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First Charges Filed in Mueller Investigation

Jurors staying late for the first time in the Manafort trial. They left at 5:30 PM every day during the trial and deliberation.
 
Junebug said:
No, I’m not seeing where Jr forwarded the email to Manafort and Kushner.
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See below. Here is the link to the full email chain Don Jr released himself.

http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2017/07/politics/donald-trump-jr-full-emails/

Original email that references the Trump tower meeting and the “Russian government’s” plan to help Trump.

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Email showing Don Jr forwarding the meeting information to Manafort and Kushner.

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It just occurred to me, Junebug. Do you not know right how email forwarding works? The text to the right of >>>> is what was forwarded. After every new email there is another mark. So in the link, it goes from > to >> to >>>> to >>>> to >>>>> and so forth and so on. Each email is included in what was sent as indicated at the beginning of the email.

That may address the confusion. In this case, the email Donald Trump, Jr. forward to Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort includes emails exchanged between Don Jr. and Rob Goldstone. Rob Goldstone tells Don Jr. "Emin asked that I schedule a meeting with you and the Russian government attorney who is flying over from Moscow for this on Thursday."

Is that the issue or do you not think a Russian government lawyer is a Russian official?
 
Junebug said:
No, I use my phone to view the message board, and I couldn't access the email thread that you and NE Deac posted from my phone for some reason. I'm on a computer now, and I see it. You are right. I am wrong. It's clear that Jr forwarded the email from Goldstone referring to the "Crown Prosecutor of Russia" and the "Russia and its government's" support for Trump to Manafort and Kushner.

This doesn't change the conclusion that the thing that was being offered wasn't a "thing of value" under the statute, but I agree that Manafort and Kushner knew or should have known that the meeting was putatively with a Russian government official.
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Political professionals and economists everywhere disagree.

Why is it not considered a thing of value in your legal opinion?
 
A lot of scandals don't rise to impeachable offense. It still doesn't mean that they're not instructive about the ethical makeup of the administration.
 
Junebug said:
With all due respect, the opinions of political professionals and economists are totally irrelevant. The issue isn’t what should or shouldn’t be illegal or what a “thing of value” means in the abstract. The issue is what the statute means; specifically, whether the information promised to Jr is a “thing of value.” For that, you’ll need legal analysis.

Based on the information that is public, I think the information promised to Jr here was not a “thing of value,” but even if it were, and even if Daddy knew about the meeting with the alleged Russian official, you still have to decide whether an Daddy’s glancing participation in an unsuccessful conspiracy to violate the statute constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Again, based on the information that is public to date, I think the answer to that question is also “no.”

I’ve made several long posts in this thread about why I think the statute doesn’t apply to the information at issue here. If you can’t find them, let me know, and I’ll be happy to find them for you when I get home this evening.
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Calling BS on this.

If the argument is that “high crimes and misdemeanors” describes some class of actual crimes, then Congress’s role is to determine whether Donald Trump committed a crime and whether that crime fits within the definition of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” As far San im aware, there is no separate crime of “glancing participation in an unsuccessful conspiracy” in the federal statutes. The particular crime described in that statute is either a “high crime or misdemeanor” or it isn’t, and Trump either conspired to commit that crime or he didn’t.

If, however, “high crimes and misdemeanors” simply means “any actions that a majority of Congress think are impeachable” then there’s no need to try and fit the particular set of facts under some federal statute.

You can’t have it both ways.
 
This is probably the best analysis of what high crimes and misdemeanors actually means. From an article on Charles Black’s handbook on impeachment:

Black’s point is that given the structure of the impeachment provision—providing that the president shall be impeached for “Treason, Bribery, or other High Crimes and Misdemeanors”—the last category must refer to the same “kind” of offenses as “treason” and “bribery.” He interprets this to mean that the offenses must (1) be “extremely serious,” (2) “in some way corrupt or subvert the political and governmental process,” and (3) be “plainly wrong in themselves to a person of honor, or to a good citizen, regardless of words on the statute books.”

Note what Black does not include here—any suggestion that “high Crimes and Misdemeanors” must be, like treason and bribery, crimes. Instead he devotes significant energy to arguing the opposite. An impeachable offense need not be a crime—and a crime need not constitute an impeachable offense.

This first point, that "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" is not limited to indictable offenses, does not seem to be well understood by the public today, though it is the accepted view among key scholars. Raoul Berger, Cass Sunstein, Bob Barr, Michael Gerhardt, Richard Posner, and Ronald Rotunda (to name just a few) have all deployed a range of arguments to support the basic point. On this narrow issue, history alone seems to settle the matter. Pointing to key English illustrations, such as the impeachment of the Earl of Suffolk in 1386, Berger explains that that "mpeachment itself was conceived because the objects of impeachment, for one reason or another, were beyond the reach of ordinary criminal redress" (p. 62). In fact, the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" was used in those proceedings at a time when misdemeanors were not "crimes" at all and comprised only torts and private wrongs.

Black, for his part, acknowledges the historical evidence but focuses on another tack: common sense. Using reductio ad absurdum, he offers us several “extreme examples” of behavior that is non-criminal but is so obviously outrageous as to warrant removal.

Suppose a president were to move to Saudi Arabia, so he could have four wives, and were to propose to conduct the office of the presidency by mail and wireless from there. This would not be a crime, provided his passport were in order. Is it possible that such gross and wanton neglect of duty could not be grounds for impeachment and removal?
This hypothetical, designed to be ridiculous on its face, raises real questions about the point at which neglect of duty could be grounds to remove a president. For instance, six months into the Trump presidency, the vast majority of key executive branch positions sit empty, including many created by statutes that mandate appointment for consideration and confirmation by the Senate. Most notably, the State Department is a “ghost ship,” we have been repeatedly warned. The president has publicly suggested that at least some of these vacancies are the product of his deliberate effort to eliminate "unnecessary" job posts.” Even if, as some have argued, this can in some instances amount to a failure to fulfill his constitutional obligation, the president’s behavior here is obviously not criminal. But taken to the absolute extreme—years of incompetence and a patently impotent or dysfunctional executive branch—could it constitute a basis for impeachment?

Suppose a president were to announce and follow a policy of granting full pardons, in advance of indictment or trial, to all federal agents or police who killed anybody in line of duty, in the District of Columbia, whatever the circumstances and however unnecessary the killing . . . . Could anybody doubt that such conduct would be impeachable?
Preemptively pardoning police for all killings of civilians would not be a crime and, as Black notes, could probably not be made a crime. Nor is it unequivocally unconstitutional as that term is usually understood, given the sweep of the president’s pardon power—though my own view is that it violates the president's duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Yet nobody could doubt that such a policy would make for a breathtaking abuse of unilateral executive authority of a kind and on a scale that plainly “corrupt or subvert the political and governmental process.”

This hypothetical gets at the core problem with focusing exclusively on criminal law when assessing the president’s fitness for office. The hyper-legal approach to the startling revelations flowing out of the Trump White House seems to have developed special pull under a presidency adrift, presumably because the law strikes us as an anchor that might hold us to shore in hysterical times. But there are costs to this approach to presidential conduct. If you doubt this, consider some of the cramped commentary emerging after Trump’s firing of FBI Director Comey back in May. Trump indisputably had the legal authority to fire Comey, but particularly after Trump all but admitted the firing was motivated by the desire to cool the Bureau’s Russia investigation, the decision deserved unanimous congressional disapprobation, not the mixed reception—and from some quarters, indefensible defense—that it received.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/impeach-president-applying-authoritative-guide-charles-black
 
Fuck...apologies for the shitty formatting. Edit feature not working.

Just click the link and read the whole article or the section on the definition of high crimes and misdemeanors. In a nutshell, his interpretation of the phrase (based on a lot of legal analysis) is that an impeachable offense need not be an indictable crime under the law but it must be something serious enough to warrant removal from office. This explanation overly simplified a complex argument by the author and Black so it’s best to read it.
 
Russians are hacking anti-Trump conservative groups.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...tive-think-tanks-says-microsoft-idUSKCN1L60I0

I've laid out several of the known benefits Trump has received over the years from the Russians. They are well documented. His actions since taking office have clearly benefited and defended many Russian interests.

As to what is impeachable, that's 100% up to the House. Lying under oath about a BJ has no impact on what happens to our country. Supporting an adversary and not fully defending our country should be far more serious and impeachable.

That being said, I don't want him impeached. I want him to run in 2020 against a good candidate.

After he is out of office, I am all for the State of NY going balls to the walls to put Trump and all around him in jail.
 
Trump isn’t going to be impeached no matter what. I don’t know why Junebug keeps focusing on it.
 
Junebug said:
I hate to break it to you, but Trump is never going to jail.
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Once again, your disdain for everything I do shows your inability to read even the most basic sentences. I didn't say he would go to jail. I said I'd be for him going to jail.

Of course, just like yesterday, when you made a post alleging I included POTUS when my entire post was about Jr., today, you changed my post for your own purposes.

You also neglected my posting of the actual emails that proved you wrong about not expecting Russian officials at the Trump Tower meeting.

By the way, the crime of conspiracy doesn't mean the conspiracy succeeded. If Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting in advance and gave his OK, he was clearly conspiring to break the law.
 
Junebug said:
I disagree. If the Donkeys take the house and the Mueller report contains a bombshell (and maybe even if not), he will be impeached.
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I disagree. Democrats don’t want to continue the precedent of a partisan impeachment. They wouldn’t impeach without broad support from Republicans and pressure on Trump to resign with some hope that he would pay for his crimes. What would be the purpose?
 
Junebug said:
To amplify, if Jr had actually received sensitive emails from a Russian official from Clinton’s time as SoS that were obtained by hacking her computer and he released them to the public, and Daddy knew about it and authorized their disclosure, that would be an entirely different discussion.
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What if they agreed to use a cut out like say something called Wikileaks to do the release in order to give Jr and company a bit plausible deniability?
 
Looks like the Manafort jury may be close.

 
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