Quote :

"Two things, correct me where you think I'm wrong: You CAN charge a president for crimes that occurred before inauguration? Mueller COULD (either openly or through leaks) release an indictment of Trump, putting the ball in Congress's court to impeach? I'd love to watch the GOP twist in the wind defending a massive lode of treason evidence."

it wouldn't make a difference when the crime happened based on the OLC opinion that you can't charge a president because it would conflict with their constitutional duties

it's never been tested though, so who knows



[Edited on December 13, 2017 at 2:11 PM. Reason : .]

12/13/2017 2:10:08 PM

Its really interesting how we have two completely different sets of news for two groups of people.

http://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-andrew-weissman-mueller-trump-clinton-russia-investigation-fbi-2017-12
I came here to see what you guys were saying about this and surprise, surprise, its not even being mentioned. As expected, its the only thing the other side is talking about while you guys are talking about when the impeachment is going to happen.

Don't you think its curious that Meuller is "colluding" with "Hillary people"?

12/14/2017 1:02:55 AM

earl'd

12/14/2017 7:14:25 AM

It’s almost like the FBI has been notoriously one of the most conservative institutions in the country and barely any liberals or Democrats tried to politicize that fact. And now all of a sudden when not everyone is found to be Republican there it’s a travesty and it needs to be shut down (literally on Fox News last night).

I was a bit annoyed when the New York FBI office was leaking like a sieve last October but it is what it is. Clinton made her own bed just like Trump, and had to lie in it.

[Edited on December 14, 2017 at 7:22 AM. Reason : Not even a Republican, but a Trumpkin. This guy hated Bernie too.]

12/14/2017 7:21:26 AM

^

Also, having a political opinion is not a crime and having a biased opinion is not a crime. A conflict of interest is also not a crime. The real issue would be if there was any improper action or impropriety based on the aforementioned items.

Storzk - Mueller removed him the moment the texts were discovered. That is the right thing to do and the only thing he could do.

Weissman - He praised someone for following their morals and standing up to someone who was trying to ram systemic racism through the system. There is absolutely nothing wrong about him sending her support or expressing his opinion.

Attending an election night party is not some big deal either. I nearly attended a few over the past few years. Doesn't prevent me from ever performing any job I have properly.

And if somehow all of the above still pisses people off, Mueller by law was not allowed to consider political leanings in building out his team. Which means he couldn't administer a political test to determine people's leanings.

No one on here is talking about this because there is no rational reason to do so. What we are talking about are the various individuals who have plead guilty to the FBI for committing felonies, felonies uncovered or committed during the course of this investigation. We're also talking about the last 18 months of outright lies committed by every single member of Trump and his inner circle about allegations that according to them didn't happen but if did, wouldn't be illegal or improper (the hell is the reason for lying then?).

This is yet another, closing in on final, and desperate attempt to deflect from and discredit this investigation. It's a perfectly normal and rational strategy coming from Trump and his lawyers. It is utterly pathetic coming from GOP representatives and from organizations such as Fox News which claims to be a journalism company.

There is only one aspect of any of this that I would actually argue deserves possibly more attention, and that is the edits made by Storzk regarding the wording of Comey's draft in the Hillary email situation. And even that is not necessarily a big deal because whether he made the edits or not is almost irrelevant - the rest of team/his superiors had to sign off on it.

[Edited on December 14, 2017 at 7:43 AM. Reason : a]

12/14/2017 7:32:55 AM

That last point, I’d be ok with a look at that. It deserves more attention but it also has nothing to do with Trump/Russia so not sure why we’d be talking about it here.

12/14/2017 7:53:11 AM

I agree, I only pointed it out because the same individual was involved in both. He is effectively #2 at FBI when it comes to counterintelligence and Russian area expertise. So his previous actions on the Hillary situation sort of come into play here when someone wants to argue bias.

And he did alter Comey's wording from the original language which indicated she broke the law to his own statement which was not written in law.

12/14/2017 8:31:54 AM

He also is likely privy to loads of information about Trumps lengthy history with Russians and has a very good reason for distrusting him.

I follow all sorts of people on twitter and no two more different than John Schindler and Glenn Greenwald — I’m only saying that because I wouldn’t take what either opine about as truth or gospel but they are useful looks at two divergent viewpoints.. But if you want some insight in to what this guy may have been thinking take a look at Schindler’s feed.

12/14/2017 8:38:00 AM

for context - even members of trump's administration have called him an idiot

12/14/2017 9:27:08 AM

I think he has about 1000 reasons to distrust him that are public and who knows how many that are classified, haha.

[Edited on December 14, 2017 at 10:01 AM. Reason : a]

12/14/2017 9:44:59 AM

Quote :

"The FBI employees who called Trump an "idiot" in their texts called Bernie Sanders an "idiot," too. Also had harsh words for Holder, Chelsea Clinton, Paul Ryan + Edward Snowden."

Local agency man has opinions. How come Gowdy only read a few of them yesterday?

12/14/2017 1:49:07 PM

This is a good read:
Doubting the intelligence, Trump pursues Putin and leaves a Russian threat unchecked
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/world/national-security/donald-trump-pursues-vladimir-putin-russian-election-hacking/?utm_term=.6ccef9960088&wpisrc=nl_popup&wpmm=1

and this was a good comment on reddit:

Quote :

"equallynuts 1 Theres a PBS documentary about the election that mentioned this. When the Obama administration found out, i believe in October, they were trying to figure out how to handle since Obama did not want to seem as influencing an election (pro Clinton). They held a meeting with a bipartisan leadership to share IC findings with them (Schummer, McConnell and the like). Obama wanted to come out together with the info to the press, but McConnell shut him down and threatened him that if he did, the entire Repbulican Congress would be on every news outlet blasting him for influencing an election. FBI or CIA Director Brennan (I forget which agency) tried to argue with McConnel that this wasnt a Democrat issue but a national security issue and he too was shut down by McConnell. So, if you are wondering why Republicans are now trying to bash Mueller (a fellow R appointed by Bush and Obama, unanimously approved by both sides) its because they know whats coming, and they dont want people to realize that they shut down Obama and the IC before the election, even after facts were presented. Source they dont mention McConnell in the read out but if you watch the documentary they call him out by name. (source link https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/facing-a-russian-cyber-attack-obama-officials-struggled-to-respond/) * Edit: getting a lot of hate mail, fair enough, but please note I'm stating facts, not opinions. For people just learning about this, i highly recommend you do your own research and learn as much as you can. I recommend Julia Loffe. https://twitter.com/juliaioffe?sp00=09 Documentary is called Putin's revenge. Link: https://youtu.be/6pWALA6vgoY"

12/14/2017 3:10:37 PM

^yep

12/14/2017 4:21:53 PM

That's a story that needs to be repeated more often. It'll probably get lost :-\

12/14/2017 5:55:24 PM

https://twitter.com/natashabertrand/status/941433504704974849

This may or may not be interesting..

12/14/2017 8:15:42 PM

Quote :

"It’s almost like the FBI has been notoriously one of the most conservative institutions in the country and barely any liberals or Democrats tried to politicize that fact. And now all of a sudden when not everyone is found to be Republican there it’s a travesty and it needs to be shut down (literally on Fox News last night). I was a bit annoyed when the New York FBI office was leaking like a sieve last October but it is what it is. Clinton made her own bed just like Trump, and had to lie in it."

Your post is all true but you aren't seeing the estblishment-anti-estblishment dynamic.

12/14/2017 11:32:24 PM

not sure how this surfaced (is this old?), but its the transcript of Paul Ryan and company joking about how trump is paid by russia:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3726371/Read-the-transcript-of-the-conversation-among.pdf

Note that this was allegedly recorded on June 15th, 2016:

Quote :

"Ryan: He basically...He has this really interesting riff about... people have said that they have Ukraine fatigue, and it’s really Russian fatigue because what Russia is doing is doing to us, financing our populists, financing people in our governments to undo our governments, you know, messing with our oil and gas energy, all the things Russia does to basically blow up our country, they’re just going to roll right through us and go to the Baltics and everyone else. Rodgers: Yes! Ryan: So we should not have Ukraine fatigue, we should have Russian fatigue. Rodgers: Yes! The propaganda...my big takeaway from that trip was just how sophisticated the propaganda... Ryan: It’s very sophisticated. Rodgers:...coming out of Russia and Putin. Ryan: Very sophisticated. [Crosstalk] Rodgers: Not just in Ukraine. They were once funding the NGOs in Europe. They attacked fracking. Ryan: Correct. Rodgers: Russia TV. I was not...you know...I hadn’t tuned into Russia TV until that trip. It’s, it’s frightening. Ryan: So he’s saying they’re doing this throughout Europe. So, uh... [Unintelligible] Ryan: This is, this isn’t just about Ukraine. Rodgers: So, yeah, it is a, um...[unintelligible]...a way...it’s really a messaging...you know...they are...it’s a propaganda war. Ryan: Russia is trying to turn Ukraine against itself. Rodgers: Yes. And that’s...it’s sophisticated and it’s, uh... Ryan: Maniacal. Rodgers: Yes. Ryan: And guess...guess who’s the only one taking a strong stand up against it? We are. Rodgers: We’re not...we’re not...but, we’re not..."

They've known exactly whats been going on for ATLEAST a year and a half, but chose party over country and then insult us by claiming they can't react until they complete their designed-to-fail investigations. Its so sad where the GOP currently resides.

12/15/2017 8:48:47 AM

whataboutism - the Democrats did the same thing when they chose Hillary and insulated her with several layers of failsafes for the election.

Doesn't mean it's right, doesn't mean Republicans shouldn't roll on Trump, but it is what it is.

Question - has there ever been an election where the party didn't pick their incumbent to run? If not, I sure would like to see that happen in 2020.

12/15/2017 9:44:54 AM

Republicans held both chambers during that time and Clinton testified, under oath, for eleven hours. Not exactly the same.

12/15/2017 9:48:56 AM

what about my question?

Is it a pipe dream?

And as far as Hillary goes, I'm talking about the Democratic primary. In a way, they chose party over country.

[Edited on December 15, 2017 at 9:50 AM. Reason : asdfa]

12/15/2017 9:49:34 AM

I’d say it’s likely he is primaried but doubt it works. There is a reason why the GOP won’t stand up to him and it’s not ideological. They need his base to win elections and if you piss it off too much you lose control.

For better or worse he is the GOP now.

[Edited on December 15, 2017 at 9:53 AM. Reason : X]

12/15/2017 9:53:05 AM

^^^^ Happened only once to a sitting president - Franklin Pierce.

https://www.npr.org/sections/politicaljunkie/2009/07/a_president_denied_renominatio.html

12/15/2017 10:04:10 AM

i don't think the party should have nominated clinton, but the main difference between clinton and trump is that she is qualified to be president and the accusations against her were for trivial matters and not about criminal conspiracy with a foreign adversary

12/15/2017 10:09:39 AM

^^There have been plenty of jaw-dropping firsts since he was elected. Maybe we'll get another one.

12/15/2017 10:14:02 AM

^^And refresh my memory, were the Trump/Russia rumblings present at the time he was nominated, or did that come out later during the presidential campaign? I honestly don't remember.

12/15/2017 10:17:08 AM

Quote :

"And as far as Hillary goes, I'm talking about the Democratic primary. In a way, they chose party over country."

-Hillary's crimes didn't amount to treason (that we know of)
-Congressional Democrats didn't run interference on congressional investigations of Hillary or the FBI investigation.

The vast majority of the Congressional GOP knows EXACTLY what Russia is capable of, and they know juicy details of how the 2016 election went down. Rather than meet this threat, they've chosen to act like it's no big deal, obfuscate with bullshit investigations, and now they're actively trying to kneecap the FBI.

Traitors is the only word useful to describe where the GOP is currently at.

12/15/2017 10:21:32 AM

^^we knew at least about manafort before the republican nomination



[Edited on December 15, 2017 at 10:25 AM. Reason : .]

12/15/2017 10:25:02 AM

Quote :

"whataboutism - the Democrats did the same thing when they chose Hillary and insulated her with several layers of failsafes for the election."

not even in the same ball park. the democrats didn't enlist a foreign enemy to try and win. not even close to the same thing.

12/15/2017 10:48:01 AM

But my question to that is, and dtownral answered it to some degree, was how much of that the Republicans new during the primary?

It doesn't excuse their current behavior of supporting Trump, but did they really know all this mess then?

12/15/2017 10:51:45 AM

republican leaders were briefed before the election

[Edited on December 15, 2017 at 10:56 AM. Reason : and that is really a separate thing from them acting traitorous now]

12/15/2017 10:55:58 AM

so i can't speak to the primary or anything, i really won't even speak to the election. but after the election they have known every thing we know in the public. and they certainly know more from personal briefings. and their actions (not all of them) thus far have been completely pathetic, selfish and outright infuriating with respect to loyalty to this country

12/15/2017 10:56:20 AM

So here's a thought, and another first. What would happen if the Republicans impeached their own? They, along with Democrats, would have the numbers to do it. And certainly they wouldn't mind Pence in the hotseat, unless they all know that Pence has something damning just waiting to be brought to light.

12/15/2017 11:07:10 AM

That's an interesting question. Pence was only made vice president because of Paul Manafort (why he chose Pence, I have no idea, but it bothers me). I'm not saying Pence is involved in any of the Russia stuff, there's been nothing published to suggest that at all yet.

But considering that's how he got the job, I don't think the GOP support is there for him. So if they impeached Trump, they'd obviously have to live with Pence until the next election and depending on how mid-terms play out, I'm not sure they'd back him for election in 2020.

Republicans impeaching Trump may actually give them a shot at holding onto their majorities. If they continue pushing back or refuse to (and ethical or legal reasons come out indicating that they should impeach) then I think they completely lose the next couple elections. The 24 hour daily ads playing along the lines of treason would kill them I think.

[Edited on December 15, 2017 at 11:14 AM. Reason : a]

12/15/2017 11:13:30 AM

Quote :

" But my question to that is, and dtownral answered it to some degree, was how much of that the Republicans new during the primary?"

That transcript I posted was from June 15, 2016, the RNC convention wasn't for another month (by June 2016 Trump was basically the nominee). Now they might not have known enough at that point to actually take actions against Trump, but they could have at least acted concerned when a month later he was modifying the RNC's platform in regards to Ukraine. They could have supported Obama when he wanted to release Russian tampering evidence. Instead they joked about it privately, and played dumb publically. They're complicit, all of them.

12/15/2017 11:29:06 AM

Quote :

"https://twitter.com/natashabertrand/status/941433504704974849 This may or may not be interesting.."

That seems pretty interesting. I hadn't read much about Parscale before that.

12/15/2017 12:11:04 PM

i've posted about some of the cambridge analytica links with russia (and i think i also talked about their brexit involvement)

12/15/2017 12:17:15 PM

I had read about Cambridge Analytica, but, somehow, I had overlooked the role that Brad Parscale had played in the campaign.

12/15/2017 12:23:45 PM

he was one of the main forces to bring them in

12/15/2017 12:28:49 PM

https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2017/12/15/putins-proxies-helped-funnel-millions-gop-campaigns

We gotta fix our campaign finance system.

12/16/2017 11:35:57 AM

This is about to get very interesting, especially since Mueller meets with Trump's lawyers this week.

https://www.axios.com/scoop-mueller-obtains-tens-of-thousands-of-trump-transition-emails-2517994590.html

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-transition/trump-allies-say-mueller-unlawfully-obtained-thousands-of-emails-idUSKBN1EA0QF

12/16/2017 5:36:57 PM

The way you know it's a bullshit claim is they are doing it in the public sphere. Contesting evidence on 4th Amendment grounds is a common tactic for a white collar crime defense team, but you actually do it in court, in front of a judge. This is just more baseless whining from his lawyers.

12/17/2017 11:01:10 AM

Trump’s lawyers really are the C team. I know the top firms didn’t want to go near him but incoming executive privilege before being the executive is LOL.

12/17/2017 11:52:40 AM

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/poll-president-donald-trump-voters-support-collusion-russia-kremlin-moscow-democrats-republicans-a8115161.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/17/republicans-accused-of-concocting-email-scandal-against-robert-mueller

Quote :

"“‘Private documents’ on a US government, public email system? What are they afraid was found? Baloney.” In a series of tweets, Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, said the Republicans were “playing politics – but this is a bad sign for them”. “Of course Mueller obtained emails from a third party,” he said. “Prosecutors in most white collar criminal investigations do that. It’s not ‘inappropriate’ or even unusual. Anyone who claims otherwise has no idea what they’re talking about.”"

Quote :

"If Mueller didn’t follow the law, a court would suppress the evidence so it couldn’t be used. The reason Trump’s lawyers are writing letters to Congress instead of Mueller or a court is because their legal arguments have no merit. "

Quote :

"In an interview with Buzzfeed News, the GSA deputy counsel, Lenny Loewentritt, said the Trump transition team were told when they were given access to GSA facilities that any material “would not be held back in any law enforcement” situation. “Therefore, no expectation of privacy can be assumed.”"

[Edited on December 17, 2017 at 2:00 PM. Reason : a]

12/17/2017 1:58:30 PM

^^ Trump doesn't give them wiggle room

He went on national TV to say he fired comey to stop the russia investigation, he put out a press release saying he fired comey because he was too hard on Clinton, now he's saying he fired comey because Comey was just crooked part of the Obama DOJ looking out to help Clinton.

The only thing consistent has been it was Kushner that told Trump to fire Comey, and it seems really likely there's direct evidence showing Kushner's hands are dirty. If the "true" reason Comey was fired was to protect Kushner, or protect anyone, seems Trump is culpable for obstruction.

12/17/2017 5:26:09 PM

https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/942824261542129664

It’s hard to see this and believe that the Trump campaign wasn’t desperately trying to collide with WikiLeaks and/or Russia. They were warned after meeting in Trump Tower and STILL didn’t tell the FBI and continued to have contacts.

I mean it’s really hard to believe that it was all innocent at this point for me..

12/18/2017 1:43:51 PM

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fbi-warned-trump-2016-russians-would-try-infiltrate-his-campaign-n830596

Well that about locks my opinion in. Very interested to see how Mueller's investigation plays out now. Whatever he ends up with is about the only thing that could possibly change my mind.

[Edited on December 18, 2017 at 1:50 PM. Reason : a]

12/18/2017 1:48:15 PM

https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-fbi-agents-account-insurance-policy-text-referred-to-russia-probe-1513624580

Seems like a few contextual things may have been left out of the GOPs outrage here...

12/18/2017 3:23:52 PM

can you give a summary for us non subscribers?

12/18/2017 3:31:26 PM

I was able to access it via this tweet:

https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/942840458581028865

[Edited on December 18, 2017 at 4:09 PM. Reason : ]

12/18/2017 4:08:16 PM

Basically:

Quote :

"An FBI agent’s reference to “an insurance policy” in a much-debated text message was meant to convey that the bureau needed to aggressively investigate allegations of collusion between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, according to people familiar with his account. The agent didn’t intend to suggest a secret plan to harm the candidate but rather address a colleague who believed the Federal Bureau of Investigation could take its time because Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton was certain to win the election, the people said."

Quote :

"The text came after a meeting involving Ms. Page, Mr. Strzok and FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, according to people close to the pair and familiar with their version of events. At the meeting, Ms. Page suggested they could take their time investigating the alleged collusion because Mrs. Clinton was likely to win, the people said. If they move more deliberately, she argued, they could reduce the risk of burning sensitive sources. Mr. Strzok felt otherwise, according to these people. His text was meant to convey his belief that the investigation couldn't afford to take a more measured approach because Mr. Trump could very well win the election, they said. It would be better to be aggressive and gather evidence quickly, he believed, because some of Mr. Trump’s associates could land administration jobs and it was important to know if they had colluded with Russia."

Quote :

"Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page complained about many people besides Mr. Trump in the 375 text messages released by the Justice Department. Among those who drew barbs were Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.), former Attorney General Eric Holder, Chelsea Clinton and Mr. Sessions himself."

12/18/2017 5:25:31 PM