Mueller Investigation pt 6

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Trump Tweets

No Collusion, No Obstruction - there has NEVER been a President who has been more transparent. Millions of pages of documents were given to the Mueller Angry Dems, plus I allowed everyone to testify, including W.H. counsel. I didn’t have to do this, but now they want more.....

...Congress has no time to legislate, they only want to continue the Witch Hunt, which I have already won. They should start looking at The Criminals who are already very well known to all. This was a Rigged System - WE WILL DRAIN THE SWAMP!
 
Upchurch said:
Page 214*:


Which appears just above the portion where they say "If we couldn't find any evidence of the President committing a crime, we'd say so. ...we can't say so."



* That's in PDF pages, it's also Volume II, page 2
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That says that they didn't try to show that crimes were committed, because they weren't going to bring charges. It doesn't say why they weren't going to bring charges.
 
Drewbot said:
Is anyone tempering their hatred for Donald Trump, now that he has been investigated, and not charged with anything?

I know people like my brother were telling me that once the Mueller Report came out, i'd start hating him too, and I agreed that when it did, and he was charged with a crime, i'd turn on Trump in a heartbeat.

Now that he has not been charged, has anyone gone the other way?

It seems for 2 years Fox, Trump, and his supporters have been correct, and now that the Mueller report is out, no one is realizing that they have been fooled for two years.

The media and DNC have been trying to correct their galactically bad 2016 campaign for almost 3 years, is the fog of cognitive dissonance starting to lift?

Honesty please.
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You've set an impossibly high bar for yourself.

Trump was *never* going to be indicted/charged for a crime simply because the OLC of the Justice Department guidline--which Mueller scrupulously observed-- that a sitting President cannot be indicted was in effect from the outset.

You are being either naive or disingenuous if an actual criminal *charge* was to be your threshold.

In regards to Trump himself, this was always a *political* process, not a legal one. How very convenient for you that a legally binding result for Trump did not obtain.
 
Hellbound said:
Well, that's true.

His repeated attempts to lie are pretty damn transparent.
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Trump is basically a naked political singularity. The corruption and mendacity common to all politicians is not hidden behind the event horizon of establishment politics. I think a lot of people are horrified at Trump not because he's the same as other politicians, but because he doesn't have the political professionalism to keep that fact tastefully hidden behind a cloud of cigar smoke in a back room at the sausage-making factory.

---

In before the "naked Trump? Ew!" jokes. Be less predictable, people.
 
theprestige said:
That says that they didn't try to show that crimes were committed, because they weren't going to bring charges. It doesn't say why they weren't going to bring charges.
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Yeah, it does. It's hard to narrow it down to single sentence, but to remove the extra language, it's something like:
The ordinary means for an individual to respond to an accusation is through a speedy and public trial [where] An individual who believes he was wrongly accused can use that process to [...] clear his name.

[A] prosecutor's judgment that crimes were committed, but that no charges will be brought, affords no such adversarial opportunity for public name-clearing before an impartial adjudicator.

The concerns about the fairness [...]would be heightened in the case of a sitting President, where a federal prosecutor's accusation of a crime [...] could carry consequences that extend beyond the realm of criminal justice.
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tl;dr: When a prosecutor decides a crime was committed, they can either announce it so the defendant can try to clear their name in court OR keep it quiet if they decide to not prosecute. A sitting President cannot be drug into federal criminal court to defend themselves, so a prosecutor cannot announce their crimes.

^ That is why they cannot indict the President, even if they decide he did crimes.
 
Upchurch said:
Page 214*:
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9-27.220, nor any of what you posted mentions the OLC's policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted.


Which appears just above the portion where they say "If we couldn't find any evidence of the President committing a crime, we'd say so. ...we can't say so."* That's in PDF pages, it's also Volume II, page 2
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What you quoted also says, "this report does not conclude the president committed a crime." There is nothing preventing the Special Counsel from listing any crimes committed by the president in his report, only that he can't issue an indictment. In other words, Mueller could have pointed out any crimes and let Congress deal with them because he is unable to under current DOJ policy, but he didn't.

None of what you have provided states that Mueller didn't indict Trump because he couldn't, which was Crossbow and Beelzebuddy's original claims.
 
Bogative said:
9-27.220, nor any of what you posted mentions the OLC's policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted.
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It's in footnote 6, mentioned in the second paragraph, I believe.

Bogative said:
What you quoted also says, "this report does not conclude the president committed a crime." There is nothing preventing the Special Counsel from listing any crimes committed by the president in his report, only that he can't issue an indictment.
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He basically did. That's what most of Volume II is. What he can't do is officially call Trump out without providing him a mechanism to clear his name. That's what impeachment is for and Mueller can't start that.


Bogative said:
In other words, Mueller could have pointed out any crimes and let Congress deal with them because he is unable to under current DOJ policy, but he didn't.
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That is specifically what he did. I'm running to a meeting now, so I'll have to look up the exact citation later. (Maybe some nice sole can do it for me?)

Bogative said:
None of what you have provided states that Mueller didn't indict Trump because he couldn't, which was Crossbow and Beelzebuddy's original claims.
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Read again, you've been misinformed about the report.
 
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Fast Eddie B said:
I agree. It’s not clear cut. Which is why I just said I’m leaning towards impeachment. I certainly appreciate the arguments against.
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I tend towards 'let justice be done' anyway (hence the screen name), so I'm inclined towards the House doing its duty even if they know full well the Senate will refuse to do theirs anyway.

I mean, the House should still work on and refine good legislation. No one suggests they stop doing that, even though it won't pass for the exact same reason that impeachment won't.

Trump is violating the law constantly, openly. He is still telling people to break the law. He is openly still obstructing justice.

The report shows that Trump et al knew about and welcomed an attack on the US. Even if that isn't criminal, it's still absolutely abhorrent. It is telling that his followers are celebrating that. This proves they at best put party above country. At best. Therefore, I'm disinclined to give any consideration to what they think on the matter of impeachment.

They'll not change anyway. They've in effect left their seat at the table empty. At some point the truth is more valuable than political concerns. Fearing the wrath of those who refuse the truth is a losing hand.

What Trump has done is wrong enough that trying to seem reasonable to unreasonable people has little value.
 
Bogative said:
9-27.220, nor any of what you posted mentions the OLC's policy that a sitting president cannot be indicted.


What you quoted also says, "this report does not conclude the president committed a crime." There is nothing preventing the Special Counsel from listing any crimes committed by the president in his report, only that he can't issue an indictment. In other words, Mueller could have pointed out any crimes and let Congress deal with them because he is unable to under current DOJ policy, but he didn't.

None of what you have provided states that Mueller didn't indict Trump because he couldn't, which was Crossbow and Beelzebuddy's original claims.
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Did you actually read the Mueller report. Mueller was very clear about a few things.

The first was he could not indict a sitting President because of longstanding DOJ policy.

The second was he could not exonerate the President although he would have like to have been able to.

And finally he would not incriminate the President as that was up to Congress.
 
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Bogative said:
In other words, Mueller could have pointed out any crimes and let Congress deal with them because he is unable to under current DOJ policy, but he didn't.
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Upchurch said:
That is specifically what he did. I'm running to a meeting now, so I'll have to look up the exact citation later. (Maybe some nice sole can do it for me?)
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Okay, the section is too big for me to quote. It starts on page 368, or Volume II page 156, with the heading Overarching Factual Issues, which summarizes the behavior described in the previous 156-ish pages. Then, on page 371 or VII p159, the report begins a lengthy legal justification for (1) how Congress can use it's impeachment powers to deal with Presidential obstruction of justice and (2) how the statute of limitations applies to Presidents once they are no longer in office. It's under the heading LEGAL DEFENSES To THE APPLICATION OF OBSTRUCTION-OF-JUSTICE STATUTES To THE PRESIDENT. The section concludes with, page 392 or VII p180,
In sum, contrary to the position taken by the President ' s counsel, we concluded that, in light of the Supreme Court precedent governing separation-of-powers issues , we had a valid basis for investigating the conduct at issue in this report. In our view, the application of the obstruction statutes would not impermissibly burden the President's performance of his Article II function to supervise prosecutorial conduct or to remove inferior law-enforcement officers. And the protection of the criminal justice system from corrupt acts by any person-including the President-accords with the fundamental principle of our government that "[n]o [person] in this country is so high that he is above the law."
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tl;dr: Congress can investigate and prosecute obstruction charges against the President without the problems caused if the DOJ did it.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
When it comes to Trump, everything seems to be priced-in already: I don't think there is anything Trump can do to lose base support except endorse a "liberal" agenda.
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I'm gonna disagree with you, there. Trump has already endorsed positions that fly in the face of what conservatives have claimed to want, and that didn't erode his base much. I'm pretty sure that if Trump came out and called for everything Sanders or AOC have been asking for, Trump's supporters would immediately claim those had always been his positions and we've always been at war with Eastasia.
 
acbytesla said:
Did you actually read the Mueller report. Mueller was very clear about a few things.

The first was he could not indict a sitting President because of longstanding DOJ policy.

The second was he could not exonerate the President although he would have like to have been able to.

And finally he would not incriminate the President as that was up to Congress.
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I agree that all of these are true. However, this does not prove Mueller would have indicted the president only but for he was not allowed to by DOJ policy. As the prestige said earlier, Mueller's report only says that they are not going to bring charges, not why they are not going to bring charges as claimed earlier.
 
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