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The Robert Mueller Investigation


Hugo Stiglitz

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House shifts away from contempt for Barr and to the federal courts

June 6, 2019 at 7:42 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard 

“After weeks of pledging to hold Attorney General William Barr and the former White House counsel Donald McGahn in contempt for defying subpoenas, House Democrats appear poised to pursue an alternative path to try to force them into sharing information,” the New York Times reports.

“A resolution that the House Rules Committee unveiled on Thursday would authorize the House to petition a federal court to enforce its requests for information and testimony related to the report of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, but without mentioning contempt.”

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Perhaps someone can clarify the difference in the two paths and what advantages the House may see in petitioning the federal courts for enforcement to obtain information and testimony.  I'm interested to see if fed courts would draw in a distinction that requires something like an impeachment inquiry for enforcement.  If so, that would force the House's hand, but with some assurances they'd get what they're after.

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8 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Wait, so Kilimnik is reportedly a State Department asset.  What a fucking world.  Abramson appears to be losing his grip at the revelation.  

According to all the conspiracy theorists he's actually a GRU asset.  So maybe a double-agent for the GRU?  hmm..

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8 hours ago, WhatTheBuck said:

I recall you asserting, without citing any evidence, that Oleg Deripaska is a CIA and FBI asset. 

It was more of a quip than an assertion. Asset may or may not be the right word. Certainly it has been reported in the NYT that he funded an FBI operation in Iran to retrieve a captured FBI agent who was working as a CIA contractor. Further the FBI actively engaged him as a potential informant on Russia matters including 2016 election interference. He shot down their trump Russia theories. Steele worked for OVD’s lawyer, and was central to the efforts to engage OVD as an informant. Steele was actively working to get OVD visas to travel to the US, efforts which the FBI also supported. Asset? Not sure. Maybe more accurate to say he was a target for cultivation who sat for multiple FBI interviews and received entry visas with FBI assistance after history of facilitating international FBI missions related to CIA contractors? This is all from the NYT articles on these subjects if you are curious.  What a world. 

Edited by Anastasis
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“ As part of a series of open hearings on the Mueller Report, on Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 9:00 am, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence will hold an open hearing — “Lessons from the Mueller Report: Counterintelligence Implications of Volume 1.” The Committee will hear testimony from Stephanie Douglas and Robert Anderson, both former Executive Assistant Directors of the National Security Branch of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

As part of this series of hearings and testimony, the Committee plans to speak with fact witnesses, national security experts, and others connected to the Special Counsel’s investigation to elucidate the issues and findings in the first volume of the report. This is the second open hearing in the series; the first focused on the Kremlin’s use of oligarchs and money to influence foreign actors. A subsequent hearing will explore the facts discussed in the report about Russian intrusions into U.S. elections infrastructure. The Committee also plans to consider targeted legislative initiatives designed to respond to the counterintelligence concerns highlighted by Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. 

https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=656

Edited by GW Hayduke
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2 hours ago, The Royal We said:

Yea, Solomon seems to fall for/amplify banana-in-the-tailpipe schemes repeatedly.  Of course Mate is happy to jump in and run with it as well.

Solomon knows better. He's pulling the banana-in-the-tailpipe on the general public. This is the same pattern as always, selectively leak a portion of a story and spin it as a conspiracy against Trump to discredit any and all witnesses. 

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3 hours ago, triplehorn said:

Sounds like you two need to tuck in your Q.

I like how if you scroll through the mentions to this tweet you will immediately find several people calling Marcy out on her bullshit.  She is so committed to this conspiracy theory - I wonder what she will be up to a few years from now when here credibility is completely destroyed.  Sad because I used to be a big fan of her work.

Edited by Fozzz
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1 hour ago, Fozzz said:

I like how if you scroll through the mentions to this tweet you will immediately find several people calling Marcy out on her bullshit.  She is so committed to this conspiracy theory - I wonder what she will be up to a few years from now when here credibility is completely destroyed.  Sad because I used to be a big fan of her work.

No apologies, you are so full of bullshit.  I'm not going on your snipe hunt.  But you trying to rebut something by drawing from random twitter responses sure explains a lot.

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2 minutes ago, triplehorn said:

No apologies, you are so full of bullshit.  I'm not going on your snipe hunt.  But you trying to rebut something by drawing from random twitter responses sure explains a lot.

Except those randos point out particularly where Marcy is full of shit and she has no response.  For instance:

 

 

 

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7 hours ago, Fozzz said:

I like how if you scroll through the mentions to this tweet you will immediately find several people calling Marcy out on her bullshit.  She is so committed to this conspiracy theory - I wonder what she will be up to a few years from now when here credibility is completely destroyed.  Sad because I used to be a big fan of her work.

You’re still a fan of Greenwald though, right?

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The “Lewendowski, pass this note plan” obstruction of justice has always been my favorite and most egregious IMO.

It comes in at #4 in this list of easily overlooked damning information in the Mueller Report. 

 

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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29 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Nice to see a real Republican admit when he was conned. 

I listened to a podcast the other day with a few other Never Trump Republicans that disagreed with Amash so there’s that. 

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45 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

Cool story, bro.

My point is people here take Amash’s stance as proof that there’s only two stances available. Theirs, and the liars and threats to the Republic. It’s just simply not true. 

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14 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

My point is people here take Amash’s stance as proof that there’s only two stances available. Theirs, and the liars and threats to the Republic. It’s just simply not true. 

Are you contending that Mueller didn't make a determination on obstruction for other reasons than Justice Department policy?

Here's what he said in his statement:

"We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. The introduction to the volume two of our report explains that decision. It explains that under long-standing Department policy, a President cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited. The special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice and by regulation it was bound by that Department policy. Charging the president with a crime was, therefore, not an option we could consider."

I'm not sure how else that can be interpreted. I'm sorry but your little podcast was full of either mouthbreathers or liars poisoning public opinion.

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37 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Are you contending that Mueller didn't make a determination on obstruction for other reasons than Justice Department policy?

Here's what he said in his statement:

"We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime. The introduction to the volume two of our report explains that decision. It explains that under long-standing Department policy, a President cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that too is prohibited. The special counsel’s office is part of the Department of Justice and by regulation it was bound by that Department policy. Charging the president with a crime was, therefore, not an option we could consider."

I'm not sure how else that can be interpreted. I'm sorry but your little podcast was full of either mouthbreathers or liars poisoning public opinion.

No, I’m not saying that, but it doesn’t make Mueller right. Here’s two opinions against obstruction of justice for Trump, for different reasons, by two lawyers/commentators on different ends of the political spectrum. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/bad-law-is-corrupting-the-obstruction-debate/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/28/dershowitz_napolitano_is_wrong_about_obstruction_of_justice_not_even_a_close_case.html

Was Trump’s behavior regrettable? Very.

Is everything Mueller claims the slam dunk that Surly CR would have people think?  No. Groupthink is strong here. 

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34 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

He’s a troll.  He hasn’t even articulated an alternative position.  

I’m not a lawyer so I do take my cues from legal experts. I try to sample opinions from people all over the spectrum. With regards to obstruction, it’s way more mixed than people here would have others believe.

If Dems wanna impeach great, good luck to them. In my mind it should be left to the voters in 2020 to decide on Trump’s conduct. 

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Our democracy completely falls apart if Trump can cover up crimes committed by foreign governments against the United States, fire people investigating him for obstruction, and hire people to exonerate him in the press.  

But yes, both sides, groupthink, and obvious liberal bias is the real concern here. 

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10 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

No, I’m not saying that, but it doesn’t make Mueller right. Here’s two opinions against obstruction of justice for Trump, for different reasons, by two lawyers/commentators on different ends of the political spectrum. 

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/bad-law-is-corrupting-the-obstruction-debate/

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/28/dershowitz_napolitano_is_wrong_about_obstruction_of_justice_not_even_a_close_case.html

Was Trump’s behavior regrettable? Very.

Is everything Mueller claims the slam dunk that Surly CR would have people think?  No. Groupthink is strong here. 

Neither of those articles address Mueller's indecision about whether Trump obstructed. They only discuss whether or not Trump's conduct did or did not rise to the level of obstruction.

Again, in Mueller's own words, he says he didn't decide either way because he believed DOJ policy prevented him from doing so. That is exactly what Amash was saying.

Don't confuse those two points.

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2 hours ago, GRHorn said:

I listened to a podcast the other day with a few other Never Trump Republicans that disagreed with Amash so there’s that. 

I bet, like you, they didn’t read the report. If they did then there is nothing to disagree with so there’s that.

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1 minute ago, hobbes2702 said:

I bet, like you, they didn’t read the report. If they did then there is nothing to disagree with so there’s that.

It was a National Review podcast. They said they’ve read it. They get paid to do so. Thus, I believe them. 

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14 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Neither of those articles address Mueller's indecision about whether Trump obstructed. They only discuss whether or not Trump's conduct did or did not rise to the level of obstruction.

Again, in Mueller's own words, he says he didn't decide either way because he believed DOJ policy prevented him from doing so. That is exactly what Amash was saying.

Don't confuse those two points.

Moreover, the first article is basically arguing that the case law and court opinions about obstruction are overly broad.  Well, OK.  If you think it should be legal to murder a man on 5th Avenue, it's not a valid defense when convicted of that crime to shout "but it SHOULD be legal".  It isn't legal.

In the second article, Dershowitz does a poor job of ferreting out Trump's suborning counsel to lie to Mueller.  That is in fact a crime -- Mueller was a federal employee.  It's no shock Dershowitz continues to undermine whatever credibility he once had.

Edited by jimmyjazz
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1 hour ago, GRHorn said:

My point is people here take Amash’s stance as proof that there’s only two stances available. Theirs, and the liars and threats to the Republic. It’s just simply not true. 

There's another, more common stance: those who can see he is a serial lying, obstructing, constitution heel-stomping piece of shit...and don't care.

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36 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Our democracy completely falls apart if Trump can cover up crimes committed by foreign governments against the United States, fire people investigating him for obstruction, and hire people to exonerate him in the press.  

But yes, both sides, groupthink, and obvious liberal bias is the real concern here. 

No, it doesn't. Our democracy will outlast Donald Trump.

His problem is going to be staying out of prison once he's no longer president.

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45 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

No, I’m not saying that, but it doesn’t make Mueller right. Here’s two opinions against obstruction of justice for Trump, for different reasons, by two lawyers/commentators on different ends of the political spectrum

Let's see, article one is an opinion piece by a senior editor from the National review. Article two is a simple summary of a Fox network interview with noted Trump apologist Alan Dershowitz. Hardly two different ends of the political spectrum. 

 

40 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

I try to sample opinions from people all over the spectrum

Lulz

Edited by Blotto
Fox Business network, not Fox News
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1 hour ago, triplehorn said:

There's another, more common stance: those who can see he is a serial lying, obstructing, constitution heel-stomping piece of shit...and don't care.

These types usually have a rather "wide stance."

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1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

No, it doesn't. Our democracy will outlast Donald Trump.

His problem is going to be staying out of prison once he's no longer president.

Trump isn’t capable of killing our democracy alone.  The people that stand by and let him do it are most responsible and the list is getting long. 

Trump will absolutely stay out of prison.  People haven’t fully consider the consequences of putting a former US president in prison.  It would be bad.  Trump deserves to be strung up, tarred, and feathered but there’s the bigger picture to consider.  That’s why, in my view, impeachment is the most viable form of accountability for Trump.  Even if the Senate fails to convict, Trump will always have to live with the stain of being an impeached president.

Moreover, an impeached president has never attempted to run for re-election.  If the democrats can’t spin an impeached Trump to their advantage, they don’t have much business in this game.  Yeah, Trump will play the victim and try to rile up his base but he’s going to do that regardless.

This business of Pelosi floating she wants Trump in prison instead of impeached is just another hollow attempt to distract from her neglecting her duties.  She will have no say on Trump’s criminal liability when he’s out of office. 

Outside of the election, she is the only person that can really hold him accountable now for his crimes and she’s not even making a half assed attempt. 

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Like everything these both sides loving mofos promote, there are not two equally valid opinions on this. There's the truth and then the Trumpublicans. Incidentally, I guessed Solomon and Dersh as the authors of the articles GRHorn posted before I opened them. 1/2. 

The remainder of the legal world knows he would be charged if he wasn't president. The troll also knows this, but has his imaginary anecdotes to counter it. 

Over 1000 former federal prosecutors have signed a statement that Trump would be indicted for multiple counts of obstruction of justice if he were not president.  

https://medium.com/@dojalumni/statement-by-former-federal-prosecutors-8ab7691c2aa1

Quote

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:

· The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort;

· The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct; and

· The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.

Spoiler

STATEMENT BY FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTORS

DOJ Alumni Statement
May 6 · 4 min read

We are former federal prosecutors. We served under both Republican and Democratic administrations at different levels of the federal system: as line attorneys, supervisors, special prosecutors, United States Attorneys, and senior officials at the Department of Justice. The offices in which we served were small, medium, and large; urban, suburban, and rural; and located in all parts of our country.

Each of us believes that the conduct of President Trump described in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report would, in the case of any other person not covered by the Office of Legal Counsel policy against indicting a sitting President, result in multiple felony charges for obstruction of justice.

The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming. These include:

· The President’s efforts to fire Mueller and to falsify evidence about that effort;

· The President’s efforts to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation to exclude his conduct; and

· The President’s efforts to prevent witnesses from cooperating with investigators probing him and his campaign.

Attempts to fire Mueller and then create false evidence

Despite being advised by then-White House Counsel Don McGahn that he could face legal jeopardy for doing so, Trump directed McGahn on multiple occasions to fire Mueller or to gin up false conflicts of interest as a pretext for getting rid of the Special Counsel. When these acts began to come into public view, Trump made “repeated efforts to have McGahn deny the story” — going so far as to tell McGahn to write a letter “for our files” falsely denying that Trump had directed Mueller’s termination.

Firing Mueller would have seriously impeded the investigation of the President and his associates — obstruction in its most literal sense. Directing the creation of false government records in order to prevent or discredit truthful testimony is similarly unlawful. The Special Counsel’s report states: “Substantial evidence indicates that in repeatedly urging McGahn to dispute that he was ordered to have the Special Counsel terminated, the President acted for the purpose of influencing McGahn’s account in order to deflect or prevent scrutiny of the President’s conduct toward the investigation.”

Attempts to limit the Mueller investigation

The report describes multiple efforts by the president to curtail the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation.

First, the President repeatedly pressured then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions to reverse his legally-mandated decision to recuse himself from the investigation. The President’s stated reason was that he wanted an attorney general who would “protect” him, including from the Special Counsel investigation. He also directed then-White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus to fire Sessions and Priebus refused.

Second, after McGahn told the President that he could not contact Sessions himself to discuss the investigation, Trump went outside the White House, instructing his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, to carry a demand to Sessions to direct Mueller to confine his investigation to future elections. Lewandowski tried and failed to contact Sessions in private. After a second meeting with Trump, Lewandowski passed Trump’s message to senior White House official Rick Dearborn, who Lewandowski thought would be a better messenger because of his prior relationship with Sessions. Dearborn did not pass along Trump’s message.

As the report explains, “ubstantial evidence indicates that the President’s effort to have Sessions limit the scope of the Special Counsel’s investigation to future election interference was intended to prevent further investigative scrutiny of the President’s and his campaign’s conduct” — in other words, the President employed a private citizen to try to get the Attorney General to limit the scope of an ongoing investigation into the President and his associates.

All of this conduct — trying to control and impede the investigation against the President by leveraging his authority over others — is similar to conduct we have seen charged against other public officials and people in powerful positions.

Witness tampering and intimidation

The Special Counsel’s report establishes that the President tried to influence the decisions of both Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort with regard to cooperating with investigators. Some of this tampering and intimidation, including the dangling of pardons, was done in plain sight via tweets and public statements; other such behavior was done via private messages through private attorneys, such as Trump counsel Rudy Giuliani’s message to Cohen’s lawyer that Cohen should “leep well tonight[], you have friends in high places.”

Of course, these aren’t the only acts of potential obstruction detailed by the Special Counsel. It would be well within the purview of normal prosecutorial judgment also to charge other acts detailed in the report.

We emphasize that these are not matters of close professional judgment. Of course, there are potential defenses or arguments that could be raised in response to an indictment of the nature we describe here. In our system, every accused person is presumed innocent and it is always the government’s burden to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. But, to look at these facts and say that a prosecutor could not probably sustain a conviction for obstruction of justice — the standard set out in Principles of Federal Prosecution — runs counter to logic and our experience.

As former federal prosecutors, we recognize that prosecuting obstruction of justice cases is critical because unchecked obstruction — which allows intentional interference with criminal investigations to go unpunished — puts our whole system of justice at risk. We believe strongly that, but for the OLC memo, the overwhelming weight of professional judgment would come down in favor of prosecution for the conduct outlined in the Mueller Report.

If you are a former federal prosecutor and would like to add your name below, click here. Protect Democracy will update this list daily with new signatories.

Signatories have been vetted to the best of our ability.

 

 

Edited by suddenly shaggy
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2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Trump isn’t capable of killing our democracy alone.  The people that stand by and let him do it are most responsible and the list is getting long. 

Trump will absolutely stay out of prison.  People haven’t fully consider the consequences of putting a former US president in prison.  It would be bad.  Trump deserves to be strung up, tarred, and feathered but there’s the bigger picture to consider.  That’s why, in my view, impeachment is the most viable form of accountability for Trump.  Even if the Senate fails to convict, Trump will always have to live with the stain of being an impeached president.

Moreover, an impeached president has never attempted to run for re-election.  If the democrats can’t spin an impeached Trump to their advantage, they don’t have much business in this game.  Yeah, Trump will play the victim and try to rile up his base but he’s going to do that regardless.

This business of Pelosi floating she wants Trump in prison instead of impeached is just another hollow attempt to distract from her neglecting her duties.  She will have no say on Trump’s criminal liability when he’s out of office. 

Outside of the election, she is the only person that can really hold him accountable now for his crimes and she’s not even making a half assed attempt. 

Trump is either a threat to Democracy and the US due to his actions as the committee members have stated or not.  If he is, then they absolutely have to impeach because that is their job--to serve and protect the US. Now, if they find no objections to his actions, then don't impeach. 

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3 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

Trump isn’t capable of killing our democracy alone.  The people that stand by and let him do it are most responsible and the list is getting long. 

Trump will absolutely stay out of prison.  People haven’t fully consider the consequences of putting a former US president in prison.  It would be bad.  Trump deserves to be strung up, tarred, and feathered but there’s the bigger picture to consider.  That’s why, in my view, impeachment is the most viable form of accountability for Trump.  Even if the Senate fails to convict, Trump will always have to live with the stain of being an impeached president.

Moreover, an impeached president has never attempted to run for re-election.  If the democrats can’t spin an impeached Trump to their advantage, they don’t have much business in this game.  Yeah, Trump will play the victim and try to rile up his base but he’s going to do that regardless.

This business of Pelosi floating she wants Trump in prison instead of impeached is just another hollow attempt to distract from her neglecting her duties.  She will have no say on Trump’s criminal liability when he’s out of office. 

Outside of the election, she is the only person that can really hold him accountable now for his crimes and she’s not even making a half assed attempt. 

I disagree. I think he will be indicted when he leaves office.

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5 hours ago, Blotto said:

Let's see, article one is an opinion piece by a senior editor from the National review. Article two is a simple summary of a Fox network interview with noted Trump apologist Alan Dershowitz. Hardly two different ends of the political spectrum. 

 

Lulz

Besides both of them being civil libertarians, they differ vastly on their political stances. Left vs right.  Both come to same conclusion, that it’s not a solid case of obstruction of justice. 

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2 minutes ago, GRHorn said:

Besides both of them being civil libertarians, they differ vastly on their political stances. Left vs right.  Both come to same conclusion, that it’s not a solid case of obstruction of justice. 

There are over 1,000 current and former prosecutors out there who have very publicly disagreed.

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