Let’s not drag pasta into this.
Once again, a Trump crony thinks he’s a lot smarter than he really is.
Manafort really is the dumbest person on earth.
Oops.
A little more detail on the op-ed:
Prosecutors working for special counsel Robert Mueller say Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has been working on an op-ed essay with a longtime colleague “assessed to have ties” to a Russian intelligence service.
Court papers say Manafort and the colleague sought to publish the op-ed under someone else’s name and intended it to influence public opinion about his work in Ukraine. The op-ed was being drafted as late as last week while Manafort is under house arrest. Prosecutors did not name the colleague but noted the person is based in Russia.
I already explained this. Yes, but not by exercising his Presidential powers, or by exerting his own 1st amendment rights for that matter.
Did he change Comey’s recommendation? If not it is much ado, about nothing. Mueller dumped the guy the second they were aware of a potential problem with him, unlike Trump with Flynn.
One is clearly a violation of law, the other arguably isn’t. I think it obviously matters in the middle of a campaign even if Comey was dead set against prosecuting even if she did according to the letter of the law commit a crime. Of course, that raises its own set of questions about Comey.
So I guess Hillary probably won’t win in 2016.
And I guess James Comey’s probe into the Trump administration is probably doomed.
Anything else?
Luther Strange isn’t going to win either. Take that, stupid dems! Oh… wait…
Nah, the entire point of the press conference was to say, “We got nothin’, there are no charges.” (Well, the real point was to publically shame someone who wasn’t being charged with anything in blatant violation of FBI policies … but announcing the lack of charges was the pretext they used.)
All the change in wording did was more accurately reflect the fact that they found nothing of legal import.
… but of course the loonies will seize this and decide it conclusively proves that Comey conspired with Clinton to benghazi Vince Foster in the pizza parlor with the candlestick. (Edit, oh wait, they already have. Need to be faster with my replies!)
Out of curiosity, do you think this is bad?
Because to me, this just further demonstrates Mueller’s personalism.
Months ago, a guy was involved who could have created the impression of impropriety.
And so Mueller remove him.
That’s exactly the right thing for member to do. He acted perfectly.
But if he tried to end an investigation into himself and his comrades, that would be an obstruction of Justice, right?
But it makes perfect sense if you believe that we’d be better off with an authoritarian dictatorship than a democracy. Which is kind of what Trump and his ilk think. The Republicans, certainly, have shown that they hold our democratic process and the rule of law in contempt. Power at any costs.
Watch the video.
He’s been regurgitating this for a while now. It doesn’t really have merit, for numerous reasons.
First, he presumes that no crime has been committed. There is very little reason to believe that is the case, given Trump’s long history of shady business dealings, and his history of business ties with Russian Mafia.
But beyond that, imagine what it would mean, if the president, as head of the executive branch, really had ultimate power over the DOJ as it’s being suggested.
He would largely be immune to any kind of repercussion at all, for anything. Any crimes committed by himself or others? No problem. He can just prevent any investigation into such things.
But that isn’t how our leaders are supposed to be. They are supposed to be beholden to the same laws as the rest of us.
As president, he is in fact the head of the executive branch and does in fact have ultimate power over the DOJ. As President, he is only subject to the Impeachment process, which is a political process, not one of law enforcement.
So… we elect dictators?
Also you create a Catch 22 where no President should ever really be impeached.
You can’t convict a President, or even investigate him and you can’t really impeach if there is no crime (which I have seen literally hundreds of times as an argument from the right), so… the President is actually a king. Immune to and above all laws and investigation (because he controls literally all investigation).
That’s just inane.
Here’s something technical but still worth thinking about: the issue with Trump is not the federal crime of “obstruction of justice” (which is defined by the federal statutes18 U.S.C. 1512 et. seq.) It is probably the case that the President cannot actually be criminally charged with a crime arising out of abuse of his or her Constitutional powers, if only for the practical reason that the President can fire any federal attorney who brings such charges and use his power over the DOJ to make sure a prosecutor who will drop the charges is assigned to the case. Also, there’s a possibility the federal courts would rule they have no jurisdiction over such acts as there is an argument that federal court jurisdiction over crime arising from abuse of official powers is pre-empted by the impeachment provisions in the Constitution.
The real issue is whether Trump is guilty of “high crimes and misdemeanors” (which as I have posted before is well defined by English common law as crimes arising out of breach of the public trust: abuse of power, failure to fulfill the legal duties of the office, corruption, treason, etc.)
Which means ultimately everything about Trump will depend on Congress. Mueller can report the facts and reach the legal conclusion or provide a prosecutorial opinion that Trump abused his power as President by obstructing justice but this will all be decided by Congress, not the courts.
So the real issue here is not the technical legal of “did the President obstruct justice” or “can the President commit obstruction of justice?” The real issue here is: did Trump abuse his power? If it is found that Trump used his Presidential powers to impede a lawful investigation into the wrongdoing or himself or those close to him, that IMO would be a text book example of abuse of power.
One of the specific reasons that the Constitution contains impeachment provisions was to avoid the “monarchial immunity” of the British royal system. Let me again go to the source, Federalist Papers 69 which says:
“The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware.”
So it is very clear that a President can be impeached for abuse of power, which includes abusive use of legal powers.
This is one of those things where the legalistic framework around impeachment that arose during the Bill Clinton years creates confusion. The issue here is not statutory and technical; the issue here is abuse of power. And using your powers to impede an investigation into illegal conduct by yourself or those close to you is crystal clear abuse of power.
Edit: I was typing this while Malathor posted, which means I am essentially agreeing with Malathor on this narrow technical point.
The question is, what about abuse of power?
While the president is immune to normal criminal prosecution, we cannot allow him to be immune from me investigation. If that were the case, then you would mention be able to gather information about whether impeachment proceedings should take place.
The DoJ serves the American people. It did not exist to serve the president.
He’s not a God damned King, Christ.
Dude, step back from the edge and consider the nightmare you are constructing for yourself if this same power were given to some president you hated.