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#1752 Sep 25 2018 at 12:57 PM Rating: Good
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lolgaxe wrote:
And speaking of legal, Bill Cosby has been found to be a violent sexual predator. I guess he wrote about all his attacks in his calendar.


Right? This stuff is like "Law & Order: SVU" 101.
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#1753 Sep 25 2018 at 5:49 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
People who actually bother to learn something will know that a plea deal and cooperation are two different things.


And yet, you've consistently made the same claim as to the meaning, for both cases. If you had restricted yourself to only claiming "cooperating with the investigation" meant "He's rolling over on Trump!", you'd at least have half a point to make. A weak half point, but something.

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Seriously, this is some world class whistling past the graveyard where you're telling yourself "Oh, well, he's cooperating with the investigation but, uh, that means nothing!"


Does it mean "rolling over on Trump"? That's the question here. Ok. So let's leave plea deals as a whole off the table and just discuss cases where the accused agrees to "cooperate with the investigation". What does that mean?

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The fact that these deals DO include a cooperation agreement means that the defendant is offering to trade knowledge for a lighter sentence and the prosecutor thinks that knowledge is valuable enough to bargain.


That's literally not true. Cooperation could mean anything. You agree not to contest certain charges. That's "cooperation". You agree to meet with the investigators willingly rather than via subpoena. That's cooperation. Heck. You agree to be interrogated by the investigators at all. That's cooperation. You do get that the accused is under no obligation to testify, right? It's only codified in one of the freaking first 10 amendments to our constitution.

And yes, providing testimony which could provide investigators evidence to use to pursue additional defendants is *also* cooperation. But there is no possible way to know, much less assume, that this is the form of cooperation in any of these cases.

And guess what? If you're one of the increasing number of people, like myself, who believe that the entire purpose of the investigation isn't actually to prove any charge related to Russian collusion, but merely to provide fodder to present to the public to try to sway them in future elections, then you also see these leaks about how so and so is "cooperating with the investigation" as designed precisely to create the very perception you keep repeating.

Sadly, the forum search is broken as heck and I can't find anything meaningful from back in the Plame investigation, but I'm reasonably certain that back then you also breathlessly repeated every leak about this person and that person "cooperating" with the investigation, thinly worded statements that meant nothing but could be interpreted to mean something serious, and frankly every bit of garbage that came out, and insisted that it meant "Bush/Cheney/<someone close to them> was going to get caught red handed leaking Plames identity to the press. And OMG heads would roll.

Right? You remember that, don't you? You got played then Joph. And you're getting played again. The sad thing is that you don't mind being played because you don't mind the outcome that results from it. You'll blissfully ignore that your "side" lies to you, because you're more than happy to repeat the lies that come out if it helps your party win elections. Just like it helped them win back the house and senate back then. That's the goal here. And I'm 99% certain you know that's what's going on here too.


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The fact that Manafort's plea deal was structured in a way to not be nullified by a pardon would strongly suggest that the information/cooperation in question is (a) about Trump and (b) valuable enough that Mueller wants to be sure he has it.


How does the logic work on that? If he actually had damning evidence against Trump, why would they need to make it so Trump couldn't pardon him. Why would Trump pardon him? You can't honestly believe that Trump would respond to someone testifying against him by pardoning him? That's... nuts.

What actually happened btw is not what you just described. The theory that was floated out there was that Trump could pardon Manafort (or promise to) in return for Manafort just sitting tight and doing nothing (ie: no cooperation at all). If we're going with that theory and assumption, then the moment Manafort did decide to plea (whether it involved "cooperation" or not), that's somewhat off the table. Again though, there's no logic that could allow us to assume that by cooperating it somehow means anything related to that at all. Again, arguably, it goes in the other direction. I'm pretty sure that if I had evidence sufficient to take down the sitting president, in an environment where the investigators and a whole "side" of the political spectrum desperately wants that to happen, I'd pretty much demand the freaking world in exchange for it. Not a plea to a lesser sentence, and not after already having been convicted of multiple felonies to which my only chance of not serving significant prison time is the very man I'm testifying against and taking down.

He'd have demanded full immunity for all crimes related to any foreign interactions he's ever had. Right? That's what you would demand. That's what I would demand. That's what any sane person would demand. And if they had such testimony, something that was the true smoking gun that would take down Trump, he'd get it, right? They'd leap at it.

But that's not what happened, is it? Ergo, the whole freaking theory you're going on isn't true. It's nothing more than wishful thinking, that plays out in the media, and is used to influence people's opinion. The left loves to play this stuff out in the court of public opinion, where they can selectively leak and report on "facts" that imply things that aren't necessarily true. It's not like it's very hard to see this pattern in the past and conclude that this is likely what they're doing now.

Edited, Sep 25th 2018 5:02pm by gbaji
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#1754 Sep 25 2018 at 7:08 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
If he actually had damning evidence against Trump, why would they need to make it so Trump couldn't pardon him. Why would Trump pardon him?

Hahahaha... you don't even read what you're writing, do you?

You're ridiculously mis-remembering the Plame case since Fitzgerald didn't indict anyone except Libby (who didn't plea) and the case pretty much had nothing to do with this one, mechanically. Fleischer had struck an immunity deal but that wasn't revealed until the Libby case was underway and the actual Plame investigation was over. So there was really no chance for me to be breathless about anything. But if pretending that I said all the same things in 2006 is what you need to make yourself feel better, knock yourself out Smiley: laugh

Anyway, your whole post is a million versions of "Nuh UH!" with some nonsense backing and a display of ignorance about how the system works so I'll just leave it at that.
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#1755 Sep 25 2018 at 7:49 PM Rating: Decent
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Dang it. Forum ate my response. Grrr...

Jophiel wrote:
Oh, that's easy:
28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a) wrote:
The jurisdiction of a Special Counsel shall be established by the Attorney General. The Special Counsel will be provided with a specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated. The jurisdiction of a Special Counsel shall also include the authority to investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the Special Counsel's investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses; and to conduct appeals arising out of the matter being investigated and/or prosecuted.

ORDER NO. 3915-2017 APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL wrote:
The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James 8. Corney in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(c)
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).


Despite your mistaken assertions, there's no need or cause to name a specific statute in naming the investigation. The law providing for the appointment of a special counsel clearly states that they will be "provided with a specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated" which in this case is investigating "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump" as well as any other criminal matters Mueller may find along the way and any matters that come directly from his investigation such as perjury or obstruction.


Um... You just quoted section 4 of the statue, which defines the jurisdiction of the Special Counsel, once appointed. The section that's actually relevant to the issue of appointing one in the first place is section one, unsurprisingly named "Grounds for appointing a Special Counsel":

Quote:

§ 600.1 Grounds for appointing a Special Counsel.

The Attorney General, or in cases in which the Attorney General is recused, the Acting Attorney General, will appoint a Special Counsel when he or she determines that criminal investigation of a person or matter is warranted and -

(a) That investigation or prosecution of that person or matter by a United States Attorney's Office or litigating Division of the Department of Justice would present a conflict of interest for the Department or other extraordinary circumstances; and

(b) That under the circumstances, it would be in the public interest to appoint an outside Special Counsel to assume responsibility for the matter.



I've gone ahead and bolded the important phrase in there, just in case you miss it somehow. Somewhat by definition a "criminal investigation" requires a defined crime you are accusing someone of committing. Heck, even a range of possible crimes could count. As I've pointed out several times on this forum, you need to either have a specific crime you know has happened and you're investigating to determine who committed that crime *or* you need to have a specific set of actions taken by a person or group and are investigating to determine which, if any, of those actions constitute a crime. They don't have either of those.

This: "links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump" is not a crime. We can't even determine from that statement what might be a criminal act there. If merely having links with or coordination with people from another country is a crime, then everyone who's ever worked at the State Department is a criminal. So is most people who work in the DoD, the White House, in Congress, etc. Clearly that's not a viable legal standard right? Yet, there it is in black and white in the paper you just quoted as the stated justification and purpose of the Special Counsel.

You'd have to at the very least say what those links and coordination was for. And that whatever purpose they were for was criminal. Merely having them isn't sufficient. What exactly is the crime here? The closest we can possibly come to is campaign finance violations, in the form of soft money donations. Which is nowhere near the "treason" that they left clearly wants people to believe is really going on.

Which is why I keep saying that this isn't really about trying to prove a crime took place. The value is in merely having the investigation and dragging it out as long as possible for maximum political effect. That's literally it. And yeah, along the way they'll find some people they can toss a charge or two at, but I'll make the prediction right now that when this is all said and done we will have no charges actually related to "colluding with the Russians to attempt to change/influence the outcome of the election". In the same way that no charges of "releasing classified information about an undercover intelligence operative" resulted from the Plame investigation. Same exact deal. Same exact motivation. Again, this is a pattern of behavior by your party Joph. We're not blind here.

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Whoever told you that you needed to name a statute in the appointment misled you. I hope it wasn't all that MSNBC you've been watching; that would be embarrassing.


Or... oh I dont know... I just read the correct portion of the statute? Silly me!
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#1756 Sep 25 2018 at 8:07 PM Rating: Decent
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Oh. I'll also point out, just for kicks, that even the section you did quote doesn't actually cover the charges being filed against Manafort. He's being charged with crimes relating to his reporting of his status as a foreign agen based on interaction he had with Ukraine like 8 years before he joined the Trump campaign. The one portion of this which could remotely fall under "links and/or cooperation with Russia" would be representation as a foreign agent, except that only extends between 2008 and 2014. So no links during the time period in which he was a member of the Trump campaign, so that doesn't work.

In fact, not a single crime he's being charged with occurred during the period in which he was a member of the campaign. There all either charges of actions taken between 2006 and 2015 (mostly financial disclosure stuff), and then charges between late 2016 and early 2017 (about lying about that previous stuff when investigated).

So what we have here is a previous illegal act, discovered by the Special Counsel (and not really even that, since this had already been raised within the DoJ previously and determined not to be serious enough to pursue), not related in any way to the investigation itself, and not covered under the jurisdiction of said Counsel (he wasn't lying to cover up the allegations in the investigation itself). So... Um. What?

Oh wait! I know what! Because the investigation isn't really about finding a "crime" committed by the Trump campaign members, during the campaign, relating to some sort of illegal actions involving the Russians. It all makes perfect sense when you noodle out that it's just about affecting public perception of Trump and his administration. Going after Manafort ties in nicely with the narrative itself, even if it missed the mark in terms of timeline. Most people won't see the gaps there and just think "OMG! Manafort was a foreign agent, that must mean something!".

Which is exactly the point. They took something they already knew about, hid it under the covers of a Special Counsel so they could skirt the normal investigative process, and then just selectively leaked juicy tidbits to get the media smear teams going full steam. That is the whole point of this exercise. Anyone actually paying attention can see it. Again, the timeline doesn't add up if you're actually supposed to be investigating actions by the Trump Campaign. It works perfectly if you don't actually care about that at all.
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#1757 Sep 25 2018 at 10:59 PM Rating: Excellent
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EDIT: GDI, gbaji, you almost pulled me in again!

Edited, Sep 25th 2018 10:03pm by stupidmonkey
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#1758 Sep 26 2018 at 7:43 AM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
I've gone ahead and bolded the important phrase in there, just in case you miss it somehow

Really, you bolded the part where the appointment of the Special Counsel must cite chapter and verse of the law to be specifically investigated?

I missed that -- could you bold it again? Because it almost sounds as though it DOESN'T say that and you're just projecting your wishes and desires upon it and throwing a fit because that's not how the law actually works, But, since you have your panties all knotted over this, I found a nice, concise rundown by John Dean, former White House counsel, saying what would be investigated:
Dean wrote:
Collusion is the descriptive word the news media has settled on to cover many potential illegal actions by the Trump campaign, which could range from aiding and abetting (18 USC 2) to conspiracy per se (18 USC 371) to conspiring to violate several potentially applicable laws like: 18 USC 1030—fraud and related activity in connection with computers; 18 USC 1343—wire fraud; or 52 USC 30121—contributions and donations by foreign nationals. Also, 18 USC 2381—for, contrary to a widespread belief that there must be a declared war, the Justice Department as recently as 2006 indicted for “aid and comfort” to our enemies, the form of collusion better known as treason.

Again, whoever told you these things was misleading you. Or just as mistaken as you. Either way, you need to start finding better sources because this is just embarrassing.

Regarding Manafort, you obviously mistook "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation" to mean the same thing as "any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a)" which it does not. It means that crimes uncovered during the course of the investigation. Which would fit those that Manafort committed.

Look, I know you guys are terrified right now. All of Trump's super-duper loyal guys are caving on him and approval for the investigation keeps hitting highs right as the midterms are heating up. But not understanding the law and throwing temper tantrums based on your misunderstanding doesn't actually help your side any.
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#1759 Sep 26 2018 at 8:11 AM Rating: Excellent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
EDIT: GDI, gbaji, you almost pulled me in again!
You mean "But conspiracy theory!" didn't sway your opinion?
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#1760 Sep 26 2018 at 10:18 AM Rating: Excellent
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I meant he almost pulled me in to a long winded rebuttal of his word vomit, before I realized I was feeding the troll. The gist of my deleted post was a hypothetical about finding Slaves/Victims/meals in Stephen Miller's basement during an interview with Mueller at Miller's home, but since it wasn't specifically listed as something to be prosecuted.
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#1761 Sep 27 2018 at 8:01 AM Rating: Excellent
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Yeah, it's a bit weird to believe that your basement full of dead babies is safe if the search warrant is only to find a stolen bike. Then again, this is a guy that spent a decade "asking questions" about a birth certificate yet a year into an actual investigation with actual leads he calls anything about it a witch hunt or flat out lies unquestioningly and somehow wants us to believe he's the one that has no bias.
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#1762 Sep 27 2018 at 12:20 PM Rating: Excellent
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"Well, Jeb, you have a damn sight more than a few dead hitchhikers in this here root cellar, but, since ain't none of them a bicycle stolen from the Hatcher boy, we gonna say good day."
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#1763 Sep 27 2018 at 11:44 PM Rating: Excellent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
"Well, Jeb, you have a damn sight more than a few dead hitchhikers in this here root cellar, but, since ain't none of them a bicycle stolen from the Hatcher boy, we gonna say good day."
That sounds like a great line to put into a movie script.

Start writing and post the outline here, please.
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#1764 Sep 28 2018 at 8:05 AM Rating: Good
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Tucker & Dale vs Evil 2!

Edited, Sep 28th 2018 10:05am by lolgaxe
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#1765 Oct 16 2018 at 2:49 PM Rating: Decent
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Ok. Super late responding, but why not?

Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
I've gone ahead and bolded the important phrase in there, just in case you miss it somehow

Really, you bolded the part where the appointment of the Special Counsel must cite chapter and verse of the law to be specifically investigated?


You know? When I posted that back then, I considered actually going and posting the criminal justice rules for what defines a "criminal investigation", actually dug up some documents and whatnot, then decided "Nah! No one's actually stupid enough to not realize that a criminal investigation, by definition within our legal system must be an investigation of a specific st of laws, so this is just a lot of wasted time on my part". Well... grats for proving my general lack of respect for my fellow man there Joph.

Seriously? You've lived in this country your entire life. You've learned all about things like search warrants, miranda rights, the 4th and 5th amendments to our constitution, and this crazy thing called presumption of innocence (which seems super relevant just recently), and you haven't noodled out that one of the most basic foundations of our legal system is that it can't just investigate people to see if they have maybe committed a crime? A criminal investigation has to start with the investigation of a crime. It's not hard to understand.

Quote:
I missed that -- could you bold it again?


The part where it says it's a criminal investigation. Again, I didn't think I'd have to do more than that for it to sink in.


Quote:
I found a nice, concise rundown by John Dean, former White House counsel, saying what would be investigated:
Dean wrote:
Collusion is the descriptive word the news media has settled on to cover many potential illegal actions by the Trump campaign, which could range from aiding and abetting (18 USC 2) to conspiracy per se (18 USC 371) to conspiring to violate several potentially applicable laws like: 18 USC 1030—fraud and related activity in connection with computers; 18 USC 1343—wire fraud; or 52 USC 30121—contributions and donations by foreign nationals. Also, 18 USC 2381—for, contrary to a widespread belief that there must be a declared war, the Justice Department as recently as 2006 indicted for “aid and comfort” to our enemies, the form of collusion better known as treason.


Great. Someone not connected to the investigation, nor involved in the process speculating about what *might* be covered. Um... Again. That's not how the legal system works. A third party making up something after the fact doesn't work. You have to have specific allegations of illegality, in writing, in the request for the special counsel in the first place. It's not there. That's the point I'm making here. By not specifying the crime or crime being investigated it allows the potential for *any* crime to fall under the scope of the investigation. It's far too broad.

Quote:
Regarding Manafort, you obviously mistook "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation" to mean the same thing as "any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a)" which it does not. It means that crimes uncovered during the course of the investigation. Which would fit those that Manafort committed.


I never claimed that. Not once. I fully accept that if additional crimes, unrelated to the one being investigated, are discovered in the course of the investigation, that those crimes can themselves be investigated. My issue is twofold:

1. The broadness of the initial criminal investigation itself. It's been done in such a way that you could level such things at *anyone* and use it as an excuse to go on a fishing expedition to see if anyone within a given sphere of connection to the target (Trump in this case) has ever committed any crime, ever. No matter how distant to the supposed purpose of the initial investigation itself.

2. That the finding of those unrelated crimes are then used to circle back to the original claims and be used to justify them in the public's eye. You've done this yourself. Suggesting that since they found crimes committed by Manafort and Gates, that this must somehow mean that Trump (or someone in his campaign) must have "colluded with the Russians". But there's no logical reason to suspect that. I could literally accuse a campaign of anything at all. "Um... They.... Um... Pulled the tags of mattresses! OMG! We must have an investigation!!!". Then go dig through everyone's past, find evidence of other crimes having nothing to do with bedding, and then get my friends in the media to say things like "Well, the mattress tag investigation is really homing in now, they caught <someone> committing tax fraud 10 years ago, so it's really looking like it's just a matter of time until the whole mattress tagging coverup falls apart". Um... what? That makes no sense.


You've done this repeatedly. The one thing you've failed to consider is the possibility that there was no Russian Collusion. Period. It was made up. Just to launch an investigation. And knowing that if you look hard enough at folks like Manafort, Gates, etc, and far enough into their pasts, you'll find "something". And knowing that if you leak that stuff to the media, it'll provide meat for the angry mob, desperate to find something to use to go after Trump because they're still so butt hurt that he won the election.

That's it. That's all that's going on. I'll point out for the zillionth time that this is just like what we saw with the Plame investigation. And just like that one, I'll predict that we never find any proof of collusion, no one will be charged for the crimes speculated about by Mr. Dean, but we'll spend several years doing it, ruin a few people's lives with unrelated charges, and it'll be used as a smear against the administration the whole time. You know, just like what happened with Plame. It's not like the playbook has changed here. It's pretty darn obvious.

Quote:
Look, I know you guys are terrified right now. All of Trump's super-duper loyal guys are caving on him and approval for the investigation keeps hitting highs right as the midterms are heating up. But not understanding the law and throwing temper tantrums based on your misunderstanding doesn't actually help your side any.


Ok. Keep thinking that.
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#1766 Oct 16 2018 at 5:14 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Great. Someone not connected to the investigation, nor involved in the process speculating about what *might* be covered.

That "someone" is a former White House Counsel who was also the White House Counsel during the Nixon investigation. Yeah, he probably has a better idea than the IT guy who regularly screws up basic legal concepts and is desperate for any reason why this is all fakity-fake-fake witch hunt and doesn't count.

I forgot about how connected you are with the investigation and involved in the legal process you were though so please spend another nine thousand keystrokes trying to convince yourself me all about it.

Edited, Oct 16th 2018 6:16pm by Jophiel
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#1767 Oct 17 2018 at 8:36 AM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
actually dug up some documents and whatnot,
Right, when people ask you for sources you regularly complain about being too busy to Google, but now we're supposed to believe you dug up something all on your own.
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#1768 Oct 17 2018 at 9:39 AM Rating: Good
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...and was too busy to post links.
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#1769 Oct 29 2018 at 7:09 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Great. Someone not connected to the investigation, nor involved in the process speculating about what *might* be covered.

That "someone" is a former White House Counsel who was also the White House Counsel during the Nixon investigation. Yeah, he probably has a better idea than the IT guy who regularly screws up basic legal concepts and is desperate for any reason why this is all fakity-fake-fake witch hunt and doesn't count.


Ah. I see. Yet, despite my apparent inability to grasp basic legal concepts, I'm still able to see the very clear distinction between someone talking about what "The Media" has settled on as what "Russian Collusion" might mean, versus what the Actual investigation has defined within the scope of its own investigation. I mean, you dug up the quote, Joph. You didn't notice that Dean wasn't talking about the actual investigation itself, but about what people in "the media" were saying?

Which, btw, dovetails nicely into one of my major points about this. The whole thing isn't at all about engaging in an actual legal investigation of a crime. It's about trying this in the court of speculation and public opinion, where what people speculate about in the media matters more than the actual facts. It's about PR. It's about influencing public opinion (negatively towards the GOP president, like that's a shock or even original).

As I've said repeatedly, this is the same freaking playbook they were using in the Plame investigation. And it'll have the same kind of non-outcome that one did. It's not about the end result of the "investigation" Joph. When are you going to get that? It's about the damage that can be done along the way while having the investigation exist in the first place. That's the gold mine that can be used constantly as ammunition against the "side" being investigated.

Basically, the political Left figured out that investigations into criminal behavior can be damaging to the person and party being investigated. Then realized that if they just skipped the step where you have to have some legitimate reason to launch and investigation they could get that damage without bothering to wait for the other side to actually do anything remotely illegal. Toss in a ton of "help" from their friends in the media, and all it takes is allegations of something vague and unprovable, tons of "public outcry" (media driven), leading to "public pressure to investigate" (again media driven), speculation that failing to do so would indicate a coverup (*cough* from you know where), further demands for a special prosecutor (to be sure that the target can't influence the process), and you've got what you want.

Again, there is no need for a crime to have occurred, nor is there a need to ever prove a crime occurred, nor ever find anyone guilty of the crime you initially alleged to have occurred. The process is what matters here. And if along the way you find people who have committed other crimes, well, that's just more fodder, right? No one will remember that this originally started with allegations of "Colluding with the Russians to rig the election". Just like no one remembered that the original claim in the Plame investigation was not only false, it was known to be false.

The fact that they haven't even bothered to define an actual criminal statute that they think might have been violated which would match the allegations is telling here. They're not even trying to do this in a way that looks remotely legal because they know it doesn't matter. They're never going to find that "Russian Collusion". They know this going in. And they don't care because it's not about that and has never been about that.

Some of us are aware enough to figure this out. Others? Not so much.
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#1770 Oct 29 2018 at 7:14 PM Rating: Decent
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Professor stupidmonkey wrote:
...and was too busy to post links.


No. Honestly it was because it was from some very legally technical sites, and required cross referencing a ton of legal terms. I didn't feel like having to go through like 5 layers of links to different pages to do this. And that's in addition to these sources being wordy on a level that makes me look sparse.

For fun though, this link is one of the pages I was looking through (well, as a starting point to tons of other pages and references). At least, that's one that's still sitting on a tab in my browser. There were others. Many others. Basically once I got to needing more than 4 links to make my point, I kinda just went "not worth the effort".

You're free to peruse that site and any other you decide to use instead. Frankly, it just turned into a rabbit hole I didn't feel like going down.
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#1771 Oct 29 2018 at 10:45 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Basically, the political Left figured out that investigations into criminal behavior can be damaging to the person and party being investigated.
Especially when the investigations turn up actual, real criminal activity.

Weird, right?




Before you go off on some "liberal" rant; I'd like every senator, representative, judge, etc that derives power directly from their position in the federal government to be investigated and when found guilty of any crime above a Mis 5 treated under the RICO act and do a minimum of 50 years in a state prison for any crime committed during their tenure.

State people, too, for that matter.

But, hey. That's just me.
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remorajunbao wrote:
One day I'm going to fly to Canada and open the curtains in your office.

#1772 Oct 30 2018 at 8:07 AM Rating: Good
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50,767 posts
Friar Bijou wrote:
Before you go off on some "liberal" rant;
Too late.

Edited, Oct 30th 2018 10:08am by lolgaxe
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George Carlin wrote:
I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
#1773 Oct 30 2018 at 11:10 AM Rating: Good
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4,135 posts
gbaji wrote:
There were others. Many others.


I have the best links. They are the biggest, and the smartest links, and we aren't gonna talk about the links I had to go through, you wouldn't believe the links I had to go through, believe me!
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Dandruffshampoo wrote:
Curses, beaten by Professor stupidopo-opo.
Annabella, Goblin in Disguise wrote:
Stupidmonkey is more organized than a bag of raccoons.
#1774 Oct 30 2018 at 2:00 PM Rating: Excellent
Liberal Conspiracy
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TILT
Gbaji knows so much about this and is such a legal expert that he hasn't yet grasped that the Mueller authorization states that Mueller is to continue Comey's investigation. So the lack of a specific statute in that authorization is meaningless unless you're able to produce the documents pertaining to Comey's initial investigation.

This is a classic Gbaji case of "Pretending to know the secret silver bullet" that would literally end the issue immediately but for some reason no one in actual power knows enough to use.
Mueller: Hey, we're investigating you!
Trump's Legal Team: Ok, produce the authorization saying you can
Mueller: Oh, shucks!

Funny how that hasn't happened, huh? Why, it's almost as though all of Gbaji's "research" is unsupported nonsense. Nice that Gbaji keeps referencing the Plame investigation since that was another time he insisted time and time and time and time again that there was just no way they could investigate the Plame leak because, gosh darn it, she wasn't a real secret agent. And yet, strangely, this never came up from the administration or CIA or anyone else who actually knew what they were talking about despite the fact that it would immediately shelve the investigation. Sure made the talking point circuits on talk radio and the right-wing conspiracy blogs though.

Anyway, on the topic of Mueller, there's a pretty funny story breaking today about some Republican activists trying to gin up false sexual harassment claims against Mueller and being so remarkably incompetent at it that one used his mom's voicemail number as the phone number for his Super Elite Secret Investigation agency that he then claimed to not be connected to.

Man, someone should have just told him about Gbaji's "Doesn't count if I can't find the statute and I would totally know because I went to a website that linked to FIVE other websites!!!" rule, huh?

Edited, Oct 31st 2018 10:28am by Jophiel
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Belkira wrote:
Wow. Regular ol' Joph fan club in here.
#1775 Oct 31 2018 at 7:37 AM Rating: Good
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50,767 posts
article wrote:
He did not respond when asked by NBC why a telephone number listed on Surefire’s website referred callers to another number that’s listed in public records as belonging to Wohl’s mother.
That's just in case he's running errands for her and he's not "in his office" in her house playing X-Box.
____________________________
George Carlin wrote:
I think it’s the duty of the comedian to find out where the line is drawn and cross it deliberately.
#1776 Oct 31 2018 at 1:18 PM Rating: Excellent
Will swallow your soul
******
29,360 posts
Hilariously, Jacob Wohl's mom has now changed her last name on Facebook and unfriended him.

That's cold, mom.
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In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

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