The Robert Mueller Investigation

[David Dennison 18646]

2 minutes ago, Jack Straw said:

The face of the Republican Party, folks.  This is what you love and wholeheartedly support when you pull the lever for the (R).  

It's why educated people are fleeing the party in droves.

It's the party of slack-jawed yokels and morons.

[Loch Ness Monster 3533]

religious people, the uneducated, white males

Edited December 8, 2018 by Loch Ness Monster

[JimmyJames 12271]

5 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

It's why educated people are fleeing the party in droves.

It's the party of slack-jawed yokels and morons.

Don’t forget the greedy corrupt uber rich top .01 percent who control the rubes. 

[Jack Straw 2953]

3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

It's why educated people are fleeing the party in droves.

And being replaced by even larger numbers of morons and racists, and those driven by fear and hatred of others.  

[David Dennison 18646]

Just now, Jack Straw said:

And being replaced by even larger numbers of morons and racists, and those driven by fear and hatred of others.  

Thankfully, those numbers are shrinking. 

[Jack Straw 2953]

Just now, David Dennison said:

Thankfully, those numbers are shrinking. 

We will have to agree to disagree on that point.  

[Celery Man 20881]

it depends on if you measure it in people or electoral college votes

[David Dennison 18646]

Just now, Jack Straw said:

We will have to agree to disagree on that point.  

You're talking about white people. White people are becoming a smaller percentage of the population every day. That's a fact.

It's all good.

[Goredho 17341]

There are so many good, on-point observations here about Trump and what he has done that are sadly not at all shocking or  revelatory  Anyone not in the 1% or a poor/old/stooped bamboozled by the GOP could see all of this coming.  Every horrifying, terrible thing we see, every shocking new low is simply the logical progression of events after electing a man like Trump as President. 

[Post Oak 20182]

4 hours ago, Laga4 said:

The thing that jumps out at me is 42% of Americans approve of the job the president is doing and 9% are unsur

Nvm

Edited December 8, 2018 by Post Oak

[Post Oak 20182]

4 hours ago, Laga4 said:

The thing that jumps out at me is 42% of Americans approve of the job the president is doing and 9% are unsure.  

I think that means that 42% are racists.  And 9% are racist soybean farmers 

[NBMisha 224]

I was pretty horrified at his election, but, based on my 64 years' experience, I thought the office requirements would bring some normalcy to his behavior.  I was as wrong as could be on that front, and also underestimated the sheer mendacity of the dude, even after seeing his campaign antics.  So, yes, we all should have seen this coming, but sure as hell didn't.

Still, that 40%.  They will vote for anybody to fullfill their manipulated resentment.

[Jack Straw 2953]

Just now, David Dennison said:

You're talking about white people. White people are becoming a smaller percentage of the population every day. That's a fact.

It's all good.

Yes - white people are becoming a smaller percentage of the overall population. But my point remains that the percentage of whites who fit my description above is growing and becoming more and more dangerous. They’re not going anywhere anytime soon.  

[WhatTheBuck 28703]

18 minutes ago, Jack Straw said:

The face of the Republican Party, folks.  This is what you love and wholeheartedly support when you pull the lever for the (R).  

Professional wrestling is fake too. It was reality tv before reality tv was a thing. The kind of people who believe it's real are exactly the kind of people who would fall for Trump's bullshit.

I still wonder how many of his followers never heard of him before The Apprentice and truly believe he's the character presented on that show. I'll bet the percentage is significant. 

[pyrohornIII 4805]

3 minutes ago, NBMisha said:

I was pretty horrified at his election, but, based on my 64 years' experience, I thought the office requirements would bring some normalcy to his behavior.  I was as wrong as could be on that front, and also underestimated the sheer mendacity of the dude, even after seeing his campaign antics.  So, yes, we all should have seen this coming, but sure as hell didn't.

Still, that 40%.  They will vote for anybody to fullfill their manipulated resentment.

A great term.

[WhatTheBuck 28703]

18 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

Thankfully, those numbers are shrinking. 

Source?

[Jograves 357]

10 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Professional wrestling is fake too. It was reality tv before reality tv was a thing. The kind of people who believe it's real are exactly the kind of people who would fall for Trump's bullshit.

I still wonder how many of his followers never heard of him before The Apprentice and truly believe he's the character presented on that show. I'll bet the percentage is significant. 

Of course, it’s significant. During the campaign, The Apprentice was used as a qualification for the presidency and by not just a few people. I recall people on tv pointing to that as an example of his leadership skills. A fucking tv show. Insanity. 

[WhatTheBuck 28703]

34 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

You're talking about white people. White people are becoming a smaller percentage of the population every day. That's a fact.

It's all good.

Their numbers are still growing and their fear of losing majority status appears to be making a lot of them more racist. They still control the levers of power and now have a white supremacist in the Oval Office who's making a concerted effort to keep non-whites out. 

You're engaging in some flimsy reasoning there.

Edit: Okay, Jack Straw pretty much covered it already. 

Edited December 8, 2018 by WhatTheBuck

[David Dennison 18646]

12 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Their numbers are still growing and their fear of losing majority status appears to be making a lot of them more racist. They still control the levers of power and now have a white supremacist in the Oval Office who's making a concerted effort to keep non-whites out. 

You're engaging in some flimsy reasoning there.

Edit: Okay, Jack Straw pretty much covered it already. 

They do not control the levers of power. They control some levers of power. And their numbers are shrinking. We are just going to disagree on that.

[Brian Fantana 6667]

A friend of mine who is a criminal defense litigator posted this on facebook. Spoiler tagging because it is quite long but worth a read in my opinion. Would be curious to see what @Brisketexan and other resident legal experts think about his assessment of the situation.

Spoiler

Today was an eventful day if your named rhymed of Ronald Grump (id est, "Individual-1"). But before we get to that, a little background about your federal criminal justice system.

The federal criminal justice system is very unlike the ones you are familiar with (state justice systems). This is because the federal government of necessity has a much smaller jurisdiction -- only things that happen on federal lands/property and certain crimes which have federal jurisdictional "hooks" fall within the purview of the federal government to criminalize. Understandably, these tend to be the larger, more complex, and more serious crimes.

In response to this, the federal system is structured quite differently than individual state systems. While we may recognize that a state court in Vermont and a state court in Texas will likely have a different tenor and cast to the views of judge and jury, the federal system isn't supposed to have any of that. It is supposed to exist free of local prejudice. In order to effectuate this, Congress and the Art. III courts tightly control the entire process from start to finish. One of the more perplexing aspects for non-lawyers is the federal sentencing system. While a majority of states have a determinate sentencing scheme (whereby enumerated factors are considered by a learned professional, a judge, in setting sentence), there is still an inherent degree of flexibility in judicial decision-making regarding sentence that allows for expressions of mercy or imprecation as the facts of the case may warrant (Texas, on the other hand, permits juries of 6 or 12 people to determine sentence with regard to NO enumerated factors).

Up until the latter half of the last decade, these determinate sentencing calculations were not advisory; they were mandatory. Paradoxically, the Sentencing Guidelines actually made sentences uniformly harsher because most judges tend to be merciful when they vary from determinate sentencing guidelines. Through a series of legislative and judicial reforms, however, the Sentencing Guidelines were determined to be only advisory in nature, but even still, a within-Guidelines sentence is presumptively reasonable, so most judges, in practice, still follow the Guidelines recommendations.

One of the clearest aims of defense counsel in the federal system is not to seek and achieve acquittal for their clients, but to reduce the Guidelines calculation as much as possible. This is because the federal prosecutors get to be very, very, very, very selective in the cases they take. Your local municipal prosecutor HAS to take every ticket that a cop writes. Your local DA has to try the cases that a grand jury says he does. A federal AUSA may have a yearly caseload in the hundreds, rather than the thousand or tens of thousands. As a result, federal prosecutors tend to take, try, and succeed on, the cases that they are most sure of winning.

Added to this, the various federal law enforcement agencies, chief among them the FBI, also represent the cream of the law enforcement crop. Whereas Uncle-cousin Billy can be hired by local elected sheriff Jethro Honkytonk, or a dewy-eyed high school graduate can complete six months at a local academy and be licensed to carry a gun and shoot people, the FBI almost universally requires a bachelor's degree, if not a masters, PhD, or law degree. This dramatically increases the thoroughness, effectiveness, and adequacy of law enforcement investigations.

I state all of this to tell you that when I receive a federal case, it is rare, exceedingly rare, that I have the ability to reach into my bag of defense attorney tricks (motions to suppress, attacks on the constitutionality of statutes, affirmative defenses, etc.) to try to spring my client. Instead, at best, I run interference until I figure out how to mitigate the harshness of the coming punishment.

Add to this the fact that most federal cases are complex, in that they involve multiple defendants doing separate bad acts as part of a common scheme or plan. The smartest way to try such a case is to find the low man on the totem pole, the weakest link, and offer him the chance to assist the government. If he does, the government is empowered to make several types of favorable sentencing recommendations under USSG 5K1.1 (the 5K motion) or 18 U.S.C. § 3553 (the sentencing statute). These motions, which can only be made at final sentencing, permit judges to IGNORE mandatory minimum sentences, or statutorily-required minimums on a custodial sentence. A mandatory minimum five-year sentence can be reduced to under two years with a favorable 5K motion, which is why major drug rings are almost always brought down as low-level dealers and flunkies turn on higher-ups. This is not a bug, but rather a feature, of the system.

It should surprise you not in the least, then, that so much of federal criminal litigation is built around knowing how manage cooperating defendants and achieve favorable outcomes for them. To wit, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort.

These two are the Goofus and Gallant of federal criminal procedure. For our purposes, Manafort is Goofus and Cohen is Gallant.

Goofus dug in his heels, said "the FBI will never get the goods on me!" and went to trial. Goofus got his ass KICKED at trial, and would have been convicted on all counts save for one Trumpalo holdout. Goofus got a lot smarter after losing his initial trial, and began to cooperate, agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for favorable sentencing recommendations after a debrief. Manafort met with government agents TWELVE (12) times, three times before making his agreement and nine times after. This is extraordinary; the most I've ever had a client debrief is three, all pre-plea. Post-plea cooperation means that investigators really thought Goofus had something good to say.

Problem is, Goofus fucking lied. Not only did he lie, he lied in ways the prosecutors knew he was lying about. When one debriefs with federal government agents, they ask questions they know the answer to to check to make sure one is being honest. Goofus fucked this up; Goofus's lawyers obviously didn't know Goofus was fucking up, or else they'd have said, "I need to speak to my client in confidence real quick," so that they could say, "QUIT LYING YOU ASSHOLE THEY KNOW THEY KNOW THEY KNOW."

On November 8, 2018, Goofus's lawyers got a bad, bad phone call from the prosecutors. "We know your client lied to us," is bad. It's bad because not only does it mean that cooperation agreement they spent so long obtaining is out the window, but also that Goofus can be prosecuted for a new count of obstruction.

Today, Mueller's team filed their memorandum in support of their argument that Manafort not only lied to them, but breached his plea agreement. Breaching a plea agreement is serious shit for a defendant, because IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE PLEA AGREEMENT IS OFF. It just means the government doesn't have to live up to its part of the bargain. The defendant is still on the hook for EVERYTHING. It's a one-way no-backsies clause.

While most of the memo is heavily redacted (all of the good juicy parts are blacked out), it does let us know a few key things: (1) Manafort was in contact with operatives of the Russian government/intelligence community; (2) Manafort lied about it; (3) Manafort worked with Russians to obstruct justice by tampering with witnesses against him; and (4) Manafort lied about another investigation in another district. We don't know what other investigation this is (it's blacked out), but it COULD be Cohen's, or it could be something else entirely.

Most importantly, however, we know that Manafort was in contact with the Trump administration AFTER his indictment and plea agreement, which he said he would not do.

What this means is that the government will not be offering Manafort any breaks at sentencing. He will die in prison.

And then there's Gallant.

Gallant did what a smart federal criminal does -- offers to cooperate, goes in, and does so. He stayed out of the spotlight, didn't fuck around with investigators, and now is up for sentencing. Before sentencing, the government and the defendant (if they're well-represented) both file sentencing memorandums, or medium-length documents indicating how the sentencing court should calculate the Guidelines range and where the sentence should fall. The sentencing memo filed by Mueller's team is fairly basic, but it contains some absolute WHOPPER revelations. Seriously, Burger King should sue for trademark infringement.

It establishes that Cohen lied to congressional investigators and law enforcement about his role within Trump's organization and about his contacts with Russians. It further states that Cohen admitted to all of this and accepted his responsibility, which is key. Like I said, Cohen is Gallant. He did the right thing; Manafort is a dipshit. "Accepting responsibility" in federal criminal parlance means "cooperated and told us the truth." In a footnote on page 4, the government notes that Cohen went in and told investigators the truth while CORRECTING statements he'd made earlier. That's not only, "I lied," but "I lied, and here's the truth."

Mueller says Cohen helped in four main ways: (1) providing information about contacts with Russian interests during the campaign and "discussions with others" in the course of making contact and providing information on attempts by Russians to contact the Trump campaign, including attempts to set up a meeting between Putin and Trump; (2) providing information on Russian interference in the 2016 election "obtained by virtue of his regular contact with [Trump organization] executives during the campaign; (3) providing information on contacts with people in the White House durings 2017-2018; and (4) providing information on the coordination between Cohen and people testifying before Congress.

Let's unpack. (1) is obvious; Cohen, as Trump's fixer, was a key go-between in the quid pro quo of why Russia wanted Trump in the White House. (2) is less obvious, but still key -- Cohen, as a close confidant of Trump, had personal knowledge of how Russia was to help the Trump campaign. (3) is a bit shocking, because it shows that the Mueller investigation has gone beyond what happened in 2016 and has been actively investigating recent and current happenings (every indictment so far has been for older stuff). (4) is downright shit-your-pants-with-watery-dooks frightening for Trump and Co. This is as close as the memo comes to saying, "Trump used Cohen to coach people testifying before congressional committees" as a sentencing memo can get. This is, in so few words, a big, flashing, "YOU OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE AND WE FUCKING KNOW IT" sign to Donald Trump.

But most interesting (to me, at least) was the statement by prosecutors that Cohen admitted, with respect to the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen MacDougal, that "he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1." Individual-1 is, unquestionably, Donald Trump. How do we know that? In other filings, it was stated that Individual-1 ran a successful campaign for the Presidency of the United States.

Why is this so significant? Because (1) Trump has lied and said he did not know about the payments and (2) the payments themselves constitute a felony campaign finance violation a piece. This means that Trump has committed a provable felony, and that he has attempted to obstruct justice to cover it up. Most legal experts believe that this is grounds for impeachment, and if Congress does not act immediately on it, you could see some real unrest from people pissed off that Republicans are so complicit in allowing Trump to act with impunity.

Elsewhere in the realm of politics, the Grand Ol' Nazi Party is having a really bad day, because their like Sturmtruppen James Fields, the incel dork who ran over Heather Heyer in his car when he went to play brownshirt with the rest of his weak-chinned fascist buddies, found himself facing the wrong end of a murder conviction. Undoubtedly, this is going to go less well for him because Chubbergruppenfurher Fields told his mommy on the phone that it was OK he murdered a woman because she was an "anti-white communist." So that's premeditation and a lack of remorse, good luck getting out of prison. I'm sure the Aryan Brotherhood will welcome your doughy, pasty self into their ranks in prison, Nazichen.

Of course, Donnie "Two Scoops" Dipshit had to comment on all of this, frothing at the thumbs for over an hour this morning during "executive time." Then, when the documents were released, he tried to claim victory, shouting that he was "TOTALLY CLEARED," except that, no, anyone with a minimum of literacy can read that "Individual-1" was directly implicated in several serious felony charges.

This lends credence to Rex Tillerson's suggestion that Trump is an illiterate babyman whose cognitive capacities have been ruined by a lifetime of idiocy and stimulant abuse, but it also presented a petty little slapfight when Trump talked about what a shitty Secretary of State "Wayne Tracker" was. Which, I guess, just makes him another in a long line of embarassments, frauds, criminals, hucksters, and idiots with which Donald Trump has surrounded himself, like Manafort, Cohen, Roger Stone, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Nikki Haley, Rex Tillerson, Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Anthony Scaramucci, Jeff Sessions, etc. and so on.

Finally, to cap off all of this, it was revealed that John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff, and Don McGahn, Trump's lawyer, have both spoken with Mueller. Given what was in those sentencing memos, that can't be good for Trump, at all. And predictably, Trump and Kelly now face a widening rift that is expected to result in Kelly's firing or resignation, whoever blinks first.

If, like me, you've been watching the Mueller investigation, this was "go time." This was one of the breaking points you've been waiting for.

And if you're still a Republican after all this, if you still remain loyal to that crapsack party of feckless fascists, then you need to do the right thing and rein your party in, reach across that aisle, and cut the cancerous growth out of your own heart. Because the longer you wait, the more complicit you look. And when the reckoning comes, and it is coming, if you are on the wrong side of the line, you may get flushed out to sea with the rest of the fascist garbage.

 

[Francisco 2.0 32313]

44 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Professional wrestling is fake too. It was reality tv before reality tv was a thing. The kind of people who believe it's real are exactly the kind of people who would fall for Trump's bullshit.

I still wonder how many of his followers never heard of him before The Apprentice and truly believe he's the character presented on that show. I'll bet the percentage is significant. 

 

[David Dennison 18646]

39 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Source?

www.census.gov

[WhatTheBuck 28703]

8 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

They do not control the levers of power. They control some levers of power. And their numbers are shrinking. We are just going to disagree on that.

Yeah, I wasn't really paying attention when I replied. We've long ago established that your outlook and every prediction is pie-in-the-sky best case scenario for the Democrats. It's totally predictable, perfectly consistent, and not particularly enlightening. Of course that's your position. What else could it be?

[David Dennison 18646]

Just now, WhatTheBuck said:

Yeah, I wasn't really paying attention when I replied. We've long ago established that your outlook and every prediction is pie-in-the-sky best case scenario for the Democrats. It's totally predictable, perfectly consistent, and not particularly enlightening. Of course that's your position. What else could it be?

The president just got his ass handed to him politically.

Expect more of the same in 2020.

[WhatTheBuck 28703]

9 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

The president just got his ass handed to him politically.

Expect more of the same in 2020.

Of course. You're more easily simulated in a computer program than Kirk Herbstreit in the old NCAA Football by EA Sports. I don't really need to read what you have to say because I already know what you're going to say. 

It's like if every time I'm dealt pocket aces in hold'em you assure me I'm going to win. Predictable, often true, not meaningful or helpful at all. 

[Post Oak 20182]

48 minutes ago, Brian Fantana said:

A friend of mine who is a criminal defense litigator posted this on facebook. Spoiler tagging because it is quite long but worth a read in my opinion. Would be curious to see what @Brisketexan and other resident legal experts think about his assessment of the situation.

  Hide contents

Today was an eventful day if your named rhymed of Ronald Grump (id est, "Individual-1"). But before we get to that, a little background about your federal criminal justice system.

The federal criminal justice system is very unlike the ones you are familiar with (state justice systems). This is because the federal government of necessity has a much smaller jurisdiction -- only things that happen on federal lands/property and certain crimes which have federal jurisdictional "hooks" fall within the purview of the federal government to criminalize. Understandably, these tend to be the larger, more complex, and more serious crimes.

In response to this, the federal system is structured quite differently than individual state systems. While we may recognize that a state court in Vermont and a state court in Texas will likely have a different tenor and cast to the views of judge and jury, the federal system isn't supposed to have any of that. It is supposed to exist free of local prejudice. In order to effectuate this, Congress and the Art. III courts tightly control the entire process from start to finish. One of the more perplexing aspects for non-lawyers is the federal sentencing system. While a majority of states have a determinate sentencing scheme (whereby enumerated factors are considered by a learned professional, a judge, in setting sentence), there is still an inherent degree of flexibility in judicial decision-making regarding sentence that allows for expressions of mercy or imprecation as the facts of the case may warrant (Texas, on the other hand, permits juries of 6 or 12 people to determine sentence with regard to NO enumerated factors).

Up until the latter half of the last decade, these determinate sentencing calculations were not advisory; they were mandatory. Paradoxically, the Sentencing Guidelines actually made sentences uniformly harsher because most judges tend to be merciful when they vary from determinate sentencing guidelines. Through a series of legislative and judicial reforms, however, the Sentencing Guidelines were determined to be only advisory in nature, but even still, a within-Guidelines sentence is presumptively reasonable, so most judges, in practice, still follow the Guidelines recommendations.

One of the clearest aims of defense counsel in the federal system is not to seek and achieve acquittal for their clients, but to reduce the Guidelines calculation as much as possible. This is because the federal prosecutors get to be very, very, very, very selective in the cases they take. Your local municipal prosecutor HAS to take every ticket that a cop writes. Your local DA has to try the cases that a grand jury says he does. A federal AUSA may have a yearly caseload in the hundreds, rather than the thousand or tens of thousands. As a result, federal prosecutors tend to take, try, and succeed on, the cases that they are most sure of winning.

Added to this, the various federal law enforcement agencies, chief among them the FBI, also represent the cream of the law enforcement crop. Whereas Uncle-cousin Billy can be hired by local elected sheriff Jethro Honkytonk, or a dewy-eyed high school graduate can complete six months at a local academy and be licensed to carry a gun and shoot people, the FBI almost universally requires a bachelor's degree, if not a masters, PhD, or law degree. This dramatically increases the thoroughness, effectiveness, and adequacy of law enforcement investigations.

I state all of this to tell you that when I receive a federal case, it is rare, exceedingly rare, that I have the ability to reach into my bag of defense attorney tricks (motions to suppress, attacks on the constitutionality of statutes, affirmative defenses, etc.) to try to spring my client. Instead, at best, I run interference until I figure out how to mitigate the harshness of the coming punishment.

Add to this the fact that most federal cases are complex, in that they involve multiple defendants doing separate bad acts as part of a common scheme or plan. The smartest way to try such a case is to find the low man on the totem pole, the weakest link, and offer him the chance to assist the government. If he does, the government is empowered to make several types of favorable sentencing recommendations under USSG 5K1.1 (the 5K motion) or 18 U.S.C. § 3553 (the sentencing statute). These motions, which can only be made at final sentencing, permit judges to IGNORE mandatory minimum sentences, or statutorily-required minimums on a custodial sentence. A mandatory minimum five-year sentence can be reduced to under two years with a favorable 5K motion, which is why major drug rings are almost always brought down as low-level dealers and flunkies turn on higher-ups. This is not a bug, but rather a feature, of the system.

It should surprise you not in the least, then, that so much of federal criminal litigation is built around knowing how manage cooperating defendants and achieve favorable outcomes for them. To wit, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort.

These two are the Goofus and Gallant of federal criminal procedure. For our purposes, Manafort is Goofus and Cohen is Gallant.

Goofus dug in his heels, said "the FBI will never get the goods on me!" and went to trial. Goofus got his ass KICKED at trial, and would have been convicted on all counts save for one Trumpalo holdout. Goofus got a lot smarter after losing his initial trial, and began to cooperate, agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for favorable sentencing recommendations after a debrief. Manafort met with government agents TWELVE (12) times, three times before making his agreement and nine times after. This is extraordinary; the most I've ever had a client debrief is three, all pre-plea. Post-plea cooperation means that investigators really thought Goofus had something good to say.

Problem is, Goofus fucking lied. Not only did he lie, he lied in ways the prosecutors knew he was lying about. When one debriefs with federal government agents, they ask questions they know the answer to to check to make sure one is being honest. Goofus fucked this up; Goofus's lawyers obviously didn't know Goofus was fucking up, or else they'd have said, "I need to speak to my client in confidence real quick," so that they could say, "QUIT LYING YOU ASSHOLE THEY KNOW THEY KNOW THEY KNOW."

On November 8, 2018, Goofus's lawyers got a bad, bad phone call from the prosecutors. "We know your client lied to us," is bad. It's bad because not only does it mean that cooperation agreement they spent so long obtaining is out the window, but also that Goofus can be prosecuted for a new count of obstruction.

Today, Mueller's team filed their memorandum in support of their argument that Manafort not only lied to them, but breached his plea agreement. Breaching a plea agreement is serious shit for a defendant, because IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE PLEA AGREEMENT IS OFF. It just means the government doesn't have to live up to its part of the bargain. The defendant is still on the hook for EVERYTHING. It's a one-way no-backsies clause.

While most of the memo is heavily redacted (all of the good juicy parts are blacked out), it does let us know a few key things: (1) Manafort was in contact with operatives of the Russian government/intelligence community; (2) Manafort lied about it; (3) Manafort worked with Russians to obstruct justice by tampering with witnesses against him; and (4) Manafort lied about another investigation in another district. We don't know what other investigation this is (it's blacked out), but it COULD be Cohen's, or it could be something else entirely.

Most importantly, however, we know that Manafort was in contact with the Trump administration AFTER his indictment and plea agreement, which he said he would not do.

What this means is that the government will not be offering Manafort any breaks at sentencing. He will die in prison.

And then there's Gallant.

Gallant did what a smart federal criminal does -- offers to cooperate, goes in, and does so. He stayed out of the spotlight, didn't fuck around with investigators, and now is up for sentencing. Before sentencing, the government and the defendant (if they're well-represented) both file sentencing memorandums, or medium-length documents indicating how the sentencing court should calculate the Guidelines range and where the sentence should fall. The sentencing memo filed by Mueller's team is fairly basic, but it contains some absolute WHOPPER revelations. Seriously, Burger King should sue for trademark infringement.

It establishes that Cohen lied to congressional investigators and law enforcement about his role within Trump's organization and about his contacts with Russians. It further states that Cohen admitted to all of this and accepted his responsibility, which is key. Like I said, Cohen is Gallant. He did the right thing; Manafort is a dipshit. "Accepting responsibility" in federal criminal parlance means "cooperated and told us the truth." In a footnote on page 4, the government notes that Cohen went in and told investigators the truth while CORRECTING statements he'd made earlier. That's not only, "I lied," but "I lied, and here's the truth."

Mueller says Cohen helped in four main ways: (1) providing information about contacts with Russian interests during the campaign and "discussions with others" in the course of making contact and providing information on attempts by Russians to contact the Trump campaign, including attempts to set up a meeting between Putin and Trump; (2) providing information on Russian interference in the 2016 election "obtained by virtue of his regular contact with [Trump organization] executives during the campaign; (3) providing information on contacts with people in the White House durings 2017-2018; and (4) providing information on the coordination between Cohen and people testifying before Congress.

Let's unpack. (1) is obvious; Cohen, as Trump's fixer, was a key go-between in the quid pro quo of why Russia wanted Trump in the White House. (2) is less obvious, but still key -- Cohen, as a close confidant of Trump, had personal knowledge of how Russia was to help the Trump campaign. (3) is a bit shocking, because it shows that the Mueller investigation has gone beyond what happened in 2016 and has been actively investigating recent and current happenings (every indictment so far has been for older stuff). (4) is downright shit-your-pants-with-watery-dooks frightening for Trump and Co. This is as close as the memo comes to saying, "Trump used Cohen to coach people testifying before congressional committees" as a sentencing memo can get. This is, in so few words, a big, flashing, "YOU OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE AND WE FUCKING KNOW IT" sign to Donald Trump.

But most interesting (to me, at least) was the statement by prosecutors that Cohen admitted, with respect to the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen MacDougal, that "he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1." Individual-1 is, unquestionably, Donald Trump. How do we know that? In other filings, it was stated that Individual-1 ran a successful campaign for the Presidency of the United States.

Why is this so significant? Because (1) Trump has lied and said he did not know about the payments and (2) the payments themselves constitute a felony campaign finance violation a piece. This means that Trump has committed a provable felony, and that he has attempted to obstruct justice to cover it up. Most legal experts believe that this is grounds for impeachment, and if Congress does not act immediately on it, you could see some real unrest from people pissed off that Republicans are so complicit in allowing Trump to act with impunity.

Elsewhere in the realm of politics, the Grand Ol' Nazi Party is having a really bad day, because their like Sturmtruppen James Fields, the incel dork who ran over Heather Heyer in his car when he went to play brownshirt with the rest of his weak-chinned fascist buddies, found himself facing the wrong end of a murder conviction. Undoubtedly, this is going to go less well for him because Chubbergruppenfurher Fields told his mommy on the phone that it was OK he murdered a woman because she was an "anti-white communist." So that's premeditation and a lack of remorse, good luck getting out of prison. I'm sure the Aryan Brotherhood will welcome your doughy, pasty self into their ranks in prison, Nazichen.

Of course, Donnie "Two Scoops" Dipshit had to comment on all of this, frothing at the thumbs for over an hour this morning during "executive time." Then, when the documents were released, he tried to claim victory, shouting that he was "TOTALLY CLEARED," except that, no, anyone with a minimum of literacy can read that "Individual-1" was directly implicated in several serious felony charges.

This lends credence to Rex Tillerson's suggestion that Trump is an illiterate babyman whose cognitive capacities have been ruined by a lifetime of idiocy and stimulant abuse, but it also presented a petty little slapfight when Trump talked about what a shitty Secretary of State "Wayne Tracker" was. Which, I guess, just makes him another in a long line of embarassments, frauds, criminals, hucksters, and idiots with which Donald Trump has surrounded himself, like Manafort, Cohen, Roger Stone, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Nikki Haley, Rex Tillerson, Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Anthony Scaramucci, Jeff Sessions, etc. and so on.

Finally, to cap off all of this, it was revealed that John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff, and Don McGahn, Trump's lawyer, have both spoken with Mueller. Given what was in those sentencing memos, that can't be good for Trump, at all. And predictably, Trump and Kelly now face a widening rift that is expected to result in Kelly's firing or resignation, whoever blinks first.

If, like me, you've been watching the Mueller investigation, this was "go time." This was one of the breaking points you've been waiting for.

And if you're still a Republican after all this, if you still remain loyal to that crapsack party of feckless fascists, then you need to do the right thing and rein your party in, reach across that aisle, and cut the cancerous growth out of your own heart. Because the longer you wait, the more complicit you look. And when the reckoning comes, and it is coming, if you are on the wrong side of the line, you may get flushed out to sea with the rest of the fascist garbage.

 

"Illiterate babyman" is shakespearean

[Biff Tannen 45491]

2 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

A friend of mine who is a criminal defense litigator posted this on facebook. Spoiler tagging because it is quite long but worth a read in my opinion. Would be curious to see what @Brisketexan and other resident legal experts think about his assessment of the situation.

  Hide contents

Today was an eventful day if your named rhymed of Ronald Grump (id est, "Individual-1"). But before we get to that, a little background about your federal criminal justice system.

The federal criminal justice system is very unlike the ones you are familiar with (state justice systems). This is because the federal government of necessity has a much smaller jurisdiction -- only things that happen on federal lands/property and certain crimes which have federal jurisdictional "hooks" fall within the purview of the federal government to criminalize. Understandably, these tend to be the larger, more complex, and more serious crimes.

In response to this, the federal system is structured quite differently than individual state systems. While we may recognize that a state court in Vermont and a state court in Texas will likely have a different tenor and cast to the views of judge and jury, the federal system isn't supposed to have any of that. It is supposed to exist free of local prejudice. In order to effectuate this, Congress and the Art. III courts tightly control the entire process from start to finish. One of the more perplexing aspects for non-lawyers is the federal sentencing system. While a majority of states have a determinate sentencing scheme (whereby enumerated factors are considered by a learned professional, a judge, in setting sentence), there is still an inherent degree of flexibility in judicial decision-making regarding sentence that allows for expressions of mercy or imprecation as the facts of the case may warrant (Texas, on the other hand, permits juries of 6 or 12 people to determine sentence with regard to NO enumerated factors).

Up until the latter half of the last decade, these determinate sentencing calculations were not advisory; they were mandatory. Paradoxically, the Sentencing Guidelines actually made sentences uniformly harsher because most judges tend to be merciful when they vary from determinate sentencing guidelines. Through a series of legislative and judicial reforms, however, the Sentencing Guidelines were determined to be only advisory in nature, but even still, a within-Guidelines sentence is presumptively reasonable, so most judges, in practice, still follow the Guidelines recommendations.

One of the clearest aims of defense counsel in the federal system is not to seek and achieve acquittal for their clients, but to reduce the Guidelines calculation as much as possible. This is because the federal prosecutors get to be very, very, very, very selective in the cases they take. Your local municipal prosecutor HAS to take every ticket that a cop writes. Your local DA has to try the cases that a grand jury says he does. A federal AUSA may have a yearly caseload in the hundreds, rather than the thousand or tens of thousands. As a result, federal prosecutors tend to take, try, and succeed on, the cases that they are most sure of winning.

Added to this, the various federal law enforcement agencies, chief among them the FBI, also represent the cream of the law enforcement crop. Whereas Uncle-cousin Billy can be hired by local elected sheriff Jethro Honkytonk, or a dewy-eyed high school graduate can complete six months at a local academy and be licensed to carry a gun and shoot people, the FBI almost universally requires a bachelor's degree, if not a masters, PhD, or law degree. This dramatically increases the thoroughness, effectiveness, and adequacy of law enforcement investigations.

I state all of this to tell you that when I receive a federal case, it is rare, exceedingly rare, that I have the ability to reach into my bag of defense attorney tricks (motions to suppress, attacks on the constitutionality of statutes, affirmative defenses, etc.) to try to spring my client. Instead, at best, I run interference until I figure out how to mitigate the harshness of the coming punishment.

Add to this the fact that most federal cases are complex, in that they involve multiple defendants doing separate bad acts as part of a common scheme or plan. The smartest way to try such a case is to find the low man on the totem pole, the weakest link, and offer him the chance to assist the government. If he does, the government is empowered to make several types of favorable sentencing recommendations under USSG 5K1.1 (the 5K motion) or 18 U.S.C. § 3553 (the sentencing statute). These motions, which can only be made at final sentencing, permit judges to IGNORE mandatory minimum sentences, or statutorily-required minimums on a custodial sentence. A mandatory minimum five-year sentence can be reduced to under two years with a favorable 5K motion, which is why major drug rings are almost always brought down as low-level dealers and flunkies turn on higher-ups. This is not a bug, but rather a feature, of the system.

It should surprise you not in the least, then, that so much of federal criminal litigation is built around knowing how manage cooperating defendants and achieve favorable outcomes for them. To wit, Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort.

These two are the Goofus and Gallant of federal criminal procedure. For our purposes, Manafort is Goofus and Cohen is Gallant.

Goofus dug in his heels, said "the FBI will never get the goods on me!" and went to trial. Goofus got his ass KICKED at trial, and would have been convicted on all counts save for one Trumpalo holdout. Goofus got a lot smarter after losing his initial trial, and began to cooperate, agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for favorable sentencing recommendations after a debrief. Manafort met with government agents TWELVE (12) times, three times before making his agreement and nine times after. This is extraordinary; the most I've ever had a client debrief is three, all pre-plea. Post-plea cooperation means that investigators really thought Goofus had something good to say.

Problem is, Goofus fucking lied. Not only did he lie, he lied in ways the prosecutors knew he was lying about. When one debriefs with federal government agents, they ask questions they know the answer to to check to make sure one is being honest. Goofus fucked this up; Goofus's lawyers obviously didn't know Goofus was fucking up, or else they'd have said, "I need to speak to my client in confidence real quick," so that they could say, "QUIT LYING YOU ASSHOLE THEY KNOW THEY KNOW THEY KNOW."

On November 8, 2018, Goofus's lawyers got a bad, bad phone call from the prosecutors. "We know your client lied to us," is bad. It's bad because not only does it mean that cooperation agreement they spent so long obtaining is out the window, but also that Goofus can be prosecuted for a new count of obstruction.

Today, Mueller's team filed their memorandum in support of their argument that Manafort not only lied to them, but breached his plea agreement. Breaching a plea agreement is serious shit for a defendant, because IT DOES NOT MEAN THAT THE PLEA AGREEMENT IS OFF. It just means the government doesn't have to live up to its part of the bargain. The defendant is still on the hook for EVERYTHING. It's a one-way no-backsies clause.

While most of the memo is heavily redacted (all of the good juicy parts are blacked out), it does let us know a few key things: (1) Manafort was in contact with operatives of the Russian government/intelligence community; (2) Manafort lied about it; (3) Manafort worked with Russians to obstruct justice by tampering with witnesses against him; and (4) Manafort lied about another investigation in another district. We don't know what other investigation this is (it's blacked out), but it COULD be Cohen's, or it could be something else entirely.

Most importantly, however, we know that Manafort was in contact with the Trump administration AFTER his indictment and plea agreement, which he said he would not do.

What this means is that the government will not be offering Manafort any breaks at sentencing. He will die in prison.

And then there's Gallant.

Gallant did what a smart federal criminal does -- offers to cooperate, goes in, and does so. He stayed out of the spotlight, didn't fuck around with investigators, and now is up for sentencing. Before sentencing, the government and the defendant (if they're well-represented) both file sentencing memorandums, or medium-length documents indicating how the sentencing court should calculate the Guidelines range and where the sentence should fall. The sentencing memo filed by Mueller's team is fairly basic, but it contains some absolute WHOPPER revelations. Seriously, Burger King should sue for trademark infringement.

It establishes that Cohen lied to congressional investigators and law enforcement about his role within Trump's organization and about his contacts with Russians. It further states that Cohen admitted to all of this and accepted his responsibility, which is key. Like I said, Cohen is Gallant. He did the right thing; Manafort is a dipshit. "Accepting responsibility" in federal criminal parlance means "cooperated and told us the truth." In a footnote on page 4, the government notes that Cohen went in and told investigators the truth while CORRECTING statements he'd made earlier. That's not only, "I lied," but "I lied, and here's the truth."

Mueller says Cohen helped in four main ways: (1) providing information about contacts with Russian interests during the campaign and "discussions with others" in the course of making contact and providing information on attempts by Russians to contact the Trump campaign, including attempts to set up a meeting between Putin and Trump; (2) providing information on Russian interference in the 2016 election "obtained by virtue of his regular contact with [Trump organization] executives during the campaign; (3) providing information on contacts with people in the White House durings 2017-2018; and (4) providing information on the coordination between Cohen and people testifying before Congress.

Let's unpack. (1) is obvious; Cohen, as Trump's fixer, was a key go-between in the quid pro quo of why Russia wanted Trump in the White House. (2) is less obvious, but still key -- Cohen, as a close confidant of Trump, had personal knowledge of how Russia was to help the Trump campaign. (3) is a bit shocking, because it shows that the Mueller investigation has gone beyond what happened in 2016 and has been actively investigating recent and current happenings (every indictment so far has been for older stuff). (4) is downright shit-your-pants-with-watery-dooks frightening for Trump and Co. This is as close as the memo comes to saying, "Trump used Cohen to coach people testifying before congressional committees" as a sentencing memo can get. This is, in so few words, a big, flashing, "YOU OBSTRUCTED JUSTICE AND WE FUCKING KNOW IT" sign to Donald Trump.

But most interesting (to me, at least) was the statement by prosecutors that Cohen admitted, with respect to the payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen MacDougal, that "he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1." Individual-1 is, unquestionably, Donald Trump. How do we know that? In other filings, it was stated that Individual-1 ran a successful campaign for the Presidency of the United States.

Why is this so significant? Because (1) Trump has lied and said he did not know about the payments and (2) the payments themselves constitute a felony campaign finance violation a piece. This means that Trump has committed a provable felony, and that he has attempted to obstruct justice to cover it up. Most legal experts believe that this is grounds for impeachment, and if Congress does not act immediately on it, you could see some real unrest from people pissed off that Republicans are so complicit in allowing Trump to act with impunity.

Elsewhere in the realm of politics, the Grand Ol' Nazi Party is having a really bad day, because their like Sturmtruppen James Fields, the incel dork who ran over Heather Heyer in his car when he went to play brownshirt with the rest of his weak-chinned fascist buddies, found himself facing the wrong end of a murder conviction. Undoubtedly, this is going to go less well for him because Chubbergruppenfurher Fields told his mommy on the phone that it was OK he murdered a woman because she was an "anti-white communist." So that's premeditation and a lack of remorse, good luck getting out of prison. I'm sure the Aryan Brotherhood will welcome your doughy, pasty self into their ranks in prison, Nazichen.

Of course, Donnie "Two Scoops" Dipshit had to comment on all of this, frothing at the thumbs for over an hour this morning during "executive time." Then, when the documents were released, he tried to claim victory, shouting that he was "TOTALLY CLEARED," except that, no, anyone with a minimum of literacy can read that "Individual-1" was directly implicated in several serious felony charges.

This lends credence to Rex Tillerson's suggestion that Trump is an illiterate babyman whose cognitive capacities have been ruined by a lifetime of idiocy and stimulant abuse, but it also presented a petty little slapfight when Trump talked about what a shitty Secretary of State "Wayne Tracker" was. Which, I guess, just makes him another in a long line of embarassments, frauds, criminals, hucksters, and idiots with which Donald Trump has surrounded himself, like Manafort, Cohen, Roger Stone, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Nikki Haley, Rex Tillerson, Sean Spicer, Reince Priebus, Steve Bannon, Anthony Scaramucci, Jeff Sessions, etc. and so on.

Finally, to cap off all of this, it was revealed that John Kelly, Trump's chief of staff, and Don McGahn, Trump's lawyer, have both spoken with Mueller. Given what was in those sentencing memos, that can't be good for Trump, at all. And predictably, Trump and Kelly now face a widening rift that is expected to result in Kelly's firing or resignation, whoever blinks first.

If, like me, you've been watching the Mueller investigation, this was "go time." This was one of the breaking points you've been waiting for.

And if you're still a Republican after all this, if you still remain loyal to that crapsack party of feckless fascists, then you need to do the right thing and rein your party in, reach across that aisle, and cut the cancerous growth out of your own heart. Because the longer you wait, the more complicit you look. And when the reckoning comes, and it is coming, if you are on the wrong side of the line, you may get flushed out to sea with the rest of the fascist garbage.

 

[David Dennison 18646]

1 hour ago, Post Oak said:

"Illiterate babyman" is shakespearean

As is Sheriff Jethro Honkytonk.

[Gil Bang 25894]

SIAP

[deech 2251]

Divorce soon --- no reason for the Russian operative to stay attached to that clown anymore.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

 

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

From @hoarsewhisper

 

Mueller has been telling us the story incrementally through his prosecutions.

1) Russia hacked (Russian indictments)

2) Trump Campaign members worked with them (Manafort, Flynn indictments)

3) The motive was a huge sum of money (Cohen sentencing memo)

4) The WH tried to cover it up (Cohen, Manafort memos)

5) Trump isn’t a bystander in the crimes around him; he’s the quarterback (Cohen memo)

The logical next chapter is the summation:

6) Trump personally directed a conspiracy to accept a payoff and election-meddling help

Since it isn’t easy to indict Trump as a next step, I’d expect a sweeping set of indictments to follow which all share a common formula:

Criminal activity with Trump’s direct involvement to further the conspiracy.

Roger Stone. Junior. Kushner.

Each will reiterate the overall conspiracy AND reinforce that Trump was the hub in this wheel.

Many spokes. Trump in the center.

Then we’ll likely see cooperation or pleas from more minor players who aided the cover-up. People like Hope Hicks.

By the time Mueller is done, he will have effectively painted a picture of a massive conspiracy involving a laundry list of crimes with Donald J. Trump at the very center of them all.

That’s bigger than where I thought we’d land.

I thought this would play out like a mob family takedown.

Prosecutors would ring up all the more minor players; connect them to the capos; and then prove the boss is the boss - without connecting them directly to the individual criminal acts downstream.

Mueller is dropping a heavier anvil on Trump though.

He is incrementally proving that the Trump Crime Family is a flat organization.

There are big fish and little fish but they all report to the boss.

I thought this would play out more like a RICO-style prosecution where you prove the whole family is dirty and nail the boss for being in charge.

This is heading in a much more personally damning direction for Trump.

The final takeaway Mueller is building towards:

The people around Trump engaged in some criminality but he, in the center of it all, engaged in all of it.

Trump is surrounded by criminals but he alone is the very biggest criminal of them all.

The case Mueller is building will be a far more damning prosecution of Trump than Watergate was of Nixon.

Nixon was shown to be a crook among crooks.

Trump is being revealed as a black hole of complete criminality surrounded by dim stars.

I love where this is going.

/end

[notre dame joe 172]

[bad_teammate 13132]

Sean Hannity is cooking up his "I can't recall" defense...

 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13545]

The President also argued that the "last thing I wanted is help from Russia on the campaign" 

 

https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/08/politics/donald-trump-manafort-cohen-court-filings/index.html

 

 

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13545]

15 minutes ago, bad_teammate said:

Sean Hannity is cooking up his "I can't recall" defense...

 

So for "Did you commit treason last week?" we'll put you down as a definte maybe.

[SaucyJack 3487]

6 hours ago, David Dennison said:

It's why educated people are fleeing the party in droves.

It's the party of slack-jawed yokels and morons.

 

6 hours ago, Loch Ness Monster said:

religious people, the uneducated, white males

 

6 hours ago, Jack Straw said:

And being replaced by even larger numbers of morons and racists, and those driven by fear and hatred of others.  

 

[Paul Wesley 3277]

7 hours ago, Jograves said:

Of course, it’s significant. During the campaign, The Apprentice was used as a qualification for the presidency and by not just a few people. I recall people on tv pointing to that as an example of his leadership skills. A fucking tv show. Insanity. 

The producers of "Apprentice" talked about showing up to the offices in Trump Tower in the early stages of show development, and being kind of shocked at how run-down the Trump offices were.  Everything seemed cheap and shabby and outdated.  The network had to get in there and build/furnish the upscale "board room" that was used for the set.  

Trump was never what they presented on the show.  He was a short-fingered vulgarian carnival barker who defrauded investors, ran a fake charity that specialized in self-dealing, and was eager to work with global oligarchs looking to legitimize dirty money.

[ADHD 28]

He's scum.

[Hugo Stiglitz 23356]

Edited December 9, 2018 by Hugo Stiglitz

[triplehorn 2664]

33 minutes ago, Paul Wesley said:

Trump was never what they presented on the show.  He was a short-fingered vulgarian carnival barker who defrauded investors, ran a fake charity that specialized in self-dealing, and was eager to work with global oligarchs looking to legitimize dirty money.

Trump made himself an easy mark.  

His Apprentice gig, despite the reincarnation, actually deepened his indebtedness.

[ADHD 28]

5 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

From @hoarsewhisper

 

Mueller has been telling us the story incrementally through his prosecutions.

1) Russia hacked (Russian indictments)

2) Trump Campaign members worked with them (Manafort, Flynn indictments)

3) The motive was a huge sum of money (Cohen sentencing memo)

4) The WH tried to cover it up (Cohen, Manafort memos)

5) Trump isn’t a bystander in the crimes around him; he’s the quarterback (Cohen memo)

The logical next chapter is the summation:

6) Trump personally directed a conspiracy to accept a payoff and election-meddling help

Since it isn’t easy to indict Trump as a next step, I’d expect a sweeping set of indictments to follow which all share a common formula:

Criminal activity with Trump’s direct involvement to further the conspiracy.

Roger Stone. Junior. Kushner.

Each will reiterate the overall conspiracy AND reinforce that Trump was the hub in this wheel.

Many spokes. Trump in the center.

Then we’ll likely see cooperation or pleas from more minor players who aided the cover-up. People like Hope Hicks.

By the time Mueller is done, he will have effectively painted a picture of a massive conspiracy involving a laundry list of crimes with Donald J. Trump at the very center of them all.

That’s bigger than where I thought we’d land.

I thought this would play out like a mob family takedown.

Prosecutors would ring up all the more minor players; connect them to the capos; and then prove the boss is the boss - without connecting them directly to the individual criminal acts downstream.

Mueller is dropping a heavier anvil on Trump though.

He is incrementally proving that the Trump Crime Family is a flat organization.

There are big fish and little fish but they all report to the boss.

I thought this would play out more like a RICO-style prosecution where you prove the whole family is dirty and nail the boss for being in charge.

This is heading in a much more personally damning direction for Trump.

The final takeaway Mueller is building towards:

The people around Trump engaged in some criminality but he, in the center of it all, engaged in all of it.

Trump is surrounded by criminals but he alone is the very biggest criminal of them all.

The case Mueller is building will be a far more damning prosecution of Trump than Watergate was of Nixon.

Nixon was shown to be a crook among crooks.

Trump is being revealed as a black hole of complete criminality surrounded by dim stars.

I love where this is going.

/end

I don't really give a shit about Trump. Just remove his dumb fat craven embarrassing ass from the oval office (along with every republican) and fix/restore America.

[ADHD 28]

Make America 2015 again.

[ohchaucer 1443]

I'm pleased to have been recently reacquainted with the term "vulgarian."

Like a classier word for deplorable. 

[bolverk 29394]

43 minutes ago, ADHD said:

Make America 2015 again.

This is painful to watch in light of where we are now:

 

[triplehorn 2664]

If it’s determined that elected office is obtained using fraud, there needs to be a mechanism to nullify that outcome which supersedes any consideration of whether that sitting official can be personally indicted.  

We’re seeing a similar situation unfold for that US House seat involving vote fraud in a rural county in North Carolina.  

Irrespective of whether they ever face criminal punishment, no one should be allowed to retain an elected position obtained through incorporation of criminal fraud.

[Judge Roybeanbag 11802]

Yeah the win needs to be vacated and stricken from the record if it was gained by cheating.  Like college football. 

[longhorndude 146]

Yeah the win needs to be vacated and stricken from the record if it was gained by cheating.  Like college football. 

Or a Heisman, the dotard is Reggie Bush.

[shnsajax 3589]

Or a Heisman, the dotard is Reggie Bush.

I would put Trumps IQ more on the level of Michael Bishop.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Judge Roybeanbag 11802]

8 minutes ago, longhorndude said:

 

Or a Heisman, the dotard is Reggie Bush.

 

That was precisely my thought.  The asterisk should have beside it * cheater, and forever LOSER!