I’ve been making noises about the prospects for reform in this area as well:
I’ve also mentioned this. For a party that says that are for deregulation, republicans inspire a whole lotta laws.
After Nixon, we required the government to start releasing documentation of everything that they were working on, which lobbyists were paying who, etc.
The end result of that is that we know exactly how much money Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan were making from various sources and…how much does that influence your vote? If Ryan took none, while Pelosi continued to bring in millions from various sources, would you think, “Naughty Nancy, I will vote for Paul instead of you!”? (Presuming, obviously, that the two of them were competing in your district against each other.)
Look, for example, at Joe Ganim. As the judges said when he tried to get reinstated to the Connecticut State Bar, “Allowing an applicant to be readmitted to the practice of law following a conviction on 16 counts of racketeering, conspiracy, extortion, mail fraud, bribery and filing false income tax returns without any apology, expression of remorse, or explanation, and with only a vague acceptance of an unspecified event, simply would set the bar for readmission too low in the state, and we are unwilling to do that.” But the voters? Knowing the above, they went for it and elected the guy. They don’t care. It’s not a Republican thing nor a Democratic thing, the voters consider lawkeeping to be the problem for the police and don’t give a rat’s ass if their guy is a crook, so long as he’s their guy.
We can make it easier to arrest the President and other politicians, but that won’t clean the office any more than it has kept Netanyahu out of his position. In a sense, it only filters for the ones who are smart enough to get away with it and it opens the door for someone to pull a J Edgar Hoover and use their investigative force for ill-will.
It may be that it is possible to arrange things in such a way that you can get that investigative force set up so that it is trustworthy and will stay trustworthy, but if you have that apparatus to find and filter for trustworthy people, why not use it on the rest of government as well?
Policing is all well and dandy but why stop at that level if you can do better? Here is a list of things that would reduce corruption at the political level:
- Restore the voice vote.
- Make voting districts competitive.
- Give people a holiday to vote on, so they have time to look into the candidates.
- Populate the electoral college with non-partisan members and give them the job of head-hunting and choosing the candidates. Give them access to sensitive and private information about the candidates, to take away from that whatever they choose.
- Reinstate the OTA.
- Ban TV cameras from Congress.
- Popularize the concept that the job of the citizens is to elect the person who they would trust was telling the truth if that person told them that they were wrong about what they thought was the right answer.
But Clinton was impeached for getting a blowjob—or more precisely, for lying about getting a blowjob. If lying about something that politically inconsequential was enough for impeachment, then it stands to reason that yes, Trump could have been impeached for “being a whiny liar”, with the proviso (as you already noted) that the lie was effected during a prosecutorial interview.
There’s no way on earth that Mueller could possibly have forced The Donald to testify. What reality are you thinking of? Not the current one.
He could have fought it up through the Supremes. Current precedent would suggest that the President does have to sit for an interview. I would be surprised if the court decided otherwise.
If Trump was completely innocent on Russia, than lying about it was politically inconsequential.
They could have forced him had they taken it to the Supremes. If the Supremes forced Nixon to turn over his tapes I can’t see how they’d rule different now. It would be 9-0 or 8-1 depending on Kavanaugh’s sobriety. Of course he’d plead the fifth or say he couldn’t recall for each and every question.
Mueller had a chance and he blew it. Perhaps his Republican loyalty outweighed his patriotism.
Wonder if Mueller came into this thing completely outFoxed, i.e., believing the Seth Rich crap, believing the Ukranian server crap, believing the Hannity-spun conspiracy theories that he’s watched for years?
My bold.
So, in effect, he would not have testified (i.e., revealed anything meaningful) at all.
I stand by my statement: Supremes or no Supremes, there is no way Mueller could have forced DJT to sit in a chair and REVEAL ANYTHING OF CONSEQUENCE. Mueller might have gotten him into the room and into the chair (but if the SCOTUS had to get involved, we’d still be waiting for that to happen…), but Mueller could not force him to say anything of consequence.
I’d be much more willing to believe that Trump, under oath, would have lied about something. He’d have done that before pleading the fifth to every single question.
Nothing has done more to discourage me from having faith in our ability to overcome the cancer that has overtaken our country than the recent comments in this thread. Congratulations. You’re viewing this situation through the partisan lens that Trump and Putin want you to, and can’t any longer recognize a true patriot when he’s standing right in front of you.
There are a number of false assertions made in recent posts that I feel it is important to correct.
The Mueller report is 448 pages, not 800. It is heavily redacted and footnoted, so actual reading, if you’re just skimming and ignoring footnotes, is probably less than 300 pages. Not really a huge burden. It is clear, concise and frankly, rather short considering the enormous course of corrupt conduct contained in its pages. The hardest thing for me in reading it was to keep all the Russians straight.
There is nothing buried in the corners. Mueller makes it crystal clear who was subverting our 2016 election, right down to server numbers and where they were located, as well as the numerous interactions between Russians and members of the Trump campaign. His report is plain as can be – if you read it.
Mueller’s pension is not, and never was, at risk. He’s been collecting it since 2013, when he retired from the FBI.
Mueller did not have unlimited powers. He was a Special Counsel, not an Independent Prosecutor. He always answered to the DOJ, and required protection by Jeff Sessions, then Rod Rosenstein and finally Bill Barr to complete it. He didn’t stop the investigation when he couldn’t flip Manafort. He stopped it when Bill Barr took over as AG. Curious, that.
It is true that Mueller could have subpoenaed Trump to testify. The resultant court action would have taken years to wend its way through the courts for a dispositive ruling – likely past 2021. He made a hard call, and I believe it was the right one. Again, anyone who actually reads his report will not doubt that he had the goods on Trump, with or without Trump’s testimony. It is Barr who formed the false narrative.
Mueller does not care about lunches with his Republican buddies. He risked his standing with them the minute he took on the probe, and he didn’t demur. His report shows he shirked at nothing. There is no logic in believing it was easier to hide things by actually publishing them than by simply not publishing them at all. Such thinking is about as Orwellian as it gets.
Mueller’s public statement to correct Barr’s lies was clear, as was his testimony under oath. I watched both in full. There was no ambiguity on the big questions. He’s not flashy, but the words were said.
As a former long-term civil servant myself, I must add that it is beyond offensive to see someone accused of partisanship as a motivation for his actions when nothing could be further from the reality of the requirements for his work. Mueller ran the FBI for 12 years in an entirely non-partisan way. There is zero reason to think his ethics changed during his probe, and I am embarrassed for those who attribute such motives without proof of any kind – especially if they haven’t even bothered to read the report, as it is obvious many here who are throwing up shit on Mueller’s reputation have not.
I’ve nothing more to say on the subject. It’s obvious how invested some here are in believing what they choose. Can’t say it’s a great day for fighting ignorance, though.
Well said, Aspenglow.
Your assumption that Mueller cannot, in any way be corrupted is merely that: an assumption, regardless if it is stated as a fact.
Fact: If Mueller thought Trump guilty of crimes, he could have said so. He could have appeared at the meetings as a private citizen, and not one constrained by rules he is accepting to follow. As you said - he already has his pension. Why not?
Sorry, Aspen, but admitting the possibility that Mueller may have had his own internal demons to battle is more “fighting ignorance” than a blanket assertion that merely because he is a civil servant “it is beyond offensive to see someone accused of partisanship as a motivation for his actions when nothing could be further from the reality of the requirements for his work.”
Partisanship isn’t required. But it very well may have helped Mueller pull his punches.
The ex FBI head is literally investigating the President stealing our fucking votes, and he can’t go to Congress and say “Hey, the President is guilty of this shit” when he finds out the President is guilty of this shit? And he cites a fucking memorandum as his justification? That’s just crap, and if your argument is as to why Mueller pulled his punches is because he’s blinded by the rules and procedures (willfully so?) to not see, or even comment on, the overall picture, then he, eventually, was useless except as a compiler of crimes, and thereby guilty of “partisanship” of yet another sort.
Do you honestly think it would have made any difference if he had come out and said any of that?
Yes, it would have. The fact that he didn’t is why we’re having this sidebar, is it not?
I mean, the Trump/Zelensky call was one day after the Mueller testimony. Do you think the call happens if Mueller unequivocally said the above? Probably not, for, as reported, Trump was emboldened by Mueller’s performance.
Hell, it could even be argued that had Mueller been more forceful, Trump wouldn’t have betrayed our allies in yet another phone call made post-Mueller hearing.
That article is dated July 24th. The call happened on July 25th. Seriously, it’s not that hard to figure out that Mueller’s performance emboldened Trump to do as he did subsequently, and it’s not hard to see the whistleblowers seeing themselves as people coming out to do the job Mueller failed to do - to bring this criminal to account.
To put it in perspective, only two Harry Potter novels came in under 300 pages. And four of them topped 600.
You should approach it the way Linus Van Pelt approached Dostoyevsky…
. . .
What are you looking here for? Aspenglow has advanced her position admirably, and I can’t even add a smartass remark at this point.
I can add that her assertion that civil servants are non-partisan is merely that: An assertion, not a fact.
I can also assert that a white, 70-something Republican man retired since 2012 has very likely filled his head with Fox News crap for 5 years prior to being called as a “safe choice” to handle the investigation. That, too, may not be factual, but in my experience (as Aspen expects us to depend upon hers), that’s a strong possibility.
I don’t think you can or should make projections about what might have happened if someone did the things that they are supposed to do, to protect the rule of law, instead of not do it.
The whole point of having rm in that role was to root out the lies, before further crimes or injuries to justice, or americans, happens
By passing on any interview it made for bad outcomes, policies, and incentives for everyone in that system. And we are living with it now, arguing about whether dt would give up information, or not. It’s irrelevant. dt needed to be interviewed, and if he refused he needed to be forced to defend that in front of history. That would have been just as valid and right an outcome as any that we have had.
How is it that protecting democracy is just done where it’s easiest and the light is better?