Which is what's so damn incredible about this. If that was just off a Mueller tip, what does he have in his bag? It's like when comedians go on podcasts and their throwaway jokes are a thousand percent more hilarious than anything you've ever said, and you're like damn, if this dude is this funny just naturally, I gotta see him doing what he does for a living! The FBI raid today has a Saturday Night Massacre feel to it. Trump said "they broke into the office" of Cohen. Yes, because FBI agents with a warrant are breaking and entering. Clearly, NOTHING gave them legal access. I think if this was all a nothingburger, it would have already been over with.
The retards can cry “bipartisan” all they want, their opinion matter the least of anybody right now. Mueller is the most credible law enforcement employee your country has had for the past three decades. If something happened he will find it, and he’ll do it without taking “sides”. He’s a fucking Conservative war hero with decorations and promotions out the ass. Look how he dealt with the evil pricks of Enron: they went to real prison and did real hard time. And I bet that makes Trump sweat. Comical how people still cry foul on Mueller of all people.
You underestimate the trumptards. He called the FBI Cohen raid today an "attack on America," and I guarantee you they're lapping it up and raising their Lonestar beer in a toast of agreement with him. His supporters would eat shit if trump told them it was gold. Which is also how he got people to attend trump university by the way.
This has to be about something serious to cause a US Attorney to raid the POTUS personal attorney's office and confiscate privileged communication. Surely this can't be just about the Stormy Daniels payment, can it? If it is, can their end game be as simple as going after the guy for an unreported campaign contribution in the hopes of flipping him?
Everything I read said that info pertaining to Stormy Daniels was taken, among other things. So the media basically heard one name and called it a raid about that.... which if you listened, it wasn't. It just so happened that whomever leaked the info, leaked that name as well, so it was a convenient thing for the MSM to latch onto.
Interesting theory from Preet Bharara: https://twitter.com/preetbharara/status/983522446191026177 Theory goes thusly: In the rare case where a warrant is granted for attorney-client communications in search of materials exempted from privilege (furtherance of a crime exemption, etc), the prosecuting team must have a procedure for guaranteeing the integrity of the materials still privileged. This often takes the form of a "clean team" which is a team that reads all the materials, separates out the exempt from the privileged, and passes the exempt materials to the prosecuting team, after which they have no more contact with the prosecuting team. Mueller is using the SDNY as a clean team in the investigation into Cohen's activities. They execute the warrant, gather the materials, filter out the privileged communications, and pass the rest to Mueller. He's not saying it's definitely the case, but it remains a distinct possibility.
Im pretty sure since it was SDNY executing the warrant they would have to have to a clean team for them.
Wouldn't Trump technically be able to pardon anyone actually found guilty (even the Dutch lawyer)? As well, wouldn't he be able to pardon them even if they admit guilt? I suppose my line of thought is: Nixon resigned because he didn't want to go down like that and Ford pardoned him. Trump, as far as I can tell, has neither the intellect nor the shame reflex necessary to do that. So, to play this out, let's say they found evidence of what in the blue fuck ever. Then what? He's forced to resign by Paul Ryan? President Pence? Or he's just functionally neutered by Congress until 2020? Also, he fires Mueller. Then what? Game over, and all his criminal activity is ignored? Congress "finishes" the investigation like the Congressional probe into Russian meddling that ignored all evidence? My point is, I've yet to hear any grounds for impeachment. Maybe there's a wild swing in 2018 and you pack the House and Senate with people who would get him out, but looking at the map it seems very unlikely. From Trump's perspective, the investigation could find him fisting a 6-year old with illegal Russian campaign money covered in Stormy Daniel's abortion goo paid for by taxpayers and there's nothing that can be done to him that he couldn't pardon himself for, right? So the end game is impeachment, and given Trump's ability to weather political shit storms, I can't imagine Trump getting caught doing anything that would inspire this Congress begin impeachment proceedings.
Just to clarify Trump can only Pardon people convicted of federal crimes, state governors can pardon people convicted of state crimes (although I’m not sure how broad their powers are in that and would likely be different state by state). So if in this situation the Attorney general of New York wants to prosecute Michael Cohen, Trump can scream from the mountain top but it won’t get him very far.
I think there's gotta be a breaking point. As soon as republican lawmakers feel like NOT impeaching might hurt their reelection chances more than impeaching, that's when they'll get on board. Right? I know trump's base is notoriously bad at paying attention to facts and reality, and notoriously good at burying their heads in the sand, but I have to imagine that there's a line somewhere. Right now in Michigan, the substantially republican legislature is considering legalizing recreational marijuana before the election because, if they don't, it will be on the ballot, and they're afraid of how many people it will bring out to the polls. So even though they've (as a whole) advocated for harsher policing and mandatory minimums and rah rah drug war bullshit like that, the moment their reelection chances take a hit, they're willing to cave. Which is smart but also wildly frustrating for someone like me who wants those people to get their asses out and vote anyways, weed or no weed on the ballot.
Right, but again, impeach him for what at this point? One of two things will play out: 1) The investigation finds major corruption with his involvement or at his direction, at which point he is either indicted or the Republicans turn on him for collusion. 2) The investigation turns up nothing that includes him and the Democrats will have spent every ounce of political capital in the last 2 years on a gamble regarding Russia, ignoring the many other issues that could have easily scuttled another incumbent, and Trump may actually win re-election.
I thought we were all talking about the option 1 hypothetical here, imagining what would/will happen if they find anything untoward. That's how I read/responded to downndirty's post.
The goalposts keep moving. God only knows what Mueller has, but the public information already implicates the campaign. We've just gotten into a pattern of: Find something incriminating or damning Republicans don't care because they will never ever care Because Republicans haven't turned on Trump, we pretend that what was found must have been a nothing-burger The Democrats are flailing because they're still expecting Republicans to play by the rules. They've turned up a dozen things, Russia related and non-Russia related, that should have ended Trump's presidency but didn't. So Democrats keep trying to find something that Republicans will have to act on, not realizing that no such thing exists because the Republicans will excuse quite literally anything.
No ones moving goalposts it was implied from the start that the collusion was between the Trump campaign and Russian agents that hacked the DNC and/or spread false reporting on social media. Mane fort was charged with money laundering lobbying profits from Ukraine elections years before the Trump campaign. What exactly about his charges have anything to do with the implications in my first sentence? The laundering of money is illegal but being a lobbyist/consultant for various governments isn’t and no clear connection between his former work and the collusion narrative seems to exist . Most of the other indictments and guilty pleas are for paper charges, no filling statuses correctly at the right time. Even Flynn’s leaked conversation with the Russian ambassador, which he was fired for lying about, has roundly been said to be above board by the investgaing parties. The most damning incident would be Trump jrs meeting with the Russian lobbyists which admittedly looks bad. I don’t think there is anything known publicly that she actually had any actual information or that she provided a go between for trump and the Russian operatives who he’s excused of colluding with.
That's the one I'm referring to. We have an email chain (that Jr himself tweeted, which still remains an incredible WTF moment) in which Jr is informed that: The Russian government is helping his father's campaign The Russian government has highly sensitive information detrimental to Hillary Clinton The Russian government would like to pass this information to the Trump campaign And his response is to set up a meeting to receive this information. In this meeting, the Russians discuss adoptions, which is them straight up asking for a quid-pro-quo (Russia banned American adoptions in response to the Magnitsky Act, so to discuss adoption is to discuss the loosening of sanctions). The campaign is fully aware of this meeting (with Jr and several campaign members participating) and does not report it, or the Russian offer, to any relevant authority. When asked about it, they lie. Once brought to light, the only explanation offered by Jr or the campaign, is that it doesn't count because the Russians didn't actually have the level of goods that the Trump campaign wanted. Without requiring facts not in evidence or even doubting a word Jr has said, you already have several members of the campaign willing and attempting to collude with Russia to influence the election.
I said it looks terrible and warrants investigation but =\= collusion if they can’t prove anything tangible happened because of the meeting. It might lead to incidences where it did we just don’t know that based on available information. Given the direction Muellers investigation is going it certainly doesn’t feel like the linchpin to the entire thing if he’s charging manefort for something totally unrelated (and doesn’t seem willing so far to flip given the serious time he can do). Now raiding Trumps lawyers office for Stormy Daniels info? Not sure how this is supposed to connect to the meeting other than a pure fishing expedition.
That’s the thing though, we don’t know which direction Mueller’s investigation is going. We don’t know anything about what he’s doing other than the fact that he’s interviewed and/or charged certain people. We can speculate. Turn on any MSM station right now and there’s people being paid to do just that. But speculation is just that — hell, a lot of the media, and I fell for it myself, thought the Austin bomber was some ex military dude. But we won’t ultimately know what Mueller is doing until this investigation is concluded.