lock her up.... he murmured....

[BoSoxGal]

Here's an excellent brief and succinct synopsis on freedom of the press and the First Amendment from good ol' Shep Smith... (This guy talks so much sense, I am just about ready to start the "Shep Smith For President" movement...)

Wha-what? As the resident cynic I can't help but wonder what ol' Shep is up to. He's on FoxNews for Christ's sake. He must be hitting me below the level of my awareness, and some time soon he's going to yell "April Fools, you liberal bastards."

I'm going to feel like such a tool for falling for it.

Shep is actually the only voice of reason on FOX; I don’t believe he harbors any fondness for Trump.

[MajGenl.Meade]

that is what our democracy looks like.

Not really. Part of democracy is a requirement to make honest evaluation of politicians and shape one's own opinion and future voting plans on the basis of integrity, performance and likely/possible future conduct. We call this "using the thought process". Weird, huh?

To obscure that responsibility by pretending offense at a legitimate question about Trump's likely future conduct based upon his current performance and dismissing it as merely "hypothetical" is to purposefully (IMO) shelter behind a smokescreen of mendacity.

If, after exhausting all legal remedies, Donald Trump refused to follow a lawful order from the US Supreme Court, would you consider that to be an impeachable offense?

How about this one? Would you agree that such an action by Trump, refusal to obey a lawful judgement of the Supreme Court, would warrant a Congressional review to determine if articles of impeachment should be promulgated or do you think this President is above the law?

(BTW by 'p.o.s. wrong answer' I was referring to the word 'no'; that answer is what a president's onanistic supporter would give. I was not making any comment on you and indeed you did not say 'no' but "no comment")

I think you could surprise everyone by being honest. It would at least differentiate you from Trump.

[Lord Jim]

Wes, on the chance that you aren't just being deliberately obtuse and instead honestly don't know how the process that results in the Supreme Court issuing a ruling/order works, permit me to provide some elucidation:

The members of the Supreme Court don't just wake up in the morning and decide they'd like to issue a ruling and/or order about something. The Supreme Court only deals with actual court cases, (criminal and civil) that have been filed and fought at lower levels. (And they don't even issue ruling in most of the cases appealed to them; in most cases, they refuse to hear the appeal and the lower court ruling/order stands.)

So, a silly hypothetical like this:

if the supreme court ordered him to lick nancy Pelosi s butt...

would never, ever happen...

On the other hand, something that might very well happen would be a scenario like this:

Mueller and Trump fail to agree on terms for Trump to give evidence to the Russia investigation. Mueller then issues a subpoena to Trump to compel him to appear before the Grand Jury to give testimony. (Which would happen to any other citizen.) Trump's lawyers go to court to have the subpoena quashed, (or they simply ignore the subpoena, and Mueller goes to court to obtain a ruling enforcing it, ordering Trump to testify)

The case goes first before a federal judge. (Which would be the court of jurisdiction, since this would be a federal and not a state case) Then which ever side loses that judge's ruling (Mueller or Trump) appeals it to the appropriate federal appellate court. Then whoever loses the ruling at that level appeals to the US Supreme Court...

Then let's say that the SC rules against Trump and orders that he has to testify. A very realistic "hypothetical" in light of two other earlier cases that I brought up on this board not too long ago:

In Clinton V Jones, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that a sitting President could be subpoenaed to give testimony in a civil case. In United States v. Nixon the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that President had to surrender evidence (documents and tapes) subpoenaed in a criminal investigation...

It doesn't take a legal genius to figure out that given these two unanimous precedents, that the odds are overwhelming that the court would rule that a President would have to comply with a subpoena to give testimony in a criminal investigation as well....

There's a very realistic example. And as I said, at least in modern times all other Presidents have complied with every Supreme Court order that went against them.

Obama had several of the Executive Orders he issued struck down by Supreme Court rulings; he complied with the SC order in every case. George W. Bush had a portion of the procedures his Administration had put in place for Guantanamo detainees struck down; he complied with the order. And as I just pointed out both Clinton and Nixon also complied. (To name but a few of many available examples.)

So maybe now you see why the answer "yes" to my question should be such an easy call....

ETA:

You know, maybe I'm missing something here, and this really isn't as easy a question to answer as it looks to me...

Maybe I should start a poll to see if other people are also having difficulty with it....

[Burning Petard]

"It doesn't take a legal genius to figure out that given these two unanimous precedents, that the odds are overwhelming that the court would rule that a President would have to comply with a subpoena to give testimony in a criminal investigation as well..."

But it also doesn't take a legal genius to figure out the current bench of Supremes would easily rationalize around these precedents and tell Mueller to go pound sand.

It was another president who said of the supremes, "John Marshall has made his decision. Let him enforce it."

snailgate

[Econoline]

Not to mention Mr. Dooley (the character created by Finley Peter Dunne), who observed,
“Th' supreme coort follows th' iliction returns.”

[Lord Jim]

it also doesn't take a legal genius to figure out the current bench of Supremes would easily rationalize around these precedents and tell Mueller to go pound sand.

I think you'd have a strong point if the previous decisions had been close votes, but they were unanimous, which means there was legal reasoning involved that appealed across the ideological spectrum...

The vote on Trump having to testify before a Grand Jury might not be unanimous, but I think it's a mistake to assume that every conservative jurist would vote against it...

John Roberts in particular strikes me as someone who would be very reluctant to vote to toss aside two unanimous precedents, and Neil Gorsuch has only been on the court for a little over a year and has already voted against Trump's position in a major case...

[Econoline]

[Lord Jim]

I am certainly no fan of Ivanka Trump's. She's a liar, a phony, and a hypocrite. Her primary role in Our Long National Nightmare has been to cynically try to present herself as the "Humane Face Of Trumpism" but she's really just a chip off the old grifter block...

And she may in fact be guilty of crimes that could carry jail time (possibly related to her funneling of Inauguration funds to herself or other family interests, or her role with the money laundering front known as "The Trump Foundation" or some other nefarious business dealings.)

But that having been said, unless she and/or her attorneys are lying about there being no classified information contained in the government business emails that she sent from her private email account, (a possibility I'm certainly open to, but there has been no publicly revealed evidence of it so far) there is no meaningful comparison between the seriousness of Hillary's email transgressions and hers...

I can certainly understand the visceral desire by the Hillary fans to want to equate the two, but there just is no valid way to equate them.

I am somewhat less understanding of those in the mainstream media claiming to be doing straight reporting who also try to conflate the two, without ever mentioning that little classified information detail.

I am sure that due to the piss poor job they have done with this, that there are a lot of folks walking around mistakenly thinking, "Oh look, Ivanka Trump did the same thing Hillary Clinton did" when that is in fact not at all the case. (At least based on what has been so far been asserted and not disputed. It's a sad day when there's a topic where people are better informed of the facts if they watch FOX News than if they watch any other news outlet.)

Yes, they both sent and received government business emails with private email accounts, in violation of government rules. And I also find Ivanka's claim that she didn't know the rules, completely implausible. Like Hillary, she didn't care what the rules were; she didn't believe they applied to her. But this is where the comparison begins and ends.

The BIG violation Hillary Clinton had, the one that led to the FBI investigation and Jim Comey's long public statement condemning her actions after deciding not to recommend her indictment, (and his later letter reopening the investigation shortly before the election) is that it was shown that Hillary had received classified information with that non-government account, and had also maintained an unauthorized, unsecured server on which she stored this classified information.

That is where her potential serious legal exposure (and possible "lock her up" time) sprang from. Not just her arrogant decision that she didn't have to follow the rules and use a government email account for government business.

Given the historically unprecedented level of criminality, corruption, scandal and sleaze engaged in by Trump and those around him, his administration obviously presents a very target rich environment for investigations. But I strongly suggest that unless something comes out showing that classified information was involved, that it would be a political mistake for the Democrats in the House to spend to much public time on this.

There are so many serious things that can be investigated for which there is a rock solid basis, why waste time on such a questionable one? (If they really want to go after Ivanka, I would suggest that a vigorous investigation into where all that Inauguration money went would be a more fruitful avenue...)

Personally, I want to see a glide path of investigations that leads to 60% plus of the public concluding that Impeachement and Removal of Donald Trump as President is the remedy demanded. To me that is the paramount consideration. I don't see how a big public investigation into Ivanka Trump's emails contributes to achieving this goal; in fact it may even detract from it.

[Crackpot]

Jim the content s of the emails was only discovered after an exhaustive investigation something that doubt ivanka will suffer

[Big RR]

Jim--while I agree with you that the Hillary emails were found to contain sensitive and confidential materials while Ivanka's emails (at least as of yet) were not, the use of the personal accounts is pretty much the same thing, I'm pretty sure Hillary did not set out to receive classified materials on her account, she just received them on a account she set up so she could (likely) more easily access them remotely (much as the same way that many employees do with their company emails); indeed, my guess is this is what Ivanka has done as well. It's not really defensible in either case, and the presence of classified communications in either account only makes it worse, but its not like it was all part of some nefarious plan (I recall some saying Hillary set up her private account to permit her to send and receive information free from the government's prying eyes, but given the large number of emails there, I sincerely doubt this was the case). Yes, what each did was a breach of regulations (and Hillary's arises to illegality due to her treatment of classified information in violation of the law), but IMHO, for both this was a pretty casual decision which shouldn't have been made; again, like the person who forwards their company emails to a personal account so they can easily access them on the phone. Indeed, it surprises me that persons who (I presume) are not well-versed in computer technology could even accomplish something like this (especially now, after Trump made it such a big issue) , which says more about the government and its watchdogs than these persons.

But one thing I will say, Ivanka has to be an ass to do this, especially after the big stink daddy made of this sort of diversion during the campaign; sort of like the daughter of the big temperance bill sponsor going out and buying cases of alcohol. But maybe it is a diversion as you suggest.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Not trying to defend HRC here - she should have obeyed the rules just as Ivanka Trump should have; and her suggestion that she did not know the rules, after all the fuss during the campaign, is either just a total lie and/or proof positive that she does not have the intelligence she was born with.

But in defense of the private email server in general I offer this. Technology, especially security, moves very quickly and there is no doubt that someone with their own system can routinely upgrade it in a way that government cannot. There has never been a suggestion that Hillary's private sever (or, for that matter, Ivanka's) has been successfully hacked while government servers are routinely and successfully targeted by all sorts of people.

[Big RR]

That is true, but I would imagine the government would have better and more restrictive security than available to most of the private sector. And personally, I wouldn't be surprised is this is why either or both of them chose to use a private server--they are (or could be) much easier to access remotely than the government server (I have had corporate email servers which have several layers of security (from random number fobs to other authentication methodology) which made them very slow to access--it's just easier to access your own server.

[ex-khobar Andy]

Sounds like a job for Mordac:

[Burning Petard]

"The BIG violation Hillary Clinton had, the one that led to the FBI investigation and Jim Comey's long public statement condemning her actions after deciding not to recommend her indictment, (and his later letter reopening the investigation shortly before the election) is that it was shown that Hillary had received classified information with that non-government account, and had also maintained an unauthorized, unsecured server on which she stored this classified information. "

Huh? IT WAS SHOWN THAT HILLARY HAD RECEIVED. . . . Why is it a BIG violation to receive it? I worked with top secret classified material when I was on active duty in the US Army. The rules were always clear. The big violation was on the person who removed it from the secure mode or circumstance of communication. If I got a document in ordinary snail mail and opened the package and discovered it had papers in it that were classified--it was not MY violation, it was the jerk who sent it.

With the new technology is one now expected to have some sort of filter on your non-secured equipment that returns messages automatically if they are classified? Did Hillary wrongly tell people that the server or private message system was secure?

snailgate.

[Big RR]

is one now expected to have some sort of filter on your non-secured equipment that returns messages automatically if they are classified?

No, but one is expected not to use one's private email for such communication. I imagine Hillary's (and likely Ivanka's) mistake was either to give people who routinely send such information her private email address and tell them to copy that, or possibly to forward her government account to it. And, as I recall when dealing with classified government information, if the information is inadvertently received through another channel, there is a responsibility on the recipient to report the security breach, which Hillary never did.

[Lord Jim]

there is a responsibility on the recipient to report the security breach, which Hillary never did.

Not only did she not report it, she stored it on an unauthorized private server...(BTW, I don't recall seeing anywhere that Ivanka was using her own private server)

And, she also did send classified material...

Here's what Comey reported as the finding of the FBI investigation:

There is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

For example, seven e-mail chains concern matters that were classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level when they were sent and received. These chains involved Secretary Clinton both sending e-mails about those matters and receiving e-mails from others about the same matters.


There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).

None of these e-mails should have been on any kind of unclassified system, but their presence is especially concerning because all of these e-mails were housed on unclassified personal servers not even supported by full-time security staff, like those found at Departments and Agencies of the U.S. Government—or even with a commercial service like Gmail.

Separately, it is important to say something about the marking of classified information. Only a very small number of the e-mails containing classified information bore markings indicating the presence of classified information. But even if information is not marked “classified” in an e-mail, participants who know or should know that the subject matter is classified are still obligated to protect it.

[Big RR]

Jim--if you have a private email account, aren't the emails stored on a virtual private server? I understand that Clinton had here own server, but if Ivanka used a private email provider, wouldn't those emails necessarily be on a private (non government) server, even if it wasn't one she owned?

[Lord Jim]

if Ivanka used a private email provider, wouldn't those emails necessarily be on a private (non government) server, even if it wasn't one she owned?

Yes, that's true, but as Comey points out in the passage from his report that I quoted in my last post, even a private commercial service like gmail (while still unacceptable by government regulations) has better security than a personally owned one sitting in a closet in an unguarded apartment in Colorado...(Which is where Hillary's server was)

[Econoline]

The point of the cartoon was NOT that the two situations were equivalent: it was that the EXCUSES given by the two, uh, perpetrators were equivalent. And if neither one is believable...well, given everything that went down in 2016, Ivanka's "ignorance of the law" excuse seems to me to be QUITE a bit LESS believable.





ETA: IMO Hillary's hubris betrays a belief that the Privileged can get away with things that Normal People can't; Ivanka's hubris is so much greater that she apparently believes *HER* privilege is so vast that *SHE* can get away with even things that other less-privileged Privileged People can't.

[ex-khobar Andy]

I still don't know the mechanics of HIllary's private server. Did she have a private address Hill@clinton.com which she told everybody to use; or did she put a 'forward all mail' command onto her official government account?

I'm not excusing her actions in an way: but if the former wouldn't someone, at some point, have said BTW you can't do that? And if the latter, I would expect a secure government account to have some sort of setting which the user could not alter, which would prevent autoforwarding.