Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

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Lord Jim
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Lord Jim »

Here's an excellent article looking at the Mueller Report's findings regarding collusion/conspiracy between the Russians and Trump and/or his henchmen...

Surprise surprise, it's light years away from Trump Defense Counsel Bill Barr's repeated "no evidence" dishonest claim this morning:
Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III uncovered “evidence of numerous links” between Donald Trump campaign officials and individuals with or claiming ties to the Russian government, according to a redacted version of his final report released by the Justice Department on Thursday.

But Mueller declined to charge any of those campaign officials under conspiracy, coordination, or campaign finance laws for their contacts with Russians, because the evidence didn’t reach a prosecutable threshold.

As the investigation unfolded, Democrats and other Trump critics pointed to multiple instances of those contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russia as evidence of “collusion,” a term that Mueller points out in his report has no legal application, but nevertheless colloquially encompasses the kinds of possible violations he examined.
Full analysis here:

https://www.rollcall.com/news/what-the- ... -collusion

ETA:


From another article:
Frank Montoya, a former senior FBI official with extensive experience in counterintelligence investigations, said the words “did not establish” are commonly used in national security cases as language merely ruling out a chargeable offense.

“It doesn’t mean a subject is innocent. It means investigators didn’t find enough evidence to charge a crime,”
Montoya said.
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Lord Jim
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Lord Jim »

Here's yet another excellent article detailing the numerous ways in which Trump Defense Counsel Barr attempted to deliberately mislead the country about the Mueller report:

https://www.wired.com/story/mueller-rep ... tice-barr/

Some excerpts:
...Even as he correctly summarized that Mueller did not find that Trump’s campaign conspired—distinct from colluding, which the report makes clear—with the Russian government, Barr appears to have misled the public about the severity of the evidence on obstruction of justice. He also misrepresented Mueller’s reasoning for not making a “traditional prosecutorial decision” on the obstruction half of his investigation.

The attorney general has implied that Mueller left that choice to Barr. In truth, the report makes clear that Mueller felt constrained by the Justice Department policy that a sitting president could not be indicted. Don’t mistake lack of prosecution, in other words, for absence of wrongdoing. If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president did not obstruct justice, we would so state,” Mueller’s report says. “Accordingly, while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.” [Gee whiz, somehow that first sentence didn't make it into Defense Counsel Barr's original letter or subsequent statements.]

Mueller then points to Congress, not the attorney general, as the body appropriate to answer the question of obstruction. As Mueller wrote in what seems to be all but a referral for impeachment proceedings, “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balanced and the principle that no person is above the law.”

Barr further praised Donald Trump for “fully cooperating,” ignoring the president’s refusal to sit for an interview with Mueller’s investigators, along with the fact that Trump tried at least once to fire the special counsel, consistently attacked the legitimacy of the investigation in public, and openly encouraged witnesses not to cooperate. Barr also never mentioned that a half-dozen of the president’s top campaign aides—including the former campaign chairman, deputy campaign chairman, national security advisor, and personal lawyer—have all pleaded guilty to crimes stemming from the probe.

It quickly became clear that the report didn’t line up with the rose-colored glasses with which Barr had presented it over the preceding month.

The contrast was especially stark in the matter of obstruction. The 10 episodes the report details include a Trump lawyer’s attempt attempt to keep national security advisor Michael Flynn from implicating the president, and Trump’s attempts to pressure White House counsel to cover up or stall the investigation of national security advisor Michael Flynn in the opening days of the presidency, and Trump instructing White House counsel Don McGahn to deny that Trump had ever ordered him to fire Mueller. Trump also, the report says, complained that McGahn kept notes of their meetings. :o

There was, Mueller also concludes, good reason for the president to attempt to obstruct the ongoing FBI probe. “The evidence does suggest indicate that a thorough FBI investigation would uncover facts about the campaign and the President personally that the President could have understood to be crimes or that would give rise to personal or political concerns,” Mueller wrote.

...Barr had previously quoted in his summary the second half of a single sentence on the first page of Volume I, telling Congress that "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference efforts."

The full sentence is decidedly more troubling. As Mueller actually wrote: "Although the investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts, the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference efforts."

Moreover, Mueller makes clear that part of the reason he couldn’t find a prosecutable conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia was because he was stymied by lies, obstruction, and evidence deleted by his investigative targets. “The Office cannot rule out the possibility that the unavailable information would shed additional light on (or cast in a new light) the events described in the report,” Mueller wrote. In one specific example, Mueller says he was unable to reconcile the purpose of a long-mysterious meeting in the Seychelles because two key figures, campaign chair Paul Manafort and Blackwater founder Erik Prince, had deleted their exchanges about the meeting.
On numerous key and critical points, Defense Counsel Barr both deliberately misled through substantive omissions and in other instances out-and-out blatantly lied, in an obvious attempt to deliberately misconstrue the conclusions of the Mueller Report in ways that would be advantageous to the PR needs of his client, Donald Trump...

As a result any investigation of obstruction of justice by Congress going forward will of necessity include a thorough investigation into the contributory conduct of the faux Attorney General...

Not even John Mitchell or Bobby Kennedy would have ever attempted to publicly misuse the powers of their office to protect the personal interests of their President the way William Barr has. Mr. Barr was apparently so consumed with a hunger to return to public life, that he was even willing to accept a shameful and infamous place for himself in American history as the price...
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Burning Petard »

Set aside for a moment the issues of 'collusion' and 'obstruction of justice. The topic of the investigation that is central for me is Russian interference and participation in the 2016 presidential election. On this, the report is clear. The Russians invested big expenses and lots of human resources into support for Donald J. Trump.

Just how does a sitting Republican Senator take that fact and then say "Yep, Trump is the candidate of choice for Russia. Russia has determined that President Trump will be the 2016 choice for the best interests of Russia. I, Senator Village-Idiot, agree to support Trump too." To mis-quote the notorious US Secretary of Defense Charlie Wilson--what is good for Russia is good for America.

snailgate

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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

The first sentence of the Mueller Report gives the legal basis. The second sentence is:
The Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion.
Any reasonable president who believes in the principles of democracy would respond to that as follows.

We don't know the extent to which that attempt was successful: it is not possible to say whether, absent that interference, I or Secretary Clinton would now be President.

We will have another election in about 18 months. Accordingly this Administration's priorities for that time will be to put in place procedures at all levels of government - federal, state and local - to ensure that outside parties do not have the opportunity to interfere with that election. Also during that time we will do what we can to ensure that Administration policies recognize the reasonable uncertainty that the election in fact accorded with the desires of the American people. Therefore all Administration appointments, including judicial appointments, which require Senate approval will be advanced only when there is likely a 95 - 5 or better consent vote and will be rejected by me if that level of approval is not met. As an example of that commitment, I will nominate Justice Garland to the Supreme Court if and when a vacancy arises, and I personally will press strongly for his confirmation.

I won't hold my breath on this.

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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

I suppose that the problem I have with all this is this. The Russians tried to affect the outcome of the election. That much is clear,but we don't know whether they were successful and if so, by how much. Nevertheless we have indicted a number of Russian operatives for this attempt.

There is no question that Trump attempted to obstruct the investigation. But because he was unsuccessful, he gets a pass. Never mind that he was unsuccessful only because some of his minions (e.g., Don McCahn) refused to carry out his orders.

How come we indict those Russians who we (apparently) unsuccessful, but Trump is in the clear?

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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by BoSoxGal »

It is absolutely NOT required to be successful at obstruction of justice to be successfully convicted of obstruction of justice.

Trump got a pass from Mueller because Mueller knows he can't indict, and he adheres to the noble prosecutorial principle that one doesn't publicly accuse without affording the accused a forum to address the accusation. Mueller can't do that.

Only Congress can. This is the absolute test of our Congress, and most importantly, of the Grand Old Party. In the face of this overwhelming evidence of obstruction - many, many, many private and public attempts to obstruct the FBI and then Mueller/DOJ - if a solid number of Republican Congresscritters don't step up and adhere to articles of impeachment on a bipartisan basis with the Democrats, then the GOP is utterly lost.

And on top of the obstruction, he clearly colluded. It's not a federal crime - conspiracy couldn't be proved. But collusion is definitely a high crime on the office of Trump's presidency.
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Lord Jim
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Lord Jim »

From the member of the Conway family who still has his immortal soul:
George Conway: Trump is a cancer on the presidency. Congress should remove him.


By George T. Conway III
April 18 at 8:09 PM

So it turns out that, indeed, President Trump was not exonerated at all, and certainly not “totally” or “completely,” as he claimed. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III didn’t reach a conclusion about whether Trump committed crimes of obstruction of justice — in part because, while a sitting president, Trump can’t be prosecuted under long-standing Justice Department directives, and in part because of “difficult issues” raised by “the President’s actions and intent.” Those difficult issues involve, among other things, the potentially tricky interplay between the criminal obstruction laws and the president’s constitutional authority, and the difficulty in proving criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt.

Still, the special counsel’s report is damning. Mueller couldn’t say, with any “confidence,” that the president of the United States is not a criminal. He said, stunningly, that “if we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” Mueller did not so state.

That’s especially damning because the ultimate issue shouldn’t be — and isn’t — whether the president committed a criminal act. As I wrote not long ago, Americans should expect far more than merely that their president not be provably a criminal. In fact, the Constitution demands it.

The Constitution commands the president to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” It requires him to affirm that he will “faithfully execute the Office of President” and to promise to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution.” And as a result, by taking the presidential oath of office, a president assumes the duty not simply to obey the laws, civil and criminal, that all citizens must obey, but also to be subjected to higher duties — what some excellent recent legal scholarship has termed the “fiduciary obligations of the president.”

Fiduciaries are people who hold legal obligations of trust, like a trustee of a trust. A trustee must act in the beneficiary’s best interests and not his own. If the trustee fails to do that, the trustee can be removed, even if what the trustee has done is not a crime.

So too with a president. The Constitution provides for impeachment and removal from office for “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” But the history and context of the phrase “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” makes clear that not every statutory crime is impeachable, and not every impeachable offense need be criminal. As Charles L. Black Jr. put it in a seminal pamphlet on impeachment in 1974, “assaults on the integrity of the processes of government” count as impeachable, even if they are not criminal.

[The Post’s View: The Mueller report is the opposite of exoneration ]

And presidential attempts to abuse power by putting personal interests above the nation’s can surely be impeachable. The president may have the raw constitutional power to, say, squelch an investigation or to pardon a close associate. But if he does so not to serve the public interest, but to serve his own, he surely could be removed from office, even if he has not committed a criminal act.

By these standards, the facts in Mueller’s report condemn Trump even more than the report’s refusal to clear him of a crime. Charged with faithfully executing the laws, the president is, in effect, the nation’s highest law enforcement officer. Yet Mueller’s investigation “found multiple acts by the President that were capable of executing undue influence over law enforcement investigations.”

Trump tried to “limit the scope of the investigation.” He tried to discourage witnesses from cooperating with the government through “suggestions of possible future pardons.” He engaged in “direct and indirect contacts with witnesses with the potential to influence their testimony.” A fair reading of the special counsel’s narrative is that “the likely effect” of these acts was “to intimidate witnesses or to alter their testimony,” with the result that “the justice system’s integrity [was] threatened.” Page after page, act after act, Mueller’s report describes a relentless torrent of such obstructive activity by Trump.

Contrast poor Richard M. Nixon. He was almost certain to be impeached, and removed from office, after the infamous “smoking gun” tape came out. On that tape, the president is heard directing his chief of staff to get the CIA director, Richard Helms, to tell the FBI “don’t go any further into this case” — Watergate — for national security reasons. That order never went anywhere, because Helms ignored it.

Other than that, Nixon was mostly passive — at least compared with Trump. For the most part, the Watergate tapes showed that Nixon had “acquiesced in the cover-up” after the fact. Nixon had no advance knowledge of the break-in. His aides were the driving force behind the obstruction.

Trump, on the other hand, was a one-man show. His aides tried to stop him, according to Mueller: “The President’s efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

As for Trump’s supposed defense that there was no underlying “collusion” crime, well, as the special counsel points out, it’s not a defense, even in a criminal prosecution. But it’s actually unhelpful in the comparison to Watergate. The underlying crime in Watergate was a clumsy, third-rate burglary in an election campaign that turned out to be a landslide.

The investigation that Trump tried to interfere with here, to protect his own personal interests, was in significant part an investigation of how a hostile foreign power interfered with our democracy. If that’s not putting personal interests above a presidential duty to the nation, nothing is.

White House counsel John Dean famously told Nixon that there was a cancer within the presidency and that it was growing. What the Mueller report disturbingly shows, with crystal clarity, is that today there is a cancer in the presidency: President Donald J. Trump.

Congress now bears the solemn constitutional duty to excise that cancer without delay.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 7771170001
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Joe Guy »

It looks like George will be sleeping on the couch tonight again.... still....

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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Scooter »

No need, Kellyanne sleeps hanging by her toenails from the rafters.
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Lord Jim »

This has to be the most shocking revelation of the Mueller Report...

Sarah Sanders makes shit up :o :o :o
Sarah Sanders admitted to providing media baseless information about Comey: Mueller report

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Washington (CNN)White House press secretary Sarah Sanders admitted to federal investigators that she provided reporters baseless information related to former FBI Director James Comey's dismissal, according to special counsel Robert Mueller's redacted report.

The report released Thursday stated that Sanders conceded to the special counsel's office she had a "slip of the tongue" when she told the media that "countless members of the FBI" had lost faith in Comey.

"She also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made 'in the heat of the moment' that was not founded on anything," the Mueller report stated.

Sanders did not respond to CNN's request for comment, but later on Thursday defended herself in an interview on Fox News.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/18/politics ... index.html
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

If you have a strong stomach, Fuckabee Sanders' interview with Hannity is here:

https://www.foxnews.com/shows/hannity

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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by BoSoxGal »

Scooter wrote:No need, Kellyanne sleeps hanging by her toenails from the rafters.
That is SO unkind!

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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

One of the more amusing redactions:

Footnote 888, Page 128. “Corsi” is a reference to Jerome Corsi, HOM, who was involved in efforts to coordinate with Wikileaks and Assange, and who stated publicly at that time that he had refused a plea offer from the Special Counsel’s Office because he was “not going to sign a lie”. Sara Murray & Elie Watkins, HOM, says he won’t agree to plea deal, CNN (Nov. 26. 2018)

I think leaving in the exact reference enables us to take a flying guess that the missing HOM is none other than er . . . Roger “Just call me Wall” Stone. Whodda thunk?

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/11/26/poli ... index.html

And footnotes 888 & 889 refer to an interview in which Trump said: “But I had three people; Manafort, Corsi – I don’t know Corsi, but he refuses to say what they demanded(888). Manafort, Corsi, HOM. It’s actually very brave.(889)

Of little consequence in the grand scheme of things but a bit silly of Barr-Barr
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Bicycle Bill »

PRESENTED FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION —
A screen-grab of the multiple pages of the Mueller Report, showing all the redactions.

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May we please have a moment of silence for those Sharpies that gave their all in the name of covering the president's ass?
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Big RR »

Trump got a pass from Mueller because Mueller knows he can't indict, and he adheres to the noble prosecutorial principle that one doesn't publicly accuse without affording the accused a forum to address the accusation. Mueller can't do that.
It would have been interesting if he tried; the only bar to indictment of a sitting president is a DOJ policy (a wrongheaded one IMHO, but that's another thread), and Mueller as a special prosecutor of the DOJ is subject to those policies and could be dismissed for failing to comply with them (although this would be a pretty public act demonstrating the president is above the law), but what if he presented the case against Trump to the Grand jury in secret and they voted to indict? I would have liked to see him do that--I don't think the Grand Jury is bound by DOJ policy (Indeed, that independence is why we have grand juries), so I doubt the indictment could be reversed, but it would have been an interesting public scenario after the indictment was issued.

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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Crackpot »

My guess the reason he didn’t overstep his bound is he didn’t want any of th trumpian hacks to use it as ammo against the report. One overstep could be used as ammo to discredit the whole report.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Crackpot »

Muller understands that in order to remove trump from office for his misdeeds he not only has to convince those that already agree or those who can be swayed but have credibility from The masses who just don’t care about politics that the proceedings are just and any hint of impropriety can sink the whole thing.
Okay... There's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said.

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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Scooter »

Mueller timed the release of his report to distract everyone from the renewed Senate investigation into Hillary's emails, which we all know is the real scandal being covered up by the fake news media.

(I figured I would save wes some time by posting a response for him)
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Burning Petard »

"credibility from The masses who just don’t care about politics that the proceedings are just and any hint of impropriety can sink the whole thing."

That only seems to work for Dems. Biden is on the ropes for making some women uncomfortable years ago, not grabbing their pussy. The Virginia GOP blackface officials are old news.

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Lord Jim
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Re: Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

Post by Lord Jim »

The Virginia GOP blackface officials are old news.
Uhh, SG...

Those Al Jolson wannabes are both Democrats...

(The accused rapist Lt. Governor, too....)
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