Postmortem on Mueller

[Old Hippy]

You sound like a broken record, a mix of Pravda, German propaganda in the late stages of WW2, and 1984. At this point it's just down to throwing as many lies as you can at the wall in the hope that at least one person will believe one of them.

sounds as tho you have read the Dems playbook...

 

[Estebonrober]

FWIW the report has always been pretty explicit. The level of obfuscation and lying in general about the nature of the Trump campaign is pretty audacious considering he did a lot of it on television. It’s this new thing where you can apparently break laws and stuff on TV and twitter and suddenly it doesn’t count I guess. Anyways here’s a nice synopsis on the level of stupid that the trump campaign participated in that the report found.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/mueller/590467/

“The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion,” Mueller wrote. This help “favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.”

The Trump campaign “expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts,” and it “welcomed” this help.

 

[Berzerker]

ALAN DERSHOWITZ: "What I saw today was him putting his thumb, his elbow on the scale. When he said, "if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so." That was absolutely inappropriate for him to say. It was worse than anything that Comey said when he exonerated Hillary Clinton and then said, but she engaged in extremely careless conduct. Everybody condemned that. This is much, much worse.

It does show that he had a motive to help the Democrats here. There is no other possible motive why he would have gone out of his way to say that, he could have easily said the opposite. If we had confidence that the president didn't commit a crime, we would have said it. If we had confidence that he committed a crime, we would have said it. But, no, we emphasized only the possibility that the president might have committed a crime. That went well beyond his authority as special counsel.

It also showed we should have never had a special counsel. We should have had an objective, neutral, nonpartisan investigative commission looking into the entire effort of Russia to intrude itself into the '16 election and continuing to the '20 election and proposing efforts to ameliorate that in the future. A special counsel was a terrible, terrible mistake and I think Mueller's statement today proves that beyond any doubt."

The funny thing is there are people on both sides who are unhappy with Mueller, the impeach Trump crowd wanted Mueller to be more forthcoming (me too) and Dershowitz is criticizing him for bias. I have to agree with Dershowitz, I thought our system was based on innocent till proven guilty and Mueller said we cant prove Trump's innocence. Can you prove his guilt? You dont have to charge him, just let us know if the charge would stick.

 

[Socrates99]

No offense but Mueller is a long time Republican appointed to the FBI by a Republican president and appointed as special counsel again by a Republican. The idea that hes suddenly a Democrat plant is beyond absurd.

If he had motive to say something it was absolutely not to help Democrats.

 

[Lexicus]

Scene #554523 of postmodernism destroying the world: fascists using liberal concepts such as "innocent until proven guilty" to argue that the President should be above the law entirely

 

[Berzerker]

Trump's been at war with Mueller's friends

Scene #554523 of postmodernism destroying the world: fascists using liberal concepts such as "innocent until proven guilty" to argue that the President should be above the law entirely

Innocent until proven guilty is the law, I'd think fascists support guilty until proven innocent.

 

[Naskra]

The special counsel is a subordinate of the president; the president therefore has an oversight duty with respect to the special counsel. This is what makes an obstruction of justice of charge so dicey. Mueller wrote Volume II as if he were some independent branch of government with wide-ranging prosecutorial power. He could with equal justice have made a case for the defense instead of the prosecution. Or stayed within his brief and left the matter alone.

 

[Lexicus]

Innocent until proven guilty is the law, I'd think fascists support guilty until proven innocent.

It's functionally impossible to prove the guilt of the President if the President can end any investigation because he feels it might hurt him politically. It's also impossible to prove the guilt of the President if the Administration refuses to play ball with Congressional oversight.

The special counsel is a subordinate of the president; the president therefore has an oversight duty with respect to the special counsel. This is what makes an obstruction of justice of charge so dicey.

"It's Not Illegal If The President Does It!", episode II

 

[Berzerker]

The special counsel is a subordinate of the president; the president therefore has an oversight duty with respect to the special counsel. This is what makes an obstruction of justice of charge so dicey. Mueller wrote Volume II as if he were some independent branch of government with wide-ranging prosecutorial power. He could with equal justice have made a case for the defense instead of the prosecution. Or stayed within his brief and left the matter alone.

That poses a problem if the President is the one being investigated

It's functionally impossible to prove the guilt of the President if the President can end any investigation because he feels it might hurt him politically. It's also impossible to prove the guilt of the President if the Administration refuses to play ball with Congressional oversight.

I agree with the first part but defendants/suspects regularly refuse to play ball and are still found guilty, even by Congress. The problem with this case is Trump didn't try to end the investigation, he tried to get rid of some of the investigators for perceived bias. I have no doubt Trump would have ended the investigation if he could, but he did have a motive to ensure the people running it were fair. If you were being spied on and you found out the FISA warrant relied heavily on BS you'd be suspicious of the people who relied on it, I would. I'd be asking all these investigators how they could go after me based on the rumors and gossip provided by my political opponents.

 

[Naskra]

That poses a problem if the President is the one being investigated

Exactly. Prosecutorial discretion is ultimately in the hands of the president. If he knows Mueller is wasting time and money (and most importantly, reaping publicity) on a wild goose chase, he has a duty to intervene - which is not clearly obstruction of justice.

 

[Berzerker]

Thats true, and Mueller did in fact confirm it was a wild goose chase

but he did get Manafort and Flynn so its not a total waste

 

[Lexicus]

he did have a motive to ensure the people running it were fair.

If you genuinely think Trump cares at all about "fairness" there is no point continuing any conversation with you.

 

[Berzerker]

If you genuinely think Trump cares at all about "fairness" there is no point continuing any conversation with you.

he does if he's innocent

 

[rah]

Hmm half is findings showed that there was interference, he just determined that they were too incompetent for it to be collusion. Sounds like it was worth the look at and far from a witch hunt. It's too bad that Trump didn't just figure that out and not done anything that looked like collusion instead of trying to stop it or just tweet about it day in and day out. Then his totally exonerated would sound a lot better.

 

[Lexicus]

he does if he's innocent

That doesn't even make any sense. We know Trump doesn't give a crap about fairness, as evidence, we have his entire life of unethical and criminal behavior.

 

[Berzerker]

That doesn't even make any sense. We know Trump doesn't give a crap about fairness, as evidence, we have his entire life of unethical and criminal behavior.

If you're innocent of a crime do you want the people investigating you to be fair and competent? Yes. Does it matter if you're guilty of other offenses? No. How would you react if investigators spied on you based on rumors and gossip provided by political opponents seeking power by getting rid of you? You'd have reason to question the entire process.

 

[rah]

Actually If i'm stupid enough to go in to politics I would expect people to be crawling up my butt. If you don't, you're an idiot. It comes with the turf. The more turf, the farther you should expect them to crawl up.

 

[Estebonrober]

The special counsel is a subordinate of the president; the president therefore has an oversight duty with respect to the special counsel. This is what makes an obstruction of justice of charge so dicey. Mueller wrote Volume II as if he were some independent branch of government with wide-ranging prosecutorial power. He could with equal justice have made a case for the defense instead of the prosecution. Or stayed within his brief and left the matter alone.

WTH? The president directly and indirectly interfered with his investigation on Russian interference in the election. FULL STOP. Idk WTH you all are smoking these days but it’s got you all in knots.

 

[Naskra]

WTH?

which sentence is untrue?

 

[Lexicus]

If you're innocent of a crime do you want the people investigating you to be fair and competent? Yes.

True, I do. Maybe you do. Trump does not, he wants the people investigating him to be his own lackeys who will say he didn't do anything wrong regardless of the facts.