Trump-Mueller tensions escalate

[EasterJoy]

Apart from the government dole, many or most families are just not what they used to be! The whole culture is not what is used to be.

Yes. It has gotten so bad that even the past is not what it actually was…

 

[stinkcat_14]

Apart from the government dole, many or most families are just not what they used to be! The whole culture is not what is used to be.

I agree that in some sense we have become spoiled by the luxuries we have been used to. The problem is that in current times when funds are scarce, somebody is going to have to sacrifice somewhere. Should someone like Warren Buffet really have his part B heavily subsidized by the taxpayers? You would think this would be an issue where there is common ground between republicans and democrats.

 

[josie_L]

He didn’t have any choice? Oh, please. That is ridiculous.

The man refused to make PUBLIC THE FACT THAT TRUMP WAS NOT BEING INVESTIGATED for MONTHS. I would call that reason enough to fire him. This is on record, by the way, as he was asked to make it public, but did not.

Grassley blames Comey for false Trump narrative: ‘Played right into Russia’s hands’

A top Republican took to the Senate floor Thursday to blame fired FBI Director James B. Comey for fanning “conspiracy theories” about the U.S. election that “played right into Russia’s hands.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican who, as chairman of the Judiciary Committee, has oversight of the FBI, also accused Mr. Comey of working to “shade the truth” by agreeing to the Obama administration’s attempt to soft-pedal the criminal probe of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Despite rampant public speculation, Mr. Comey kept hidden the fact that the president wasn’t under investigation — allowing conspiracy theories and speculation to run wild,
Mr. Grassley said.

Mr. Grassley said he personally told Mr. Comey to reveal publicly what the FBI director had told top congressional leaders — that the president wasn’t a target of the Russia probe.

But Mr. Comey refused, saying later that he had feared saying something he’d later have to correct.

**“None of this fiasco had to happen if Mr. Comey had just been transparent with the public, as I urged him to,” **

“They played right into Russia’s hands,” he added.

The senator’s remarks were striking. A fiercely independent lawmaker, Mr. Grassley has used his office to probe both Democrats and Republicans.

He’s now in charge of one of the probes on Capitol Hill looking into Mr. Comey’s firing and other aspects of the 2016 election brouhaha.

“We’re going to go where the facts take us,” Mr. Grassley said.

He said Democrats ended up fostering the very Russian meddling in American democracy that they decried — and he specifically fingered Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, saying the New York Democrat knew from Mr. Comey that Mr. Trump wasn’t under investigation but told the public differently.

Mr. Grassley said that as a member of the “Gang of Eight” — the four high-ranking lawmakers in each party who get the most thorough intelligence briefing — Mr. Schumer knew Mr. Trump wasn’t being probed. But Mr. Schumer “told the media that the president was under investigation. And, of course, that further helped feed media hysteria,” Mr. Grassley said.

washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/22/grassley-blames-comey-false-trump-narrative/

So not only did Comey not publicly declare that Trump was not under investigation, but Senator Shumer, A DEMOCRAT, went to the media to declare that he was. This is unparalleled in sheer chutzpah and somewhat seditious in nature, so it’s to be expected that under these conditions President Trump might not be as honest and forthright as he should be, HE CAN’T SEEM TO TRUST ANYONE.

And Mueller’s special counsel’s office is no different, i.e., they are leaking information like a sieve to the public.

wsj.com/articles/mueller-and-associates-1500668345

So no, he was not “forced” to fire Comey before the investigation was concluded. That is nonsense. If he had any common sense, he would have either fired Comey on Day One but made no attempt to do anything about any investigation into his activities or else waited until the investigation was over. He provided the impetus to appoint a special prosecutor all by himself, and he has himself to thank for it.

I don’t care if Trump should have or would have, the fact of the matter is that Comey was fired because he fanned the flames of the Russian/Trump conspiracy by letting the public and the media continue believing that Trump was under investigation, when all he had to do was say he was not (which is what he said before the Senate Intelligence Committee):

The Comey statement suggests that one reason Trump fired him was because of his refusal or failure to publicly announce that the FBI was not investigating Trump personally. Trump “repeatedly” told Comey to “get that fact out,” and he did not.

If that is true, it is certainly not an obstruction of justice.

Nor is it an obstruction of justice to ask for loyalty from the director of the FBI, who responded “you will get that ‘honest loyalty’] from me.”

Instead it has weakened an already weak case for obstruction of justice.

washingtonexaminer.com/alan-dershowitz-history-precedent-and-james-comeys-opening-statement-show-that-trump-did-not-obstruct-justice/article/2625318

 

[Jig_Saw]

I am looking at it objectively, in fact, as a Canadian I don’t have anything per se to lose whether I am or am not in support of Trump, the thing is that the hysteria surrounding the Russia/Trump collusion wherein all things Russian in connection to Trump are now suspect, is ridiculous, in fact, no real evidence of collusion has been offered by the Mueller’s investigation thus far. And no crime has been committed. We just have an overgeneralized allegation of collusion without even questioning where the source of such a collusion came about? But I can tell you where it came about and/or came from, paid Russian sources of the Steele/Orbis dossier that was funded by Hillary donors for the Hillary campaign via the opposition research company, Fusion GPS. So the irony of all this is that Democrats and the media are willing to believe the unverified claims of collusion stated in the dossier sourced by Russians, thereby allowing the Kremlin (because I have no doubt that these sources are bogus sources created by the Kremlin) to interfere and influence your elections, the very thing that Trump is being accused of. And yes, 4 agencies of the Intelligence communities did state there was some Russian interference in the elections, but that interference was not claimed to have affected said results of the election, but this dossier most certainly has. .

At this point, I am primarily concerned about Trump’s involvement with the Russians because he is the one actually in power. I do believe that Clinton can be investigated (and may be currently investigated) by the FBI under normal channels because she is not in the position to influence the investigation, nor is she in a position of power. So if there is something to the story, this will be handled.

On the other hand, the American people deserve to know that their president did not commit a crime nor is he under the influence of a foreign power. Again, we have seen that the highest levels of the Trump campaign tried to collude with the Russian government through Junior’s email exchange, which, in my non-lawyerly reading of the law, sure looks like a crime to me. Considering the denials from the Trump camp before this was released, I have to wonder if there are being totally honest on other issues, but I am sure that the investigation will work on this.

{QUOTE]

Perhaps you can access it from here:

realclearpolitics.com/

The title is “No Evidence, But Investigation Without Limit” (July 24th).

Oh, that did work. Yeah, pretty much entirely disagree with the article. Seems like a lame attempt to keep Trump out of legal jeopardy by claiming that investigators must limit where the evidence may lead them.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I have no reason to believe Trump is under the influence of a foreign power.

The same maybe could not be said about Obama when if came to climate change.

 

[Jig_Saw]

I have no reason to believe Trump is under the influence of a foreign power.

The same maybe could not be said about Obama when if came to climate change.

I would have to disagree with you that there is no reason to believe that Trump is under the influence of a foreign power. Russia comes up far, far too much to not raise an eyebrow. Fortunately, this will be investigated.

 

[EasterJoy]

The man refused to make PUBLIC THE FACT THAT TRUMP WAS NOT BEING INVESTIGATED for MONTHS. I would call that reason enough to fire him. This is on record, by the way, as he was asked to make it public, but did not.

So not only did Comey not publicly declare that Trump was not under investigation, but Senator Shumer, A DEMOCRAT, went to the media to declare that he was. This is unparalleled in sheer chutzpah and somewhat seditious in nature, so it’s to be expected that under these conditions President Trump might not be as honest and forthright as he should be, HE CAN’T SEEM TO TRUST ANYONE.

And Mueller’s special counsel’s office is no different, i.e., they are leaking information like a sieve to the public.

wsj.com/articles/mueller-and-associates-1500668345

I don’t care if Trump should have or would have, the fact of the matter is that Comey was fired because he fanned the flames of the Russian/Trump conspiracy by letting the public and the media continue believing that Trump was under investigation, when all he had to do was say he was not (which is what he said before the Senate Intelligence Committee):

Remind me when a public official was “forced” to fire an FBI directory, attorney general, chief of police or sheriff for refusing to say who they were and were not investigating. That will help me see how Trump was “forced” to fire Comey for not making an announcement of that sort. Do remember that we’re talking about an investigation into Russian misconduct and a public official whose business in Russia and with Russians has run into the tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of the last 20 years.

Are you really saying that Trump is not “as honest and forthright as he should be, HE CAN’T SEEM TO TRUST ANYONE”? The fellow who kept fanning the flames of a false investigation into where President Obama was born really ought to have a thicker skin about this kind of thing, don’t you think? I think you have him mixed up with the perennially paranoid Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Trump says things to make himself look good, like telling essentially anyone who would listen that he’d had direct and indirect communications with Mr. Putin and a relationship with him, and then denying later that he knew the man. He has called women all sorts of awful names and denied later that he said it. Well, go ahead and be rude and congratulate yourself because you’re not politically correct, but when you have to face up to what you said later, don’t lie about it. He is famous for making up statistics; I would love to have you find one time when Mr. Trump personally admitted that he had his numbers wrong–and boy, sometimes he gets them order-of-magnitude-wrong, like saying Obama was going to let in 200,000 Syrians annually when the number was really 10,000. (Blaming a journalist or someone else because he read something in a magazine or heard a sound-bite on TV and didn’t bother to look up the numbers from an independent source himself does not count. His job does involve homework, sorry.)

 

[EasterJoy]

I have no reason to believe Trump is under the influence of a foreign power.

The same maybe could not be said about Obama when if came to climate change.

Technically speaking, the National Academy of Science is not a foreign power.

Nor is the American Meterological Society. Nor is the American Chemical Society. Nor is the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Nor is the American Geophysical Union. Nor is the American Physical Society…

 

[EasterJoy]

I would have to disagree with you that there is no reason to believe that Trump is under the influence of a foreign power. Russia comes up far, far too much to not raise an eyebrow. Fortunately, this will be investigated.

If it is investigated, it will be no thanks to Mr. Trump.

Just for the record: a) I didn’t vote for Hillary Clinton and b) yes, I would like to know what is in his tax returns. His statement that no one cares is also wrong and I don’t believe he doesn’t know that it is wrong, either. Which makes that statement a ______.

 

[josie_L]

At this point, I am primarily concerned about Trump’s involvement with the Russians because he is the one actually in power.

There is no evidence, there is no crime except an allegation based on a Russia-sourced dossier that Russia and Trump worked together to influence the elections, this investigation in essence was based on nothing, and it will only hurt your country and play into the hands of Putin.

On the other hand, the American people deserve to know that their president did not commit a crime nor is he under the influence of a foreign power. Again, we have seen that the highest levels of the Trump campaign tried to collude with the Russian government through Junior’s email exchange, which, in my non-lawyerly reading of the law, sure looks like a crime to me. Considering the denials from the Trump camp before this was released, I have to wonder if there are being totally honest on other issues, but I am sure that the investigation will work on this.

Manafort “resigned” in August, Trump Jr, was not part of the campaign and so was not obliged to report said meeting, leaving Kushner, who along with Manafort did report said meeting prior to the NYT article, but nevertheless nothing of import, nor illegality was done. And it is not a crime, otherwise Hillary (campaign) would be in even hotter water as she PAID and SOUGHT the Ukraine government for dirt on Trump. Moreover, when the meeting did take place, it was before anyone knew about Russian interference, and so there was no crime in meeting up with a Russian, as there would have been after the fact. And if there was a “crime”, then please state what law was broken?

Oh, that did work. Yeah, pretty much entirely disagree with the article. Seems like a lame attempt to keep Trump out of legal jeopardy by claiming that investigators must limit where the evidence may lead them.

I thought you would, but it does make sense, it’s just your bias against Trump doesn’t allow you to see it for what it is, an investigation based on nothing producing nothing, yet given more scope than is called for. A miscarriage of justice and liberties, just awful, really.

 

[josie_L]

Remind me when a public official was “forced” to fire an FBI directory, attorney general, chief of police or sheriff for refusing to say who they were and were not investigating. That will help me see how Trump was “forced” to fire Comey for not making an announcement of that sort. Do remember that we’re talking about an investigation into Russian misconduct and a public official whose business in Russia and with Russians has run into the tens and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of the last 20 years.

Easterjoy, this probe is not against having ANY RUSSIAN connections, especially since Trump was/is a Real Estate developer from NY, so, of course he’s going to have dealing and/or connections to Russia, but these are not the connections that the claims spurring the investigation are about, even though Mueller has the mandate (which can be changed) to probe his Russia business dealings. It would behoove you to read this article from the Wall Street Journal, No Evidence, But Investigation Without Limit (July 24), you can access from Real Clear politics:

realclearpolitics.com/am_update/

Comey’s firing was not forced per se, but it was necessary, and the president is not a public official, he is the POTUS and also the HEAD OF THE FBI, in effect, Comey’s boss, whose duty it was was to inform the public that Trump was not under investigation, yet he never did, and so instead of putting the kibosh on the spurious claims of a Russia/Trump narrative, he kept them going. His actions were therefore, disloyal, imprudent/obstructive and self-serving, hence the firing. So don’t go on about how Trump was trying to obstruct justice, he was not, in fact, he was well within his rights to fire Comey, deservedly so!!!

Are you really saying that Trump is not “as honest and forthright as he should be, HE CAN’T SEEM TO TRUST ANYONE”? The fellow who kept fanning the flames of a false investigation into where President Obama was born really ought to have a thicker skin about this kind of thing, don’t you think? I think you have him mixed up with the perennially paranoid Mrs. Clinton.

Obama never did show his ORIGINAL birth certificate, just saying.

Mr. Trump says things to make himself look good, like telling essentially anyone who would listen that he’d had direct and indirect communications with Mr. Putin and a relationship with him, and then denying later that he knew the man.

He never denied that he knew the man, he said that he didn’t have a relationship with Putin, which does not mean he denied he knew him. And what one says in 2013 can change in 2016, i.e., maybe he did not have or continue whatever relationship he had with Putin then, but it wasn’t a crime to have a relationship in the first place. I mean ever since this so-called Russian interference, everything RUSSIAN IS NOW SUSPECT. Ridiculous!!

He has called women all sorts of awful names and denied later that he said it. Well, go ahead and be rude and congratulate yourself because you’re not politically correct, but when you have to face up to what you said later, don’t lie about it. He is famous for making up statistics; I would love to have you find one time when Mr. Trump personally admitted that he had his numbers wrong–and boy, sometimes he gets them order-of-magnitude-wrong, like saying Obama was going to let in 200,000 Syrians annually when the number was really 10,000. (Blaming a journalist or someone else because he read something in a magazine or heard a sound-bite on TV and didn’t bother to look up the numbers from an independent source himself does not count. His job does involve homework, sorry.)

More reasons about why you don’t like or trust him, but nothing to do with the Russian/Trump collusion and/or the above being evidence of his collusion with Russia to influence the election.

 

[dvdjs]

There is no evidence, there is no crime except an allegation based on a Russia-sourced dossier that Russia and Trump worked together to influence the elections …

I implore to stop repeating this nonsense. In charity I assume that you simply do not know what you are talking about. Please check the a summary of the timeline here.
billmoyers.com/story/the-trump-resistance-plan-a-timeline-russia-and-president-trump/

The people who think that this is worth investigating are not stupid and are not devoid of honor. Rather than implicitly impugning their character, give them the credit that they deserve.

 

[josie_L]

I implore to stop repeating this nonsense. In charity I assume that you simply do not know what you are talking about. Please check the a summary of the timeline here.
billmoyers.com/story/the-trump-resistance-plan-a-timeline-russia-and-president-trump/

The people who think that this is worth investigating are not stupid and are not void of honor. Rather than implicitly impugning their character, give them the credit that they deserve.

I am not impugning anyone, and there is no evidence/crime, but there are suspicions and suspicious-like events (Trump Jr.'s emails), but that is not evidence per se of Trump colluding with Russia to influence the elections in his favour, and I’m not the only one whose stating this, in fact, I’ve been sourcing almost everything I say, so as not to appear like I’m speaking nonsense.

I’m sorry, if this offends but it is not meant to offend.

 

[dvdjs]

I am not impugning anyone, and there is no evidence/crime, but there are suspicions and suspicious-like events (Trump Jr.'s emails), but that is not evidence per se of Trump colluding with Russia to influence the elections in his favour, and I’m not the only one whose stating this, in fact, I’ve been sourcing almost everything I say, so as not to appear like I’m speaking nonsense.

I’m sorry, if this offends but it is not meant to offend.

I am gad that you are sorry. The people investigating are not stupid and have honor. Give them their due.

 

[josie_L]

I am gad that you are sorry. The people investigating are not stupid and have honor. Give them their due.

There are many people investigating and reporting this, so I am giving some of those people their due. Not all, as I am aware that some are only to willing to go after Trump because of who he is and what he stands for and how that gets in the way of their agenda.

 

[Ridgerunner]

On the other hand, the American people deserve to know that their president did not commit a crime nor is he under the influence of a foreign power. Again, we have seen that the highest levels of the Trump campaign tried to collude with the Russian government through Junior’s email exchange, which, in my non-lawyerly reading of the law, sure looks like a crime to me. Considering the denials from the Trump camp before this was released, I have to wonder if there are being totally .

Trump Jr’s meeting was no crime. What crime was committed? A non-Russian told Trump Jr that some unidentified person had information on Clinton that “came from” the office of Russia’s chief prosecutor. So he agreed to look at it. A person who was a Russian appeared for the meeting but had nothing to offer.

So the crime is what?

Somebody or other disclosed information from the DNC computer. A spy-for-hire group with a less than sterling reputation said it was Russian hackers. Nobody has even confirmed that. The allegedly identified “spyware” program’s most frequent users are in the U.S., not Russia.

So the crime is what?

And even if Trump or Trump Jr actually received information “from the Russian prosecutor’s office”, (which apparently neither did) it’s not a crime.

At the end of all of this, the only indictments will be the result of “perjury traps” laid by the special prosecutor or his people; the typical “fruit” of special prosecutor investigations. And there will, of course, be all sorts of propaganda innuendo “leaks” that go nowhere.

Wait and see.

 

[Jig_Saw]

Trump Jr’s meeting was no crime. What crime was committed? A non-Russian told Trump Jr that some unidentified person had information on Clinton that “came from” the office of Russia’s chief prosecutor. So he agreed to look at it. A person who was a Russian appeared for the meeting but had nothing to offer.

So the crime is what?

Yes, we’ve been through this. DTJ’s potential crime is soliciting a foreign power for an US election. We’ve been back and forth on this and I know you don’t think it’s a crime and I do and we both aren’t lawyers, so I guess we’ll have to wait for the courts. Besides that, who knows what else the investigation has uncovered?

Somebody or other disclosed information from the DNC computer. A spy-for-hire group with a less than sterling reputation said it was Russian hackers. Nobody has even confirmed that. The allegedly identified “spyware” program’s most frequent users are in the U.S., not Russia.

So the crime is what?

We’ll have to see, won’t we? That’s the point of an investigation.

And even if Trump or Trump Jr actually received information “from the Russian prosecutor’s office”, (which apparently neither did) it’s not a crime.

Yes, well, that’s up to the courts as you and I disagree on the interpretation of the law.

At the end of all of this, the only indictments will be the result of “perjury traps” laid by the special prosecutor or his people; the typical “fruit” of special prosecutor investigations. And there will, of course, be all sorts of propaganda innuendo “leaks” that go nowhere.

Wait and see.

Strangely enough, there probably already has been a fair amount of perjury given the number of ‘adjustments’ that have been made to the national security forms filled out by Trump’s people. Given how lose they are with the truth, I wouldn’t be surprised if a perjury charge occurs. Trump’s people can’t seem to remember a lot when they deal with the Russians. I wonder what they are hiding.

 

[Jig_Saw]

There is no evidence, there is no crime except an allegation based on a Russia-sourced dossier that Russia and Trump worked together to influence the elections, this investigation in essence was based on nothing, and it will only hurt your country and play into the hands of Putin.

Again, the evidence is the emails where the highest levels of the Trump campaign met with someone they believed to be a Russian agent t to get intelligence obtained the Russian government on their political opponent.

Manafort “resigned” in August, Trump Jr, was not part of the campaign and so was not obliged to report said meeting, leaving Kushner, who along with Manafort did report said meeting prior to the NYT article, but nevertheless nothing of import, nor illegality was done. And it is not a crime, otherwise Hillary (campaign) would be in even hotter water as she PAID and SOUGHT the Ukraine government for dirt on Trump. Moreover, when the meeting did take place, it was before anyone knew about Russian interference, and so there was no crime in meeting up with a Russian, as there would have been after the fact. And if there was a “crime”, then please state what law was broken?

Trump Jr certainly acted like part of the campaign when he answered those emails. Manafort was part of the campaign. Kushner was required to report the meeting and did not.

Now, I think this is a violation of campaign law, but again, I am not an attorney.

As far as Clinton goes, I consider this a deflection from discussing the issue at hand.

I thought you would, but it does make sense, it’s just your bias against Trump doesn’t allow you to see it for what it is, an investigation based on nothing producing nothing, yet given more scope than is called for. A miscarriage of justice and liberties, just awful, really.

Well, at least you haven’t called me a hater yet. I hope that’s not next.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I would have to disagree with you that there is no reason to believe that Trump is under the influence of a foreign power. Russia comes up far, far too much to not raise an eyebrow. Fortunately, this will be investigated.

I wonder how many conversations went on between Russia and the Obama administration for 8 years.

 

[Jig_Saw]

I wonder how many conversations went on between Russia and the Obama administration for 8 years.

Deflection and irrelevant.