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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me. I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me. Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: Show nested quote +First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Show nested quote +Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand.
I'm not agreeing with Mohdoo's argument but your argument is incredibly weak. You're basically implying that if Mueller wanted to stick to "fairness" he shouldn't have investigated at all. That argument is bullshit on it's face. Mueller presented the evidence. That's it. His conclusion is the definition of "here's the evidence. No conclusions are made". You're just throwing a temper tantrum because the evidence makes your guy look bad.
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On May 30 2019 06:59 On_Slaught wrote:
Mueller definitely took the easy way out, and it's disappointing to see. The guy was too afraid to even fight for the ability to question key individuals under oath. Expected more from a seasoned prosecutor.
I've already given my theory on why he didn't fight for it: he knew he wouldn't be able to prove probable cause of a crime warranting such depositions. This is one of the things that people who have not been paying attention may have missed about Mueller's investigation. At no point during this case did Mueller ever put the underlying basis for his investigation into Trump for obstruction or Russia collusion into a position where it could actually be tested by a court. I don't think that this was unintentional.
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On May 30 2019 06:50 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 06:37 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me. I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me. Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. You need better reading comprehension. Your bolded part says 'when no charges can be brought' and the reason why they can't be brought is the OLC guidelines. What he meant by that is that without charging Trump, the special counsel could say they've reached the conclusion that Trump's conduct does 'constitute a federal offense'. The only roadblock to doing so is their own concept of fairness. But by making it as obvious as possible without outright saying it that they do believe Trump obstructed justice, that fairness gesture is meaningless and only creates unnecessary fog. This is fair criticism. Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 06:10 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me. I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me. Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. On May 30 2019 03:42 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 03:39 Dan HH wrote:On May 30 2019 03:32 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 03:30 Dan HH wrote:On May 30 2019 03:25 GreenHorizons wrote:Mr. Mueller could seek the president’s indictment. If he believes he has enough evidence to charge Mr. Trump with a crime in federal court, the special counsel could ask a grand jury to indict him. www.nytimes.comLike bro, you should have called the NYT years ago and told them how obviously wrong they were. They weren't wrong, read your link "The office of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has told the president’s lawyers that it plans to abide by the Justice Department’s view that sitting presidents cannot be indicted no matter what the evidence shows. Still, if Mr. Mueller finds wrongdoing, Mr. Trump could be indicted after he leaves office." And he's not. So, Mueller could have pursued charges if he thought he had them and he didn't. After he leaves office means when he is no longer executive. What are you even arguing? That: Mueller could get permission from Rosenstein to seek the president’s indictment. If he believes he has enough evidence to charge Trump with a crime in federal court, the special counsel could ask a grand jury to indict him. He decided he wasn't going to do that before he had bothered to do the investigation. Basically Democrats want to read the Mueller report as a referral for congress to impeach, but that's explicitly not what it was and rather than deal with that they are vacillating between the idea that he couldn't and he did. This is not fair criticism. That the special counsel could have pursued this is an a manner very likely to be struck down as unconstitutional, even by the account of its proponents, is not relevant and never was realistic.
Considering I have no idea what your post/position history on this is so it's not fair for me to group you in with those I'm critiquing there. It applies to those who only recently came to the realizations that it was Mueller's own choice to preclude himself from charging (with the defense he'd probably lose, though even today on MSNBC they are still pushing the narrative that's not definitive 101 stuff), and that overtly recommending congress impeach, the "but for" statement Barr explicitly says Mueller declined to make, etc... were totally options he declined to take.
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Podhoretz has a restatement of arguments you hear in this forum, though maybe said in a way y'all can understand. My latest post on the problem justifying Mueller's hazy position is here. Basically, Mueller's position falls on his own rationale. The problem that many people here can't and perhaps won't address is why Mueller should never have published Part 2 if he really held the fears posited in Part 2 of the report.
Special prosecutor Robert Mueller’s statement upon the shuttering of his two-year investigation into the Trump campaign was weird even by the standards of the weirdness of the past couple of years. “Charging the president with a crime was not something we could consider,” he reported. Indeed, even pursuing that question, he added, would have been unconstitutional under long-standing Justice Department guidelines.
But then he said that if his office could have exonerated the president, it would have: “If we had confidence the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so.”
Granted, he said pretty much the same thing in the report he produced: “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.”
His statement was only 8 minutes long. The report is 400 pages long. It matters what he chose to repeat from it and what he did not. He wanted the American people to hear him speak those words. He wanted to emphasize this point.
The “I couldn’t exonerate him” point is discomfiting for another reason, which is: Since when do prosecutors exonerate people? That isn’t a prosecutor’s job. Maybe in the aftermath of a wrongful conviction, with irrefutable physical evidence, prosecutors will say something exculpatory. But even in most of these cases, they usually drop charges on grounds of insufficient evidence, not positive proof of innocence.
The obvious rejoinder here is that the president of the United States isn’t just any person and that it is bad for our government and our country for a dark cloud to hang over the president’s head. Therefore, in theory, dissipating that cloud would be a good thing (even if such a purpose was not in any way Mueller’s charge when he was hired in 2017).
Mueller wanted the American people to hear him say he couldn’t dissipate the cloud. And by announcing that, he just spread it out over the president’s head again. This is why his peculiar locutions and soothsayer ambiguity represent a terrible failure of his mission as a public servant in this case.
He hasn’t clarified. He has muddied.
And if Mueller didn’t intend to signal to Congress that his report could serve as the basis for an impeachment, his statement was wildly incompetent. Again, you have to note what he chose to emphasize in a statement that left out a great many things. He cited the Justice Department opinion that forbade him from considering a criminal indictment of the president and noted: “The opinion says that the Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to formally accuse a sitting President of wrongdoing.”
That other process is, of course, impeachment. Remember: He needn’t have brought it up. But he did.
In essence, he was saying to Congress: “We couldn’t exonerate Trump, and we couldn’t really examine the meaning of our inability to do so. So it’s up to you guys in Congress. As for me, I’m getting the hell out of Dodge.”
It’s important to note that by emitting these provocative remarks, he weakened the other point he was trying to emphasize: that the Russian attempts to hack the election were major acts of systemic infiltration we need to counter so they don’t happen again.
Mueller just made sure all the oxygen in Washington will be sucked into talking about the president’s post-election conduct and not Russia’s 2016 conduct. And he will reinforce the president’s willful refusal to take Russian hacking seriously (because he wrongly thinks if he does so, he would somehow be acknowledging his election was illegitimate). Mueller cannot be blamed for how Trump reacts, but he just made reaching bipartisan consensus on the need for cyber-protections against electoral interference far more difficult.
If I could exonerate him on this point, I would so state.
Podhoretz via NYP
From the writing of the report up to the present day, Mueller has wanted to talk out of both sides of his mouth on his role as special prosecutor. His fanboys have been similarly inclined to put their faith in his legal arguments, as contradictory and prejudicial as they stand. I think Podhoretz puts it a little more concisely than I have done so in the past, and I recommend handling his arguments in responses rather than repeating Mueller's sans thought.
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On May 30 2019 07:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me. I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me. Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. I'm not agreeing with Mohdoo's argument but your argument is incredibly weak. You're basically implying that if Mueller wanted to stick to "fairness" he shouldn't have investigated at all. That argument is bullshit on it's face. Mueller presented the evidence. That's it. His conclusion is the definition of "here's the evidence. No conclusions are made". You're just throwing a temper tantrum because the evidence makes your guy look bad.
This isn't my argument. My argument (which I have outlined at length previously) is that Mueller should have reached a charging decision. If he decided that there was a chargeable crime, then he should have provided a full explanation of the basis for that decision. If he decided that there was no chargeable crime, then he should have simply left it at that and provided no explanation for that rationale. That is how prosecutors are supposed to act.
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On May 30 2019 06:50 Dan HH wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 06:37 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote:On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me. I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me. Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. You need better reading comprehension. Your bolded part says 'when no charges can be brought' and the reason why they can't be brought is the OLC guidelines. What he meant by that is that without charging Trump, the special counsel could say they've reached the conclusion that Trump's conduct does 'constitute a federal offense'. The only roadblock to doing so is their own concept of fairness. But by making it as obvious as possible without outright saying it that they do believe Trump obstructed justice, that fairness gesture is meaningless and only creates unnecessary fog. This is fair criticism.
Is this fairness principle not some set in stone judicial guideline? Don't accuse someone without an opportunity for defense? So the OLC triggers 'no charges' and the 'no charges' triggers the fairness principle, therefor in the end the OLC guidelines inherently prohibits reaching a conclusion if it 'constitutes a federal offense' as long as he is in office.
He refers to a footnote 5 that says
See United States v.Briggs,514 F.2d 794,802 (5th Cir. 1975) ("The courts have struck down with strong language efforts by grand juries to accuse persons of crime while affording them no forum in which to vindicate themselves."); see also Justice Manual § 9-11.130
.
It seems to me this ' fairness' is a court based legal opinion, not some 'gesture' or personal concept of fairness
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On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense.
Yet that is specifically not the conclusion Mueller came to. Mueller said that if he could have come to that conclusion, he absolutely would have... and he couldn't.
No probable cause of a crime = exoneration.
Mueller specifically said Trump could not be exonerated, and that he absolutely would have claimed him innocent if he could. He couldn't.
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On May 30 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 07:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me. I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me. Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. I'm not agreeing with Mohdoo's argument but your argument is incredibly weak. You're basically implying that if Mueller wanted to stick to "fairness" he shouldn't have investigated at all. That argument is bullshit on it's face. Mueller presented the evidence. That's it. His conclusion is the definition of "here's the evidence. No conclusions are made". You're just throwing a temper tantrum because the evidence makes your guy look bad. This isn't my argument. My argument (which I have outlined at length previously) is that Mueller should have reached a charging decision. If he decided that there was a chargeable crime, then he should have provided a full explanation of the basis for that decision. If he decided that there was no chargeable crime, then he should have simply left it at that and provided no explanation for that rationale. That is how prosecutors are supposed to act.
We already know that you think that. However, you stated that Mueller's reasoning for not coming to a charging decision (that it would be unfair) was disingenuous because the report that he presented is unfair.
I called you out on that bullshit because his report is pretty much "here's the evidence. I refuse to say anything at all about what it means. Have at it." You just admitted yourself that you're also criticizing him for this exact thing.
That's about as far away from "tarring with innuendos" as you can get. You're spinning it to try to make Mueller look partisan and it makes you look like you're throwing a temper tantrum over reality not supporting your conclusions.
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On May 30 2019 08:00 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. Yet that is specifically not the conclusion Mueller came to. Mueller said that if he could have come to that conclusion, he absolutely would have... and he couldn't.No probable cause of a crime = exoneration. Mueller specifically said Trump could not be exonerated, and that he absolutely would have claimed him innocent if he could. He couldn't.
Given how preoccupied people on your side of the argument are with rules and regulations governing the decision of whether to indict, do you care to point to the rule or regulation that states that it is the job of a prosecutor to exonerate someone?
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On May 30 2019 08:10 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 07:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me. I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me. Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. I'm not agreeing with Mohdoo's argument but your argument is incredibly weak. You're basically implying that if Mueller wanted to stick to "fairness" he shouldn't have investigated at all. That argument is bullshit on it's face. Mueller presented the evidence. That's it. His conclusion is the definition of "here's the evidence. No conclusions are made". You're just throwing a temper tantrum because the evidence makes your guy look bad. This isn't my argument. My argument (which I have outlined at length previously) is that Mueller should have reached a charging decision. If he decided that there was a chargeable crime, then he should have provided a full explanation of the basis for that decision. If he decided that there was no chargeable crime, then he should have simply left it at that and provided no explanation for that rationale. That is how prosecutors are supposed to act. We already know that you think that. However, you stated that Mueller's reasoning for not coming to a charging decision (that it would be unfair) was disingenuous because the report that he presented is unfair. I called you out on that bullshit because his report is pretty much "here's the evidence. I refuse to say anything at all about what it means. Have at it." That's about as far away from "tarring with innuendos" as you can get. You're spinning it to try to make Mueller look partisan and it makes you look like you're throwing a temper tantrum over reality not supporting your conclusions.
You're missing the point: if a prosecutor does not charge someone, then the prosecutor is not supposed to list all of the evidence that he reviewed and considered. Whether Mueller shaped his report be anti-Trump (he did) is quite besides the point. What makes Mueller's rationale for not coming to a charging decision yet deciding to lay out all of the evidence anyway even more ludicrous is that he cites in Footnote 5 to the very authority showing why the state is not supposed to do what Mueller did.
EDIT I previously explained this in detail to Gorsameth in a series of posts starting here.
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On May 30 2019 08:00 ShambhalaWar wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. Yet that is specifically not the conclusion Mueller came to. Mueller said that if he could have come to that conclusion, he absolutely would have... and he couldn't.No probable cause of a crime = exoneration. Mueller specifically said Trump could not be exonerated, and that he absolutely would have claimed him innocent if he could. He couldn't.
How often do prosecutors (I guess Mueller thought he was an investigator, not a prosecutor) prove (or have any sincere desire to) that the person they are investigating/prosecuting is actually "innocent"?
Is that even a thing? Like is there another example anywhere, or maybe this is common? Or maybe this is something created uniquely for Democrats to think and repeat uncritically?
He said "If I could exonerate him I would" but not "If I could charge him I would" why do you think that is?
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On May 30 2019 08:20 GreenHorizons wrote:He said "If I could exonerate him I would" but not "If I could charge him I would" why do you think that is? explained in the report, introduction to volume 2, point 3.
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On May 30 2019 08:30 Gorsameth wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 08:20 GreenHorizons wrote:He said "If I could exonerate him I would" but not "If I could charge him I would" why do you think that is? explained in the report, introduction to volume 2, point 3.
I'm familiar with your argument and explained (as well as others) why I (we) think it's wrong, I'm trying to clarify if Shambala is taking the same position as you or one more like Mohdoo.
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On May 30 2019 08:16 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 08:10 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 07:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:
[quote]
Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me. I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me. Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. I'm not agreeing with Mohdoo's argument but your argument is incredibly weak. You're basically implying that if Mueller wanted to stick to "fairness" he shouldn't have investigated at all. That argument is bullshit on it's face. Mueller presented the evidence. That's it. His conclusion is the definition of "here's the evidence. No conclusions are made". You're just throwing a temper tantrum because the evidence makes your guy look bad. This isn't my argument. My argument (which I have outlined at length previously) is that Mueller should have reached a charging decision. If he decided that there was a chargeable crime, then he should have provided a full explanation of the basis for that decision. If he decided that there was no chargeable crime, then he should have simply left it at that and provided no explanation for that rationale. That is how prosecutors are supposed to act. We already know that you think that. However, you stated that Mueller's reasoning for not coming to a charging decision (that it would be unfair) was disingenuous because the report that he presented is unfair. I called you out on that bullshit because his report is pretty much "here's the evidence. I refuse to say anything at all about what it means. Have at it." That's about as far away from "tarring with innuendos" as you can get. You're spinning it to try to make Mueller look partisan and it makes you look like you're throwing a temper tantrum over reality not supporting your conclusions. You're missing the point: if a prosecutor does not charge someone, then the prosecutor is not supposed to list all of the evidence that he reviewed and considered. Whether Mueller shaped his report be anti-Trump (he did) is quite besides the point. What makes Mueller's rationale for not coming to a charging decision yet deciding to lay out all of the evidence anyway even more ludicrous is that he cites in Footnote 5 to the very authority showing why the state is not supposed to do what Mueller did. EDIT I previously explained this in detail to Gorsameth in a series of posts starting here.
Unless I'm reading the wrong U.S. vs. Briggs
https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-briggs-5 (this is the one that came up after searching Mueller's footnote 5 in Volume II)
Then arguing that this case applies to Mueller's situation is incredibly weak, at best.
|
On May 30 2019 08:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 08:16 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 08:10 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 07:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me. I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me. Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. I'm not agreeing with Mohdoo's argument but your argument is incredibly weak. You're basically implying that if Mueller wanted to stick to "fairness" he shouldn't have investigated at all. That argument is bullshit on it's face. Mueller presented the evidence. That's it. His conclusion is the definition of "here's the evidence. No conclusions are made". You're just throwing a temper tantrum because the evidence makes your guy look bad. This isn't my argument. My argument (which I have outlined at length previously) is that Mueller should have reached a charging decision. If he decided that there was a chargeable crime, then he should have provided a full explanation of the basis for that decision. If he decided that there was no chargeable crime, then he should have simply left it at that and provided no explanation for that rationale. That is how prosecutors are supposed to act. We already know that you think that. However, you stated that Mueller's reasoning for not coming to a charging decision (that it would be unfair) was disingenuous because the report that he presented is unfair. I called you out on that bullshit because his report is pretty much "here's the evidence. I refuse to say anything at all about what it means. Have at it." That's about as far away from "tarring with innuendos" as you can get. You're spinning it to try to make Mueller look partisan and it makes you look like you're throwing a temper tantrum over reality not supporting your conclusions. You're missing the point: if a prosecutor does not charge someone, then the prosecutor is not supposed to list all of the evidence that he reviewed and considered. Whether Mueller shaped his report be anti-Trump (he did) is quite besides the point. What makes Mueller's rationale for not coming to a charging decision yet deciding to lay out all of the evidence anyway even more ludicrous is that he cites in Footnote 5 to the very authority showing why the state is not supposed to do what Mueller did. EDIT I previously explained this in detail to Gorsameth in a series of posts starting here. Unless I'm reading the wrong U.S. vs. Briggs https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-briggs-5 (this is the one that came up after searching Mueller's footnote 5 in Volume II) Then arguing that this case applies to Mueller's situation is incredibly weak, at best.
How would you articulate the point of that ruling? What do you understand that ruling to be objecting to and why?
Your reference thus far indicates you've misinterpreted it (as xDaunt and myself have explained previously and recently), or like Mohdoo, chosen not to interpret it into your own understanding at all.
|
On May 30 2019 08:53 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 08:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 08:16 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 08:10 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 07:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:33 Mohdoo wrote:
[quote]
You just stated a few things but I have no reason to trust anything you said. Until you can show your qualifications as equal to that of Barr/Mueller, your interpretation of their actions/thoughts is just a guess. You can't just cite "common sense" when everyone involved with the decision of "indict - yes or no" has a resume 20 feet long. I think there is a reason they were chosen over me.
I don't think this is even really a topic we are worthy of critiquing. We aren't experts. The only things we can discuss are what Mueller said and what Barr said. There is a reason Mueller/Barr were chosen over some random lawyers with 15-20 years of experience. From my perspective, you are disregarding the value of expertise in a situation that seems to strongly value expertise. Until you can show why expertise does not matter in this situation, nothing you are saying really matters to me.
Granted, people just kinda enjoy talking about subjects and theory crafting legal stuff, and that's fine, I think it is fun too. But I would never pretend to be capable of refuting any of the people involved. There is a distinction between discussion and critique. To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself. But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. I'm not agreeing with Mohdoo's argument but your argument is incredibly weak. You're basically implying that if Mueller wanted to stick to "fairness" he shouldn't have investigated at all. That argument is bullshit on it's face. Mueller presented the evidence. That's it. His conclusion is the definition of "here's the evidence. No conclusions are made". You're just throwing a temper tantrum because the evidence makes your guy look bad. This isn't my argument. My argument (which I have outlined at length previously) is that Mueller should have reached a charging decision. If he decided that there was a chargeable crime, then he should have provided a full explanation of the basis for that decision. If he decided that there was no chargeable crime, then he should have simply left it at that and provided no explanation for that rationale. That is how prosecutors are supposed to act. We already know that you think that. However, you stated that Mueller's reasoning for not coming to a charging decision (that it would be unfair) was disingenuous because the report that he presented is unfair. I called you out on that bullshit because his report is pretty much "here's the evidence. I refuse to say anything at all about what it means. Have at it." That's about as far away from "tarring with innuendos" as you can get. You're spinning it to try to make Mueller look partisan and it makes you look like you're throwing a temper tantrum over reality not supporting your conclusions. You're missing the point: if a prosecutor does not charge someone, then the prosecutor is not supposed to list all of the evidence that he reviewed and considered. Whether Mueller shaped his report be anti-Trump (he did) is quite besides the point. What makes Mueller's rationale for not coming to a charging decision yet deciding to lay out all of the evidence anyway even more ludicrous is that he cites in Footnote 5 to the very authority showing why the state is not supposed to do what Mueller did. EDIT I previously explained this in detail to Gorsameth in a series of posts starting here. Unless I'm reading the wrong U.S. vs. Briggs https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-briggs-5 (this is the one that came up after searching Mueller's footnote 5 in Volume II) Then arguing that this case applies to Mueller's situation is incredibly weak, at best. How would you articulate the point of that ruling. What do you understand that ruling to be objecting to and why? Your reference thus far indicates you've misinterpreted it (as xDaunt and myself have explained previously and recently), or like Mohdoo, chosen not to interpret it into your own understanding at all.
You very blatantly and purposefully dodged two of my questions several pages back on the discussion about abolishing the police. You owe me answers before you'll get any from me.
|
On May 30 2019 09:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 08:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 08:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 08:16 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 08:10 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 07:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:On May 30 2019 05:00 xDaunt wrote:
[quote]
To be quite blunt, this is a pretty stupid way of assessing my argument. Refusal to even consider the merits of the argument without first being satisfied that the maker is properly credentialed? You're not a lemming. You can think for yourself.
But hey, you don't have to believe me. Just look at what Mueller writes in his report and how he structures his argument for not making a charging decision. His argument isn't difficult to decipher. He takes rules and regs stating that the "president cannot be indicted" and, using appeals to public policy, argues that he could not fairly make a charging decision. It's obvious from Mueller's own statements in the report that there is no regulation that prohibits a charging decision or the types of statements that I outlined above. Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. I'm not agreeing with Mohdoo's argument but your argument is incredibly weak. You're basically implying that if Mueller wanted to stick to "fairness" he shouldn't have investigated at all. That argument is bullshit on it's face. Mueller presented the evidence. That's it. His conclusion is the definition of "here's the evidence. No conclusions are made". You're just throwing a temper tantrum because the evidence makes your guy look bad. This isn't my argument. My argument (which I have outlined at length previously) is that Mueller should have reached a charging decision. If he decided that there was a chargeable crime, then he should have provided a full explanation of the basis for that decision. If he decided that there was no chargeable crime, then he should have simply left it at that and provided no explanation for that rationale. That is how prosecutors are supposed to act. We already know that you think that. However, you stated that Mueller's reasoning for not coming to a charging decision (that it would be unfair) was disingenuous because the report that he presented is unfair. I called you out on that bullshit because his report is pretty much "here's the evidence. I refuse to say anything at all about what it means. Have at it." That's about as far away from "tarring with innuendos" as you can get. You're spinning it to try to make Mueller look partisan and it makes you look like you're throwing a temper tantrum over reality not supporting your conclusions. You're missing the point: if a prosecutor does not charge someone, then the prosecutor is not supposed to list all of the evidence that he reviewed and considered. Whether Mueller shaped his report be anti-Trump (he did) is quite besides the point. What makes Mueller's rationale for not coming to a charging decision yet deciding to lay out all of the evidence anyway even more ludicrous is that he cites in Footnote 5 to the very authority showing why the state is not supposed to do what Mueller did. EDIT I previously explained this in detail to Gorsameth in a series of posts starting here. Unless I'm reading the wrong U.S. vs. Briggs https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-briggs-5 (this is the one that came up after searching Mueller's footnote 5 in Volume II) Then arguing that this case applies to Mueller's situation is incredibly weak, at best. How would you articulate the point of that ruling. What do you understand that ruling to be objecting to and why? Your reference thus far indicates you've misinterpreted it (as xDaunt and myself have explained previously and recently), or like Mohdoo, chosen not to interpret it into your own understanding at all. You very blatantly and purposefully dodged two of my questions several pages back on the discussion about abolishing the police. You owe me answers before you'll get any from me.
I didn't "dodge" them?
Either I didn't see them or I didn't see them as adding any value to the discussion. If you want to raise them/point me to them I'll let you know which it was and respond accordingly?
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On May 30 2019 08:10 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 08:00 ShambhalaWar wrote:On May 30 2019 04:21 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 04:17 Mohdoo wrote:On May 30 2019 04:11 xDaunt wrote:
Just a reminder: there was nothing to stop Mueller from stating explicitly in his report that "but for the OLC guidelines, we would charge Trump with [insert crime here]" or "we found probable cause that Trump committed [insert crime here]." As I have pointed out repeatedly, those omissions give away the true political nature of what Mueller and his team have been doing. Would you mind elaborating on how your qualifications compare with Mueller's? From my limited understanding of your background, I think you are a lawyer. But your career held side by side with Mueller's probably has some differences. I can't help but wonder if Mueller's experience led him to other conclusions. You don't need to be a lawyer to come to the conclusion that I did. All you need to understand is that Barr is subject to the same rules and regulations as Mueller, and that Barr made the determination that there was no probable cause of a crime. It's common sense. Yet that is specifically not the conclusion Mueller came to. Mueller said that if he could have come to that conclusion, he absolutely would have... and he couldn't.No probable cause of a crime = exoneration. Mueller specifically said Trump could not be exonerated, and that he absolutely would have claimed him innocent if he could. He couldn't. Given how preoccupied people on your side of the argument are with rules and regulations governing the decision of whether to indict, do you care to point to the rule or regulation that states that it is the job of a prosecutor to exonerate someone?
Mueller's exact words from the press conference, "As set forth in our report, after that investigation, if we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that.
We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the President did commit a crime. The introduction to volume two of our report explains that decision."
He didn't exonerate him (he couldn't say he didn't commit a crime, if he could have said that, he would have) and he also didn't charge him (it was deemed unconstitutional to charge a president in office with a crime, because of this charging wasn't even considered).
Mueller didn't make a determination on charging or exonerating (not charging) because it wasn't even something he could have considered. Yet if trump hadn't committed a crime he would have said that.
He investigated Russia's interference in our elections and attacks on our elections.
It was Mueller's job to investigate.
The reason it makes Trump look bad is because he surrounded himself with criminals and people that were lying about shit. Trump has been a criminal his whole life, that's why the news turns up tons of stories about negative shit he did, and that is why Mueller turned up other things that made him look bad, and people around him were indicted.
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On May 30 2019 09:07 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On May 30 2019 09:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 08:53 GreenHorizons wrote:On May 30 2019 08:50 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 08:16 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 08:10 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 07:30 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 07:05 Stratos_speAr wrote:On May 30 2019 06:25 xDaunt wrote:On May 30 2019 05:59 ShoCkeyy wrote:
[quote]
Can you break down this structure of not making charge? Mueller said during the press conference the department has a policy where they cannot investigate or indict a sitting president. He said there is a process for that in congress (impeachment). If he felt confident the president didn’t commit a crime he would say so. From Volume II of the report: First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to
initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial
judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment
or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the
executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the
constitutional separation of powers."1 Given the role of the Special Counsel as an attorney in the
Department of Justice and the framework of the Special Counsel regulations, see 28 U.S.C. § 515;
28 C.F.R. § 600.7(a), this Office accepted OLC's legal conclusion for the purpose of exercising
prosecutorial jurisdiction. And apart from OLC's constitutional view, we recognized that a federal
criminal accusation against a sitting President would place burdens on the President's capacity to
govern and potentially preempt constitutional processes for addressing presidential misconduct. Here's where Mueller recognizes the OLC guidelines. Second, while the OLC opinion concludes that a sitting President may not be prosecuted,
it recognizes that a criminal investigation during the President's term is permissible.
3 The OLC opinion also recognizes that a President does not have immunity after he leaves office.4 And if individuals other than the President committed an obstruction offense, they may be prosecuted at this time. Given those considerations, the facts known to us, and the strong public interest in safeguarding the integrity of the criminal justice system, we conducted a thorough factual
investigation in order to preserve the evidence when memories were fresh and documentary
materials were available. Here's where Mueller recognizes that he's allowed to investigate a president nonetheless. 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
The concerns about the fairness of such a determination would be heightened in the case
of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime, even in an internal report,
could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice. OLC noted similar
concerns about sealed indictments. Even if an indictment were sealed during the President's term,
OLC reasoned, "it would be very difficult to preserve [an indictment's] secrecy," and if an
indictment became public, "[t]he stigma and opprobrium" could imperil the President's ability to
govern."6 Although a prosecutor's internal report would not represent a formal public accusation
akin to an indictment, the possibility of the report's public disclosure and the absence of a neutral
adjudicatory forum to review its findings counseled against potentially determining "that the
person's conduct constitutes a federal offense." Justice Manual § 9-27.220. Here's where Mueller recognizes that prosecutors are supposed to make charging decisions, but nonetheless declines to do so due to concerns of "fairness" to the president -- NOT DUE TO THE OLC GUIDELINES. That second sentence that I underlined in that section with footnote 5 encapsulates the public policy considerations behind the concerns for fairness. Let's just take a moment to marvel at the stunning disingenuousness of Mueller's argument here. He refused to come to a charging decision about Trump because it would be unfair to Trump, yet he nonetheless proceeded to tar Trump with a bunch of innuendo suggesting that Trump committed a crime. Looks like Mueller was being "fair" to me! EDIT: By the way, I'd love for someone to explain to Mohdoo that this isn't very difficult to read and understand. I'm not agreeing with Mohdoo's argument but your argument is incredibly weak. You're basically implying that if Mueller wanted to stick to "fairness" he shouldn't have investigated at all. That argument is bullshit on it's face. Mueller presented the evidence. That's it. His conclusion is the definition of "here's the evidence. No conclusions are made". You're just throwing a temper tantrum because the evidence makes your guy look bad. This isn't my argument. My argument (which I have outlined at length previously) is that Mueller should have reached a charging decision. If he decided that there was a chargeable crime, then he should have provided a full explanation of the basis for that decision. If he decided that there was no chargeable crime, then he should have simply left it at that and provided no explanation for that rationale. That is how prosecutors are supposed to act. We already know that you think that. However, you stated that Mueller's reasoning for not coming to a charging decision (that it would be unfair) was disingenuous because the report that he presented is unfair. I called you out on that bullshit because his report is pretty much "here's the evidence. I refuse to say anything at all about what it means. Have at it." That's about as far away from "tarring with innuendos" as you can get. You're spinning it to try to make Mueller look partisan and it makes you look like you're throwing a temper tantrum over reality not supporting your conclusions. You're missing the point: if a prosecutor does not charge someone, then the prosecutor is not supposed to list all of the evidence that he reviewed and considered. Whether Mueller shaped his report be anti-Trump (he did) is quite besides the point. What makes Mueller's rationale for not coming to a charging decision yet deciding to lay out all of the evidence anyway even more ludicrous is that he cites in Footnote 5 to the very authority showing why the state is not supposed to do what Mueller did. EDIT I previously explained this in detail to Gorsameth in a series of posts starting here. Unless I'm reading the wrong U.S. vs. Briggs https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-briggs-5 (this is the one that came up after searching Mueller's footnote 5 in Volume II) Then arguing that this case applies to Mueller's situation is incredibly weak, at best. How would you articulate the point of that ruling. What do you understand that ruling to be objecting to and why? Your reference thus far indicates you've misinterpreted it (as xDaunt and myself have explained previously and recently), or like Mohdoo, chosen not to interpret it into your own understanding at all. You very blatantly and purposefully dodged two of my questions several pages back on the discussion about abolishing the police. You owe me answers before you'll get any from me. I didn't "dodge" them? Either I didn't see them or I didn't see them as adding any value to the discussion. If you want to raise them/point me to them I'll let you know which it was and respond accordingly?
You frequently like to chastise people for not searching others' post histories.
I'd start searching if you want an answer.
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EPT
