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Post by artgirl1 on May 2, 2019 16:35:02 GMT
why dt wants Stephen Miller Stephen Moore? Although the bobble heads in the WH are all interchangeable pond scum CNN just announced that he (Stephen Moore) has withdrawn from consideration.Twenty five years of documented misogyny, and he is not getting his way. Trump is certainly bringing his finest.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 18:22:02 GMT
The Hill “Trump accuses Harris of being 'very nasty' to Barr, looking for 'political points'”. ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️🎻❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️“President Trump on Wednesday accused Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) of being "probably very nasty" to Attorney General William Barr during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trump told Fox Business's Trish Regan that Harris and other lawmakers who are running for president were hard on Barr during the hearing for "political points." "She was probably very nasty," he said of Harris, who grilled Barr on a number of points related to Barr's handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. While being questioned by Harris, Barr admitted that he did not look at the underlying evidence in Mueller's report before deciding not to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against Trump. This is the second time in less than a week that Trump has referred to Harris as "nasty." Speaking to Fox News's Sean Hannity last week, Trump said the California Democrat has "a little bit of a nasty wit, but that might be it." In his comments Wednesday evening, the president also slammed the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are running against him for president, saying they were "ranting and raving like lunatics" at the hearing. "You have Bill Barr, highly respected, great attorney general, and he's got to take the abuse from people that are running for office," he said while appearing on Fox Business. "They don't care about this. They're just looking for political points." He also slammed calls for Barr's resignation as "so ridiculous." Barr on Wednesday testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the day after committee Democrats released a letter Mueller wrote to Barr criticizing Barr's characterization of the report. Mueller's letter, dated March 27, said Barr's summary of the report from three days prior created "public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation." Weeks after Barr sent his summary of the findings to Congress, the Justice Department released a redacted version of Mueller's report. Three Democrats who are running for president in 2020 - Harris, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) - sit on the Judiciary Committee. Booker and Harris were among a group of 2020 candidates who on Tuesday and Wednesday called for Barr to resign. The spin from the pizzagate/fox 'news' will focus on Harris because they're threatened and intimidated by her line of questioning. She was on point. As a former prosecutor, she knew exactly what was expected of our A.G. and he didn't even read the full evidence of this case. A big issue I have with Republicans referring to how respected Barr is as a former A.G. Is just sheer bullshit!!!! Everyone knows his former record and knows how underhanded and sleazy he is. He fits in well with the other immoral snakes on the Trump train.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 18:42:53 GMT
@fred as far as seeing Obama or HRC now, I am grateful (while saddened in juxtaposition to the shitstorm we have now) to be reminded that not too long ago we lived in a normal world with trustworthy, intelligent leaders working for our interests. They both should continue to speak out to give us hints as to what we should do to combat this administration.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 19:33:03 GMT
linkLawFare... “Document: White House Letter to Barr About Mueller Report”“On April 19, Emmet Flood, special counsel to the president, sent a letter to Attorney General Bill Barr expressing concerns about the Mueller report. Flood argues that the report, particularly regarding obstruction of justice, "fails to comply with the requirements of governing law." The letter is available here and below.” That is some letter. It’s in the linked article.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 19:39:29 GMT
AP ...
”The Trump administration moves to ease safety rules adopted after the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon blowout, the worst offshore oil disaster in U.S. history.”
This is proof trump doesn’t give a damn about the American People. It took a long time for the people in the area to recover from the damage caused by the oil spill.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 19:49:05 GMT
Emmet Flood is merely "a U.S. Attorney," so why should anyone take his words into consideration?? Did he get to read all of the evidence materials related to this investigation? ![???](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/huh.png) More crap from this shitstorm administration. I enjoyed reading Mueller's detailed letter to Barr. That was one huge handslap and NOWHERE in there did it mention that he was only upset with Barr regarding the media (as Barr claimed,under oath yesterday)!
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lindas
Pearl Clutcher
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Jun 26, 2014 5:46:37 GMT
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Post by lindas on May 2, 2019 20:03:07 GMT
The Hill “Trump accuses Harris of being 'very nasty' to Barr, looking for 'political points'”. ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️🎻❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️“President Trump on Wednesday accused Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) of being "probably very nasty" to Attorney General William Barr during his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Trump told Fox Business's Trish Regan that Harris and other lawmakers who are running for president were hard on Barr during the hearing for "political points." "She was probably very nasty," he said of Harris, who grilled Barr on a number of points related to Barr's handling of special counsel Robert Mueller's report on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. While being questioned by Harris, Barr admitted that he did not look at the underlying evidence in Mueller's report before deciding not to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against Trump. This is the second time in less than a week that Trump has referred to Harris as "nasty." Speaking to Fox News's Sean Hannity last week, Trump said the California Democrat has "a little bit of a nasty wit, but that might be it." In his comments Wednesday evening, the president also slammed the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee who are running against him for president, saying they were "ranting and raving like lunatics" at the hearing. "You have Bill Barr, highly respected, great attorney general, and he's got to take the abuse from people that are running for office," he said while appearing on Fox Business. "They don't care about this. They're just looking for political points." He also slammed calls for Barr's resignation as "so ridiculous." Barr on Wednesday testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, the day after committee Democrats released a letter Mueller wrote to Barr criticizing Barr's characterization of the report. Mueller's letter, dated March 27, said Barr's summary of the report from three days prior created "public confusion about critical aspects of the results of our investigation." Weeks after Barr sent his summary of the findings to Congress, the Justice Department released a redacted version of Mueller's report. Three Democrats who are running for president in 2020 - Harris, Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) - sit on the Judiciary Committee. Booker and Harris were among a group of 2020 candidates who on Tuesday and Wednesday called for Barr to resign. The spin from the pizzagate/fox 'news' will focus on Harris because they're threatened and intimidated by her line of questioning. She was on point. As a former prosecutor, she knew exactly what was expected of our A.G. and he didn't even read the full evidence of this case. A big issue I have with Republicans referring to how respected Barr is as a former A.G. Is just sheer bullshit!!!! Everyone knows his former record and knows how underhanded and sleazy he is. He fits in well with the other immoral snakes on the Trump train. That evidence consisted of millions of documents that it took the Mueller team 22 months to throughly review and investigate. I believe the number turned over just from the White House alone was 1.4 million. As a former AG she knew damned well there was no way that much material could be read in a timely manor especially with the everyone demanding to see the report immediately. If Barr and his team had had to review every piece of evidence we would all still be waiting to see that report when the 2020 elections rolled around.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 20:17:22 GMT
lindas what does releasing Mueller's report have to do with Barr and his team pouring over all of the evidence?? He could have IMMEDIATELY released what Mueller had scrubbed and prepared, to begin with. Then he could have read the report (It took Rachel Maddow and other news people, lawyers, etc) a few hours to read it. He had a key list of what to react from Mueller's initial handouts, so I doubt highly that it took 3 weeks to accomplish that. He didn't have to reach any immediate decision or conclusion and he could have immediately handed the unredacted report over to Congress, as has been done with every Special Counsel Investigation report.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 20:36:17 GMT
The spin from the pizzagate/fox 'news' will focus on Harris because they're threatened and intimidated by her line of questioning. She was on point. As a former prosecutor, she knew exactly what was expected of our A.G. and he didn't even read the full evidence of this case. A big issue I have with Republicans referring to how respected Barr is as a former A.G. Is just sheer bullshit!!!! Everyone knows his former record and knows how underhanded and sleazy he is. He fits in well with the other immoral snakes on the Trump train. That evidence consisted of millions of documents that it took the Mueller team 22 months to throughly review and investigate. I believe the number turned over just from the White House alone was 1.4 million. As a former AG she knew damned well there was no way that much material could be read in a timely manor especially with the everyone demanding to see the report immediately. If Barr and his team had had to review every piece of evidence we would all still be waiting to see that report when the 2020 elections rolled around. ACLU
“While being questioned by Harris, Barr admitted that he did not look at the underlying evidence in Mueller's report before deciding not to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against Trump.”Without examining all the evidence how can one make a decision one way or the other if someone should be charged with a crime? But then it’s possible his mind was already made up... From a paper he wrote late last year and sent to The White House.. “Last month, news broke that in June 2018, President Trump’s current nominee for attorney general, William P. Barr, sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to the Justice Department critiquing special counsel Robert Mueller’s current investigation into Russian election interference. Barr, who previously served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, penned the memo as “a former official deeply concerned with the institutions of the Presidency and the Department of Justice.” The memo questions the scope of Mueller’s investigation, and it argues that Mueller should not be permitted to demand answers from the president about possible obstruction of justice based on attempts by Trump to pressure former FBI Director James Comey to drop his investigation of Trump’s ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.” The memo in question is linked in the linked article above.
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Post by kmcginn on May 2, 2019 20:48:37 GMT
He didn't have to make a decision. He already knew what he was going to say! It was all a big show.
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suzastampin
Pearl Clutcher
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Jun 28, 2014 14:32:59 GMT
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Post by suzastampin on May 2, 2019 21:02:54 GMT
lindas what does releasing Mueller's report have to do with Barr and his team pouring over all of the evidence?? He could have IMMEDIATELY released what Mueller had scrubbed and prepared, to begin with. Then he could have read the report (It took Rachel Maddow and other news people, lawyers, etc) a few hours to read it. He had a key list of what to react from Mueller's initial handouts, so I doubt highly that it took 3 weeks to accomplish that. He didn't have to reach any immediate decision or conclusion and he could have immediately handed the unredacted report over to Congress, as has been done with every Special Counsel Investigation report. This! And it only took him about 24 hrs to read the 400+ pages of Mueller’s report to put out the 4 page summary. Seems like he should have had enough time from when he got the report to yesterday to read the underlying evidence.
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Post by sunshine on May 2, 2019 21:10:38 GMT
Is Kamala Harris calling into question Robert Mueller's integrity and work ethic? Is she calling into question those that worked on Mueller's team, like the other attorneys and FBI agents? Sounds like she doesn't trust the investigators.
Did Kamala Harris examine all of the evidence for each and every case under her watch as the California Attorney General and District Attorney of San Francisco? I think not. She had to trust those that worked under her, and for her.
Since she's suggesting Barr should have done just that, maybe all of the cases during her time should be called into question and reviewed.
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Post by sabrinae on May 2, 2019 23:31:42 GMT
Is Kamala Harris calling into question Robert Mueller's integrity and work ethic? Is she calling into question those that worked on Mueller's team, like the other attorneys and FBI agents? Sounds like she doesn't trust the investigators. Did Kamala Harris examine all of the evidence for each and every case under her watch as the California Attorney General and District Attorney of San Francisco? I think not. She had to trust those that worked under her, and for her. Since she's suggesting Barr should have done just that, maybe all of the cases during her time should be called into question and reviewed. You clearly don’t have a clue how criminal proceedings work and charging decisions are made. If you are personally going to make the charging decision you review the evidence. Those attorneys under her would have reviewed all the evidence and made a charging decision which she would have provided appropriate supervision and yes depended on their work. Mueller very specifically did not make a charging decision— there was no decision for Barr to rely on. Mueller didn’t make a charging decision because of DOJ policy that a sitting president not be indicted. Barr himself chose to make a decision without reviewing underlying evidence despite Mueller laying out a very nice case of obstruction. I’ve seen obstruction cases prosecuted on far less.
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lizacreates
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,856
Aug 29, 2015 2:39:19 GMT
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Post by lizacreates on May 2, 2019 23:33:56 GMT
Is Kamala Harris calling into question Robert Mueller's integrity and work ethic? Is she calling into question those that worked on Mueller's team, like the other attorneys and FBI agents? Sounds like she doesn't trust the investigators. Did Kamala Harris examine all of the evidence for each and every case under her watch as the California Attorney General and District Attorney of San Francisco? I think not. She had to trust those that worked under her, and for her. Since she's suggesting Barr should have done just that, maybe all of the cases during her time should be called into question and reviewed. The prosecutor is the one authorized to file a charge or decline to file after review of evidence. Since Mueller did not make a decision on charging obstruction of justice, Barr took on the responsibility of being the prosecutor by declining to charge Trump; therefore, it was incumbent upon him to review the evidence to support his decision. If he did not wish to review the underlying evidence on such a consequential case, then he shouldn’t have made a declination decision.
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lindas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,204
Jun 26, 2014 5:46:37 GMT
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Post by lindas on May 2, 2019 23:36:10 GMT
That evidence consisted of millions of documents that it took the Mueller team 22 months to throughly review and investigate. I believe the number turned over just from the White House alone was 1.4 million. As a former AG she knew damned well there was no way that much material could be read in a timely manor especially with the everyone demanding to see the report immediately. If Barr and his team had had to review every piece of evidence we would all still be waiting to see that report when the 2020 elections rolled around. ACLU
“While being questioned by Harris, Barr admitted that he did not look at the underlying evidence in Mueller's report before deciding not to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against Trump.”Without examining all the evidence how can one make a decision one way or the other if someone should be charged with a crime? But then it’s possible his mind was already made up... From a paper he wrote late last year and sent to The White House.. “Last month, news broke that in June 2018, President Trump’s current nominee for attorney general, William P. Barr, sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to the Justice Department critiquing special counsel Robert Mueller’s current investigation into Russian election interference. Barr, who previously served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, penned the memo as “a former official deeply concerned with the institutions of the Presidency and the Department of Justice.” The memo questions the scope of Mueller’s investigation, and it argues that Mueller should not be permitted to demand answers from the president about possible obstruction of justice based on attempts by Trump to pressure former FBI Director James Comey to drop his investigation of Trump’s ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.” The memo in question is linked in the linked article above. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it the job of Mueller and his team to examine all the evidence and determine if a crime was committed then report that to the AG?
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Post by crazy4scraps on May 2, 2019 23:42:13 GMT
lindas what does releasing Mueller's report have to do with Barr and his team pouring over all of the evidence?? He could have IMMEDIATELY released what Mueller had scrubbed and prepared, to begin with. Then he could have read the report (It took Rachel Maddow and other news people, lawyers, etc) a few hours to read it. He had a key list of what to react from Mueller's initial handouts, so I doubt highly that it took 3 weeks to accomplish that. He didn't have to reach any immediate decision or conclusion and he could have immediately handed the unredacted report over to Congress, as has been done with every Special Counsel Investigation report. This! And it only took him about 24 hrs to read the 400+ pages of Mueller’s report to put out the 4 page summary. Seems like he should have had enough time from when he got the report to yesterday to read the underlying evidence. Not to mention Barr didn’t have to read ALL of the evidence behind the whole report. I would think if he zeroed in on only the parts regarding the incidents of possible obstruction it could be done pretty quickly with a team of people working on it.
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lizacreates
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,856
Aug 29, 2015 2:39:19 GMT
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Post by lizacreates on May 2, 2019 23:44:45 GMT
This! And it only took him about 24 hrs to read the 400+ pages of Mueller’s report to put out the 4 page summary. Seems like he should have had enough time from when he got the report to yesterday to read the underlying evidence. Not to mention Barr didn’t have to read ALL of the evidence behind the whole report. I would think if he zeroed in on only the parts regarding the incidents of possible obstruction it could be done pretty quickly with a team of people working on it. I don't think he cared at all. The truth is Barr was not going to charge Trump with anything, regardless of evidence because he already made it very clear in writing before he became AG that a president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice.
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Deleted
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Jun 26, 2024 5:51:15 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 23:46:54 GMT
ACLU
“While being questioned by Harris, Barr admitted that he did not look at the underlying evidence in Mueller's report before deciding not to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against Trump.”Without examining all the evidence how can one make a decision one way or the other if someone should be charged with a crime? But then it’s possible his mind was already made up... From a paper he wrote late last year and sent to The White House.. “Last month, news broke that in June 2018, President Trump’s current nominee for attorney general, William P. Barr, sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to the Justice Department critiquing special counsel Robert Mueller’s current investigation into Russian election interference. Barr, who previously served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, penned the memo as “a former official deeply concerned with the institutions of the Presidency and the Department of Justice.” The memo questions the scope of Mueller’s investigation, and it argues that Mueller should not be permitted to demand answers from the president about possible obstruction of justice based on attempts by Trump to pressure former FBI Director James Comey to drop his investigation of Trump’s ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.” The memo in question is linked in the linked article above. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it the job of Mueller and his team to examine all the evidence and determine if a crime was committed then report that to the AG? You really should read the what the Mueller Team said at the end of the obstruction section. They go into quite a bit of detail on why they did what they did. I’m not being snarky here because they did answered your question.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 2, 2019 23:59:43 GMT
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Post by crazy4scraps on May 3, 2019 0:06:49 GMT
Not to mention Barr didn’t have to read ALL of the evidence behind the whole report. I would think if he zeroed in on only the parts regarding the incidents of possible obstruction it could be done pretty quickly with a team of people working on it. I don't think he cared at all. The truth is Barr was not going to charge Trump with anything, regardless of evidence because he already made it very clear in writing before he became AG that a president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice. Oh, I know that. I’m just saying that since he knew he was going to testify on it, you’d think he would have a pretty good idea that they would question him along those lines and any intelligent person might want to know what that evidence was before being questioned about it under oath. At least that way he could have said he read it and made his decisions based on what was in there. To me as an average person, the optics of Barr not at least reading what was in the report specifically about the obstruction looks really bad.
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Post by sabrinae on May 3, 2019 0:15:37 GMT
ACLU
“While being questioned by Harris, Barr admitted that he did not look at the underlying evidence in Mueller's report before deciding not to pursue an obstruction of justice charge against Trump.”Without examining all the evidence how can one make a decision one way or the other if someone should be charged with a crime? But then it’s possible his mind was already made up... From a paper he wrote late last year and sent to The White House.. “Last month, news broke that in June 2018, President Trump’s current nominee for attorney general, William P. Barr, sent an unsolicited 20-page memo to the Justice Department critiquing special counsel Robert Mueller’s current investigation into Russian election interference. Barr, who previously served as attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, penned the memo as “a former official deeply concerned with the institutions of the Presidency and the Department of Justice.” The memo questions the scope of Mueller’s investigation, and it argues that Mueller should not be permitted to demand answers from the president about possible obstruction of justice based on attempts by Trump to pressure former FBI Director James Comey to drop his investigation of Trump’s ex-National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.” The memo in question is linked in the linked article above. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't it the job of Mueller and his team to examine all the evidence and determine if a crime was committed then report that to the AG? He did. Mueller declined to make a charging decision on the obstruction because DOJ policy is that a sitting president cannot be indicted. He layed out a very nice case for obstruction and then left it to Congress to act because of DOJ policy of not indicting a sitting president
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2019 0:18:41 GMT
Paul Waldman - Washington Post..
“Trump is already set to use the government to destroy the Democratic nominee”
“The 2020 election is going to be ugly in many different ways. If you thought Donald Trump ran a rancid campaign when he was trying to make it to the White House, just you wait until he’s fighting to preserve his power. It has been obvious for some time that President Trump is planning to promote hatred and division, but one thing we haven’t yet focused on is how he will use the resources of the federal government to make sure he wins reelection.
We got a hint of it Wednesday when Attorney General William P. Barr testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) asked Barr, “Has the president or anyone at the White House either asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone?”
Barr reacted as though she had asked him to calculate the speed of light in nanometers per second in base 8. He sputtered a bit, asked her to repeat the question, repeated it himself, then gazed off into the distance, prompting Harris to say, “It seems you’d remember something like that,” which indeed you’d think he would. After musing for a moment on the nature of word “suggest,” Barr gave no answer.
Which suggests the strong likelihood that the actual answer is “yes.” And it wouldn’t have been the first time. As the Mueller report states, in May 2017, Trump called then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions at home to try to convince him not only to quash the Russia investigation but also to go further: “According to Sessions, the President asked him to reverse his recusal so that Sessions could direct the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton.”
Sessions did not comply. But do you think Trump would hesitate for an instant before telling Barr to open an investigation of the Democratic nominee for president? And given everything we’ve seen from Barr, do you think he’d refuse that order?
Trump may already be preparing to mobilize the federal government’s resources to destroy his opponent, whoever that turns out to be. The New York Times has a new piece featuring what is sometimes called an oppo drop: a news story about a politician initiated by a political rival passing damaging information to reporters. It happens all the time, and it’s not necessarily illegitimate as journalism, because the information itself may be relevant and the journalist does his or her own investigation to verify what they’ve been told.
But in this case, the Times acknowledges the story’s provenance right in the headline: “Biden Faces Conflict of Interest Questions That Are Being Promoted by Trump and Allies.”
Regular readers will know that I’m hardly Joe Biden’s biggest fan, but this story seems particularly weak in its implication that Biden did anything remotely wrong. What it comes down to is that, as vice president, he advanced Obama administration policy by pressing Ukraine to fight corruption, a perfectly worthy goal shared by lots of countries.
At the time, Biden’s son Hunter was working for a Ukrainian company called Burisma Holdings that was being investigated by the country’s chief prosecutor, who was widely believed to be corrupt. Which brings us to the most critical part of this story, how Trump is already using his office to go after Biden:
The Trump team’s efforts to draw attention to the Bidens’ work in Ukraine, which is already yielding coverage in conservative media, has been led partly by Rudolph W. Giuliani, who served as a lawyer for Mr. Trump in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Mr. Giuliani’s involvement raises questions about whether Mr. Trump is endorsing an effort to push a foreign government to proceed with a case that could hurt a political opponent at home.
Mr. Giuliani has discussed the Burisma investigation, and its intersection with the Bidens, with the ousted Ukrainian prosecutor general and the current prosecutor. He met with the current prosecutor multiple times in New York this year. The current prosecutor general later told associates that, during one of the meetings, Mr. Giuliani called Mr. Trump excitedly to brief him on his findings, according to people familiar with the conversations.
Mr. Giuliani declined to comment on any such phone call with Mr. Trump, but acknowledged that he has discussed the matter with the president on multiple occasions. Mr. Trump, in turn, recently suggested he would like Attorney General William P. Barr to look into the material gathered by the Ukrainian prosecutors — echoing repeated calls from Mr. Giuliani for the Justice Department to investigate the Bidens’ Ukrainian work and other connections between Ukraine and the United States.
So what we have here is the president’s lawyer, with the direct involvement of the president himself, pushing a foreign official to open an investigation for the obvious purpose of embarrassing a potential rival, while the president is pushing the Justice Department to act in ways that could harm that rival as well.
That should be a scandal in and of itself. And I can’t say this strongly enough: This is only the beginning.
Every time a president runs for reelection, there are small ways he uses the power of his office to promote his campaign, such as taking “official” visits to swing states on the taxpayer’s dime. But those efforts are usually limited by the potential for controversy and the agreed-upon norm that there’s only so far the president should go in marshaling the resources of the federal government for his political benefit. But as we know, Donald Trump doesn’t even care about rules, let alone norms.
So get ready. Trump is going to order the Justice Department to launch an investigation of his opponent — probably more than one — and Barr will likely do so eagerly. It doesn’t matter how trivial the substance is, as we learned in 2016 when the fact that Hillary Clinton used the wrong email became the dominant issue of the campaign. Did Elizabeth Warren shake hands with a guy whose cousin’s neighbor dated a mobster? The Justice Department will investigate. Did Bernie Sanders have a congressional intern whose police officer dad fixed a parking ticket for him? The FBI is on it. Did Kamala Harris prosecute someone whose lawyer’s husband got a state contract? Investigations are ongoing.
Republicans will cry that whatever it is, it’s the crime of the century. The federal investigations will give it the patina of legitimacy, and the media will dutifully cover it with all the speculative insinuation they can muster. (“Questions are being raised,” after all.) And it won’t just be the Justice Department — rest assured, right now in the White House they’re working hard to figure out how the entire government can be put to the task of reelecting Trump.
As I said, previous presidents have done that in small ways with limited effects. But Trump’s corruption, his lack of concern for laws and norms, his contempt for the very idea that the federal government exists for a purpose other than to serve him — all of these are already more than apparent. And we haven’t yet seen how far he’s willing to go to retain power.
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lizacreates
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,856
Aug 29, 2015 2:39:19 GMT
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Post by lizacreates on May 3, 2019 0:28:56 GMT
I don't think he cared at all. The truth is Barr was not going to charge Trump with anything, regardless of evidence because he already made it very clear in writing before he became AG that a president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice. Oh, I know that. I’m just saying that since he knew he was going to testify on it, you’d think he would have a pretty good idea that they would question him along those lines and any intelligent person might want to know what that evidence was before being questioned about it under oath. At least that way he could have said he read it and made his decisions based on what was in there. To me as an average person, the optics of Barr not at least reading what was in the report specifically about the obstruction looks really bad. But he did read the report. What he did not review was the underlying evidence on obstruction. Those would be the testimonies, prosecution’s notes, recordings, emails, memos, transcripts, etc that support Mueller’s conclusions in his report. In other words, Barr considered the report as evidence.
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Post by ntsf on May 3, 2019 0:32:48 GMT
if it was one of the most important ever cases in her office, Harris would have reviewed the underlining evidence. Harris was a hard worker and diligent while in SF and in Sacramento..
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Post by crazy4scraps on May 3, 2019 0:35:29 GMT
Oh, I know that. I’m just saying that since he knew he was going to testify on it, you’d think he would have a pretty good idea that they would question him along those lines and any intelligent person might want to know what that evidence was before being questioned about it under oath. At least that way he could have said he read it and made his decisions based on what was in there. To me as an average person, the optics of Barr not at least reading what was in the report specifically about the obstruction looks really bad. But he did read the report. What he did not review was the underlying evidence on obstruction. Those would be the testimonies, prosecution’s notes, recordings, emails, memos, transcripts, etc that support Mueller’s conclusions in his report. In other words, Barr considered the report as evidence. That’s what I meant, he should have personally reviewed the underlying evidence especially regarding the issues concerning obstruction. Sorry if I was unclear!
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Jun 26, 2024 5:51:15 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2019 0:36:26 GMT
I don't think he cared at all. The truth is Barr was not going to charge Trump with anything, regardless of evidence because he already made it very clear in writing before he became AG that a president cannot be charged with obstruction of justice. Oh, I know that. I’m just saying that since he knew he was going to testify on it, you’d think he would have a pretty good idea that they would question him along those lines and any intelligent person might want to know what that evidence was before being questioned about it under oath. At least that way he could have said he read it and made his decisions based on what was in there. To me as an average person, the optics of Barr not at least reading what was in the report specifically about the obstruction looks really bad. What I'm getting from the exchange between Kamala Harris and Barr is that he read the report, what Kamala is getting at is that he didn't go back and check on all of the evidence. Not that he didn't read the report. ETA: guess I took too long to hit post.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Jun 26, 2024 5:51:15 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2019 0:46:36 GMT
Here is the exchange about the evidence between Senator Harris and Barr..
“Harris also pressed Barr to acknowledge that no one in his office––not he, nor Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, nor anyone else––had actually looked at the underlying evidence that Special Counsel Mueller’s team had gathered before Barr and Rosenstein made the determination not to charge Trump with obstruction of justice.
“We accepted statements in the report as the factual record. We did not go underneath it to see whether or not they were accurate. We accepted it as accurate,” Barr said.
Harris noted that Mueller’s office had collected a “great deal” of evidence. She asked whether a prosecutor could make such a critical decision without reading the evidence.
“If in any U.S. attorney’s office around the country, the head of that office, when being asked to make a critical decision, about in this case, the person who is in the highest office in the land and whether or not that person committed a crime, in that case would you accept them recommending a charging decision to you if they had not reviewed the evidence?” Harris said.
“That’s a question for Bob Mueller,” he said. “He‘s the U.S. attorney, he’s the one who presents the report.”
“But you made the charging decision, sir,” Harris returned.”
Score one for her. She has a point.
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lizacreates
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,856
Aug 29, 2015 2:39:19 GMT
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Post by lizacreates on May 3, 2019 1:20:24 GMT
But he did read the report. What he did not review was the underlying evidence on obstruction. Those would be the testimonies, prosecution’s notes, recordings, emails, memos, transcripts, etc that support Mueller’s conclusions in his report. In other words, Barr considered the report as evidence. That’s what I meant, he should have personally reviewed the underlying evidence especially regarding the issues concerning obstruction. Sorry if I was unclear! Oh, no harm. Barr not reviewing the evidence would not have been a big deal because AGs do not routinely get into the weeds of every case. That’s just not what they do. That’s what US Attys and Asst US Attys do. It only became a big deal because he made a declination decision. If he had not, no one would be faulting him. He saw a terrific opportunity to clear Trump completely and just went for it.
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Deleted
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Jun 26, 2024 5:51:15 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2019 1:26:47 GMT
He accepted Mueller’s findings of fact. He based his decision on the law. Imagine what Harris et al would be saying if he’d decided to review 2 years of evidence. They’d be screaming he’s stalling & covering up.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Jun 26, 2024 5:51:15 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 3, 2019 1:48:56 GMT
He accepted Mueller’s findings of fact. He based his decision on the law. Imagine what Harris et al would be saying if he’d decided to review 2 years of evidence. They’d be screaming he’s stalling & covering up. No actually he didn’t. linkFrom Benjamin Wittes of LawFare in The Atlantic “Five Things I Learned From the Mueller Report”A careful reading of the dense document delivers some urgent insights. 1. “The president committed crimes.”2. “The president also committed impeachable offenses.”3. “Trump was not complicit in the Russian social-media conspiracy.”4. “Trump’s complicity in the Russian hacking operation and his campaign’s contacts with the Russians present a more complicated picture.”5. “The counterintelligence dimensions of the entire affair remain a mystery.”He goes into a bit more detail and you can read all about it, if you chose, as I have provided the link to the story.
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