Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

[RayThom]

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=17598&p=242244&hili ... y+#p242244

It's about the money 99.9% of the time.

"IF" only Lord Dampnut would produce his tax returns. Yeah, right!

[Lord Jim]

Essentially, there are three key elements to the Russiagate investigation:

1.Collusion/Conspiracy- All of the factors related to Russia-Trump campaign connections and the election

2.Obstruction- All of the words and deeds Trump has engaged in since becoming President to end, impede, or derail the investigations into possible criminal wrongdoing by himself or others related to his Russia connections.

3.The Trump-Russia money connections

So far #3 has gotten the least attention in the press, (perhaps that will start to change) but it is the most important element, because it provides the underlying motive for #1 and #2...(and it also provides the explanation for why we have a President who can never bring himself to criticize this country's number one foreign foe, and who also has refused to follow the law by imposing the additional sanctions against that country ordered overwhelmingly by the Congress)

It's a huge, time consuming, laborious task. It involves a lot more than just an examination of Trump's personal income tax returns. It involves an examination of all of the income tax returns of the 500 plus LLCs Trump or members of his family have an interest in, and investigations into all the sources of income, loans, and debts owed by those companies...

Tracing the sources listed on the returns back through shell companies and money-laundering banks to their original sources....(Something the IRS would never have done in any of its audits of Trump)

While this hasn't so far gotten a lot of headlines, every indication is that Mueller and his team are boring into it relentlessly, with the kind of specialists needed to conduct the investigation with maximum, detailed thoroughness...

[Econoline]

[Guinevere]

Except I don’t believe in Santa and I do believe in Bob Mueller.

[BoSoxGal]

[Guinevere]

I prefer this one:

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

Good luck trying to pull this BS with Mueller:

Trump Jr. cites attorney-client privilege in not answering panel's questions about discussions with his father

Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday cited attorney-client privilege to avoid telling lawmakers about a conversation he had with his father, President Donald Trump, after news broke this summer that the younger Trump — and top campaign brass — had met with Russia-connected individuals in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

Though neither Trump Jr. nor the president is an attorney, Trump Jr. told the House Intelligence Committee that there was a lawyer in the room during the discussion, according to the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff said he didn’t think it was a legitimate invocation of attorney-client privilege.

“I don’t believe you can shield communications between individuals merely by having an attorney present,” he said, after the committee’s lengthy interview with Trump Jr. “That’s not the purpose of attorney-client privilege.”

Trump Jr.’s meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower — and the president’s response after it became public earlier this year through a New York Times story — has become a central focus of investigators probing whether any Trump associates cooperated with Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/ ... ons-284841

[ex-khobar Andy]

Didn't you know? They both got their JDs from Trump U.

[BoSoxGal]

Ditto!

[Sue U]

Good luck trying to pull this BS with Mueller:

Trump Jr. cites attorney-client privilege in not answering panel's questions about discussions with his father

Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday cited attorney-client privilege to avoid telling lawmakers about a conversation he had with his father, President Donald Trump, after news broke this summer that the younger Trump — and top campaign brass — had met with Russia-connected individuals in Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign.

Though neither Trump Jr. nor the president is an attorney, Trump Jr. told the House Intelligence Committee that there was a lawyer in the room during the discussion, according to the committee’s top Democrat, Rep. Adam Schiff of California. Schiff said he didn’t think it was a legitimate invocation of attorney-client privilege.

“I don’t believe you can shield communications between individuals merely by having an attorney present,” he said, after the committee’s lengthy interview with Trump Jr. “That’s not the purpose of attorney-client privilege.”

Trump Jr.’s meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower — and the president’s response after it became public earlier this year through a New York Times story — has become a central focus of investigators probing whether any Trump associates cooperated with Russian efforts to interfere in the presidential election.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/ ... ons-284841

What the what???? Unless you're a minor or adjudicated incompetent, having ANYONE else in the room with you and your attorney destroys the privilege protection, particularly where the parties have adverse interests. This is some bullshit.

[Big RR]

adjudicated incompetent

Give him time--he's trying his best.

[ex-khobar Andy]

It gets better (or worse, depending on your POV) - according to the NYT

Testifying in a closed session before the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump claimed that his conversation over the summer with his father, two days after The New York Times disclosed the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower in Manhattan, was protected under attorney-client privilege because lawyers for both men were on the call.

Yes, every time I called my dad, I used to make sure that both our lawyers were on the call. You never know and it's wise to be safe.

I used to think that P45 had $$$$ in the bank was because he had smart lawyers. Clearly that's not the case. I'm beginning to think that he made his money the old fashioned way - he just stole it.

[Sue U]

Also too, it's not the client who claims "attorney-client" privilege, it's the attorney who can't be made to disclose what his/her client said in the course of consultation. The client can't be forced to disclose what the attorney told him in terms of legal advice, but he can't refuse to disclose factual information of which he has knowledge just because he told those facts to his attorney. That's just stoopid.

If Junior doesn't want to testify about facts he knows, he'd have to make his refusal under the Fifth Amendment because the testimony might be self-incriminating -- not because there is any attorney-client privilege. What a dumbass.

ETA:

I just took a look at what our friends over at Wonkette had to say about the subject and they are On It. Apparently, Legal Twitter (of which I had been blissfully unaware, not being a twatterer myself) has been ripping Junior Fail a new one all day long.

[Guinevere]

I follow wonkette for you. You should become a twitterer for me.

Seriously, sometimes it is Wonkette on roids. Always worth a laugh. Some really great substantive work too.

[Lord Jim]

And the beat goes on...

Exclusive: Previously undisclosed emails show follow-up after Trump Tower meeting

Washington (CNN)The British publicist who arranged the June 2016 meeting with Russians and Donald Trump Jr. sent multiple emails to a Russian participant and a member of Donald Trump's inner circle later that summer, multiple sources told CNN, the first indication there was any follow-up after the meeting.

The emails raise new questions for congressional investigators about what was discussed at Trump Tower.

Trump Jr. has for months contended that after being promised he would get dirt on Hillary Clinton, the brief meeting focused almost exclusively on the issue of Russian adoptions, saying there was no discussion with the participants after that session.

The emails from the publicist, Rob Goldstone, were discovered by congressional investigators and raised at Wednesday's classified hearing with Trump Jr., who said he could not recall the interactions, several sources said. None of the newly disclosed emails were sent directly to Trump Jr. They are bound to be a subject during Goldstone's closed-door meetings with the House and Senate intelligence panels, which are expected to take place as early as next week.

An email from Goldstone to senior Trump aide Dan Scavino, now the White House director of social media, reveals a previously undisclosed topic that was discussed at the meeting. It encourages Scavino to get candidate Trump to create a page on the Russian social networking site VK, telling him that "Don and Paul" were on board with the idea -- a reference to then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump Jr.

More:

http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/07/politics/ ... index.html

[rubato]

"...

It's about the money 99.9% of the time.

... "

I don't think that's true. I think at a certain level of wealth it shifts to power rather than money. If you have a billion dollars you don't care about what you can buy and consume any more. You care about what you can do. Sheldon Adelson, by acquiring the personal promise of an idiot (Trump) has gained the ability to fuck the world in moving the Us embassy to Jerusalem.

https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes ... cture.html

"... But great as is the influence of the motives we have been considering, there is one which outweighs them all. I mean the love of power. Love of power is closely akin to vanity, but it is not by any means the same thing. What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it is easy to have glory without power. The people who enjoy the greatest glory in the United States are film stars, but they can be put in their place by the Committee for Un-American Activities, which enjoys no glory whatever. In England, the King has more glory than the Prime Minister, but the Prime Minister has more power than the King. Many people prefer glory to power, but on the whole these people have less effect upon the course of events than those who prefer power to glory. When Blücher, in 1814, saw Napoleon's palaces, he said, «Wasn't he a fool to have all this and to go running after Moscow.» Napoleon, who certainly was not destitute of vanity, preferred power when he had to choose. To Blücher, this choice seemed foolish. Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the vice of energetic men, the causal efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men.

Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates. In the happy days before 1914, when well-to-do ladies could acquire a host of servants, their pleasure in exercising power over the domestics steadily increased with age. Similarly, in any autocratic regime, the holders of power become increasingly tyrannical with experience of the delights that power can afford. Since power over human beings is shown in making them do what they would rather not do, the man who is actuated by love of power is more apt to inflict pain than to permit pleasure. If you ask your boss for leave of absence from the office on some legitimate occasion, his love of power will derive more satisfaction from a refusal than from a consent. If you require a building permit, the petty official concerned will obviously get more pleasure from saying «No» than from saying «Yes». It is this sort of thing which makes the love of power such a dangerous motive. ... "

yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

From a blog post today by Charlie Pierce:

It’s not the money so much as it is the power to get it and the power to keep it and the power to control it. They have shown that they’re not beholden to any notion of patriotism, or to the idea of a country, in this effort. They want it all, and they don’t care if they break everything to get it, and they want to keep it, all of it, long after they have graves on which we can all gather to spit.

[Sue U]

I follow wonkette for you. You should become a twitterer for me.

Seriously, sometimes it is Wonkette on roids. Always worth a laugh. Some really great substantive work too.

Okay, I got myself hooked up to a twatter machine. Who should I "follow"? (And how much more time is this going to suck from my already over-scheduled life?)

[Guinevere]

Me, of course

Garrett Graff. Seth Abramson. Any of the "Rogue" agency handles. The Hill. Wonkette. Kurt Eichenwald. Adam Schiff. Laurence Tribe. Lin-Manuel. Bill Kristol. Your favorite politicos, authors, talking heads, comedians, professors, etc. Joy Reid. Atticus Grinch. James Comey. David Begnaud. Pope Francis. Jen Taub. Kirsten Gillibrand. Bruce. Corey Booker. John Lewis. God. Sally Albright. Stephen King. My Swede. A bunch of travel stuff. My home girl HRC and the rest of our pink hatted crew. Local places. Parks. Museums. NPR. You get the idea....

Poke around and see what you like.