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On May 02 2019 19:09 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2019 09:17 xDaunt wrote:On May 02 2019 07:14 JimmiC wrote:On May 02 2019 06:43 xDaunt wrote:On May 02 2019 06:22 JimmiC wrote:
You have probably explained this already so my apologies. But why is Mueller so biased against Trump? I've talked about it before, but the fact of Mueller's bias becomes quite clear when you look at the entire body of work that he has done as special counsel. There has been nothing that he has done as special counsel that has benefited Trump. Every action that he has taken has been tailor made to hurt Trump. This is most obvious when reviewing the structure of the report. But you can even see the bias continuing with this letter to Barr nonsense that came up last night. Why exactly is Mueller writing a letter to Barr to complain about Barr's summary letter? Did Mueller object to the accuracy of what Barr said? Nope! He complained about the political perception of the impact of Barr's letter upon Mueller's investigation. Let me repeat it: a purportedly unbiased and fair law enforcement officer cared about politics. And crucially, Mueller seemed only to care because the political considerations seemed to favor Trump. Place this in contrast with Mueller's outright refusal to come out and say that there was no evidence that Trump illegally conspired with the Russians despite knowing that there was no such evidence almost as soon as he was appointed special counsel, and Mueller's bias is undeniable. As for the cause of this bias, I don't know. And if he is and had the opportunity (as Barr said he could) to recommend indicting why didnt he? Because, like I have said before, the charge was bullshit on the merits and wouldn't withstand scrutiny in court. As an outsider it appears to me like Mueller attempted to not be biased. If anything since he is a republican I would think that he would be biased for Trump. I do get that Trump is a "outsider" but he is appointing the judges reps want, doing the tax shit they want, why would he want to get rid of Trump.
What is Trump doing that he would want to stop? I've written about this at length, and don't have time to go into it again right now. But it is an absolute mistake to look at Trump through a republican vs democrat lens. Opposition to Trump goes far beyond the political parties and touches huge international interests. All bureaucrats care about politics and the people. It is part of their job to do so and it greatly effects the ability to do the job. I disagree that he only thought Barr's summary was bad politically, what he wrote to me says he disagreed with the summary itself. If I spent months and months working on something and someone summarized it in a way that I disagreed with I would also be mad. There's no basis for this disagreement. You can read the report and you can read the summary and you can compare the both of them. Barr's summary accurately captures of the bottom line findings of Mueller's report. Hell, this should be obvious from the fact that Barr liberally quotes Mueller's report in his letter. There is no basis to dispute this, which is why there is no doubt that what Mueller really cares about is how Barr manipulated the optics surrounding the release of the report and undid Mueller's intended effect. How is he 'liberally quoting' when he doesn't even put a full sentence in there? quotes that leave out huge parts of context? Compare the both of them? Show nested quote +
[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
or Show nested quote +
The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities
Stuff like this made you guys say stuff like ' he had literally nothing about Russian connections or he would have stated so'. Well he did state so but Barr left it out. His quotes and context were so bad that Mueller wrote him a letter, which did not as your earlier stated complain about the media coverage, but about the misrepresentation of their work and conclusions. Show nested quote +On May 02 2019 19:02 Taelshin wrote:
Ehh didn't Barr give Mueller the chance to look over his statement before he released it? it was just a summary. Also why the hell does it matter what Barr's summary said?, we've got the full report. Its like you people are angry he gave us a glimpse of things to come, and then gave us the whole picture, and now your mad that he gave us a glimpse.
No Mueller did not review Barrs letter. Mueller already provided executive summaries for release cleared of potential redaction material. But Barr went his own way. We are mad Barr's glimpse was clearly a way to dampen the conduct in the report so that the conclusion could be that the report 'totally clears the president' and this conclusion is the one that stuck with the trumpists. You can even see it in this thread with them referring back to Barr's letter in a circular way to disprove what the actual report says, because "Barr said so"
I don't understand why this is so hard. Barr's letter had one goal: convey the bottom line conclusions of Mueller's report. Barr did this faithfully. He quoted Mueller's conclusions. The only thing that Barr added was his own decision not to prosecute Trump for obstruction because Mueller failed to make that decision himself. There was literally no one left other than Barr to make that decision. Everyone who says that "Mueller left it up to Congress" is missing embarrassingly basic tenets of Constitutional separation of powers issues. Congress has no criminal indictment powers. Only the executive branch (the DOJ) does. Likewise, the executive branch has no impeachment powers. That's the role of the legislative branch. Barr's decision that there was no crime has no bearing on whether Congress can impeach. If Congress wants to try impeaching Trump despite there being no crime, it's free to do so. It would be political suicide, but there's nothing stopping them.
Thus, with all of that in mind, we come back to the obvious conclusion that I have been making all long: the reason why Democrats and Mueller are angry with Barr is that he has blunted their ability to weaponize the ridiculous Mueller report against Trump. Barr got out in front of the narrative by revealing that Mueller's report did not find any prosecutable crimes and has proceeded to rub everyone's nose in that unavoidable fact, notwithstanding the desire of Democrats to use all of the noise in the rest of the report (again, none of which is criminal) against Trump. Stated another way, the Democrats are throwing a political temper tantrum. If they're acting this badly now, I can't wait to see how badly they act when Barr starts indicting some of the investigators. Nellie Ohr is the latest to receive a criminal referral as of last night. More will be coming after the OIG report.
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Here is something that popped into my head.
Barr stated yesterday that he was surprised Mueller didn't make a decision on Obstruction of justice.
Therefor either Barr doesn't know there is a standing guideline not to indict the President, or he doesn't care about it.
Surely an AG should know such a guideline exists when there is an ongoing investigation into the President. so the logical conclusion is he does't care about it.
Is it within his power to remove this guideline?
If so could Congress tell him to do so and then get Mueller to make an actual decision?
(ofcourse none of that is going to happen because Barr likely did know about the guideline and did know that Mueller wasn't going to give an indictment regardless of evidence but its an interesting line to follow and to ask Barr in front of the House committee, assuming he ever shows up there).
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The narrative is simple for people to understand. Barr’s job is to clear the president and present the report is the best light possible because that is how he views his job as AG. Many members of congress and the DOJ disagree with this stance, but Barr has the job.
But the problem for Barr is the lengths he needs to go to defend Trump run counter to how most law enforcement, attorneys and judges view obstruction. One clear example is how the president praised Manafort for not flipping. The Barr saying the language the president used was acceptable and within the bounds of what is allowed by the highest office runs counter to everything legal experts understand about criminal cases. The anyone in an elected office encouraging a specific outcome in a case, especially if they have the power to influence the law enforcement agencies bring that case, is considered tainting or influencing the outcome. This is why presidents have stayed so far away from the FBI and DOJ in the past, so not negatively impact their work.
On top of that, Barr argument that the President can end any investigation that he FEELS is unfair or unjust is counter to the basic framework of our legal system. The whole point of the legal system is that it is supposed to be based on facts, evidence and the burden of proof. Even though it is flawed and personal bias does influence the matter, the framework is that it should not happen. Barr’s argument is that facts shouldn’t matter for the President. That if the President feels people were treated unfairly, or someone can convince the president of that, then the rules of law no longer apply and the president is free to end the law enforcement action. And this is consistent with how Barr handled the Iran Contra pardons too. In his world, the President(so long as they are a Republican) effectively a king unless he is restrained by all of congress.
On May 03 2019 00:07 Gorsameth wrote:
Here is something that popped into my head.
Barr stated yesterday that he was surprised Mueller didn't make a decision on Obstruction of justice.
Therefor either Barr doesn't know there is a standing guideline not to indict the President, or he doesn't care about it.
Surely an AG should know such a guideline exists when there is an ongoing investigation into the President. so the logical conclusion is he does't care about it.
Is it within his power to remove this guideline?
If so could Congress tell him to do so and then get Mueller to make an actual decision?
(ofcourse none of that is going to happen because Barr likely did know about the guideline and did know that Mueller wasn't going to give an indictment regardless of evidence but its an interesting line to follow and to ask Barr in front of the House committee, assuming he ever shows up there).
I don’t believe that he was surprised at all. That is a talking point to make it seem like Mueller should have come to a conclusion and didn’t. It is just a way for him to further his argument that because Mueller didn’t make a conclusion, it was his job to do it. Barr is effectively taking a complex problem about the limits of law enforcement to restrain the highest office dumbing it down cable TV news.
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On May 03 2019 00:07 Gorsameth wrote:
Here is something that popped into my head.
Barr stated yesterday that he was surprised Mueller didn't make a decision on Obstruction of justice.
Therefor either Barr doesn't know there is a standing guideline not to indict the President, or he doesn't care about it.
Surely an AG should know such a guideline exists when there is an ongoing investigation into the President. so the logical conclusion is he does't care about it.
Is it within his power to remove this guideline?
If so could Congress tell him to do so and then get Mueller to make an actual decision?
(ofcourse none of that is going to happen because Barr likely did know about the guideline and did know that Mueller wasn't going to give an indictment regardless of evidence but its an interesting line to follow and to ask Barr in front of the House committee, assuming he ever shows up there).
This is an incorrect reading of the OLC guidelines. The OLC guideline did not prevent Mueller from making a decision on prosecution or a finding that there was a prosecutable crime. All that OLC guideline says is that the president cannot be indicted while in office. Presuming that this is enforceable (certainly not guaranteed), a president could still be indicted for the crime after leaving office. So when Barr says that he is "surprised" that Mueller didn't make a decision on obstruction, this is the legal backdrop. There wasn't a good reason for Mueller not to make a decision. Mueller was simply playing politics. And Barr knows it.
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On May 03 2019 00:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:07 Gorsameth wrote:
Here is something that popped into my head.
Barr stated yesterday that he was surprised Mueller didn't make a decision on Obstruction of justice.
Therefor either Barr doesn't know there is a standing guideline not to indict the President, or he doesn't care about it.
Surely an AG should know such a guideline exists when there is an ongoing investigation into the President. so the logical conclusion is he does't care about it.
Is it within his power to remove this guideline?
If so could Congress tell him to do so and then get Mueller to make an actual decision?
(ofcourse none of that is going to happen because Barr likely did know about the guideline and did know that Mueller wasn't going to give an indictment regardless of evidence but its an interesting line to follow and to ask Barr in front of the House committee, assuming he ever shows up there). This is an incorrect reading of the OLC guidelines. The OLC guideline did not prevent Mueller from making a decision on prosecution or a finding that there was a prosecutable crime. All that OLC guideline says is that the president cannot be indicted while in office. Presuming that this is enforceable (certainly not guaranteed), a president could still be indicted for the crime after leaving office. So when Barr says that he is "surprised" that Mueller didn't make a decision on obstruction, this is the legal backdrop. There wasn't a good reason for Mueller not to make a decision. Mueller was simply playing politics. And Barr knows it. fairness guidelines. Don't make a judgement when you can't indict and that person can't defend himself in court.
Its in the report.
Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice
Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply
an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The
threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct
"constitutes a federal offense." U.S . Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice
Manual) . Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges
can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a
speedy and public trial , with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An
individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In
contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought ,
affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name -clearing before an impartial adjudicator.5
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On May 03 2019 00:26 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 03 2019 00:07 Gorsameth wrote:
Here is something that popped into my head.
Barr stated yesterday that he was surprised Mueller didn't make a decision on Obstruction of justice.
Therefor either Barr doesn't know there is a standing guideline not to indict the President, or he doesn't care about it.
Surely an AG should know such a guideline exists when there is an ongoing investigation into the President. so the logical conclusion is he does't care about it.
Is it within his power to remove this guideline?
If so could Congress tell him to do so and then get Mueller to make an actual decision?
(ofcourse none of that is going to happen because Barr likely did know about the guideline and did know that Mueller wasn't going to give an indictment regardless of evidence but its an interesting line to follow and to ask Barr in front of the House committee, assuming he ever shows up there). This is an incorrect reading of the OLC guidelines. The OLC guideline did not prevent Mueller from making a decision on prosecution or a finding that there was a prosecutable crime. All that OLC guideline says is that the president cannot be indicted while in office. Presuming that this is enforceable (certainly not guaranteed), a president could still be indicted for the crime after leaving office. So when Barr says that he is "surprised" that Mueller didn't make a decision on obstruction, this is the legal backdrop. There wasn't a good reason for Mueller not to make a decision. Mueller was simply playing politics. And Barr knows it. fairness guidelines. Don't make a judgement when you can't indict and that person can't defend himself in court. Its in the report. Show nested quote +Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice
Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply
an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The
threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct
"constitutes a federal offense." U.S . Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice
Manual) . Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges
can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a
speedy and public trial , with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An
individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In
contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought ,
affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name -clearing before an impartial adjudicator.5
That's the cover story. It doesn't change the accuracy of anything that I said. And again, the fact that I'm right becomes very apparent once you dig into the details of what the obstruction charges might be. They're all bullshit, because there was no underlying crime, Trump didn't actually do anything that materially impeded any investigation, and he had legitimate reasons for taking the limited actions that he did take. None of the chronicled episodes of obstruction would hold up in court. Mueller knows this, as does Barr.
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On May 02 2019 22:43 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 02 2019 19:09 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:On May 02 2019 09:17 xDaunt wrote:On May 02 2019 07:14 JimmiC wrote:On May 02 2019 06:43 xDaunt wrote:On May 02 2019 06:22 JimmiC wrote:
You have probably explained this already so my apologies. But why is Mueller so biased against Trump? I've talked about it before, but the fact of Mueller's bias becomes quite clear when you look at the entire body of work that he has done as special counsel. There has been nothing that he has done as special counsel that has benefited Trump. Every action that he has taken has been tailor made to hurt Trump. This is most obvious when reviewing the structure of the report. But you can even see the bias continuing with this letter to Barr nonsense that came up last night. Why exactly is Mueller writing a letter to Barr to complain about Barr's summary letter? Did Mueller object to the accuracy of what Barr said? Nope! He complained about the political perception of the impact of Barr's letter upon Mueller's investigation. Let me repeat it: a purportedly unbiased and fair law enforcement officer cared about politics. And crucially, Mueller seemed only to care because the political considerations seemed to favor Trump. Place this in contrast with Mueller's outright refusal to come out and say that there was no evidence that Trump illegally conspired with the Russians despite knowing that there was no such evidence almost as soon as he was appointed special counsel, and Mueller's bias is undeniable. As for the cause of this bias, I don't know. And if he is and had the opportunity (as Barr said he could) to recommend indicting why didnt he? Because, like I have said before, the charge was bullshit on the merits and wouldn't withstand scrutiny in court. As an outsider it appears to me like Mueller attempted to not be biased. If anything since he is a republican I would think that he would be biased for Trump. I do get that Trump is a "outsider" but he is appointing the judges reps want, doing the tax shit they want, why would he want to get rid of Trump.
What is Trump doing that he would want to stop? I've written about this at length, and don't have time to go into it again right now. But it is an absolute mistake to look at Trump through a republican vs democrat lens. Opposition to Trump goes far beyond the political parties and touches huge international interests. All bureaucrats care about politics and the people. It is part of their job to do so and it greatly effects the ability to do the job. I disagree that he only thought Barr's summary was bad politically, what he wrote to me says he disagreed with the summary itself. If I spent months and months working on something and someone summarized it in a way that I disagreed with I would also be mad. There's no basis for this disagreement. You can read the report and you can read the summary and you can compare the both of them. Barr's summary accurately captures of the bottom line findings of Mueller's report. Hell, this should be obvious from the fact that Barr liberally quotes Mueller's report in his letter. There is no basis to dispute this, which is why there is no doubt that what Mueller really cares about is how Barr manipulated the optics surrounding the release of the report and undid Mueller's intended effect. How is he 'liberally quoting' when he doesn't even put a full sentence in there? quotes that leave out huge parts of context? Compare the both of them?
[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.
or
The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities
Stuff like this made you guys say stuff like ' he had literally nothing about Russian connections or he would have stated so'. Well he did state so but Barr left it out. His quotes and context were so bad that Mueller wrote him a letter, which did not as your earlier stated complain about the media coverage, but about the misrepresentation of their work and conclusions. On May 02 2019 19:02 Taelshin wrote:
Ehh didn't Barr give Mueller the chance to look over his statement before he released it? it was just a summary. Also why the hell does it matter what Barr's summary said?, we've got the full report. Its like you people are angry he gave us a glimpse of things to come, and then gave us the whole picture, and now your mad that he gave us a glimpse.
No Mueller did not review Barrs letter. Mueller already provided executive summaries for release cleared of potential redaction material. But Barr went his own way. We are mad Barr's glimpse was clearly a way to dampen the conduct in the report so that the conclusion could be that the report 'totally clears the president' and this conclusion is the one that stuck with the trumpists. You can even see it in this thread with them referring back to Barr's letter in a circular way to disprove what the actual report says, because "Barr said so" I don't understand why this is so hard. Barr's letter had one goal: convey the bottom line conclusions of Mueller's report. Barr did this faithfully. He quoted Mueller's conclusions. The only thing that Barr added was his own decision not to prosecute Trump for obstruction because Mueller failed to make that decision himself. There was literally no one left other than Barr to make that decision. Everyone who says that "Mueller left it up to Congress" is missing embarrassingly basic tenets of Constitutional separation of powers issues. Congress has no criminal indictment powers. Only the executive branch (the DOJ) does. Likewise, the executive branch has no impeachment powers. That's the role of the legislative branch. Barr's decision that there was no crime has no bearing on whether Congress can impeach. If Congress wants to try impeaching Trump despite there being no crime, it's free to do so. It would be political suicide, but there's nothing stopping them. Thus, with all of that in mind, we come back to the obvious conclusion that I have been making all long: the reason why Democrats and Mueller are angry with Barr is that he has blunted their ability to weaponize the ridiculous Mueller report against Trump. Barr got out in front of the narrative by revealing that Mueller's report did not find any prosecutable crimes and has proceeded to rub everyone's nose in that unavoidable fact, notwithstanding the desire of Democrats to use all of the noise in the rest of the report (again, none of which is criminal) against Trump. Stated another way, the Democrats are throwing a political temper tantrum. If they're acting this badly now, I can't wait to see how badly they act when Barr starts indicting some of the investigators. Nellie Ohr is the latest to receive a criminal referral as of last night. More will be coming after the OIG report.
I like how the Mueller report is ridiculous, all Trumps lies and actions non criminal, all the criminals that had top roles in his campaign are not an issue. But this woman that sent emails with articles about Russian organized crime to her own husband is the real problem somehow. Like at most, it's a conflict of interest issue? Of which Trump has hundreds...
Whatever transpires, it is clear Nellie Ohr was no ordinary spouse during the 2016 election.
Who writes stuff like that? Is her marriage part of a deep state plot?
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On May 03 2019 00:26 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 03 2019 00:07 Gorsameth wrote:
Here is something that popped into my head.
Barr stated yesterday that he was surprised Mueller didn't make a decision on Obstruction of justice.
Therefor either Barr doesn't know there is a standing guideline not to indict the President, or he doesn't care about it.
Surely an AG should know such a guideline exists when there is an ongoing investigation into the President. so the logical conclusion is he does't care about it.
Is it within his power to remove this guideline?
If so could Congress tell him to do so and then get Mueller to make an actual decision?
(ofcourse none of that is going to happen because Barr likely did know about the guideline and did know that Mueller wasn't going to give an indictment regardless of evidence but its an interesting line to follow and to ask Barr in front of the House committee, assuming he ever shows up there). This is an incorrect reading of the OLC guidelines. The OLC guideline did not prevent Mueller from making a decision on prosecution or a finding that there was a prosecutable crime. All that OLC guideline says is that the president cannot be indicted while in office. Presuming that this is enforceable (certainly not guaranteed), a president could still be indicted for the crime after leaving office. So when Barr says that he is "surprised" that Mueller didn't make a decision on obstruction, this is the legal backdrop. There wasn't a good reason for Mueller not to make a decision. Mueller was simply playing politics. And Barr knows it. fairness guidelines. Don't make a judgement when you can't indict and that person can't defend himself in court. Its in the report. Show nested quote +Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice
Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply
an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The
threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct
"constitutes a federal offense." U.S . Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice
Manual) . Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges
can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a
speedy and public trial , with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An
individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In
contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought ,
affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name -clearing before an impartial adjudicator.5
There are several other references to this problem and that they cannot accuse the president of a crime due to the guidelines. But as always, the counter argument is that Mueller is biased and it is all a cover story for Mueller’s malfeasance in investigating the president. And when you ask for evidence of bias, they will tell you to look at the report, it is filled with bias.
Barr is right and the report clears Trump. But it is also biased and created by a person tainted with bias. All arguments will ping pong between these too points, while calling you stupid along the way for not seeing the merits of this argument.
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Pelosi has accused Barr of lying to congress.
He lied to Congress. If anybody else did that it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law, not the president of the United States and not the Attorney general. Being the Attorney general does not give you a badge to say whatever you want and it is the fact because you are the Attorney General.
When asked if he was being jailed she said
“There is a process involved here. As I said, I’ll say it again, the committee will act upon how we will proceed.”
Sounds like either censure, contempt, or impeachment hearings.
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On May 03 2019 00:43 Nevuk wrote:Pelosi has accused Barr of lying to congress. Show nested quote +He lied to Congress. If anybody else did that it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law, not the president of the United States and not the Attorney general. Being the Attorney general does not give you a badge to say whatever you want and it is the fact because you are the Attorney General. When asked if he was being jailed she said Show nested quote +“There is a process involved here. As I said, I’ll say it again, the committee will act upon how we will proceed.” Sounds like either censure, contempt, or impeachment hearings.
Pelosi's accusation is laughable. Democrats are panicking. They got nothing on Barr.
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On May 03 2019 00:38 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:26 Gorsameth wrote:On May 03 2019 00:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 03 2019 00:07 Gorsameth wrote:
Here is something that popped into my head.
Barr stated yesterday that he was surprised Mueller didn't make a decision on Obstruction of justice.
Therefor either Barr doesn't know there is a standing guideline not to indict the President, or he doesn't care about it.
Surely an AG should know such a guideline exists when there is an ongoing investigation into the President. so the logical conclusion is he does't care about it.
Is it within his power to remove this guideline?
If so could Congress tell him to do so and then get Mueller to make an actual decision?
(ofcourse none of that is going to happen because Barr likely did know about the guideline and did know that Mueller wasn't going to give an indictment regardless of evidence but its an interesting line to follow and to ask Barr in front of the House committee, assuming he ever shows up there). This is an incorrect reading of the OLC guidelines. The OLC guideline did not prevent Mueller from making a decision on prosecution or a finding that there was a prosecutable crime. All that OLC guideline says is that the president cannot be indicted while in office. Presuming that this is enforceable (certainly not guaranteed), a president could still be indicted for the crime after leaving office. So when Barr says that he is "surprised" that Mueller didn't make a decision on obstruction, this is the legal backdrop. There wasn't a good reason for Mueller not to make a decision. Mueller was simply playing politics. And Barr knows it. fairness guidelines. Don't make a judgement when you can't indict and that person can't defend himself in court. Its in the report. Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice
Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply
an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The
threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct
"constitutes a federal offense." U.S . Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice
Manual) . Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges
can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a
speedy and public trial , with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An
individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In
contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought ,
affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name -clearing before an impartial adjudicator.5 There are several other references to this problem and that they cannot accuse the president of a crime due to the guidelines. But as always, the counter argument is that Mueller is biased and it is all a cover story for Mueller’s malfeasance in investigating the president. And when you ask for evidence of bias, they will tell you to look at the report, it is filled with bias. Barr is right and the report clears Trump. But it is also biased and created by a person tainted with bias. All arguments will ping pong between these too points, while calling you stupid along the way for not seeing the merits of this argument.
Feel free to cite the guideline that shows that Mueller had no choice but to offer no decision on whether to prosecute.
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On May 03 2019 00:46 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:43 Nevuk wrote:Pelosi has accused Barr of lying to congress. He lied to Congress. If anybody else did that it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law, not the president of the United States and not the Attorney general. Being the Attorney general does not give you a badge to say whatever you want and it is the fact because you are the Attorney General. When asked if he was being jailed she said “There is a process involved here. As I said, I’ll say it again, the committee will act upon how we will proceed.” Sounds like either censure, contempt, or impeachment hearings. Pelosi's accusation is laughable. Democrats are panicking. They got nothing on Barr.
xDaunt at it again with posts that has the potential to age really poorly.
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On May 03 2019 00:46 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:43 Nevuk wrote:Pelosi has accused Barr of lying to congress. He lied to Congress. If anybody else did that it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law, not the president of the United States and not the Attorney general. Being the Attorney general does not give you a badge to say whatever you want and it is the fact because you are the Attorney General. When asked if he was being jailed she said “There is a process involved here. As I said, I’ll say it again, the committee will act upon how we will proceed.” Sounds like either censure, contempt, or impeachment hearings. Pelosi's accusation is laughable. Democrats are panicking. They got nothing on Barr.
But to quote minority leader Kevin McCarthy, "but look how dragged down her(Clinton) approval ratings with our investigations" Even if they don't get Barr removed, he still has to show up for the impeachment proceedings in the Senate. He can't "not attend" those.
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The problem with any attacks on Barr is that he was never elected and will probably never seek office in the first place. Any time spent with barr in the headlines or him on TV is time not spent going against trump in any way.
I'm baffled why they haven't transitioned to full press on his tax returns connecting the two issues as if something in them will shine more light on the investigation.
What do they really have to gain from this line of attack?
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On May 03 2019 00:49 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:46 xDaunt wrote:On May 03 2019 00:43 Nevuk wrote:Pelosi has accused Barr of lying to congress. He lied to Congress. If anybody else did that it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law, not the president of the United States and not the Attorney general. Being the Attorney general does not give you a badge to say whatever you want and it is the fact because you are the Attorney General. When asked if he was being jailed she said “There is a process involved here. As I said, I’ll say it again, the committee will act upon how we will proceed.” Sounds like either censure, contempt, or impeachment hearings. Pelosi's accusation is laughable. Democrats are panicking. They got nothing on Barr. xDaunt at it again with posts that has the potential to age really poorly.
My posts on the Trump/Russia collusion stuff have aged very well. Yours and the posts of most of the others around here have not. The only major thing left that I have stated that has not born out is the indictment and prosecution of FBI, DOJ, and intelligence officials who started this whole mess. But the day is young for that to occur. Let's see what happens when the OIG report on all of this stuff comes out this month.
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On May 03 2019 00:52 Sermokala wrote:
The problem with any attacks on Barr is that he was never elected and will probably never seek office in the first place. Any time spent with barr in the headlines or him on TV is time not spent going against trump in any way.
I'm baffled why they haven't transitioned to full press on his tax returns connecting the two issues as if something in them will shine more light on the investigation.
What do they really have to gain from this line of attack?
They're setting the stage to delegitimize Barr if/when he starts prosecuting people in connection with the Trump investigation. Those prosecutions will be utterly devastating for democrats for obvious reasons, so they need to get ahead of it.
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On May 03 2019 00:48 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:38 Plansix wrote:On May 03 2019 00:26 Gorsameth wrote:On May 03 2019 00:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 03 2019 00:07 Gorsameth wrote:
Here is something that popped into my head.
Barr stated yesterday that he was surprised Mueller didn't make a decision on Obstruction of justice.
Therefor either Barr doesn't know there is a standing guideline not to indict the President, or he doesn't care about it.
Surely an AG should know such a guideline exists when there is an ongoing investigation into the President. so the logical conclusion is he does't care about it.
Is it within his power to remove this guideline?
If so could Congress tell him to do so and then get Mueller to make an actual decision?
(ofcourse none of that is going to happen because Barr likely did know about the guideline and did know that Mueller wasn't going to give an indictment regardless of evidence but its an interesting line to follow and to ask Barr in front of the House committee, assuming he ever shows up there). This is an incorrect reading of the OLC guidelines. The OLC guideline did not prevent Mueller from making a decision on prosecution or a finding that there was a prosecutable crime. All that OLC guideline says is that the president cannot be indicted while in office. Presuming that this is enforceable (certainly not guaranteed), a president could still be indicted for the crime after leaving office. So when Barr says that he is "surprised" that Mueller didn't make a decision on obstruction, this is the legal backdrop. There wasn't a good reason for Mueller not to make a decision. Mueller was simply playing politics. And Barr knows it. fairness guidelines. Don't make a judgement when you can't indict and that person can't defend himself in court. Its in the report. Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice
Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply
an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The
threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct
"constitutes a federal offense." U.S . Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice
Manual) . Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges
can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a
speedy and public trial , with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An
individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In
contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought ,
affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name -clearing before an impartial adjudicator.5 There are several other references to this problem and that they cannot accuse the president of a crime due to the guidelines. But as always, the counter argument is that Mueller is biased and it is all a cover story for Mueller’s malfeasance in investigating the president. And when you ask for evidence of bias, they will tell you to look at the report, it is filled with bias. Barr is right and the report clears Trump. But it is also biased and created by a person tainted with bias. All arguments will ping pong between these too points, while calling you stupid along the way for not seeing the merits of this argument. Feel free to cite the guideline that shows that Mueller had no choice but to offer no decision on whether to prosecute.
The DOJ is prohibited from indicting a sitting president. A decision to prosecute would mean they would move to indict for anyone but the president. This means a determination that the president obstructed justice would be effectively same as indicting him, even if they won’t do it until he leaves office.
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On May 03 2019 00:54 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:49 Excludos wrote:On May 03 2019 00:46 xDaunt wrote:On May 03 2019 00:43 Nevuk wrote:Pelosi has accused Barr of lying to congress. He lied to Congress. If anybody else did that it would be considered a crime. Nobody is above the law, not the president of the United States and not the Attorney general. Being the Attorney general does not give you a badge to say whatever you want and it is the fact because you are the Attorney General. When asked if he was being jailed she said “There is a process involved here. As I said, I’ll say it again, the committee will act upon how we will proceed.” Sounds like either censure, contempt, or impeachment hearings. Pelosi's accusation is laughable. Democrats are panicking. They got nothing on Barr. xDaunt at it again with posts that has the potential to age really poorly. My posts on the Trump/Russia collusion stuff have aged very well. Yours and the posts of most of the others around here have not. The only major thing left that I have stated that has not born out is the indictment and prosecution of FBI, DOJ, and intelligence officials who started this whole mess. But the day is young for that to occur. Let's see what happens when the OIG report on all of this stuff comes out this month.
We've had this discussion before and you continue to ignore them. The vast majority post based on the information available to them, you post, with a loud certainty, things that you can not possibly know. You can't possibly know that A: Democrats are panicking (Why would they? Everything indicates that the next election is going to swing wildly in their favour. Even if it doesn't, that's the indication they have to go by right now), and B: "They got nothing on Barr", which, by their own statement, they might very well do.
But since you loudly proclaimed another certainty based on no information, I challenge you to find me a post from my history in this thread that has aged poorly. It should be easy, right? Since you're so certain and all. I will be waiting.
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On May 03 2019 00:58 Plansix wrote:Show nested quote +On May 03 2019 00:48 xDaunt wrote:On May 03 2019 00:38 Plansix wrote:On May 03 2019 00:26 Gorsameth wrote:On May 03 2019 00:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 03 2019 00:07 Gorsameth wrote:
Here is something that popped into my head.
Barr stated yesterday that he was surprised Mueller didn't make a decision on Obstruction of justice.
Therefor either Barr doesn't know there is a standing guideline not to indict the President, or he doesn't care about it.
Surely an AG should know such a guideline exists when there is an ongoing investigation into the President. so the logical conclusion is he does't care about it.
Is it within his power to remove this guideline?
If so could Congress tell him to do so and then get Mueller to make an actual decision?
(ofcourse none of that is going to happen because Barr likely did know about the guideline and did know that Mueller wasn't going to give an indictment regardless of evidence but its an interesting line to follow and to ask Barr in front of the House committee, assuming he ever shows up there). This is an incorrect reading of the OLC guidelines. The OLC guideline did not prevent Mueller from making a decision on prosecution or a finding that there was a prosecutable crime. All that OLC guideline says is that the president cannot be indicted while in office. Presuming that this is enforceable (certainly not guaranteed), a president could still be indicted for the crime after leaving office. So when Barr says that he is "surprised" that Mueller didn't make a decision on obstruction, this is the legal backdrop. There wasn't a good reason for Mueller not to make a decision. Mueller was simply playing politics. And Barr knows it. fairness guidelines. Don't make a judgement when you can't indict and that person can't defend himself in court. Its in the report. Third, we considered whether to evaluate the conduct we investigated under the Justice
Manual standards governing prosecution and declination decisions, but we determined not to apply
an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes. The
threshold step under the Justice Manual standards is to assess whether a person's conduct
"constitutes a federal offense." U.S . Dep't of Justice, Justice Manual§ 9-27.220 (2018) (Justice
Manual) . Fairness concerns counseled against potentially reaching that judgment when no charges
can be brought. The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a
speedy and public trial , with all the procedural protections that surround a criminal case. An
individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to seek to clear his name. In
contrast, a prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought ,
affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name -clearing before an impartial adjudicator.5 There are several other references to this problem and that they cannot accuse the president of a crime due to the guidelines. But as always, the counter argument is that Mueller is biased and it is all a cover story for Mueller’s malfeasance in investigating the president. And when you ask for evidence of bias, they will tell you to look at the report, it is filled with bias. Barr is right and the report clears Trump. But it is also biased and created by a person tainted with bias. All arguments will ping pong between these too points, while calling you stupid along the way for not seeing the merits of this argument. Feel free to cite the guideline that shows that Mueller had no choice but to offer no decision on whether to prosecute. The DOJ is prohibited from indicting a sitting president. A decision to prosecute would mean they would move to indict for anyone but the president. This means a determination that the president obstructed justice would be effectively same as indicting him, even if they won’t do it until he leaves office.
The only thing you got right was the bolded/underlined above. There is no regulation that barred Mueller from making a determination on whether to prosecute. This is why Barr was able to make the conclusion that he did. What you're citing and relying upon is Mueller's tortured logic to justify not coming to the decision himself. There is simply no legal basis for it.
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On May 03 2019 00:52 Sermokala wrote:
The problem with any attacks on Barr is that he was never elected and will probably never seek office in the first place. Any time spent with barr in the headlines or him on TV is time not spent going against trump in any way.
I'm baffled why they haven't transitioned to full press on his tax returns connecting the two issues as if something in them will shine more light on the investigation.
What do they really have to gain from this line of attack?
There is the basic problem that the administration is denying access to any documents or demands from the House oversight. Even the most basic demands for documents that are normal. The master plan seems to be that they will deny the House and force litigation, which will drag out in the courts. The House isn’t going to stand for that and has direct powers at their disposal, especially if they feel they are being obstructed(which was a charge that was going to be brought against Nixon).
Just so people are aware, obstructing congress can get someone held in contempt of congress. That can become a referral to the US Attorney for the District of Columbia and so on. And its something the White House cannot ignore and can’t drag through litigation. Same with impeachment of Barr for obstructing congress. Even McConnell and Graham can’t ignore it.
This is the fight the White House has been escalating for a while now. The House wasn’t just going to sit there for 2 years and just be denied.
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EPT
