Mueller indictments (split from Collusion with Russia)

[DrP]

18 hours ago, DrP said:

My previous post in reply to Tar's comments on North Korea have disappeared..  Were they moved to a more relevant thread?

In fact, upon further reflection I would like to thank whichever moderator removed my post. a, it was off topic (although in reply to a comment in the thread), b, could have been seen as offensive to anyone who voted for DT, offence was not the aim. c, was derogatory towards your leader, which as Tar suggested constitutes an insult to individuals that voted for him. I bear the man no ill will and hope he is very successful as a POTUS and leads in a new era of global peace for mankind which can be celebrated worldwide for many generations to come.

I meant what I said - but maybe shouldn't have said it.  I hope this act of repentance is enough not to get me shot by the FBI or banned as a user on this site. ;-)  I hope you accept my apology.

 

 

[swansont]

20 hours ago, DrP said:

 My previous post in reply to Tar's comments on North Korea have disappeared..  Were they moved to a more relevant thread?

!

Moderator Note

Off-topic posts have been removed

 

[John Cuthber]

On 10/30/2017 at 8:30 PM, waitforufo said:

 Looks like Trump is in the clear to me.

That makes sense if you assume he wasn't employed by Trump to do this sort of thing.
There are two options.

Trump didn't know what Malafort was doing on his behalf in which case he's incompetent (and the election is invalid) or

He did know in which case he's also a criminal (and the election is invalid).
Which of these looks like  "in the clear" to you?

 

Don't you understand that, if Trump only got in on the basis of a crooked election, Trump's presidency isn't democracy?

[Ten oz]

WASHINGTON — Federal investigators have gathered enough evidence to bring charges in their investigation of President Donald Trump's former national security adviser and his son as part of the probe into Russia's intervention in the 2016 election, according to multiple sources familiar with the investigation.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mueller-has-enough-evidence-bring-charges-flynn-investigation-n817666

[iNow]

That would make ACTUAL criminal charges filed already after just a few short months of investigation against FIVE separate folks close to Trump, and all signs suggest more are still very likely to come.

If this truly was a witch hunt, it seems lots of wart ridden old women dressed in black standing under cobwebs over bubbling cauldrons filled with bat wings and children’s tears magically keep appearing. 

Mueller et al. ain’t messing around!

Edited November 6, 2017 by iNow

[Outrider]

I'll  certainly be happy to see the guilty pay as it happens so rarely in these kinds of cases. I still halfway expect it to come down to some bs fine like chinagate. I also think Mueller and crew are doing some good work.

It's been mentioned that Pence might be worse and I think he will be but that in no way allows us to ignore crimes of this magnitude. 

 

[Ten oz]

9 hours ago, iNow said:

That would make ACTUAL criminal charges filed already after just a few short months of investigation against FIVE separate folks close to Trump, and all signs suggest more are still very likely to come.

If this truly was a witch hunt, it seems lots of wart ridden old women dressed in black standing under cobwebs over bubbling cauldrons filled with bat wings and children’s tears magically keep appearing. 

Mueller et al. ain’t messing around!

Flynn was the National Security Advisor. Trump has tried to distance himself from Manafort and the rest but Flynn was put into a position with immense access to Intelligence and policy influence. Barrack Obama personally warned Trump in private about Flynn so this whole situation can't be dismissed as something Trump wasn't aware. It reflects a level of deliberateness in the way Trump disrespects this country's institutions. 

 

[Ten oz]

"The special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election has charged retired lieutenant general and former national security adviser Michael Flynn with making false statements to the FBI, according to court papers filed by the special counsel. Flynn is due in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Friday morning, where he is expected to plead guilty to a single charge of making false statements."

https://www.npr.org/2017/12/01/561238303/michael-flynn-sr-expected-to-plead-guilty-to-lying-to-fbi

 

 

"Former President Obama warned President Donald Trump against hiring Mike Flynn as his national security adviser, three former Obama administration officials tell NBC News. The warning, which has not been previously reported, came less than 48 hours after the November election when the two sat down for a 90-minute conversation in the Oval Office."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/obama-warned-trump-against-hiring-mike-flynn-say-officials-n756316

 

"WASHINGTON — Less than a week into the Trump administration, Sally Q. Yates, the acting attorney general, hurried to the White House with an urgent concern. The president’s national security adviser, she said, had lied to the vice president about his Russian contacts and was vulnerable to blackmail by Moscow.

“We wanted to tell the White House as quickly as possible,” Ms. Yates told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on Monday. “To state the obvious: You don’t want your national security adviser compromised with the Russians.”

But President Trump did not immediately fire the adviser, Michael T. Flynn, over the apparent lie or the susceptibility to blackmail. Instead, Mr. Flynn remained in office for 18 more days. Only after the news of his false statements broke publicly did he lose his job on Feb. 13."

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/us/politics/michael-flynn-sally-yates-hearing.html

 

What is Trump's plausible deniability here? Trump was warned about Flynn by Obama (then still POTUS) within 48hrs  of election day. Then by his own Justice Dept weeks into his administration. National Security Adviser is not a throw away ceremonious position. They have the highest levels of intelligence access. Trump ignoring warnings from the absolute highest possible levels and putting Flynn in his cabinet anyway speaks volumes. Either Trump is too careless to be trusted with the nations security or was okay with Flynn's actions because they were on his behalf. 

"after accepting Mr. Flynn’s resignation, the president repeatedly said he thought Mr. Flynn was “a very good person” who had been treated poorly. The day after Mr. Flynn resigned, Mr. Trump told the F.B.I. director at the time, James B. Comey, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote describing that meeting.

In a news conference on Feb. 15, two days after Mr. Flynn’s resignation, the president blamed the media.

“General Flynn is a wonderful man. I think he has been treated very, very unfairly by the media, as I call it, the fake media in many cases,” Mr. Trump said. “And I think it is really a sad thing that he was treated so badly.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/politics/michael-flynn-guilty-russia-investigation.html

[Outrider]

Rut roh it's getting hot up in the White House. 

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/01/us/politics/michael-flynn-guilty-russia-investigation.html?referer=http://www.google.com/

Quote

 

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, pleaded guilty on Friday to lying to the F.B.I. about conversations with the Russian ambassador last December during the presidential transition.

The plea by Mr. Flynn, who appeared in federal court in Washington, brings the special counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election into Mr. Trump’s inner circle.

 

 

[Outrider]

Cross posted with Ten oz I guess. Sorry bout that.

[Ten oz]

Sally Yates testified under oath that while acting Attorney General she briefed Trump that Flynn had lied to the federal investigators.  Yet in the press brief above given after Flynn was fired and several weeks after the Yates brief Trump says Flynn did nothing wrong other than the way information was given to Pence and blamed the media for the whole ordeal. Lying to federal investigators was what Flynn plead guilty to as part of a plea deal. Other potential charges he was facing include violating the Logan Act. Trump was aware of the Logan Act concern and the lying to federal investigators yet still claimed on national TV that Flynn didn't do anything wrong and it was the media's fault.

[Ten oz]

"On Dec. 29, a transition adviser to Mr. Trump, K. T. McFarland, wrote in an email to a colleague that sanctions announced hours before by the Obama administration in retaliation for Russian election meddling were aimed at discrediting Mr. Trump’s victory. The sanctions could also make it much harder for Mr. Trump to ease tensions with Russia, “which has just thrown the U.S.A. election to him,” she wrote in the emails obtained by The Times."

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/02/us/russia-mcfarland-flynn-trump-emails.html?referer=http://www.google.com/

[Ten oz]

The irony! after years of conservatives whipping themselves into a manic rage over everything related to emails............... 

 

"A lawyer representing President Trump’s transition team claimed Saturday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III improperly obtained a trove of transition emails as part of the inquiry into Russian influence in the 2016 election and other matters."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mueller-unlawfully-obtained-emails-trump-transition-team-says/2017/12/16/6162f350-e2cc-11e7-8679-a9728984779c_story.html?utm_term=.1d4c34620b3d

[iNow]

And Mueller and team responded that the claim is largely horseshit

[iNow]

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2018/1/25/16934824/trump-report-firing-special-counsel-robert-mueller

Quote

President Donald Trump demanded the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller in June, and backed down only when his White House counsel threatened to quit.

(...)

Trump sought to justify his firing of Mueller by trying to root out potential conflicts of interest — including an allegation that Mueller dropped his membership at Trump’s golf course in Virginia in 2011 because of a dustup over fees

This is EXACTLY what I’d expect to see upon looking up the word “innocent” in the dictionary. 

Oops. Did I say innocent? I meant petty, petulant, and pathetic. 

[Alex_Krycek]

7 hours ago, iNow said:

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/2018/1/25/16934824/trump-report-firing-special-counsel-robert-mueller

This is EXACTLY what I’d expect to see upon looking up the word “innocent” in the dictionary. 

Oops. Did I say innocent? I meant petty, petulant, and pathetic. 

It's interesting that White House counsel Donald McGahn threatened to resign rather than carry out Trump's order.  Did he do so because of ethical considerations?  It's doubtful.  Trump's inner circle are the last to care about ethics.  I think McGhan preferred resignation over firing Mueller because he knew he could be potentially charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice in the future if he complied with Trump's decree. 

[iNow]

Perhaps. Regardless of their motivation, I’m glad they acted upon it and stood as an obstacle to Muellers firing. 

[geordief]

Trump is claiming that the retweeting of the far right video was "not a big story" in USA

"http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42829555"

Any truth to that? Shame on the US media if it was not considered important (although I can see exasperation levels  could be construed as signal noise)

 

Curious as to how it came out that Trump seemingly tried to fire Mueller only for his own counsel to threaten to quit . That was not privileged information of some kind? 

 

Counsel has not broken some code? A leak from within the FBI?

Edited January 26, 2018 by geordief

[rangerx]

8 hours ago, iNow said:

Perhaps. Regardless of their motivation, I’m glad they acted upon it and stood as an obstacle to Muellers firing. 

I have it on good information (the president himself) that it's all just sour grapes over green fees at Trump International Golf Club in Virginia.

[iNow]

5 hours ago, geordief said:

Trump is claiming that the retweeting of the far right video was "not a big story" in USA

Any truth to that?

I guess the answer here is a matter of opinion. What are the thresholds for "big story" and "not a big story," ya know? It's too imprecise and subjective a word to really bother parsing.

By default, your likely best response to comments from Trump is to approach them with skepticism. 

Edited January 26, 2018 by iNow

[swansont]

!

Moderator Note

Retweeting a "far right video" and whether it's a big story seem OT.

Mueller investigation.

 

[iNow]

11 hours ago, Alex_Krycek said:

Trump's inner circle are the last to care about ethics.  I think McGhan preferred resignation over firing Mueller because he knew he could be potentially charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice in the future if he complied with Trump's decree. 

Another take on this is that they didn't want the president to lose power in his first year, that firing Mueller would consume his presidency and prevent him from getting anything else done. 

https://www.vox.com/2018/1/26/16934868/trump-fire-mueller-don-mcgahn

Quote

But the firing order also represents the road not taken for the Trump presidency. If McGahn had carried it out — or if Trump had refused to back down until he found someone who would — an enormous political controversy reminiscent of President Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre” likely would have ensued, and could well have swallowed up the rest of Trump’s first year in office.

That’s what McGahn apparently feared: Schmidt and Haberman write that he told other top White House officials that the firing would “have a catastrophic effect on Mr. Trump’s presidency.” And eventually, his warnings prevailed.

 

[Ten oz]

35 minutes ago, iNow said:

By default, your likely best response to comments from Trump is to approach them with skepticism.

The trend seems to be that if Trump bothers to deny something that means it is true. 

[Ten oz]

On 10/29/2017 at 5:23 PM, swansont said:

!

Moderator Note

The topic is the indictments. Stick to that discussion, please.

 

"A federal grand jury has indicted 13 Russians and three Russian entities in connection with the attack on the 2016 presidential election.

The defendants are "accused of violating U.S. criminal laws in order to interfere with U.S. elections and political processes," according to a statement from the special counsel's office. The indictment charges them with "conspiracy to defraud the United States, three defendants with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and five defendants with aggravated identity theft."

Some of the people described in the court documents even traveled to the United States or "communicated with unwitting individuals associated with" President Trump's campaign "and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities," the indictment says."

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/16/586500591/grand-jury-indicts-russians-linked-to-interference-in-2016-election

Now that we have indictments of Russians who interfered with the election and were in communication with Trump's campaign is it possible for this thread to be merged back with Russian Collusion thread? I only ask because I would like to discuss these indictments but honestly am not sure which thread to do it in. I believe the issues have converged.  

[swansont]

On 2/16/2018 at 3:02 PM, Ten oz said:

 Now that we have indictments of Russians who interfered with the election and were in communication with Trump's campaign is it possible for this thread to be merged back with Russian Collusion thread? I only ask because I would like to discuss these indictments but honestly am not sure which thread to do it in. I believe the issues have converged.  

!

Moderator Note

The new indictments are not about collusion ("unwitting individuals") and should be discussed separately, i.e. in a new thread.

Frankly, I don't see the need to merge threads, and it is common practice here to split threads when the discussion goes off on a tangent. Too many conversations within a thread are confusing. It's why we don't routinely lump discussions of quantum mechanics, relativity and classical mechanics together.