[The Hill] Witch hunt or mole hunt? Times bombshell blows up all theories

On the grounds that a federal crime may have been or is in the process of being committed and they are authorized to investigate that and follow the evidence just as they would any other potential federal crime.

 

Well, we have a new normal when it comes to the Presidency. Looking forward to a "mole hunt" of the next Democrat President.

Yay!

 

Slick Willie says 'sup.

I find it adorable that you seem to think The Donald has done nothing to bring this on himself and is just a victim of DC party politics. Poor honest doe-eyed Donnie the victim. He's practically the second coming of Mr. Smith from his trip to Washington.

 

President lies left and right on a constant and daily basis.

All his apologists can do is connect the random dots and tell their partisans what the rorshact says.

At least it's better than "Ah shucks, he's just joking, nothing more than pissing off libs."

 

OK then. What specific crime do they purport to be investigating?

The actual answer is none.

 

The only way that is different to an actual witch hunt is this witch has the means to defend themselves, the irony of course being that if a witch had such power, it simply confirmed that they were indeed a witch.

From the inquisitors point of view, the "witch" is a "mole" that must be purged to save the community/nation/world from their evil (People seem to have this view that the inquisitor's were deliberately acting malevolently to remove "problematic" people, and while undoubtedly there would have been such corruption, particularly in Spain, that was not the theme, it was far and away about the protection of people).

The defendant is then forced into a reactionary position, but what that reaction can be is dependent upon the power they wield and their personal disposition (i know for a fact i would never cooperate in any way if i was being pursued for something i didn't do). The "witches" or "communists" in Mccarthy's crusade were for the most part completely powerless, and so were walked all over.

 

“Treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

 

Don't forget ye olde blowjob from a fatchick.

I'm sure Jefferson wrote that one.... Always cockblockin Ben Franklin.

 

Add obstruction of justice, and financial crimes including emoluments and money laundering.

 

You do know by now I never click on right wing blog sites. If there is a key point or summary you'd like to share, cool. But even the link wording is ridiculous, so if its just another pretzel-like deep state defense of trump I will pass...

 

Criticizing the FBI? Gee, who would have thunk? Attacking and weakening important American institutions including our most important domestic investigation and law enforcement agency is putin's, I mean trump's primary objective and one of trump's common defense. Most guilty people attack law enforcement.

 

Of course it is. Blame everyone and everything other than Trump.

“It must be hard for a fanatic to admit a mistake. Isn’t that the whole point of being a fanatic? You’re always right.”

 

Of course it is...you guys just don't seem to get it or don't care that we have made such a huge mistake in electing this buffoon.

 

Rather than the rationalization and justification in the OP I thought the original NY Times article should get some light...

F.B.I. Opened Inquiry Into Whether Trump Was Secretly Working on Behalf of Russia
By Adam Goldman, Michael S. Schmidt and Nicholas Fandos

• WASHINGTON — In the days after President Trump fired James B. Comey as F.B.I. director, law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the president’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Mr. Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the F.B.I. opened into Mr. Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Mr. Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Agents and senior F.B.I. officials had grown suspicious of Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 campaign but held off on opening an investigation into him, the people said, in part because they were uncertain how to proceed with an inquiry of such sensitivity and magnitude. But the president’s activities before and after Mr. Comey’s firing in May 2017, particularly two instances in which Mr. Trump tied the Comey dismissal to the Russia investigation, helped prompt the counterintelligence aspect of the inquiry, the people said.

The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, took over the inquiry into Mr. Trump when he was appointed, days after F.B.I. officials opened it. That inquiry is part of Mr. Mueller’s broader examination of how Russian operatives interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Trump associates conspired with them. It is unclear whether Mr. Mueller is still pursuing the counterintelligence matter, and some former law enforcement officials outside the investigation have questioned whether agents overstepped in opening it.

The criminal and counterintelligence elements were coupled together into one investigation, former law enforcement officials said in interviews in recent weeks, because if Mr. Trump had ousted the head of the F.B.I. to impede or even end the Russia investigation, that was both a possible crime and a national security concern. The F.B.I.’s counterintelligence division handles national security matters.

If the president had fired Mr. Comey to stop the Russia investigation, the action would have been a national security issue because it naturally would have hurt the bureau’s effort to learn how Moscow interfered in the 2016 election and whether any Americans were involved, according to James A. Baker, who served as F.B.I. general counsel until late 2017. He privately testified in October before House investigators who were examining the F.B.I.’s handling of the full Russia inquiry.

“Not only would it be an issue of obstructing an investigation, but the obstruction itself would hurt our ability to figure out what the Russians had done, and that is what would be the threat to national security,” Mr. Baker said in his testimony, portions of which were read to The New York Times. Mr. Baker did not explicitly acknowledge the existence of the investigation of Mr. Trump to congressional investigators.

No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials. An F.B.I. spokeswoman and a spokesman for the special counsel’s office both declined to comment.

[read the rest at the link]

For those still wanting to disbelieve that our president is guilty of these crimes and misdemeanors, I understand your need to defend him; just consider the fact that this is even in the realm of possibility and wisen up and stop ignoring the clues that you may be wrong.

 

The entire premise of the argument is this:

Because the president determines the U.S. national security interest and threats against it, at least for the executive branch, there is an argument that it makes no sense for the FBI to open a counterintelligence case against the president premised on his being a threat to the national security. The president defines what a national security threat is, and thus any action by him cannot be such a threat, at least not for purposes of opening a counterintelligence investigation.

The problem is that it's not true - while the President can determine something is a security threat, he/she cannot determine something is NOT in any kind of overarching way. All he/she can do is designate something as a threat in a specific legal way that authorizes various actions - but the idea of something being a national security threat in general is a different concept. Beyond that, executive department officials and others routinely determine things to be national security threats without Presidential declarations. So if you go with this line of argument, this administration and all previous ones have been in violation of the law. Beyond that, there's this little nugget:

I am not sure this analysis or this conclusion is right—as I note, the situation in unprecedented in many ways.

I would love to see this investigation challenged in court and to see one side make the argument that that the President has universal powers and if he/she were to be a spy or an asset for a foreign government and work in their best interests, that is legal. I love the rabbit holes Trump's defenders (not you, but others here) are willing to go down to defend his legitimacy.