Cont: Breaking: Mueller Grand Jury charges filed, arrests as soon as Monday pt 2

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PhantomWolf said:
If this is true, and everything about this meeting was above board and legal, then ask yourself this, why the cover up?
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Why did Bill Clinton try to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky? The affair was legal.

The answer is obvious: sometimes perfectly legal things are embarrassing. Did you seriously not consider that possibility? Because if you did, then this is a bad faith argument, and if you didn't, you should be embarrassed for missing this rather prosaic possibility.
 
Bill Clinton was impeached for that lie too. For me though I have a hard time thinking that Trump would be embarrassed or ashamed of anything he has ever done (but I do admit to having a strong anti-Trump bias)
 
Emily's Cat said:
So in this case, the fact that someone offered them information, and that they went to the meeting expecting information may not matter. Of course, IANAL and I don't have any knowledge of whether any information did or did not materialize. But an expectation by itself may not be sufficient for a claim of conspiracy.
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Ziggurat said:
If you go into a store and ask if they have hammers, and they say no and you leave, can you be charged with attempted theft? You didn't say you would pay for one, after all.
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No, that is not an analogy to the crime of conspiracy; the crime is not committing the act that you have conspired (with at least one other person) to commit; the crime is conspiring to commit that act. I'll repeat what I posted earlier.

A conspiracy to commit an illegal act does not require that act to be successful for it to be a crime. If another person and I conspire to assassinate a politician, but we fail in that attempt for any reason, whether that reason is inside or outside our control, we have both still committed the crime of conspiracy.

If you conspire with a friend to steal some hammers from a store, and you don't go through with it for whatever reason, you have still committed a crime by conspiring to do so.
 
PhantomWolf said:
If this is true, and everything about this meeting was above board and legal, then ask yourself this, why the cover up?
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Who knows? It may be that they did do something illegal or unethical. I don't think any of us know what actually occurred in that meeting. Regardless, I think the cover-up after the fact is a bit of "filling in the blank" with respect to acbytesla's post, as well as being irrelevant to my question regarding whether it was the "meeting with foreign agents" or the "getting dirt" aspect that he finds to be beyond the pale.

xjx388 said:
Stupidity.
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Well yeah, maybe that too.
 
Ziggurat said:
Why did Bill Clinton try to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky? The affair was legal.
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The affair was NOT the reason he tried to cover it up... he tried to cover it up because he lied about it to a Grand Jury and to Congress.

Article I charged that Clinton lied to the grand jury concerning:

the nature and details of his relationship with Lewinsky
prior false statements he made in the Jones deposition
prior false statements he allowed his lawyer to make characterizing Lewinsky's affidavit
his attempts to tamper with witnesses

Article III charged Clinton with attempting to obstruct justice in the Jones case by:[22]

encouraging Lewinsky to file a false affidavit
encouraging Lewinsky to give false testimony if and when she was called to testify
concealing gifts he had given to Lewinsky that had been subpoenaed
attempting to secure a job for Lewinsky to influence her testimony
permitting his lawyer to make false statements characterizing Lewinsky's affidavit
attempting to tamper with the possible testimony of his secretary Betty Curie
making false and misleading statements to potential grand jury witnesses

The impeachment charges were for lying, not for the affair.
 
smartcooky said:
No, that is not an analogy to the crime of conspiracy; the crime is not committing the act that you have conspired (with at least one other person) to commit; the crime is conspiring to commit that act. I'll repeat what I posted earlier.

A conspiracy to commit an illegal act does not require that act to be successful for it to be a crime. If another person and I conspire to assassinate a politician, but we fail in that attempt for any reason, whether that reason is inside or outside our control, we have both still committed the crime of conspiracy.

If you conspire with a friend to steal some hammers from a store, and you don't go through with it for whatever reason, you have still committed a crime by conspiring to do so.
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Wut? Oh, so it's, like, mens rea is a thing now?? The prosecution can demonstrate a conspiracy to rip-off hammers. Maybe I contacted a friend to borrow his van on a certain day at a certain time. I enlisted others, tasking one with buying masks and another with getting guns. I had a buyer lined up. Just because we didn't carry out the great hammer heist -- doesn't mean we're free from prosecution.

Ziggurat said:
Frum thinks Steele was spying on the Russian government?

Bwahahahahahahaha!
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Yeah, Frum's an idiot. It's not like Steele spent decades working for MI-6, let alone had any knowledge of Russian operations. Why was Steele briefing US intelligence agents? Makes no sense.
 
xjx388 said:
....

But all that is really moot. Manafort isn't being tried for anything to do with his helping Russia. We can speculate all we want about how this trial is an attempt to flip him or whatever but the fact is that he is being tried for unrelated tax fraud and financial shenanigans. If he is convicted for that, is there going to then be yet another trial against Manafort directly concerning Russian shenanigans?
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You haven't been following the trial, I take it?

Rachel Maddow Draws Direct Line From Paul Manafort’s Trial To The Trump Campaign
Citing court proceedings this week, the MSNBC host noted that Manafort appears to have used his position on the Trump campaign to sell – for cash – a high-level job running the U.S. Army.

“[Manafort] really did apparently sell the promise of a job running the United States Army in exchange for cash,” Maddow said. “That apparently really happened.”
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And that was not the only thing connected to Trump and the Trump campaign that Manafort was attempting to sell to rich Russians and Ukrainians.

Manafort Denies Trump Campaign Changed GOP Platform On Ukraine

We know that is false and certainly Mueller knows it's false.
When a platform committee member offered an amendment to the platform that called for supporting Ukraine members of the Trump campaign who were not members of the committee jumped in to edit the amendment, Rogin reported. They stripped language from the amendment saying the U.S. should help Ukraine by “providing lethal defensive weapons” and instead wrote that America should offer “appropriate assistance.”

After Manafort denied any involvement from the campaign, Rogin stood by his reporting on Sunday morning.
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Ziggurat said:
No. It is never the proper function of government to do something which is not possible to do.

They prohibit specific forms of influence. The do not, and cannot, prohibit any and all forms of influence. Nor should they, if you consider things rationally.

For example, suppose candidate A proposes imposing a large tariff on all imports from country X. The president of country X points out that they buy $Y in goods from us, and promises retaliatory tariffs that would cost us $Z. This could influence the election. Moreover, it should be able to influence the election, since it's potentially useful information for voters to know and consider.
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Your analogy is a red herring. That is not what happened.


Ziggurat said:
You cannot categorize mere speech as a "contribution" subject to regulation.

Sure.

Why? And why is that worse than doing so through an intermediary, as Hillary did?
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But but her emails, and uranium...:rolleyes:

You might want to get your news from some other sources.
 
Ziggurat said:
Why did Bill Clinton try to cover up his affair with Monica Lewinsky? The affair was legal.

The answer is obvious: sometimes perfectly legal things are embarrassing. Did you seriously not consider that possibility? Because if you did, then this is a bad faith argument, and if you didn't, you should be embarrassed for missing this rather prosaic possibility.
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Oh puhleese, they covered up the meeting and all the other meetings with top campaign officials and Russians because they were embarrassed?:rolleyes::rolleyes:
 
Emily's Cat said:
Decent analogy... but it's not solicitation until money changes hands. It doesn't matter what the guy says, even if it's horribly blatant and explicit... until he exchanges money for the offer of sex, it's not illegal. The fact that the undercover cop offered sex for money, and that he went into the hotel room expecting to get sex for money is irrelevant until a transaction occurs.

So in this case, the fact that someone offered them information, and that they went to the meeting expecting information may not matter. Of course, IANAL and I don't have any knowledge of whether any information did or did not materialize. But an expectation by itself may not be sufficient for a claim of conspiracy. And beyond that, in order to pursue the "item of value" angle, I would suppose that proof of an item must exist, rather than just the expectation of an item.

Either way, I agree that the meeting shouldn't have happened, and that it indicates a willingness to do things that they should know that they ought not to be doing. I'm just not certain that it is in any fashion sufficient as evidence in any meaningful fashion.
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You are wrong.

It makes no difference if sex never takes place and money never changes hands.

Note that a prostitute can be criminally liable for solicitation even if he/she never intended to go through with the sex act. And a john can be criminally liable for prostitution even if he/she plans to go back on his/her promise to pay for the sex. A person's actions, not intent, is the key to determining whether solicitation takes place.
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https://www.shouselaw.com/nevada/solicitation.html#1.2
 
Cain said:
Wut? Oh, so it's, like, mens rea is a thing now?? The prosecution can demonstrate a conspiracy to rip-off hammers. Maybe I contacted a friend to borrow his van on a certain day at a certain time. I enlisted others, tasking one with buying masks and another with getting guns. I had a buyer lined up. Just because we didn't carry out the great hammer heist -- doesn't mean we're free from prosecution.
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I'll reply seriously because not everyone (especially lurkers) understand your penchant for outrageous satire. :D


The essence of conspiracy is an agreement of two or more persons to engage in some form of prohibited conduct. The crime is complete upon agreement, although some statutes require prosecutors to show that at least one of the conspirators has taken some concrete step or committed some overt act in furtherance of the scheme.

Further reading

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R41223.pdf
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Your analogy is a red herring. That is not what happened.
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You really aren't good at reading comprehension. That wasn't an analogy for what happened. That was an example, independent of what happened with Trump, for why the standard of "influencing" an election is nonsensical.

But but her emails, and uranium...:rolleyes:

You might want to get your news from some other sources.
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I haven't mentioned or referred to either of those things in this discussion. :rolleyes: indeed.
 
smartcooky said:
The affair was NOT the reason he tried to cover it up... he tried to cover it up because he lied about it to a Grand Jury and to Congress.
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How can you get something so simple so completely wrong? Lying to a Grand Jury and to Congress was part of the coverup.

The impeachment charges were for lying, not for the affair.
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No ****, Sherlock. But why did he lie, since the affair was legal?
 
Trump defenders contend in vain when striving to convince themselves that conspiracy (nee collusion) is not a crime. What, do they think prosecutors are or would be just making up law on the spot or something?! Twisting the law to purely partisan purposes? Counting on the whole apparatus of the justice system to go along with a fraud? Well, those of that Party--in frightful numbers--who've already stated a willingness to suspend the 2020 elections to appease Trump might, in their demonstrable, fevered, conspiratorial mindset, leap to such a projection of their own anti-constitutional leanings.

And it *is* conspiracy against the *country* even if the immediate victim is an individual candidate (Hillary). Because it impacts an *election*, which concerns the foundation of national sovereignty at the very least. Trumpists, like their idol, are too wooly-headed to think beyond the immediately personal, unable to grasp issues that impact beyond the end of one's fingertips.
 
Ziggurat said:
You really aren't good at reading comprehension. That wasn't an analogy for what happened. That was an example, independent of what happened with Trump, for why the standard of "influencing" an election is nonsensical.
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An example but not an analogy? Seriously, that's where you're going with this?

Metaphor, Simile and Analogy: What’s the Difference?
An analogy is using an example to explain something else by showing how the two situations are similar.
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I haven't mentioned or referred to either of those things in this discussion. :rolleyes: indeed.
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That is how one uses satire to make a point.

:cool:
 
Ziggurat said:
How can you get something so simple so completely wrong? Lying to a Grand Jury and to Congress was part of the coverup.
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... and it was the cover-up that got him into trouble per-se

No, of course the affair wasn't illegal. It was lying about it, before Congress and the Grand Jury, as well as his clumsy attempts at witness tampering that caused the impeachment process to be started

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/president-clinton-impeached

Kenneth Starr submitted his report and 18 boxes of supporting documents to the House of Representatives. Released to the public two days later, the Starr Report outlined a case for impeaching Clinton on 11 grounds, including perjury, obstruction of justice, witness-tampering, and abuse of power, and also provided explicit details of the sexual relationship between the president and Ms. Lewinsky. On October 8, the House authorized a wide-ranging impeachment inquiry, and on December 11, the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment. On December 19, the House impeached Clinton.

Ziggurat said:
No ****, Sherlock. But why did he lie, since the affair was legal?
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My Dear Watson, why does any man lie about having an extra marital affair?

1. Embarrassment

2. BECAUSE HE DOESN'T WANT HIS WIFE TO FIND OUT!!!
 
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