There is always supporting evidence, and there’s supporting evidence for virtually everything. But much of what counts as “supporting evidence” has considerable ambiguity to it (which is precisely why prosecutors are willing to cut defendants enormous slack if they testify alongside the supporting evidence).
It’s all about how you interpret the supporting evidence and the totality of the evidence.
Yet another smear attack on Mueller’s credibility, I see.
I think we’re about to see a coordinated political attack on Bob Mueller and his investigation.
I’ve feared this could, and would happen, and as Mueller gets closer to Trump’s financial dealings and as he closes in on direct links to Russian intelligence, I think it’s inevitable that there will be attempts to discredit and shut down the investigation.
And it’s not just Trump who has an interest in doing this either. Clearly, we’ve seen now with the recent Cambridge Analytica revelations, that there are conservative, plutocratic benefactors who are themselves going to be personally exposed as having ties to Putin’s Russia. I also suspect that individual Republican politicians and activists will also be identified and named.
There’s a collective interest in shuttering the investigation. The only disagreement among Republicans is how best to do it. The more established Republicans on the Hill are worried Trump will fire Mueller and cause a political firestorm; they’d rather discredit Mueller themselves using their congressional powers to investigate and discredit the investigators, and to use their propaganda machine. But make no mistake: the GOP is all in on shutting down the investigation and covering up what might be the grossest act of treason in American history.
Good lord. People will rise up. I am NOT saying that to advocate it - I can’t feel good about deadly riots - but these stakes are even higher than important, worthy causes have been driving huge turnouts and tense situations already.
David Simon had this to say on the subject last June:
Yep. That’s it. Chilling.
Some of that is because Democratic voters tend to be highly concentrated. After PA redrew their map to have reasonable looking compact districts, a state that is pretty much 50-50 will still end up +2 or +3 GOP in Congress, because many of the Democratic voters are clustered in the cities.
People will rise up from their couches to get some more Funyuns and reset the wireless router. Then they’ll settle back in to go post on Facebook about how Facebook is terrible for society.
Yup, no doubt about it, being on the side of the law, instead of the side that’s against law, is a big advantage for Mueller. It’s not an advantage that’s traditionally considered unethical, though.
Have you looked around lately? That is not what’s happening.
Most obviously: look at the Parkland shooting and the deeply good, aggressive activism spurred by the kids there. Damn near every kid in America is excited to be part of the Voice of Activism. They will make the 60’s look pale in comparison - these kids aren’t hippie outsiders or radicals, and grew up in the age of Startup entrepreneurialism where young people can and are expected now to take the initiative and make their own opportunities. They are everyone.
Has anyone alleged any unethical behavior by Mueller? I’m not aware of this. Certainly not in this thread, that I can tell.
But now that you mention it, many people allege that Mueller Deputy Andrew Weissman went too far with this type of witness intimidation in his role as head of the Enron Task Force. In that case, he named 114 potential witnesses as unindicted co-conspirators, which meant that these people were effectively forestalled from testifying due to their legal jeopardy. (A pretty high number of convictions in that case were eventually overturned, though not for this reason AFAICT.)
This story is a week or so old, but I found it interesting.
I’ve posted before about how the big league real estate and finance industries are all a dirty. Everybody breaks the rules and the law and, if they get caught, the system allows them to fix their mistakes without penalty.
I always held up the Trump Soho fraud case as a prime example of this. The Trump children, acting as employees of the Trump Organization, attempted to defraud the buyers of these condos ( which weren’t really condos, but a hybrid that combined the worst elements of owning a condo and owning a hotel room, but that’s not relevant to the particular fraud.)
They were going to be criminally prosecuted but they got around it by giving everyone that complained their money back on the condition that they not cooperate with prosecutors. Throw in a campaign contribution to the DA and problem solved!
Now that every Kushner transaction is under a microscope- he’s been busted again. And this one happened in my neighborhood!
Now the Kushner Company response is interesting, which is that it outsources the preparation of these documents (plausible deniability?) and that “if mistakes or violations are identified, corrective action is taken immediately” . And this was a BIG mistake. The 3 buildings had 94 rent regulated tenants but ( due to a typo, I’m sure ). - the number was entered as zero. And the Kushner Companies made the EXACT SAME TYPO on every one of 80 documents filed between 2013 and 2016!
This business is so filthy and I’m only on the fringes of it - I purchased an NY apartment once and I’m on the board of my building. When I purchased my apartment I used a mortgage broker who tried to commit all levels of fraud in the application and disclosure. I showed the papers to a loan officer at Citibank and he took me through it step by step, showing me how each form would’ve been altered after I signed it to bring everything in line ( a lot of forms with multiple checkboxes) . And he kind of had to talk me down from calling the cops, DA and AG by telling me how commonplace it was. Or the time I caught a broker falsifying financials for a rental tenant ( and I caught them because the stuff the tenant submitted directly was honest and I caught the discrepancies).And the property manager had to talk me down “ they were just looking out for their client. They wanted them to get the apartment.”
And I went ballistic on my management company because I frequently have to sign papers as an officer of the corporation. And one time I read them and said… “wait, this has to be notarized” - at which point they told me they had a notary that came in once a week and stamped ( falsified) everything. I resigned as an officer after that one, although I still serve as a board member.
Sorry for the digression, this stuff pisses me off. You’d think we’d have learned something after 2008.
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But if this latest Kushner malfeasance sounds familiar - it’s the security clearance applications all over again. Just say you have no foreign contacts. And every time that proven to be a lie, just say “ Oops” and amend the paperwork. That way you don’t accidentally disclose a contact that you may not have had to disclose. Works better in New York than it does in Washington, I guess.
The upshot is that this actually gives me hope. Because it won’t take much prodding into Trump/ Kushner businesses to turn up all sorts of wrongdoing because NY real estate is so systematically corrupt.
Are some of these “many people” the “some people” who are always saying things?
An odd statement from someone who could post this:
Or this:
“People are saying”, huh? That’s a cite?
The Parkland shooting was an emotional issue. I’m not sure that the firing of Mueller would be viewed in the same light or produce the same reaction.
FYI, so many threads, I actually intended to drop post #3552 in the Clusterfuck thread but I don’t think it’s terribly off point here.
It’s really more about the inability of the Kushner and Trump Companies to withstand the scrutiny they’re getting in general- not about the Mueller stuff so much. Although that’s where he’ll get Trump.
You want emotional? Have you spoken with a woman, LGBTQ person or person of color lately about Trump?
Enron was guilty too.