Bill Of Impeachment: Article I, Obstruction Of Justice

[BoSoxGal]

True that.

And I gather Cohen is home with orders to surrender himself to federal prison in March.

[Econoline]

Wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald also in federal marshal custody on November 24 1963?

Actually, on Sunday Nov. 24 '63 Oswald was still in custody of the Dallas Police Department and was in the process of being transferred from the DPD lockup to the Dallas County Jail when he was shot by Jack Ruby.

[Lord Jim]

Trump reportedly told Michael Cohen to lie. His own attorney general pick testified that’s a crime.


When Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) asked President Trump’s nominee for attorney general, William P. Barr, earlier this week whether it would be a crime if “the president tried to coach somebody not to testify, or testify falsely,” Barr was unequivocal: “Yes,” the nominee said before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Under an obstruction statute, yes.”

Now that an explosive story published Thursday by BuzzFeed News alleges that Trump did just that, by ordering Michael Cohen, his former attorney, to lie to Congress, Barr’s answer puts the White House in a difficult position, legal experts observed. Barr said the same when pushed by Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), as well as in his own written statements.

He has affirmed his view at least three times, both in a once-private memo and in sworn testimony.

The White House’s problem isn’t that Barr spoke out of turn or betrayed an unconventional opinion in line with Democratic talking-points, said David Alan Sklansky, a Stanford law professor. The difficulty for Trump, who pushed out Jeff Sessions as attorney general after seething that he had failed to protect him from the inquiry led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, is rather that a view more favorable to the president would have been indefensible, the scholar of criminal law said. The law is clear, he noted.

The nominee’s clearly stated judgment "limits his ability to take a particular position in defense of the president, but that position would have been an untenable one anyway,” Sklansky said in an interview with The Washington Post. “It would have been more awkward to defend the nomination of an attorney general who didn’t think this is obstruction of justice. It’s not a controversial position.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2 ... 8d94c72612

[Crackpot]

Facebook is going crazy with pro trump paid ads

[Lord Jim]

The boys at the GRU must be busy...

[Scooter]

Look, a squirrel:

Graham turns focus to Clinton email probe, draws Democratic mockery

Given the severity of the scandals surrounding Donald Trump’s presidency, there’s plenty of important oversight for the Senate Judiciary Committee to go over the next couple of years. The panel, however, now has a new chairman – White House ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) – who has some of his own ideas about the committee’s agenda.

The South Carolina Republican, who’ll seek re-election next year, has begun sketching out an agenda for the committee, and as The Hill reported yesterday, it includes examination of “the FBI’s handling of its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant applications targeting former Trump campaign aide Carter Page.”

For the record, I double-checked the date on the piece. It was published yesterday, not months ago. It really is 2019, and the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee really is interested in an official examination – which is to say, another official examination – of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and Republican conspiracy theories about Carter Page.

Democratic senators on the panel responded in an interesting way: with mockery.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), asked about Graham’s plans, started laughing and compared them to the “thrilling days of yesteryear.”

“This is going to be like the History Channel it turns out. Instead of taking a look at the current issues, Lindsey Graham wants to go back and answer important questions about the Bermuda Triangle and Hillary Clinton,” Durbin told The Hill.

Durbin said he was “concerned” about Graham’s plans but quipped that “you know there is that question about Jimmy Carter which he probably wants to ask.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), another member of the panel, said maybe Graham should “investigate Benghazi some more too” – an apparent reference to a years-long House probe that Democrats considered a political stunt.

The derision is understandable. The Senate Judiciary Committee is a powerful and important panel, and perhaps its chairman will be more responsible if his partisan plans are made to look ridiculous.


That said, none of this should come as a surprise: Graham told us what to expect.

It was just five months ago when the GOP senator told Roll Call that he’s “appalled” by the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Clinton’s emails, adding, “I promise you that the people who put the Clinton investigation in the tank, they’re going to have their day too…. There’s a good chance I’ll be Judiciary chairman if we hold the Senate next year. If I’m Judiciary chairman? Stay tuned.”

A report from the Justice Department inspector general’s office has already made clear that Graham’s concerns are baseless, and there’s still no evidence to bolster Republican conspiracy theories on this or Carter Page surveillance.

Evidently, Lindsey Graham intends to pursue these lines of inquiry anyway.

[Burning Petard]

" there’s still no evidence to bolster Republican conspiracy theories on this or Carter Page surveillance."

You have not spent much time around GOP conspiracy theorists. "No evidence" is clear evidence about just how effective the deep state conspiracy is.

As the great GOP philosopher Karl Rove said: we create our own reality.

snailgate

[Lord Jim]

And the beat goes on...

Roger Stone, Adviser to Trump, Is Indicted in Mueller Investigation

WASHINGTON — Roger J. Stone Jr., a longtime informal adviser to President Trump who has spent decades plying the dark arts of scandal-mongering and dirty tricks to help influence American political campaigns, was indicted Friday in the special counsel investigation.

Mr. Stone was charged with seven counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, making false statements and witness tampering, according to the special counsel’s office.

The indictment is the first public move in months by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and possible coordination with Trump associates.

Mr. Stone and his lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.

More:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/us/p ... ation.html

Here's a link to a pdf of the complete indictment filing:

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper ... pdf#page=1

ETA:

This won't make Trump very happy with Muscle Head; I'm sure this is exactly the sort of thing Il Boobce thought Whitaker would prevent when he installed him as acting AG...

[Sue U]

Is there some crime Roger Stone hasn't committed?

[RayThom]

Next up in the box for the Nationalist League... from Far Right Field... number 6... Roger "The Stoner" Stone.

Let's hope he strikes out.

[Scooter]

[Sue U]

That aged well!

[Scooter]

[Burning Petard]

forget about the 2016 election. What about collusion with Russia now?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... ne-russian

What is going on when defense lawyers for people under investigation by Mueller are sending this stuff to Russia?

snailgate.

[dales]

Is there some crime Roger Stone hasn't committed?

Ripping the tag off a mattress?

[Lord Jim]

Scooter posted this in another thread, but I felt that it also belonged here. This could be called the House Judiciary Committee's first step towards Impeachment hearings:

House Democrats to Probe Trump Attacks on FBI, Courts, Media

Judiciary panel to examine alleged abuses of executive power

House Democrats are opening an investigation into what they say are abuses of power by President Donald Trump through his attacks on the courts, the Justice Department, the FBI and the media, according to a House official familiar with the plans.

Topics for the inquiry will include Trump’s public humiliation of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his attacks on actions by the liberal Ninth Circuit Court and his abuse of reporters as “dishonest” and “enemies of the people,” said the person, who asked for anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The Judiciary Committee led by Democrat Jerrold Nadler of New York will announce the probe in days, the official said. There are plans to hold public hearings with witnesses, but it’s not immediately clear who will be summoned. A spokesman for Nadler said he had no immediate comment.

Presidents have wide leeway to use their bully pulpit to attack foes and get their way. But the effort comes amid a broader push by Democrats now controlling the House to investigate actions of the president and his administration.

The official said there are questions about whether Trump, through some of his actions, is going too far and undermining the rule of law, a reference to established and defined limits on the arbitrary exercise of power.

Presidents have wide leeway to use their bully pulpit to attack foes and get their way. But the effort comes amid a broader push by Democrats now controlling the House to investigate actions of the president and his administration.

The official said there are questions about whether Trump, through some of his actions, is going too far and undermining the rule of law, a reference to established and defined limits on the arbitrary exercise of power.

Nadler is opening the investigation in part because his committee is responsible for defending the rule of law, said the official. Issues will include determining in what circumstances, if any, Congress should take steps to curb some of Trump’s actions, and how that might be accomplished.[I have a suggestion...]

The planned public hearings and findings also will give Democrats their own platform to allege, explore and spotlight abuses of power.

Trump’s attacks on the news media, singling them out for abuse and ridicule, potentially threatens freedom of the press, and also could serve to intimidate other journalists, the official said. The president regularly denounces "fake news" as “the enemy of the people” in tweets and at campaign-style rallies.

Trump also has been attacking the judiciary since before he was elected, including using racially tinged language during the 2016 presidential campaign in attacking a federal judge who ruled against him. Since taking office, Trump has blasted court rulings, particularly by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which has been at the center of several White House defeats tied to lawsuits seeking to block Trump executive orders.

The committee will study whether such actions either reflect or blur the Constitution’s separation of powers, said the official.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... urts-media

[Lord Jim]

You go Jerry...

With Sweeping Document Request, Democrats Launch Broad Trump Corruption Inquiry

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee delivered a flurry of document demands to the executive branch and the broader Trump world on Monday that detailed the breadth of the Democrats’ investigation into possible obstruction of justice, corruption and abuse of power by President Trump and his administration.

In the two months since they took control of the House, Democrats have begun probing members of the president’s cabinet, his businesses, his campaign, his inaugural committee and his ties to key foreign powers, including Russia and its attempts to disrupt the 2016 presidential election. But Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the Judiciary Committee chairman, made clear on Monday that the new majority intends to train its attention on actions at the heart of Mr. Trump’s norm-bending presidency — actions that could conceivably form the basis of a future impeachment proceeding.

The letters from Mr. Nadler, dated March 4, went to 81 agencies, individuals and other entities tied to the president, including the Trump Organization, the Trump campaign, the Trump Foundation, the presidential inaugural committee, the White House, the Justice Department, the F.B.I. and dozens of the president’s closest aides who counseled him as he launched attacks against federal investigations into him and his associates, the press, and the federal judiciary. The committee will also investigate accusations of corruption, including possible violations of campaign finance law, the Constitution’s ban on foreign emoluments and the use of office for personal gain.

In a statement released on Monday, Mr. Nadler said that it was imperative to “begin building the public record” of what he has contended are Mr. Trump’s abuses. He acknowledged that his work could replicate that of the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is also studying whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice, as well as federal prosecutors in New York.

But those are criminal cases, and aides to the committee noted that Congress has different evidentiary standards than the Justice Department when it comes to potential wrongdoing.

“We will act quickly to gather this information, assess the evidence, and follow the facts where they lead with full transparency with the American people,” Mr. Nadler said in his statement. “This is a critical time for our nation, and we have a responsibility to investigate these matters and hold hearings for the public to have all the facts. That is exactly what we intend to do.”

Mr. Nadler did not mention the word impeachment in any of Monday’s documents, but its specter hangs heavily over Democratic leaders.

In an interview with The New York Times last week, Mr. Nadler said that he believed Mr. Trump had committed crimes while in office and has threatened basic constitutional norms, but he added that he would need to see an overwhelming, bipartisan case against the president before pursuing a step as disruptive as impeachment. He said he did not yet see such a case.

Monday’s requests could build that case. Twice in the past half century, the House Judiciary Committee has drawn up impeachment articles based, in part, on the same themes that Mr. Nadler laid out: obstruction of justice and abuse of power.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/us/p ... trump.html

At long last, the House Judiciary Committee is finally going to start doing its job...

[Lord Jim]

Don't forget to subpoena Gary Cohn (and John Kelly)...

Here's Donald Trump making the First Amendment stronger by attempting to use the power of the federal government to punish a news operation he doesn't like:

Report: Trump asked Gary Cohn to block AT&T-Time Warner merger

London (CNN Business)A new report about the close relationship between Fox News and President Donald Trump says the President personally asked a top White House aide to make sure the Justice Department stopped AT&T from purchasing Time Warner.

Ever since the Justice Department sued in 2017 to block AT&T's acquisition of Time Warner, theories and accusations of political animus has swirled around the antitrust case.

At the heart of the theories is Trump's public dislike of CNN, which was a division of Time Warner. The company that has since been renamed WarnerMedia, which also includes networks such TNT and HBO, in addition to CNN.

In a new piece for the New Yorker, investigative journalist Jane Mayer reports that a few months before the Justice Department filed its lawsuit, Trump pressured Gary Cohn, the former director of the National Economic Council, to tell the Justice Department to block AT&T's Time Warner deal.

According to Mayer's source, Trump called Cohn and then Chief-of-Staff John Kelly into his office and said to Kelly, "I've been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing's happened! I've mentioned it fifty times. And nothing's happened. I want to make sure it's filed. I want that deal blocked."

After the two men walked out of the Oval Office meeting, Cohn told Kelly not to follow through with the president's request, according to Mayer's report.

Trump's animosity towards the merger is no secret. Trump repeatedly talked about wanting to block it on the campaign trail and in office. A 2016 campaign press release cited by AT&T during the appeals trial state that "AT&T ... is now trying to buy Time Warner and thus the wildly anti-Trump CNN. Donald Trump would never approve such a deal."

Cohn, the White House and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to request for comment. The Justice Department has long denied that politics played a role in their decision to bring the suit.

While the Justice Department fought to block the AT&T deal, another mega media merger passed through regulatory approval: Disney's purchase of 21st Century Fox, the parent company of Trump's favorite television channel Fox News.

The chairman of 21st Century Fox is of course, Rupert Murdoch, who has become the president's close confidant.
Mayer noted in her report that "under Trump the government has consistently furthered Murdoch's business interests, to the detriment of his rivals," including the approval of Disney's purchase of Fox, a deal in which the Murdoch family will make more than two billion dollars.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/04/media/at ... index.html

This will fit nicely into the abuse of power part of the investigation...

[Scooter]

Mueller Delivers Report on Russia Investigation to Attorney General

WASHINGTON — The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, has delivered a report on his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 election to Attorney General William P. Barr, according to the Justice Department, bringing to a close an investigation that has consumed the nation and cast a shadow over President Trump for nearly two years.

Mr. Barr will decide how much of the report to share with Congress and, by extension, the American public. The House voted unanimously in March on a nonbinding resolution to make public the report’s findings, an indication of the deep support within both parties to air whatever evidence prosecutors uncovered.

In a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Judiciary committees, Mr. Barr wrote, “I may be in a position to advise you of the special counsel’s principal conclusions as soon as this weekend.”

Since Mr. Mueller’s appointment in May 2017, his team has focused on how Russian operatives sought to sway the outcome of the 2016 presidential race and whether anyone tied to the Trump campaign, wittingly or unwittingly, cooperated with them. While the inquiry, started months earlier by the F.B.I., unearthed a far-ranging Russian influence operation, no public evidence has emerged that the president or his aides illegally assisted it.

Nonetheless, the damage to Mr. Trump and those in his circle has been extensive. A half-dozen former Trump aides have been indicted or convicted of crimes, mostly for lying to federal investigators or Congress. Others remain under investigation in cases that Mr. Mueller’s office handed off to federal prosecutors in New York and elsewhere. Dozens of Russian intelligence officers or citizens, along with three Russian companies, were charged in cases that are likely to languish in court because the defendants cannot be extradited to the United States.

Even though Mr. Mueller’s report is complete, some aspects of his inquiry remain active and may be overseen by the same prosecutors once they are reassigned to their old jobs within the Justice Department. For instance, recently filed court documents suggest that investigators are still examining why the former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort turned over campaign polling data in 2016 to a Russian associate whom prosecutors said was tied to Russian intelligence.

Mr. Mueller looked extensively at whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice to protect himself or his associates. But despite months of negotiations, prosecutors were unable to personally interview the president.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers insisted that he respond only to written questions from the special counsel. Even though under current Justice Department policy a sitting president cannot be indicted, Mr. Trump’s lawyers worried that his responses in an oral interview could bring political repercussions, including impeachment, or put him in legal jeopardy once he is out of office.

Not since Watergate has a special prosecutor’s inquiry so mesmerized the American public. Mr. Trump has helped make Mr. Mueller a household name, attacking his investigation an average of about twice a day as an unfair, politically motivated attempt to invalidate his election. He never forgave former Attorney General Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia inquiry, an action that cleared the way for his deputy, Rod J. Rosenstein, to appoint Mr. Mueller.

Mr. Trump reiterated his attacks on the special counsel this week, saying Mr. Mueller decided “out of the blue” to write a report, ignoring that regulations require him to do so. But the president also said the report should be made public because of “tens of millions” of Americans would want to know what it contains.

“Let people see it,” Mr. Trump said. “There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. There was no nothing.”

In court, the evidence amassed by the Mueller team has held up. Every defendant who is not still awaiting trial either pleaded guilty or was convicted by a jury. Although no American has been charged with illegally plotting with the Russians to tilt the election, Mr. Mueller uncovered a web of lies by former Trump aides.

Five of them were found to have deceived federal investigators or Congress about their interactions with Russians during the campaign or the transition That includes Mr. Manafort; Michael T. Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser; and Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and longtime fixer. A sixth former adviser, Roger J. Stone, Jr. is to stand trial in November on charges of lying to Congress.

Those who know Mr. Mueller, a former F.B.I. director, predicted a concise, legalistic report devoid of opinions — nothing like the 445-page treatise that Kenneth W. Starr, who investigated President Bill Clinton, produced in 1998. Operating under a now-defunct statute that governed independent counsels, Mr. Starr had far more leeway than Mr. Mueller to set his own investigative boundaries and to render judgments.

The regulations that govern Mr. Mueller, who is under the supervision of the Justice Department, only require him to explain his decisions to either seek or decline to seek criminal charges in a confidential report to the attorney general. The attorney general is then required to notify the leadership of the House and Senate judiciary committees.

During his Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Barr promised to release as much information as possible, saying “the country needs a credible resolution of these issues.” But he may be reluctant to release the part of Mr. Mueller’s report that may be of most interest: who the special counsel declined to prosecute and why, especially if Mr. Trump is on that list.

The department’s longstanding practice, with rare exceptions, is not to identify people who were merely investigative targets in order to avoid unfairly tainting their reputations, especially because they would have no chance to defend themselves in a court of law. Mr. Rosenstein, who has overseen Mr. Mueller’s work and may have a say in what is released, is a firm believer in that principle.

In a May 2017 letter that the president seized upon as justification for his decision to fire James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, Mr. Rosenstein severely criticized Mr. Comey for announcing during the previous year that Hillary Clinton, then a presidential candidate, would not be charged with a crime for mishandling classified information as secretary of state. Releasing “derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation,” Mr. Rosenstein wrote, is “a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.”

Weighing that principle against the public’s right to know is even more fraught in the president’s case. If Mr. Mueller declined to pursue criminal charges against Mr. Trump, he might have been guided not by lack of evidence, but by the Justice Department’s legal opinions that a sitting president cannot be indicted. The department’s Office of Legal Counsel has repeatedly advised that the stigma and burden of being under prosecution would damage the president’s ability to lead.

Mr. Trump has said the decision about what to release is up to Mr. Barr. But behind the scenes, White House lawyers are preparing for the possibility they may need to argue some material is protected by executive privilege, especially if the report discusses whether the president’s interactions with his top aides or legal advisers are evidence of obstruction of justice.

Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the head of the House Judiciary Committee, has argued that the department’s view that presidents are protected from prosecution makes it all the more important for the public to see Mr. Mueller’s report.

“To maintain that a sitting president cannot be indicted, and then to withhold evidence of wrongdoing from Congress because the president cannot be charged, is to convert D.O.J. policy into the means for a cover-up,” he said before the House approved its nonbinding resolution to disclose the special counsel’s findings.

Some predict that any disclosures from Mr. Mueller’s report will satisfy neither Mr. Trump’s critics nor his defenders, especially given the public’s high expectations for answers. A Washington Post-Schar School poll in February illustrated the sharp divide in public opinion: It found that of those surveyed, most Republicans did not believe evidence of crimes that Mr. Mueller’s team had already proved in court, while most Democrats believed he had proved crimes that he had not even alleged.

Recent weeks have brought fresh signs that the special counsel’s work was ending. Five prosecutors have left, reducing the team from 16 to 11. Mr. Mueller’s office confirmed that Andrew Weissmann, a top deputy, is also expected to leave soon. A key F.B.I. agent, David W. Archey, has transferred to another post.

Mr. Rosenstein was expected to leave the Justice Department by mid-March, but may be lingering to see the report to its conclusion.

[RayThom]

Glimpses of the Mystery That Is the Mueller Investigation

Here are some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle. The full picture is missing.



https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/201 ... hotos.html