DOJ: Former FBI Director James Comey Violated Policy On His Trump Memos -- But Won't Be Prosecuted (npr.org) 197
Former FBI Director James Comey violated official policy in the way he handled his memos describing his exchanges with President Trump, an investigation concluded -- but Comey won't be charged. . An anonymous reader shares a report: Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz conducted the investigation into Comey's actions and then referred his results to prosecutors. "After reviewing the matter, the DOJ declined prosecution," the IG's office said in a statement on Thursday. Investigators concluded that Comey broke several rules. One involved the former director's decision to arrange for a friend to disclose the contents of a memo to a reporter with The New York Times. Another involved Comey's decision to keep memos at home and discuss them with his lawyers but not reveal their contents or what he was doing to the FBI. FBI officials have since assessed that some of the material in Comey's memos deserved to be classified as "confidential," the lowest level of classification. But investigators didn't establish that Comey revealed any secret information to the press. The former FBI director responded on Twitter on Thursday morning by quoting a section of the IG report and pointing out what he called all the untruthful things said about him and other matters by Trump and the president's supporters.
News for nerds, stuff that happens ... (Score:3, Insightful)
or not.
Re:News for nerds, stuff that happens ... (Score:5, Insightful)
or not.
We don't come here to read the news. We can do that elsewhere. We come here to hear what other nerds think about the news.
Here on Slashdot, someone could post a comment about the size of Kim Kardashian's butt.
Someone would post that "I am mathematician specialized in female topology" . . .
And the next would post, "I am the Dean at the Harvard School of Buttology".
That's the fun thing about Slashdot . . . it costs nothing . . . and it is worth everything that you pay for it!
Re:News for nerds, stuff that happens ... (Score:4, Informative)
Slashdot crowd: Practicing all the science that a mother's basement can afford.
Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)
Re: (Score:2)
Welcome to slashdot. You can join any time, there is no test.
But don't come to tell us what the site is about. If you're not sure, try asking instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Welcome to slashdot. You can join any time, there is no test.
But don't come to tell us what the site is about. If you're not sure, try asking instead.
This is one of the least relevant stories that has made it to the main page in quite a long time. A former high ranking political appointee is not going to be prosecuted for mishandling documents in a non technical way that were later deemed to be somewhat sensitive. Yeah, if you like digging into politics you can paint it one way or the other, but it's pretty boring even by those standards.
Re: (Score:2)
This is one of the least relevant stories that has made it to the main page in quite a long time.
You clearly haven't been paying attention to the amount of complete dreck that gets posted on /.
if all he did was violate policy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:if all he did was violate policy (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, but expect it to be added to the Airing of Grievances for trumps continuing Festivus
Re: if all he did was violate policy (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, but expect it to be added to the Airing of Grievances for trumps continuing Festivus
What is that moderation (as "funny") supposed to mean? Is "Festivus" the point of the joke?
At least the "insightful" mods can be meaningfully interpreted as "some troll's sock puppets with mod points like this".
As regards the actual story, the part that bothers me is the notion Comey shouldn't have documented the conversation. He's a friggin' FBI agent. He's supposed to pay attention to EVERY suspicious or even weird thing.
From an ekronomic perspective, it is again reduced to a timing game. Will the real cr
Re: (Score:3)
Not sure what ekronomics is
As far as 'Funny' goes, Festivus is sourced from The Seinfeld Show, and some people found that show to be funny
Mostly, I do not depend on troll farms or sock puppets for upvotes, in fact for the past 4 years I just posted as AC (silent protest against monetization of /.), and still managed to get voted up into visible status
More than likely it is because I have been on /. since the end of the last millennium (lost old id with the aol account it was based on) , and I just might be
Re: (Score:3)
No, that is NOT what I wrote and I did NOT write it that badly, even allowing for the "funny" context.
I missed the Seinfeld Show. All of it. Though I did hear nice things about it, and I've seen him in some other contexts and found him amusing, witty, or better. Probably short of hilarious, but that's rare. Some bits of Stewart Lee? Some of the old Daily Show?
Don't know about the relationship of moderation to the monetization of /., but whatever they are doing along those lines, it does not appear to be wor
Ekronomics 101 link (Score:2)
Oh yeah. Ekronomics.
In simplest form, Time >> Money.
One presentation of Ekronomics 101 appears in this link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/... [slashdot.org]
Amusingly enough, internal search within Slashdot did not find it, but an external websearch did. So add Slashdot's internal search to the list of problems that should be fixed? (Not high on my own list, however.)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
He cannot be prosecuted. A policy is not a law.
You don't know what you're talking about. Of course he could be prosecuted for violating policy, if the policy prohibits acts that are against the law. Many of corporations have published policies prohibiting behavior that would be prosecuted under state or Federal law; for example, bribing foreign officials.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
This is what is commomly referred to as a distinction without a difference.
Re: (Score:2)
The difference is that at most you can be dismissed from your position for a policy violation, whereas you can go to jail for violating the law.
I'd say that is a significant difference.
Re: (Score:2)
You can get convicted for violating the law, but you even if you are, there can be a policy that sets you free. Did I get that right?
Re: if all he did was violate policy (Score:2)
He cannot be prosecuted. A policy is not a law.
Insert appropiate POTC saying "It's more of a guideline." However, why take down a traitorous chump for jaywalking when you can hang him for treason? As someone one said, "These people are stupid. We have everything."
those "policies" (Score:2)
the policies weren't law, it's an HR kinda thing
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
When your work for the FBI, or any agency with government secrets, "policy" and "law" are intertwined.
I can tell you for sure that the right sees this as confirmation that the rule of law is dead in America. That the justice system just does not apply to powerful Democrats and their friends.
The thing about the justice system: it's primary benefit is to prevent people from taking justice into their own hands. I fear that's coming. There are a lot of people on the right these days just waiting for the cold
Re: (Score:3)
except these weren't intertwined with law, hence no prosecution.
I agree there is a problem here but both the Republicans and Democrats have lifted their misdeeds above the rule of law. They are both the parties of power and money grubbing dirtbags.
Re: (Score:3)
Comey was referred for prosecution so clearly the Inspector General thought laws were broken.
Re: (Score:2)
Theatrics
Re: (Score:2)
Yup. This can be deferred.
Comey has bigger problems still ahead.
Re: those "policies" (Score:2)
You do realize the IG is an Obama appointee right?
Re:those "policies" (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree there is a problem here but both the Republicans and Democrats have lifted their misdeeds above the rule of law. They are both the parties of power and money grubbing dirtbags.
The powerful establishment politicians of these parties have. It's the 90% that give the rest a bad name.
But who's behind the scenes, pulling the strings? Who's really in charge of things in America? No, it's not the Jews, thank you Stormfront, go away. But it is someone. Some potion of America's old-money richest families. People who see Trump as a middle-class boor, not part of the upper class.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing about the justice system: it's primary benefit is to prevent people from taking justice into their own hands.
Correct. It eliminates all those duels and trials by combat people used to do, as well as endless vigilantism. But the key point here is if you take justice out of people's hands - you have to actually provide justice. Every time justice is chipped at by a broken legal system brings us one step nearer to chaos and a return to mob/feudal rule.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
When your work for the FBI, or any agency with government secrets, "policy" and "law" are intertwined.
I can tell you for sure that the right sees this as confirmation that the rule of law is dead in America. That the justice system just does not apply to powerful Democrats and their friends.
The thing about the justice system: it's primary benefit is to prevent people from taking justice into their own hands. I fear that's coming. There are a lot of people on the right these days just waiting for the cold civil war to turn hot, looking forward to settling decades worth of grievances promptly and permanently.
It is very much in the interest of those in power these days to err on the side of being seen as having to follow the same laws as the rest of us. Things get very dark if people lose faith in that,
Repeat after me "criminal Hillary", "criminal Hillary" then drool and rant. Nothing handed that fucking moron Trump the presidency on a platter more than what Comey did. My mother in law is a rabid reader of the rags that put that shithead in power and it was absolutely the hacking of Hillary's emails and the suspicion that she was somehow a criminal conspirator leaking state secret information to the Russians that convinced her that the divine Donald was put on this earth to rid America of the "criminal de
Re: those "policies" (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
information that "might be" low level classified....yeah
there are bigger fish to fry in the world
maybe HR could fire him if they think it's bad enough.... maybe it isn't
Re:those "policies" (Score:5, Insightful)
He violated his Employment Agreement, which does have legal enforcement included in it - just like the NDA he signed agreeing to never leak classified information to his friends so they can give it to the press.
However, he has not been convicted, so the IG can't say he has been proven to have committed a crime. Even if this same IG also referred him to the DoJ for prosecution for his alleged crimes.
Correct on your first point, despite your implication that he had any reason to believe his memos included classified (or classifiable) content. (Note that TFS states that unidentified "FBI officials" decided post hoc that some of those memos' content was classifiable as "confidential." I'd bet a shiny, new quarter that those officials were directed to reach that conclusion by William Bar.)
Your assertion that Michael Horowitz's report "referred him to the DoJ for prosecution" is counterfactual on its face. Horowitz's report was made to the DoJ. (Of course. He is, after all, the DoJ's Inspector General.) That report - which is unlikely to have actually recommended prosecution, because that decision is not in the IG's brief - will have been reviewed by a number of DoJ employees, unquestionably including the Attorney General. It's therefore laughable to pretend that anyone but Barr made the call on whether to prosecute.
And of course he decided not to. Whether the information in the memos should or should not be classified as Confidential was and remains a literal judgement call. TFS specifically states that the memos he leaked contained no actually state secrets, so the prospects of convicting him of a felony were dim, at their most luminescent. More importantly, were the DoJ to have prosecuted Comey, the ensuing trial would necessarily have revealed the entire contents of the memos - and the prosecutors' armwaving arguments in favor of classifying part or all of them would have been equally public.
That would surely be a case of Barr authorizing the prosecutors to take square, close-range aim at his boss's foot, because Comey's attorneys undoubtedly would walk him through every word of those memos during his testimony in open court, exposing in the process each and every detail of their record of Trump's repeated attempts to persuade Comey to obstruct justice on his behalf. It would also make clear that their only "confidential" aspect is that they record the essence of Comey's private conversations with the president. (My use of the word "private" here does not mean "confidential" in the sense of "grounds to classify documents that contain information potentially damaging to the best interests of the USA". It means, instead, that there's a policy - not a law - that Oval Office conversations that are not otherwise made public by the president should not be made public without the president's advance knowledge and permission.)
BTW, there's no NDA involved here. That's a construct in civil law, and voilating one is not a crime. There is an oath of office [cornell.edu] - but it binds Comey only to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic," and to "well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter," not to help whoever currently occupies the Oval Office collude to obstruct justice, or to help him or her cover up a presidential request that he collude in that endeavor.
In my opinion - and IANAL - Comey's attorneys would have beeen derelict in their duty to their client were they to decline to raise a necessity defense, assuming Barr were to have been so foolish as to authorize the DoJ to prosecute him in this matter. That, in turn, would allow them to present a case that he, in fact, would have been violating the terms of his oath of office had he failed to publicly disclose those memos.
It doesn't matter on which side of the Trump divide you stand, either, because the necessit
Re: (Score:2)
If I remember correctly, he was already screwed out of his retirement, what does don cheeto want now The Pillory or Half hung, drawn and quartered?
You're thinking of Andrew McCabe. [cnn.com]
So he won't get a 5 a.m. SWAT team with CNN ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Rules for Thee, not for me.
Who watches the watchers? (Score:2, Insightful)
So who watches the watchers is still unresolved. The rules are meaningless because there are no penalties for breaking them.
And the FBI appears to be taking on the role of the Praetorian Guard in imperial Rome, selecting who gets to run for Emperor. That didn't end particularly well, but may be typical in a declining empire. Didn't the Janissaries do much the same in the Ottoman Empire?
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Comey believed the materials he released were unclassified, which means no mens rea: he did not act to violate the law, and rather took due diligence to not violate the law. Thus he cannot be prosecuted.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
You're not getting this.
If you are cognizant of the law and have determined that what you are doing is not a violation of said law and it turns out to be a violation of the law, you cannot be convicted of a crime for that violation.
If the Prosecutor determines that, yes, what you did was illegal, but you didn't believe you were doing it at the time, then you are not guilty.
That's called mens rea.
If Comey believed at the time that none of the information was classified, then Comey committed no crime. I
Re: (Score:2)
I see you failed your bar exam.
If I shoot someone dead as they're trying to break into my home, I can be hauled off and buried under the jail whether I believed my state implemented the castle doctrine or not. Ignorance is no excuse under the law.
As it turns out, different laws have different requirements. The obstruction laws that the TDS inflicted like to scream about has an intent requirement. Mueller would have to show evidence that President Trump was purposefully trying to obstruct the investigatio
Re: (Score:2)
I see you failed your bar exam.
If I shoot someone dead as they're trying to break into my home, I can be hauled off and buried under the jail whether I believed my state implemented the castle doctrine or not. Ignorance is no excuse under the law.
As it turns out, different laws have different requirements. The obstruction laws that the TDS inflicted like to scream about has an intent requirement. Mueller would have to show evidence that President Trump was purposefully trying to obstruct the investigation. Laws dealing with handling of classified material do NOT have an intent requirement. They basically say that anyone mishandling classified materials, whether they know they're doing it or not, is guilty of violating the law.
This is extremely interesting. I knew that ignorance is no excuse under the law. But I did not know that certain laws have intent requirements.
When i hear stories about the defense of trump and his associates and I hear the defense " they didn't know " I've been thinking to myself "what the fuck are you talking about "they didn't know""
Turns out they didn't know is an acceptable defense after all ... for certain things
Re: (Score:2)
[...] And the FBI appears to be taking on the role of the Praetorian Guard in imperial Rome, selecting who gets to run for Emperor. That didn't end particularly well, but may be typical in a declining empire. [...]
Well, the Praetorian Guard did get rid of Caligula and replaced him with Claudius. Definitely an improvement, although things did get out of hand near Nero's end during the "year of four emperors". So, who do you think the modern day equivalent of Calligula, Claudius, Nero, and the rest (Galba, Otho, and Vitellius) are?
Also, consider one of the biggest reasons why the Praetorian Guard got rid of Calligula---he tormented one of their tribunes. Guess which tribune assassinated Caligula?
Little ado about less (Score:3, Interesting)
Some information in Comey's memo's was retro-actively changed to confidential.
None of the information Comey released to news agencies was secret: (a) he didn't release everything he had b) he didn't release the bits that were retroactively re-classified.
He broke no laws. He did run afoul of policy but that has all the legal ramifications of a random HR doc pinned to the cork board by the coffee machine. In other words the FBI may decline to re-hire him. Not sure he cares.
Interestingly enough he was vindicated in terms of statements AG Barr had made but apparently there's no real DoJ policy about the AG's public statements.
Anyway it doesn't matter beyond more fodder for the left and right to argue over trivial details they don't really understand.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Whoa up there cowboy.
I know it is hard for the partisans to understand what Comey did here and what his responsibilities were. So let me try and explain the necessary details.
First, Comey *should* have know what was classified and what wasn't. You *can* be held responsible for mishandling classified information, even if you don't believe the information is classified. As the original producer of the information, it was HIS responsibility to properly classify and properly handle that information, which
Re:Little ado about less (Score:5, Insightful)
They "can't" charge him, because the defense would call the President as a witness, and he'd have to testify because the whole thing is about notes to a meeting with him.
And if a crime was committed in that meeting, Comey has a bunch of different long-standing legal shields he could use, even including common-law self defense. There is absolutely no way to take those charges to trial without the main witnesses.
And that testimony could become problematic for the President, especially after leaving office.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Whoa up there cowboy.
I know it is hard for the partisans to understand what Comey did here and what his responsibilities were. So let me try and explain the necessary details.
First, Comey *should* have know what was classified and what wasn't. You *can* be held responsible for mishandling classified information, even if you don't believe the information is classified. As the original producer of the information, it was HIS responsibility to properly classify and properly handle that information, which means you DO NOT take it home, you leave it in a secure container approved for said information. Comey broke two rules here. He improperly classified the information he produced, then he improperly protected it.
Second, Comey had no right to remove ANY work product, classified or not, from the FBI when his employment ended. This was part of the terms of his employment which he agreed to when he was hired. He *should* have never taken the document in question and if he discovered he inadvertently retained a copy, he was under obligation to return it to the FBI. So if it was a document produced in the process of his work, it belonged to the FBI, not him.
Third, he took a document he knew wasn't his to share and shared it with a "friend" with the instruction that it be given to the media for partisan political reasons. An action, by the way, that achieved the desired results (according to his own account).
Comey is no boy scout here, what he did was wrong morally and ethically. It violated his terms of employment with the FBI and he did it for partisan political reasons. Let that sink in... Partisan political motivation... He was attempting to defame a sitting president and got us the Mueller investigation which turned up what?
So like it or not, even if you like what Comey's actions produced, everybody has to admit that his actions where morally wrong, ethically wrong, broke the FBI rules and where politically motivated. It was a dirty trick by a partisan political operative. As such it should be viewed as a blight on Comey's career and he should be condemned.
So, did he break the law? Well, it doesn't matter now does it? Sure, we can argue the case both ways and partisans will, but given that the DOJ has declined to prosecute, the time to argue this question is past. Live long and stay out of trouble James... You dodged a bushel of trouble this time, I suggest you be more careful in the future.
But there is one more point that needs to be made here. IF you support the DOJ's decision not to prosecute Comey, are you being consistent in supporting the DOJ's other decisions? Unless you answer consistently, I would consider you a likely partisan, who isn't really interested in fairness, only politics.
That's an awful lot of words to convey a bunch of pure bullshit.
The FBI investigation into the president began shortly after Australia's top diplomat to Britain overheard campaign aid Papadpolous discussing the trump campaign working with Russia to get dirt on Clinton. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/1... [nytimes.com]
Comey was aware of this investigation when he met with the president.
The president of the United States then asked Comey to drop a criminal investigation against Michael Flynn. .
The president of the United Sta
Re: (Score:2)
LOL.. Yea, it was all a setup by the way. Papadopoulos didn't do anything wrong until he lied to the FBI AFTER the election. The NY-Times story doesn't tell you this or make it clear that this whole "investigation" wasn't properly predicated as a criminal investigation, was only ever a counter intelligence investigation and one that was seemingly setup in a targeted way. It was a counter intelligence investigation put up by the spooks on foreign soil (why?) on behalf of the president at the time, which
Re: (Score:3)
The Mueller investigation turned up stuff. Many people were prosecuted under it. Trump was not cleared, but not prosecuted either, but regardless the Meuller investigation was NOT about Trump but about Russian meddling in the election. The investigation was not a waste of time. He spent less time and less money than Starr spent on the Clinton Whitewater investigation that only turned up evidence on lying about an affair, it was in no way a witch hunt in comparison.
As to who gets prosecuted or not, the DO
No surprise (Score:3, Informative)
He had two secret files in his hands. One on Clinton's misdeeds. One on Trump's misdeeds. He looked at Clinton's file and said "Congress and the people need to know about this" and scheduled a press conference. He looked at Trump's and said "I need to keep this secret" and put it in a vault until after the election. Remember - he did this 2 weeks before vote, which was extremely close. In effect, he practically handed Trump the keys to the oval office.
Trump rewarded this blatant favoritism by firing his ass and publicly insulting him. Which is pretty much how he rewards anyone around him that isn't family. Comey then wrote a tell-all book and went on a signing tour. Talk about a fall from being a highly respected lawman.
Re: (Score:2)
He looked at Clinton's file and said "Congress and the people need to know about this" and scheduled a press conference.
Not true. He didn't say the people needed to know, and he didn't schedule a press conference. He decided that the congresspeople (the ones to whom he had testified under oath that Clinton wasn't being investigate) needed to know they now had something to potentially investigate. So he sent them a note saying so. It was a republic congressman, Jason Chaffetz, who leaked that info to the public (in a much less carefully worded way).
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I understood he was under pressure from the rabid anti-Hillary FBI faction to act.
Re: (Score:2)
It this news for nerds? (Score:2)
Or just troll bait?
Do we really need the Slashdot reader's take on this?
Weaponizing policy? (Score:3)
Our org's policy manual is quite large because we often have to deal with lawyers and courts. I'm sure people deviate from written policy quite often because most mortals cannot memorize 100% of it. If somebody wants to bust a random employee for some policy violation, they can. It just takes persistence and resources to sift and dig through emails, logs, and files.
Policy manuals are basically a CYA mechanism for orgs. If something embarrassing or illegal happens at the org, they can show the court/jury their policy manual to demonstrate that an employee acted "improperly", deflecting blame from the org.
I don't know if this had a political motivation behind it, but we know Trump has pressured agencies to find dirt on his usual Twitter targets. It smells fishy.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
At this point it has become clear that it really is treason, too. He's deliberately aiding a foreign power's attacks on institutions of our nation.
Maybe it's time to institute background checks for presidential candidates, with all details made public. Don't want to deal with the scrutiny? Then you shouldn't be president. We have background checks for everyone else with a security clearance. The president has by definition the highest clearance, and also the power of declassification. I don't want a candida
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Doesn't matter. He just needs 65 million people or so that don't give a shit. And political parties being what they are, he is effectively running unopposed. There's no more point in complaining about these people. The ongoing support they receive is the problem. It is unshaken.
If the non-voters wanted to, they could completely *drain the swamp* in a single day.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Sadly it looks like they are just copying her playbook for 2020
Well, she lost by negative 3 million votes. What do you think it will take this go around? Negative 6 million? 10?
Comey's comment tipped the needle ... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, Nerds need to realize that Voting matters
Re: (Score:2)
> He's deliberately aiding a foreign power's attacks on institutions of our nation.
Nope. After four extensive investigations, all based on zero evidence. There is still no evidence of that.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, no. Mueller's report stated exactly the opposite, no evidence of Russian collusion.
Oh yeah? In what page, paragraph, and sentence?
Re: (Score:2)
The burden of proof is on YOU to provide evidence of collusion,
Wrong. If you claim that the report says something, the burden of proof is on you to back that up. Now put up or fuck off.
Re: Mueller Report is 400 pages long! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
However, and this is where it gets confusing, Manafort was convicted of "Conspiracy against the United States" and he did this c
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't say collaboration with Russia, he said "on behalf of Trump", i.e. paying off women Trump had affairs with and the other illegal stuff he went to jail for.
Re: (Score:2)
He didn't say collaboration with Russia, he said "on behalf of Trump", i.e. paying off women Trump had affairs with and the other illegal stuff he went to jail for.
Source on Manafort having anything to do with that?
Re: (Score:2)
That was his lawyer. The GP wrote "campaign manager" twice by mistake.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
https://slashdot.org/~ArylAkamov protested:
Wait, is this satire? Because I'm having trouble finding anything you said to be true, such as his campaign manager "is in prison for crimes committed with and on behalf of Trump".
That simply isn't true.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
"None of Manafort's charges relate to allegations of collusion with Russia"
You're technically correct. However, in his second trial in the District of Columbia [wikipedia.org] Manafort pled guilty to charges of money laundering and witness tampering, in exchange for the prosecution's agreement to drop charges of failing to register as a foreign agent working on behalf of Ukraine (which was at the time of his involvement a Russian client state under Viktor Yanukovych, who was subsequently deposed in the Orange Revolution), among others.
Because his sentenc
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Mueller Report details hundreds of pages of Trump and his campaign colluding with Russia's attack on America
What specific thing did Trump do that broke a specific law regarding working with Russia? I'm asking honestly, because I found a bunch of coverups and lying in the report, I didn't find a specific claim of collusion.
Page 180 of the report: "The Office evaluated the contacts under several sets of federal laws, including conspiracy laws and statutes governing foreign agents who operate in the United States. After considering the available evidence, the Office did not pursue charges under these statutes agains
Re: (Score:3)
The Trump tower meeting. They redacted the portion that describes who attended, so no, you won't get to read the details in the report for years until it is released unredacted.
Crime (Score:2)
So what crime was committed? The AG's office tried a few people related to that meeting for lying about it, but nothing regarding treason, or campaign finance problems, or foreign agent act abuses.
Re: (Score:2)
How many times does it need to be repeated that Mueller was not going to make that call no matter what was found. He was merely investigating and presenting that evidence to congress for them to decide on making any charges (possibly in the form of impeachment proceedings).
How many times does it need to be repeated that your claim makes no damn sense whatsoever? Mueller was responsible for investigating and giving a report the the AG, William Barr. Congress was not entitled to see the report.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The Mueller Report details hundreds of pages of Trump and his campaign colluding with Russia's attack on America and the Inspector General can only comment on the fact that a whistle-blower told the truth..
Trump's campaign manager is in prison for crimes committed with and on behalf of Trump. Trump's campaign manager is in prison, having been found to be a secret foreign agent.
And then just as we got our first glimps into the stunning criminality of the Trump administration, Trump's AG shut down all of the investigations into Trump's many treasonous crimes.
It's time to lock him up... and by him I mean the treasonous president who colluded with Russia's attack on America and continues to do Putin's bidding as a public quid pro quo.
Pretty much.
Anyone who has actually bothered to read the first half of the Mueller report can see that it clearly details with great evidence extensive "collusion" with Russia. It also makes it plainly clear that this "collusion" is not provable as criminal conspiracy because of the great lengths the administration went to hide evidence, evade questioning and lie.
The second part of the report details roughly 9 instances where the president and the administration obstructed justice(a criminal felony). The r
Re:Mueller Report is 400 pages long! (Score:4, Informative)
2. It also makes it plainly clear that this "collusion" is not provable
Its the one where you intentionally left off part of what i said to make an absurd argument
"It also makes it plainly clear that this "collusion" is not provable as criminal conspiracy "
Criminal conspiracy is a crime under US federal code. collusion is not.
The second half of the report details the numerous crimes that were committed in an attempt to hide the discovery of Criminal Conspiracy.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
The Mueller Report details hundreds of pages of Trump and his campaign colluding with Russia's attack on America and the Inspector General can only comment on the fact that a whistle-blower told the truth..
Blatant lies. The report said that "no US person" colluded with Russia. That's also a lie, or course, we all know the Clinton campain's people (Fusion GPS) worked with Russia to create the Steele dossier to try to implicate Trump.
Re: (Score:2)
Reminder to mods: "flamebait" is not applicable for "I disagree," the correct response for "I disagree" is to reply stating your opposition and the reason for it.
If you believe the poster is sincere (actually believes what he posted) the correct mod for "I disagree" is "+1 interesting". There are very few idiots on Slashdot, so if someone is posting something you disagree with, you should be interested in why. That's how you escape the groupthink. Maybe he knows something you don't. Maybe you know something he doesn't. More information is needed.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Well, technically, the Clinton campaign colluded with Fusion GPS, who colluded with Steele (a UK national), who colluded with Russians, to produce a 'dossier' of salacious rumors.
Very clearly put, thanks!
It's too damned difficult to untangle this stuff, which is entirely deliberate. The voters are being played, and the media is the musician. I don't know who's writing the tune, but I don't fucking like him.
Re: (Score:3)
Trump's campaign manager is in prison for crimes committed with and on behalf of Trump. Trump's campaign manager is in prison, having been found to be a secret foreign agent.
That's BS. Manafort is in jail for the work he did for or on behalf of Ukrainian president and political party 2014. Specifically, he didn't report his income, didn't pay taxes, tried to launder the money, and didn't register himself as a foreign agent.
Re: Mueller Report is 400 pages long! (Score:5, Insightful)
It actually says it could not identify any /chargeable/ instances of collusion. The report also states that in the presence of obstruction, it is very difficult to uncover the facts. I donâ(TM)t think the latter point was in the report for no reason at all. Given that the report documents several examples of Trump directing others to obstruct (sometimes unsuccessfully), given that many people were convicted of or plead guilty to lying during the investigation, and that a significant amount of communication was obscured by encryption or destroyed, itâ(TM)s not difficult to imagine how collusion happened and was simply not able to be charged.
We will need to wait until another administration installs an Attorney General who is interested in justice over protecting his guy to find out if there was more to the story.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: Mueller Report is 400 pages long! (Score:2)
Well, first find evidence of me pointing a gun at someone and then that same personâ(TM)s body dead by gunfire. Then maybe thatâ(TM)s a little more apples-to-apples than your unhinged non sequitur.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Mueller Report is 400 pages long! (Score:3)
No. Read my comment. That is literally what I said.
Your scenario is in no way similar. There is no evidence that would link me to the crime. Your scenario is preposterous and a straw man. I was not arguing that trump is guilty. My point was that there is plenty of evidence that a crime was committed, and I expect some future justice department to look into it.
Mueller explicitly stated in his report that an objective of the report is to memorialize the evidence until such time as a crime can be prosecuted. A
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So - guilty until proven innocent!
No. Guilty of obstruction, specifically of the facts in the other questions addressed by the report. That's far from innocent.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Could you please quote the page number where it says that?
Volume 1, page 181. Here's a PDF. [justsecurity.org]
Re:Mueller Report is 400 pages long! (Score:4, Informative)
Grandparent: "Is that why it specifically states it could not find Russian collision?"
Parent: "Could you please quote the page number where it says that?"
You: "Volume 1, page 181."
What it actually says on page 181 of volume 1: "For that reason, this Office' s focus in resolving the question of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law, not the commonly discussed term "collusion.""
They did not investigate collusion, they investigated conspiracy. Collusion is not a legally defined word in investigations of this nature, which is why people keep using it: Trump Jr. and Manafort may have gotten off the hook legally by virtue of their ignorance, but they certainly did something at that meeting even if it wasn't criminal. A layman term like collusion is a perfectly fine way to describe what they did.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Is collusion legally important? No? Then why do you get worked up about it? I bet you're less than 2 degrees of separation from someone who's been convicted of a crime - is that collusion, and proof you're also guilty? That is literally what is here.
You want to claim that talking with :"Russians" is somehow nefarious, but cannot point to anything nefarious other than your belief it's nefarious.
Untoward? Because they didn't break the law (as investigated) of 52 USC 3012 - but because they were investig
Re: (Score:2)
Is collusion legally important? No? Then why do you get worked up about it?
... Because "the law prohibiting what they did was made for some very good reasons." and "That certainly seems like it's something important, even if it isn't criminal."
:"Russians" is somehow nefarious" ... No, there's nothing wrong with talking to Russians. I do want to claim that there is something wrong with conspiring with foreign nationals to win an election, that's why it's illegal. Note: it's not wrong because it's illegal, it's illegal because it's wrong.
You: "You want to claim that talking with
Re: (Score:2)
do want to claim that there is something wrong with conspiring with foreign nationals to win an election, that's why it's illegal. Note: it's not wrong because it's illegal, it's illegal because it's wrong.
And in fact, the Mueller report specifically LOOKED at conspiracy, and he did not find [americanbar.org]:
that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple efforts from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign.
See that? CONSPIRED - that means no conspiracy. Never happened. Nothing wrong, nothing illegal happened - per the Mueller report. Full stop.
NOW can we stop with the delusional fantasies and irrational wishes that something happened when it is specifically investigated and found to NEVER have happened? Or do you want to keep living in your make-believe world?
Re: (Score:2)
Setting aside your slander, we know that Hillary Clinton is innocent for exactly the same reason. I'm wondering whether you're more committed to defending Trump or attacking Hillary, because you're going to have to drop one or
Re: (Score:2)
So everyone shouting "collusion" is either ignorant (not realizing it means nothing, legally - it's a nothingburger), or are willfully misleading others to think it means something.
Correct. However, virtually everyone shouting "collusion" is shouting "no collusion". Everyone they're shouting at is shouting "obstruction of justice" (which the report indicates did occur) as well as "cooperation with a foreign power to attack the nation" which is, you know, something else. The people you're disingenuously complaining about aren't shouting collusion, they're shouting treason.
The person shouting collusion most is Trump himself. He's constantly claiming that the Mueller report said there wa
Re: (Score:3)
So you don't indict because you can't "and it's unfair to release that info when he can't be tried and thus defend himself", so you sneakily release it?
Wtf.
Why do you think
Re: (Score:2)
So you don't indict because you can't "and it's unfair to release that info when he can't be tried and thus defend himself", so you sneakily release it?
Wtf.
Why do you think we have things like the 4th Amendment? To stop those in power from using investigation against political enemies.
trump was not Comey's enemy. Criminals were Comey's enemy.
The only person that wants you to think it was politically motivated was the criminal.
Starting to get it yet?
Re: (Score:2)