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The Witch Hunt is Over

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Colonel Flagg
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Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by Colonel Flagg » Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:43 pm

MWmetalhead wrote:
Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:12 am
Trump is taking a victory lap for the NAFTA re-write when it hasn't even been presented to Congress yet for a vote.

He touts his strength yet folds like a cheap tent as soon as he meets Putin, Kim Jong Un, or any member of the Saudi royal family in person.

He touts his negotiating skills, yet winds up with barely more than one-half of the original appropriation Congress offered for border security one year earlier, while putting the entire nation through a stressful government shut down in the process.

He doesn't have the guts to take responsibility for firing Comey or the attempted firing of Mueller, instead doing everything in his power to hide behind surrogates and misleading the American public to believe said surrogate(s) acted unilaterally.

Yes, he got massive tax reform passed. I'm glad he did. However, he had a very friendly Congress with which to work. Not exactly a steep climb.

The guy acts tough & brash in front of the news media and in front of the ham 'n eggers who embrace him. In front of almost everyone else, he is a chicken shit coward.
Still got that Jeb sticker on your car, eh? :lol


"Pretty soon, every kid in America will wish he were me"

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Bryce
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Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by Bryce » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:35 pm

Vic Doucette wrote:
Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:54 pm
There may not be a smoking gun, but the smell of gunpowder is everywhere. Anybody who thinks this ends the issue is a complete and utter moron.
Nope, it doesnt end the issue. Some folks insist on beating dead horses.


New York and Chicago were all in with respect to their sanctuary status — until they were hit with the challenge of actually providing sanctuary. In other words, typical liberal hypocrisy.

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MWmetalhead
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Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by MWmetalhead » Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:57 pm

I never was a Jeb backer, Colonel. I backed Rubio for a while. Then Trump. Eventually settled on Kasich (but up to one week before the primary was considering casting my vote for Trump).

Now that I know Kasich's true position on immigration policy, it is a good thing he didn't win.



Matt
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Location: Where Ben Zonia couldn't cut it

Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by Matt » Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:37 am

Bryce wrote:
Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:35 pm
Vic Doucette wrote:
Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:54 pm
There may not be a smoking gun, but the smell of gunpowder is everywhere. Anybody who thinks this ends the issue is a complete and utter moron.
Nope, it doesnt end the issue. Some folks insist on beating dead horses.
The WSJ editorial Thursday night on the matter covers this quite nicely:
Obstruction of Nothing

Mueller vindicates Trump on collusion and plays Hamlet on obstruction.

Robert Mueller is certainly thorough. The special counsel makes clear across the 488 pages of his report released Thursday that he and his band of prosecutors left no entrail unexamined in their two-year dissection of President Trump. Those who demanded this may not like the conclusions, but they can’t say Mr. Mueller didn’t hunt down every potential crime.

The report exposes some Trumpian excesses and lies, but it also shows that, on the most important issue and the charge that started it all, Mr. Trump has been telling the truth. He and his campaign did not conspire or coordinate with Russians to steal the 2016 election. Try as he did to find a crime regarding Russia or obstruction of justice, Mr. Mueller found nothing to prosecute.

The details validate the four-page public summary of the report’s conclusions that Attorney General William Barr released last month. The AG issued the full report with limited redactions related to grand-jury testimony and intelligence sources and methods. Democrats will claim secrets are hidden in the redactions, but Mr. Barr says he’ll let senior Members of Congress see most of those too. Claims of a coverup are spin for the anti-Trump media.

***
Mr. Mueller devotes some 200 pages to the Russia tale, and the news is how little is new beyond what we already know from leaks and court filings. The special counsel’s biggest public service is laying out in detail how Russia sought to meddle in the election. The Kremlin endorsed a social-media campaign to plant lies and confuse voters, and it hacked Democratic emails and then used cutouts like WikiLeaks to release them to the public.

There’s no evidence that any of this influenced the election result, but it should concern Americans about Vladimir Putin’s bad intentions for 2020. Anyone who still calls Julian Assange a hero after reading the report is guilty of willful ignorance.

Yet the report is definitive in concluding that “the investigation did not establish that the Trump Campaign coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.” The report is extraordinary for tracking down the details of every Russian contact with Trump campaign officials. Mr. Mueller examined whether Trump advisers violated conspiracy statutes, campaign-finance laws, lobbying registration laws, and any other statute he could find on the shelf.

Yet the Trump-Russian contacts that were supposed to be proof of treason end up as unconnected anecdotes. Carter Page and George Papadopoulos aren’t collusion masters but low-level advisers on the make who can’t get senior advisers to agree to their advice. Jeff Sessions’s meetings with the Russian ambassador are routine courtesy gestures. The change to the GOP platform on Ukraine in 2016 had nothing to do with Russian lobbying, and there’s no evidence Mr. Trump knew about it.

Mr. Mueller devotes pages to the famous meeting in June 2016 at Trump Tower between a Russian lawyer and Donald Trump Jr. that was the subject of so much breathless reporting. Don Jr. showed lousy judgment as ever in taking the meeting. But the event was nothing more than a Russian attempt to lobby about Magnitsky Act sanctions.

Paul Manafort, the former campaign manager, is exposed for having shared campaign polling data with his Ukrainian employee Konstantin Kilimnik. The report says the FBI believes Mr. Kilimnik has ties to Russian intelligence. But the polling data can’t have been more informative than a hundred public polls, and Mr. Mueller turns up no evidence of collusion via that channel either.

Arguably the worst contact with Russia occurred after the election, during the presidential transition, when Michael Flynn asked Russia’s ambassador not to escalate after Barack Obama imposed sanctions for Russia’s campaign meddling. Mr. Flynn was undermining U.S. policy, and the former national security adviser has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about what he told the Russian. But Mr. Trump also fired Mr. Flynn for that lie.

***
This non-collusion is the backdrop for the other half of Mr. Mueller’s report, which concerns whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice by interfering in the Russia probe as President. The special counsel devotes another 182 pages to rehearsing every detail of Mr. Trump’s decision to fire James Comey as FBI director, his well publicized comments (thanks to Mr. Comey’s leaks) to Mr. Comey in private, and his raging about the Mueller probe.

Mr. Mueller makes no “prosecutorial judgment” about obstruction, though he conspicuously says that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

This is Mr. Mueller’s cheapest shot because the standard for a special prosecutor is not exoneration, whether or not Mr. Trump claims it. The standard is whether there is sufficient evidence to charge a crime. Mr. Mueller concedes he lacks enough evidence to know what Mr. Trump’s motives were in firing Mr. Comey or asking him to go easy on Mr. Flynn, so he should have left it there.

The factual “analysis” about obstruction that Mr. Mueller does offer is hardly persuasive, even if Mr. Trump often behaves badly. Were his public and private comments praising Messrs. Flynn and Manafort and (for a while) Michael Cohen attempts to dangle pardons so they wouldn’t cooperate? Well, all three have been convicted of crimes and no pardons have been offered.

Mr. Trump was dumb to ask White House counsel Don McGahn to ask Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire Mr. Mueller. But Mr. McGahn refused to do it and was prepared to resign over the matter before the President dropped the subject.

Mr. Mueller essentially reveals a President behaving in predictable Trumpian fashion at being investigated for a crime he didn’t believe he committed—and which even Mr. Mueller now concedes he didn’t commit. There was no underlying crime, and the investigation continued with full White House cooperation. Mr. Mueller knows about these Trumpian eruptions because the White House turned over mountains of documents and allowed him to interview anyone he wanted except the President.

Nothing in the end was obstructed. The FBI probe continued after Mr. Comey was fired, and Mr. Mueller wasn’t interfered with. Mr. Mueller prosecuted those he could find enough evidence to try to turn for state’s evidence, but there was no coverup because there was no collusion with Russia to cover up.

***
None of this will placate Mr. Trump’s adversaries who will take Mr. Mueller’s Hamlet act on obstruction and perhaps try to turn it into an impeachable offense. Democrats have the constitutional power to try, and the media will be their handmaiden. But if even Robert Mueller and his relentless prosecutors couldn’t prove their case, we doubt the American public will look well on the effort.


What's more pathetic: harassing an old man who is paying to do a radio show or supporting a grifter like Trump?

bmw
Posts: 6729
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Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by bmw » Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:11 am

Another thing worth pointing out is that Trump COULD HAVE exercised executive privilege and kept as redacted a lot of the scraps that the media is running with now - or at least redacted and held up in court for years. But he chose not to. I think this is a bigger deal than people are giving him credit for.

While I normally find Mark Levin to be a bit over-the-top and whiny (and he certainly is angry in this clip), I find his analysis to be 100 percent spot-on:




Deleted User 8570

Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by Deleted User 8570 » Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:37 am

So is the argument here that Trump was 100% vindicated by the Barr summery and further 100% vindicated by Mueller?

Recall that Mueller didn’t clear Trump of Obstruction... that WSJ editorial is sure trying hard to make it seem like he did...



bmw
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Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2004 1:02 am

Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by bmw » Sat Apr 20, 2019 12:38 pm

NS8401 wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 10:37 am
So is the argument here that Trump was 100% vindicated by the Barr summery and further 100% vindicated by Mueller?

Recall that Mueller didn’t clear Trump of Obstruction... that WSJ editorial is sure trying hard to make it seem like he did...
Good grief. It is NOT THE ROLE of a prosecutor to "clear" anyone of anything. The primary purpose of the investigation was to investigate/prosecute collusion, and collaterally to investigate/prosecute anything that arose out of the primary investigation, such as obstruction. The "argument here" is that Mueller concluded that he didn't have evidence to prosecute ANYTHING against Trump. Do I need to remind you how many witnesses were interviewed and how many subpoenas were executed and how many agents worked on the case? The point being, if those people couldn't find anything, what does Congress expect to find?

It should be CASE CLOSED and time for everyone to move on with their lives. I said it once in here before and I'll say it again - the Democrats continuing to run with this will come back to bite them in the ass in 2020. You can once again mark my words on this.



screen glare
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Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by screen glare » Mon Apr 22, 2019 2:54 am

Even the redacted Mueller Report is scathingly damning of Donald Trump. Unfit for office. A compromised, cowardly, corrupted old man. A liar and con artist. An embarrassment to our great nation. The American people deserve a president who is fit for office. Not this dishonest dishonorable POS.



bmw
Posts: 6729
Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2004 1:02 am

Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by bmw » Mon Apr 22, 2019 10:00 am

screen glare wrote:
Mon Apr 22, 2019 2:54 am
Even the redacted Mueller Report is scathingly damning of Donald Trump. Unfit for office. A compromised, cowardly, corrupted old man. A liar and con artist. An embarrassment to our great nation. The American people deserve a president who is fit for office. Not this dishonest dishonorable POS.
First responding to the part I bolded above - are you suggesting that in 2016 when he won that his voters didn't know who/what they were voting for?

We have elections every 4 years. My suggestion to you and to those who agree with you - find a candidate who can beat him in 2020. But as of right now, the candidates who are running for the Democratic nomination are, as a whole, significantly to the left of where the country is, and if 2020 is about capitalism vs socialism, then Trump will win easily.



TC Shuts Up
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Re: The Witch Hunt is Over

Post by TC Shuts Up » Mon Apr 22, 2019 10:36 am

POTUS 44 loved Communism and the Soviet Union. Why is it a problem for POTUS 45 to make deals with a moderately Socialist/selectively Capitalist Russia? I guess Putin is just too much of a Right Wing fanatic for these Leftists. Putin is a pragmatist who realizes that extreme Socialism and Communism are not sustainable.


Disagreeing with Communists is NOT an impeachable offense.

Never eat Sushi past its expiration date.

Those who refuse to drain the swamp are doomed to drown in it.

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