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The Robert Mueller Investigation


Hugo Stiglitz

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3 minutes ago, NameAlreadyInUse said:

Had Donald Trump as his only client. 

Worked in the Trump organization as a Trump lawyer so isn't that standard if you are a lawyer for an organization?(just read his bio tonight on wiki)  So I believe it said he was a lawyer in the Trump organization.

Edit added link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cohen_(lawyer)

Edited by zork
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1 minute ago, zork said:

Worked in the Trump organization as a Trump lawyer so isn't that standard if you are a lawyer for an organization?(just read his bio tonight on wiki)  So I believe it said he was a lawyer in the Trump organization.

Edit added link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cohen_(lawyer)

And working for a con man makes you a shyster. I didn’t realize I’d need to spell that out for you. 

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On 4/5/2018 at 10:39 PM, cactusflinthead said:

Clearlake won't give a damn what it says one way or the other. 

Manafort got handed a big new pile of shit to deal with and Gates is a better singer than Flynn. 

And it's Thursday. 

Of course I won't. This is nothing but a witch hunt against the best and most accomplished President in history simply because the Dems want to sabotage the entire administration and make sure the swamp is alive and well as usual.  All evidence is planted by Mueller's team or Dem conspirators and nothing can be believed that comes from that sham investigation.   

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Of course I won't. This is nothing but a witch hunt against the best and most accomplished President in history simply because the Dems want to sabotage the entire administration and make sure the swamp is alive and well as usual.  All evidence is planted by Mueller's team or Dem conspirators and nothing can be believed that comes from that sham investigation.   
Best and most accomplished president in History? Show your work.
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2 minutes ago, Clearlakehorn said:

Of course I won't. This is nothing but a witch hunt against the best and most accomplished President in history simply because the Dems want to sabotage the entire administration and make sure the swamp is alive and well as usual.  All evidence is planted by Mueller's team or Dem conspirators and nothing can be believed that comes from that sham investigation.   

I could almost be convinced you are the one true clearlake, but you are far too coherent this time of night. 

 

I wish it weren't so Anastasis. Look around man. Who else is standing with you? Those are your allies. 

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57 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Oh its a total shit show, no doubt. I have been long on record. You dig deep enough in Trump's shit you are gonna find corn, or porn, or whatever.

Where I have pushed back is on this concept that there was some organized effort within the Trump campaign to undermine the american political system via collusion with russia. I dont think that the Trump election team was capable of organizing within themselves, much less organizing with russia. I think it was amateur hour all around. 

Maybe I'm wrong, and the triplehorn's of the board and their easter congressional perp walk projections are spot on. I'll fucking eat that crow if that day comes, and there is no doubt that a significant number of posters here will line up to ensure that plays out. 

Until then, I generally agree. The President's lawyer getting popped with an AM FBI raid is bad. And shit is hitting the fan. There appears to be an angle where they are cracking attorney client privilege that could spill into Russia stuff. Trump will get impeached Jan/Feb 2019 and if there is anything that actually points to collusion he gets removed form office. I am not sure that big tit porn stars getting campaign pay offs will be sufficient, buts thats where we are atm.  

Cool.  I can dig that.  

Im much more guy with the pitch fork but your type are needed in this mess. 

Edited by ChiTownDoc
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6 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I would have to guess, because Mueller let the USA-SDNY handle this, that it is getting pretty far afield from the trumpcampaigncollusion mandate.

 

It may simply be criminal behavior by Trump, Trumpco and Cohen that precedes the election and campaign.

Or the crime happened in SDNY giving SDNY jurisdiction. 

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6 hours ago, zork said:

How is that legal?(bolded part)  Does attorney/client privilege not make that inadmissible and not eligible for examination?  (I'm not a lawyer)

 

The attorney-client has an exception for crime/fraud being committed. 

Keep in mind that the investigators have been able to subpoena all of Cohen's banking records all along. This indicates that they found enough evidence of fraud/crime in those transactions that a judge was willing to grant a search warrant on the President's personal attorney.

Also, keep in mind that this required two Trump appointees approval; Rosenstein and SDNY's Berman.

Edited by ShaggyBevo RIP
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Recap:  lawyer who only works with the president’s company had his office raided because many in the doj thought he might destroy evidence of criminal activity.  

In any other administration, we would talk about this for months.  Instead this will be not even make it to the upcoming Sunday talk shows.

 

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I thought if it is a state crime the President can't pardon? That might be the leverage Mueller is trying to utilize here. 


SDNY is the United States District Court for the Southern District of NY. The US Attorney for this district pursues Federal crimes.
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It was so nice of the FBI to wait until The Circus is back on Showtime this week - that is going to be some incredible TV.

As many others have said, this has to accelerate the endgame (or at least the next steps) because you have to believe that Trump is going to do something batshit crazy in response.

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16 minutes ago, VRHorn said:

It was so nice of the FBI to wait until The Circus is back on Showtime this week - that is going to be some incredible TV.

As many others have said, this has to accelerate the endgame (or at least the next steps) because you have to believe that Trump is going to do something batshit crazy in response.

All he is going to do is whine on twitter.  Dude can’t even summon up the courage to fire most of the people he’s fired to their faces. He’s far too passive-aggressive. Which is why he’s easy to play. 

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9 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

I would have to guess, because Mueller let the USA-SDNY handle this, that it is getting pretty far afield from the trumpcampaigncollusion mandate.

 

It may simply be criminal behavior by Trump, Trumpco and Cohen that precedes the election and campaign.

That is one explanation.

The other is that the New York team is the "taint team."  Any time the FBI obtains documents that may be attorney-client privileged, they set up a taint team to review those documents.  The taint team is completely separate from the main investigatory team, and they review the documents for privilege.  Only the documents that the taint team determines not to be privileged are forwarded to the investigatory team for its review.  

That way, the investigatory team never sees anything that is privileged, and doesn't pursue any leads they obtain from privileged documents.  Keeping a separate team ensures that the investigatory team is completely free of the taint of having seen privileged material.

Mueller could be so light on resources that he doesn't have enough manpower to form a taint team from inside the OSC.  And anyway--why do so when you can have it completely separated and outside the OSC?

8 hours ago, cactusflinthead said:

I wish it weren't so Anastasis. Look around man. Who else is standing with you? Those are your allies. 

And here's the thing that I think is so interesting when it comes to college-educated whites in the next election.  Look around at who your allies are.  The whole permission structure for being a Republican in a certain socio-economic strata is being revoked.  You look around highly-educated workplaces and neighborhoods around this country, and it's just not socially acceptable to be pro-Trump.

Look--whatever you do in the privacy of the voting booth is your business.  But I'm telling you that the country club discussions that were very pro-Republican just five years ago are very anti-Republican today.

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3 hours ago, ShaggyBevo RIP said:

Or the crime happened in SDNY giving SDNY jurisdiction. 

Nah, Mueller's jurisdiction is not regional in nature.  This happened because, for one reason or another, it is outside the scope of Mueller's mandate.

 

GoLL's explanation is highly plausible.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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16 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I'm not saying that's IMPOSSIBLE -- you and I don't know what went on in the warrant process.

But I WILL say that's HIGHLY unlikely.  A magistrate is not going to sign off on a "fishing expedition" into privileged information.  They take that shit very seriously.  Nobody will be allowed to "comb through all of the client privileged info." And if they are allowed to do so, mark it down -- I will raise holy hell, as will (I expect) the New York bar association and the ABA.

If a warrant is granted that opens the door to ANY privileged info, it is a very narrowly open door.  They don't get to just walk in and "look at all the shit you want."  In this case, a warrant is pretty close to an indication that something is "DEFINITELY there."  That's the bar that has to be cleared for getting access to privileged information -- it's a high bar, and it should be.

Thanks for the info.

The reason I even brought this up is because we have talked about how the saying of “if you want an indictment then give me a grand jury.”  Meaning that once special counsel gets involved he can almost direct traffic as he wants. I’ve got 2 scenarios in my head. 

1. Mueller has nothing on trump just as he stated a week ago. He is now looking to appease the powers that be and he direct traffic to trumps lawyer. Given the proof we have that the fbi and investigators have leaked various intelligence/evidence the golden ticket isn’t about being able to prosecute trump but to leak the information between him and his attorney, maybe even through wiki to protect the investigation. This kills trump in the public eye where this trial will most likely take place. 

2. Mueller does and always has had something on trump and his comments last week were bait to try and get trump to panic in a fit of confidence. This raid was going to happen unless trump willingly handed over privileged docs. Trump might not be screwed for anything Russia/collusion related but everyone around him, or maybe even him, goes down for something completely unrelated to anything with politics. Which if he has done illegal activities then he probably should go down. 

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Scenario 3) you are WAY over interpreting Mueller's statement. Mueller said Trump was a subject of the investigation, not a target. He did NOT say he "has nothing on trump". 

People who are "Subjects" are being investigated by the FBI. People who are "Targets" are getting arrested in the next few days. 

I think Mueller has enough to nail Trump several times over already in a normal environment, but we are not remotely close to a normal environment right now. 

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1 minute ago, Jhawk said:

Thanks for the info.

The reason I even brought this up is because we have talked about how the saying of “if you want an indictment then give me a grand jury.”  Meaning that once special counsel gets involved he can almost direct traffic as he wants. I’ve got 2 scenarios in my head. 

1. Mueller has nothing on trump just as he stated a week ago. He is now looking to appease the powers that be and he direct traffic to trumps lawyer. Given the proof we have that the fbi and investigators have leaked various intelligence/evidence the golden ticket isn’t about being able to prosecute trump but to leak the information between him and his attorney, maybe even through wiki to protect the investigation. This kills trump in the public eye where this trial will most likely take place. 

2. Mueller does and always has had something on trump and his comments last week were bait to try and get trump to panic in a fit of confidence. This raid was going to happen unless trump willingly handed over privileged docs. Trump might not be screwed for anything Russia/collusion related but everyone around him, or maybe even him, goes down for something completely unrelated to anything with politics. Which if he has done illegal activities then he probably should go down. 

You misapprehend Mueller's comments about Trump.  The target of an investigation, in federal criminal parlance, is one against whom an indictment will be sought.  As a sitting President, Trump cannot (or should not) be indicted.  Thus he is not a "target."  Doesn't mean he didn't do anything wrong or isn't being investigated.

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10 hours ago, Anastasis said:

The creep from omg russia to omg porn star payoffs is going to be awesome. I actually hope that Mueller has a play here on cracking privilege to get to something deeper, because the alternative is  going to be underwhelming. And that in itself if quite the statement on where we are.. 

i think daniels is ancillary to the cohen raid.  cohen was intimately involved with trump's attempted Russia dealings from 2013 - 2016. these guys did a nice job of laying out the timeline.

51cOrbB+YEL.jpg

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I was on my phone and didn't want to type all of it out.  

"Mueller has nothing on trump" is translated to "Trump, at this point, is not the target of what mueller is investigating."

Question because I wasn't able to keep up with the explosion of posts yesterday...  Do we think this raid was about the daniels payment or do we think it was for something bigger and the media is just nitpicking the daniels payment because that is the news they have been after for the last month+?

Personally, I think there was something other than the Daniels payment they wanted to see and the media only asked about the payment when going to sources in the investigation.  I think the media is missing the boat right now and will catch up to the real reason for this raid in a few months.

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Scenario 3) you are WAY over interpreting Mueller's statement. Mueller said Trump was a subject of the investigation, not a target. He did NOT say he "has nothing on trump". 
People who are "Subjects" are being investigated by the FBI. People who are "Targets" are getting arrested in the next few days. 
I think Mueller has enough to nail Trump several times over already in a normal environment, but we are not remotely close to a normal environment right now. 


Haven’t kept with this in awhile: what are the things you think he’ll nail Trump on?
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2 minutes ago, Jhawk said:

I was on my phone and didn't want to type all of it out.  

"Mueller has nothing on trump" is translated to "Trump, at this point, is not the target of what mueller is investigating."

Question because I wasn't able to keep up with the explosion of posts yesterday...  Do we think this raid was about the daniels payment or do we think it was for something bigger and the media is just nitpicking the daniels payment because that is the news they have been after for the last month+?

Personally, I think there was something other than the Daniels payment they wanted to see and the media only asked about the payment when going to sources in the investigation.  I think the media is missing the boat right now and will catch up to the real reason for this raid in a few months.

 

Crooked real estate deals, money laundering and who knows what else.  Cohen is involved in all the shady shit Trump Inc does.  Stormy Daniels is the least of their worries.

Edited by kevwun
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jhawk, you're not getting it.  Trump and his campaign remain the primary focus of the investigation.  Mueller's statement merely clarified in legal jargon that at that moment Trump was not about to be indicted (and as others have pointed out, most likely can't be, as he is POTUS).

Mueller has made NO statements either supporting or refuting the idea that Trump will come out of this process clean.  It's an ongoing investigation.  Mueller owes nothing to the public in terms of progress reports.  Lack thereof, while common fodder for the "nothingburger" crowd, literally means nothing.  Bupkis, if you will.

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 9 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Maybe I'm wrong, and the triplehorn's of the board and their easter congressional perp walk projections are spot on. I'll fucking eat that crow if that day comes, and there is no doubt that a significant number of posters here will line up to ensure that plays out. 

It's been over a year, so duly granted the timing was off, but every single bit, and then some, remains in play. 

The size and scope of this investigation combined with complicit dereliction of Congressional GOP makes timelines a little tricky.

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53 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

the country club discussions that were very pro-Republican just five years ago are very anti-Republican today

this is in need of some more ink.  a lot of people aren't understanding the deeper implications of what is happening.  we are passing a watershed moment in this country such that whatever the outcome of all this, these days will be discussed for many generations, if there are many generations.

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Count me as someone who thinks country club Republicans aren't exactly going to abandon their party. They may not turn out in droves since they are starting to sour on Trump, but these people aren't ever going to vote D, just too icky to side with them damn libs.

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1 hour ago, Ghost of LL said:

Look--whatever you do in the privacy of the voting booth is your business.  But I'm telling you that the country club discussions that were very pro-Republican just five years ago are very anti-Republican today.

Not sure to which country clubs you refer, but I think you'd be surprised at the level of continued pro-Trumpism among CC types here in Dallas.

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1 hour ago, Ghost of LL said:

That is one explanation.

The other is that the New York team is the "taint team."  Any time the FBI obtains documents that may be attorney-client privileged, they set up a taint team to review those documents.  The taint team is completely separate from the main investigatory team, and they review the documents for privilege.  Only the documents that the taint team determines not to be privileged are forwarded to the investigatory team for its review.  

That way, the investigatory team never sees anything that is privileged, and doesn't pursue any leads they obtain from privileged documents.  Keeping a separate team ensures that the investigatory team is completely free of the taint of having seen privileged material.

Mueller could be so light on resources that he doesn't have enough manpower to form a taint team from inside the OSC.  And anyway--why do so when you can have it completely separated and outside the OSC?

And here's the thing that I think is so interesting when it comes to college-educated whites in the next election.  Look around at who your allies are.  The whole permission structure for being a Republican in a certain socio-economic strata is being revoked.  You look around highly-educated workplaces and neighborhoods around this country, and it's just not socially acceptable to be pro-Trump.

Look--whatever you do in the privacy of the voting booth is your business.  But I'm telling you that the country club discussions that were very pro-Republican just five years ago are very anti-Republican today.

Oh really? What did you shoot yesterday? Overall these country clubbers are making more money through the stock market and those damn EPA rules are going away. These are the same educated people that elected Trump. And they kept their mouth closed the entire campaign because there was nothing to defend and then shocked the world in the voting booth. Even if if is clearly shown that he colluded with Putin, it's onto Pence and thank god it wasn't Hillary, because she makes our head hurt.

Edited by Nolacycling
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