Robert Mueller, Former F.B.I. Director, Is Named Special Counsel for Russia Investigation

Reminder... the FBI searched the offices under a search warrant. Though trump can't be honest... ever.




To search Michael Cohen’s home and office, the FBI had to clear a higher-than-normal bar

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...igher-than-normal-bar/?utm_term=.934126d29455

 

even NPR is saying there's still no there, there

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/15/676765398/the-russia-investigations-a-case-still-unproven

more at the link

 

OT

what part of the ~ 30 indictments, ~ 6 guilty pleads you don't understand ?


​

stupidity is

parroting a convenient lie, spin by someone who pretends to have all the facts, and
present it as being gospel !​

 

Did you even read the story? The story is basically saying the crimes Trump is implicated in wouid normally be the end of presidency but his supporters are essentially a cult. So as long as they can say “no collusion” presenting other crimes TO THEM proves a deep state bias. No matter how serious the crimes are.

I don’t know how you can read that story and think it’s anything to be proud of. It’s a referendum on YOU but you don’t even know it. And that’s kinda the point. As long as you feel like you can say “no collusion” you are “winning” at some fictitious online culture battle against pu$$y hat wearing libtards who want to change muh culture.

 

https://newrepublic.com/article/152...N5F21-ETD6k7fhIxhiJGt_EX8hxLjH5018tl1CmOi80mk

Got to break the stupid and ignorant of supporting the modern day Hitler in Trump - they are too dumb to realize they are caught up in it.

DD

 

you know what's hilarious about that piece is the Editor's caveat that sounds like they're apologizing for running such an essay and going against the grain of their usual Trump-is-evil editorial position:

 

But..the experts say walls closing beginning of the bombshell tipping point:

 

This is just...perfect...

 

From that bastion of liberalism the National Review...

Republicans, Don’t Fool Yourselves — Donald Trump Is in Serious Trouble
By DAVID FRENCH December 14, 2018 5:04 PM

In response to the emerging evidence that Donald Trump directed and participated in the commission of federal crimes, all too many Republicans are wrongly comforting themselves with political deflection and strained legal argument. The political deflection is clear, though a bit bizarre. The recent wave of news about Trump’s p*rn payoffs is somehow evidence that investigators and critics are “shifting focus” from the Russia investigation to alleged campaign-finance violations.

It’s almost as if the campaign-finance news is taken as some sort of evidence that Mueller’s core investigation is faltering, so the media and investigators have to find something to use to attack Trump.

But the campaign-finance investigation has little to do with Mueller. It’s run by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, and — besides — what do we want federal prosecutors to do when they discover evidence of unrelated crimes when engaged in a different investigation? Let bygones be bygones? Or refer that evidence to the proper jurisdiction — as Robert Mueller’s office did — for further investigation and potential prosecution?

The current wave of news reports is largely driven by court filings, and those court filings don’t represent a shift in law-enforcement focus on Trump but rather an arena of additional inquiry. The sad reality is that the Trump operation was a target-rich environment for any diligent investigator.

As for the strained legal argument, a number of Republicans are comforting themselves by sharing Bradley Smith’s essay in these pages that claims Michael Cohen “pled guilty to something that is not a crime.” Smith is undoubtedly an expert in the field, and his argument is clever, but it runs afoul of the relevant language of campaign-finance laws and available judicial precedent.

Smith claims that Trump’s payments represent a “personal” use of funds and thus cannot be considered a campaign contribution. As he notes, “personal use” spending is “used to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign.” (Emphasis added.)

Thus, even though you might spend more on a suit because you’re running for office, clothing is a category of expense that would exist in your life regardless of your run for office. Similarly, if you’re a businessman who is engaged in litigation (the example Smith uses), your legal obligation to respond to that litigation would exist regardless of your run for office.

Moreover, candidates are hardly left to their own devices in interpreting the law. Federal regulations helpfully define “personal use” and personal use can include “legal expenses.” There is no category for hush money. Its definition will depend on the facts.

As George Conway, Neal Katyal, and Trevor Potter point out today in the Washington Post, when former senator John Edwards was put on trial for similar crimes, he “repeatedly argued that the payments were not campaign contributions because they were not made exclusively to further his campaign.” The judge disagreed and “rejected this argument as a matter of law, ruling that a payment to a candidate’s extramarital sexual partner is a campaign contribution if ‘one of’ the reasons the payment is made is to influence the election.”

The Edwards prosecution failed not as a matter of law but of fact. The prosecution simply didn’t produce sufficient evidence to prove its case. Here’s Conway, Katyal, and Potter on the contrasts between the Edwards and Trump cases:

A key witness, Bunny [Mellon], was 101 years old and too frail to show up at trial. There were no written legal agreements providing money in exchange for silence, as there are in Trump’s case, and no threats by the mother of the child to go public immediately if the funds were not received. That’s why one juror told the media that the evidence wasn’t there to show even that Edwards intended the money to go to Rielle Hunter. In contrast, in a bombshell disclosure this week, the public learned that AMI, the parent corporation of the National Enquirer, is cooperating with the prosecution and has stated that the payments were made to influence the 2016 election. And even more worrisome for Trump, reports emerged Thursday that Trump was the third person in the very room where Cohen and David Pecker (the head of AMI) discussed the hush money payments — making it very hard for Trump to assert a non-campaign-related purpose

So far, the best available evidence indicates that Trump’s commitments to Stormy Daniels didn’t exist “irrespective” of his campaign but rather because of his campaign. That’s Michael Cohen’s assertion. That’s AMI’s assertion. The affairs were relatively old — and so was the threat to his family — but the payments were new, rendered at a crucial time in a very close presidential contest.

Moreover, Cohen has indicated that prosecutors have a “substantial amount of information” that corroborates his testimony. And what is that information? Well, as the Wall Street Journal has already reported:

Mr. Trump was involved in or briefed on nearly every step of the agreements. He directed deals in phone calls and meetings with his self-described fixer, Michael Cohen, and others. The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan has gathered evidence of Mr. Trump’s participation in the transactions

Here is the fundamental reality, Republicans — there is already far more evidence of legal culpability against Trump than ever existed against Edwards, and a federal judge permitted the Edwards case to go to trial. It is true that, if Trump does eventually face indictment, a different judge may have a different view of the law, but if Trump is counting on a favorable legal ruling, he’s playing a dangerous game indeed.

Campaign-finance law is constructed from the ground up to require candidate transparency and guard against corruption. Thus, it is purposefully very hard for candidates to find a way to legally and quietly use substantial sums of money to cover up dirty deeds. In his essay, Smith argues, “Indeed, it is quite probable that many of those now baying for Trump’s scalp for illegal campaign contributions would be leading a charge to prosecute Trump for illegal ‘personal use’ of campaign funds had he made the payments from his campaign treasury.”

That’s likely correct — and evidence that campaign-finance law is working as intended. In other words, if you’re a campaign-finance lawyer, and a candidate asks your advice on how to buy the silence of a p*rn star and hide that payment entirely from the American people, your best response should be, “Have you considered not running for office?”

To be clear, I happen to disagree with many elements of the campaign-finance regulatory regime. Its mandatory-disclosure provisions expose ordinary American citizens to reprisals for public participation. But when a candidate’s behavior runs against the plain language and clear intent of applicable law, he should not be shocked when he pays a legal price.

 

Putting aside your humor, KC (and I laughed!), everyone here - the Left, the Right, the moderates in the middle, a majority of those here, I suspect - all should read it. It isn't from the Washington Post or the New York Times, those stellar publications unfairly targeted by the Right as producing "fake news" and other absurd charges. No, it isn't from them. It's from the National Review, a conservative publication started by one of the fathers of modern conservatism, William F. Buckley, Jr. in 1955. I can't think of a more impressive source from the conservative side of the aisle. I read it sometimes myself. I like to read differing views, unlike some here. Those who dismiss the source are well and truly fooling themselves. It's from David French, a senior writer for National Review.

DAVID FRENCH — David French is a senior writer for National Review, a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. @davidafrench

Ignore this at your peril, Republicans and other trump supporters. You are only going to be embarrassed at the end of this nightmare if you do. Now is the time for those sitting on the fence to speak out against trump while you can still retain some semblance of respect. Self-respect and the other kind. In my humble opinion.

 

Hey guys - are you all still red-faced, and digging your heels in for battle? LOL - Still no collusion! Here's an article for you from the super-biased right wing organization called NPR.

https://www.npr.org/2018/12/15/676765398/the-russia-investigations-a-case-still-unproven

This week in the Russia investigations: Michael Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison ... Maria Butina pleaded guilty ... but the finish line looks no closer

 

Was literally posted 10 posts before you. Aside from the fact that the opinion piece is only making guesses, it didn't say he's off the hook. Only that the job isn't done.

Also, since you'd like to gloat about articles like this and apparently the scroll function doesn't work for you, look up 3 posts to the article from the super-duper liberal National Review articled posted by Rashmon.

 

Just hilarious that the Trumpers jump at the headline, and don’t actually read the article that is essentially about them.

It’s like polishing the brass on the titanic. The whole ship is cracked in half and sinking into frozen waters, but as long as you can say “no collusion” you feel like you’ve won’t some stupid internet culture war battle.

Look around you fools. Your populist nationalist movement is a laughing stock. Your only piece of legislation passed was the most unpopular and ineffective tax cut we’ve seen in decades (lost all gains in stock market). You have ballooned the deficit. You’ve gotten us into another foreign war or two (Yemen and Syria) You didn’t get your damn wall, and the only continued accomplishment is destruction of norms and decency.

You folks that live in your FoxNews Cult need a long hard look in the mirror and stop acting like petulant children. The NPR article you keep on reposting about is about you. Everything is sinking and broken but for the time being you are allowed to still ignorantly claim “NO COLLUSION”.

Congrats. Enjoy belligerently shouting it as loud as you can for as long as you can. I’m sure we are totally and completely at the end of the Russia Investigation and nothing bad will ever come out again about the Trumps and their pursuit of selling the United States down the river for a Trump Tower Moscow deal or anything else.

 

Lol, Trump got caught cheating and lying about it. Don’t need Russian collusion, he facilitated illegal payments that turned out to be a felony.

If it was no big deal, he shouldn’t have tried to hide and lie and cover it up, and now he is being held accountable by the American people.

Trump’s a lame duck loser.

 

The previous version of this lie was January 2017...

 

“I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” he said.

You can't say that Trump doesn't understand his base.

 

Sad Little Loser Donald wasn’t even confident enough that he could beat out CROOKED Hillary in an even matchup, so he tried to buy the silence of women, he lied about it, and he got caught.

Looks like he can’t weasel out of this one like he did the Access Hollywood tapes.

Trump used a dirty lawyer as his personal fixer for years.

What else is Trump hiding and lying about?