Mega-Thread: Mueller investigation

[Grapemask]

Lol, now lets watch them bend over backwards spin doctor on why this doesnt apply to trump because "orange man bad!!"

Why would it? "Innocent until proven guilty" only pertains to the criminal justice system. According to Mueller, as president, Trump's crimes can't be charged in the criminal justice system, and only the process of impeachment can decide what to do about them. Impeachment doesn't assume innocence. Impeachment doesn't even require a crime.

[Felya]

2016 called. It wants its fresh and exciting russia-hysteric soundbites back.

Its been proven and is expected to continue, with reports that Iran is going to pull the same shit, due to Russian success combined with US government’s impotence in responding.

[Blur4stuff]

Mueller was absolutely right about Russia. They're doing it right now. I don't mean a general kind of now, but this very minute as I type this post. I see them and others doing it on a daily basis.

Anyone pretending that election interference is a hoax or overblown truly has their head in the sand or welcomes the interference because they want Trump to receive outside help even if it's from a hostile dictator.

[Cthulhu 2020]

2016 called. It wants its fresh and exciting russia-hysteric soundbites back.

The poster you quoted is a Russian who frequently lies and spins. He spent 20 pages on the thread about the Nazi who ran over people with his car trying to explain away why he was innocent of harmful intent. Shalcker has also said he backs Trump because he wants the US to fall into chaos and fail as a country. That's the kind of people you're getting in bed with. Not someone who supports Trump because they feel like love America, but he backs Trump because he knows Trump is failing America, lol.

[Jorlen]

Mueller was absolutely right about Russia. They're doing it right now. I don't mean a general kind of now, but this very minute as I type this post. I see them and others doing it on a daily basis.

Anyone pretending that election interference is a hoax or overblown truly has their head in the sand or welcomes the interference because they want Trump to receive outside help even if it's from a hostile dictator.

Could you explain how? Cus I haven't see anything at all. I hope you aren't going to say, look at all the Russian bots on forums.

[SirBeef]

Could you explain how? Cus I haven't see anything at all. I hope you aren't going to say, look at all the Russian bots on forums.

Twitter bots, fake facebook accounts and the like.

[Jorlen]

Twitter bots, fake facebook accounts and the like.

Couldn't anyone from any country do that? Couldn't I do that?

[cubby]

The crime happened irrespective of a guilty verdict. All a guilty verdict does is put the court system's stamp on it. If killing a person with malice aforethought is murder, the person who kills with malice aforethought commits murder regardless of if they're convicted of it or not. If you lie under oath, you commit perjury, regardless of if you're convicted or not.

We believe a crime happened, we won't know until its adjudicated. Crime is a function of the court system which is derived from society and laws. Until the process plays itself out, there is technically no crime committed.

All your examples are using words that have specific legal definitions, all of which are derived from a court system. In your example, you may have lied, but you didn't commit perjury until you've been convicted.

This is bullshit and you know it. OJ is a murderer. He murdered his wife and lover. It doesn't matter if he got off on the conviction or not. He did it. We know he did it. The court not finding him guilty doesn't make him not a murderer. This is like the tree falling in a forest. A crime is a crime whether the court acknowledges it or not.

Unfortunately it's not like the tree example. A crime is committed only after it's been adjudicated. The best example I've come up with (and I'm others have better ones) are killer and murderer. Shooting someone means you've killed them. It's not murder until a court has decided. And therefore the killer isn't a murderer until that process has played itself out.

[Dreknar20]

The crime happened irrespective of a guilty verdict.

Unless your Batman, a crime you commited cant be proven in court it might as well as not happened

[cubby]

The crime happened irrespective of a guilty verdict.

Let's try this another way. You say a crime has been committed. How do you know? What standards are you using to determine which crime was committed? And is one person's opinion good enough for the determination? If you're so sure someone committed First Degree Murder in a state that has capital punishment, are you ok having those people who are "sure" administering the punishment?

Do you see where I'm going with this? At a fundamental level, you know someone was killed, but you cannot say it's murder until a court had gone through the process. It might be blatantly obvious to everyone, but it isn't murder until a court determines it.

[Kaleredar]

2016 called. It wants its fresh and exciting russia-hysteric soundbites back.

Mueller said Trump's campaign actively invited Russian influence and then lied to cover it up.

I've yet to see you try and hand-wave that away; you seem to try regurgitating hackneyed reddit soundbites to try and distract from it.

- - - Updated - - -

Couldn't anyone from any country do that? Couldn't I do that?

Are you operating it on a massive scale and under a collective direction of insidious intelligence operations?

They come in and spam misleading or incorrect infographics, link to fringe right-wing sources, and generally push a narrative of right wing talking points, how America is supposedly being duped by its allies, how the EU is a failure, the evils of immigration, and/or distracting from criticism levied at Russia. All things that serve to make America weaker, either by advocating for bad policy, creating false narratives in the minds of the public, or distracting from actual issues.

Now you can criticize that it takes people to fall for such trolling for it to be effective, but I mean... it's the republicans that want to keep stripping school budgets, so...

[Ripster42]

Let's try this another way. You say a crime has been committed. How do you know? What standards are you using to determine which crime was committed? And is one person's opinion good enough for the determination? If you're so sure someone committed First Degree Murder in a state that has capital punishment, are you ok having those people who are "sure" administering the punishment?

Do you see where I'm going with this? At a fundamental level, you know someone was killed, but you cannot say it's murder until a court had gone through the process. It might be blatantly obvious to everyone, but it isn't murder until a court determines it.

You look at the evidence and the statute. Courts are only the arbiters for punishment. Remember what I said, all a conviction does is let the government exact punishment. Lacking a conviction just means the state doesn't have standing to punish, not that a crime wasn't committed. The crime took place irrespective of a conviction. Courts don't manipulate reality. They don't retroactively change someone's behaviors or motivations behind those behaviors.

[cubby]

You look at the evidence and the statute. Courts are only the arbiters for punishment. Remember what I said, all a conviction does is let the government exact punishment. Lacking a conviction just means the state doesn't have standing to punish, not that a crime wasn't committed. The crime took place irrespective of a conviction. Courts don't manipulate reality. They don't retroactively change someone's behaviors or motivations behind those behaviors.

Who looks at it? Who decides? The courts are not just the arbiters for punishment. They are the ultimate decision of guilt, and therefore whether a crime has been committed. Without a conviction, a crime cannot truly exist. An event, sure. We can say we know what happened, and we can be reasonably sure of the circumstances, etc. But we cannot be sure of a crime without the courts process being completed.

Again, it's the difference between a killer and a murderer.

You keep using legal words that come from legal processes and then want to disavow yourself of those legal foundations when handing out legal conclusions. You can't have it both ways. You can know something happened, and use non-legal words to describe it (i.e. a killing, a taking, etc.), but you cannot call it a crime (i.e. a murder, a robbery) without the full weight of the court bearing down and concluding.

Courts in fact do decide what those motivations were and what those behaviors were when deciding what happened. I can give you any number of situations in which we cannot know what crime was committed until the courts decide what the full scope of factors were in the event that took place. A killing is yet another perfect example. Self defense? Premeditation? Involuntary? Those are all statutory factors that must be decided by a court.

Now, there are many times where we KNOW that some form of crime has taken place, and we're almost certain as to what the conclusions of the court will be (i.e. a jury trial and their decision). But we can't be certain until that process has played out. So we cannot be certain a crime had occurred until the courts decide.

[draynay]

You keep using legal words that come from legal processes and then want to disavow yourself of those legal foundations when handing out legal conclusions. You can't have it both ways.

That's exactly what I tried to explain earlier. /shrug

[Mormolyce]

Ok Ted shoots Paul because he didn't like him this is the objective truth of this scenario

Yes but you only know Ted shot Paul because you're the author of this fiction and you are omniscient. In the real world nobody is.

But really, all this establishes is that it's of paramount importance that people be brought to trial in a speedy fashion so their guilt can be assessed. And in this case, a fucking Nixon-era memo says "nuh uh the President is above the law" so that isn't happening. The only recourse is impeachment and cynical party politics are blocking that. It's a constitutional crisis.

[SirBeef]

Couldn't anyone from any country do that? Couldn't I do that?

Yes, and China has shown that irmt has started to do that as well. But Russia has known troll farms if you will sponsored by the Kremlin specifically to sow seeds of disinformation and evidence was found they targeted all 59 states and something like 23 have been arrested, tried, and found guilty of this.

[Jorlen]

Are you operating it on a massive scale and under a collective direction of insidious intelligence operations?

They come in and spam misleading or incorrect infographics, link to fringe right-wing sources, and generally push a narrative of right wing talking points, how America is supposedly being duped by its allies, how the EU is a failure, the evils of immigration, and/or distracting from criticism levied at Russia. All things that serve to make America weaker, either by advocating for bad policy, creating false narratives in the minds of the public, or distracting from actual issues.

Now you can criticize that it takes people to fall for such trolling for it to be effective, but I mean... it's the republicans that want to keep stripping school budgets, so...

I don't need any bot in a forum to tell me that:
-America's allies could be doing more for their own defense but chose to spend it elsewhere,
-that the EU probably didn't turn out to be as great as originally expected but I don't care that is none of my business,
-no one thinks immigration is bad--they feel nervous about open borders and illegal immigrants which will ultimate cause chaos
(the left seems unable to tell the difference between legal immigration and illegal...which is frightening, but bots didn't teach me that),
-Mitt Romney said Russia was the biggest threat and you guys all laughed at him, the Right properly understood the danger of Russia.

I guess those bots worked on me...I don't have a FB account and barely spend any time in forums.

[Bodakane]

I don't need any bot in a forum to tell me that:
-America's allies could be doing more for their own defense but chose to spend it elsewhere,
-that the EU probably didn't turn out to be as great as originally expected but I don't care that is none of my business,
-no one thinks immigration is bad--they feel nervous about open borders and illegal immigrants which will ultimate cause chaos
(the left seems unable to tell the difference between legal immigration and illegal...which is frightening, but bots didn't teach me that),
-Mitt Romney said Russia was the biggest threat and you guys all laughed at him, the Right properly understood the danger of Russia.

I guess those bots worked on me...I don't have a FB account and barely spend any time in forums.

What you are declaring as "the right" is not "the right" anymore.Your side sold its soul to trump and the alt right.

[Jorlen]

What you are declaring as "the right" is not "the right" anymore.Your side sold its soul to trump and the alt right.

Bullshit. Nothing has changed on the right in 40 years(sad as that might be).

[rogueMatthias]

Could you explain how? Cus I haven't see anything at all. I hope you aren't going to say, look at all the Russian bots on forums.

Yes Bots on forums, twitter accounts and similar lol. As if anyone is going to change their political opinion based on some tweet they read. LoL. Even political forums like this are purely for self-righteous venting so people can feel superior. There's very little "discussion" and nobody wants to even contemplate views outside of their own as being anything but based on inherent flaws in those people's character (ie they're a nazi/libtard)

I can see how their involvement in the wikileaks hacking would have contributed to Clintons loss but the rest is just crap. Everyone blamed Cambrdige Analytica until that bogeyman was revealed to be obvious bullshit. Now, with Russophobia the go-to of the media, we're just blaming it all on those pesky Russians instead.