is a subset of the larger category of democracies.”
Nope. Was the roman republic a democracy. What or the Peoples Republic of China ? The USSR – is that a subset of a democracy ?
The term democracy as a FORM of government has a specific meaning – one completely at odds with a republic or even representative government.
Democracy or democratic is also used more nebulously to refer to the right of people to govern themselves.
In that use, it applies to not merely republics but also to many monarchies.
But it does NOT refer to governments like that of the PRC or USSR.
You are imprecisely blurring two different uses of democracy.
If you are going to rant about precision, you can atleast get things right.
John is partly right, This is not 1968 and I have said that here many times. White college girls did not demonstrate in Compton or Harlem. And as he says, protests and riots are limited in locations and attendance. When school starts and the weather cools, these will subside for the most part. It is not the “left” either. No one on the streets is much over their mid-20s, most to half are white, not black, and in the summer and with the virus keeping others out of work, it’s the place to be. When I was young I followed a crowd to set fires in the streets downtown after a football victory, and at that time I could not have cared less about the game.
“John is partly right,”
And then you go one to indicate I am wholly right.
“This is not 1968 and I have said that here many times. White college girls did not demonstrate in Compton or Harlem.
They did demonstrate against Vietnam.
“And as he says, protests and riots are limited in locations and attendance.”
“When school starts and the weather cools,”
And yet, you seek to close schools.
“these will subside for the most part.”
Probably – though I suspect when Trump wins they will get much worse.
They will subside because they are not working.
“It is not the “left” either.”
Really ? On what planet do you live.
“No one on the streets is much over their mid-20s, most to half are white, not black,”
True – AKA “the far left”
“and in the summer and with the virus keeping others out of work, it’s the place to be.”
So which is it – students ? Or out of work workers ?
Regardless, it is only “the place to be” if you are a maoist wing nut.
These are failures as both protests and riots.
“When I was young I followed a crowd to set fires in the streets downtown after a football victory, and at that time I could not have cared less about the game.”
So when you were young you were an arsonist.
Being young is not an excuse for being a criminal.
Nor does football have anything to do with arson.
de·moc·ra·cy
/dəˈmäkrəsē/
noun
a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.
It would be easier and more accurate to say we are a republic and we do things democratically.
The left per Orwell deliberately seeks to destroy meaning in words.
How else could we live in a world where republicans are called democracies and socialists are called liberals.
What is the term for a government where people are their own rulers – as in Athens ?
What is the term for a person who prizes individual liberty ?
As expected.
There are about 50 different definitions of democracy today.
Because left wing nuts such as yourself have taken Orwell as a guidebook rather than a warning.
Words have meaning. Distorting their meaning distorts thought and coomunication.
You have mangled the meaning of the word democracy such that there is no word for the form of government that is an actual democracy.
That alone should be sufficient proof of your lack of integrity.
When you mangle language you mangle communication and you ultimately mangle your own ability to think.
By mangling the words democracy you make it impossible to distinguish between our government and that of say the Athenians without descending into mush.
You also destroy the meaning of the expressions of our founders – who loathed democracy as a form of government.
This word mangling also makes it credible for you to rant about the deliberate and extremely anti-democratic choices our founders made – such as giving every state two senators, or the electoral college.
As noted these are ANTI-DEMOCRACY – because this country is not a democracy and was never intended to be one.
But by destroying the meaning of words, you make it credible to destroy the deliberate structures our founders imposed.
AGAIN – they are anti-democratic – because this country is not a democracy.
A democracy is the rule of the people – that is its literal meaning.
It is not our form of government. Despite the constant misuse of words.
Olly, WGAFF! This is some mental masturbation no one cares about except right wingers trying to justify minority rule though the EC, Senate filibusters, and gerrymandering when it suits their purpose. Given their shrinking demographic, that is more and more often.
WGAFF!
😄 apparently you do. Thanks for trying.
“Olly, WGAFF! This is some mental masturbation no one cares about except right wingers trying to justify minority rule though the EC, Senate filibusters, and gerrymandering when it suits their purpose. Given their shrinking demographic, that is more and more often.”
Right wingers like Jefferson, Madison, Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jay ?
The ones who constructed these things ?
As to gerrymandering – there is no objectively correct means to divide a state into districts for representation.
Further if you do not like Gerrymandering – then inherently you do not like representative government.
And absolutely we agree the Electoral College, Fillibusters, The Senate itself and numerous other structures withing our government are deliberately their to empower minorities. To assure that as an example city dwellers did not completely control govenrment.
All these things you loath are NOT to accomplish minority rule. They are to empower minorities to THWART the power of majorities.
You wanted to fight over the meaning of democracy – because you fail to grasp – this country is not a democracy – and deliberately so.
With every argument you make you make it clear that you do not beleive your own claim that this country is a democracy, but that you have every intention of trying to make it into one.
WEll you do that by amending the constitution – not changing the meaning of words.
John spends his time ankle biting about 1968. I was there j..k off with my college girlfriend, and no, I did not start the fire after the football game, not that that is even remotely relevant to the discussion.
PS And yes, because I said so.
“PS And yes, because I said so.”
What would be because “I said so” ?
Regardless I would suggest rereading your own remarks, they appear to contradict on the facts, and they definitely contradict on values.
I can not know what the truth is – I was not you in 1968 – I was me.
But rioting, looting and arson have pretty much universally been wrong.
“John spends his time ankle biting about 1968. I was there j..k off with my college girlfriend, and no, I did not start the fire after the football game, not that that is even remotely relevant to the discussion.”
No ankle biting at all. In fact I noted that the protests/riots today have little resemblance to those at this moment.
That is actually significant. It is even a good thing. The protests/riots of the moment are obviously ineffectual – for the very reasons you noted. They are small, not well received and mostly a very small contingent of young leftist radicals.
As to your prior experiences as an arsonist – I merely took you at your word.
Regardless your anger seems odd. Either you oppose looting and burning and presumably did in the past, in which case I do not understand your remarks pretending those are normal young adult behavior, or you have no problem with looting and buring and a means of protest – and you should own your own views.
But it appears you are not honest – even with yourself.
No one gave any election to anyone.
If Hillary lost by 10M votes but won in the electoral college – should would be sitting in the whitehouse right now.
Both Trump and Clinton were campaigning to win – according to the rules specified in the constitution. Not some made up rules.
The super bowl is not won by the team with the most minutes of ball control, or most offensive yards, or most interceptions, or …
It is not won by the team most liked by the fans.
It is won by the team that scores the most points.
If you do not like the constitutional rules for an election – change them.
1. Winner take all elections in teh states is not in the Constitution. Read it sometime. Nor was it the original practice.
2. The “Deep State” gave the election to Trump by protecting him from public knowledge of the investigation into his campaign and by announcing they were continuing Hillary’s investigation 2 weeks before the vote. Nate Silver’s 538 analysis found this to be true (she lost 2-4 points) and John Say himself stupidly posted a graph from Princeton which confirmed the drop.
“1. Winner take all elections in teh states is not in the Constitution. Read it sometime. Nor was it the original practice.”
Is english your first language ? You seem incapable of writing clearly.
Regardless, the election process has been revised several times. You remain free to try to revise it again
“2. The “Deep State” gave the election to Trump by protecting him from public knowledge of the investigation into his campaign and by announcing they were continuing Hillary’s investigation 2 weeks before the vote. Nate Silver’s 538 analysis found this to be true (she lost 2-4 points) and John Say himself stupidly posted a graph from Princeton which confirmed the drop.”
Nope. This has been thoroughly debunked.
First it is irrelevant. It is likely that Bush lost to Clinton because Casper Wienberger was indicted days before the election.
The requirement you manufacture does not exist.
Regardless, Clinton’s LOWEST poll numbers in the month before the election came the day BEFORE comey’s letter, and TWO days BEFORE the public heard about it. Clinton’s numbers ROSE from the time Comey’s letter was made public until the election.
Nate Sliver should go back to baseball statistics, He thoroughly blew the 2016 election he is not a credible source.
And you can not read a graph as noted Clinton’s poll numbers ROSE from the time of the announcement.
BTW you can find the same information on RCP. and probably even on 538.com Silver is arguing against his OWN data.
How can one possibly have an honest discussion with someone who can not read a simple graph.
Lastly, your claim is both wrong and irrelevant.
There are no do-overs for elections.
Trump was also hit with the NBC audio which seriously harmed him
No candidate is entitled to an election where everything goes in their favor and against their oponent.
Elections happen under the circumstances of the time.
Trump did not cause Covid – and contra the left he has not botched it.
But it will be a factor in this election.
Trump does not control it. Biden does not control it.
Trump would likely be up by 10 but for C19 – but that is just the way it is.
We could even discover after the election that China deliberately released C19 to damage Trump
I do not beleive that is true – but you like bizzarre conspiracy theory hypotheticals – atleast when they favor you.
In the next 3 months the economy could come rushing back, C19 could die completely and a vaccine could be publicly available,
And Trump could win in a landslide – and there is not a thing Biden can do about it.
OR we could have a Fall surge in C19 deaths could spike the economy could tank the early vaccine efforts could fail and Biden could win in a landslide – and there is nothing Trump can do about that.
Atleast with respect to 2016 – Clintons problems were of her own making.
No one forced her to run a bathroom mail server.
No one forced the DNC to screw sanders or to manipulate jhournalists.
No one forced Huma Abedin to back up clinton emails on Weiner’s dic pic laptop.
You seem to think it was the FBI’s job to keep secret her own malfeasance.
Clinton got lucky – she did not go to jail.
Trump also made his own bed with his NBC remarks – which he apologized for.
Still he said them.
You say the FBI should have gone public with the Trump investigation ?
In what world – you want to trade off Clinton’s and Democrats ACTUAL misconduct
against the FBI’s actual misconduct towards Trump.
The FBI investigated bogus claims and found nothing.
You seem to want Clinton protected from Self inflicted harms
But Trump to be harmed by lies manufactured by Clinton and spewed by the FBI.
You are clueless about ethics and morality.
glass half empty but you dont see half full. Hillary skated on a charge of mishandling classified intelligence. that would have screwed her even worse. but who’s counting huh
and remember why Comey made that call above his pay grade: Lynch was conflicted out because Slick Willy buttonholed her in the hanger.
gee if they were only talking golf then why did she need to step back? because Slick was telling her to bury the charge, we all can put 2 plus 2 together, that one’s easy
Comey was under no obligation to announce the Weiner tapes to the world, or if he did, he should have revealed the investigation into the Trump campaign at the same time. The supposed Deep State leader saved the Mango Mussolini’s ass in the election.
“Comey was under no obligation to announce the Weiner tapes to the world”
He did not. he notified the the heads of the committees where he testified that the Clinton email investigation was closed, that his testimony was now innaccurate. He did so confidentially. But congress leaks.
Refardless, the entire world knew that classified emails had been found on Clinton’s laptop – along with Weiner dick pics.
Had comey not notified Congress they would have subpeonad him to know what the FBI was doing – EVERYONE knew this was going to require reopening the Clinton email investigation.
“or if he did, he should have revealed the investigation into the Trump campaign at the same time.”
Nope. The FBI is required to follow the law not engage in some tit for tat.
I would further note that the Steele Dossier was already in the news.
“The supposed Deep State leader saved the Mango Mussolini’s ass in the election.”
Then why were you so upset you demanded a Special Counsel when he was fired ?
When you lie to congress, and to the public and you are only caught out in your lie because JW goes to court and the court orders Hillary Clinton to honor an FOIA request that results in the exposure of your lies, by then it is way to late to put the cat back in the bag.
The investigation into Clinton was public because Clinton’s lies were exposed by information that was required to be made public and Clinton hid.
There was no means for the FBI to secretly investigate what everyone knew about.
This only got worse when Anthony Weiner got caught with his zipper down in front of teenage girls.
If you do not want investigations into you to become public – do not screw up in public.
The FBI had nothing to do with the public nature of the investigations into Clinton.
But my guess is they kept the investigations into Trump prior to the election secret BECAUSE they were so poorly founded if that got out they would be in deep shit.
It is not like NYPD just handed them a laptop full of Dick Pics and classified emails.
They had a cartoon Dossier full of ludicrous nonsense that even the tabloids did not want to touch – not much to base an investigation on.
And 4 years later – nothing more.
They were running a highly dubious and probably illegal investigation – of course they kept it secret.
John Say doesn’t respect facts, obviously, but the public did not know about the Weiner laptop containing Hillary emails until Comey announced it to the world in his letter to Congress. By FBI SOP he should have kept it quiet – while threatening the NYC FBI office which had already leaked it to Guilani, a Trump stooge – or in the interests of a fair election, announced that Trump’s campaign was also under investigation for conspiracy with the Russians. The fact he didn’t shows the ridiculous nature of the Deep State claims. The “Deep State” got Trump elected by knee capping Hiilary 2 weeks before the election while protecting Trump. Some conspiracy!
Think about it fools.
“John Say doesn’t respect facts, obviously, but the public did not know about the Weiner laptop containing Hillary emails until Comey announced it to the world in his letter to Congress. By FBI SOP he should have kept it quiet – while threatening the NYC FBI office which had already leaked it to Guilani, a Trump stooge – or in the interests of a fair election, announced that Trump’s campaign was also under investigation for conspiracy with the Russians. The fact he didn’t shows the ridiculous nature of the Deep State claims. The “Deep State” got Trump elected by knee capping Hiilary 2 weeks before the election while protecting Trump. Some conspiracy!
Think about it fools.”
The first Weinergate II stopry was on Aug 28, 2016
Between then and Sept 26 there was a tug of war going on between the FBI and NYPD over the laptop that was covered by some news outlets.
On Sept 26, Thee FBI served a warrant and took possession of the laptop.
The fight between FBI and NYPD continued to take place until well after the election and leaks were reported in the media throughout.
https://nypost.com/2016/08/28/anthony-weiner-sexted-busty-brunette-while-his-son-was-in-bed-with-him/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter&utm_medium=SocialFlow&sr_share=twitter
We have been OVER AND OVER this again and again.
You remain wrong.
Not only did Horowitz find evidence – evidence that ALL of use have seen and read, but he also confirmed that it was reasonable to conclude there was bias in his hearings.
What he report says is that no one ADMITTED bias. Horowitz is required to take the word of those in the investigation at face value.
We saw this in Horowitz’s analysis of Comey’s decision to not prosecute Clinton.
Horowitz stated quite clearly that many other prosecutors would have decided differently, but that Comey’s decisions while unusual was not outside the scope of his discretion.
Out simply – Comey let Clinton off when 19 out of 20 people – including Horowitz in his position would have done differently.
Horowitz is not there to second Guess the DOJ/FBI only to find clear errors and ADMISSIONS of Bias.
He found 17 clear errors. No one admitted Bias.
IG Horowitz: I can not rule out political bias in FISA abuse.
Horowitz: Report leaves open the possibility of political bias.
When you wire an asset to record someone else who does not know they are being recorded – that is SPYING.
This is Horowitz saying they did that repeatedly.
IG horowitz was wrong and didn’t know about Klinesmith feloniously altering evidence
at whose order to do so>? maybe we will never know. but there it is. the spying exposed in a nutshell, exposed and confirmed
Horowitz was just wrong. but feel free to ignore the point, you’ve been doing great at it for all these years why stop now, even though the false evidence has now been exposed
gee, i hope if I ever get a warrant put on me, the cops aren’t faking up words in emails to project the illusion of probable cause for the judge
I remember “liberals” of my college days would have deplored tampering with evidence like that especially if objective was to spy on a campaign, even a republican one
how times change
“IG horowitz was wrong and didn’t know about Klinesmith feloniously altering evidence”
What nonsense.
Horowitz discusses Clinesmith in his report, but uses “OGC Attorney” instead of Clinesmith’s name. For example, on pp. 254-5, Horowitz notes “Immediately following the June 19 instant message exchange between the OGC Attorney and SSA 2, SSA 2 received an email from the OGC Attorney that appeared to be forwarding the Liaison’s June 15 response email concerning Page’s historical contact with the other U.S. government agency. However, the OIG determined that this forwarded version of the Liaison’s response email had been altered. Specifically, the words “and not a ‘source'” had been inserted in the Liaison’s June 15 response after the word “[digraph].” Thus, the Liaison’s email was altered to read: “My recollection is that Page was or is and [sic] ‘[digraph]’ and not a ‘source’ but the [documents] will explain the details.” (Emphasis added). The OGC Attorney also did not include in the email sent to SSA 2 the initial email inquiry from the OGC Attorney to the Liaison about Page’s status as a “[digraph] source.” (emphasis in the original)
That’s a discussion of Clinesmith and what he added to the Liaison’s email: the phrase “and not a ‘source’.”
Why on earth would you think that Horowitz didn’t know about this?!? (My guess: you never actually read Horowitz’s report, or maybe you only did a text search on “Clinesmith” and when you failed to find it, you mistakenly assumed that he wasn’t discussed. But maybe you have some other reason for not knowing.)
John Say is wrong again (thanks for the videos of GOP Congressman and Senator’s opinions) and so is Kurtz, as demonstrated by CTHD.
From the Horowitz report:
“opening the investigation was in compliance with [DOJ] and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced” (the decision to initiate the Trump-Russia probe).
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/us/politics/fbi-ig-report-document.html
Also:
“We found no evidence,” the report said, that the FBI sent any confidential sources to join the Trump campaign, or sent them to campaign offices or events, or tasked them to report on the Trump campaign..
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/internal-justice-watchdog-finds-russia-probe-was-justified-not-biased-n1098161
John confuses criticism aimed at the FISA applications – which Horowitz’s report also cleared of partisan bias – with criticism of the investigation and wants to confuse the spying accusation from Trump and his stooges, which was clearly meant to mean spying on other activities of the campaign that were not under investigation, with the process of gathering information with human sources. He’s not very bright or a propagandist.
From The Horrowitz Report:
“Thereafter, the Crossfire Hurricane team used more intrusive techniques, including CHSs to interact and consensually record multiple conversations with Page and Papadopoulos, both before and after they were working for the Trump campaign, as well as on one occasion with a high-level Trump campaign official who was not a subject of the investigation.”
Just to be clear as Horowitz explained in his testimony “consensually recording” means the Source consented – i.e. the person wearing the wire, NOT the target.
Horowitz also explained that the absence of documentary and testimonial evidence of bias does not mean there was no bias, nor even that Bias is not self evident. It means that there is no document where an agent says “I am biased” or no testimony where an agent says “i was biased”
Horowitz in his testimony aggreed that there was plenty of evidence of bias, But that an IG report is more constrained than a criminal investigation or a grand jury. Horowitz’s findings may not go outside the FBI/DOJ and may not counter the subjective judgements of agents regarding their own conduct. Horowitz is not permitted to speculate about motives as part of his report.
BTB – please cite the actual reports – not the media. You may trust NBC to cite Horowitz accurately but I do not. Nor should anyone else.
I did cite DIRECTLY from the Horrowitz report – Page 2 directly contradicting your NBC claim.
“Thereafter, the Crossfire Hurricane team used more intrusive techniques, including CHSs to interact and consensually record multiple conversations with Page and Papadopoulos, both before and after they were working for the Trump campaign, as well as on one occasion with a high-level Trump campaign official who was not a subject of the investigation.”
Horowitz specifically notes that FBI CHS’s were used – that the engaged both former and current members of the Trump campaign – including one high level member of the campaign, that they were WIRED when they did so, and that the results were EXCULPATORY.
WE also KNOW of several sources OUTSIDE the DOJ/FBI were used, and we have strong suspicion of even more.
These were outside Horowitz’s scope.
Page and Papadopoulos were subjects of the investigation, and not part of a fishing expedition for anything on Trump or his campaign, otherwise known as “spying”.. “….as well as on one occasion with a high-level Trump campaign official who was not a subject of the investigation.” confirms that the investigation was not a fishing expedition for partisan advantage.
“multiple occasions” might be, “one occasion” is not.
Page and Papadopoulos were subjects of the investigation, and not part of a fishing expedition for anything on Trump or his campaign,
I see you sell Florida swamp real estate too.
My favorite part of the Papadopolous saga was Andrew Weismann’s attempt to entrap him into violating currency transfer laws. The federal agents rummaging through his luggage looking for the $10K is quite comic.
“Page and Papadopoulos were subjects of the investigation, and not part of a fishing expedition for anything on Trump or his campaign, otherwise known as “spying”.. “….as well as on one occasion with a high-level Trump campaign official who was not a subject of the investigation.” confirms that the investigation was not a fishing expedition for partisan advantage.”
The difference between a “fishing expedition” and a legitimate investigation – is reasonable suspicion.
You keep ducking that. Reasonable suspicion with respect to papadoulis vaporized after dowwner and papadoulis were interviewed and the FBI confirmed from BOTH that Page was talking about the Clinton bathroom server emails not the DNC emails.
After the fact efforts by Papdoulis to acquire the Clinton emails – even from the russians might be scurilous, but not illegal incestigations require a crime.
Inquiry into Page should have ended when the CIA confirmed he was a source. With that knowledge contact with Russians is no longer a basis for reasonable suspicion.
But even if you pretend that is not enough – you are still stuck with the problem that the steele dossier which smelled to high heaven from the start disintegrated when the primary subsource disowned it as gossip and rumours.
Worse still more recently we find out – that primary subsource is an employee at a democratic think tank. Though the democratic think tank part is disturbing – the significant part is that there are no actual sources. A warrant requires first hand knowledge. When the FBI agents swore the FISA warrant – they were not swearing Steele was reliable – he actually wasn’t – but more importantly – he was not the source.
Steele’s reliability is irrelevant – he has no first hand knowledge. But this gets worse – because the primary subsource did not either.
If a police officer swears a warrant to a magistrate claiming that a reliable source has told him that drugs are being sold from an apartment,
and it later turns out that the officers source heard this from someone else, and the someone else got it from gossip and rumours – the warrant is invalid, and if that is all the officer has the investigation is over.
Horowitz cleared NOTHING of Bias.
He openly admitted in his testimony the Bias was self evident.
But it did not meet the IG standard for evidence of bias – which is essentially a confession.
No one – not Horowitz – hopefully not you, can read the Strzok Page texts or emails by Clinesmith and not recognize serious bias.
“opening the investigation was in compliance with [DOJ] and FBI policies, and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced” (the decision to initiate the Trump-Russia probe).
“We found no evidence,” the report said, that the FBI sent any confidential sources to join the Trump campaign, or sent them to campaign offices or events, or tasked them to report on the Trump campaign..
John Say has found no evidence to refute these report conclusions other than:
….as well as on one occasion with a high-level Trump campaign official who was not a subject of the investigation.”
which of course is confirmation of the report’s conclusion.
“opening the investigation was in compliance with [DOJ] and FBI policies”
Not a current point of disagreeement – the standard is very low. BTW it is NOT policies that matter it is the legal standard for an investigation.
“and we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation influenced”
That is correct – unless an agent admitted to Bias, Horowitz was not permitted by the IG rules to find bias.
Horowitz testified that it was perfectly reasonable to conclude there was bias, but the parameters of IG investigations do not allow conclusing bias by analysis.
““We found no evidence,””
A quote
“the report said, that the FBI sent any confidential sources to join the Trump campaign, or sent them to campaign offices or events, or tasked them to report on the Trump campaign..”
Not a quote, Regardless you are parsing. To Horowitz;s knowledge no CHS joined the Trump campaign.
That is likely correct.
No CHS was sent to campaign offices
Likely correct.
No CHS was sent to campaign events.
Likely correct.
No CHS was tasked to report on the Trump campaign.
Pretty nebulous.
Page was part of the campaign.
Papadoulis was part of the campaign
The ranking Trump campaign member was clearly part of the campaign.
What I am reading from your no quote quote, is that While CHS’s were used – in the UK and in the US and against US persons that were part of the Trump campaign – that no CHS tried to join Trump’s staff, or go to a campign event, or go to a campaign office.
This would not preclude 007 hoping into bed with Melania. That is a joke – but with a point.
The non-quote quite you cite DOES NOT say Trump was not spied on.
It does not say the campaign was not spied on.
It says it was not spied on in these specific ways.
“John Say has found no evidence to refute these report conclusions other than:
….as well as on one occasion with a high-level Trump campaign official who was not a subject of the investigation.”
That is not the only evidence, but it is sufficient
You note that the report says:
Trump was not spied on in ways A, B, & C.
I note the report says
Trump was spied on in way D.
Therefore:
Trump was spied on.
“which of course is confirmation of the report’s conclusion.:”
Yup.
I would further note – you are actually undermining your OWN entire argument.
Did the FBI look for evidence that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia ?
This was either an investigation into Trump campaign collusion with Russia – or it was not.
If it was – then the claim that the FBI did not “spy” on the Trump campaign is ludicrously stupid.
You are concurrently trying to argue that the FBI was not investigating collusion with Russia – and that it was.
“John confuses criticism aimed at the FISA applications – which Horowitz’s report also cleared of partisan bias”
A very bizarre statement.
The FISA applications were a fraud on the court.
Documents are not Biased – people are.
Horowitz did not conclude the documents were not biased – that is an absurd claim.
He concluded that the FBI made numerous serious errors – some criminal in those documents;
Further the FISA court nullified two of the FISA warrants and is still considering the other two.
The FISA court has NEVER rescinded or nullified a FISA warrant before.
That has legal consequences that have not been fully examined.
When the FISA court nullified those warrants – they nullified ANYTHING that subsequently occured using those Warrants.
They ALSO effectively invalidate every warrant or subpoena issued after those FISA warrants that was based on the same information.
And we already know there was never further information.
I do not care much what Words you chose to use. If it makes you happy to beleive that Horowitz found them crappy but unbiased, and that the FISA courts find them to be the only two warrants ever in the history of the FISA court so bad they had to nullify them.
If that is your idea of “victory”, it is pretty phyric.
I would further note that you can pretend that Hotrowitz found “no bias”, but the alternative is horrendous gross incompetence.
I have no idea what you think I am confused about.
Horowitz found SPYING. He did not find James Bond trying to seduce Melania to get secret codes.
You seem to think that the victims of a secret corrupt investigation are somehow at fault if they to not accurately describe the FBI misconduct to YOUR standards.
I am not confusing anything – nor is Trump, he accused the Obama administration of SPYING. Horowitz found SPYING.
And Horowitz was only looking at DOJ/FBI. I do not expect that Trump is going to precisely know the malfeasance that Obama/Biden engaged in.
“with criticism of the investigation and wants to confuse the spying accusation from Trump and his stooges, which was clearly meant to mean spying on other activities of the campaign that were not under investigation”
Is English your first language ? The US government may not spy on US persons absent an investigation.
They may not use CHS’s absent an investigation.
(music to tune of Birmingham)
Ferguson! Ferguson!
Greatest city in all the land.
Clear across this great big land…
There ain’t no place like Ferguson!
Hell f*&cking yeah!!
Ok folks, the Constitution established three separate, but equal, branches of government. ALL government agencies and functions are part of the Executive Branch. There is no constitutional basis for any “independent” agencies. The DOJ is part of the Executive Branch and thus reports to the president – period.
I would agree, that said – that means if the DOJ/FBI engage in a political witch hunt the president and vice president bear the blame.
Therefore Biden is not qualified.
I find it really odd. Trump has not actually DONE anything all that offensive as president. He has not DONE many things that it now appears clear he could have and should have.
Conversely The Obama presidence was Rife with actual abuses of power.
Fast and Furiuous
IRS Gate,
Benghazi,
Numerous acts of legislation by executive order.
Urainum One
Clinton’s Pay for Play scheme with the State department.
Clinton’s bathroom Email server.
Bill Clinton’s Tarmac meeting
The entire XFH/XFR mess
etc.
Recently we find that the Clinton campaign had its own issue with “collusion” – a very large foreign donor was attempting to fund the Clinton Campaign which was subsequently given a defensive briefing and the Donor got the could shoulder and the Campaign surogate affiliated was quietly removed.
Yet, that was NOT what occured with the Trump campaign.
The evidence of massive political bias and corruption is compelling.
So why are we worried about Trump ?
And why would we put a guy hip deep in this mess back in office ?
John Say is wrong again:
“In late September 2017, an exhaustive report by the Treasury Department’s inspector general found that from 2004 to 2013, the IRS used both conservative and liberal keywords to choose targets for further scrutiny, blunting claims that the issue had been an Obama-era partisan scandal.[2][3] The 115 page report confirmed the findings of the prior 2013 report that some conservative organizations had been unfairly targeted, but also found that the pattern of misconduct had been ongoing since 2004 and was non-partisan in nature.
In January 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced that it had found no evidence warranting the filing of federal criminal charges in connection with the affair. The FBI stated it found no evidence of “enemy hunting” of the kind that had been suspected, but that the investigation did reveal the IRS to be a mismanaged bureaucracy enforcing rules that IRS personnel did not fully understand. ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRS_targeting_controversy
“There were ten investigations into the Benghazi matter: one by the FBI; one by an independent board commissioned by the State Department; two by Democrat-controlled Senate Committees; and six by Republican-controlled House Committees. After the first five Republican investigations found no evidence of wrongdoing by senior Obama administration officials, Republicans in 2014 opened a sixth investigation, the House Select Committee on Benghazi, chaired by Trey Gowdy. This investigation also failed to find any evidence of wrongdoing by senior Obama administration officials. A possible political motive for the investigation was revealed on September 29, 2015, when Republican House majority leader Kevin McCarthy, then vying to become Speaker of the House, told Sean Hannity on Fox News that the investigation was part of a “strategy to fight and win,’ adding “Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping.”[251][252]
Shortly after the Benghazi attack, Secretary of State Clinton commissioned an independent Accountability Review Board to investigate, chaired by retired ambassador Thomas R. Pickering with vice-chair retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen. The Board released their final report on December 19, 2012.[253] It made 29 recommendations to the State Department on how to improve its operations, which Clinton pledged to implement.[254] As part of this investigation, four career State Department officials were criticized for denying requests for additional security at the facility prior to the attack. By the end of 2012, Eric J. Boswell, the Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, resigned under pressure, while three others were suspended.[255] None of the other Benghazi investigations identified wrongdoing by any individuals.
The House Select Committee on Benghazi’s final report was released on June 28, 2016 and the committee closed down five months later.[256] It criticized the actions and speed of response of the State Department, and the Defense Department, leading up to and during the attacks in Benghazi.[257] No further public investigations have been conducted since.
The findings of the two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee, the fifth of six Republican investigations, was summarized by the Associated Press on November 21, 2014:[258]
A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees.
Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.
In the immediate aftermath of the attack, intelligence about who carried it out and why was contradictory, the report found. That led Susan Rice, then U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, to inaccurately assert that the attack had evolved from a protest, when in fact there had been no protest. But it was intelligence analysts, not political appointees, who made the wrong call, the committee found. The report did not conclude that Rice or any other government official acted in bad faith or intentionally misled the American people.
…
In the aftermath of the attacks, Republicans criticized the Obama administration and its then-secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is expected to run for president in 2016. People in and out of government have alleged that a CIA response team was ordered to “stand down” after the State Department compound came under attack, that a military rescue was nixed, that officials intentionally downplayed the role of al-Qaida figures in the attack, and that Stevens and the CIA were involved in a secret operation to spirit weapons out of Libya and into the hands of Syrian rebels. None of that is true, according to the House Intelligence Committee report.
The report did find, however, that the State Department facility where Stevens and Smith were killed was not well-protected, and that State Department security agents knew they could not defend it from a well-armed attack. Previous reports have found that requests for security improvements were not acted upon in Washington.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Benghazi_attack
I do not care what some reporter says the IG purportedly said.
Frankly I do not care much what an obama IG said.
This has been incredibily well documented – the IRS delayed for years the applications of hundreds of conservative groups.
A handful of left leaning groups with terms like patriot or liberty or constitution in their names got hung up BRIEFLY.
More than one of these groups went to court and SUED the IRS and WON.
That pretty much beats anything you got.
I call your reporters nonsense about an IG report and raise you one Cort finding of Bias on the part of the IRS
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/aug/9/judge-approves-35-million-settlement-irs-tea-party/
As to Benghazi.
I do not care who investigated What.
Clinton in her own words to the Egyptian prime minister on the night of the attack admitted that it was a premeditated Al Queda affliliated terrorist attack. She later confirmed that in an email to Chelsea.
AFTER that Susan rice went on TV for Days blaming an internet video.
For MONTHS Clinton publicly blamed the video – promising the Benghazi victims she would get justice by Jailing the video’s producer – which she did. All the while KNOWING that the video had nothing to do with it – and that the video was free speech and that the attack was a planned Al Queda terrorist attack.
You can verify everysingle thing about from PRIMARY SOURCES – you do not need an investigations. You can read Clinton’s own emails, and transcripts of her call. You can watch the Susan Rice interviews on youtube, you can watch video of Clinton spreading this lie to the victims of benghazi.
The very fact that you can find reporters or ANYTHING to claim otherwise is PROOF of the corruption of the left and the press.
Who Ya Gonna Believe Me or Your Own Eyes?
Groucho Marx.
John Say writes:
“As to Benghazi.
I do not care who investigated What.”
Indeed, and he has previously announced that he doesn’t care what scientists and other experts think, which raises the question of why anyone would care what a self proclaimed ignoramus like him thinks.
“John Say writes:
“As to Benghazi.
I do not care who investigated What.”
Indeed, and he has previously announced that he doesn’t care what scientists and other experts think”
If an expert or congressional committee tells me that the sun and the moon are a figment of my immagination,
I am sticking to the evidence of my eyes.
“which raises the question of why anyone would care what a self proclaimed ignoramus like him thinks.”
Again is english your first language – “self proclaimed ignoramus” – means something quite different from BTB proclaimed ignoramus.
Your calling me an ignoramus is a badge of honor.
Regardless, I am interested in facts.
You keep trying to pretend that the oppinions of your favorite experts trump facts.
Whatever the subject – if you want a battle of experts – I can find plenty of experts to support my position.
But there is good reason that appeals to authority is a fallacy – dueling experts do not decide issues – facts do.
There are three aspects to Benghazi.
The first is why wasn’t the US prepared.
This occured onthe aniversay or 9/11 at a time we KNEW that Al Queda wanted to make a statement.
It occured in the midst of a mess in Libya – that the Obama administration created.
REGARDLESS, When a US ambassador is killed – there had DAMN WELL better be a thorough investigation.
The Obama administration stonewalled and lied to the investigators – just as the FBI lied to the Senate regarding the Steele Dossier.
No one likes to be blamed for a disaster.
In 1983 Reagn took responsibility for the bombing of the marrine barracks nearly immediately.
The investigation was short – several problems were found. Some people were sacked.
But because Reagan accepted responsibility immediately there were not endless investigations.
Further measures were implimented to improve things – that is a major reason to investigate..
The 2nd regards US actions during the event – which lasted for over 13hrs.
Having failed to provide the Ambassador with proper security there is nothing that the Obama administration could have done to save Stevens. He died fairly quickly and no possible intervention could have saved him.
But there were 50 other people at a nearby CIA post that defended themselves for 13hrs awaiting Aide.
A delta force had been prepared to evacutate them and could have done so within a few hours of the start of the attack. But they were delayed awaiting permission that never came. They finally acted on their own – otherwise there would have been a slaughter.
There were other military options available to aide the CIA station. There is no certainty any of those would have worked.
BUT there is no certainty they would not have. A mere overflight by US war planes would have substantially slowed the attackers and that was easily possible. Those at the CIA station had laser designators and could have targeted the mortars that were the greatest threat they faced and those could have been taken out by aircraft.
None of this was tried. The US military is famous for the fact that we do not leave our own behind. Our soldiers risk their lives to save the lives of their comrades. At Benghazi those in the Obama administration FAILED to keep that promise.
No one can guarantee it would have helped. That was the conclusion of your investigations.
Trump won the election on the promise to “make america great again” – that promise is to NOT do what the Obama administration did at Benghazi – and play it safe when american lives are at risk. Trying to save those at the CIA station – could have backfired, it could have made things worse. But American exceptionalism – that thing the left does not beleive exists is the willingness of our soldiers to bet their lives to save the lives of their comrades. Obama betrayed that. It is possible that was the safe decision. It is possible that was the best possible outcome. It is NOT the american decision. That is the decision of some European country that places no value in their soldiers.
Finally there is the post attack Lying.
There is nothing else to be said of that – the Obama administration Lied. They lied BIG, they pissed all over Romney claiming he was wrong – knowing he was right. They lied to win an election.
That again was MORALLY Wrong.
And they lied for years afterwords.
The evidence that Hillary knew on the night of the attack, that she told the egyption prime minister, and that she told HER DAUGHTER remained hidden from all of us until the JW FOIA Lawsuit exposed Clinton’s bathroom mail server.
Then and only then did we find out what Clinton had been telling people on the night of the attack.
Every single fact I assert above can be verified from PRIMARY SOURCES.
Not from reports on investigations, not from news stories from friendly press.
“Who Ya Gonna Believe Me or Your Own Eyes? ”
Groucho Marx.
“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
1984 George Orwell.
There will be denial of your premise professor. Self examination and reflection, like shame, have been removed from the modern political dictionary. It is the illusion of fealty to party, dogma and philosophy that remain, no matter how disingenuous.
“…those of us who want to see the Justice Department’s independence and objectivity respected and reinforced”…
I am not sure what time period the Professor has in mind but compared to the 8 years of Obama’s Justice Department, President Trump’s Justice Department has been the soul of independence and objectivity. And, if Yates and Harris are any indication of what the future holds under a President Biden, it not only will return to the Obama days, but will get worse. At least Holder backed off Ferguson when the facts ended up being the opposite of what the MSM and rioters claimed.
Yes, he should, but he won’t. There is no conception of law adhered to among liberals that see it as anything but a tool to be used against social enemies. He’d have to appoint a non-liberal to the post of Attorney-General, or some old school character like Ann Althouse.
I love me some Professor Turley but I don’t always agree with him. To describe Joe Bidet as a moderate ignores his long record in the Senate and as VP.
Calling him a moderate can only pass the laugh test if you are placing him in the company of socialists and Marxists.
Note on Harris still declaring that Michael Brown was murdered: I haven’t noticed many remarks by republicans on this point, which seems like it would be a very important, possibly game changing criticism in political ads. I’ve also noticed no backtracking by the left on this particular incident considering that Harris’ and Biden’s disgraceful comments could come back to haunt them. I’ve only seen this issue raised in this blog several times.
There are no remarks by Republicans, or Democrats for that matter, because the subject is so extremely touchy. If one was to respond to Harris’s grandstanding by correcting her with many, many, almost all witness accounts that the shooting of Michael Brown was necessary and perhaps even saved the life of the officer, one would fall under that barrage of accusations of being racist and supporting racist police brutality, etc. An example on the other side is the notion, illustration, accusation of murderers and rapists flooding North across the border.
Harris has shown herself to jump from one band wagon to another to advance her career. However, this is so with almost all politicians. I found it troubling that Biden chose Harris so soon after a contingent of Black ‘celebrities’ threatened to work Black voting against him if he did not pick a Black woman. Harris may go on to learn moderation in her ‘politicking’ or she may be relegated to the position of a Pence. She has shown signs of pulling back. Hopefully she will come to understand that her most powerful achievement will be to separate herself from the Black only parts of the crusade against racism and police brutality and embrace a more independently judicial position. After all, she is the Black woman that Biden chose, whether he was forced to or not. Regardless of all of the missteps in Harris’s past and her mouth, Biden/Harris holds the most promise for America. The US has endured the worst of the worst and even the Republican Party is jumping ship. Turley can tap dance around all he wants but in the end, most of what Harris is disdained for has to do with her being liberal/progressive, Black and a woman in the eyes of Republicans and Trump supporters. Put her up against Lindsey Graham, Jim Inhofe, Rick Scott, or Mitch McConnell and she shines. In the end, American political choices seems to be about the lesser of the evils. Americans seem to like a bruiser/bully as a leader. How else can Trump be explained. It would have been less damaging if Trump had been competent.
Isaac misunderstands that it is in the nature of all peoples to want a strong and cunning leader. Because, the survival of the constituency often depends on it.
Yet, people like Isaac never tire of utopian fancies.
Kurtz, you’re a Trump supporter. Your daily consciousness requires a fantasy.
do you have an argument ?
Looks like he just made it.
Nope.
Harris is a con artist all the way down.