American Politics Discussion Thread

[Gavagai]

"In sum, the investigation established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some instances , the Campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the Campaign officials shied away. Ultimately , the investigation did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities".
This often quoted paragraph sums up the spirit of the report perfectly. Notice how in the second sentence the word "government" gets dropped and we have just "Russians" which really removes from the claim all kind of teeth. However, "government" comes back in the last sentence, so an inattentive reader may fail to notice this little detail. And what the fuck "receptive" means? It can mean anything, from a polite decline of "we will call you back" type to enthusiastic acceptance. This is why Mueller would never want to bring anything like that report to a court. He does not really have anything on Trump except colorful adjectives and suggestive hints.

[Gavagai]

There is no question that the Trump campaign (and the candidate himself) welcomed Russian attacks on his opponent, and that Trump tried multiple times to undermine the Mueller investigation.

And none of that constitutes a crime.

[superdeath]

If my fellow Americans would just vote independent, instead of sticking to archaic right/left wings.. I look at the political alignment like a horseshoe, both extremes are very close to each other, and neither are a good fit for this country. Democrats like to whine and holler about " you offended me " and republicans like to whine and holler about " Abortion is bad "

Democrats are a party of bad ideas, but they ARE trying to move forward.
Republicans are a party stuck in the past, but some of their ideas should stay.

Why cant more people be independent?

[wetbandit]

Mueller report demonstrates us the reason why prosecutors should speak in he language of indictments, not "reports". An indictment goes to court where witnesses get cross-examined and the defense gets a chance to present its objections and counter-evidence. Instead, we now have a biased, one-sided document... which is never going to get any external scrutiny and which we are somehow supposed to treat as a final official word on the matter.

This comment demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the legal framework under which Mueller operated and chose to be constrained by.  Mueller chose to abide by legal opinions issued by the Office of Legal Counsel which finds that a sitting president cannot be indicted (Vol. II, p. 1).

"First, a traditional prosecution or declination decision entails a binary determination to initiate or decline a prosecution, but we determined not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgment. The Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has issued an opinion finding that "the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the constitutional separation of powers."

Mueller did not apparently contemplate ever attempting to obtain an indictment against the President to my understanding. 

With respect to an indictment, it's an inherently "biased" document.  It's not a language; it's the state's initial pleading arguing why a defendant should be convicted of the charged offense.  The prosecutors are going to put forward their case in an indictment.  If this was an actual criminal case, procedure would allow for a criminal defendant to conduct a defense to the charged offenses.  Which include all the fun things like motions to exclude and cross-examination and what have you.

But, as you observe, we have a document characterized as a report. Your evaluation of the Report, I would think, would depend on the veracity of the described methodology and the evidence presented.  The Report, and I haven't read all of it, presents a case, albeit it seems that the findings therein are exhaustively supported by statements, testimony, and other evidence.  Moreover, I also think your contention that the document won't have any external scrutiny is demonstrably false, as there are no shortage of pols and pundits lining up to support or criticize the contents and conclusions of the report. 

To my understanding, Mueller has also declined to make an evaluation of whether or not the evidence his investigation has uncovered amounts to obstruction of justice or another federal crime that the President may have committed.  I suppose I can understand some reasons why that was done, although I'm not sure that I agree with them.  I definitely support the proposition that the ultimate remedy, to the extent that there needs to be a remedy, is the political determination by elected Congresspeople to, in the House, attempt to impeach the President, and, in the Senate, vote to remove him from office.  Whether or not Mueller concludes that the President violated the law is not a legal precondition to impeachment.  For all we know, he could have concluded that and the Congress could reject those findings and decline to impeach/remove from office.   These issues are inherently political questions cloaked as legal determinations under the "high crimes and misdemeanors" language in the Constitution.  And that's the only process available under the Constitution to remove a sitting President from office for malfeasance.

[wetbandit]

"In sum, the investigation established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some instances , the Campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the Campaign officials shied away. Ultimately , the investigation did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities".
This often quoted paragraph sums up the spirit of the report perfectly. Notice how in the second sentence the word "government" gets dropped and we have just "Russians" which really removes from the claim all kind of teeth. However, "government" comes back in the last sentence, so an inattentive reader may fail to notice this little detail. And what the fuck "receptive" means? It can mean anything, from a polite decline of "we will call you back" type to enthusiastic acceptance. This is why Mueller would never want to bring anything like that report to a court. He does not really have anything on Trump except colorful adjectives and suggestive hints.

Can you explain your reasoning which supports your conclusion that is bolded?

[DaveV]

There is no question that the Trump campaign (and the candidate himself) welcomed Russian attacks on his opponent, and that Trump tried multiple times to undermine the Mueller investigation.

And none of that constitutes a crime.

I Am Not A Lawyer, but I believe that attempting to obstruct justice is, in fact, a crime, whether you succeed or not. And I know that suborning perjury is definitely a crime.

[Gavagai]

This comment demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the legal framework under which Mueller operated and chose to be constrained by.

There is no contradiction between that claim and my comment. The "report" is a political document masquerading as a legal one. There is no option to contest it in a formal setting. For example, a substantial part of the evidence presented in the report is interrogations of witnesses... who are never going to be publicly cross-examined by representatives of defense. It means that investigators had full freedom to frame the interrogations in such a way that they obtain desired results. If you think that "pols and pundits" can supersede cross-examinations then... I really hope you don't seriously mean this. Right now everyone treats the results of these interrogations as hard evidence but in fact, they can be thrown away as worthless. This is the consequences of confusion between legal and political texts.

[Gavagai]

"In sum, the investigation established multiple links between Trump Campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government. Those links included Russian offers of assistance to the Campaign. In some instances , the Campaign was receptive to the offer, while in other instances the Campaign officials shied away. Ultimately , the investigation did not establish that the Campaign coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities".
This often quoted paragraph sums up the spirit of the report perfectly. Notice how in the second sentence the word "government" gets dropped and we have just "Russians" which really removes from the claim all kind of teeth. However, "government" comes back in the last sentence, so an inattentive reader may fail to notice this little detail. And what the fuck "receptive" means? It can mean anything, from a polite decline of "we will call you back" type to enthusiastic acceptance. This is why Mueller would never want to bring anything like that report to a court. He does not really have anything on Trump except colorful adjectives and suggestive hints.

Can you explain your reasoning which supports your conclusion that is bolded?

There is, arguably, something nefarious in cooperating with a foreign government during a political campaign. There is nothing nefarious at all in cooperating with foreign citizens during a political campaign.

[Gavagai]

There is no question that the Trump campaign (and the candidate himself) welcomed Russian attacks on his opponent, and that Trump tried multiple times to undermine the Mueller investigation.

And none of that constitutes a crime.

I Am Not A Lawyer, but I believe that attempting to obstruct justice is, in fact, a crime, whether you succeed or not. And I know that suborning perjury is definitely a crime.

"Undermining investigation" is not the same thing as "obstructing justice". Trump is the head of the executive branch of government, he has the power to open or close any investigation he wants. If he fired Mueller because he believed that his investigation is a waste of resources, it would not be a crime. To make it a crime you need a "criminal motive" which is to cover up another crime. Only in that case we get an "obstruction of justice". Now, as Mueller has established, there was no collusion. If Trump did not commit any crime, his motive couldn't be to cover it up. What was his criminal motive then? Mueller gives his answer to this question but Mueller's answer is very obviously absurd to my mind.

[AdrienIer]

Of course undermining an investigation on a possible crime is obstructing justice.
What the Trump campaign did with regards to Russia fell just short of being a crime, good for him, but it's very clear that Trump's team wasn't certain of that during the investigation.

Also, according to pretty much everyone, you don't need to be covering up a crime to be obstructing justice.