Mueller Report Finally Released...

Did he make another statement? Link?

 

I think Mueller did it so the media and the democrats would run with what he said and they did just what he wanted them to do. Later, do a mea culpa.

 

Mueller not so hot when he has to face opposition. Knows he would be skewered by the GOP on the Nadler committee. All Mueller knows is pressuring scared defendants and threatening people with bankrupting legal bills. Can’t take the heat himself. Only a big man when he has the power of the federal government behind him.

 

DOJ, special counsel say there is 'no conflict' on Mueller, Barr statements about obstruction inquiry

 

I've read the article 10 times and can't determine what you think was walked back. Mueller didn't say Trump was guilty of obstruction yesterday. He said that the team couldn't determine his innocence or they would have stated it in the report per Mueller.

 

Clearly, testifying 8 x year for 12 years (as FBI Director) to Congress means Mueller is scared. Seriously, has anyone testified more to Congress than Mueller in its history?

I believe Mueller is trying to avoid the politicans (D & R) pushing him out front to serve their agendas. The D's want to use him to bolster impeachment discussions. The R's want to tear him down and paint him as part of some deep state conspiracy. Mueller is not playing those political games.

 

Since when are we guilty until determined innocent? What that means is he couldn't find anything to determine guilt.

 

I'm not going to jump fully into this discussion, but I want to ask a question to my co-counsels (@huisache , @NJlonghorn , @Htown77 , and even @Joe Fan ). I've only done God's Work, so my knowledge of criminal procedure and prosecutorial practice is fairly limited.

Is it common for prosecutors to make determinations or recommendations that affirmatively announce or establish someone's innocence (as opposed to a lack of evidence of one's guilt)? I'm not asking to condemn or defend Trump but because I simply don't know. I don't recall any former special/independent counsels doing that.

 

I'm not a lawyer, but even I know they do not do this. They just don't indict and let it go at that. We impute that to innocence. In this case, the left is using Mueller's refusal to say that Trump is innocent, which would be unprecedented, to impute that he is guilty because that is the result they want.

 

That is consistent with my understanding. I'm just asking the question to see if others who know more than I do have different answers. I'm also leaving open the possibility that special prosecutors might follow a different practice. Again, I'm not aware of that, but I'm open to explanation on that point.

 

Here is Barr on the whole matter:

William Barr interview: Read the full transcript

 

Barr explains it his interview.

 

Isn't the difference here that the DOJ has determined that a sitting president can't be indicted? So, Mueller can't indict. He can subtly proclaim his guilt by proclaiming an absence of innocence. Much like dark is the absence of light.

 

If Mueller had evidence of anything, why didn’t he explicitly say so? That’s not indicting him. The reason is he has no such evidence.

I have no proof any of you didn’t break the law today either.

 

He can’t indict because there’s nothing to indict.

 

He burgled some dirt today, don't you doubt it for a second.

 

My question is this; how do we define a high crime or misdemeanor? What if a majority of the House just decides they want to impeach Trump? What is their burden?

 

It’s all political and a waste of time. Never gets through the Senate. Pelosi has to make the political decision to go with the far left idiocy or keep the House in the next election by not alienating independents and the establishment democrats.

 

But that's what I'm trying to figure out. Who controls a theoretical House majority of rabid leftists from voting to impeach? Trump said the courts wouldn't allow it or something and was ridiculed for "not knowing how it works."

It doesn't make sense to me that when it comes to impeachment only the Senate can prevent it from happening. Is it somehow outside the jurisdiction of SCOTUS?

 

Then they impeach. All that does is formally charge the sitting POTUS. Afterwards, Trump is tried in the Senate where the charges will probably be summarily dismissed.

 

You are right. The House gets to determine the definition of high crimes and misdemeanors. Impeachment is a political process not a legal one. The House knows impeachment doesn't get them what they want, so they instead use the Mueller report to twist its findings as far as possible in preparation for the 2020 election. I think it is the right decision, honestly.

If Democrats impeach and then the Senate votes to keep Trump in office, the Democrats lose a big political defeat right before the election. They may try to impeach if Trump wins in 2020 just to keep Trump off balance.

 

Barry,

That isn't how the system works. The absence of innocence (or evidence of innocence) doesn't equate guilt, and frankly, if we were talking about anybody but Trump, people would horrified at this kind of standard. It essentially nullifies the prosecutor's burden of proof.

People talk about the Whitewater investigation and say the Clinton's were exonerated. Was their innocence proven? No. The matter was closed for lack of evidence - after a potential witness died, another went to the slammer for refusing to testify, and several documents were destroyed). Furthermore, several people who were close to the Clintons (much closer than Manafort was to Trump) went the slammer for the actual crime under investigation. Despite that, it's treated as an exoneration, and many treated the Clintons as victims of an unfair investigation.

The purpose of the Mueller investigation (which I supported) was to investigate Russian interference into the 2016 election and make affirmative findings of what happened, who made them happen, and to prosecute where appropriate. The inability to indict the President isn't a reason to shift the burden of proof. He can still recommend prosecution after he leaves office by his term expiring or by the impeachment and removal process and lay out his evidence.

 

So long as Congress follows the constitutional process for impeachment and removal, the courts will not intervene. The merits of whether the President should be impeached and removed or what constitutes an impeachable offense are entirely matters for Congress to decide.

I got a feel for this when Congress impeached Clinton back in the day. During the Senate trial, the House managers (who serve as prosecutors) initially addressed the senators as "jurors." Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) objected. He asserted that the senators were more than jurors, because though they were charged with determining the facts like a juror is, they were also required to determine questions of law (like a judge) such as what is a removable offense. Chief Justice Rehnquist who was presiding agreed and sustained the objection. By doing so, he made it clear that his job was to preside, maintain order, and determine procedural questions but that the senators' job was to make all substantive legal determinations as well as findings of fact.

 

William Barr is a voice of sanity in all this. He flat out said, in his non-accusatory style, that Mueller could have reached a decision. The lady reporter interviewing him was flabbergasted and repeated the question. To me that implies that Mueller had no evidence and should have reached the same conclusion that Barr and Rosenstein did; no collusion, no obstruction. Mueller didn’t because he wanted to smear Trump.

 

In a regular trial, are the findings of fact and conclusions of law appealable at the next level or are they locked in the same as the transcript is?

 

They are appealable but not by the same standard. When an appellate court reviews a question of law, it does so de novo. That means that the issue is resolved with no regard or deference for the trial court's view. It doesn't care what the trial judge thought.

When reviewing a question of fact, the fact finder is shown greater deference. The appellate court will only reverse the finding if it's against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence, and even if it does that, it will remand the issue back to the trial court for further examination (so called "factually sufficiency review). If the appellate court finds that the trial court's fact finding is supported by no evidence or no more than a scintilla of evidence, that becomes a question of law. In those situations, the appellate court will reverse the trial court and actually render judgment (so called "legally insufficiency review"). The distinction between those two standards of review is extremely controversial because it touches on the right to a trial by jury.

 

You lawyers with your fancy language. What's an appetite court?

 

I fixed it. And predictive text can eat my ***.

 

Mueller edited messages at least two times in his report to make them look more damaging. Mueller Report Edited Conversation Between Trump, Flynn Lawyers. The Transcript Was Just Released.

 

This leftist has a clue!


How Did Russiagate Begin?

“Thus far, Barr has been cautious in his public statements. He has acknowledged there was “spying,” or surveillance, on the Trump campaign, which can be legal, but he surely knows that in the case of Papadopoulos (and possibly of General Michael Flynn), what happened was more akin to entrapment, which is never legal.”