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DOJ Initial Russia Hearings


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He is either the dumbest guy on the planet, or so self absorbed he thinks he is invinceable ... which I'm leaning toward.  He obviously thinks he has some friends in high places who will bail him out one way or another.  

 

A drowning man grabs onto anyone trying to save him and takes them down with him.

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15 minutes ago, deedsker said:

Deutsche Bank

 

U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has asked Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) for data on accounts held by President Donald Trump and his family, a person close to the matter said on Tuesday.

 

The bank rejected demands in June by U.S. House Democrats to provide details of Trump’s finances, citing privacy laws.

 

 

Oh......that's going to piss off the little man.

 

:snacks:

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Expect more than coffee makers being thrown in the WH.  A tweet storm is brewing (pun intended) for sure.

 

Related:  Per former CIA director, Trump is hiding behind the skirt of the law.  He doesn't have the facts on his side,

so time to find refuge in law and try to 'out argue' the other side.

 

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/hayden-trump-administration-facts/2017/12/05/id/829915/

The Trump administration is now trying to argue law instead of facts, which is what happens "when you don't own the facts," former CIA and NSA Director Michael Hayden said Tuesday.

"I think the most telling point is, here we are this morning on national TV, and this has become so all-consuming that you're asking the former head of the Central Intelligence Agency for a legal opinion," Hayden told CNN "New Day" anchor Chris Cuomo, in response to a question about whether President Donald Trump could legally be charged with obstruction of justice.

 

 

"What this tells me is my lawyers at NSA and CIA used to remind me that when you own the facts, you argue the facts," said Hayden. "When you don't own the facts, you argue the law. And what we've seen since Mike Flynn's guilty plea last Friday is now the administration is trying to argue the law rather than argue the facts. To me, that's very revealing as to what's happening behind the screen there."

Trump's personal attorney, John Dowd, claimed in an interview with Axios that a president can't be guilty of obstruction of justice, "because he is the chief law enforcement officer under (the Constitution's Article II) and has every right to express his view of any case."

Hayden said that he agrees, "in the English meaning" of the word, if Trump had known former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had lied to the FBI when he spoke with then-FBI Director James Comey about him, then that could be considered obstruction of justice.

 

 

Experts believe Obstruction clam by Trump lawyer isn't completely factual to the law.  So Trump team losses on Facts and on Law. This article, quoted in part, details various degrees of acceptability to the obstruction claimed by Trump lawyers - from partial acceptance to believing the claim to be absurb:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/12/04/trumps-lawyer-says-a-president-cant-technically-obstruct-justice-experts-say-thats-fanciful/?utm_term=.3147b523dcd1

Experts are dubious, but they are dubious to varying degrees. Constitutional experts Jonathan Turley of George Washington University and Daniel P. Franklin of Georgia State University both said Dowd's argument isn't completely without merit.

“The president's lawyer is overstating his case, but he has a point,” Franklin said. “The words of a president, not expressed under oath and not in the service of obstruction (for example, ordering subordinates to commit obstruction), are just words and not actions and, therefore, are not a crime.”

Franklin said he believes the argument that Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James B. Comey is “thin” and said he doesn't believe Trump can obstruct justice when he is acting within his authority as chief executive. But, he said, the president can obstruct justice when not acting in that capacity.

“To the point that the president can't engage in obstruction because he is the chief executive,” Franklin said of Dowd's argument, “that is engaging in sophistry.

Turley said he disagrees with Dowd but that it is a “perfectly reasonable argument.” He agrees that it's more difficult to prove obstruction when a president is acting as chief executive, but unlike Franklin, he said even those actions could theoretically be criminal.

Trump “has the power to fire an attorney general, but he can commit a crime if he does so to block an investigation into alleged crimes,” Turley said.

Meena Bose, an expert on executive authority for Hofstra University, noted that the ultimate arbiter would be Congress, which has the power to impeach and convict. And she noted that previous presidents who faced impeachment were confronted with obstruction charges — both explicit and implicit.

“The articles of impeachment against Nixon mention obstruction of justice. The articles against Clinton, who was impeached, did so as well,” Bose said. “The articles of impeachment against Andrew Johnson, who also was impeached, discussed alleged high crimes and misdemeanors that today might be construed as obstruction of justice.”

Others were blunter, arguing that Dowd's case is bogus and entirely self-serving. Michael Gerhardt of the University of North Carolina's School of Law called it “absurd.”

“The president is obliged to faithfully execute the law, and that includes in circumstances where he or his friends are involved,” Gerhardt said. “He must also comply like every citizen is obliged to follow the laws in everything else he does — ranging from filing his taxes properly to driving to avoiding sexual harassment in the workplace.”

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Sessions had previously argued as a Senator that Presidents could be tried for obstruction.

 

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/04/jeff-sessions-president-obstruct-justice-bill-clinton-278517?cmpid=sf

 

In 1999, Sessions – then an Alabama senator – laid out an impassioned case for President Bill Clinton to be removed from office based on the argument that Clinton obstructed justice amid the investigation into his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

“The facts are disturbing and compelling on the President's intent to obstruct justice,” he said, according to remarks in the congressional record.

Sessions isn’t alone. More than 40 current GOP members of Congress voted for the impeachment or removal of Clinton from office for obstruction of justice. They include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – who mounted his own passionate appeal to remove Clinton from office for obstruction of justice – Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, who was a House member at the time.

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So is Pence  our version of

image.png.690c26825d9af2254b817249aa0bd169.png

 

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/04/pence-russia-probe-flynn-mueller-278785

 

Pence’s aides have maintained for months that their man was out of the loop, blissfully ignorant of contacts between the Trump campaign and various foreign actors, from the Russian ambassador to WikiLeaks.

 

Their story has been consistent, even as it has left outside observers wondering how Trump’s running mate and transition head could have known so little.

“It’s remarkable, as close as he was to the transition, as close as he was to the president, [that] at least what’s come out so far very little that puts him in key places at key times,” said William Jeffress, the attorney who represented Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby during the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation.

Pence’s office declined to comment for this story.

Past vice presidents have often pushed back against the idea that the person a heartbeat away from the Oval Office doesn’t have much of a formal role in running the U.S. government. But for Pence, who has taken on a sprawling portfolio, being an occasional outsider in Trump’s White House helps him maintain distance from the growing Russia probe.

Within Pence’s circle, there have been efforts to frame Friday’s indictment of Flynn as a vindication of the vice president.

Pence had initially defended Flynn during the transition, dismissing the notion that he discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador as false. When the content of those conversations was later revealed, Flynn was fired for having misled the vice president. Friday’s revelation that Flynn lied to the FBI was seen in Pence world as additional evidence of the former national security adviser’s mendacity.

It was the latest example of the Pence team deploying a playbook that has kept the vice president clean so far.

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On 12/6/2017 at 7:05 PM, dudeguyy said:

The fact that this moron is sniffing anywhere near the federal government is astounding.

 

I honestly wonder how he hasn't wandered out into oncoming traffic or something. He has all the brainpower of a defective Furby.

 

 

This is a funny response to the above by Colbert - video included.

 

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-colbert-donald-trump-jr-emails_us_5a2a0254e4b069ec48ac2e2b?ncid=edlinkushpmg00000313

 

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