Trump/Russia/SDNY investigation

:boring:

Any idea how long it's gonna take you Americans to sort this all out? If ever?
 
afrocentricity said:
:boring:

Any idea how long it's gonna take you Americans to sort this all out? If ever?
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Depends on whether Trump allows himself to be interviewed which would seem the final piece in Mueller's investigation.

For historical context, this investigation has been fairly short

atd-indictments-0514.png
 
Raoul said:
Depends on whether Trump allows himself to be interviewed which would seem the final piece in Mueller's investigation.

For historical context, this investigation has been fairly short

atd-indictments-0514.png
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Damn! I feel for you guys but I just hope y'all don't get so used to this shit (the normalisation is very evident) that when the time comes to act you all don't just shrug and get rolled over.
 
afrocentricity said:
Damn! I feel for you guys but I just hope y'all don't get so used to this shit (the normalisation is very evident) that when the time comes to act you all don't just shrug and get rolled over.
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I don't think the normalization bit will be a problem. We just finished 8 years of Obama in which there were zero ethics scandals which will (imo) be the benchmark going forward. Trump is just a once in a lifetime outlier of corruption.
 
Raoul said:
I don't think the normalization bit will be a problem. We just finished 8 years of Obama in which there were zero ethics scandals which will (imo) be the benchmark going forward. Trump is just a once in a lifetime outlier of corruption.
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Or the new normal.... Really does depend on the reaction. It's hard from over here to quantify how much of one there's been so far.
 
Grinner said:
A demotion would have been right.
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Agreed. Democracy counts on people to be informed so I cannot understand how federal employers can do anything but encourage opinion making on political events. Unless some of his political opinions influenced his decision-making at work they shouldn't have fired him imo.
 
Dan said:
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“No obstruction - I just fight back!”

There’s another tweet Mueller will be using as evidence against him for the obstruction of justice charge.

He’s literally just admitted that he uses his power to influence a criminal investigation/case in his favour. As one of the subjects of said investigation, that’s obstruction.
 
Feel sorry for Strzok, I watched some of that 8 hour grilling he got from congress and he really did come across as one of Americas best and brightest, nothing phased him. As you'd expect from someone at the top end of the FBI, same with Rosenstein really. Although considering the calibre of the Republicans doing the grilling, its probably not difficult to look that way.

This is just another chapter in an epic saga that's going to go on for years. Has there ever been such a clear case of goodies vs baddies in peacetime politics?
 
Simbo said:
Feel sorry for Strzok, I watched some of that 8 hour grilling he got from congress and he really did come across as one of Americas best and brightest, nothing phased him. As you'd expect from someone at the top end of the FBI, same with Rosenstein really. Although considering the calibre of the Republicans doing the grilling, its probably not difficult to look that way.

This is just another chapter in a saga that's going to go on for years.
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You can bet there are thousands of people across the government who have had similar convos about Trump (albeit not in the same position as Strzok was). He is just a convenient whipping boy for Trump sycophants as a device to distract from the Mueller investigation).
 
Raoul said:
You can bet there are thousands of people across the government who have had similar convos about Trump (albeit not in the same position as Strzok was). He is just a convenient whipping boy for Trump sycophants as a device to distract from the Mueller investigation).
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Would love for Rudy's buddies in the FBI's NY office to make their texts public.
 
Raoul said:
You can bet there are thousands of people across the government who have had similar convos about Trump (albeit not in the same position as Strzok was). He is just a convenient whipping boy for Trump sycophants as a device to distract from the Mueller investigation).
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I believe it is actually a first amendment right for members of the FBI to have political opinions and not discouraged at all?
 
Must be difficult for Mueller to know when to conclude it all as the longer it all goes the more evidence of obstruction simply falls into his lap. He's probably got everything he needs to pull the trigger but concerned if he does he'll miss out on another few hundred Tweets of Trump making his life 10X easier than it was before.
 
Wednesday at Stoke said:
Does this set a precedent now? Any federal employee criticizing the president is automatically firable?
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Not particularly. In Strzok's case his texts were discovered as part of a broader case. Most other fed employees wouldn't be in that situation, and as such could criticize as much as they wanted as long as they believed they were doing so privately.
 
Raoul said:
Not particularly. In Strzok's case his texts were discovered as part of a broader case. Most other fed employees wouldn't be in that situation, and as such could criticize as much as they wanted as long as they believed they were doing so privately.
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It's a bit ridiculous for an organization charged with investigating criminals. Hard to believe an agent would have been fired for private reservations about Al Capones character. Or any of the drug dealers, white collar criminals, paedophiles etc etc that FBI look at.

It's a sham. Get rid of the guy who protected his country for 22 years because of a personal opinion about literally the most polarizing human being in North America.
 
Raoul said:
Not particularly. In Strzok's case his texts were discovered as part of a broader case. Most other fed employees wouldn't be in that situation, and as such could criticize as much as they wanted as long as they believed they were doing so privately.
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To be fair, it wasn’t just “part of a broader case”, they were messages specifically rooted out to drive a narrative for political gain.

The thing that really buried him though, was the angle of one messages, “we can stop him” or something of that ilk. The optics obviously not good on that one - the idea that he would actively work against the president from his position of power.
 
In case anyone missed this bit of his hearing, this was his explanation.
 
CNN said:
Trump-appointed judge upholds special counsel Mueller's authority

A federal district judge who was appointed by President Donald Trump has upheld Robert Mueller's appointment and constitutional authority in the special counsel's case against Russian social media propagandists.

Judge Dabney Friedrich, who serves at the trial-court level in DC federal court, said Concord Management and Consulting could not have its case tossed on constitutional grounds. The Russian company accused of backing a social media effort to sway voters against Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton claimed Mueller didn't have power to bring the case because he was not appointment by the President and confirmed by Congress. Mueller was appointed under the authority of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has broad power as the acting head of the Justice Department for the 2016 election probe.

"The appointment does not violate core separation-of-powers principles. Nor has the Special Counsel exceeded his authority under the appointment order by investigating and prosecuting Concord," Friedrich wrote in an opinion published Monday morning. She was one of the first judges Trump placed into a federal court position.

Friedrich cited opinions by three other federal judges -- Amy Berman Jackson, who oversees Paul Manafort's criminal foreign lobbying case; T.S. Ellis, who oversees Manafort's financial fraud case; and DC District Court Chief Judge Beryl Howell -- to back up her decision.

All three judges also denied requests to invalidate Mueller's authority, with Howell writing as recently as late July that a witness subpoenaed to turn over documents and to testify before the grand jury about Roger Stone would have to. That witness, Andrew Miller, has been held in contempt of the court and now may appeal.

Trump, along with his lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow, have claimed that Mueller's investigation violated the Constitution. Most notably, Trump said in an early June tweet that Mueller's appointment was "totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL." Monday's ruling specifically rejected some of these arguments that Trump's lawyers have made on television.
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Raoul said:
You can bet there are thousands of people across the government who have had similar convos about Trump (albeit not in the same position as Strzok was). He is just a convenient whipping boy for Trump sycophants as a device to distract from the Mueller investigation).
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Wonder how many LEOs across the spectrum said negative things about Hillary, Stein, Johnson, etc.? Should they all be fired as well?

Maybe opinions from civil servants should be outlawed. (I jest)
 
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