Donald Fires FBI Director who's investigating Russian Election Hacking

[JazzGal]

Obama giving speeches as president-elect was a public thing. He was not going behind the back of the outgoing president. He was not arranging secret "understandings" with a foreign government. They are not comparable.

Even if what Trump's campaign did ends up not being a big deal, they still allegedly broke the law. The law is in place to prevent an incoming president from undermining the current administration, in ways small and large.

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

Take over before the deadline?

Read; not be involved. Not sit in on meetings. Completely take over, AND WITHOUT LETTING THE SITTING ADMINISTRATION know, or even seek approval?

If you're gonna go with that, I expect some serious linked evidence. Cuz it doesn't exist.

Nobody but you (who I have heard) is accusing him of taking over before being sworn into office. I won't be surprised to discover that you are at the cutting edge of a new trend, though. The reality is that conversations go on, not just in this transition of administration but in all transitions. The statements of the President Elect have repercussions. Foreign leaders call to congratulate. Lobyists position themselves. All sorts of people pave the way for the interests they represent. I'm confident that if anyone was digging for it that examples of insinuations, promises, threats, etc. could be found in virtually every presidential transition. Obama sent signals to foreign leaders that he was going to handle numerous things differently than Bush had. Bush did the same thing to Clinton. Clinton did the same thing when he came in. But this time we are going to go crazy about it because Trump must be eliminated at all costs.

 

[Harambe]

Nobody but you (who I have heard) is accusing him of taking over before being sworn into office. I won't be surprised to discover that you are at the cutting edge of a new trend, though. The reality is that conversations go on, not just in this transition of administration but in all transitions. The statements of the President Elect have repercussions. Foreign leaders call to congratulate. Lobyists position themselves. All sorts of people pave the way for the interests they represent. I'm confident that if anyone was digging for it that examples of insinuations, promises, threats, etc. could be found in virtually every presidential transition. Obama sent signals to foreign leaders that he was going to handle numerous things differently than Bush had. Bush did the same thing to Clinton. Clinton did the same thing when he came in. But this time we are going to go crazy about it because Trump must be eliminated at all costs.

But I'm not accusing him of taking over the whole of the government. That's in your head.

I'm accusing him of acting unlawfully, and carelessly. Make sure you understand the difference. Once you understand that difference, you'll see everyone else saying the same thing.

Edited for clarity.

 

[DutchJazzer]

Now let's go back to Comey for a moment. The day after he pushed Flynn to resign, was the day donnie met with Comey, and used the exact words "I hope you can let this go".

donnie tweeted Sunday morning, “I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn.”

That seems to fit obstruction pretty well. One's talking under oath, and had notes admitted as evidence. The other releases his statements on the internet.

The president cannot obstruct justice!

 

[DutchJazzer]

He knew he was going to be the President. Current admin was putting in sanctions. New admin wanted to make sure the country that was getting the sanctions didn't have anything to worry about. Where, logically, is the problem? I understand the legal implications, but logically, I don't get why this is a big problem.

Realistically, this is not a big deal at all.

He was not a private citizen he was PRESIDENT ELECT!

 

[DutchJazzer]

Ridiculous. Every president elect does this. It would almost be impossible not to. But let's all go crazy about it in this instance because we hate Donald.

and lets ignore the fact that obummer did it before the election results as an actual private citzen. candidate obummer. and is doing it after he was president!

 

[Joe Bagadonuts]

But I'm not accusing him of taking over the whole of the government. That's in your head.

I'm accusing him of acting unlawfully, and carelessly. Make sure you understand the difference. Once you understand that difference, you'll see everyone else saying the same thing.

Edited for clarity.

What I said you claimed was "in my head" because you wrote:

Read; not be involved. Not sit in on meetings. Completely take over, AND WITHOUT LETTING THE SITTING ADMINISTRATION know, or even seek approval?

You're the one who added "whole government" to that last post, not me. Are you trying to back off your claim by suggesting that I claimed you went even farther than you did? Nice try.

 

[Red]

Flynn's plea and the significance of the lying in the Russia investigation:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/flynns-plea-and-significance-lying-russia-investigation

....."The question remains: Why the lying? It seems that the Flynn lies make sense if connected to the others told by Trump and others with Trump’s knowledge about the Russian relationship over the course of his campaign and presidency. Trump has boasted periodically about the transformative potential of an improved diplomatic and strategic relationship with Russia. But at the same time, he has categorically rejected suggestions that the relationship was personally or politically beneficial to him. Trump denied extensive business or financial ties to Russia and any political alliance built on mutual interest, which during the campaign included a shared animus toward Clinton and the objective of electing him. In numerous instances, Trump’s claims have foundered on the known facts. He and those acting under this direction have engaged in an extensive pattern of misleading and flatly false statements about the Russia relationship.

Of course, one could conclude that Trump has misread his exposure on the Russia relationship and has lied to no purpose in the end except to cause avoidable problems for himself. In other words, as some defenders of the president may argue, it all looks worse than it is, and the president cannot help making it look worse. He goes overboard and heaps falsehood on top of falsehood, even where the truth would be less harmful than the lies.

Or one could just as plausibly conclude that once Trump had for all intents and purposes made another of his “deals”—this time with a foreign government and for a benefit that was political, personal, or both—he felt compelled to embark on a program of lies and to enlist the full cooperation of is aides and associates. This is a deal he could not admit to have made. And the lying, especially the lying under his direction, may be the best evidence so far on the public record that he thought he had a deal that had to remain denied—whatever the risk of lying.

What very plausibly motivated the specific lies in the Flynn case was a need to deny specific, private commitments to Russia that tend to support the appearance of, and substantiate the affirmative case for, what might be termed a special understanding with the Putin regime. Perhaps any such indication would have seemed especially dangerous in the immediate aftermath of the campaign, when the Russians had been identified as aggressively intervening on his behalf—and with his encouragement—in the election. Trump may have felt extremely uneasy about the appearance of an American quo for the Russian quid.......

........It appears, then, that there is emerging a defense that a number of people told foolish lies, but nothing of more global significance. The president promoted this view specifically in another post-plea statement, by tweet: It was “a shame” that Flynn had lied to the FBI, “because his actions during the transition were lawful.” He ended the tweet: “There was nothing to hide!”

But perhaps there was. On a more comprehensive view, when examining the Flynn lies within the overall context of the stream of misrepresentations and known facts about the Russia relationship with Trump and his 2016 campaign, the Flynn episode is a good reason to expect intense, continuing investigative focus on the Russia connection. That is a more plausible ground for the lying, and the president’s involvement in it, than anxiety about the propriety, legality or political fallout from conversations with the Russians only weeks before taking office—and about issues on which his position was well known. The question of what has been generically called “collusion” is what has most concerned the president, what he has most vehemently challenged, and what would most motivate him to enlist others like Flynn in a program of concealments or falsehoods. It is useful in considering this possibility to once more recall the president’s dictation of the fallacious account of the Trump Tower campaign meeting with the Russian emissaries."

 

[colton]

The president cannot obstruct justice!

That's completely wrong.

As a prime counter-example: "On July 27, 29, and 30, 1974, the Committee approved three articles of impeachment against Nixon, for obstruction of justice, abuse of power, and contempt of Congress, and reported those articles to the House of Representatives."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_process_against_Richard_Nixon

 

[DutchJazzer]

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH HAHAHAHA liberal joy!
it is more funny then seeing reaction of people when hillary lost!!!!!!!!!!

hahahaha

 

[Harambe]

Thi

What I said you claimed was "in my head" because you wrote:

You're the one who added "whole government" to that last post, not me. Are you trying to back off your claim by suggesting that I claimed you went even farther than you did? Nice try.

You read it as I meant a take over of the government. It was not. That was in your head. I'm sorry you misunderstood. In context of what we were talking about, my statement stands true; No incoming administration has taken over diplomacy before swearing in of a new President.

A president-elect has no official power. Even fox news admits to that http://www.foxnews.com/politics/200...s-office-president-elect-holds-authority.html

The Presidential Transition Act -- created in 1963 and amended in 2000 -- establishes formal provisions for the transition period by outlining training and other assistance that the president-elect and his team of advisers can receive as they prepare to assume office.

The amended bill -- co-sponsored by lawmakers including former Sen. Fred Thompson, Sen. Joe Lieberman, and Sen. Dick Durbin -- calls for the "training and orientation of high-level presidential appointees," among other things, as well as more efficient background checks to ensure individuals are properly vetted and confirmed for office.

As far as editing my post goes, I did so because without further clarity, I knew your vindictiveness would embody itself in the form of the ultimate warrior(RIP), running wild!

It appears I still did not make it clear enough. I did not try to hide that I edited the post; merely clarify exactly what I was saying. Any private citizen making diplomatic efforts abroad is guilty of violating the Logan act. No one has been indicted on that since the 1800's because it's unanimously accepted poor form and bad practice.

Dangerous and careless, these acts not only undermine a sitting President's administration, but also depreciates the authority of the office of the POTUS internationally well into the new administration, if not further. In this scenario, one sitting administration placed sanctions on Russia for interfering in our election. The act of placing those sanctions was completely legal and acceptable. Don't try to say they didn't. It's not just our intelligence communities that agree, but many abroad too. It's been reported that the new administration looked at lifting those sanctions in the first few days. Reported in June that they attempted to lift those sanctions in secret in June.

Considerations as the current scenario played out:

What kind of message does that send to Russia? The rest of the world? Doesn't that undermine our power at large? Who's next to not care if the U.S. sanctions, they're not really gonna do anything about it. China? Go ahead... influence our elections. The person you pick to win is just gonna ignore/try to lift those sanctions anyway. No, really! The NOT-US Ambassador said so just now.

Considerations in any scenario:

You're the President. You sanction a country(we'll say Pakistan) for maybe mass manufacture of unregulated aerosal carfentanil; which is an elephant analgesic that can and has been used as a chemical agent(Moscow theater). There is no safe dosage of carfentanil for in humans. We know this happened because the intelligence community(national and international) intercepts conversations between the Pakistani government and Columbia. After that's announced, the incoming president tells his man to talk at the Columbian ambassador, and tells him "Yeah, but we don't believe/don't care. Once our boy gets in, it's not going to matter".

What's the current administration supposed to do here? Let them continue to peddle unregulated chemicals that are being sold weapon ready? Wait another month to let the incoming President deal with it, while it slithers it's way through Latin America and into our borders? Remember; the incoming president either doesn't believe it, or doesn't care. You now have a pressing matter, whether it's being sold as chemical weapons abroad, or very dangerous opiates internally.

Making it simpler:

You score a contract for.. whatever it is you do. It ends in 3 months. You get word of your replacement. You set aside time to train him. You see that there's something that needs your attention immediately, and you handle it. Your replacement, who has not started yet and not received training on how to address these issues, or even what these issues are, addresses the situation in a dismissive manner.

This is NOT as simple as "Hey, we're coming in and we're gonna make it ok". Any number of leadership issues can occur here. If you don't see the extreme issue you're stupid. If you don't see the subtle issues here, you probably should just shut up. This slope is entirely too slippery to have cowboys coming in doing what they think is right.

 

[Red]

Mueller knows what he has in Flynn. The question is why did Flynn lie. The President points out that Flynn did not need to lie. But that is actually not likely to be the case at all. It's likely Flynn did need to lie. Exactly why is still open. But Mueller gave Flynn a fantastic plea deal. 0-6 months and a small fine. And his son is so far not indicted. Assuming Mueller knows what he has in Flynn, the reason(s) for lying is likely to be a very big deal in its ramifications for President Trump. It's not likely Flynn gets that kind of plea deal without Mueller getting a great deal in return. And the return on Mueller's investment might have to do with the reason(s) Flynn lied.

Also of interest is that Flynn may have been wearing a wire:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/03/michael-flynn-plea-agreement-mueller-russia