Below is my column in the New York Post on reports that Special Counsel Robert Hur has finally interviewed President Joe Biden on allegations that he removed and retained classified material going back to his time as a United States senator. The problem facing Hur could be what to do if he actually finds evidence of a crime.
Here is the column:
A neutron and Special Counsel Robert Hur walk into a bar and order two drinks.
When Hur asks how much they owe, the bartender responds, “come on, for you guys, you know there’s never a charge.”
Unfortunately, for the prosecutor tasked with investigating President Joe Biden, it may not prove a laughing matter.
In many ways, Hur is the neutron prosecutor.
He may have spent two days interviewing Biden on the discovery of classified material going back decades in various offices and home locations.
But we already know that the Justice Department has long maintained a policy against the charging of a sitting president.
There are no such problems for Hur’s colleague. Jack Smith was appointed to investigate former President Donald Trump. He is the ultimate proton prosecutor.
Smith has aggressively pursued Trump in two different jurisdictions with a long litany of charges, including alleged criminal conduct tied to his removal and retention of classified material.
In comparison, Hur appeared to disappear.
There was no word of any grand jury or the issuance of subpoenas. His interview this week was the sign of life for a prosecutor who seemed headed for milk cartons.
I have long disagreed with the Justice Department policy as without foundation in the Constitution.
There is no question that the best course in dealing with a felonious president is to first remove the president from office through the impeachment process and then indict the former president in the wake of the Senate conviction.
However, even the Justice Department admitted in reaching this policy during the Clinton administration that “[n]either the text nor the history of the Constitution” is “dispositive” on this question.
It simply rendered an internal opinion against indictments of a sitting president as a matter of “considerations of constitutional structure.”
That is particularly a problem in what could be a strong case.
We still do not know whether fingerprints were taken off the documents found in various locations associated with the President.
Unlike Smith’s investigation, there have been no strategic leaks from Hur’s investigation.
On its face, the President claims that he had no knowledge of these documents appears dubious at best.
Some classified material reportedly goes back to Biden’s time as a senator — material that he would have had to remove from a sensitive compartmented information facility or secure room on Capitol Hill.
More importantly, the documents from the Obama Administration were removed when Biden left as vice president.
They were then divided and repeatedly moved to different locations. That suggests not just knowledge but a purpose.
Why were they divided and some documents were found in his garage and possibly his library?
If Hur found fingerprints that contradict Biden’s statements, he could face not just some of the same charges brought against Trump but also possible false statement or obstruction charges.
Notably, Biden used counsel to conduct searches and (as in the Trump case) additional classified materials were found after the Biden team said that they had finished their searches.
There are serious questions over whether, in allowing uncleared counsel to search through these documents, evidence may have been lost in how they were stored or appeared in locations like the garage.
Hur can bring charges against third parties, who would not be barred from indictment under the DOJ policy.
But what does Hur then do if he has evidence against the President himself?
He could wait to see if Biden does not run for reelection or loses in 2024.
He could ask for a reconsideration of the policy, which was poorly supported during the Clinton Administration as a rationale for blocking any indictment for perjury by the Office of Legal Counsel.
Absent such moves, the public may face the glaring contradiction of proton and neutron prosecutors where Smith pursues a former president with abandon while Hur is left with investigating with no possibility of an immediate charge.
It is the type of question that Attorney General Merrick Garland should be eager to answer. Indeed, it should have been clarified at the outset with the mandate given to Hur.
Garland, however, has maintained a position as a virtual spectator, disavowing any role in the ongoing investigations. He is neither neutron nor a proton. He is literally without mass.
So the question is whether Hur can get anything other than free drinks in Washington. The answer to that question may prove to be the best punchline of all.
Jonathan Turley is an attorney and professor at George Washington University Law School.
The message has been delivered from Israel to Gaza. Get out. Flee to Egypt. If you stay, you die.
Its about to get real.
I assume the will have checkpoints to screen for hamas or anyone who looks like hamas.
People shouldnt have as their battle cry, the elimination of an entire people who have the capability to do just that to them.
𝐀𝐬 𝐕𝐏, 𝐉𝐨𝐞 𝐁𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧 𝐄𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐥𝐞𝐝 𝐇𝐢𝐬 𝐁𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐞𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐁𝐮𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝟐𝟗,𝟎𝟎𝟎 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬
By: Jordan Boyd ~ October 10, 2023
https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/10/as-vp-biden-emailed-with-his-brother-son-and-their-firms-about-foreign-business-more-than-29000-times/
𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 published by the Washington D.C. District Court on Friday, the National Archives and Records Administration
https://twitter.com/America1stLegal/status/1711764135661244590?s=20
May as well leave em and clean em up in the morning because i am working night shift so i’m not going anywhere.
Hey, uh big guy, this is your left hand man, the DOJ FBI liars, we’re gonna let you rifle tropugh everything and clean it up and take away anything you sold off to your bribe masters overseas, then quietly we’ll come in weeks and months later to pretend we’re doing something. Just like we did Hillary’s totally illegal top secret document flooded server. Capiche ?
“The FBI left the home untouched for over three months after classified documents were found in Biden’s former office in DC. While it was recently learned that the FBI did go to that office a couple weeks later, it reportedly elected to have personal counsel for the president conduct searches on the residences. Biden then spent weeks traveling to these residences after the FBI waited to search the premises.
The private searches clearly went through these documents and moved (and potentially organized) material. Despite being given the opportunity to conduct and record the initial searches, the FBI will now have to rely on the accounts of private counsel on how these documents were originally left, including any visible classification markings.” NYP
That last line of course should say jo blo and his lawyer gov hoes stole and sold and burned anything and everything they wanted to.
I mean nobody is THAT STUPID.
it’s all fake as ….
LOL — It looks like this fraudulent website went back and wiped out a BIG bunch of posts from earlier today, none of which violated any published rules.
And it just did it AGAIN.
Biden willingly sat for an interview with Hur. Trump was not willing to sit for an interview with Smith.
Smith is hired gun, a hit man, a miserable communist hatchet man.
________________________________________________________________________
“Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”
– Lavrentiy Beria
Brilliant commentary
Sat for an interview because Biden is calling the shots on the investigation. He is untouchable.
We are finding out Biden has been lying about the time line. We have testimony from his staff. Including is Presidential staff.
Chung testified that White House Counsel Dana Remus tasked her with retrieving boxes of classified documents from Penn Biden Center as early as May 2022.
According to new information released by the House Oversight Committee, Joe Biden lied about the timeline. Annie Tomasini, Assistant to the President and Senior Advisor to the President and Director of Oval Office Operations, went to Penn Biden Center to take inventory of President Biden’s documents and materials on March 18, 2021.
The classified documents were discovered nearly TWO YEARS before Joe Biden’
Briben talked about the weather and his ice cream. The guy can’t remember what day it is.
I love the intellectual class, especially the lawyerly folks. Lawyerly folks sold their souls for a world of “if then” or “there are two sides” and, as such, every single think piece is mealy mouthed. Or, could be, in this day and age, the lawyer class is terrified that if it looks like a Red Revolution, Smells Lie a Red Revolution it is in fact a Red Revolution and they are in for a world of hurt if they do not stay “neutral.”
Fact is, 25 years ago Joe would have gone to jail and there would not be the “but joe is joe, he’s cooperating, nothing to see here” argument. Remove Trump from the entire argument and what Joe did, legal or not, is immoral. But the legal class destroyed their ow moral barometer ages ago, and now they can only take the canned talking points and use the against each other as if their fake world is real.
A lawyer cannot fix a leaky pipe, because it would require they commit to at least one side of the story, which, simply cannot happen. 25 years ago Joe, a proven liar, who actually does lie about everything, would not have bothered even defending himself. Head over to Walk Don’t run productions on youtube and see just how much Joe cannot tell the truth, in fact, it could be argued he isn’t even human given he simply cannot tell the truth at all.
The idea at this point that “well, we’ll just interview Joe and he’ll tell us what’s what, and I’m sure we can clear this up” is beyond insane, it is next level insane. Joe is a proven liar, all people have to go by is the fact that 25 years ago he would have wound up in jail, but now, saintly Joe is defended by the defenders of law because Joe got his talking point out there first. So we have two choices on this, either trump is guilty or trump is let off due to a rigged system and Joe is a victim either way because Trump. That there is Red Revolution.
All the talking head class have this issue, zero morality, and the inability see or comment on things in a moral way. Joe is immoral, regardless of whether Trump ever existed, and we know this because he flamed out of two presidential races due to, lying, and when he got to the complete delusional state, like magic, he became president and, was not only free to lie with impunity, he has an army of millions to defend the lies not matter how absurd. Really take a look a the videos and ask “what is going on here?” Given this body of evidence of Joe lying more than a drug addict, how is anything he say credible, which, makes all of this immoral and easy to pick a side.
You’re up against Karl Marx and “Crazy Abe” Lincoln’s “dictatorship of the hired help,” a formidable foe indeed.
Regarding Above:
“Fact is, 25 years ago Joe would have gone to jail and there would not be the “but joe is joe, he’s cooperating, nothing to see here” argument”.
……………………………
25 years ago, Trump’s joke about Megan Kelly’s periods would’ve ended any chance of the Republican nomination.
Here again our resident nerd presumes that we as readers share his blinding stupidity.
REGARDING ABOVE:
Dude is Phkin Nutz!!!
🤡
And the American fertility rate is in a “death spiral.” More Americans die than are born. Who sold this? Who bought this? Do women not have a natural function, an essential duty to their nation, to bear and nurture its children—to make its people? In America, they haven’t.
Oh, yeah, I forgot! The son of a foreign citizen with foreign allegiances, and eminently ineligible Barack Hussein “Barry Soetoro” Obama, is single-handedly “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” into the Banana Republic of AfriMexiShangHaitIranistan. Who needs Americans?
Trump did NOT make a joke about Megyn Kelly’s period. He criticized her harsh interview style. No sane person equates “blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her whatever.” with her menstrual cycle. He was speaking off the cuff and had a momentary loss for words and inserted “whatever”. It happens. Watch Joe Biden try to talk off the cuff. It’s incompressible gibberish.
Left wing trash, as always, dishonestly and intentionally manufactured the fake “interpretation” about Trump’s statement that you are puking up now. Left wing trash “pundits” tell the hordes of complete and utter Democrat morons what to think, and then the hordes of morons come to blogs and repeat their lies.
It’s why normal people consider Democrats evil. You constantly twist, spin, mangle, distort, mischaracterize and outright lie. About everything. Constantly.
Folly Exclusion Principle
Politics at a quantum level: Spin & Degeneracy Pressure
Raspberry
Dear Prof Turley,
Everybody knows Garland made a promise, a solemn vow, to the ‘Committee’ (the Big Committee) to never interfere with anything. It’s in his contract.
Now, they may not be able to indict a ‘sitting’ president, but they damn sure can indict one not sitting. So, ipso facto, sitting president Biden should keep that in mind when he is sipping mint julips with SC Hur.
*after the impeachment, of course.
The Founders understood that their new nation would require virtuous, honorable, and noble men.
Garland is not; the entirety of the communist American Deep Deep State “Swamp” is not even close.
Their motto is: The end justifies the means.
That is, communism must be forcibly imposed through the discipline of brutal dictatorship at all costs.
The “dictatorship of the hired help” must prevail.
A nation that exists in freedom requires no such ironfisted regimen.
Indicting Trump for Jan 6th is indicting a President for acts relating to his Presidency, while he was President, with no Senate conviction, so it is utterly ridiculous. He was already acquitted so double jeopardy – after all speech is violence so Trump talking is murder.
So one hopes the brain dead don’t get away with that.
They should not get away with any of the indictments, all frauds spun up by the liars and cheats, and the cheaters proof in everyone’s faces as the article points out is massive.
The tiny feather covering the naked bias is a joke, right ?
No one is fooled by it, are they ?
So if the DOJ big guy swears he’s blind and deaf and he won’t lean in shove things for biden up trumps nose is that a cue it’s time for anything goes ?
Yes it is.
After all, anything can happen now, and schmuckey faced Israel first boy blunder four eyes flower girl never heard or saw a thing and doesn’t know, so no merit what so ever.
The leaders of BLM from the very beginning made it well known that they were trained Marxist. They made it common knowledge from the very beginning. Somehow we had every sports league in the nation and every Democratic supporting an organization being led by Marxist and they knew it. Now BLM has come out in support of Hamas. When Hamas shot the children in the back of the head I’m sure that the blood and skull fragments stuck to their uniforms. If the Klan were to march today there would be both the white robs of the Klan and the black robes of BLM in the same crowd. https://www.newsweek.com/black-lives-matter-praises-hamas-sparks-backlash-1833630. Just like in Germany they will be those who lie and say they didn’t know.
Jonathan: Everyone agrees that Washington is a leaky sieve when it comes to classified docs. They disappear into the ether when government officials leave office. In Washington parlance it’s called “leakage”. So classified docs end up in packing boxes when VPs and other officials leave office. Sometimes they don’t even know they have them. That was the case with Mike Pence and Joe Biden. In both cases when classified docs were discovered the FBI was immediately notified and the docs returned.
That’s not the case with DJT which you erroneously attempt to conflate with the other two cases. DJT deliberately stole classified material, hid that material at Mar-a-Lago, showed docs to people who had no security clearances and then obstructed the FBI/DOJ investigation. Neither Pence not Biden were involved in that kind of illegal activity. That’s why DOJ attorney Robert Hur decided not to recommend charging Pence back in June. And he will probably make the same recommendation regarding Joe Biden.
So why are you trying to make a mountain out of mole hill? Probably because you see Biden slipping between your fingers. So in one last DESPERSTE attempt you make the most outrageous claim of all your charges re Joe Biden. You now bizarrely say: “There is no question the best course in dealing with a felonious president
is to first remove the president from office through the impeachment process and then indict the former president in the wake of the Senate conviction”. There are certain countervailing facts you don’t consider:
– Despite 9 months of investigation and a few hearings Chair Comer has come up with nothing to charge Biden–not when he was VP, the 3 years he was out of office or now when he is President.
– The full House has yet to hold a formal vote to authorize an impeachment inquiry. And McCarthy is gone. Who is going to preside over a formal vote? And even if a new Speaker is chosen by the MAGA Republicans there is every indication a formal vote would fail.
– Finally, even if, and that’s a BIG “if”, the House Republicans were to cobble together a majority to impeach Biden what are the chances the even divided Senate would convict? Slim to none!
So why are you engaged in this fantasy world of wild speculation and claims that have no merit? Now I know what would happen if you went into court with the unproven allegations and speculation about the Joe Biden. You would be laughed out of court! So what you are facing is what DJT faced before Judge Engoron. Summary judgment against you–in a blast of neutron smoke!
Dennis McIntyre, you say that Trump stole classified documents. Past Presidents have by law a right to keep documents that will correctly reflect what occurred during their administrations. They know that there will be people such as yourself will attempt to rewrite history. However, no such right is given to Vice Presidents. You do display a unique talent for shining the Biden boots. I can see that the boot polish has left an indelible black stain on your tongue.
Here, Thinkitthrough the Troll indulges one of his favorite ways of trolling: the personal insult.
You are the only troll here.
Does Dennis pay you minimum wage for your babysitting gig?
I found it interesting early on that for for decades the US Government coordinated with Presidents to set uyp their archives and sort out the document checking. For instance for Obama a large office warehouse was used and for several years bomb bomb and his lackeys could go there and get secret to sell off with biden’s approval – the thing to focus on though is they bought up or built a new building then invited obumbler and company in with the goodies to have at it.
That’s the tradition – get it all ready and coordinate with presidential library and pay it all up because this is important presidential stuff.
Well, when it came to Trump they refused to do it.
Then they went after him. Then lying gasbags as above squeal Trump hid stuff.
Another set up, as obvious as can be.
Thinkitthrough: As usual you don’t know what you are talking about. The PRA requires that all records created by Presidents (and VPs) be turned over to NARA (44USC2201-2209). Further, the PRA requires the President to separate personal docs from official records before leaving office (44USC2203(b)). If a former Pres. or VP finds Presidential records among personal materials, he/she must contact NARA to secure transfer of those Pres. records back to the agency. So you are dead wrong–not unusual for you on this blog. It’s erroneous for you to assert “Presidents have by law [what law?] a right to keep documents that will correctly reflect what occurred during their administrations”. That’s not the law! So whose boots are you “shining”?
Why do you engage in so many misstatements about the law? Like so many on this blog, you think your cult authoritarian leader is actually ABOVE the law. You think that whatever your leader does it must be legitimate and must be defended. Kings and dictators always thought they were above the law. Our country was founded on the opposite principle– that we didn’t want to be ruled by a King. The Constitution was written to establish the rule of law–that no one is above the law–not even the President. You apparently missed that part when you studied the Constitution in school!
Dennis, you’re right about the PRA, but you’re also missing an important fact: the PRA explicitly excludes agency records. 44 U.S. Code § 2201(2)(B)(i): “The term “Presidential records” … does not include any documentary materials that are (i) official records of an agency (as defined in section 552(e) of title 5, United States Code)…” These agency records fall under the Federal Records Act. Many of the records in the documents case are agency records, not Presidential records. So Thinkitthrough is wrong for that reason as well.
Dennis In both cases when classified docs were discovered the FBI was immediately notified and the docs returned. You might want to delete that sentence. Items lying around in a carport, and other areas in sight, are known and been there along time. It will not take cobbling together or manufacturing impeachable data as the Dwems did on DT. JB will be impeached and removed if he doesn’t resign or just keel over. You have not apprised as to how the Bidens be legal to collect money from China or Ukraine, and particularly in the $MILLIONS. The Bidens going down man. For the record, DT was impeached on proven lies and you skip over as that is nothing. Well hell, you’re a Dem so that would meet expectations.
Gerald L Bailey: I ain’t goin to delete nothin’! The classified material in Biden’s possession was found at both his Penn Biden Center, under lock and key, and at his Delaware residence. I think about a dozen docs were retrieved. At all times the FBI had full access to both locations. Biden didn’t hide anything or try to obstruct the investigation. Can’t say the same for your MAGA cult leader. He took hundreds of classified docs back to Mar-a-Lago, hid them from NARA and the DOJ for over a year. He then obstructed the FBI investigation by moving boxes around to hide them from discovery. He even tried to destroy videos tapes that showed what he and Walt Nauta were doing. Can you say with a straight face Biden did the same?
And, no, Biden is not going to be impeached and convicted. You are living in DJT’s wet dream of fantasy and make believe. The only one “going down” is your leader. And he is going down hard. You can take that to the bank!
Dennis write a small novella. Its all lies. Devoid of fact. But he hides and refuses to engage.
George Santos has been hit with a 23-count superseding indictment. Prosecutors say Santos entered into two sweeping conspiracies to defraud donors and the FEC — including stealing “the personal identity and financial information of contributors to his campaign” and charging “contributors’ credit cards repeatedly, without their authorization.”
ROTFLMAO!!!
Good one! Your comment leaves the reader in a state where it is impossible to tell whether or not you a blind partisan, a fatally naive social media junkie or you are actually Merrick Garland. Brilliant!
President Biden is cooperating with the investigation and he is NOT on social media disparaging Special Counsel Hur.
Where is Dennis the Big Dem Socialists whitewasher? In his mind like the old Elvis song; Joe “He ain’t ever did no wrong”.
Estovir, does Gerald L. Bailey replace Tom as your new, flagship handle?
If you don’t remove the inflammatory comment that I keep responding to I’m going to keep responding to it for the next year
Ext two years
Three years
4 years
New York Post?
Another Murdoch rag that lines many bird cages.
Awwwww Wally, still sore about hunters laptop?
Justice does not seem to require an equal number of prosecutions of Presidents of each party if Presidents of one party commit all or most of the crimes.
A Sitting President’s Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution
Date of Issuance:
October 16, 2000
Headnotes
The indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
III
In 1973, the Department of Justice concluded that the indictment and criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unduly interfere with the ability of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned duties, and would thus violate the constitutional separation of powers. No court has addressed this ques
tion directly, but the judicial precedents that bear on the continuing vaUdity of our constitutional analysis are consistent with both the analytic approach taken
and the conclusions reached. Our view remains that a sitting President is constitutionally immune from indictment and criminal prosecution.
RANDOLPH D. MOSS
Assistant Attorney General
Office o f Legal Counsel
Problem:
Presidential immunity from indictment and criminal prosecution will never be found in the Constitution.
The Constitution exempts no citizen from federal or state jurisdiction.
The president and all citizens are subject to statutory and fundamental law.
Presumably, a vice president and chain of succession are in place to address any and all contingencies.
So the executive branch says you can’t indict the head of the executive branch, because it is unconstitutional
Blah ha, ha, ha ha, ha ha, ha, ha
The idea is a President must have the ability to make decisions and do things that would otherwise be twisted out of shape under the whims of any political hack prosecutor in the nation.
We see exactly why that is a good idea.
Invention of novel ideas combined with laws and statutes twisted into a pretzel and called an indictment have become quite the past time recently.
That’s why impeachment and removal.
You said that.
Brilliant!
The Constitution does not state that.
The executive branch cannot exempt itself from culpability.
Will you usurp dominion from the Constitution a la “Crazy Abe” Lincoln who denied fully constitutional secession which is not prohibited by the Constitution and is, therefore and de facto, reserved to the States?
Take it to the Supreme Court, or amend the Constitution.
Robert Hur is the consummate third tier mob lawyer going though the motions to cement Merrick Garland’s “bright line”, indeed his legacy, for a two-tier justice system in this once great nation.
Even despite the not prosecuting a president in office, nothing will most likely happen to President Biden. It has become crystal clear to any thinking American, except virulent Democrat base lemmings, that there are two standards of justice in this country. One for swamp loving elites, especially liberals, and a second more stringent standard for the rest of we the people. That sets up the country for potentially horrible outcomes. Atty Gen Garland’s legacy will be utter distrust of our legal system by over 50% of the population. Sad and dangerous.
shame DOJ, FBI, DC judges are 100% corrupt for Democrats