US Politics Mega-thread - Page 7865

The special counsel overseeing the investigation into Russia’s role in the 2016 election is interviewing senior intelligence officials as part of a widening probe that now includes an examination of whether President Trump attempted to obstruct justice, officials said.

The move by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to investigate Trump’s conduct marks a major turning point in the nearly year-old FBI investigation, which until recently focused on Russian meddling during the presidential campaign and on whether there was any coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Investigators have also been looking for any evidence of possible financial crimes among Trump associates, officials said.

On June 15 2017 09:24 m4ini wrote:


That's the really funny bit. "Oh no, Mueller is a libtard, cuck (or whatever the current curses are)!!!!1" - but, well. You will not find anyone without some party affiliation in his past. Meaning you either have a democrat (oh no, can't do that!!1) or a republican ("well that seems fair). And we see almost on a weekly basis how well it works if a "party" is allowed to police itself.

Not that a conspiracy theorist would give two shits about the fact that they're literally asking for the impossible.

What i i find interesting though is the very fact that they assume that there's no one out there with integrity regardless of affiliation (as in, no democrat could possibly do a good job). I think it speaks buckets about the characters of those people.

On June 15 2017 09:26 biology]major wrote:


Trump could have played his hand as 45 a million times better, won over both democrats and republicans, and made real change. He has all branches of government on his side. Instead he squanders an opportunity, disgraces the office with his constant lies and hypocrisy, and has not a single shred of decency. Why would I feel sorry for this buffoon? He was given a chance of a lifetime, and has so far been a crooked mess. Sad!

I wouldn't even mind if he was just bad at his job, it's his blatant immorality that irks me. Sure he might not have done anything illegal, but crooked trump and crooked hillary are both cut from same cloth. One has the temperament of a child and the other a grown woman.

On June 15 2017 09:37 rageprotosscheesy wrote:


Let's be honest, anyone put in the position will be biased in some capacity. The difference is that Mueller has a long history of having a stellar reputation. The optics are only negative if you actually believe he's a quack, which is really only isolated to the Fox News die hards and people who believe the DEEP STATE is trying to stop Trump from draining the swamp, whatever the swamp is these days.

Fun fact: my former boss, whose a registered Republican, actually worked with Mueller for a little while. He doesn't believe the reports from the NYT and WaPo but when I asked him if he'll believe Mueller's findings, he said he would 100% believe him.

He was selected by the DoJ because he's probably the single most trustworthy individual around who already knows his way around the block. Anyone with the ability to actually investigate foreign criminal espionage in the US election is going to be connected to a degree of people in Washington.

On June 15 2017 11:54 LegalLord wrote:
Mueller hasn't given me any reason to doubt his integrity - though, as with every FBI director, it's absolutely worth checking their facts if they assert something. I've already talked about Comey.

What's more unfortunate is that Trump's shittiness gives some semblance of relevance to hacks like Adam Schiff and Lindsey Graham and of course John Ramble McCain. Just as Newt Gingrich and ilk have been given new life as Trump surrogates, those hacks also were given new life as some form of Trump "opposition." But deep down they're still hacks.

On June 15 2017 12:16 Danglars wrote:

Everyone will be biased, but close personal friends you've known for years will be unconscionably biased in a serious investigation and should recuse themselves if they have any sense. It makes the investigation anything but independent around a Comey that unilaterally decides things to the chagrin of both parties. I don't know why you twist my words. I say the evidence shows he can't be expected to treat fairly his mentee, I mean for god's sakes Comey might have even committed a crime leaking government property. So I know you want to bring up Fox News and DEEP STATE at every turn, but I see this as more attempts to tar by association because your argument is weak.

On June 15 2017 09:09 Danglars wrote:

Your final paragraph has been obvious for months to anyone outside the media bubble.

For specifically the Mueller bit, you're absolutely right on the smell test for narrative-switching. Secondly, let's not forget that Mueller and Comey are close personal friends as said in interviews and three newspapers. The man at the center, or a key witness of you will, is buddies with the investigator that must impartially judge his credibility as a witness. Only in Washington does friends investigating friends constitute an independent investigation. Mueller should publically step aside from Comey's testimony and obstruction angle to restore America's faith in the investigation.

Donald Trump is reportedly being investigated for potential obstruction of justice by the special counsel looking into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. This marks the first time that the ongoing investigation, which has hung over Trump since his inauguration, has potentially implicated the president himself.

The Washington Post reported on Wednesday night that the federal probe into the Trump campaign’s ties with Russia during the 2016 campaign, being overseen by Robert Mueller, has now expanded into whether the president attempted to thwart that investigation.

The allegations of obstruction of justice apparently center on Trump’s efforts to encourage former FBI director James Comey to drop an investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Comey testified under oath to Congress last week that Trump told him in a private meeting, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.” Trump has since said Comey said things that “weren’t true” while under oath and that he was “100% willing” to testify before Congress.

Flynn, who resigned as national security adviser in February after serving in that position for less than a month, had come under scrutiny for undisclosed conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak and then misleading vice-president Mike Pence about the nature of his contacts with the high-ranking Russian official.

Comey was fired in May by Trump and the president cited “this Russia thing” as a reason for the FBI director’s sacking in an interview with NBC News. The White House had initially claimed Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server was the reason for his firing before Trump contradicted his staff’s statements on the topic.

In addition to his alleged attempts to influence Comey, Trump reportedly intervened with Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, in an attempt to ask him to persuade Comey to back off the FBI investigation of Flynn, a close Trump ally. In addition, Trump allegedly asked both Coats and Adm Mike Rogers, the head of the National Security Agency, to issue statements denying evidence that his campaign colluded with Russia in the 2016 campaign. Both men reportedly declined to do so.

Both the Post and the New York Times are reporting that Mueller is seeking to interview Coats, Rogers and Richard Ledgett, the former deputy director of the National Security Agency, in an attempt to gain more information about potential efforts by Trump to obstruct justice.

On June 15 2017 17:10 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:
Mueller is a stud. No one is above the law, except the guys in space. To quote a famous man "The bill comes due."

FLINT, Mich. — By the time Robert Skidmore, an 85-year-old former auto industry worker, died in late 2015, officials had seen signs for months that Flint was wrestling with outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease, prosecutors say. Yet despite a wave of such cases in 2014 and 2015, no public warning was issued until early 2016.

By then, it was too late for Mr. Skidmore and 11 others: a failing so egregious, prosecutors say, that it amounted to involuntary manslaughter.

Five officials in Michigan, including the head of the state’s health department, were charged on Wednesday. It is the closest investigators have come to directly blaming officials for the deaths and illnesses that occurred when a water contamination crisis enveloped this city.

The tainted water has been tied to lead poisoning in children and prompted officials to begin a costly, yearslong process of replacing pipes all over the city. Even now, officials recommend that only filtered tap water be consumed, and many residents say they can trust only bottled water, given false assurances they once received from state and local officials.

The latest charges reached farther than before into Michigan’s state government, affecting two cabinet-level officials in the administration of Gov. Rick Snyder and leaving open the possibility that the investigation would go higher still.

Nick Lyon, the director of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, was charged with involuntary manslaughter and misconduct in office, felonies that could lead to as much as 20 years in prison. Dr. Eden V. Wells, the chief medical executive for the department, was charged with obstruction of justice and lying to a peace officer, and could face up to seven years if convicted. They are among 15 current and former state and local officials facing criminal charges as a 17-month investigation into Flint’s tainted water supply continues.

An examination of government emails from 2014, 2015 and 2016 revealed that officials were aware of the pattern of Legionnaires’ cases, but that they failed to act swiftly on the revelations and tended to become mired in jurisdictional battles over protocol and responsibility.

Mr. Lyon knew of the Legionnaires’ outbreak by late January 2015, court documents claim, but did not notify the public for another year. At one point, the documents allege, he said that “he can’t save everyone” and that “everyone has to die of something.”

On June 15 2017 17:28 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

The fact that he is going after people with little to no regard of the outcome is what I was getting at. There are far too many people unwilling to do the dirty work. Mueller is not one of those people. Even if nothing shows up, them being investigated casts doubt onto minds.

The Southern Baptist Convention voted to formally "denounce and repudiate" white nationalism and the alt-right movement at the church's annual meeting Wednesday, but only after the denomination's leadership was criticized for initially bypassing the proposal.

The resolution decries "every form of racism, including alt-right white supremacy and every form of racial and ethnic hatred as of the devil."

There was a standing ovation in the crowded convention room in Phoenix after the resolution was passed.

Southern Baptist leaders had declined to consider the resolution the day before, saying they were concerned that the proposed language was too strong. The decision was met with confusion and anger from members of the denomination and the public. And it highlighted divisions in the roughly 15 million member denomination that surfaced during last year's election.

"We regret and apologize for the pain and the confusion that we created for you and a watching world when we decided not to report out a resolution on alt-right racism," Barrett Duke, the resolutions committee chairman, told the gathered crowd of about 5,000. "Please know it wasn't because we don't share your abhorrence of racism and especially the particularly vicious form of racism that has manifested itself in the alt-right movement. We do share your abhorrence."

The original resolution was brought by Dwight McKissic, an African American pastor in Texas. He urged the Southern Baptist Convention to "reject the retrograde ideologies, xenophobic biases, and racial bigotries of the so-called 'Alt-Right' that seek to subvert our government, destabilize society and infect our political system."

The resolution did not originally get approved by a committee while several others, including condemnations of gambling and Planned Parenthood, did. McKissic told The Atlantic it was "a mystery how you can so easily affirm standard beliefs about other things, but we get to white supremacy ... and all of a sudden, we've got a problem here."

The move was criticized by Southern Baptist members and pastors on social media, including Trillia Newbell. Newbell is an author and the director of community outreach at the denomination's Ethics and Religious Liberty commission. She's also African American.

"Was I hurt? Absolutely. Was I discouraged? Yes," she says.

But she says she's encouraged by the denomination's resounding approval of the amended resolution.

"I think it's important that we take every opportunity to denounce and set ourselves apart from anything that is racist or alienates our brothers and sisters in Christ who are people of color, especially given our history," she says.

The Southern Baptist Convention has taken steps to distance itself from that history. The convention was created in 1845 after it split with northern Baptists over the issue of slavery. In 1995, the convention apologized for its role in sustaining and promoting slavery. Ten years later, in 2015, it passed a resolution supporting racial reconciliation.

Newbell says she's heartened by those moves and the denomination's decision to condemn white supremacy.

On June 15 2017 17:42 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Think of the $$$$ the holy spirit could lose.



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