For what it’s worth, a CNN reporter is saying the Rep. Jackie Speier, a Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said that if Sessions were meeting ambassadors in his official capacity, there’s no need to disclose.
Again, I think it’s an open issue as to whether all his meetings were in an official capacity, particularly the RNC one.
Apparently you don’t understand that patently false statements are lies. That’s obvious from your use of them in your posts. I have no idea why you feel the need to carry water for Sessions. He lied. His statements were false. Just like Sessions you are trying to distract from that fact by looking for a really good excuse. If you can’t face the facts you shouldn’t try to dabble in them.
I hate Jeff Sessions. I am not willing to give him even the slightest benefit of the doubt.
But you’re totally misunderstanding Ravenman in this thread, in large part because you haven’t distinguished between the congressional testimony and the SF-86.
So, just to clarify things for myself a little bit, Ravenman, if we presume that the RNC meeting was not official senate business and Sessions knew it, and if we also presume that Sessions was told to omit official senate business from his answers to the form, then his deliberate failure to mention the RNC meeting would in fact not be covered by the modified instructions and would in fact still be a “lie” of omission?
I consider the RNC meeting an open issue, rather than presuming it was not official; but in the case that it was an unofficial meeting, he had the obligation to disclose it.
I’m trying to avoid the term “lie” in the debate (with the exception of applying to Tripolar, who lies like a rug) because I generally interpret the word to mean a statement someone makes while knowing full well that the opposite is true. Personally, I don’t believe that misstatements, mistakes, overlooking something, or genuinely believing something that is false, would normally constitute a lie. I can’t pretend to know if Sessions is intentionally misleading people on the RNC meeting, for example. But if it was an unofficial meeting, he absolutely had the obligation to disclose it. Period.
A strictly procedural matter. Maybe he was instructed to place an “X” in the box, but checked it, that would be small potatos. Meeting a foreign agent while functioning for the campaign (who paid for him to be there!) is quite another.
And again, he wasn’t there as official Senate business, he was a campaign functionary. Is meeting with representatives of foreign, even hostile, governments “routine” under such circumstances? I have my doubts, and you do not?
Well, good for you!
And again, you seek to characterize a meeting between a campaign functionary (who also happens to be a US Senator) and an agent of a foreign power is “routine”. And alleged advice to omit such information is trivial. Is that it, then? All you got?
And those supplementary instructions were…well, what, exactly? That part seems a mite fuzzy. Did they tell him,* specifically!*…don’t talk about the Russians? And how were these instructions conveyed? In writing, dare we hope?
So, the Russian calls the Senator, says he wants an official meeting, totally legit. But Jeff Bo says “Tell you what, I’m heading down to do some campaign work for DJT, why don’t you stop by and we’ll take our official meeting there?”
Thank you. This is what I thought your stance was, but I think it’s good to have it compacted into a neat and tidy (and largely non-confrontational) paragraph.
Another commonality between the authoritarian statists and the “civil servants” they admire, irrepressible scorn for an incorrectly filled out form.
They view the Form as the most perfect ideal of human expression, and thus promote policies that would supplant all modes of human interaction with the Form.
On quiet nights in Washington D.C., a leisurely stroll can be sometimes interrupted by a low rumbling from the within the bowels of the bureaucratic dungeons of the hideous government buildings. One evening I followed the emotionless murmur I had only then recognized as possibly human in origin. Slipping down an alleyway near the Department of Education building, and slowly descending into a cellarway I knew I had found it’s locus.
Fixing a peering gaze on the window of the cellarway entrance, my deliberate approach slowly revealed to me, in ever-widening horror, the source of the din: a very cliche circle of robed people attempting to rhythmically chant some sort of legalistic spell. At their feet, a biracial beauty of generous callipygian proportions. As she writhed in agony, I turned my eyes toward a stack of 1099s beside her, pulsating as if alive and assuming human form! As one of the chorus tossed a pair of khakis to the new bureaucrat, I regained my wits and quickly left.
Needless to say, tax time takes a whole new tenor these days.
When he grows up and goes to work, it will be funny to see his reaction when he discoveres the private sector, on its own likes the forms too, the horror of the modern life.
Pretty sure he wasn’t being serious. Just a little theory I have based on the fact that the actual ritual to summon eldritch entities from stacks of forms requires two gyrating biracial beauties, not one.
I contend that it is the investigator, not the applicant, that determines what’s important and what isn’t.
To the best of my understanding, political conventions typically have many dozens to hundreds of foreign officials in attendance. I have a hard time leaning toward the presumption that all of those officials are there for nonofficial, meaning primarily political, reasons. If I had to guess, I would think that the foreign officials would more likely want to be talking policy matters with folks like Sessions, even in that forum, as opposed to political matters, but that’s total speculation.
Maybe you misread something, maybe you’re trying to put words in my mouth, but I can barely follow the thought in this paragraph. Let me be as clear as possible:
It is routine for US officials, including senators, to meet with agents of foreign powers. It happens ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Foreign ambassadors, kings, legislators, diplomats, military officers, many businessmen, a certain lobbyists are all agents of foreign powers. And they meet with US government officials all the goddamned time. Trump just met hundreds of agents of foreign powers during his trip.
Even if a US person wears two hats – as a US official and as a politician – sure, it is also totally routine for them to meet with agents of foreign powers. It happens all the time. But to the extent that those roles overlap, there are sometimes different expectations on disclosure on such meetings.
And finally, I believe I was using the word “routine” earlier to describe the normal course of events when an investigator gives additional instructions to an applicant on how to fill out an SF-86. Which also happens all the time.
How the hell should I know? You think I work for the FBI and I was sitting in the meetings between Sessions and the person doing the investigation? I’m assuming that the DOJ statement saying that the FBI investigator told him to fill out the form in a certain way is accurate. Why do you keep asking me to produce more evidence for a claim that I’ve said several times that I’m taking at face value?
What’s next, you’re going to ask me for a urine sample from Mr. Sessions to disprove that he’s on meth? Get a grip.
How surprising that the bureaucrat has such an entitled stick in his ass. Literally no demographic on Earth would be offended by that statement besides the white elitist puritanical progressive.
But if you’re a corporation, you can launder money for years, pay a bribe (I mean a fine, a fine), and get a nice “non-prosecution agreement” (Citigroup-owned Banamex USA).
The little rat bastard is only tough on small potatoes pot smokers and “them there colored folks”. Meanwhile real crime is free to continue.
