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A story about a pathetic man's downfall [34 Felony Convictions]


Francisco 2.0

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31 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Of course, the flip side of it is that using a Special Counsel will only satisfy rational people and rational people don't believe there's an appearance of impropriety, much less an actual conflict of interest, because unlike Trump's DOJ, Biden's is independent.

This is all you needed to say.  There is NO benefit from another special counsel appointment, only further delay.  No matter what, Trump and his followers are going to be screaming "WiTCh HuNT!1!!!"  The good news is that Fox News and the DeSantis wing of the GQP may not carry Trump's water this time around, so let's just fucking get to it, shall we?

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1 minute ago, Pig Bellmont said:

It’s a political deflection by Garland. Trying to give more legitimacy to the indictments. 

I'm not sure I'd call it a "deflection," with that negative connotation.  

We have Special Counsel rules for just this type of situation and I think an AG in this situation bypasses them at his peril, even if it seems kind of pointless in the moment.

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Apparently the SC is Jack Smith and there were 3 separate grand juries empaneled today. So I don't know if it is going any faster or not but I don't think this slow plays it for what it's worth.

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8 minutes ago, G650 said:

Apparently the SC is Jack Smith and there were 3 separate grand juries empaneled today. So I don't know if it is going any faster or not but I don't think this slow plays it for what it's worth.

He's got no wiki page, but is the same Jack Smith that was head counsel  (not sure the term they use over there) at the Hague for awhile years and years ago?  

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Don't have the twitters, but glad to see his credentials literally include prosecuting espionage.  I mean, that's no match for Trump's defense team specializing in construction torts and real estate-backed securities.....but it's something, no?  

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19 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Not sure what that "rare Espionage Act convictions" is all about.  There are a bunch of them.

Falcon & Snowman, Walker, Hanssen, Ames, Manning, Winner etc. etc.

Breach is a great flick for those who haven’t seen it. About the case against Hanssen

Edited by hobbes2702
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8 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Not sure what that "rare Espionage Act convictions" is all about.  There are a bunch of them.

Falcon & Snowman, Walker, Hanssen, Ames, Manning, Winner etc. etc.

Everything is about context. Quick googling shows about 55 convictions ever since the act was created in 1917 (100 years). That reporter is a criminal justice expert so I’m guessing if you compare that to most other criminal statutes (drugs, violent crime) it’s a small number. 

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Good point, it's a ratio thing.  So few people have access to that type of information to begin with so the available pool of possible criminals is so small.  Unlike federally prosecuted drug or financial crimes which number in the tens of thousands simply because money and cocaine are everywhere.  Well they used to be, now Don Jr. is fucking hoarding them all.  Fucking hold-out, share!  

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54 minutes ago, Neonmoon said:

Appointing a special counsel just gives him someone/something else to sue as a delay tactic. It’s pointless 

Feels a lot like Garland is just afraid of taking responsibility for doing his job. ‘This way I won’t get accused of being politically motivated.’ The fuck you won’t, pussy. Indict the motherfucker. He’s a goddamn criminal and you know it. 

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On 11/17/2022 at 9:28 AM, Old Freak Nasty said:

They'll have to coalesce around one before primary season begins.  I have my doubts about that.  Right now they think it's DeSantis but he's 44 and I think he's not going to run because his odds of winning the general election are low.  But if it's not him all the roaches, many of whom have already been humiliated by Trump, will announce.

Cruz, Christie, Cotton, Scott, Pence, etc.  All the guys who have no chance.

I think their best bet will be a woman, someone who is respected by the GQP as well as could appeal to the archetype that voted for Youngkin.  Maybe Haley.  It will be harder for the sledgehammer type approach he takes to these other slimy old white men to be as well received on a woman.  Will be interesting to see if one wants to take on the shithead.

She is still eating shit sandwiches for Team GOP. If not, why stump for this moron?

Herschel Walker gets boost from Nikki Haley with Asian American voters -  Fresh Take Georgia

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54 minutes ago, Gap03 said:

This is all you needed to say.  There is NO benefit from another special counsel appointment, only further delay.  No matter what, Trump and his followers are going to be screaming "WiTCh HuNT!1!!!"  The good news is that Fox News and the DeSantis wing of the GQP may not carry Trump's water this time around, so let's just fucking get to it, shall we?

Fox News will totally express outrage over this and decry it as being politically motivated. There’s not a chance in hell that they’ll ever defend anything that happens under a Democratic administration. That’s not part of their business model.

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12 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Feels a lot like Garland is just afraid of taking responsibility for doing his job. ‘This way I won’t get accused of being politically motivated.’ The fuck you won’t, pussy. Indict the motherfucker. He’s a goddamn criminal and you know it. 

I can't recall all the details, but I read a recent article that pointed out several benefits for a special counsel appointment. I think one is the fact the while a president can change AGs, he cannot fire a special counsel. Important if the litigation drags into 2024.

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On 11/17/2022 at 11:49 AM, tx 3 putt said:


Eric could be the fall guy in the trump org criminal trial

 

MTG is shooting up the vp list !

Can you imagine when the FBI busts down the doors a Lard a Lago (again) and they all blame Eric?  It will be glorious.  The feds kick down door after door, until they find him drinking from a toilet bowl in Tiffany's en suite bathroom.  She yells at him about forgetting to flush first, again...

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The Mueller Investigation was so vast and nuanced that he seemed like a logical pick, but that's a fair criticism.  It involved so many agencies, countries, individuals, and jurisdictions that his reputation as a point-guard for such broad investigations was seen as an asset at the time.  He was really supposed to be conductor of vast and savvy orchestra with the personality of a shoe-horn.  

Why I like Mr. Smith is the scope is incredibly narrow.  He has dealt with people that took stuff with big red letters on it to places that stuff shouldn't go and/or shared it with people that shouldn't be looking at stuff with those big red letters on it.  Now, the Executive Privilege question and when/how he took it is the ambiguous part,  but this thing has far fewer moving parts than Mueller/Russia with far, far, far fewer players involved and questions of jurisdiction and venue are almost non-existent (almost!).  

 

Think of the movie "A Civil Action"...Mueller & Co. was the whole industrial company's massive legal team fumbling around trying to look smart and justify their massive budget.  Mr. Smith is Bobby Duvall's character, the man who can slyly sneak in the back door and just handle what needs handling.  

But yeah, 18 months from now...we're all gonna be going, "What the fuck was that all about?"  

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8 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Forgive me for not getting my hopes up. I was told what a good pick Robert Mueller was.

Mueller did a perfectly fine job, your expectations were out of whack.

No Special Counsel was going to charge Trump or very likely even recommend it for exactly the same reasons Mueller didn't.

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4 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Forgive me for not getting my hopes up. I was told what a good pick Robert Mueller was.

Understandable. Smith is/was part of the Special Prosecution Office at The Hague looking at war crimes in Kosovo. He will have two cases: the insurrection and misuse of government documents. I will be interested in the team he puts together.

Merrick the Meek was probably not the best to lead the prosecution.

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5 minutes ago, Horndog said:

I can't recall all the details, but I read a recent article that pointed out several benefits for a special counsel appointment. I think one is the fact the while a president can change AGs, he cannot fire a special counsel. Important if the litigation drags into 2024.

The president can fire the special counsel. It’s not an independent counsel like Ken Starr.   Clinton couldn’t tire Starr. It’s my understanding that whatever law that provided for an independent counsel was enacted after Watergate and allowed to expire after the Starr Commission. I’m not sure that wasn’t one of the primary goals of the Starr Commission in the first place. Trump wanted to fire Mueller but was talked out of it more than once. Instead he had his partisan AG misrepresent Mueller’s findings to the American people and delay release of the report so that he could manufacture a narrative that contradicted the results of the investigation. 

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6 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Mueller did a perfectly fine job, your expectations were out of whack.

No Special Counsel was going to charge Trump or very likely even recommend it for exactly the same reasons Mueller didn't.

But he could have right?  I'll never forget the Bill Maher show after the Mueller report came out. 

"Mueller breaks with precedent and indicts Trump" was a fake newspaper headline.  That's what SHOULD have happened, in a sane world. 

I don't want to get into it with you because you'll just defend the institution and the rule of law and blah blah blah and you're probably right, BUT that doesn't make it ok.

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4 hours ago, Biff Tannen said:

I don't want to get into it with you because you'll just defend the institution and the rule of law and blah blah blah and you're probably right, BUT that doesn't make it ok.

Change the policy that an acting POTUS  cannot be indicted. Fuck the imperial presidency.

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16 minutes ago, Willfully Horn said:

Change the policy that an acting PPTUS cannot be indicted. Fuck the imperial presidency.

The policy is derived from a legal analysis, it's not just made up.  The legal analysis has been the same for about 50 years, since the Nixon administration first considered it.

And, I suppose cynically, no administration, even if it were inclined to reassess the legal analysis, would open itself to criminal prosecution by changing the policy.

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28 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

The president can fire the special counsel. It’s not an independent counsel like Ken Starr.   Clinton couldn’t tire Starr. It’s my understanding that whatever law that provided for an independent counsel was enacted after Watergate and allowed to expire after the Starr Commission. I’m not sure that wasn’t one of the primary goals of the Starr Commission in the first place. Trump wanted to fire Mueller but was talked out of it more than once. Instead he had his partisan AG misrepresent Mueller’s findings to the American people and delay release of the report so that he could manufacture a narrative that contradicted the results of the investigation. 

The president cannot fire the special counsel.  Only the attorney general can terminate the special counsel and must report to Congress his reasons for doing so.  Trump could attempt to browbeat the AG, or in that case AAG Rosenstein into firing Mueller, but he cannot unilaterally fire a Special Counsel.

Quote

(d) The Special Counsel may be disciplined or removed from office only by the personal action of the Attorney General. The Attorney General may remove a Special Counsel for misconduct, dereliction of duty, incapacity, conflict of interest, or for other good cause, including violation of Departmental policies. The Attorney General shall inform the Special Counsel in writing of the specific reason for his or her removal.

You are correct that the current Special Counsel rules are not the same, nor as independent as the Independent Counsel statute under which Starr was appointed. Starr answered only to a panel of the DC Circuit.

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37 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

But he could have right?  I'll never forget the Bill Maher show after the Mueller report came out. 

"Mueller breaks with precedent and indicts Trump" was a fake newspaper headline.  That's what SHOULD have happened, in a sane world. 

I don't want to get into it with you because you'll just defend the institution and the rule of law and blah blah blah and you're probably right, BUT that doesn't make it ok.

Not defending, explaining.

Under the Special Counsel rules, 

Quote

(a) A Special Counsel shall comply with the rules, regulations, procedures, practices and policies of the Department of Justice. He or she shall consult with appropriate offices within the Department for guidance with respect to established practices, policies and procedures of the Department, including ethics and security regulations and procedures. Should the Special Counsel conclude that the extraordinary circumstances of any particular decision would render compliance with required review and approval procedures by the designated Departmental component inappropriate, he or she may consult directly with the Attorney General.

Mueller did not have the ability to dispense with the non-prosecution policy without the consent of the AG/Rosenstein as well as, presumably, the Office of Legal Counsel, which established the policy.

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2 minutes ago, The Dog said:

This is going to be decided in the courts rather than the US Congress. Total apples and oranges situation. We aren't talking about charging a sitting president but a private citizen who used to be president.

Yep, there's no barrier to indicting him now.  And trying him now.

There remains an unanswered legal question though.  If he is elected to, and assumes office, what happens to any ongoing criminal prosecution, which might include appeals of a conviction?

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5 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Somehow, Evangelicals coming to the realization that "Trump used us!"   is so on-brand:

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-evangelicals-2024_n_637732cbe4b08013a8b525cf

 

Quid Pro Quo.  

Playing the victim card again.

Jews,
Romans,
Sultan
Non-Whites
Women
Non-Straights

All apparently a threat to the white male, and an omnipotent God, who needs victimized white men to take of the banner of the Cultural War.

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Just now, Neonmoon said:

What’s to stop the next Republican President from appointing a new attorney general and that AG firing the special counsel? In fact, that’s probably the likely outcome, even if Trump is indicted. 

Nothing.  Assuming the Special Counsel is still operating in 2024 and a GOP president/AG has the guts to do it.

But, there's a penalty to pay.  Bork was still paying for the midnight massacre until he died.

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

Mueller did a perfectly fine job, your expectations were out of whack.

No Special Counsel was going to charge Trump or very likely even recommend it for exactly the same reasons Mueller didn't.

I’m not sure what Mueller might have done to earn your disfavor.

I think he should’ve interviewed Trump in person, under oath, not in writing. Fuck his lawyers’ complaints that it was a “perjury trap” because Trump is a compulsive liar incapable of sticking to the truth. Give him the opportunity for his Col. Jessup moment.

Mueller should’ve looked into Trump’s businesses and his tax returns. I recall that Mueller didn’t because he thought the DoJ was and the DoJ didn’t because they thought Mueller was. As a result nobody did.

Mueller should have made a recommendation on obstruction of justice. Even Trump’s lawyers were surprised that he didn’t. Mueller was way too timid in his report and in his response to Barr’s misrepresentation of it. Saying that he couldn’t say the President didn’t commit obstruction of justice was a pretty weak way to express his findings. I don’t know what the better expression would have been but I’m sure there was one. And again, there are multiple reports that Trump’s own lawyers were surprised Mueller didn’t say more. Then they whooped it up and gave each other high fives.

Barr cheated us by lying about the report. Congress let us down by not impeaching Trump for successfully obstructing justice. And because the Senate Republicans were corrupt, impeachment, while justified, wouldn’t have resulted in a conviction anyway. I don’t know but it seems like a conclusion from Mueller like, “if it was anyone other than the President of the United States, I would recommend prosecution.” Would that have been so bad? And when Mueller was called to testify, he should’ve done more than just read from his report. He should have said out loud that Bill Barr had lied to the American people about his findings. He should’ve said go to this website, download it, and read it for yourself:

http://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

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16 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Nothing.  Assuming the Special Counsel is still operating in 2024 and a GOP president/AG has the guts to do it.

But, there's a penalty to pay.  Bork was still paying for the midnight massacre until he died.

I'm assuming Acting AG "Big Dick Toilet Guy" isn't going worry too much about that cost ...

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1 hour ago, Willfully Horn said:

Change the policy that an acting PPTUS cannot be indicted. Fuck the imperial presidency.

Say, “Well, it’s really more of a guideline.”

When you’re dealing with a corrupt, criminal who doesn’t allow himself to be constrained by established protocols, norms, standards, traditions, laws, or the Constitution, perhaps an extraordinary response is entirely justified. 

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1 hour ago, Pig Bellmont said:

lol that’s not how this works.gif

See? Nothing will ever stop him from claiming that every examination of his misbehavior is politically motivated. If you were a Republican then you’d ignore his crimes. If not then you’re a RINO. And if you’re a Democrat then you’re only investigating/accusing/charging his crimes because he’s a Republican. The fact that he’s a criminal has nothing to do with it. There can be no honest look at his crimes. 

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Mueller, you say?

“A Republican political strategist was convicted of illegally helping a Russian businessman contribute to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.

Jesse Benton, 44, was pardoned by Trumpin 2020 for a different campaign finance crime, months before he was indicted again on six counts related to facilitating an illegal foreign campaign donation. He was found guilty Thursday on all six counts.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/11/17/benton-trump-russian-vasilenko-guilty/

 

IDGAF about legal analysis. If a POTUS is as dirty as was TFG, they need to be held accountable. Turn the principle into law. No more “unindicted co-conspirators.”

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41 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

which might include appeals of a conviction?

lol might.  when he dies there will be dozens of various appeals still pending on his shit.

26 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Nothing.  Assuming the Special Counsel is still operating in 2024 and a GOP president/AG has the guts to do it.

2025, if that makes anyone feel any better.

the sad thing is that in the past 250 years or so, any whiff of an investigation like this would absolutely sink a candidate.  other gop contenders would be lobbing grenades at him constantly.  what are the odds that desantis or anyone else even uses it to attack him?  zero?  is there a number lower than zero? 

today should be a great day for the desantis campaign and they're probably not even discussing it.

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1 hour ago, TwiceHorn said:

The president cannot fire the special counsel.  Only the attorney general can terminate the special counsel and must report to Congress his reasons for doing so.  Trump could attempt to browbeat the AG, or in that case AAG Rosenstein into firing Mueller, but he cannot unilaterally fire a Special Counsel.

You are correct that the current Special Counsel rules are not the same, nor as independent as the Independent Counsel statute under which Starr was appointed. Starr answered only to a panel of the DC Circuit.

Okay, yeah, he can order the AG to do it and just keep working on down the line until he finds his Bork. 

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