Kansas Crimson

O'course, even your gummint knows you're a sellout.

https://www.congress.gov/congressional- ... report/414

https://oig.justice.gov/special/0509/final.pdf

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... 4020070726

As the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election moves forward, President Donald Trump and his allies have tried recently to recast the FBI as politicized and inherently biased against Trump.

But historians and longtime chroniclers of federal law enforcement agencies say Trump’s narcissistic declaration of an anti-Republican rogue operation working to bring him down overlooks the fact that the FBI has a long history of political entanglements, accusations of bias, and distrust of its activities by groups and individuals targeted for investigation.

What’s different — and alarming — is that Trump is using his executive powers and bullying tweets to cast the bureau as a left-leaning agency that’s unfairly coming after him. The threat posed by Trump’s gambit is that, if successful, he will persuade the public to sympathize with him as a victim of FBI abuse and potentially escape scrutiny for any role he or his campaign may have played in Russia’s interference with the election.

Geezer wrote: ↑Sat Mar 30, 2019 2:55 pm FBI doesn't exactly have a history of framing anybody.

Geezer wrote: ↑Sun Mar 31, 2019 10:46 am As the investigation into possible Russian interference in the 2016 election moves forward, President Donald Trump and his allies have tried recently to recast the FBI as politicized and inherently biased against Trump.

But historians and longtime chroniclers of federal law enforcement agencies say Trump’s narcissistic declaration of an anti-Republican rogue operation working to bring him down overlooks the fact that the FBI has a long history of political entanglements, accusations of bias, and distrust of its activities by groups and individuals targeted for investigation.

What’s different — and alarming — is that Trump is using his executive powers and bullying tweets to cast the bureau as a left-leaning agency that’s unfairly coming after him. The threat posed by Trump’s gambit is that, if successful, he will persuade the public to sympathize with him as a victim of FBI abuse and potentially escape scrutiny for any role he or his campaign may have played in Russia’s interference with the election.

Just take the L and move on.

The Barr-Shaped Cloud Over the Justice Department...The attorney general has made a total hash of the Mueller report, undermining the very department he runs.

Ever since would-be First Gentleman Bill Clinton stepped onto Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s plane in June 2016, the Justice Department has found itself in the worst position possible for a nonpolitical law enforcement agency — that of leading actor in the nation’s most hotly contested political dramas.

...Barr’s handling of the conclusion of the 22-month long investigation by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 election has thrust a new cloud over the Justice Department and his leadership, one that has grown darker with the reports that some members of the special counsel’s team believe he has mischaracterized their findings and needlessly inserted himself into the process to make his own determination as to whether the president obstructed justice.

Barr is now in open warfare with the special counsel’s office, with his spokesperson releasing a statement Thursday that seemed to push back on the contention, leaked to the New York Times and Washington Post, that he could have released a summary written by the special counsel’s office rather than his own version of events. That statement came after Barr’s peculiar assertion last week that his initial four-page letter was not a summary of the special counsel’s conclusions, even though it was his own initial letter that said he was “summariz[ing] the principal conclusions reached by the Special Counsel and the results of his investigation.”

Barr has also moved the goal posts on what categories of information would be redacted from the report, adding two new ones to the list he announced on March 24, while refusing so far to ask a court for permission to release grand jury material, as the Justice Department did at the conclusion of two previous investigations into presidential misconduct.

The attorney general’s actions raise suspicions about whether he is acting primarily to benefit the president because they don’t make sense when viewed through any other lens. Barr is neither inexperienced nor naive, yet when deciding among the several options available to him when he received Mueller’s report, he chose the one course of action that would raise questions about his own integrity and plunge the Justice Department into political controversy.

Barr simply could have told Congress that he had received the report and would make a version available when he had completed his review and made appropriate redactions. He could have released Mueller’s principal findings, as he initially said he would do, without adding his own conclusion on obstruction of justice. Or he could have released one of the multiple summaries prepared by Mueller’s team while review of the full report continued. As a U.S. official briefed on the matter told the Post, “the front matter from each section could have been released immediately — or very quickly. It was done in a way that minimum redactions, if any, would have been necessary, and the work would have spoken for itself.”

Barr instead chose the one path that could call his behavior into question, while negating the entire reason for appointing a special counsel in the first place: to ensure that the taint of politics is removed from the Justice Department’s decision-making. That choice would be odd for any attorney general. It makes even less sense for one whose impartiality was questioned from the outset, given that he was chosen for the job after he wrote an unsolicited memo questioning some of the very foundations of the special counsel’s investigation.

[...]

Anybody know what Mueller has to say about all of this?

defixione wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:17 pm Anybody know what Mueller has to say about all of this?

Don’t know why he would or should have to say anything at all. It would seem pretty much cut and dried and thorough. Enough is enough. Take a vacation Bob, you’ve earned it.

defixione wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:17 pm Anybody know what Mueller has to say about all of this?

No. But Feral's best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Mueller pass out at 31 Flavors last night.

dolomite wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 3:01 pm

defixione wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 2:17 pm Anybody know what Mueller has to say about all of this?

Don’t know why he would or should have to say anything at all. It would seem pretty much cut and dried and thorough. Enough is enough. Take a vacation Bob, you’ve earned it.

I'm good with that. Now I wanna see the report with few redactions. Shouldn't be any problem for us to read it, right?

Nothing to hide, and yet remains hidden.

Instead of dancing around the subject, why don't we just agree that we all already know what's in the report?

It will show embarrassing and questionable behavior by Trump and company but nothing criminal.

Nobody wins. Nobody's happy.

I will be happy if Stone is the last to step on the sword.

More or less embarrassing than a blow job?

defixione wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:53 pm More or less embarrassing than a blow job?

Depends on if he perjured himself or suborned perjury of others.

Yeah, but in his defense, no one ever copped to an extra-marital BJ.


EVER.

DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:55 pm

defixione wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:53 pm More or less embarrassing than a blow job?

Depends on if he perjured himself or suborned perjury of others.

You've already stated that Mueller did not find any incriminating evidence. Okay, no prob. Is what he found more embarrassing Trump than a blow job or his daily . . . faux pas?

Everything is embarrassing to Trump. He just doesn't know it.

DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:55 pm

defixione wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:53 pm More or less embarrassing than a blow job?

Depends on if he perjured himself or suborned perjury of others.

wait, isn't this the kind of stuff you've been more or less shrugging off as simply procedural crimes?

ousdahl wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 5:34 pm

DCHawk1 wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:55 pm

defixione wrote: ↑Thu Apr 04, 2019 4:53 pm More or less embarrassing than a blow job?

Depends on if he perjured himself or suborned perjury of others.

wait, isn't this the kind of stuff you've been more or less shrugging off as simply procedural crimes?

To the best of my knowledge those who committed process crimes in this case are not in public office any longer.

Or do you have a different scorecard?