The Catholic Case Against Impeachment - Crisis

[Maximus1]

Investigating investigators is a totalitarian tactic. Notwithstanding I have no objection to a fair investigation that doesn’t destroy reputations before complete. That is a tried and tested intimidation method for the unscrupulous trying to evade oversight. And that is bad for the nation.
The argument involving Biden is one of innuendo. A press conference is a hit and run. Like Comey opening up an investigation just long enough to influence a close race.
Biden was an agent of an administration seeking to get Ukraine to fire a currupt prosecutor everyone( including GOP SENATORS at the time and allies wanted out. ) A quid pro quo is fine when one party is America. And Obama didn’t make policy for Hunter Biden.

 

[HarryStotle]

Investigating investigators is a totalitarian tactic.

Incorrect. It would only be totalitarian if the investigators themselves are provably NOT corrupt.

By your lights, the position of Inspector General is totalitarian by design.

The Office of the Inspector General ( OIG ) for the Department of Justice (DOJ) is the Office of the Inspector General specific to the United States Department of Justice that is responsible for conducting nearly all of the investigations of DOJ employees and programs. The office has several hundred employees, reporting to the Inspector General. Michael E. Horowitz has held the post since 2012.[1][2]

Perhaps Jimmy Carter (Democrat) who signed the IG Act into existence in 1978 was a totalitarian?

Should police detectives (investigators) not be monitored?

 

[Maximus1]

Flynn apparently lied to the VP as officially why Trump fired him.
Flynn and his son pled, and we’re not prosecuted for acting as PAID AGENT OF THE TURKISH PRESIDENT, at the same time he was receiving the highest briefings as employee of Trump. The worst conflict I ever heard of. Flynn was trying to get an extradition literally from ONE BOSS via his power through the president. He was on calls with Kisleyak that are always monitored. And Flynn was in charge of military protocols and conflicts in this area as the top US official on the subject. Which makes his being taken advantage of a farce.
I understand privacy. I also understand the giant breach with a Turkish agent via contract operating as NSA. ULTIMATELY they should have been alarmed by that. Trying to extradite on behalf of Turkey per Flynn’s contract with them as NSA.
BUT ultimately Flynn lied to the VP and American people and was an extortion risk. What’s the argument? Should have gotten away with it fair and square. He still generated compromat with his lie. Should the assistant AG ( ACTING) NOT TELL TRUMP?

 

[HarryStotle]

Notwithstanding I have no objection to a fair investigation that doesn’t destroy reputations before complete.

How has the four year long attempt to destroy the reputation of Donald Trump as president even after a “fair” investigation proved nothing?

A crime still in progress

The ultimate effect of Fusion GPS’s work, of which Crime in Progress is the latest installment, will be to harden the country’s political divide

spectatorworld.com

It isn’t clear to me that neither you nor the “impeachment crowd” have any reasonable sense of what fairness with regard to Donald Trump would look like.

 

[HarryStotle]

Flynn apparently lied to the VP as officially why Trump fired him.
Flynn and his son pled, and we’re not prosecuted for acting as PAID AGENT OF THE TURKISH PRESIDENT, at the same time he was receiving the highest briefings as employee of Trump. The worst conflict I ever heard of. Flynn was trying to get an extradition literally from ONE BOSS via his power through the president. He was on calls with Kisleyak that are always monitored. And Flynn was in charge of military protocols and conflicts in this area as the top US official on the subject. Which makes his being taken advantage of a farce.
I understand privacy. I also understand the giant breach with a Turkish agent via contract operating as NSA. ULTIMATELY they should have been alarmed by that. Trying to extradite on behalf of Turkey per Flynn’s contract with them as NSA.
BUT ultimately Flynn lied to the VP and American people and was an extortion risk. What’s the argument? Should have gotten away with it fair and square. He still generated compromat with his lie. Should the assistant AG ( ACTING) NOT TELL TRUMP?

His “lie” may have come about under threat to his family by the prosecutors. That case is still being adjudicated.

 

[Maximus1]

What was unfair?
Question 2, who was unfair?
You might not want to hear this but Trump engaged in heroic effort with an all GOP government that led to Mueller. Almost impossible to imagine the littany of public things he did.
They helped him and hurt her. Trump still took a meeting from them in the midst. FOR MORE HELP! He said no involvement with Russia TO THE AMERICAN PEOPLE at all, when apparently he was actively negotiating for Trump Tower Moscow. HIS DENIAL of Putin involvement constantly while Mueller’s report reported that he engaged the campaign to utilize ANTICIPATED FUTURE DUMPS.
IT WAS REDACTED, but apparently he was working with Stone, the point man for Wiki leaks per the Chief of Staff. His AG got caught lying about conversations about Kisleyak conversations. And recused. Manafort’s immediate prior boss was a Putin puppet who fled to Putin for Assylum and was convicted of TREASON. Throw in a request for Hillary Emails to Putin who apparently went to work at Trump’s request that day. But Comey was then a biggie next. Trump solicited a letter from his own assistant AG to fire Comey.
The grounds: Comey was basically unfair to Hillary. On the stump only 6 weeks earlier, Trump is on video praising Comey for being brave.
Then Trump goes on TV and says Russia is why he fired Comey. Then I the Whitehouse that’s what he tells Kisleyak. Did he have a death wish?

 

[Maximus1]

Turnout. But if facts continue to come out, his followers are forced to retreat into less defensible positions.
My experience with juries is they often miss the nuance of facts. What they do pick up is the need to retrench and abandon something you previously said. That is sometimes how they pick sides. These Republicans face questions on these concealed documents about Trump freezing the money. They have to get interviewed I full view of their exploding shoes going bang. They only have so many of those before self preservation be thy name.

 

[ProVobis]

Mueller proved after two years of investigating that Trump wasn’t guilty of collusion.

The Roger Stone trial showed that he was. The matter is with the SDNY, along with his other co-conspiracies in crimes.

 

[Rau]

How has the four year long attempt to destroy the reputation of Donald Trump as president even after a “fair” investigation proved nothing?

I understand you feel that way. But there are legions of folk who feel Trump’s own actions are the source of his reputational damage. Who’s right?

 

[tafan2]

Speaking of one who thinks Trump certainly did something very wrong with regards to Ukraine, I do agree with this assessment of the Democrats handling of the impeachment process. Impeachment is analogous to the grand jury phase of a criminal proceeding, that is the investigative phase. They should have issued subpeonas against Bolton and Mulvaney and fought in court to force their testimony, timeline be d#$ned.
Now they are trying to force the Senate to look at new evidence because they were unwilling to fight the battle that needed to be fought.

 

[7_Sorrows]

7_Sorrows:

I hope you are joking. Elizabeth’s post is the truth.

Of course I am not joking. I understand you think Trump is the best thing since sliced bread. Please understand that many of us think he is far from it.

No, I don’t think he is the best thing since sliced bread, but he is sure better than
what the democrats have to offer.

 

[Dawnia]

Guess we’ll find out after the next election on whether his reputation or those of the Dems will be hardest hit.

From where I’m sitting, many people who can’t stand Trump are planning to vote for him. They see the impeachment as nothing more than the Dems scrambling to get Trump out because they know he’s going to easily win re-election. (I don’t have their same faith that he’ll win, but having seen what the Dems are offering, I wouldn’t be surprised.)

 

[pnewton]

A one in seven dissent doesn’t carry any weight. Odd thing to base an article on.

 

[pnewton]

It isn’t clear to me that neither you nor the “impeachment crowd” have any reasonable sense of what fairness with regard to Donald Trump would look like.

I can give my own take. I think the House made the case for impeachment to the whole body. In the end, the resulting split was so nearly perfectly along party lines, there is a good argument for saying that the case for impeachment was not successful. If even a dozen of fair-minded Republicans would have seen the need for impeachment, then I would be inclined to see it as legitimate.

But no, I do not think there is any way short of extreme partisanship one can say there is a Catholic position on the topic.

 

[HarryStotle]

Your initial point that you seem to want to avoid defending was…

Maximus1:

Obama was out of office when Trump personally, was being investigated.

Actually, that isn’t true. The Steele Dossier allegations were being investigated by the FBI (agent Michael Gaeta) as early as July of 2016. Despite that everything in the dossier was proved to be unverifiable, it was still used as the sole justification for the FISA warrant and renewals before (August, October 2016 - Carter Page) and after (Jan, Apr and Jun 2017)…

The date at which the first FISA was obtained was not necessarily the beginning of the investigation into Trump and his campaign. That happened far earlier.

The IG report says that on Aug. 11, 2016, the agent met with Halper, whom he had handled as an informant since 2011. On Aug. 15, 2016, the agent raised the idea with others at the FBI of applying for a FISA order on Page. He wrote in an email cited in the IG report that there was a “pretty solid basis” to believe that Page was working as an agent of Russia. The suspicion was based on Page’s past business dealings in Russia, a that Page made to Moscow in early July 2016, and his known interactions years earlier with a Russian intelligence officer. FBI lawyers rejected the request to apply for a FISA, saying that there was not probable to believe Page was a Russian agent.
Source: Meet 'Case Agent 1,' the FBI Agent Behind the 'Most Significant' Errors in Trump-Russia Investigation | The National Interest

The first FISA WARRANT was obtained a few weeks before the election in November. It yielded what that implicated Trump?

In other words, your asking what the FISA warrant yielded (when it was obtained) about Trump completely misses the entire point. The investigation predated the actual obtaining of the warrant.

The FBI knew Page wasn’t colluding with Russia because he was a CIA asset. Yet, they were looking for a pretext to surveil the Trump campaign hoping to dig something up on Trump. He was being “investigated” as early as July.

The agent, who was one of the first FBI agents to join Crossfire Hurricane after it opened on July 31, 2016, also withheld information that raised questions about the credibility and reliability of Steele and the veracity of his dossier, which alleged a “well-developed conspiracy of cooperation” between the Trump campaign and Russian government. (Same source as above.)

Ergo, he was actively being investigated in the hopes of finding something to pin on him. The fact that they knew about Carter Page’s connections with the CIA and knew his “suspicious” dealings with Russia were bogus, yet the case agents suggested in August that a FISA order be sought to surveil Page and others on the Trump campaign, specifically Flynn was the target, even then. The lawyers turned down the request.

None of that implies Trump wasn’t “investigated” until “a few weeks before the election in November,” as you suggest.

 

[HarryStotle]

But no, I do not think there is any way short of extreme partisanship one can say there is a Catholic position on the topic.

The Catholic position would be the position based upon complete truth and justice.

There is a definitively Catholic position, but the reason it isn’t obvious is because most of the facts and evidence (the entire truth of the story) aren’t clear and are likely being covered up to protect the guilty.

The “partisanship” gets in the way when those discussing the case can’t see their way to get beyond their own precognitive bias.

 

[HarryStotle]

But no, I do not think there is any way short of extreme partisanship one can say there is a Catholic position on the topic.

I suppose one way to test the “extreme partisanship” is to read this list of Trump’s top ten achievements in 2019:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/12/31/trumps_top_10_achievements_for_2019_142047.html

Then ask oneself (not you specifically, but anyone reading this): “Are those achievements significant?”

If your answer was, “No, BECAUSE all of those are outweighed by a phone call to a certain Ukrainian president,” I would suggest “extreme partisanship” is a major factor in your view.

At least the author of the above piece, Steve Cortes, a CNN political commentator sees a glimpse of real clear politics through the haze of extreme partisanship.

 

[Maximus1]

The investigation began in July 2016 with adequate basis to investigate. That basis was not yet related to Page as of that date… At that point the investigation was open and they followed leads.
The mishandling of a FISA WARRANT is its own seperate issue. It is not uncommon unfortunately. Regular warrants sworn out by law enforcement are challenged and evidence is suppressed for an error, or misconduct, of mistakes of overzealous law enforcement, all the time. In the Court Reporters it would be interesting to see how many suppression motions are granted nationally.
Thousands? Tens of thousands? Hundreds? And with a FISA warrant it has always been a thin process Constitutionally. A remnant of Americans giving up rights in exchange for percieved safety after 9/11.
Only thing that happened unusual here is the intense scrutiny this particular warrant got compared to others. Fortunately it warrants revisiting this process to remedy shortcomings.
Errors are unfortunately not rare. When there is enough scrutiny( like IN the OJ CASE), good lawyers tease them out. It is up to you if they warranted OJ going free because of innocence because that is a different issue.
Finally , the campaign had a counter Intel investigation begun.
Not Trump specifically until Obama was out of office. Nothing you wrote changes that

 

[HarryStotle]

The investigation began in July 2016 with adequate basis to investigate. That basis was not yet Page. At that point the investigation is open and they follow leads.
The mishandling of a FISA WARRANT is its own seperate issue. It is not uncommon unfortunately. Regular warrants sworn out by law enforcement are challenged and evidence is suppressed for an error, or misconduct, of mistakes of overzealous law enforcement all the time. In the court reporters it would be interesting to see how many suppression motions are granted nationally.
Thousands. Tens of thousands? And with a FISA warrant it has always been a thin process Constitutionally. A remnant of Americans giving up rights in exchange for percieved safety after 9/11.
Only thing that happened here is the intense scrutiny this particular warrant got compared to others. That’s all.

Got evidence for what you claim about FISA warrants?

That’s all.

 

[Maximus1]

99% are granted for one thing.
And there is no process for challenging them as with standard warrants where suppression motions are granted somewhere every day.