Mega-Thread: Mueller investigation

[Breccia]

Because it sure sounds like the latter.

Valid, except for one thing: the assumption that Facebook, not willing to go down this road again, won't let "Oxford Analytico" anywhere near them.

[Skroe]

I'm ashamed to admit that, for a brief second or three, I asked myself "What does this have to do with this thread?" =/

And, yes, rather amusing to note. Wonder where their email servers are... >.>

The Trump-Russia National Security Incident is going to be too complex to ever adapt to a TV series or a movie. It's legitimately hard to keep track, even if you keep on top of everything.

I think that just goes to show the level of corruption that has permeated the West. And I don't mean among elected officials, because law enforcement does a pretty good job (at least historically) at coming down on that. I mean even among private citizens, how many people are willing to do profoundly evil things, or compromise our shared democratic (small d) values and traditions because their either highly ambitious, highly greedy, or both.

It's going to be one thing to see Trump removed from office. It's going to take far longer, and be much harder, to reconstruct a set of societal norms where the shit that went on at Cambridge Analytica, or Paul Manafort's entire business, doesn't happen because there is at least a shred of decency, a shred of sense of right and wrong, and a shred of patriotism.

I honestly do think that we're in part here, because some people didn't go to jail and lose everything, like they should have, after the Financial Crisis.

[Breccia]

"The Russia investigation must end," investigation target Caputo said, "it is costing me too much money."

Twenty-four hours later, he's meeting with Mueller.

Caputo was an advisor in Trump's campaign. Specifically, communications. How's it going, CA? Shut down, you say? That's neat.

- - - Updated - - -

Well, let's hear from FOX News.

Fox News's Judge Andrew Napolitano said Wednesday that President Trump hiring former former President Bill Clinton’s impeachment lawyer shows that he’s realizing how serious special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe is.

“This also tells me that the president finally recognizes how serious the Mueller probe is,” Napolitano said on Fox News' “Outnumbered.” “He finally is moving in the direction of Rudy Giuliani to head the outside team, Emmet Flood to head the inside team.”

The senior legal analyst praised both recent additions as “top-shelf, very gifted” lawyers but noted that it is “very late in the game for a change of this magnitude.”

“There is no one on the president’s team that’s been there since day one. And with the departure of Ty Cobb, there will be no one on the president’s team who’s personally familiar with the hundreds of thousand of pages of documents that the president has surrendered to special counsel,” Napolitano said.

One of these things is not like the others...one of these things just doesn't belong...

[Skroe]

Valid, except for one thing: the assumption that Facebook, not willing to go down this road again, won't let "Oxford Analytico" anywhere near them.

Of course Facebook will. Facebook's leadership is delusional. As in, completely checked out. Their divided between tech-new ages who believe the crap they spew about a new world, and people who don't give a shit because user data is their core business.

We saw this, more recently, in that juvenile open letter by several thousand employees at Google, Facebook and Microsoft, imploring their companies to not big on the Pentagons' new big cloud computing contract. I work in the tech industry, and I've *gotten it* since day one. This field is overflowing with new agers who are clinically out to lunch on the things they believe. Their entire world view has no natural antibodies to the horrible shit predators like Cambridge Analytica, Russian Intelligence, and the Alt-Reich do. I hate to generalize, but over the years, far too many of my classmates, then co-workers, were either hysterically niave about the nature of the world and what goes on, or uncaring.

Facebook will keep letting this shit happen, bigger, because it has no clue how to deal with predators proactively. It gives utter villany the benefit of a doubt because (1) it's ideology and (2) it's business model.

The signs are clear as day now, that we're entering a period of significant hostility with Russia, and we're at the cusp of something much more long term and seriousness with respect to China... something there that will last decades. A New Cold War, or something different. But if you've been living the life and philosophy of the borderless, interconnected world? Then such a person has no way to deal with the fact that on this planet, Nation States still rule.

We millennials will live things we thought was gone. It will be progressively harder to travel to adversary countries. Larger and larger sections of the internet will be cut off to users. We will spend more on defense than we thought we ever would, and an entire generation of Westerners is going to have to get used to the idea that a dollar or a Euro spent on a bomber that MIGHT be used to kill some Russians is every bit a legitimate expenditure of taxpayer dollars as it is a book for school or for pills for grandma. A harsh new reality will enforce us to deal with our needs and put aside our wants.

Ultimately, social media could be a "fad" in a sense, because of that alone. Even the idea of sharing your name and identity on line, a few years ago seeming so hopeful... now has a deeply dark dimension to it that won't be lifted soon. And it will get worse. Consider, in the past five years, China has hacked the Social Security Administration, the GSA, and major credit companies. Why? It is likely building a massive database of every living American to sort which ones would be useful for the purposes of intelligence collection and which ones have liabilities (like excessive debt) that make them intelligence targets. The US is probably doing the same thing towards China.

The "big one" with China and hacking... the Chinese equivalent of Trump-Russia so to speak.... is ahead of us still. And it's gonna be a whopper. How does social media as we know it thrive in that environment? It probably doesn't. But Facebook and Zuckerberg's gang of morons will ride it to the end because they don't know or don't care about the world we live in, versus the world as they want it.

[Breccia]

Of course Facebook will. Facebook's leadership is delusional.

Well, I guess I should have said "I hope this time, because they got so publicly shamed over it, that it changes their mind and makes them act ethically since they know they can get caught."

We'll see...but, you have a pretty convincing point.

[Skroe]

Well, I guess I should have said "I hope this time, because they got so publicly shamed over it, that it changes their mind and makes them act ethically since they know they can get caught."

We'll see...but, you have a pretty convincing point.

Mark Zuckerberg showed at his testimony to Congress he is so detached from reality and bereft of responsibility that there is no scandal Facebook could endure that would get him to change course.

He thinks he beat Congress. He's probably right, largely because Congressmen and Senators were inadequately prepared by their staff and don't have the right frame of reference to ask the questions of Facebook that need to be asked. But because he thinks he beat Congress, he thinks now that he and Facebook is bulletproof.

The only hope for "righting" the very many wrongs of Facebook is force consumer tastes to change and Facebook to decline. I mean it's happened before. It happened with internet explorer. It is happening right now with iPhones, that are only showing growth through ever higher prices.

We're just going to have to wait them out.

[cubby]

So, they did get them separately. Okay. Mueller didn't leak. Guess they lose that talking point by their own admission.

On Topic: Trump has chosen a new tactic in the emoluments case against him. He flat-out claimed he was above the law, and asked the case to be dismissed.

The term used was "absolute immunity".

Despite the clause reading

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince or foreign State.

Trump has decided not to divest from his businesses, and to take the foreign money anyhow. And further, the legal defense is "you can't sue a President for acts he does in his role as President" which is a pretty solid statement by itself...until you get to the part where running his business for personal profit is now part of his role as President. Which is not solid at all. In fact, it's the opposite of what the emoluments clause was set up for in the first place.

But there you have it: Trump is claiming he is above the law that was written specifically about people in office profiting off bribes and corruption. Not "I didn't do it" but "you can't prosecute or sue me for doing it".

And yet, there will be people who don't see the "fascist" term being used here.

Normally, this would be time for Articles to be taken up. With Cadet Bone Spurs? Just a Wednesday.

Two legally curious questions:

1. Does him saying he's above the law equate to a tacit admission of guilt?
2. Does the emoluments clause allow a sitting president to be prosecuted?

[Breccia]

1. Does him saying he's above the law equate to a tacit admission of guilt?

Yes.

2. Does the emoluments clause allow a sitting president to be prosecuted?

The President is immune to prosecution and lawsuits about actions taken in their role as President. The Emoluments Clause very specifically says taking bribes from foreign states is, in fact, not the role of any public official, including the President.

Besides, it's be a pretty fucking stupid law to have, if it only applied to people in office, if the office of President was immune.

[Ripster42]

1. Does him saying he's above the law equate to a tacit admission of guilt?
2. Does the emoluments clause allow a sitting president to be prosecuted?

It's one of the few "high crimes and misdemeanors" actually enumerated in the constitution.

[Shadowmelded]

But is that a "every executive is facing charges and has had assets seized to pay off fines/debts as the company collapses around them" shut down, or "we have no connection to this new company, Oxford Analytico, which mysteriously has all our old assets, all our staff and executives, and the same shareholders and whatnot" shut down?

Because it sure sounds like the latter.

Very much the latter considering they'd already started a new data company with Mercer links. Wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the UK to act given the Tories' links to them either, hell it took them long enough to raid the offices and even then the body that did is pretty understaffed and underfunded with little actual power.

[Breccia]

There appears to be a concerted effort to have a bunch of people get on FOX News and say "don't do the interview" so Trump will see it.

"Says who?"

FOX News.

"...what were the exact words?"

“There appears to be a concerted effort to put a bunch of people on television, having seen those questions, and to say into the television — like this channel — ‘don’t do it Mr. President, don’t do it,” Shep Smith said, referring to the recently leaked list of questions Mueller reportedly plans to ask Trump in a potential interview.

That's right: any possible argument "No, this isn't the TV President" have just been destroyed. Trump is proving he listens to the television, more than his closest advisors. And they're going along with it.

This is where I'm supposed to ask "Are we tired of winning yet?" But...read the usual defenders. They've given up. They're done. Even their lame-ass limp-dick IMPOTUS Whataboutism, Handwaving and derailing attempts stink of tears and shame. They know they've lost. They know it's over. And now, they get to be sick to their stomach as the person they've been defending, against their own self interest most times. says "I think I need a new legal strategy" and grabs the remote control.

And the GOP is going along with it. They're literally following the Stephen Colbert strategy -- except he's a comedian, and they're the political party in charge of all three branches of the government. And they still need to use a process originated as a joke to keep their leader, the man they sacrificed their morals, ethics, and party's values for -- from walking up to Mueller and perjuring himself a dozen times, because he's too fucking clueless to know any better.

[Bullettime]

Like put in the other thread though, Giuliani just also admit today that Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey because he wouldn't drop the Russia investigation.

[Dontrike]

There appears to be a concerted effort to have a bunch of people get on FOX News and say "don't do the interview" so Trump will see it.

"Says who?"

FOX News.

"...what were the exact words?"



That's right: any possible argument "No, this isn't the TV President" have just been destroyed. Trump is proving he listens to the television, more than his closest advisors. And they're going along with it.

This is where I'm supposed to ask "Are we tired of winning yet?" But...read the usual defenders. They've given up. They're done. Even their lame-ass limp-dick IMPOTUS Whataboutism, Handwaving and derailing attempts stink of tears and shame. They know they've lost. They know it's over. And now, they get to be sick to their stomach as the person they've been defending, against their own self interest most times. says "I think I need a new legal strategy" and grabs the remote control.

And the GOP is going along with it. They're literally following the Stephen Colbert strategy -- except he's a comedian, and they're the political party in charge of all three branches of the government. And they still need to use a process originated as a joke to keep their leader, the man they sacrificed their morals, ethics, and party's values for -- from walking up to Mueller and perjuring himself a dozen times, because he's too fucking clueless to know any better.

The last two days have been so amazing and this is like the sprinkles on top of it. The fact so many need to tell him that is plain hilarious.

We need more catheter cowboy to tell him to do it.

[Breccia]

Like put in the other thread though, Giuliani just also admit today that Trump obstructed justice by firing Comey because he wouldn't drop the Russia investigation.

Well, no. it's worse.

Giulliani said, Trump fired Comey, because Comey refused to say Trump wasn't a target.

The implication is, if Comey had said "Trump is not a target", Trump would have let it continue.

In other words, the investigation was fine, unless it was on Trump himself. That's where Trump drew the line.

It's still obstruction of justice. But it's very specifically protecting Trump, not ending the investigation. It's actually worse than what you said, which was itself pretty bad.

[NYC17]

The last two days have been so amazing and this is like the sprinkles on top of it. The fact so many need to tell him that is plain hilarious.

We need more catheter cowboy to tell him to do it.

And just because everything about this situation is such a shit show, here's Cobb getting in on it...

[Breccia]

What He Meant Was just tried the defense "There's a lot of reasons to fire Comey, but Trump can hire and fire whoever he wants for whatever reason he wants."

That sounds like "Trump is above the law" to me. Granted, she's low on options: Trump has given at least three reasons so far. Two of them were obstruction of justice.

[DarkTZeratul]

Well, no. it's worse.

Giulliani said, Trump fired Comey, because Comey refused to say Trump wasn't a target.

The implication is, if Comey had said "Trump is not a target", Trump would have let it continue.

In other words, the investigation was fine, unless it was on Trump himself. That's where Trump drew the line.

It's still obstruction of justice. But it's very specifically protecting Trump, not ending the investigation. It's actually worse than what you said, which was itself pretty bad.

And that's leaving aside the fact that Trump specifically bragged about Comey telling him multiple times that he WASN'T a target.

[Masark]

But is that a "every executive is facing charges and has had assets seized to pay off fines/debts as the company collapses around them" shut down, or "we have no connection to this new company, Oxford Analytico, which mysteriously has all our old assets, all our staff and executives, and the same shareholders and whatnot" shut down?

Because it sure sounds like the latter.

It's exactly like the latter.

[Cthulhu 2020]

The last two days have been so amazing and this is like the sprinkles on top of it. The fact so many need to tell him that is plain hilarious.

We need more catheter cowboy to tell him to do it.

It's weird cause @Skroe hasn't been banned for a few days and yet we get all of these gems. We can't break the Skroe rule. Skroe, go tell some Trumpkins what you think of them, fast!

[Stormspark]

It's weird cause @Skroe hasn't been banned for a few days and yet we get all of these gems. We can't break the Skroe rule. Skroe, go tell some Trumpkins what you think of them, fast!

I don't think Trump can survive another Skroe ban. If he's banned again, within an hour Trump will be carted out in cuffs.