"If we had confidence that Trump did not commit a crime, we would have said so"

KCfromNC said:

Yeah, but what do they know about DOJ policy? I mean, seriously! We have random people on the internet saying that they would have done it totally differently if they were in charge. Why does Mueller not listen to them?

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Policy is not law. Mueller could have said he believed Trump committed a crime. Whether of not Trump is prosecuted for it is another matter. Trump was NOT accused of committing a crime. And even if he were he is INNOCENT until proven guilty. And no one has charged him or found him guilty of any crime. In fact Mueller didn't accuse him of one. Congress hasnt impeached h for committing a crime and the DOJ hasn't charged him nor has the FBI.

NotreDame said:

No, your characterization of those 5 specific acts, including ostensibly the one or two where the evidence is very strong, as "opinion" is not accurate. The evidence for those five is strong, minimizing your point it is just "opinion."

While it is true Trump is innocent until proven guilty, a court room standard, this does not preclude the ability of others to look at the evidence and with a very high degree of confidence reach a conclusion Trump committed a crime. You can repeat, ad nauseum, Trump is innocent until proven guilty but this misses the fact people can and have drawn conclusions as to whether Trump committed a crime based on the evidence. Despite your misplaced protestations, there is strong evidence, very strong in regards to two specific instances, supporting the notion Trump committed a crime. Alleging Trump is innocent until proven guilty does not adequately address those scrutinizing the facts and concluding, on the strength of those facts, Trump committed a crime.

You will have to engage the facts to rebut the allegations Trump committed a crime, something you have yet to do in any post in this thread.

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What allegations? Mueller didn't alledge he committed a crime. The FBI hasn't alleged anything, the DOJ hasn't alleged anything and there isn't any impeachment proceedings accusing him of committing a crime.

So far those 5 facts have not been interpreted as actual obstruction. Therefore it is only an opinion that he did. He is INNOCENT until proven guilty.

Good news, folks! Michael Flynn's case is before a judge, who has demanded not only that he submit and make public some taped and other evidence (which might of course implicate "Individual 1") but also demanded that ALL redactions in the Mueller Report concerning the Flynn case be immediately be made public.

Three cheers for getting closer to the truth.

rjs330 said:

Policy is not law. Mueller could have said he believed Trump committed a crime.

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No, he couldn’t...and he explains why...

In fact Mueller didn't accuse him of one.

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He couldn’t. Read the report...!

Congress hasnt impeached h for committing a crime and the DOJ hasn't charged him nor has the FBI.

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Yet......

Allandavid said:

Yet......

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Not going to happen. Just fodder for the democratic base.
So the house moves forward with impeachment, the senate disagrees and Trump is cleared. Totally. Talk about game over. Pelosi knows this. But the new flock of progressives don't see it. And neither does the base.

On another note...
I doubt the DOJ will charge Trump.

-------------------------------

CBS Jan Crawford Interviews William Barr

CBS News May 31, 2019, 8:11 AM
William Barr interview: Read the full transcript

JAN CRAWFORD: What is the fundamental difference? Why...I mean, he said he couldn't exonerate the president. That he had looked at the evil there - these 11 instances of possible obstruction. He couldn't exonerate the president, if he could he would've stated so. You looked at that evidence and you did. I mean, what is the fundamental difference between your view and his?

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I think Bob said that he was not going to engage in the analysis. He was, he was not going to make a determination one way or the other. And he also said that he could not say that the president was clearly did not violate the law, which of course is not the standard we use at the department. We have to determine whether there is clear violation of the law and so we applied the standards we would normally apply. We analyzed the law and the facts and a group of us spent a lot of time doing that and determined that both as a matter of law, many of the instances would not amount to obstruction.

JAN CRAWFORD: As a matter of law?

WILLIAM BARR: As a matter of law. In other words, we didn't agree with the legal analysis- a lot of the legal analysis in the report. It did not reflect the views of the department. It was the views of a particular lawyer or lawyers and so we applied what we thought was the right law but then we didn't rely on that. We also looked at all the facts, tried to determine whether the government could establish all the elements and as to each of those episodes we felt that the evidence was deficient.

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So the so-called evidence in Vol II of the Mueller report doesn't stand under scrutiny of the law. This whole thing is political. I believe the "lawyer" Barr is referring to is Andrew Weissmann. An anti-Trumper if there ever was one.


.

rjs330 said:

They did exonerate the president for collusion collaboration, conspiracy or whatever word one wants to use in the Russian probe.

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It wasn't an investigation specifically into the President. It was an investigation on whether the Russians interfered in the USA election, and they did find that this happened. This is the biggest take home from the investigation and should spark much concern and people should be demanding that Russia be punished and that USA should put measures in place to address this in future.

BTW, Trump still publicly denies that Russia interfered. So, hence, he is not doing anything about it.

The Report did exonerate everyone in the Trump campaign, in that he had insufficient evidence to push forward with criminal convictions. However, many interactions with the Trump Campaign and the Russians have been documented. These were concerning interactions and were worthy of investigation.
You don't start an investigation knowing that the outcome will be criminal charges.

rjs330 said:

They found nothing regarding him or his people on that account.

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They found lots of incidents and interactions worthy of investigating, just not enough to bring criminal charges for conspiracy against anyone involved in the Trump campaign.
e.g.
The Trump tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr and the Russians (which was initially covered up, hidden, and lied about).
Paul Manafort sharing polling data with the Russians.
etc

rjs330 said:

Mueller did list 5 things regarding obstruction. But fell short of accusing him of such.

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Mueller did not fall short of accusing the president of crimes. The special council were never going to accuse or charge the president of crimes even if the President did clearly commit crimes.

rjs330 said:

And no one has filed charges against Trump for it either. Therefore Trump is INNOCENT.

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Trump is to be treated as if he is innocent, yes.

rjs330 said:

They can't find Trump guilty if a crime, but he sure could have accused him of one. They didn't.

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Mueller stated the reason why he wouldn't have accused the president of a crime. This reason has nothing to do with the evidence found or presented. Nothing to do with whether the President actually committed crimes or not.

Therefore this is a moot point. Noone is suggesting that Mueller or the Special Council has accused the president of a crime.

You might as well keep going on about how the latest version of the Edmond's cook book hasn't accused Trump of criminal wrong doing. As if this would be some interesting point of significance??

Potluck045 said:

Not going to happen. Just fodder for the democratic base.
So the house moves forward with impeachment, the senate disagrees and Trump is cleared. Totally. Talk about game over. Pelosi knows this. But the new flock of progressives don't see it. And neither does the base.

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It does seem that the Republicans will stand behind Trump even if he has committed crimes. So yeah, the impeachment will not result in him being thrown out of office.

It will be interesting to see if that happens, whether the voters will continue voting for a party that is tolerant of crimes.

Also it will be interesting to see, once Trump leaves office, whether criminal charges will be presented at that time.

Potluck045 said:

So the so-called evidence in Vol II of the Mueller report doesn't stand under scrutiny of the law. This whole thing is political. I believe the "lawyer" Barr is referring to is Andrew Weissmann. An anti-Trumper if there ever was one.

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Not quite accurate. It didn’t stand up to Barr’s scrutiny.....

And his analysis is increasingly showing itself to be nothing more than an attempt to protect Trump....

Strange that almost 1000 former federal prosecutors state that it would be a slam-dunk case of obstruction, don’t you think...?

stevil said:

It does seem that the Republicans will stand behind Trump even if he has committed crimes. So yeah, the impeachment will not result in him being thrown out of office.

It will be interesting to see if that happens, whether the voters will continue voting for a party that is tolerant of crimes.

Also it will be interesting to see, once Trump leaves office, whether criminal charges will be presented at that time.

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Assumption of criminal acts has little basis without substantial evidence to support a charge of a crime committed. It leaves the rule of law behind for the politics of public opinion. In this country a person is innocent until proven guilty beyond the shadow of doubt. And right now under the rule of law, as Barr points out, there is doubt a crime has even been committed.

On top of that there are Trump's job approval numbers backed by a booming economy and historically low unemployment across the board. To impeach a president charges of a crime, not just allegations, must be put forth and job approval numbers in the tank. "Political" evidence from the opposition, belief or opinion that doesn't stand under scrutiny of the rule of law is baseless for the proceedings of impeachment especially when half the public approves of what he's doing.

It's been a smear campaign from the beginning and still is. The people get that. Now, if Biden continues his rhetoric of stopping the fighting, advocating peace and refrains from going off the deep end of hatred for Trump then I do believe he just might give Trump a run for his money come 2020. Thing is, I don't think his base would be happy with the offering of an olive branch.

Allandavid said:

Not quite accurate. It didn’t stand up to Barr’s scrutiny.....

And his analysis is increasingly showing itself to be nothing more than an attempt to protect Trump....

Strange that almost 1000 former federal prosecutors state that it would be a slam-dunk case of obstruction, don’t you think...?

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"We have to determine whether there is clear violation of the law and so we applied the standards we would normally apply. We analyzed the law and the facts and a group of us spent a lot of time doing that and determined that both as a matter of law, many of the instances would not amount to obstruction."

We applied the standards?
We analyzed?
a group of us?

Doesn't appear Barr is working alone.

Potluck045 said:

Assumption of criminal acts has little basis without substantial evidence to support a charge of a crime committed. It leaves the rule of law behind for the politics of public opinion. In this country a person is innocent until proven guilty beyond the shadow of doubt. And right now under the rule of law, as Barr points out, there is doubt a crime has even been committed.

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This is not and has never been a legal standard.

Potluck045 said:

On top of that there are Trump's job approval numbers backed by a booming economy and historically low unemployment across the board. To impeach a president charges of a crime, not just allegations, must be put forth and job approval numbers in the tank.

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Neither of these are requirements for impeachment.

Potluck045 said:

"Political" evidence from the opposition, belief or opinion that doesn't stand under scrutiny of the rule of law is baseless for the proceedings of impeachment especially when half the public approves of what he's doing.

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What are you talking about?

Potluck045 said:

It's been a smear campaign from the beginning and still is. The people get that. Now, if Biden continues his rhetoric of stopping the fighting, advocating peace and refrains from going off the deep end of hatred for Trump then I do believe he just might give Trump a run for his money come 2020. Thing is, I don't think his base would be happy with the offering of an olive branch.

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I do not think you are a good candidate for judging what Biden's base would be happy with.[/QUOTE]

Belk said:

This is not and has never been a legal standard.

Neither of these are requirements for impeachment.

What are you talking about?

I do not think you are a good candidate for judging what Biden's base would be happy with.

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Hey, whatever ya know?

Bottom line/s:
The DOJ isn't going to charge Trump.
Pelosi is not going to support proceedings for impeachment.

Potluck045 said:

Hey, whatever ya know?

Bottom line/s:
The DOJ isn't going to charge Trump.
Pelosi is not going to support proceedings for impeachment.

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Indeed. Why worry about things like facts and accuracy? It has a certain truthiness to it.

Belk said:

Indeed. Why worry about things like facts and accuracy? It has a certain truthiness to it.

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I do not attempt to sway anyone's beliefs. It doesn't work and only leads to contention.

Oh, and I'm not worried. I am interested to learn though what actually started all this and it wasn't the Steele Dossier as many are apt to believe. Frankly I'll be watching the airlines. lol

Go Braves said:

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It's not a prosecuter's job to exonerate. Those words he included to keep this charade going.

From the above interview from CBS....

JAN CRAWFORD: Well, I mean, he seemed to suggest yesterday that there was another venue for this and that was Congress.

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I am not sure what he was suggesting but, you know, the Department of Justice doesn't use our powers of investigating crimes as an adjunct to Congress. Congress is a separate branch of government and they can, you know, they have processes, we have our processes. Ours are related to the criminal justice process we are not an extension of Congress's investigative powers.


Mueller pretty much left the bounds of his commission since he really doesn't have the authority to transfer a case to Congress. But it did give the left some hope and that too doesn't look all that promising.

I mean, what can Nadler come up with that Mueller has not except that which is political. But then, that's all this has ever been anyway.

"Well, I am not sure what he was suggesting"
lol @ Barr

Potluck045 said:

I do not attempt to sway anyone's beliefs. It doesn't work and only leads to contention.

Oh, and I'm not worried. I am interested to learn though what actually started all this and it wasn't the Steele Dossier as many are apt to believe. Frankly I'll be watching the airlines. lol



It's not a prosecuter's job to exonerate. Those words he included to keep this charade going.

From the above interview from CBS....

JAN CRAWFORD: Well, I mean, he seemed to suggest yesterday that there was another venue for this and that was Congress.

WILLIAM BARR: Well, I am not sure what he was suggesting but, you know, the Department of Justice doesn't use our powers of investigating crimes as an adjunct to Congress. Congress is a separate branch of government and they can, you know, they have processes, we have our processes. Ours are related to the criminal justice process we are not an extension of Congress's investigative powers.


Mueller pretty much left the bounds of his commission since he really doesn't have the authority to transfer a case to Congress. But it did give the left some hope and that too doesn't look all that promising.

I mean, what can Nadler come up with that Mueller has not except that which is political. But then, that's all this has ever been anyway.

"Well, I am not sure what he was suggesting"
lol @ Barr

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Lol @ Barr, lol @ Trump for keeping the charade going by misrepresenting the report.

Go Braves said:

Lol @ Barr, lol @ Trump for keeping the charade going by misrepresenting the report.

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And who pays attention to Trump? What with 92% negative news coverage who could ignore the onslaught of left wing media?

Potluck045 said:

"We have to determine whether there is clear violation of the law and so we applied the standards we would normally apply. We analyzed the law and the facts and a group of us spent a lot of time doing that and determined that both as a matter of law, many of the instances would not amount to obstruction."

We applied the standards?
We analyzed?
a group of us?

Doesn't appear Barr is working alone.

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Never heard of the ‘royal we’...?

Trump uses it all the time...why wouldn’t his lackeys...?

Allandavid said:

Never heard of the ‘royal we’...?

Trump uses it all the time...why wouldn’t his lackeys...?

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You're entitled to your opinion.
Anywho,
Ever hear of a prosecutor being commissioned to exonerate anybody?

oh well. Gotta get some sleep. Ya'll have a good night and God Bless.