US Politics Mega-thread - Page 1496

On May 28 2019 00:21 JimmiC wrote:
I think this amount of talk in the US about corruption without major changes and arrests is super dangerous. I'm sure it is going to make convicting criminals more difficult as so many Americans have such little trust in their own institutions. Their was already not a ton of trust based on many of the racial issues and now they have piled on all these political issues. I can see defense attorney's having a field day creating conspiracy's and finding reasonable doubt in the FBI should be pretty easy considering what major people in the government talk about the levels of corruption and treason.


https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/newspolitics/white-house-claims-without-proof-that-fbi-has-outrageous-corruption-barr-will-uncover/ar-AABZf6w?li=AAggFp4

On May 28 2019 08:14 xDaunt wrote:

That article is trash. Anyone who says that there's no evidence of corruption in the FBI is either lying or hopelessly ignorant. Just start with the Carter Page FISA application, which is all-but-proven to have been fraudulently procured by the FBI by a plethora of evidence that includes sworn-testimony and documentary evidence (see my many posts covering this). There's far more proof that the FBI broke the law in investigating Trump for Russia collusion than there ever was of Russia collusion to begin with.

These same people who are now expressing concern about Barr declassifying stuff are the same ones who were demanding full transparency from him regarding the Mueller report and the attendant investigative materials. These people are hypocrites of the highest order who are panicking because they know that the jig is up and everyone who abused their positions to fraudulently push this Russia collusion nonsense is about to face a reckoning for what they did.

On May 28 2019 08:36 IyMoon wrote:



Do you find it hypocritical that the people who defended bar not releasing info are now on board with him releasing info?

On May 28 2019 08:37 JimmiC wrote:


I mean it is getting investigated and Barr is putting shit tons of resources into it so we will see what happens. But Barr doesn't have the best record for being impartial, so it is impossible for anyone not firmly on his team to take him at his word.

And I mean if you are looking for Hypocrites Graham is #1



And

On May 28 2019 08:14 xDaunt wrote:These same people who are now expressing concern about Barr declassifying stuff are the same ones who were demanding full transparency from him regarding the Mueller report and the attendant investigative materials. These people are hypocrites of the highest order who are panicking because they know that the jig is up and everyone who abused their positions to fraudulently push this Russia collusion nonsense is about to face a reckoning for what they did.

On May 28 2019 08:41 xDaunt wrote:

This is the funniest part of all: Barr released everything he legally could. The only material that was not made available to Congress was the grand jury material which would be illegal for him to release. Are you starting to grasp the full extent of the intellectual bankruptcy of these people?

On May 28 2019 09:08 IyMoon wrote:


Isnt what Barr going to release illegal to release un less he declassifies it? What would be the difference between the two?

On May 28 2019 09:50 xDaunt wrote:

What Barr has been empowered to release is national intelligence/security information. The president has plenary authority by law to declassify that stuff (which he delegated to Barr). In contrast, the president and the AG do not have authority to release/declassify grand jury material.

On May 28 2019 08:18 Stratos_speAr wrote:


GH's disdain for the FBI is in the same vein as many's disdain for ICE/CBP: the idea is that they're beyond reform and need to be simply destroyed because of how many problems there are with them/how corrupted they are.

Some with these views admit that these institutions serve a purpose and that we need them in some capacity. If memory serves, GH is not one of these people.

I find the "abolish ICE/FBI/etc." crowd to have a very solid foundation to the argument but it seems to always turn into some ethical reductionism to make it easy to be mad at something. "Abolish the FBI" is a great slogan to address the very real fact that, both historically and (most likely) now, there has been and is an insane level of corruption within the organization and it needs to be more or less purged of all major leadership positions in order to enact meaningful reform. However, actually abolishing the agency would leave us with a a wide array of major issues (considering the FBI's role and what we'd be losing) and you would need to replace it with an agency that is functionally still the FBI in at least some major capacity, regardless of what they're called. The same applies to ICE. It's really just an easy emotional appeal.

In my social media circles (at least on the liberal side of it) I also occasionally see "abolish the police". I can't give that one nearly as much merit as I do "abolish ICE/FBI".

On May 28 2019 10:30 semantics wrote:

In every other instance where a federal grand jury was used to probe the alleged misconduct of a sitting president namely, in the Watergate and Starr investigations the Department of Justice worked with the relevant federal court to release the grand jury information to the House Judiciary Committee.

Don't frame it like Barr is absolutely helpless. Certainly he can not publically release it in full but all of congress and especially certain committees in congress absolutely can view it with very little work. Barr doesn't want to do that because Trump doesn't want to do that; so he doesn't and pretends he's helpless. That was obvious when he refuses to work with the house judiciary committee and Trump claiming executive privilege over the report, those are obvious attempts to bury and cover-up not transparency.

On May 28 2019 10:59 xDaunt wrote:

He is helpless. Rule 6(e) does not allow court-authorized disclosure in this circumstance. Any doubt on this point was resolved by the DC Circuit Court of Appeals last month.

On May 28 2019 11:52 semantics wrote:

You're referring to the april 5th decision of
MCKEEVER v. BARR
Which has nothing to do with the mueller report(for people who think the barr part of that case means mueller report) except they both deal grand jury information.
I could say the same to these fairly recent cases which run counter to the one above
PITCH v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA and CARLSON v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA which shows splits in the circuits.
I wont bother with HALDEMAN V. SIRICA give MCKEEVER v. BARR majority decision just brushes off that ruling saying it's not relevant.

Barr could have released this information well before the april 5th ruling, he did not the mueller report was publicly announced done on march 22. That's two weeks he could have petitioned the court to have the judicial committees to view the report in full. Something he could have easily done while redacting the report for the public.

He can still do it it just requires Barr to petition the grand jury and see where they lay as it would not be his decision it would be the courts there is nothing illegal about him requesting and a official response is always better than saying i rather not. Congress can also do it if they make preliminary impeachment hearing. They rather not because that's a pretty all in move(politically) for them; considering they don't know what's on the report it makes it risky to make move given it makes them look like fools if there is nothing where as if barr does it it easily placates them and labels them fools if there is nothing.

On May 28 2019 10:27 JimmiC wrote:
The big issue is trust, which Barr does not have with 55%+ of American's. If they do this I hope they get someone imparial or at least can claim to be impartial. Otherwise it is just a political stunt that will further divide the nation.