Special Counsel appointed

[Airportkid]

(18-05-2017 05:23 AM)julep Wrote:  I believe that was Alla trying, not successfully, to be funny and/or sarcastic.

Hard to know with our resident Poe

[Emma]

(17-05-2017 09:24 PM)Alla Wrote:  Mueller is another Russian agent. It is all part of Trump - Putin secret plan.
Mark my words.

I'm skeptical because within a few hours of the announcement, wikileaks was already releasing shit on him.

[mordant]

(18-05-2017 07:38 AM)Emma Wrote:  

(17-05-2017 09:24 PM)Alla Wrote:  Mueller is another Russian agent. It is all part of Trump - Putin secret plan.
Mark my words.

I'm skeptical because within a few hours of the announcement, wikileaks was already releasing shit on him.

That may actually be a good sign. He's a threat to the Russians.

Regardless, this will take probably 18 months to 2 years to complete and it will not be transparent. We'll know who is being deposed, by virtue of who shows up to see Mueller or his team, or who Mueller or his team visits. We will NOT know what is going on in those meetings, and at the end we will only know if Mueller did or didn't find malfeasance unless he chooses to be more forthcoming than such officials generally are. It's considered proper for such investigations to be conducted in secret.

IF Mueller decides there's evidence of legal wrongdoing, THEN the actual trial begins, as I understand it.

Also I've already heard some conservatives deride this grand jury approach as inherently "unfair" and "one-sided" because it only gathers negative evidence and doesn't take the defendant's views into account. I've heard the term "kangaroo court" bandied about.

The formation of a commission with public hearings would have been faster and better and more transparent but given the intransigence of GOP lawmakers this is the best that could be done, at least unless / until the 2018 midterms change the political equation.

[TheBeardedDude]

Up until the Comey firing I had been pretty skeptical that Trump would ever seriously be investigated and I certainly didn't think the odds of him being impeached were very high (and having to impeach a president would be a bad thing for the US overall, so I certainly wasn't hoping it would happen. I would prefer to have endured the next ~4 years and then vote him out).

After the Comey firing (and especially in light of the firing of Sally Yates and Preet Baraha who were both also involved in investigating Trump) though...now I think impeachment is a near certainty, or at the very least it is all heading in that direction. Not for one second do I believe that Trump and his cronies will come out looking good in an investigation. So the news of a special counsel being appointed by the Justice Department (with Sessions having recused himself), and it having been done without Trump or Sessions' approval, makes me very optimistic.

[Airportkid]

(18-05-2017 07:52 AM)TheBeardedDude Wrote:  ... Not for one second do I believe that Trump and his cronies will come out looking good in an investigation ...

Every politician has one or a few skeletons tucked behind the tuxes in the closet. But there's an unmarked 4 acre warehouse in Queens trump constructed years ago that may now need another annex.

[Thoreauvian]

(18-05-2017 08:15 AM)Airportkid Wrote:  Every politician has one or a few skeletons tucked behind the tuxes in the closet. But there's an unmarked 4 acre warehouse in Queens trump constructed years ago that may now need another annex.

Sounds like a good idea for Trump's presidential library.

[TheBeardedDude]

(18-05-2017 08:36 AM)Thoreauvian Wrote:  

(18-05-2017 08:15 AM)Airportkid Wrote:  Every politician has one or a few skeletons tucked behind the tuxes in the closet. But there's an unmarked 4 acre warehouse in Queens trump constructed years ago that may now need another annex.

Sounds like a good idea for Trump's presidential library.

I think Trump may be more likely to end up with a presidential penitentiary instead of a library.

[Emma]

(18-05-2017 07:46 AM)mordant Wrote:  

(18-05-2017 07:38 AM)Emma Wrote:  I'm skeptical because within a few hours of the announcement, wikileaks was already releasing shit on him.

That may actually be a good sign. He's a threat to the Russians.

Regardless, this will take probably 18 months to 2 years to complete and it will not be transparent. We'll know who is being deposed, by virtue of who shows up to see Mueller or his team, or who Mueller or his team visits. We will NOT know what is going on in those meetings, and at the end we will only know if Mueller did or didn't find malfeasance unless he chooses to be more forthcoming than such officials generally are. It's considered proper for such investigations to be conducted in secret.

IF Mueller decides there's evidence of legal wrongdoing, THEN the actual trial begins, as I understand it.

Also I've already heard some conservatives deride this grand jury approach as inherently "unfair" and "one-sided" because it only gathers negative evidence and doesn't take the defendant's views into account. I've heard the term "kangaroo court" bandied about.

The formation of a commission with public hearings would have been faster and better and more transparent but given the intransigence of GOP lawmakers this is the best that could be done, at least unless / until the 2018 midterms change the political equation.

Oh absolutely it's a good sign, I was saying that I'm skeptical that he's a Russian plant or whatever- I didn't realize it was a joke she was making at first lol.

Anyway, I want it to take until closer to the mid-terms, personally. The longer Trump is in office, the more likely we are to tie Pence to Trump, Ryan to Trump/Pence, McConnell to Ryan/Trump/Pence, and the Repulicans at large to the Trump/Pence shit-storm. If Trump gets ousted closer to the mid terms, and we tie the Republicans to his cluster-jam of a administration as either supporters of (or even better- complicit in) the bad decisions, bad policy, bad leadership, and possible Russian connection scandals- then we stand a greater chance of overturning the house and senate and completely removing Trump/Pence from office, or at least neutralizing their effectiveness.

At the same time, I want to see Trump go down in a blaze so quickly. So I'm torn.

But strategically, we need to remove all 4 of them to break that line of succession and end up replacing a chaotic evil with a lawful (and more powerfully connected) evil.

Edit: The question for the Dems is- how do you do this without doing nothing and just standing by and letting it all happen? Dems need to avoid being tied to this chaos, or worse- cheering on American demise like they did after the passing of the AHCA. :/

[Dom]

Quote:Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 54 minutes ago

With all of the illegal acts that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama Administration, there was never a special counsel appointed!

Quote: Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 3 hours ago

This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!

[Shai Hulud]

(18-05-2017 07:46 AM)mordant Wrote:  Also I've already heard some conservatives deride this grand jury approach as inherently "unfair" and "one-sided" because it only gathers negative evidence and doesn't take the defendant's views into account. I've heard the term "kangaroo court" bandied about.

Which I find hilarious, because they're always pro-grand juries when its the police going after rank and file criminals. As a prosecutor in New York once put it (paraphrasing from memory), "a grand jury would find to indict against a bacon sandwich if the police told them to."