I know you’ve already flounced from the thread, but do you have anything to back this up? My understanding is that his lawyer had narrowed the scope of certain words relating to certain, uh, acts, and what Clinton said was true under that narrowed scope.
Anyway, how often does perjury actually get charged and litigated? Seems like it happens all the time, but actual court cases are rare.
Hands up everyone! Who here would have threatened violence against the government and your fellow citizens if Clinton had been charged with this after he had left office?
Insert “See? No one cares” meme from Jurassic Park.
Clinton’s felony was a “nothingburger” that had no impact on the safety of the United States, and as you surmised, they used prosecutorial discretion to end it, because it was a one-time thing, involving purely political issues.
Trump’s crimes directly impacted the safety of the United States, and its intelligence and military personnel. It was an ongoing crime, that he took considerable efforts to conceal, and continue. He’s shown no remorse, and no intention of reforming his behavior. They used the same discretion to decide to charge him. Note, they also used the same discretion not to charge him for all the other documents he did have, which he only turned over reluctantly after being asked, and then ordered, to turn them over. So, yes, Trump has already benefited greatly from judicial application of prosecutorial discretion. You’re whining about 37 counts in the indictment? Legally, they could have had hundreds of counts, one for each document, at a minimum.
They bent over backwards to accommodate Trump, and you’re still whining.
This is a good point – had Trump turned over the all documents when asked, there would be no indictment for his mishandling of classified material at all.
(Georgia may still have something on him, and there’s still the matter of January 6th, but this particular criminal activity would have been given a pass)
Depositions aren’t taken in front of a judge.
Not at all. You seem quite determined to assert that the treatment of Trump is somehow unfair but this conclusion is not borne out by evidence.
Clinton’s perjury was not remotely on a level to mandate the maximum penalty, and he received a sizable fine ($90,000 IIRC) and a referral to the Arkansas bar, for which he received further penalties.
Conversely, Robert Mueller found evidence of 11 counts of attempted obstruction of justice by Trump, and AG Barr actively blocked an indictment from being brought. Both Trump AND Barr subsequently committed actual obstruction of justice by blocking subpoenaed documents and witnesses from being presented to Congress, and the Congressional GOP were absolutely fine with that. Trump also committed various overt Hatch Act and Emolument Clause violations with nary a peep from any of the Congressional GOP or DOJ.
So yes, there is a marked difference between the treatment of Clinton and Trump, but not in the way you seem to think.
On top of all that, the felonies for which Trump has been indicted are far, far more serious than anything done by Clinton (either one) or Obama or Biden or any President this side of Nixon. He has in every way possible worked to block the return of the documents he has that he knew he shouldn’t have, and to obstruct the investigation into them. He has openly attempted to interfere in elections at all level and has encouraged his followers to harass, threaten and attack anyone he sees as not being willing to simply throw out an election he lost.
But you think we should let him off the hook because of… reasons?
Apparently, insofar as most of us think the rule of law should apply to all and you don’t seem to.
I hope you will return to answer a question about this. Are you saying that no one should be held accountable for crimes they commit or do you mean only former presidents should not be held accountable for their crimes?
So you seem to be of the opinion that Trump should be allowed to take and keep any confidential government documents that he chooses. That we must take him at his word that he declassified them by thinking about it.
These documents that Trump may keep include nuclear secrets, details about defense plans, top secret documents from our allies… essentially anything.
And Trump may keep these in any way he chooses, including in public areas, bathrooms, or wherever, not locked up and stored next to a photocopier.
And you’re OK with this.
Yep. At this point, the election really comes down to one question: Are you okay with electing a president who has committed crimes against the United States? And not just minor crimes, serious, decades in prison if guilty, crimes.
Notice that most of them aren’t even trying to argue that Trump is innocent. They know he did exactly what he’s been charged with. They just don’t think he should suffer any consequences for those actions.
Vote accordingly.
Agree. Look at how Pence is being treated around this issue - he’s been cooperating instead of being belligerent, so there’s no indictment there. If the DOJ was into political repression of Republicans, and Pence is also running for President, wouldn’t they be going after Pence the same way with the same vigor?
In a town hall debate during the 2016 presidential campaighn, Donald Trump threatened to put Hillary Clinton in jail if he was elected.
However, once he was elected this threat proved to be rhetoric.
In the context of political science, rhetoric simply is a strategy politicians use to get elected.
To put it bluntly, they are lies, and every politician on both sides of the aisle tells them.
I want to remind all of you, in case you have “forgotten”, when Donald Trump was elected he ordered his attorney general NOT to pursue criminal charges agianst Hillary Clinton.
Now why would he do that?
I don’t want to get into a debate about wether Hillary was guilty or innocent, the point is criminal charges were not pursued by the Trump DOJ.
The reason for this is because of two concepts:
Decorum and courtesy.
High ranking politicians and government officials on both sides of the aisle are expected to treat each other with decorum and courtesy in the interest of civility to show the citizens and the rest of the world that the USA is not a tin pot dictatorship.
Rightfully in my opinion, Hillary Clinton was afforded this courtesy that decorum dictates.
Unfortunately, Donald Trump was not extended this same courtesy.
She didn’t advocate for a deal like Agnew got. In fact, she had one of Agnew’s prosecutors on who said he eventually came to believe it was right to make a deal where Agnew was allowed to escape prison by pleading guilty to one count and resigning as VP. He also said that he thinks that would be the wrong approach for the DOJ and Trump. Among other things, it would make it look like he was being prosecuted just to keep him out of office, which isn’t the case at all.
I do.
If she was guilty, and he’s guilty, I feel the same way about both of them; if one is innocent and the other is guilty, I’ll adjust my reactions accordingly.
“Decorum and courtesy” are fine, as far as they go; but other things are decidedly more important.
“Directly implied” is an oxymoron. A contradiction in terms. In this context, meaningless.
There is actually a third concept: the case against Clinton had no legs, so it wasn’t pursued because it may have lead to another embarrassing early failure of the Trump administration. I think one of his handlers came to this conclusion and nipped the whole “Lock her up!” business in the bud.
I’m confused. Did Bill and Hillary Clinton do bad things for which they should have been charged? Or were the things they did not bad and Trump did nothing wrong either? The pro-Trump argument here is very difficult to understand.
The notion that Trump acts out of either of these concepts is flat out ridiculous. Trump is the only one who routinely talks about jailing his political opponents, and he’s still doing it today. He has no sense of decorum at all, and is one of the most discourteous people to ever be elected president.
They didn’t act because they know the charges against Clinton were largely bullshit, and they didn’t want that to come out in open court, when their case utterly fell apart. Far better for them to keep it going as a wedge issue they can use for years to come.
Are there any conservative republicans on these message boards?
I need your help!
They’re ganging up on me! LOL!!!
What you need is to start sticking to your word.
Sorry, I changed my mind! LOL
Not at all. Your OP here is legit and there have been many thoughtful responses speculating on what may occur. But then the question about some sort of compromise in exchange for Trump dropping out of the race and then comparing things to Clinton was dropped in here and derailed things a bit. What’d you think was going to happen?
Perhaps we can circle back to the original posting and the subsequent discussion?