The Trump Investigation(s) Thread

[Carpet_pissr]

In any case, at the end of the day, these people get to anonymously press a button indicating bill or no bill. It would be easy for bias to dictate which button to press. These are *not* our finest citizens.

They're rapists, but some of them are good people, I assume.

[stessier]

Firing him while a grand jury is in play would look pretty bad.

That's good to know, because the one thing I've really come to appreciate in the last 8 months is just how concerned President Trump is with how things appear for him, his administration, family members and company.

Isn't this where talk of just pardoning everyone starts again?

[RunningMn9]

They're rapists, but some of them are good people, I assume.

I wouldn't make that assumption.

There are several absolute dunces in our group that are completely incapable of understanding what is happening around them at any given moment. And they get votes too.

[LordMortis]

There are several absolute dunces in our group that are completely incapable of understanding what is happening around them at any given moment. And they get votes too.

Hey. You take that back! Oh, you mean in your jury... You may proceed.

How does being selected for a grand jury "every Monday morning" work?

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-pr ... -work.html

Grand jury members may be called for jury duty for months at a time, but need only appear in court for a few days out of every month./quote]

Ack! My job would... suffer.

[Zarathud]

The hope is that the jury of less intelligent peers will be swayed by the others. When I was on a jury, there were a few people whose thinking was flawed in every way but their gut reactions were usually sound. It was annoying but it justified using a pool of your "peers" as jurors.

[Holman]

If Mueller is diving deep enough to justify a grand jury, this investigation is probably going to last into next year, maybe even next Summer. Trump can't fire him without facing a palace revolt, so what does he do in the meantime?

Perhaps he reaches out to Vlad and suggests it would be best for everyone concerned if Mueller had an "accident". If I were Mueller I'd be hiring a couple of bodyguards and a food taster.

Fox and the right-wing fringe has ramped up the "Deep State" narrative of sinister Obama stay-behinds undermining Trump. Hannity has been calling for Mueller's firing and then for the firing of *everyone* in a sensitive position who was appointed before 2017. This morning or yesterday there was approving talk on Fox of how Real Americans will riot if indictments are handed down against Trump family members.

Assange and Russian propaganda have been pushing the Deep State angle as well. Russian news and Russian bots talk about how Trump and American Democracy are being betrayed by traitors and leakers. Assange has hinted that he has new secrets.

[Zarathud]

Hannity has been calling for Mueller's firing and then for the firing of *everyone* in a sensitive position who was appointed before 2017. This morning or yesterday there was approving talk on Fox of how Real Americans will riot if indictments are handed down against Trump family members.

No other President had this much trouble with career appointees. That's a pretty clear indictment of Trump's inability to lead.

But you can always count on Hannity to hurt America for his side.

[LordMortis]

This morning or yesterday there was approving talk on Fox of how Real Americans will riot

Fuck them. Whoever these approvers are, they need to just go lock themselves in a corner and go on fucking themselves until the end of days.

The exact thing we don't want is rioting in the streets and appeasing these pieces of shit and their egos is already doing too much damage to the country.

... And now back to being a little less outraged...

[Zarathud]

I'm sure the police will be oh-so-gentle when making arrests of those white rioters, as Trump desires.

[LordMortis]

Now that I think about it, I'll hold the outburst in check but keep the outrage.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2101

(a) Whoever travels in interstate or foreign commerce or uses any facility of interstate or foreign commerce, including, but not limited to, the mail, telegraph, telephone, radio, or television, with intent—
(1) to incite a riot; or
(2) to organize, promote, encourage, participate in, or carry on a riot; or
(3) to commit any act of violence in furtherance of a riot; or
(4) to aid or abet any person in inciting or participating in or carrying on a riot or committing any act of violence in furtherance of a riot;
and who either during the course of any such travel or use or thereafter performs or attempts to perform any other overt act for any purpose specified in subparagraph (A), (B), (C), or (D) of this paragraph— [1]
Shall be fined under this title, or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.

Or was a it a joke. Where we all can have a good laugh.

[Fitzy]

There are several absolute dunces in our group that are completely incapable of understanding what is happening around them at any given moment. And they get votes too.

Hey. You take that back! Oh, you mean in your jury... You may proceed.

How does being selected for a grand jury "every Monday morning" work?

http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-pr ... -work.html

Grand jury members may be called for jury duty for months at a time, but need only appear in court for a few days out of every month./quote]

Ack! My job would... suffer.

What about your OO output? If they don't allow outside connections...

[malchior]

Firing him while a grand jury is in play would look pretty bad.

That's good to know, because the one thing I've really come to appreciate in the last 8 months is just how concerned President Trump is with how things appear for him, his administration, family members and company.

That was my immediate thought as well.

Well you have to figure there are two bipartisan bills out there to protect Mueller as well. I think the idea is that Trump might not give a fuck but they are hinting there is a red line that he can't cross. Firing Mueller is one of them. Especially while he is in the middle of a grand jury investigation. As cowardly as the GOP has been, there is some room to hope that influential members will act decently (sometimes even without being forced to!) at some point. All the back channel stuff that has been happening indicates that to some degree.

[YellowKing]

There's no way in hell the GOP actually want Trump in office over Pence. They just have to figure out the most delicate way of removing him without risking their own necks.

[LordMortis]

What about your OO output? If they don't allow outside connections...

No Internet is like a vacation for me and it's weird how quickly the addiction subsides when the source isn't available. It's quite unlike smoking. I haven't had cigarette since 2016 and every day still feels like the first day I quit. Whereas when I have a vacation day, I never turn a computer most of the time. But when I'm working, first thing I do after working on a computer for 9 to 11 hours or more straight? Get home and turn on the PC. Born stupid.

[RunningMn9]

How does being selected for a grand jury "every Monday morning" work?

It's a little bit harder to get out of grand jury than petit jury duty (at least here). I got "lucky" and got picked for grand jury duty at the county level (and the county courthouse is in the next town so is very close). Our term of service is 16 weeks, and we have to show up every Monday at 8:30 AM, prepared to be there until as late as 4 PM.

At 9 AM, the first scheduled prosecutor shows up and presents their case. We can ask the witness(es) questions, we can ask to hear from other witnesses, that sort of thing. Once we have no more questions, we deliberate. When we are done with that, we vote using little key fobs. 12 votes to bill means we indicted the individual. With 23 of us, it is a near certainty that we will bill every single case before us. Should people be out, you still need 12 votes to bill, so it can get dicey if there are only 15 or so people present.

They expect that you will miss around three days. I missed one already, and have an excused absence in two weeks. They called me about an hour ago to let me know that this Monday is cancelled because there wasn't anything to bring to us. That's a first.

It has wreaked havoc on my work schedule. My normal schedule is to work 9 hours a day Mon through Thu, and then alternate 8 hours or a day off on Fridays. After getting seated, I discovered that my employers provides 8 hours of paid Jury Duty service. Per year.

To accomodate everything, I switched my Fri schedule to Mon, and spend my scheduled day off in the court house administering justice. My boss amended the corporate policy to take care of the rest of the time so I still get paid. On those non-day off days, as soon as we are done at the courthouse, I come in to work.

It's a pain in the butt and super-inconvenient. We started on Jul 10, and it goes through Halloween. At least it's not a federal grand jury, as those sad bastards get seated for 18 months, and I'd have to drive in to Newark, Camden or Trenton (forget which). That would suck mightily.

[El Guapo]

Well, on the plus side, there's about to be more support for abolishing grand juries soon.

[geezer]

It has wreaked havoc on my work schedule. My normal schedule is to work 9 hours a day Mon through Thu, and then alternate 8 hours or a day off on Fridays. After getting seated, I discovered that my employers provides 8 hours of paid Jury Duty service. Per year.

Can they do that? I figured they would be required to consider that paid leave. That sucks.

[Unagi]

I thought I had learned that 'by law' they had to honor your jury service (as long as you turned the jury pay back over to them)... something like that.

[RunningMn9]

I can't be fired for serving on a jury. There is no law stating that I have to be paid by my employer while I am on jury duty. It's academic at this point, as my boss fixed the policy so that my kids can still eat, but he didn't have to.

I was prepared to work four 10-hour days so that the lights could stay on, but he decided to pay me instead. You can try to get out of serving by proving financial hardship, but it's not always that easy.

In my case, if the judge had asked me if I could have worked around not getting paid I would have said yes. No way I'm lying to a judge.

[em2nought]

This morning or yesterday there was approving talk on Fox of how Real Americans will riot if indictments are handed down against Trump family members.

We're too fat, old, and unhealthy for that. Trump was a last desperate bid anyway, back to prepping for an exit strategy. Please pick a new national name & flag, and we'll go quietly into that good night. The end.

[pr0ner]

The latest Russian stuff involves them planting and spreading a "Fire McMaster" hashtag on social media. Naturally, people in Trump circles are now saying it's time for Trump to fire McMaster immediately. Which is what the Russians want!

[tgb]

The latest Russian stuff involves them planting and spreading a "Fire McMaster" hashtag on social media. Naturally, people in Trump circles are now saying it's time for Trump to fire McMaster immediately. Which is what the Russians want!

What's the justification?

[Jaymann]

The latest Russian stuff involves them planting and spreading a "Fire McMaster" hashtag on social media. Naturally, people in Trump circles are now saying it's time for Trump to fire McMaster immediately. Which is what the Russians want!

What's the justification?

He once laughed at a funny picture of Putin.

[Holman]

McMaster is suspected of being aligned with Deep State traitors and wreckers.

Also, he has fired more Flynn-affiliated extremists, and this week he said that Susan Rice did nothing wrong with her unmasking requests (thus refuting the "Obama spied on Trump" narrative).

[malchior]

The extreme right-wing is also crowing about how McMaster is friendly to Muslim extremists because he is keeping some Obama-era strategists on the NSC. There are also some charming accounts that Bannon boosters are claiming that McMaster's is 'Controlled by Jews' and somehow also against Isreal.

[Pyperkub]

Because having experienced people with good institutional knowledge is a bad thing. Argh.

[El Guapo]

The extreme right-wing is also crowing about how McMaster is friendly to Muslim extremists because he is keeping some Obama-era strategists on the NSC. There are also some charming accounts that Bannon boosters are claiming that McMaster's is 'Controlled by Jews' and somehow also against Isreal.

Sort of amusingly, Cernovich (a pro-trump flak) was depicting McMaster as controlled by "the Rothschilds", but then after taking head heat for it, switched it to him being controlled by "the Saudis". Any middle-eastern group with a different religion will do, I guess.

[Zaxxon]

That is an unfortunate typo.

[El Guapo]

He's gotta pay the bills somehow, I guess.

[Holman]

Cernovich is most famous for pushing the Pizzagate scandal, Gamergate, and "Men's Rights" arguments about the impossibility of rape. He declared himself a member of the alt-right during the Trump campaign, and he's a regular host on InfoWars.

Oh, and Trump's people gave him WH press credentials.

[Rip]

He is a McMaster of disguise......

[stessier]

Popehat jumps in to help us understand grand juries.

[Rip]

Popehat jumps in to help us understand grand juries.

But can we trust someone who has been linked to North Korea?

[pr0ner]

Trump must be bored because it's raining in Jersey and he can't play golf, going on another Twitter tantrum (his second today!) about Senator Dick Blumenthal after ranting about how the "Fake News Media" isn't reporting on the importance of the new North Korean sanctions. Egads.

[LordMortis]

I won't defend Blumenthal because I don't know shit about him but you'd think Trump would be careful when discussing Viet Nam con artistry, when he deferred draft five times, once for a "temporary condition with bone spurs" that "healed up on its own."

I'm also trying to figure out what it has to do Trump's relationship to Russia.

[Fitzy]

I won't defend Blumenthal because I don't know shit about him but you'd think Trump would be careful when discussing Viet Nam con artistry, when he deferred draft five times, once for a "temporary condition with bone spurs" that "healed up on its own."

I'm also trying to figure out what it has to do Trump's relationship to Russia.

The bone spurs came from Russia.

[pr0ner]

I won't defend Blumenthal because I don't know shit about him but you'd think Trump would be careful when discussing Viet Nam con artistry, when he deferred draft five times, once for a "temporary condition with bone spurs" that "healed up on its own."

I'm also trying to figure out what it has to do Trump's relationship to Russia.

Blumenthal had some pointed comments about the Russia investigation that grinded Trump's gears.

[raydude]

This morning or yesterday there was approving talk on Fox of how Real Americans will riot if indictments are handed down against Trump family members.

We're too fat, old, and unhealthy for that. Trump was a last desperate bid anyway, back to prepping for an exit strategy. Please pick a new national name & flag, and we'll go quietly into that good night. The end.

Request granted.

[Isgrimnur]

USA Today

President Trump has publicly called the widening federal investigation into Russia's election meddling a "witch hunt." But through his lawyer, Trump has sent private messages of "appreciation" to special counsel Robert Mueller.

"He appreciates what Bob Mueller is doing,'' Trump's chief counsel John Dowd told USA TODAY in an interview Tuesday. "He asked me to share that with him and that's what I've done.''

Trump's legal team has been in contact with Mueller's office, and Dowd says he has passed along the president's messages expressing “appreciation and greetings’’ to the special counsel.

“The president has sent messages back and forth,’’ Dowd said, declining to elaborate further.
...
Dowd has said all communications with Mueller have been proper.

“We get along well with Bob Mueller; our communications have been constructive,’’ the attorney said. “But it is important that our communications remain confidential. It’s important that there not be any breakdown in that trust.’’

For weeks, Washington political circles have been on high alert for the possibility the president could try to get rid of Mueller or otherwise wrest control of the Russia probe he denounces as a "hoax."

Yet in a sign that forcing out the former FBI director overseeing the federal Russia investigation is politically untenable, a growing number of government officials have moved to tamp down any talk of ousting Mueller – including, apparently Trump himself.

“That’s never been on the table, never,’’ Dowd said of the possibility Trump might try to remove the special counsel. “It’s a manifestation of the media. My dealings with Bob Mueller have always been cordial, respectful — the way it should be."

[malchior]

Manafort's house was raided in late July by the FBI. But still a nothingburger I suppose.