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

rambot · May 30, 2019

KCfromNC said:
TIL that Republicans lost the 2016 election. Who knew?

Remember the right wingers "and what will you do when he is exonerated by Mueller?" Posts

They are a distant quaint memory at this point.

wing2000 · May 30, 2019

stevil said:
Special Council would have exonerated the President of committing a crime if they determined his innocence. They could not determine innocence, so they did not. But they aren't accusing him of a crime because that is a matter left for a process other than the criminal justice system a.k.a. congress and the impeachment process.

Prosecutors do not determine innocence. They do determine if there's sufficient evidence to bring charges (but of course in this case, Mueller could not go down that road per DOJ policy as he clearly stated).

whatbogsends · May 30, 2019

hopperace said:
That's an interesting spin, Tanj. Based in some fantastic misreading of what I posted, but interesting; particularly regarding the money trail and your seeming perspective that the whole continuing drama exists in a timeless vacuum without actual detriment to the American public.

"On" has no direct connection to your "by", especially as I spelled out the opposition Democrat impetus behind the whole affair, a known fact, regardless of the Republican pieces set in motion. One has only to look at the disparity of perspective regarding Mueller and Barr, who have been friends for 30 years, to admit to what's going on here.

You are absolutely correct that you only need to look at the disparity of perspective regarding Mueller and Barr to see what is going on here.

Barr went out of his way to characterize the report in the language that Trump uses, despite the report doing no such thing. When asked, under oath, if Mueller agreed with his conclusions, Barr claimed he didn't know, when Mueller had already sent him a 4-page letter indicating that he didn't agree with him. Mueller laid out the facts, and Barr misrepresented the facts contained before they were publicly available, thereby setting a false narrative.

wing2000 · May 30, 2019

whatbogsends said:
You are absolutely correct that you only need to look at the disparity of perspective regarding Mueller and Barr to see what is going on here.

Barr went out of his way to characterize the report in the language that Trump uses, despite the report doing no such thing. When asked, under oath, if Mueller agreed with his conclusions, Barr claimed he didn't know, when Mueller had already sent him a 4-page letter indicating that he didn't agree with him. Mueller laid out the facts, and Barr misrepresented the facts contained before they were publicly available, thereby setting a false narrative.

Mueller's remarks are the ones Barr should have given weeks ago. One is a professional. The other is covering for the President.

Potluck045 · May 30, 2019

All this effort, money spent, 500 witnesses subpoenaed ,26 lawyers and no solid evidence. What is left is innuendo, supposition and biased opinion.

If there is a solid case then show the solid evidence to support it. But after these years of investigation with nothing but political opinion as a result I suppose letting go of the dream to overturn the legal vote of the people can be difficult.

Mueller’s statement concludes his participation in the effort to delegitimize the voters’ choice. What ensues from here is nothing more than a smear campaign against Trump and the people who support and voted for him.

The electoral college protects the peoples’ voice from being dominated solely by high population areas.
There is much wisdom in this.

whatbogsends · May 30, 2019

Potluck045 said:
All this effort, money spent, 500 witnesses subpoenaed ,26 lawyers and no solid evidence. What is left is innuendo, supposition and biased opinion.

If there is a solid case then show the solid evidence to support it. But after these years of investigation with nothing but political opinion as a result I suppose letting go of the dream to overturn the legal vote of the people can be difficult.

Mueller’s statement concludes his participation in the effort to delegitimize the voters’ choice. What ensues from here is nothing more than a smear campaign against Trump and the people who support and voted for him.

The electoral college protects the peoples’ voice from being dominated solely by high population areas.
There is much wisdom in this.

The Mueller Report presented plenty of solid evidence of obstruction. That Trump and his allies are trying to handwave that evidence away doesn't diminish that.

Moreover, it shows that Trump was happy to receive aid through Russian efforts, even though he didn't coordinate efforts with Russia. After the election, Trump has sided with Russia over our intelligence agencies regarding their election interference on more than one occasion, publicly taking Putin's word over that of our intelligence agencies.

What has delegitimized the voice of the electoral college (not the voters, the voters supported another candidate by a margin of ~3 million people) is Trump's actions. That you can continue to defend Trump after this has been exposed smears yourself, you don't need anyone else to do so.

bhsmte · May 30, 2019

wing2000 said:
Prosecutors do not determine innocence. They do determine if there's sufficient evidence to bring charges (but of course in this case, Mueller could not go down that road per DOJ policy as he clearly stated).

No policy or law stopped mueller, from stating his investigation found enough evidence to support a charge of obstruction. Just as ken starr, concluded with clinton when he investigated.

After the american people paid for the investigation and mueller was chosen, i believe he owed the public, whether he as special prosecutor, felt the evidence was enough.

Just my opinion.

wing2000 · May 30, 2019

bhsmte said:
No policy or law stopped mueller, from stating his investigation found enough evidence to support a charge of obstruction. Just as ken starr, concluded with clinton when he investigated.

After the american people paid for the investigation and mueller was chosen, i believe he owed the public, whether he as special prosecutor, felt the evidence was enough.

Just my opinion.

It seems Mueller had a different take than Starr (would be curious to hear Starr's take on this issue).

“The Special Counsel’s Office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider,” Mueller said.

“Beyond department policy,” he continued, “we were guided by principles of fairness. It would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge.”

Also - what policy changes, if any, were made after the Starr investigation?

Mueller emphasized in his first public comments Wednesday that he believed his office could not even consider whether to charge the president with a crime, guided in part by legal opinions issued by the department when two previous presidents faced the threat of prosecution.

The opinions — written in 1973 when President Richard M. Nixon faced the Watergate investigation and then in 2000 following the Starr inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s behavior — concluded that initiating criminal proceedings against a sitting president would interfere with the unique constitutional responsibilities of the nation’s chief executive.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...0b4105f7ca0_story.html?utm_term=.40ea3c4d0e18

Potluck045 · May 30, 2019

whatbogsends said:
The Mueller Report presented plenty of solid evidence of obstruction.

Obstruction?
Thought the whole premise of the investigation was collusion.
Ok
So what evidence of obstruction exactly are you referring to?

KCfromNC · May 30, 2019

rambot said:
Remember the right wingers "and what will you do when he is exonerated by Mueller?" Posts

They are a distant quaint memory at this point.

Yep, we now instead have the president Tweeting that Russia helped him get elected. How far we've come.

Potluck045 · May 30, 2019

It wasn't Mueller's job to exonerate Trump.

KCfromNC · May 30, 2019

bhsmte said:
No policy or law stopped mueller, from stating his investigation found enough evidence to support a charge of obstruction.

Except the question was decided not by evidence but by DOJ policy to not indict a sitting president. So no amount of evidence would have supported a charge at this point, because the people doing the charging were making their decisions based on other factors.

KCfromNC · May 30, 2019

Potluck045 said:
Obstruction?
Thought the whole premise of the investigation was collusion.

No, that was what Donald tried to turn to after he was found to be lying about his claims of no contact with the Russians.

So what evidence of obstruction exactly are you referring to?

See volume 2 of Mueller's report.

wing2000 · May 30, 2019

Meanwhile, Trump reacts - admitting for the first time Russia helped him :

“Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax,” Trump wrote on Twitter. “And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...0b4105f7ca0_story.html?utm_term=.d182d92061b0

Belk · May 30, 2019

Potluck045 said:
Obstruction?
Thought the whole premise of the investigation was collusion.
Ok
So what evidence of obstruction exactly are you referring to?

Absolutely none of the investigation was based on collusion.

Potluck045 · May 30, 2019

KCfromNC said:
No, that was what Donald tried to turn to after he was found to be lying about his claims of no contact with the Russians.

See volume 2 of Mueller's report.

What exactly in the whole of volume II stands out as solid evidence of obstruction?

bhsmte · May 30, 2019

KCfromNC said:
Except the question was decided not by evidence but by DOJ policy to not indict a sitting president. So no amount of evidence would have supported a charge at this point, because the people doing the charging were making their decisions based on other factors.

That has zero bearing, on whether he states whether evidence supported an obstruction charge.

If mueller was trusted to do the investigation, he should have closed it off, by making conclusions on both conspiracy and obstruction, regardless of varying legal opinions on whether a sitting president can be charged.

He copped out in my opinion.

whatbogsends · May 30, 2019

Potluck045 said:
Obstruction?
Thought the whole premise of the investigation was collusion.
Ok
So what evidence of obstruction exactly are you referring to?

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the actual Mueller Report. All of Volume II deals with obstruction of justice.

https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

As the report indicates in the introduction to Volume I, "collusion" was not investigated. "Collusion" isn't a term that has a legal definition, so Mueller looked at it through the lens of Criminal Conspiracy. Anyone who says that the Mueller Report exonerated Trump of collusion is being imprecise with language, at best, and flagrantly dishonest, at worst.

The report dealt with Russian interference in the US elections, and as a corollary to that, any potential involvement of US citizens in that interference. While it didn't establish that Trump coordinated with Russia in those actions, it found that he was receptive to those actions, as he determined that it would benefit his campaign.

Regarding obstruction of justice:

"Several hundred former federal prosecutors published a statement this week asserting that President Trump would have been charged with obstruction of justice, were he not the sitting president"

As to specific actions:

"Paul Rosenzweig:

Don McGahn — in order to obscure and conceal the fact that he had ordered McGahn to see to Mueller's firing. At least that's how McGahn tells it.

And then, when that became known in the press, he ordered McGahn to write a false memorandum saying that that had never happened. McGahn refused. That's an effort to obstruct justice. It's an effort to tamper with a witness' memory in a way that, for me, meets the bar of obstruction of justice.

Other ones that we could name, for example, the apparent threat to Michael Cohen in advance of his testimony that bad things might happen to him, they might open up his parents', his family's history. That's, again, an obstructive act intended, it looks quite clear to me, to cow Mr. Cohen and to dissuade him from testifying.

Those are two for starters."

Why hundreds of former federal prosecutors disagree with Barr over Mueller report

bhsmte · May 30, 2019

wing2000 said:
It seems Mueller had a different take than Starr (would be curious to hear Starr's take on this issue).

“The Special Counsel’s Office is part of the Department of Justice, and by regulation, it was bound by that department policy. Charging the president with a crime was therefore not an option we could consider,” Mueller said.

“Beyond department policy,” he continued, “we were guided by principles of fairness. It would be unfair to potentially accuse somebody of a crime when there can be no court resolution of the actual charge.”

Also - what policy changes, if any, were made after the Starr investigation?

Mueller emphasized in his first public comments Wednesday that he believed his office could not even consider whether to charge the president with a crime, guided in part by legal opinions issued by the department when two previous presidents faced the threat of prosecution.

The opinions — written in 1973 when President Richard M. Nixon faced the Watergate investigation and then in 2000 following the Starr inquiry into President Bill Clinton’s behavior — concluded that initiating criminal proceedings against a sitting president would interfere with the unique constitutional responsibilities of the nation’s chief executive.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...0b4105f7ca0_story.html?utm_term=.40ea3c4d0e18

One more time; there is no policy, that prevented mueller from reaching a conclusion on his own investigation. Prosecutors dont indict, grand juries do.

bhsmte · May 30, 2019

Potluck045 said:
What exactly in the whole of volume II stands out as solid evidence of obstruction?

Read the report. There is evidence that obstruction may indeed have occured.

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

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