Mueller Investigation pt 6

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acbytesla said:
I'd say it's pretty weak legal theory. What it is, is the DOJ knowing who their boss is. This policy was written first by the Nixon DOJl. The argument is about practicality not any law. There IS NOTHING in the Constitution or any other legislated law that says a President can't be indicted.
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The Great Zaganza said:
It's an untested legal theory.
And it is very shaky.

But if we ask the current SC, we will provide probably get an answer we don't like.

EDIT: stupid auto correct.
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Well, IANAL. Mueller seems to buy into it, at least.
 
Drewbot said:
OK Obstruction, it wasn't that he couldn't charge a sitting President, it's that the President has Constitutional rights to fire anyone in the Department of Justice.

His rights to do that are laid out in the Constitution.

Why would Robert Mueller Charge him with Obstruction, when every court in the land would say that he is Constitutionally empowered to fire the FBI director? Mueller would look like an idiot.
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First, there were a dozen instances that Mueller referred to, not just the firing of Comey.

Second, there is no clear law that says a president cannot obstruct justice by firing staff. That he has a legal right to do so in general does not mean that doing so in a particular case isn't obstruction.

In general, I have a legal of free speech, but I cannot tell someone what lies to tell in a grand jury.

To be sure, Barr seems to agree that firing Comey couldn't be obstruction, for the reasons you say, but this is not settled opinion at all.
 
This is from a Reuters news article published two months ago, although it covers material I'm certain we've already been over. Possibly previously quoting from this article.
In 1973, in the midst of the Watergate scandal engulfing President Richard Nixon, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel adopted in an internal memo the position that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Nixon resigned in 1974, with the House of Representatives moving toward impeaching him. “The spectacle of an indicted president still trying to serve as Chief Executive boggles the imagination,” the memo stated.

The department reaffirmed the policy in a 2000 memo, saying court decisions in the intervening years had not changed its conclusion that a sitting president is “constitutionally immune” from indictment and criminal prosecution. It concluded that criminal charges against a president would “violate the constitutional separation of powers” delineating the authority of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government. Link
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It is policy, however -- not a law that states the incumbent president cannot be indicted -- and some lawyers disagree with the policy.
Some lawyers have argued that the nation’s founders could have included a provision in the Constitution shielding the president from prosecution, but did not do so, suggesting an indictment would be permissible. According to this view, immunity for the president violates the fundamental principle that nobody is above the law.

Ken Starr, who investigated President Bill Clinton in the 1990s in the somewhat different role of independent counsel, in 1998 conducted his own analysis of the question of whether a sitting president can be indicted, indicating he did not consider the 1973 Justice Department memo binding on him. Starr did not indict Clinton in his investigation involving the president’s relationship with a White House intern named Monica Lewinsky, but lawyers in his office concluded he had the authority to do so, according to a once-secret internal memo made public by the New York Times in 2017.
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Trump Tweets

As has been incorrectly reported by the Fake News Media, I never told then White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller, even though I had the legal right to do so. If I wanted to fire Mueller, I didn’t need McGahn to do it, I could have done it myself. Nevertheless,....

....Mueller was NOT fired and was respectfully allowed to finish his work on what I, and many others, say was an illegal investigation (there was no crime), headed by a Trump hater who was highly conflicted, and a group of 18 VERY ANGRY Democrats. DRAIN THE SWAMP!
 
Don't question the authority of the President.
In particular, don't question whether the President has the authority, because he might not.
 
Captain_Swoop said:
Trump Tweets
As has been incorrectly reported by the Fake News Media, I never told then White House Counsel Don McGahn to fire Robert Mueller...
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Donnie appears to be contradicting the Mueller Report findings as well, based on McGahn's own testimony. This is all known to Trump. The Tweet is a lie.

Page 4, 5 - On June 17, 2017, the President called McGahn at home and directed him to call the Acting Attorney General and say that the Special Counsel had conflicts of interest and must be removed. McGahn did not carry out the direction, however, deciding that he would resign rather than trigger what he regarded as a potential Saturday Night Massacre.

Efforts to have McGahn deny that the President had ordered him to have the Special Counsel removed.
In early 2018, the press reported that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed in June 2017 and that McGahn had threatened to resign rather than carry out the order. The President reacted to the news stories by directing White House officials to tell McGahn to dispute the story and create a record stating he had not been ordered to have the Special Counsel removed. McGahn told those officials that the media reports were accurate in stating that the President had directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed. The President then met with McGahn in the Oval Office and again pressured him to deny the reports. In the same meeting, the President also asked McGahn why he had told the Special Counsel about the President' s effort to remove the Special Counsel and why McGahn took notes of his conversations with the President. McGahn refused to back away from what he remembered happening and perceived the President to be testing his mettle. Report link
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Again Trump has attacked the news media for reporting things Trump does not want reported. These attacks on the integrity of the news media are very dangerous and the effects will linger long after Trump is gone from the White House. Trump is essentially attacking the free press: Publish what I like and you're home free. Publish what I don't want published and I will move heaven and earth to try and turn the American public against you and destroy your reputation. What a nightmare. :(
 
Upchurch said:
From what I’ve read, it’s a policy with some strong legal theory behind it. You can’t charge someone and not give them an opportunity to clear their name, usually in criminal court. You can’t tie up the President in criminal court because the President has to be available to perform his duties as President and, anyway, the Constitution gave the power to remove a President to Congress, not the Judiciary.
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Thanks much. This is just about what I was thinking as well.

After all, while I sure do despise Trump, I really do not want to see him dealing with dozens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions of legal challenges while he is in office because such actions could make the Executive branch nonfunctional. Also, I expect that any future President would have the exact same problems since it is nearly certain that some sort of legal challenge could be provided to any President.

Therefore, a better approach is to impeach Trump then throw him out of office, or not re-elect him. In either case, Trump would become a private citizen and as such he could be forced to deal with all of the illegal things that he has done while he was the President and/or before he became the President.
 
Crossbow said:
Therefore, a better approach is to impeach Trump then throw him out of office, or not re-elect him. In either case, Trump would become a private citizen and as such he could be forced to deal with all of the illegal things that he has done while he was the President and/or before he became the President.
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Sounds like the Republic of the Philippines or some other state poorly governed by a colonial power and handed back as a half-baked democracy. "Lock him up". You voted for him, and if not you some of your family or friends.
 
Zambo said:
Sounds like the Republic of the Philippines or some other state poorly governed by a colonial power and handed back as a half-baked democracy. "Lock him up". You voted for him, and if not you some of your family or friends.
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Sorry, but I really cannot determine just what it is that you are trying to say.
 
Zambo said:
Sounds like the Republic of the Philippines or some other state poorly governed by a colonial power and handed back as a half-baked democracy. "Lock him up". You voted for him, and if not you some of your family or friends.
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And? Congress still has the constitutional power (and obligation) to remove him if they think he's unfit for office, or has committed some sort of crime or offense. They're elected as well.
 
Crossbow said:
Sorry, but I really cannot determine just what it is that you are trying to say.
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What i am "trying to say" is that waiting until Trump (or any other head of state or head of government) is a private citizen and then charging him with crimes when the other party in a 2 party state is in control stinks.

My concluding sentence, the 3rd one, merely pointed out that although not the majority many voters voted for him. I suggest they knew well what they voted for, indeed they wanted exactly what they have received.
 
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