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Justice Department Appoints Former FBI Director Robert Mueller As Special Counsel For Russia Investigation (thehill.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Hill: The Justice Department has appointed former FBI Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to investigate Russia's involvement in the U.S. election. Mueller, a former prosecutor who served a 12-year term at the helm of the bureau, has accepted the position, according to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. "In my capacity as acting attorney general I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a special counsel to assume responsibility for the matter," Rosenstein said in a statement. "My decision is not a finding that crimes have been committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I have made no such determination. What I have determined is that based upon the unique circumstances, the public interest requires me to place this investigation under the authority of a person who exercises a degree of independence from the normal chain of command." UPDATE: President Trump has released a statement: "As I have stated many times, a thorough investigation will confirm what we already know -- there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly. In the meantime, I will never stop fighting for the people and the issues that matter most to the future of our country."
So
Much
Winning
We didn't know the extent of the Nixon atrocities until more than a year after the break in. It's quite likely lots of evidence exists, but is being used in an ongoing investigation and will not be disclosed publically anytime soon. If trump asked Comey to back of Flynn, and we know he admitted to firing Comey over Russia issues, that is likely enough on its own. Not to mention the overwhelming list that grows by the day. If we see Paul Ryan buckle, it's all over.
You're misinformed:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Even up until this afternoon I was certain the Republicans would wait until the fall or early next year, due to wanting to take the pulse of the voters, and in particular the base and any tight House races (there are only a handful of tight Senate races, or so I understand). But I think matters are quickly accelerating beyond any ability of the Republicans to control. While Trump's popularity with the base still seems fairly strong, he's shedding support elsewhere, and I suspect, unless things can quiet down for a bit, the base will begin to erode as well, and at that point, then so will loyalty for Trump among lawmakers.
This was inevitable, if for no other reason than Trump just cannot keep his mouth shut. He's like Richard Nixon's idiot brother, all of the same paranoia and deceit, but with half the brains. How can his defenders keep up his defense, when they'll deny the report or rumor against him in the morning, and then he'll fucking confirm the truth of the report that night? At some point, and I expect that point is coming soon, he's just simply going to start shedding supporters, simply because they don't want to be tied to the anchor when it's finally pitched overboard.
I waffle between Trump either being one of the stupidest human beings to ever get elected to high office, or him really not wanting to be there but too arrogant to just walk away, and wanting to be pushed so he can claim he was the subject of persecution. Certainly that's the way it's going if today's Coast Guard commencement is any indication.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Whatever the Democrats may be screaming, it's irrelevant to this. The Republicans control Congress. It's in their hands, and thus far every attempt they've made to support Trump has been thrown back in their face by his inability to keep his mouth shut. For chrissakes, the man is such an arrogant blowhard he was showing off to the fucking Russians in the Oval Office with a Russian journalist in the room. Whether he let slip any classified data or not, the fact is not only has he once again, within the space of a few days, made himself look like a big mouthed ass, he's now pissing off Israel, which means Israel and other allies, not to mention the State Department itself, are going to start holding crucial intelligence closer to their chests lest the Braggart-in-chief decide to show off to any other foreign powers.
Don't you see that it is Trump himself that is going to be forcing Republican lawmakers' hands? The opposing minority party always makes frequent demands for removals and impeachments and judicial proceedings. Christ, that's been the way Washington has worked since the day after George Washington walked off into the sunset. The difference here is that this is a man who seems bound and determined to make his supporters and allies look like idiots, and seems to want to hand his opponents, both Democrat AND Republican (because he has no lack of critics in the GOP) all the ammunition they could ever need.
At this point you even have some Democratic strategists hoping he doesn't get impeached and removed, because the longer he's in the White House, the worse the Republicans look.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Have you been watching Fox News? They have been commiting slander, libel and other things against the dnc staffer yet haven't said a peep against the fact that trump is leaking secrets to Russia. Fox and republicans don't care that trump is commiting treason. They are such hypocrites that if Hillary did half of what trump has done they would be hanging her.
But if one of their own does it ? It isn't a big deal. Republicans. Hypocrites to the core. Do as they say not as do.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
He was chosen as G.W.B.'s attorney general on 09/04/2001, so he has a hot week in office before the WTC fell.
Director Mueller, along with Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, threatened to resign from office in March 2004 if the White House overruled a Department of Justice finding that domestic wiretapping without a court warrant was unconstitutional.
Obama kept him on for two years after he was elected, and Comey was not only his assistant, but his successor.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
It took over a year for the Watergate investigation to (almost) reach the House Floor. It strikes me that your demand for immediate answers is more of you intentionally moving the goal post.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
it could be worse, it could be Hillary
Really? Worse? Really? She'd have allowed the massive amounts of pollution that the Liar-in-Chief already has via executive orders? She would've embarrassed all of us with brains? You're out of your fucking mind or dumb as a brick if you really think this.
I don't respond to AC's.
So you will ignore what the CIA says quite explicitly in their report:
"Russian efforts to influence the 2016 US presidential election represent the most recent expression
of Moscow’s longstanding desire to undermine the US-led liberal democratic order, but these
activities demonstrated a significant escalation in directness, level of activity, and scope of effort
compared to previous operations.
We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US
presidential election. Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process,
denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess
Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump. We
have high confidence in these judgments."
From https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf
If you are willing to put your head in the sand and ignore this by coming up with excuses like "it is being controlled by the liberals" or something of the same manner then you are unfit to argue politics.
even though there's no evidence that Russia had any influence in the way it turned out.
That's a lie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I don't respond to AC's.
I would agree it was just Democrats shouting in the dark... if there didn't keep being problems. See here's the thing: The issue isn't with the e-mail leaks. That's not what is being talked about, it is if any of Trump's associates had illegal ties to the Russians and more importantly if Trump tried to cover it up.
Trump was told that Flynn was likely compromised and he shouldn't hire him. Had he not, well that story would end there. But he did hire him. He then pressured the FBI director to drop the investigation in to Flynn, and only fired Flynn when it leaked that he had this conflict of interest. He then implied the problem, and the reason he fired Flynn, was the leak not the compromise. Then he later fired the FBI director which his people claimed was related to the e-mails but he came out and said was because of the Russia investigation.
Guess what? That shit starts to look a lot like obstruction of justice. That's why this thing continues to have legs.
Oh an impeachment of a president? That's not "corrupt politicians" "overthrow[ing] of an elected President," it is constitutional, and is what is supposed to happen if the president breaks the law. Article one section 1 states that "The House of Representatives shall choose their speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment." Article two section four states "The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors."
So ya, if it turns out he obstructed justice, which you'd need an investigation to determine (and that is what is going on), accepted bribes, or other illegal acts then the House would be within its constitutional power to impeach him and the Senate to try him. That's not some covert scheme to subvert the Constitution, it is written right in the original text.
At least one significant member of Trump's administration had to resign almost as soon as he was appointed because he was found to be working with the Russians, and he's being investigated. I'm not sure where you're getting it from that anyone independent at all in a position to know has suggested there's no links between the Trump campaign and Russia - if that were known, there wouldn't have been multiple FBI investigations to begin with.
And if there weren't multiple FBI investigations into Trump's team's connections with Russia, Comey would still have a job.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Per Order No. 3915-2017 (pdf), Mueller has been authorized to prosecute federal crimes, and given a fairly broad scope of investigation - any links between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and any matters arising from these investigations (such as obstruction of justice).
Forget power to investigate, this guy has powers to prosecute. He's going out loaded for bear.
That new US Prez sitcom is better than anything I've ever watched. At first I was skeptical because it looked like a cheap Spin City knockoff or a weak rehash of That's my Bush, and, well, basically it is, but they really manage to spice it up and get to new heights week after week.
Though I have to admit, it slowly starts to get a wee bit unrealistic.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
it's meant that all our checks and balances have collapsed
No it doesn't. Just because "people that think like me" didn't win elections does not mean ALL checks and balances are gone. They are still being eroded away slowly with bipartisan support.
Did you say we lost ALL our checks and balances after 2008 when the Democrats controlled the Congress and Executive? No? Ok then, stop the hyperbole.
Let me give you some advice the next time you want to criticize Wikipedia. Go click on that link above to the Wiki article. Now, look at the text, notice how it has various numbers in brackets in superscript. You can hover over them and some text will pop up. That's called a "reference". Those "references" are where the claims in the article come from. If you click on one of those, or scroll allllll the way down to the bottom, you'll see the list of references for the article, all 283 of them. Those are what you need to attack the credibility of, because the Wikipedia article itself is really just a collection of claims given in those references. Just go ahead and start at #1 and work your way down, debunking each of those references. Make sure not to skip #4, which quotes a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and National Intelligence Council:
We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
Make sure not to skip this one, either. You wouldn't want it to seem like you're cherry-picking.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
This is the point that causes me the most uncertainty in what I hope for. (Not that my hopes have any causal efficacy, but still).
Trump is possibly the first president in my lifetime who I've felt really viscerally disgusted by, however much I may have disagreed with others' policies. For that reason, it's kind of enjoyable to watch him failing so spectacularly. Until I remember that his failures are our failures as he represents the whole American nation. Then I want something done about it. But the only thing I can really see possibly being done about it is removing him from office, which only puts Pence into the same seat. That replaces the incompetent buffoon pushing all the wrong policies with... a (presumably) more competent professional pushing no better policies. Maybe it makes America more respectable and restores some sense of trust in our political process that Trump may be undermining. But is it a good thing to have someone every bit as despicable when it comes to the actual dry concrete policy content, who merely looks more respectable and is more trusted? Mightn't it be better if the villain were obviously evil than able to pretend to be good? I just don't know.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
"An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history." -- Gerald Ford in 1970
People with 6 month old accounts or Anonymous Coward = "this is nothing"
People with actual accounts who have been around for awhile = "we should at least look into this".
I keep reading articles how the Russians hacked this or that and then a few paragraphs down; "we have no evidence the Russians are involved.".
If you can't discern fact from fiction, then read primary sources and quit listening to biased news. Here is a link to the report released by the intelligence agencies:
https://www.dni.gov/files/docu...
Here's a spoiler:
We assess with high confidence that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the US presidential election, the consistent goals of which were to undermine public faith in the US democratic process, denigrate Secretary Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump.
Enigma