Thread: Mueller's Russian Interference investigation

Originally Posted by BelAir

What if I told you, everything you know is wrong.

I would call you what you are which is a fucking moron.

Originally Posted by RPETER65

So Obama didn’t sign the bill into law.

Do you need to take a civics class you brain dead old coffin dodger? The law was written by Republicans in congress. If Obama didn't sign the bill it would have been considered a veto. Something that at the time congress would have overridden.

Why must all you trumpanzees be so stupid?

Originally Posted by bsnub

I would call you what you are which is a fucking moron.

Hahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah ahahahahahahahahhahahaha .....oops my ass fell off

Originally Posted by BelAir

oops my ass fell off

it's OK it landed on your head.

^ Good thing your head's in the right place, hey!



I luv my Tokay.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

the weaponized IRS against conservatives and the jailing of Dinesh D'Souza for his documentary of embarrassing truth about Obama.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

here's just one small example: Obama gave the IRS authority to revoke a US citizen's passport.

there is so much BS here, it's hard to know where to begin.

but let's start with what bsnub already pointed out, the republican controlled congress passed a law that if people don't pay their taxes, they can be denied a travel document that would allow them to flee the country. payment of taxes comes up again and again in your posts, earl. seems like this is a very touchy subject for you. why is that, earl?

and dsouza didn't go to jail. he spent 8 months in a halfway house, after he pleaded guilty to a felony. that felony was making $20,000 in illegal campaign donations in the names of other people. which obviously is a crime.

President Trump’s lawyers do not know just how much the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, told the special counsel’s investigators during months of interviews, a lapse that has contributed to a growing recognition that an early strategy of full cooperation with the inquiry was a potentially damaging mistake.

The president’s lawyers said on Sunday that they were confident that Mr. McGahn had said nothing injurious to the president during the 30 hours of interviews. But Mr. McGahn’s lawyer has offered only a limited accounting of what Mr. McGahn told the investigators, according to two people close to the president.

That has prompted concern among Mr. Trump’s advisers that Mr. McGahn’s statements could help serve as a key component for a damning report by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which the Justice Department could send to Congress, according to two people familiar with the discussions.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers realized on Saturday that they had not been provided a full accounting after The New York Times published an article describing Mr. McGahn’s extensive cooperation with Mr. Mueller’s office. After Mr. McGahn was initially interviewed by the special counsel’s office in November, Mr. Trump’s lawyers never asked for a complete description of what Mr. McGahn had said, according to a person close to the president.


Mr. McGahn’s lawyer, William A. Burck, gave the president’s lawyers a short overview of the interview but few details, and he did not inform them of what Mr. McGahn said in subsequent interactions with the investigators, according to a person close to Mr. Trump. Mr. McGahn and Mr. Burck feared that Mr. Trump was setting up Mr. McGahn to take the blame for any possible wrongdoing, so they embraced the opening to cooperate fully with Mr. Mueller in an effort to demonstrate that Mr. McGahn had done nothing wrong.

On Sunday, Mr. Trump’s lead lawyer dealing with the special counsel, Rudolph W. Giuliani, appeared to acknowledge that he had only a partial understanding of what Mr. McGahn had revealed. Mr. Giuliani said his knowledge was secondhand, given to him by a former Trump lawyer, John Dowd, who was one of the primary forces behind the initial strategy of full cooperation.

“I’ll use his words rather than mine, that McGahn was a strong witness for the president, so I don’t need to know much more about that,” Mr. Giuliani said of Mr. Dowd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

But Mr. McGahn, who as White House counsel is not the president’s personal lawyer, has repeatedly made clear to the president that his role is as a protector of the presidency, not of Mr. Trump personally.


Legal experts and former White House counsels said the president’s lawyers had been careless in not asking Mr. McGahn what he had planned to tell Mr. Mueller’s prosecutors. The experts said Mr. Trump’s lawyers had the right to know the full extent of what Mr. McGahn was going to say.

Robert F. Bauer, a White House counsel under President Barack Obama, said Mr. McGahn’s lawyer may have taken the most prudent course for his client by not addressing “each and every detail about the questions that were specifically asked and the specific answers given.”

In its article, The Times said Mr. McGahn had shared detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the investigation into whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice in the Russia inquiry. Some of the episodes — like Mr. Trump’s attempt to fire Mr. Mueller last summer — would not have been revealed to investigators without Mr. McGahn’s help.

The article set off a scramble on Saturday among Mr. Trump’s lawyers and advisers. The president, sequestered at his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., solicited opinions from a small group of advisers on the possible repercussions from the article. The president ordered Mr. Giuliani to tell reporters that the article was wrong, but Mr. Giuliani did not go that far in his television appearances.

The report by The Times also reignited a debate about whether Mr. Trump had been given bad advice by his former lawyers Mr. Dowd and Ty Cobb to allow full cooperation with Mr. Mueller’s team, including by waiving attorney-client privilege. Mr. Dowd and Mr. Cobb believed that the cooperation would help prove that the president had done nothing wrong and bring a swifter end to the investigation.

But the strategy “put Don McGahn in an impossible situation, because once you waive that privilege and you turn over all those documents, Don McGahn has no choice then but to go in and answer everything, every question they could ask him,” Chris Christie, a former United States attorney and a close ally of Mr. Trump, said on ABC News’s “This Week.”


“It’s bad legal advice, bad lawyering, and this is a result of it,” Mr. Christie added.

Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House chief strategist, who had argued last summer against cooperating with Mr. Mueller, said, “This was a reckless and dangerously naïve strategy, and I’ve vocally said that since the time I left the White House, and I’ve said it to the president.”

The Times reported that Mr. McGahn, over at least three interviews, laid out how Mr. Trump had tried to ensure control of the special counsel investigation. Mr. McGahn gave a mix of damaging and favorable information about the president, but he said Mr. Trump did not go beyond his legal authorities as president.
Although Mr. Trump’s lawyers have little idea what Mr. McGahn told investigators, they said on Saturday and Sunday that Mr. McGahn had helped the president.

In an email to members of Mr. Trump’s legal team and other associates, which was obtained by The Times, Mr. Dowd said he had made the right choice in urging cooperation.

“We protected President by not asserting attorney-client privilege,” Mr. Dowd wrote. He added that, had the lawyers forced the Mueller team to subpoena witnesses, they would have lost the ability to exert privilege over witnesses and documents.

Still, Mr. Trump was rattled by the Times report, according to people familiar with his thinking. The president, who is said to be obsessed with the role that John W. Dean, the White House counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, played as an informant during Watergate, was jolted by the notion that he did not know what Mr. McGahn had shared.


Mr. Trump lashed out about the report on Twitter, saying that The Times had falsely insinuated that Mr. McGahn had “turned” on him.

Last fall, Mr. McGahn believed that he was being set up to be blamed for any wrongdoing by the president in part because of an article published in The Times in September, which described a conversation that a reporter had overheard between Mr. Dowd and Mr. Cobb.

In the conversation — which occurred over lunch at a table on the sidewalk outside the Washington steakhouse B.L.T. — Mr. Cobb discussed the White House’s production of documents to Mr. Mueller’s office. Mr. Cobb talked about how Mr. McGahn was opposed to cooperation and had documents locked in his safe.

After the account of the lunch conversation was published, Mr. McGahn became convinced that Mr. Cobb believed that he was hiding documents. Concerned that he would be blamed, he decided to try to demonstrate to Mr. Mueller that he and other White House lawyers had done nothing wrong.

As Mr. Trump’s lawyers have shifted to a more antagonistic approach toward Mr. Mueller, it has seemed increasingly unlikely that Mr. Trump will sit for a voluntary interview. On “Meet the Press,” Mr. Giuliani repeated his fear of a “perjury trap.”


“It’s somebody’s version of the truth, not the truth,” Mr. Giuliani said of any statements by the president in such an interview.

“Truth is truth,” the show’s host, Chuck Todd, answered.

“No, it isn’t truth,” Mr. Giuliani replied. “Truth isn’t truth.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/19/u...p-mueller.html

This article is the one the above is referring too. I should have posted this first.




WASHINGTON — The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, has cooperated extensively in the special counsel investigation, sharing detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry into whether President Trump obstructed justice, including some that investigators would not have learned of otherwise, according to a dozen current and former White House officials and others briefed on the matter.

In at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months, Mr. McGahn described the president’s fury toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged Mr. McGahn to respond to it. He provided the investigators examining whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice a clear view of the president’s most intimate moments with his lawyer.

Among them were Mr. Trump’s comments and actions during the firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and Mr. Trump’s obsession with putting a loyalist in charge of the inquiry, including his repeated urging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to claim oversight of it. Mr. McGahn was also centrally involved in Mr. Trump’s attempts to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which investigators might not have discovered without him.

For a lawyer to share so much with investigators scrutinizing his client is unusual. Lawyers are rarely so open with investigators, not only because they are advocating on behalf of their clients but also because their conversations with clients are potentially shielded by attorney-client privilege, and in the case of presidents, executive privilege.


“A prosecutor would kill for that,” said Solomon L. Wisenberg, a deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, which did not have the same level of cooperation from President Bill Clinton’s lawyers. “Oh my God, it would have been phenomenally helpful to us. It would have been like having the keys to the kingdom.”

Mr. McGahn’s cooperation began in part as a result of a decision by Mr. Trump’s first team of criminal lawyers to collaborate fully with Mr. Mueller. The president’s lawyers have explained that they believed their client had nothing to hide and that they could bring the investigation to an end quickly.

Mr. McGahn and his lawyer, William A. Burck, could not understand why Mr. Trump was so willing to allow Mr. McGahn to speak freely to the special counsel and feared Mr. Trump was setting up Mr. McGahn to take the blame for any possible illegal acts of obstruction, according to people close to him. So he and Mr. Burck devised their own strategy to do as much as possible to cooperate with Mr. Mueller to demonstrate that Mr. McGahn did nothing wrong.

It is not clear that Mr. Trump appreciates the extent to which Mr. McGahn has cooperated with the special counsel. The president wrongly believed that Mr. McGahn would act as a personal lawyer would for clients and solely defend his interests to investigators, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking.

In fact, Mr. McGahn laid out how Mr. Trump tried to ensure control of the investigation, giving investigators a mix of information both potentially damaging and favorable to the president. Mr. McGahn cautioned to investigators that he never saw Mr. Trump go beyond his legal authorities, though the limits of executive power are murky.

Mr. McGahn’s role as a cooperating witness further strains his already complicated relationship with the president. Though Mr. Trump has fought with Mr. McGahn as much as with any of his top aides, White House advisers have said, both men have benefited significantly from their partnership.

Mr. McGahn has overseen two of Mr. Trump’s signature accomplishments — stocking the federal courts and cutting government regulations — and become a champion of conservatives in the process.

But the two rarely speak one on one — the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and other advisers are usually present for their meetings — and Mr. Trump has questioned Mr. McGahn’s loyalty. In turn, Mr. Trump’s behavior has so exasperated Mr. McGahn that he has called the president “King Kong” behind his back, to connote his volcanic anger, people close to Mr. McGahn said.

This account is based on interviews with current and former White House officials and others who have spoken to both men, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation.
A spokesman for the special counsel’s office also declined to comment for this article.

Mr. Burck said that Mr. McGahn had been obliged to cooperate with the special counsel. “President Trump, through counsel, declined to assert any privilege over Mr. McGahn’s testimony, so Mr. McGahn answered the special counsel team’s questions fulsomely and honestly, as any person interviewed by federal investigators must,” he said.

Asked for comment, the White House sought to quell the sense of tension.

“The president and Don have a great relationship,” the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. “He appreciates all the hard work he’s done, particularly his help and expertise with the judges, and the Supreme Court” nominees.


The president stressed that the White House had been cooperative with the investigation, tweeting on Saturday evening after this article was published that Mr. McGahn had been allowed to speak to the special counsel.

Mr. McGahn’s route from top White House lawyer to a central witness in the obstruction investigation of the president began around the time that Mr. Mueller took over the investigation into whether any Trump associates conspired with Russia’s interference in the presidential election.

When Mr. Mueller was appointed in May 2017, the lawyers surrounding the president realigned themselves. Mr. McGahn and other White House lawyers stopped dealing on a day-to-day basis with the investigation, as they realized they were potential witnesses in an obstruction case.

In the following weeks, Mr. Trump assembled a personal legal team to defend him. He wanted to take on Mr. Mueller directly, attacking his credibility and impeding investigators. But two of his newly hired lawyers, John M. Dowd and Ty Cobb, have said they took Mr. Trump at his word that he did nothing wrong and sold him on an open-book strategy. As long as Mr. Trump and the White House cooperated with Mr. Mueller, they told him, they could bring an end to the investigation within months.

Mr. McGahn, who had objected to Mr. Cobb’s hiring, was dubious, according to people he spoke to around that time. As White House counsel, not a personal lawyer, he viewed his role as protector of the presidency, not of Mr. Trump. Allowing a special counsel to root around the West Wing could set a precedent harmful to future administrations.


But he had little ability to intervene. His relationship with the president had soured as Mr. Trump blamed him for a number of fraught moments in his first months in office, including the chaotic, failed early attempts at a ban on travelers from some majority-Muslim countries and, in particular, the existence of Mr. Mueller’s investigation.

The son of a Treasury Department investigator, Mr. McGahn, 50, briefly attended the Naval Academy before transferring to Notre Dame, graduating in 1991. He attended Widener University’s Commonwealth Law School in Pennsylvania, then came to Washington and climbed the ranks of the Republican establishment, alternating between private firms and a stint on the Federal Election Commission.

Mr. McGahn joined the Trump team as an early hire said to like the candidate’s outsider position. His lack of a degree from a top law school bothered Mr. Trump, but the candidate saw that Mr. McGahn was respected by most of his peers, according to veteran party strategists.

Though he was a senior campaign aide, it is not clear whether Mr. Mueller’s investigators have questioned Mr. McGahn about whether Trump associates coordinated with Russia’s effort to influence the election.

Mr. McGahn’s decision to cooperate with the special counsel grew out of Mr. Dowd’s and Mr. Cobb’s game plan, now seen as misguided by some close to the president.

Last fall, Mr. Mueller’s office asked to interview Mr. McGahn. To the surprise of the White House Counsel’s Office, Mr. Trump and his lawyers signaled that they had no objection, without knowing the extent of what Mr. McGahn was going to tell investigators.

Mr. McGahn was stunned, as was Mr. Burck, whom he had recently hired out of concern that he needed help to stay out of legal jeopardy, according to people close to Mr. McGahn. Mr. Burck has explained to others that he told White House advisers that they did not appreciate the president’s legal exposure and that it was “insane” that Mr. Trump did not fight a McGahn interview in court.

Even if the president did nothing wrong, Mr. Burck told White House lawyers, the White House has to understand that a client like Mr. Trump probably made politically damaging statements to Mr. McGahn as he weighed whether to intervene in the Russia investigation.

Inside the counsel’s office, lawyers feared that on the recommendation of Mr. Dowd and Mr. Cobb, the White House was handing Mr. Mueller detailed instructions to take down the president and setting a troubling precedent for future administrations by giving up executive privilege.

At the same time, Mr. Trump was blaming Mr. McGahn for his legal woes, yet encouraging him to speak to investigators. Mr. McGahn and his lawyer grew suspicious. They began telling associates that they had concluded that the president had decided to let Mr. McGahn take the fall for decisions that could be construed as obstruction of justice, like the Comey firing, by telling the special counsel that he was only following shoddy legal advice from Mr. McGahn.

Worried that Mr. Trump would ultimately blame him in the inquiry, Mr. McGahn told people he was determined to avoid the fate of the White House counsel for President Richard M. Nixon, John W. Dean, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Watergate scandal.

Mr. McGahn decided to fully cooperate with Mr. Mueller. It was, he believed, the only choice he had to protect himself.

“This sure has echoes of Richard Nixon’s White House counsel, John Dean, who in 1973 feared that Nixon was setting him up as a fall guy for Watergate and secretly gave investigators crucial help while still in his job,” said the historian Michael Beschloss.


Mr. Trump’s lawyers still had a chance to keep Mr. McGahn’s insider knowledge from the special counsel. By exerting attorney-client privilege, which allows the president to legally withhold information, they would have gained the right to learn what Mr. McGahn planned to tell investigators and what he might reveal that could damage the president. But the president’s lawyers never went through that process, although they told people that they believed they still had the ability to stop Mr. Mueller from handing over to Congress the accounts of witnesses like Mr. McGahn and others.

Mr. Mueller has told the president’s lawyers that he will follow Justice Department guidance that sitting presidents cannot be indicted. Rather than charge Mr. Trump if he finds evidence of wrongdoing, he is more likely to write a report that can be sent to Congress for lawmakers to consider impeachment proceedings.

Unencumbered, Mr. Burck and Mr. McGahn met the special counsel team in November for the first time and shared all that Mr. McGahn knew.

To investigators, Mr. McGahn was a fruitful witness, people familiar with the investigation said. He had been directly involved in nearly every episode they are scrutinizing to determine whether the president obstructed justice. To make an obstruction case, prosecutors who lack a piece of slam-dunk evidence generally point to a range of actions that prove that the suspect tried to interfere with the inquiry.

Mr. McGahn gave to Mr. Mueller’s investigators, the people said, a sense of the president’s mind-set in the days leading to the firing of Mr. Comey; how the White House handled the firing of the former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn; and how Mr. Trump repeatedly berated Mr. Sessions, tried to get him to assert control over the investigation and threatened to fire him.

Despite the Trump lawyers’ insistence that cooperation would help end the inquiry, the investigation only intensified as last year came to a close. Mr. Mueller had charged Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman and his deputy and won guilty pleas and cooperation agreements from his first national security adviser and a campaign adviser.


Mr. Dowd said that cooperation was the right approach but that Mr. Mueller had “snookered” Mr. Trump’s legal team. The White House has handed over more than one million documents and allowed more than two dozen administration officials to meet with Mr. Mueller in the belief that he would be forced to conclude there was no obstruction case.

“It was an extraordinary cooperation — more cooperation than in any major case — no president has ever been more cooperative than this,” Mr. Dowd said, adding that Mr. Mueller knew as far back as October, when he received many White House documents, that the president did not break the law.

As the months passed on, it became apparent that Mr. McGahn and Mr. Burck had overestimated the amount of thought that they believed the president put into his legal strategy. Rather than placing the blame on Mr. McGahn for possible acts of obstruction, Mr. Trump has yet to even meet with the special counsel, his lawyers resisting an invitation for an interview. Mr. McGahn is still the White House counsel, shepherding the president’s second Supreme Court nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh, through the confirmation process.

Mr. Mueller, armed with Mr. McGahn’s account, is still trying to interview witnesses close to the president. But the White House has a new lawyer for the investigation, Emmet T. Flood, who has strong views on privilege issues. When the special counsel asked to interview Mr. Kelly, Mr. Flood contested the request, rather than fully cooperate.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/18/u...T.nav=top-news

Originally Posted by bsnub

Do you need to take a civics class you brain dead old coffin dodger? The law was written by Republicans in congress. If Obama didn't sign the bill it would have been considered a veto. Something that at the time congress would have overridden.

Why must all you trumpanzees be so stupid?

Pure speculation on your part that Congress would have ridden a veto,the fact is Obama signed the bill into law.

Originally Posted by RPETER65

the fact is Obama signed the bill into law.

the fact is that it passed both chambers of congress that were controlled by republicans.

and i think most people would agree that it's a sensible law.....tax cheats shouldn't be given the document they'd need to flee the country.

what is it with you and earl? do you not pay your taxes?

Originally Posted by raycarey

the fact is that it passed both chambers of congress that were controlled by republicans.

and i think most people would agree that it's a sensible law.....tax cheats shouldn't be given the document they'd need to flee the country.

what is it with you and earl? do you not pay your taxes?

I am am totally up to date with my taxes. The problem I see is giving the intrusive IRS more power is a big mistake,they had plenty of ways to go after tax evaders before this was ever enacted.

The other fact is Obama signed it into law.

Originally Posted by RPETER65

I am am totally up to date with my taxes. The problem I see is giving the intrusive IRS more power is a big mistake,they had plenty of ways to go after tax evaders before this was ever enacted.

The other fact is Obama signed it into law.

Nothing good about the IRS.

The Abolish the IRS movement is growing.

Abolish The IRS - Join Senator Rand Paul and Citizens United

Former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort found guilty of bank and tax fraud

• President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Tuesday was found guilty of eight criminal counts.
• They include five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failing to file foreign bank account reports.
• In a note to U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis, the jurors said they had not reached a consensus on the 10 remaining counts in the bank fraud and tax crimes trial. Ellis, in turn, declared a mistrial on those 10 counts.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/21/paul...t-verdict.html

^ I wonder what the Trump haters are going to do now that the Mueller Russia-Gate charade has fizzled?

Well, there is one witch in cuffs. Double blow for Trump today with Cohen admitting to hush money directed by the master.

^ So what's next?
Articles of impeachment?
For the high crime of being a 'white male' with a libido...

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

For the high crime of being a 'white male' with a libido.

Ah, so that's how the Trumptards are going to brush off campaig fraud charges. The same brush-off could be used just as spuriously and outrageously to excuse rape.
Telling how you frame it as a "white male", not just a male with a libido.

Originally Posted by Maanaam

Ah, so that's how the Trumptards are going to brush off campaig fraud charges. The same brush-off could be used just as spuriously and outrageously to excuse rape.
Telling how you frame it as a "white male", not just a male with a libido.

Trump isn't being accused of rape.

Trump is being accused of trying to look good.

Where is the high crime of impeachment, for a media personality like Trump in 'looking good'? (with his own money BTW)

Originally Posted by Maanaam

Telling how you frame it as a "white male", not just a male with a libido.

Telling is your suggestion of racism, when 'white' is just a fact for Trump.
There are many leftists who would impeach Trump simply for his so called 'White Privilege'.

wonder if the pardons will come before or after the november elections?

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

'white' is just a fact for Trump.

A redundant fact in the context of what you wrote.
So yeah, telling.

Originally Posted by Maanaam

A redundant fact in the context of what you wrote.
So yeah, telling.

Yeah ok, I confess it was cheap shot to trigger a SJW, identity politic devotee.

Gotcha!

Originally Posted by S Landreth

wonder if the pardons will come before or after the november elections?

Too risky to do it before. The chance of any pardon being seen as cronyism and/or the result of a shady deal involving keeping certain information secret is quite real.

The question in my mind is will the GOP stand by Trump and will they start bailing sooner rather than later. They are very aware that November is looming and with Manafort's and Cohen's guilt directly implicating Trump, the GOP need to decide soon.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Yeah ok, I confess it was cheap shot to trigger a SJW, identity politic devotee.

No, it was not designed, it was natural for you, and telling.

Originally Posted by Mr Earl

Gotcha!

That's hilarious Earl. If it was a by-design trap to "get" a SJW your first reaction to being caught out as a racist would not have been defensive, it would have been an immediate "gotcha!".

^ I confess I'm a 'white male'. So in your book of SJW logic that makes me automatically; racist and sexist.

BTW Maan don't forget your vagina when you leave!