Mueller Investigation pt 6

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Statements of confidential sources are used to start or guide investigations all the time. They describe their own or yet others accounts.

There's limits on how that can filter into the court case (right to face your accuser), but that's part of the calculus of whether to indict or not.
 
smartcooky said:
So far, the Steele Dossier has been devastatingly accurate....

1. All of the data that has been able to be checked has been found to be correct.

2. That which has not been shown to be correct, has either not yet been checked, or cannot be checked.

3. Most importantly NOTHING in the Steele Dossier has been shown to be wrong... nothing!
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This bears repeating. Often and loudly.
Won't quite fit on a hat, but is appropriate for T-shirts and bumper stickers.
 
tanabear said:
It was am insurance policy to go after Trump in case he was elected. Trump was elected and this fake Russian collusion conspiracy theory has dominated the first few years of his Presidency.
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Other than I doubt you have evidence for this, it has to be the stupidest idea for the use of the material, quite literally. Why hold it all back and then have to go through the complicated process of a special counsel investigation once the DOJ did reveal their investigation, and then have to get 70% of the house and Senate to accept the findings of any investigation to impeach Trump, only to end up with Pence anyway? Seriously, that has to be the worse and most complex plan in the history of conspiracies and most conspiracies theories I have heard are so unnecessarily complex they clear could only come from deranged minds. Anyone with a half working brain would have just released the information pre-Election, something neither the FBI nor the Clinton Campaign did!

The only ones coordinating with the Russians, that we know about, are the DNC, the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele. No one on the Left cares about this because "Russian collusion" is just a pre-text to overthrow a President they hate.
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I think you need to go and stand in the corner with Vincini until you learn what the word "coordinating" means. Unless you can show that the Russians that Steele spoke to were also trying to manipulate the election for Clinton themselves, and... oh wait, the Clinton Campaign didn't even use the Steele information, so how the heck was there any coordination? Where is a facepalm when you need one.

Let me put this simple for you. Asking questions and getting answers is not coordination. Coordination, or if you will collusion, is when two parties meet and organise their actions to be conform towards a common goal. Get the difference?

p.s. But I thought it didn't matter if the information was true or false. If it came from a foreign source, like Russia, then it was automatically tainted and we should investigate those who spread the information, not the ones accused. Oh wait....Go back to my scenarios to understand the difference.
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It has nothing to do with the validity of the information, it never has. It also has nothing to do with the information being tainted. It has entirely to do with is the information was given, or paid for.

If something is given to a you for your political campaign, then it comes with expectations on you to pay the giver of that gift back, be it because they are your constituent, of a lobbyist. It is expected that should you win, that help that was given to you is repaid. Now consider that when it comes to information of other contributions given to you from a foreign Government.

This is the issue. When a foreign Government helps you win a political post, you are then beholden to them. Consider why it means for the President of the USA to be beholden to a Foreign Government, especially one that is hostile to the US.

When you pay for information, you are not beholden to those you are paying for their services, because you already paid them. This is the difference. You need to learn this.

Scenario 1: A Republican presidential campaign gets dirt on their political opponent from foreign sources, so investigate the Republican candidate and his campaign for colluding with a foreign power to sway an election.
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Try this...

Scenario 1: A Republican presidential campaign is given dirt on their political opponent from a foreign Government who is simultaneously interfering in the election with other methods, in an effort to get that Republican elected, so investigate the Republican candidate and his campaign for colluding with a foreign power to sway an election.

Scenario 2: A Democratic presidential campaign gets dirt on their political opponent from foreign sources, so investigate the Republican candidate and his campaign for whatever the alleged crimes are.
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Try this...

Scenario 2: A Democratic presidential campaign pays a research company for dirt on their political opponent from foreign sources and those sources reveal close ties between foreign Government officials and the opponent's campaign, while that Foreign Government is also trying to influence the elections in favour of that opponent, so investigate the Republican candidate and his campaign for whatever the alleged crimes are.
 
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PhantomWolf said:
Other than I doubt you have evidence for this, it has to be the stupidest idea for the use of the material, quite literally. Why hold it all back and then have to go through the complicated process of a special counsel investigation once the DOJ did reveal their investigation, and then have to get 70% of the house and Senate to accept the findings of any investigation to impeach Trump, only to end up with Pence anyway? Seriously, that has to be the worse and most complex plan in the history of conspiracies and most conspiracies theories I have heard are so unnecessarily complex they clear could only come from deranged minds. Anyone with a half working brain would have just released the information pre-Election, something neither the FBI nor the Clinton Campaign did.[/I]

<polite snip>
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Of course this is the "pretzel logic" part of how Conspiracy Theorists think. When their conspiracy is shown to not work, or to have more holes in it than a family block of Emmental, or that their arguments aren't worth a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys, rather then admit they are wrong, the come up with more and ever more complicated schemes to keep the conspiracy possible.

Another thing that Trumpsters are trying to have everyone believe is that if you get no benefit from your criminal acts, it doesn't really matter and you've done nothing wrong.

1. if the collusion didn't result in anything worthwhile, or you didn't use it, then there was no crime.

2. if the obstruction didn't work then no crime has been committed

3. If there was no underlying crime, then there cannot be obstruction

Its like saying that if you burgled a house and didn't take anything, then you haven't committed a crime, or if you tried to kill someone and failed to do so, you haven't committed a crime. This is what they are arguing, and they are wrong.

I even heard one Fox News idiot (Carlson?) try to claim that there is no such crime as "Attempted Obstruction of Justice". Well duh Tucker, of course there isn't. Attempting to Obstruct Justice IS Obstruction of Justice
 
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smartcooky said:
Another thing that Trumpsters are trying to have everyone believe is that if you get no benefit from your criminal acts, it doesn't really matter and you've done nothing wrong.

1. if the collusion didn't result in anything worthwhile, or you didn't use it, then there was no crime.

2. if the obstruction didn't work then no crime has been committed

3. If there was no underlying crime, then there cannot be obstruction
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...No, that makes it sound like they actually have honest principles in play, however bad. What you just described also applies just fine to, say, their BS case about the Democratic involvement with the Dossier and the supposed anti-Trump forces in the FBI, which they're all too happy to try to attempt to attack with.

What they've got is empty tribalism/authoritarianism backing them up. The principles of "If it's good for my chosen side, it's right, but here's a superficially nice sounding rationalization. If it's not good for my side, it's wrong, and here's a superficially nice sounding rationalization."
 
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smartcooky said:
Its like saying that if you burgled a house and didn't take anything, then you haven't committed a crime...
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Good analogy.

My recollection of Florida law: Burglary is defined as entering or remaining in a vehicle or structure with the intent to commit an offense therein.

Which is the reason Mueller included intent as one of the three requirements for the offense of obstruction of justice. Not always easy to prove, but the intent combined with an act is enough when an ongoing investigation is involved.
 
Trump Tweets

Brilliant Constitutional Lawyer, Dr. John Eastman, said the Special Prosecutor (Mueller) should have NEVER been appointed in the first place. The entire exercise was fundamentally illegal. The Witch Hunt should never happen to another President of the U.S. again. A TOTAL SCAM!
 
Aridas said:
Mmm. A certain someone was demanding examples of Russian disinformation. Looks like there's another to add to the list. The Seth Rich conspiracy theory. That one was pushed, hard, by Fox and a number of right-wingers.
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Bloody interesting article that.

It just shows how deep into the raw sewage Faux News and Sean Hannity will submerge themselves in order to make up a false story about those ebil Dems, all the time either not realising, or not caring about the collateral damage it has done to Rich's family, who have been forced to relive his murder every day of their lives.

What a bunch if sociopathic ***** Faux News are!!
 
Trump Tweets

“FBI’s Christopher Steele (FAKE) Story Falls Apart: False Intel & Media Contacts Were Flagged Before FISA.” John Solomon, The Hill. @seanhannity
 
Mueller Missed the Crime: Trump’s Campaign Coordinated With Russia

Another peak at campaign finance laws and how Mueller completely dropped the ball there, in short. Not the "sexy" crimes that some would wish for, but important fundamental concepts are in play. For a little bit of quoting from the beginning there, though...

Robert Mueller made a significant legal error and, based on the facts he found, he should have identified Trump campaign felonies. Mueller’s errors meant that, first, he failed to conclude that the Trump campaign criminally coordinated with Russia; second, he failed to indict campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates for felony campaign coordination (see in a concise timeline below); third, the 10 acts of felony obstruction in Volume II fell flat among the general public because it lacked compelling context of these underlying crimes between the campaign and Russia. On top of these errors, the former special counsel said he deliberately wrote the report to be unclear because it would be unfair to make clear criminal accusations against a president.

The bottom line is that the Mueller Report is a failure not because of Congress or because of public apathy, but because it failed to get the law, the facts, or even the basics of writing right. When Mueller testifies before Congress on July 17, he should be pressed on all of this.
It seems Mueller did not hire any legal experts with experience in campaign finance regulation.

The DOJ’s initial appointment explicitly tasked Mueller with investigating campaign “coordination,” and it is not too much to ask that he get the law of “coordination” right. The report stated that “‘coordination’ does not have a settled definition in federal criminal law. We understood coordination to require an agreement—tacit or express.”

However, Congress purposely sought to prevent such narrow interpretations: in 2002, it passed a statute directing that campaign finance regulations “shall not require agreement or formal collaboration to establish coordination.” The Federal Election Commission established the regulations for the implementation of the statute: “Coordinated means made in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the request or suggestion of, a candidate,” with no need to show any kind of agreement.
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As most here already know, either way, those regulations, when applied to a number of things in the Mueller Report, are very, very applicable to what went on.
 
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Aridas said:
Mueller Missed the Crime: Trump’s Campaign Coordinated With Russia

Another peak at campaign finance laws and how Mueller completely dropped the ball there, in short. Not the "sexy" crimes that some would wish for, but important fundamental concepts are in play. For a little bit of quoting from the beginning there, though...

As most here already know, either way, those regulations, when applied to a number of things in the Mueller Report, are very, very applicable to what went on.
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The author of the article:

Jed Shugerman
Yale University, PhD in History, 2008
Dissertation: “The People’s Courts: The Rise of Judicial Elections and Judicial Power in America”
Prize: The American Society of Legal History’s 2009 Cromwell Prize for best dissertation or article in American legal history in 2008
Yale Law School, JD 2002
Yale Law Journal, Book Note-Case Note editor (2000-01); Senior Editor (2001-02)
Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities, Managing Editor (1999-2000), Lead Editor (1999-2000)
Joseph Parker Prize (2000) jointly awarded for the best paper in legal history at Yale Law School
Israel Peres Prize (2001) for the best student note in the Yale Law Journal
Yale College, BA in History, May 1996
Magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa and Distinction in History
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Law professor, recognized, not a flakey source.
 
Now that's funny. Saint Mueller has been ordered to not publicly claim anymore that "Putin's Troll factory" had direct connections to or were working on behalf of the Russian government.

Daniel Lazare said:
[...] “Revenge of the oligarchs” might be a good headline for this story. The IRA indictment initially seemed to be a no-lose proposition for Mueller. He got to look good in the press, the media got to indulge in yet another round of Russia-bashing, while, best of all, no one had to prove a thing. “Mueller’s allegations will never be tested in court,” noted Andrew C. McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor turned pundit for the rightwing National Review. “That makes his indictment more a political statement than a charging instrument.”

Then came the unexpected. Concord Management hired Reed Smith, a top-flight law firm with offices around the world, and demanded to be heard. The move was “a real head-scratcher,” one Washington attorney told Buzzfeed, because Concord was beyond the reach of U.S. law and therefore had nothing to fear from an indictment and nothing to gain, apparently, from going to court. But then the firm demanded to exercise its right of discovery, meaning that it wanted access to Mueller’s immense investigative file. Blindsided, Mueller’s requested a delay “on the astonishing ground,” according to McCarthy, “that the defendant has not been properly served – notwithstanding that the defendant has shown up in court and asked to be arraigned.”

Prigozhin was forcing the special prosecutor to show what he’s got, McCarthy went on, at zero risk to himself since he was not on U.S. soil. What was once a no-lose proposition for Mueller was suddenly a no-lose proposition for Putin’s unexpectedly clever cook.

Now Mueller is in an even worse pickle because he’s barred from mentioning a major chunk of his report. What will he discuss if Democrats succeed in getting him to testify before the House intelligence and judiciary committees next week – the weather? If his team goes forward with the Concord prosecution, he’ll risk having to turn over sensitive information while involving himself in a legal tangle that could go on for years, all without any conceivable payoff. If he drops it, the upshot will be a public-relations disaster of the first order. [...]
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