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Mueller Investigation pt5

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Retribution has begun.

The Trump campaign has hired its own in-house attorney for its 2020 reelection bid — shifting future business away from Jones Day, the law firm, that has represented Trump since his first run for president.

Campaign officials and advisers cast the decision to hire Nathan Groth — a former lawyer for the Republican National Committee and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker — as a money-saving move, supported by the businessman-turned-president who loves to cut costs.

But close Trump advisers say the decision also stems from disappointment with the White House’s former top attorney and current Jones Day partner, Don McGahn, whose behavior has irked the president and some of his family members.

Taking business away from Jones Day is payback, these advisers say, for McGahn’s soured relationship with the Trump family and a handful articles in high-profile newspapers that the family blames, unfairly or not, on the former White House counsel.
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Not to take this off topic, but the defense all administrations/presidents/press secretaries lie has some credibility. The problem is, Trump is a different kind of liar. Here's a great example from Stephen Grosz in the Financial Times:
On Boxing Day last year, during an unannounced visit to Iraq, Trump spoke to US troops about a pay rise. “I got you a big one. I got you a big one.” He continued, “They said: ‘You know, we could make it smaller. We could make it 3 per cent. We could make it 2 per cent. We could make it 4 per cent.’ I said: ‘No. Make it 10 per cent. Make it more than 10 per cent’.” The future pay rise is 2.6 per cent. Think about what is happening here: a lie — easily discredited — is being made, with complete shamelessness, to people most of us would regard as heroes. When he told the troops about the pay rise, they must have gone wild. For the briefest moment, Trump will have been applauded, celebrated — but then what? How can someone be so oblivious to the consequences of deceit? Link
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Countless FBI agents "told us." Does that even make sense? An FBI agent doesn't like his Director, so they contact the White House? To see if they can get the president to fire the director? How did they "contact us?" By phone, letter, email? Do they identify themselves? If they did, would they fear possible retaliation? If they didn't identify themselves, how could the White House be sure they were really FBI agents?
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
Is it too much to ask you to hold others who have held the same position to the same standard as Sanders? It's not breaking news that any White House Press Secretary lies, or is this news to you?

Chris B.
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I genuinely don't understand you. If it doesn't matter to you that the press secretary lied, why spend so much time on a silly defense that "countless" means "I didn't count them"?

You can save yourself a lot of time in the future by just saying that maybe she lied, maybe she didn't, but it doesn't matter either way because press secretaries lie. This simple go-to answer will prevent looking silly by trying to redefine common words.

It may, of course, still make you look silly for other reasons.
 
I am of the opinion that Twitter is a popular communication medium, but that the content and posts are contractually/legally not very important. There is insufficient Case Law to determine whether I am understating the importance of Twitter posts compared to letters, faxes (do they still exist), emails, recordings etc.

But does the Mueller report reference to "public statements" suggest that Twitter posts are not the equivalent of say a letter or email.
 
newyorkguy said:
Countless FBI agents "told us." Does that even make sense? An FBI agent doesn't like his Director, so they contact the White House? To see if they can get the president to fire the director? How did they "contact us?" By phone, letter, email? Do they identify themselves? If they did, would they fear possible retaliation? If they didn't identify themselves, how could the White House be sure they were really FBI agents?
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Sanders implied that it was FBI employees that she knew, and said that she was talking about having communicated with them through various means including the methods you mentioned. And she didn't say that they'd asked for the director to be removed, but that they'd expressed their pleasure at his removal.
 
I agree with Warren that if there ever was a President who needed to be impeached, it is Trump, just to make it clear that what he has done is unacceptable.

But it seems to me that Mueller hopes, even expects, that Trump will be charged with Obstruction once out of office.
Making sure that Trump leaves in 2020 needs to be the higher priority, especially considering that his legal trouble will start in earnest then: there is more than one way to make it clear that winning the way Trump has comes with consequences.
 
But why don't you like the Republican spin that collusion was settled - there was none. So in that case obstruction becomes a moot point.

Yes Trump did obstruct, but there is no effect as it is found that the Campaign did not conclude.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
Nope, I know as White House Press Secretary lying and spin is part of the job (while not under oath). I just pointed out that there may have been a failed attempt to set her up (Sanders) for a perjury charge. (Process crime)

Chris B.
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Or perhaps they wanted to know whether large numbers of FBI agents were in favor of Comey's firing, since that would be relevant to the obstruction issue.
 
Zambo said:
But why don't you like the Republican spin that collusion was settled - there was none. So in that case obstruction becomes a moot point.

Yes Trump did obstruct, but there is no effect as it is found that the Campaign did not conclude.
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Your understanding of both the report and the law are seriously flawed. The report details many instances of "collusion" but states that the investigators were unable to find the kind of hard evidence that would support a criminal conspiracy prosecution. But that's not the same as concluding "there was none" because we still don't know what most of those secret contacts were about. Furthermore, obstructing the investigation of a possible crime is obstruction of justice, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. Trump was clearly very afraid of what Mueller might find.
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
You mean you can't admit that Democrats lie?
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Let's all agree on the following, shall we?

Lying is bad, in general.

More lies are worse than fewer.

Lies about significant issues (say, over a firing that may be considered obstruction) are worse than lies about trivialities (say, size of an inauguration crowd).

Let's all agree that press secretaries sometimes shade the truth. I don't know that they all lie, but they certainly spin. I believe that most press secretaries try to avoid telling literal lies.

With all that out of the way, we can avoid discussions about whether other press secretaries have lied. Insofar as they have done so, they have behaved badly. If Sanders lied, she has behaved badly, no matter how many other folk have behaved badly.

Our question, then, is has she behaved badly?
 
James Comey was fired on May 9, 2017. Sarah Sanders, then the White House's deputy press secretary was asked about it by the press on May 10th and the 11th. She did give details, that the agents reached her (or the White House) by "email, text messages." Below are quotes from a Business Insider article written right after the May 11th press conference:
Sanders was asked earlier about what led her and the White House to "believe" Comey "lost the confidence of the FBI when [McCabe] says it's exactly the opposite." "Well, I can speak to my own personal experience," she said. "I've heard from countless members of the FBI who are grateful for the president's decision." link
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The press was immediately suspicious.
"You said now today, and I think you said again yesterday, that you personally have talked to countless FBI officials employees since this happened," a reporter asked, referring to Sanders' claim Wednesday that the FBI's rank-and-file supported Comey's dismissal. "Correct," she responded. "I mean, really?!" the reporter shot back.

Sanders said that "between email, text messages" she "absolutely" heard from many agents who agreed with the president's decision. The reporter asked for a number. "50? 60? 70?" he asked.

"Look, we're not going to get into a numbers game," Sanders said. "I have heard from a large number of individuals who work at the FBI who said they're very happy with the president's decision."
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You can see where Sanders had a problem with this when testifying under oath. If the Mueller attorney questioning her followed the same logic progression in trying to vet this as the press member had, she would likely be asked next, how did the agents contact her? If she gave the same answer -- email, text messages -- she might then be asked to produce some. Which she wouldn't have been able to do since they didn't exist. How would she attempt to explain not producing them? She couldn't simply refuse; she'd be committing obstruction. Say she deleted all of them? That might not play too well! Plus, the danger the investigators would ask to examine the devices in order to have IT experts see if they could retrieve the deleted text messages and emails. She decided to do the safe thing: she swallowed hard and admitted to the hearing that she had been lying. She was willing to take a hit in the media if her testimony was referenced when the Mueller Report eventually came out, in order to avoid an even bigger problem if she tried to stonewall the investigators or mislead them as she had members of the press.

She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Corney was a comment she made "in the heat of the moment" that was not founded on anything. p483 Mueller Report
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Squeegee Beckenheim is correct. Sanders was saying she'd heard from many FBI agents praising the administration's decision to fire Comey after the fact. That doesn't make sense to me either for the same reasons I outlined previously. Of course, as we now know, it doesn't have to make sense because it never happened. ;)
 
ChrisBFRPKY said:
The Great Zaganza said:
Obama tried to do something, but McConnell threatened to say he was interfering in the election if he told the public about how Russia was helping Trump.
And the IC under Obama did shout out about the danger, but it wasn't entertaining enough for the media.
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I think we're going to find out what Obama tried to do in great detail.

Chris B.
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Maybe so, but it won't be because Republicans want that.

They like it as a talking point they can use to make ominous, derogatory insinuations about Obama and the Democrats.

But like so many other of their promised 'big reveals', they really want to avoid all the facts being laid out because it will show the opposite of what they were trying to claim.

Not unlike the actual reading of Mueller's report.
 
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WilliamSeger said:
Your understanding of both the report and the law are seriously flawed. The report details many instances of "collusion" but states that the investigators were unable to find the kind of hard evidence that would support a criminal conspiracy prosecution. But that's not the same as concluding "there was none" because we still don't know what most of those secret contacts were about. Furthermore, obstructing the investigation of a possible crime is obstruction of justice, regardless of the outcome of the investigation. Trump was clearly very afraid of what Mueller might find.
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On collusion, you are not following the plot. Unless you are proposing throwing out the Mueller Report and commissioning a new one then this is going no where.

On obstruction, you are confusing an understanding of the law with an expectation of the likely result of a prosecution under that law.
 
Ladewig said:
Oh, FFS.

Who was the last president who claimed to know more than anyone in the country? Or anyone on the planet?

“I know more about renewables than anyone on earth.”
“Nobody knows more about taxes than I do — maybe in the history of the world."
“Nobody in the history of this country has ever known so much about infrastructure as Donald Trump."
“Nobody knows more about trade than me.”

The count is over 9000 false or misleading statements.

I have no idea whether President Trump is a chronic liar, a habitual liar, a compulsive liar, or a sociopathic liar, but there can be no doubt that he lies more than an order of magnitude more than any president in modern history.

Equating the lying in this administration with the lying in any one of the past six administrations is disingenuousness in the extreme.
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or, said another way:

How many people have stolen a candy bar from a store as a child, and used a copy machine at work for personal matters, and taken a pen or a pad of paper home from work and used it for personal purposes? That’s stealing, but it is orders of magnitude different from robbing a bank.

Let’s not use a binary “If you’re not 100% good, you’re bad” to conflate clearly discernible levels of corruption.
 
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