US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7234

On March 31 2017 09:06 Mohdoo wrote:

What an aggressive, weird statement. A big story to tell, but treason is an outrageous claim but he wants immunity

On March 31 2017 09:15 LegalLord wrote:
Lawyer folk among us, what are your thoughts on this condition?

Elkan Abramowitz, high profile white collar criminal defense attorney:

In light of the reported involvement of Flynn in the subject matter of the investigations, it is not at all surprising that he is seeking immunity from Congress before he testifies. Congress needs to coordinate any decision on granting him immunity with law-enforcement personnel, because sometimes congressional immunity can negatively impact a subsequent prosecution as happened in the Oliver North case..

I think it is fairly standard for someone under investigation to seek immunity if the authorities want him to testify. He certainly is a high enough potential target that it would be unlikely for him to get immunity so early in the investigation…

It could only be trouble for President Trump if Flynn testified that he and Trump had incriminating conversations. I agree that the optics in any event are bad for Trump.

Mark Zaid, National Security Expert and attorney:

I can’t imagine if I were his lawyer that I wouldn’t ask for immunity regardless of whether he did anything illegal or not, even if just a perception. A favorite tactic of the FBI is to accuse someone of a false statement because to many law enforcement officers and prosecutors an inconsistency is interpreted as lying. That is then used as leverage to force an individual to comply in other ways, or to be punished for crimes that perhaps cannot be proven, regardless of the validity.

So at this early stage I would suggest the request for immunity is more about skillful lawyering than anything else. That said, the Trump Administration better hope that’s all it is.

Robert Barnes, California Trial Attorney:

Every defense lawyer does it, especially if he thinks the media speculation last week was really a leaked idea from somebody against Trump. He’s trying to pull a Huma — ask for carte blanche immunity for mistakes Flynn may have made (likely unrelated to Russia inquiry, but connected to his belated Turkey lobbying disclosure) in exchange for the lure of testimony Flynn might give. Flynn then doesn’t give any testimony of consequence since he now has full immunity. The reason is because his only risk is perjury once given immunity, so you don’t say anything adverse about anyone else when a smart defense lawyer might convince someone was perjury. The government is well aware of this, and OTHER than Hillary Clinton’s case, they never do this without a proffer. Even then, they usually only give use-and-fruits immunity that is worthless against unrelated charges. No sane lawyer lets his client proffer because a proffer can be used against you if you ever choose to testify in your own defense, except in special cases where you have complete confidence your client has little risk. Flynn is actually sending word he is going to take the 5th on everything (a smart decision given the whole town is out to crucify him), and won’t talk without carte blanche immunity, which he and his lawyer know the government is never going to give (because it requires specialized approvals it won’t get). What looks like a hostile signal to Trump is actually a self-defense signal that Flynn won’t be saying anything at all.

Henry E. Hockeimer, former federal prosecutor:

Since he’s apparently the one putting out the sign “info for immunity” this may be more about a guy simply trying to avoid prosecution. If the government isn’t coming to him it may be because they already know what he would say. They may also agree to hear him out and perhaps give him some amount of leniency but insist on a plea to something…

The other thing to consider is that in a high profile matter like this, his lawyer may simply be telling the government if you want to talk to my guy he’s going to need assurance he won’t be charged – i.e. Immunity. Regardless of whether there is truly something there

On March 31 2017 08:20 biology]major wrote:
Also, another thing that has been bothering me in politics rn besides the gorsuch thing, is how this investigation is both publicly and privately being investigated. Since when is the media, and these committees, leaking pieces of the investigation on a daily basis, and continuing to form a narrative a good idea? Just stop talking about this russia thing until the FBI finishes their job. This is why we don't discuss ongoing investigations, because trump has already lost even though a conclusion hasn't even been reached yet. Everyday, a narrative is painted based on an INCOMPLETE evidence.

Receiving bits and pieces of the pie is both damaging and unfair to the persons being investigated, we need the entire thing to make conclusions.

On March 31 2017 06:58 On_Slaught wrote:
What am I missing here. What do Democrats possibly gain from fighting on the Supreme Court nomination in what is a literally unwinnable battle. The end results of fighting is only that you make Trump's Administration look stronger because they beat you. If you simply acquiesce and admit that he's a fine qualified candidate and move on and let the story die then you can move on and focus on battles you can actually win.

On March 31 2017 07:12 a_flayer wrote:

It's the continuous coverage of day-to-day developments that makes me somewhat uncomfortable. Intelligence information keeps dripping out slowly in a way that really sets a narrative. The slow drip allows people to get used to the idea, and then towards the end you bring down the hammer with no one left unconvinced. It's almost as if the democrats and the media are trying to convince the public to go to war with Iraq impeach the president in a slow cook kind of way, rather than trying to find out what actually happened. It still seems fairly unlikely to me that Trump was involved in the Russian interference in the way that Nixon was involved in Watergate. And I'm still not at all convinced that the Russians actually had any notable influence in the elections themselves. They certainly have a shitton of influence right now in terms of destabilization of the American democracy though, haha. It's nice how the main stream media always complies with the scaremongering.

I just want to get to the end conclusion of the investigation, or at least have things released in somewhat sensible sized chunks, rather than these tiny little leaks of almost non-information. We already knew about the Russian social media bots and the fake news from a large variety of sources - from self-admitted fake news operators, to Macedonian for-profit fake news, and Breitbart fake news, amongst others. You can possibly connect Breitbart and some others with Russian investors and then link it all together through their long-term plans regarding "Foundations of Geopolitics", but that's hardly going to be on Trump. Trump was complicit in it only in the way that a large portion of Americans are susceptible to that kind of nationalism. Just like Brexit happened because the Brits are 'just that way', which is what the Foundations of Geopolitics is based on - a realistic estimate of national demographics and their tendencies. The pendulum between globalism and nationalism swings back and forth, just as it does with the whole functioning/non-functioning government and anti-banking thing that Plansix described earlier. Maybe the Russians gave it a little push this time, big whoop.

Besides, this slow continuous drip really does drown out a lot of other things that should receive coverage. We're not hearing nearly as much about the liberation of Mosul (there's been nearly 4000 civilian deaths in just February and March) in the way we did about the liberation of Aleppo (where over 1600 civilians died at the hands of the Russians and the SAA between September 2015 and November 2016). We barely heard about the ISP data selling stuff, or that court case regarding printer cartridges which could potentially screw shit up again.

On March 31 2017 11:11 LegalLord wrote:

Source

Double down, Trumpman, double down. It's a double win.

On March 31 2017 11:25 Danglars wrote:

Nobody told me Juncker was trying to out-clown Trump. He's firing back about Brexit by threatening American secessions? Ohio and Austin are absolutely going to love this European's support rofl.

On March 31 2017 11:54 xDaunt wrote:

I thought it was fucking hilarious that he listed Ohio as one of the states that would secede.

I understand - from former officials - that from 2013-16, Steele gave the US government extensive information on Russia and Ukraine.

This was work done for private clients, but which Steele wanted the US authorities to see.

One former senior official who saw these reports told me: "It was found to be of value by the people whose job it was to look at Russia every day.

"They said things like, 'How can he get this so quickly? This fits exactly with what we have.' It was validated many times."

Another who dealt with this material in government said: "Sometimes he would get spun by somebody. [But] it was always 80% there."

None of these reports touched on the nature of Trump's relationship with Russia.

But last June, Steele began sending pages of what would later be called his dossier.

In light of his earlier work, the US intelligence community saw him as "credible" (their highest praise).

The FBI thought the same; they had worked with Steele going back to his days in MI6.

...

In the report, Steele spoke of an "established operational liaison between the TRUMP team and the Kremlin… an intelligence exchange had been running between them for at least 8 years."

Members of the Obama administration believe, based on analysis they saw from the intelligence community, that the information exchange claimed by Steele continued into the election.

"This is a three-headed operation," said one former official, setting out the case, based on the intelligence: Firstly, hackers steal damaging emails from senior Democrats. Secondly, the stories based on this hacked information appear on Twitter and Facebook, posted by thousands of automated "bots", then on Russia's English-language outlets, RT and Sputnik, then right-wing US "news" sites such as Infowars and Breitbart, then Fox and the mainstream media. Thirdly, Russia downloads the online voter rolls.

The voter rolls are said to fit into this because of "microtargeting". Using email, Facebook and Twitter, political advertising can be tailored very precisely: individual messaging for individual voters.

"You are stealing the stuff and pushing it back into the US body politic," said the former official, "you know where to target that stuff when you're pushing it back."

This would take co-operation with the Trump campaign, it is claimed.

...

Increasingly, the American people are being asked to choose between two unpalatable versions of events: abuse of power by one president or treason that put another in the White House.

It cannot be both.