The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has concluded that this tweet from @DanScavino / @Scavino45 about @justinamash “violated the Hatch Act.”
Analysis: There’s no indication Comey violated the law. Trump may be about to.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...54fe&tid=sm_tw
“The constitutional right to go to the press with information on matters of public concern, as long as you’re not doing it in a way that will bring out classified information,” Kohn said, “the reason why that is protected constitutionally is that the courts — including the U.S. Supreme Court — have ruled that the public has a constitutional right to hear this information.” In other words, it’s constitutionally protected speech.It’s also worth noting that Trump’s tweeted attacks on the veracity of Comey’s testimony are also unlikely to bear much fruit. Making a mistake in testimony is not in itself illegal. When Comey made such a mistake last month, the FBI corrected his statement after the fact. Perjury requires a demonstration of intent, that the person meant to lie. That would be a difficult case to make legally.
We can safely assume, though, that Trump’s team is aware that Comey likely didn’t violate any laws, and that they are simply using these arguments as a tool for undermining the parts of his testimony that they didn’t like. How they’re doing it, though, could make their problems worse.
Kohn summarized the new minefield into which Trump and his lawyer might be walking.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has concluded that this tweet from @DanScavino / @Scavino45 about @justinamash “violated the Hatch Act.”
New: Mueller enlists Michael Dreeben, top criminal law expert in SG’s office, for Russia probe
http://at.law.com/EKngKN# from
Michael Flynn, Russia and a Grand Scheme to Build Nuclear Power Plants in Saudi Arabia and the Arab World
By Jeff Stein On 6/9/17 at 7:00 AM
http://www.newsweek.com/flynn-russia...-donald-623396
Legal experts say the addition of Dreeben indicates Mueller probe may already be moving towards criminal charges.Originally Posted by OUTLAW 09
My take…
Comey personally disliked and distrusted Trump. This is indicated by his political affiliation transitioning from Republican to Independent some time in 2016, despite having contributed to the McCain and Romney campaigns in 2008 and 2012, respectively. In addition, Comey “felt compelled to document [his] first conversation” with Trump, when the latter was President-Elect, despite this having “not been [his] practice in the past”. Comey continued documenting his conversations with Trump, which he later leaked through a surrogate to the press after his termination.
Comey also personally disliked and distrusted Clinton. This is indicated by his press conference in July 2016, in which he referred to her as “extremely reckless”, proved that she had lied (the e-mails included classified materials), stated that there was “evidence of potential violations”, and implied that both she and the State Dept. were less than open and honest with the FBI and the public (thereby demanding Comey’s “unusual transparency”). In addition, Comey continued his “unusual transparency” in October 2016, when he sent a letter to Congress reporting that the investigation had been reopened. Although Comey’s “unusual transparency” was ostensibly due to wide and intense public interest in the investigation, he did not make any statements to dispel the popular sentiment that Lynch interfered in his investigation (e.g. her meeting with Bill Clinton, her response to the October 2016 letter, FBI dissidents in the New York office), and his recent Congressional testimony continues that trend.
It is curious that Comey specifically sought to testify to Congress in an open rather than closed session, but then withheld the one new revelation about Trump campaign contacts with Russian representatives for a closed session.
Here are Comey’s actions that I found most inappropriate:
- The July 2016 press conference: why make the effort to admonish Clinton and her staff if there would be a recommendation not to prosecute, and possibly influence an election?
- The October 2016 letter to Congress: why confirm and discuss an open and ongoing investigation, and possibly influence an election?
- The May 2017 leak to the New York Times: how can the accounts be substantiated?
Unfortunately, Comey’s public activities regarding both the Clinton e-mail and Russian interference investigations, as well as his admitted inability (March 2017 testimony to the House Intelligence Committee) to handle these during an election campaign, demonstrate a lack of fitness to perform his tasks. In addition, key aspects of Comey’s testimony in March and June were contradicted not only by Sessions but by McCabe as well.
With regard to both Clinton and Trump, Comey acted inappropriately, and if he truly felt that he was under any pressure – whether illegal or unethical – by his superiors, he could have resigned. Prior to his dismissal, both parties resented him and blamed him for unfavorable public opinion. Comey was biased or partisan: to his own opinions.
Trump also acted inappropriately, although this appears to be due more to Trump’s inexperience, a genuine perception that Comey was playing politics, and a genuine perception that any reference to Russian interference was part of a baseless smear, than out of a desire to obstruct justice. Clinton certainly did a much better job of heading off the 1996 Chinese campaign finance “matter”.
Unfortunately, both the FBI and CIA have very long histories of interfering in U.S. domestic politics, albeit in a far more discrete way than Trump and like-minded Americans probably imagine. This interference is in fact the norm, as bureaucracies want to survive and grow, and require the money and power to do so.
In my opinion, the Russian military threat lends itself to air and seapower as much as the Chinese threat does. However, it is difficult to separate expert and lay discussion of the Russian threat, from the Army’s desperation to find a mission that supports the level of resources it received throughout the occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. If the Army’s partisans at the various think tanks are to be believed, the U.S. has no air or sea-launched cruise missiles or stealth bombers with which to defend NATO. Yet another bureaucracy wades into the swamp.
Former GOP congressman who called on Bill Clinton to resign and voted to impeach him -->
Bob Inglis
@bobinglis
Yes, I was on Judiciary Cmte that impeached Clinton/sent him for trial in the Senate for matters less serious than the ones before us now
Bob Inglis
.@SpeakerRyan you know this isn't true. You know that you would be inquiring into impeachment if this were a D. http://thehill.com/homenews/house/33...witter#…
Bob Inglis
@bobinglis Jun 8
Defenders @GOP beware: Comey only said Trump not under investigation re Russian prostitutes dossier. Election-meddling investigation ongoing
Trump: “The nation of Qatar has unfortunately been a funder of terrorism, and at a very high level”
.@POTUS: I decided…the time had come to call on Qatar to end its funding. They have to end that funding. And its extremist ideology
Trump: I won’t name other countries, but we are not done solving the problem, but we will solve that problem
.@POTUS : "For Qatar, we want you back among the unity of responsible nations. We ask Qatar & other nations in the region to do more"
.@POTUS: Stop funding, stop teaching hate, and stop the killing.
Trump: “No. More. Funding. “
Trump at the Romanian press conference today....
Trump won't answer question on whether there are secret Oval Office tapes
Trump is non-responsive to question about why the American people should trust his word over Comey's (who testified under oath)
Trump: We were very, very happy. And frankly, James Comey confirmed a lot of what I said & some of the things that he said just weren’t true
Romanian Pres Iohannis: “I listened to his speech and I liked it.”
WHY the HECK did Trump suddenly inject this into the press conference....
Trump: "I am committing the US…to Article V"
Trump: “Absolutely I’d be committed to Article V”
Q: Did you discuss Romania visa waiver program? Trump: “We didn’t discuss it.” Iohannis: “I did mention this issue.”
Trump says he’ll answer taping question very soon. “You will be very disappointed when you hear the answer”
Would Trump be willing to speak under oath about conversations : Trump: “100%...I would be glad to tell him exactly what I just told you”
Trump aides had been suggesting the opposite earlier this week. This is big
BREAKING: Trump is asked on national television, by a Romanian reporter, to speak on the Russian threat in Eastern Europe and he *refuses*.
BUT WAIT...Trump called for the blockade of Qatar JUSt AFTER Tillerson calls to end the blockade...WTH of a disconnect and proves Dos and SoS are both fools....for saying anything without Trump approval....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-09-2017 at 07:51 PM.
Breaking: Trump has Romanian President in town today-& guess what-Donald Trump Jr was in Romania in mid-May, just 3 weeks ago.
BREAKING: Trump says he didn't tell Comey to let Flynn probe go, but probably nothing wrong if he did say that
http://cnb.cx/2scqAN2
In the middle of a national press conference with the Romanian President Trump complains about how bad the press is treating him?????
So did he just admit he told Comey to drop the Flynn investigation????
"If I did mention it probably nothing wrong if I said that".....WTH does he mean by this comment....
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-09-2017 at 07:54 PM.
'Before almost anyone in the West imagined it, Russia was already interfering in elections of European countries.'
https://hudson.org/research/13666-we...ybrid-warfare#
Trump little known fact that he truly believes....
Little known fact: NATO is funded through a scheme in which the smaller countries give envelopes of cash to the bigger ones, with USA on top 50m
Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-10-2017 at 09:40 PM. Reason: brevity
Azor....you are starting to sound like David Horowitz of the 1968 timeframe about his "distrust" of the "deep state"......did not take you for a "deep stater"?????
WHERE were you yesterday????? He was willing to give both an open and closed session....GOP did not extend closed session to him......BUT he was told by the SC Mueller to refrain from speaking in a closed session as it would create potential problems for the ongoing investigations....
AND you really believe Trump is inexperienced.....REMEMBER this is the man that sold you and thousands of other Trump voters that he was this highly successful billionaire and great real estate businessman...remember he even had his own university pushing his highly successful business model or so he claimed...
AND after 4000 court cases it make you would think Trump could run circles around most lawyers...right?????
David Horowitz grew up a “red diaper baby” in a communist community in Sunnyside, Queens. He studied literature at Columbia, taking classes from Lionel Trilling, and became a "new leftist" during the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. He did his graduate work in Chinese and English at the University of California, arriving in Berkeley in the fall of 1959. At Berkeley, he was a member of a group of radicals who in 1960 published one of the first New Left magazines, Root and Branch. In 1962 he published the first manifesto of the New Left, a book titled, Student, which described the decade’s first demonstrations.
Horowitz went to Sweden in the fall of 1962 where he began writing The Free World Colossus, his most influential leftist book. In the fall of 1963 he moved to England where he went to work for the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and became a protege of the Polish Marxist biographer of Trotsky, Issac Deutscher, and Ralph Miliband, an English Marxist whose sons went on to become leaders of the British Labour Party. While in England Horowitz also wrote Shakespeare: An Existential View, which was published by Tavistock Books. Under the influence of Deutscher, he also wrote Empire and Revolution: A Radical Interpretation of Contemporary History, 1969.
In 1967, Horowitz returned to the U.S. to join the staff of Ramparts Magazine, which had become a major cultural influence on the left. In 1969 he and Peter Collier, who became his lifelong friend and collaborator, took over the editorship of the magazine. Collier and Horowitz left Ramparts in 1973 to write three best selling dynastic biographies: The Rockefellers: An American Dynasty (1976); The Kennedys: An American Dream (1984); and The Fords: An American Epic (1987).
During these years Horowitz wrote two other books, The Fate of Midas, a collection of his Marxist essays and The First Frontier, a book about the creation of the United States.NOW explain to me just how it is possible for a hardcore leftist to suddenly and completely swing alt right and one of the biggest alt rightists....Student: The Political Activities of the Berkeley Students (New York: Ballantine Books, 1962)
Marx and Modern Economics, ur. (1968)
Corporations and the Cold War, ur. (New York: Monthly Review, 1969)
Sinews of Empire Ramparts, October 1969, str.#32–42
Empire and Revolution: A Radical Interpretation of Contemporary History (1969) ISBN 0-394-70856-3
Corporations and the Cold War, ur. i uvod (1970) ISBN 0-85345-160-5
The Free World Colossus: A Critique of American Foreign Policy in the Cold War (1971) ISBN 0-8090-0107-1 (preštampano od Penguina pod naslovom "From Yalta to Vietnam" 1967)
The First Frontier: The Indian Wars and America's Origins, 1607–1776 (1978) ISBN 0-671-22534-0
Money.....it was and is for Horowitz all about "the money"....and right wing groups seem to swim in it ...left wing groups not so much...
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-09-2017 at 08:15 PM.
EXCLUSIVE: Trump targets illegal immigrants given reprieves by Obama.
http://reut.rs/2r3SIO4
See legal document:
http://reut.rs/2smJD6R
Two Swedish Neo-Nazis charged over refugee home blast 'received military training in Russia' shortly before act.
https://www.thelocal.se/20170609/got...ing-in-russia#
BUT THEN Trump walked back his Article 5 statement with this comment....
Trump keeps using caveat: "I want people... paying the kind of money necessary to have that force."
Last edited by davidbfpo; 06-10-2017 at 09:41 PM. Reason: brevity
Azor......always keep this in mind.....
Just in: House Intelligence Committee asks for #Comey memos and any White House recordingsIn announcing Mr. Comey’s dismissal on Tuesday, the White House released documents from the attorney general and the deputy attorney general that outlined why Mr. Comey should be fired.
Mr. Trump said in the NBC interview, “Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.”
“In fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story,” Mr. Trump said.
NOW what is interesting if the SC Mueller provides the memos THEN you can bet 400% the Russian investigation is getting close to indictments...If he holds them back which he can and not even the Senate can interfere with him....then it is still ongoing....and Trump has some serious problems.
Last edited by OUTLAW 09; 06-09-2017 at 08:31 PM.
Qatar Crisis now officially has a nuclear armed player. Pakistan aligns itself with Qatar, Iran and Turkey
AND now what does all that Trump tweet bluster do for settling this crisis that is slowly spinning out of control....?????
AND Trump took credit for starting it....
To Outlaw 09
I don’t read or pay attention to David Horowitz.
What I do pay attention to is networks of relationships and bureaucratic tendencies. Both you and CrowBat, for instance, commented repeatedly on the success of the Iran doves in setting policy during Obama’s presidency, and how their drive for a nuclear development agreement with Iran impacted U.S. policy on the wars in Syria, Iraq and Ukraine.
Personally, I have spent a great deal of time and energy arguing against those who claim that Russia hawks such as Nuland, set U.S. policy on Ukraine from late 2013 to present, when in fact they were in the wilderness until last year. Rhodes, while heavily influencing the U.S. response to the “Arab Spring”, denounced what he referred to as “the blob”.
Last year, pro-interventionists from both the Republican and Democratic parties endorsed Clinton’s candidacy, including a horde of former NSC members, IC directors and foreign service officers. The military establishment was predictably more circumspect during the election, as it pays the price for failures in intelligence and foreign policy.
Given that both you and CrowBat spent years decrying Obama’s cynical and selective foreign policy as well as the establishment and media that supported it or ignored inconvenient truths, don’t tell me that you no longer believe in “the blob” simply because its views happen to have briefly coincided with your own.
Comey declined an invitation to speak to the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed door session, but expressed willingness to testify in public, which he did. But he isn't showboating or grand-standing...
- Your favorite: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/u...rref=undefined
- The Hill: http://thehill.com/policy/national-s...tel-on-tuesday
- The Hill again: http://thehill.com/policy/national-s...-public-report
As regards Trump’s experience, he is the most politically inexperienced president in the postwar era. All of his predecessors were lawyers professionally and/or career politicians. Eisenhower is another exception, however, his career as a military officer and close work with presidential administrations from 1942 to 1952 gave him far more political experience than that of a mere businessman.
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