Don’t agree at all. Dershowitz is right here:
But he lied to the FBI. Right?
And beyond that, do you believe that if it becomes more apparent that Trump knew about this lie, that might be problematic? Especially if he then went and took steps to obstruct investigations into it?
Beyond that, I suspect he may have committed crimes, like Manefort, which are localized to States… Which Trump can’t make go away. Because if it were really just this one thing, he’d have just pardoned him on it.
But he didn’t. Instead, the guy pleaded guilty, and is now getting the investigators. Not an ideal situation for Trump.
True.
It’s only a problem for Trump if Trump told him to lie in the first place. Even if he knew about the lie he is perfectly free to express his opinion to go easy on him to the FBI director, he is perfectly free to fire the FBI director for any reason or none, and he is free to pardon him if he feels like it. Those are all within his powers. He’s the fricking President.
You do realize that a perfectly legal act that is within a person’s authority can nonetheless be obstruction of justice if it was done to impede an investigation, right? For example, shredding documents and wiping hard drives is perfectly legal. Many firms shred documents daily. However, if you shred documents to hide them from a criminal investigation, that’s obstruction of justice.
Eh, why do I bother. You actually said “he is free to pardon him if he feels like it”. Do you really believe that? That the President can pardon anyone for any reason and that would not be an abuse of power? If you do believe that, then you are authoritarian not a believer in democracy. Full stop.
If so, please kindly let the board know so I can stop wasting any time on your posts. Thank you.
(Pssst. He’s been letting the board know that for a very long time now, but especially after the country had the temerity to elect one of those people as president.)
Document shredding could certainly be obstruction of justice, but exercise of a designated political power by the President is never obstruction of justice, full stop. Hell, Bush the first pardoned Cap Weinberger even as he was headed to trial. Wasn’t that obstruction of justice? No, that was a President exercising his political powers.
Nixon firing Cox was not obstruction of justice. Nixon arranging hush money payments to witnesses was, he wasn’t exercising his presidential powers doing that. If he had burned the tapes the same, it also would have been obstruction. It’s really not that complicated.
I voted for Obama in 08, as I noted on this board, but I know that these days the left cannot conceive of differences in opinion being rooted in anything but racism. I pity you. It must be a sad existence regarding so much of the humanity around you motivated by evil.
It would help if you weren’t so transparently evil though.
Of course.
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them.”
You’ve fallen into an old hole. Not one that has ever led to good.
he is perfectly free to fire the FBI director for any reason or none, and he is free to pardon him if he feels like it.
I love this argument. It can’t be an abuse of power because it’s a power the President has! If it’s within the powers of the President then you don’t need to say anything else.
The President has the legal authority to direct a trillion dollars of taxpayer money to his own personal assets. Because all the conflict-of-interest laws don’t apply to the President, who is considered a branch of government rather than an employee of the government. It’s within his power so you can’t be critical if he does it.
Trump could tweet out instructions showing a backdoor code to launch US nuclear missiles. For anyone else this would be a terrible crime. For the President he can do it and it’s not against the law because the President is a branch of government, the ultimate declassification authority. So all you people complaining that Trump just gave a random person access to all our nuclear missiles should shut your mouths. Totally within his authority as President, so why are you upset?
Sounds like Nixon, “If the President does it, it’s not illegal.”
So, to be clear here, you do not believe that the act of trying to stop the FBI from investigating a crime that you know has taken place, constitutes obstruction of Justice.
It’s that a correct statement of your beliefs?
Are you sure you aren’t in the hole? You previously argued that it was just and right for you to disenfranchise the legal votes of others.
This is yet another reason why there’s simply no point in engaging with these people. They don’t have “different views” - they have despicable views. Anyone still supporting the Republican party at this point is either a complete moron or is a heartless shithead.
Malathar, we can argue about all kinds of things but basically at this point, if you support Trump, then you’ve given up on reality and are OK with so much shitty stuff that it’s just not worth dealing with you.
Liberals aren’t always right, conservatives not not inherently evil, all true. But Trump and the current GOP have gone so far off the rails in terms of endorsing “alternate facts”, ignoring reality, breaking the norms of normal politics, continually lying and deceiving, and generally acting in bad faith to maximize their power without regard to real democratic norms, that if you support that at this point, it’s just not worth communicating with you. Sure we could argue, but you know what, if you don’t get it by now, you aren’t gonna get it. Have a nice life in your bubble.
Yeah, epistemic closure, close-minded liberals, etc. Not listening!
Once inside, most witnesses are seated in a windowless conference room where two- and three-person teams of FBI agents and prosecutors rotate in and out, pressing them for answers.
[…]
Often listening in is the special counsel himself, a sphinx-like presence who sits quietly along the wall for portions of key interviews.
[…]
The volume of questions about Kushner in their interviews surprised some witnesses.“I remember specifically being asked about Jared a number of times,” said one witness.
[…]
In the past several weeks, Mueller’s operation has reached out to new witnesses in Trump’s circle, telling them they may be asked to come in for an interview. One person who was recently contacted said it is hard to find a lawyer available for advice on how to interact with the special counsel because so many Trump aides have already hired attorneys.“It was kind of a pain,” the person said. “It’s hard to find a lawyer who wasn’t already conflicted out.”
[…]
“These guys are confident, impressive, pretty friendly — joking a little, even,” one lawyer said. When prosecutors strike that kind of tone, he said, defense lawyers tend to think: “Uh oh, my guy is in a heap of trouble.”
It would be even more intimidating if they had the prosecutors on a giant turntable that slowly rotated around the witness, but I guess we’ll have to settle for this.
Yes, the President is free to fire the FBI director for any reason or none. He’s a political appointee, so that’s true … and in fact, no one really disputes it. Not even Trump’s harshest critics have suggested that Trump is somehow legally obligated to put Comey back in his old job.
But here’s the thing. Actions that may be legal in and of themselves may at the same time trigger breaches of the law. The mere fact that the inciting action was not illegal as such does not protect you from the consequences of the breach of the law that were also caused by the same action.
For example: our legal system permits you to wriggle your index finger. There’s no law against it. Go ahead, try it. Wriggle away!
… Unless you have a loaded gun in your hand, and it’s pointed at someone, and the index finger is on the trigger, and you’re in certain states of mind (or just have a reckless disregard for safety, which, if you’re reading Internet posts while holding a loaded gun pointed at somebody, is probably the case.) In that case you’re committing homicide. Homicide is illegal. All saying “What I did is wriggle my finger, and there’s no law against that!” is gonna do is make the judge emit a heavy sigh at your thick-headedness as he sends your ass to jail.
(I know, it’s like preaching to a block of concrete. But never let it be said I ran from the chance to over-explain something!)
Sometimes, the best way to show someone their error, is for them to simply say their position out loud.
Pompeo asserts Trump’s tweet yield valuable intelligence for the US.
If they haven’t been fully briefed and don’t necessarily understand what’s happening and what has been happening?
One example, they probably hadn’t been briefed on everything known at the time regarding the Russian interference in the election and attempts to hack various secretaries of state databases.