Silat
When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
LOL Please show me the statutes and the laws that were broken. I will wait.
The 2016 Presidential Candidates Thread
- Thread starter CarolKing
- Start date
LOL Please show me the statutes and the laws that were broken. I will wait.
t-dub
Vapor Sloth
Sorry but it is obvious to anyone that knows anything about law what is going on here. I have already provided the ethical guidelines that she broke and anyone familiar with law knows this because it applies to all lawyers. Please show me, or give me an example, of how I am wrong. You will not find it. You guys can't spin your way out of this one.
Silat
When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
LOL so in you world a lawyer cannot say hello or have a civil conversation with someone who is related to a person who is part of a probe to find out if any "rules" were misused? There is no such rule by the way.
We disagree. And you are wrong.
Gunky
Well-Known Member
Suppose we assume the worst: Bill Clinton went to Lynch's plane to tell her to back off on the investigation of Hillary's email server. So? He can say it all he wants, that doesn't mean Lynch is compromised or has allowed herself to display an appearance of impropriety. The idea that this makes her have an appearance of impropriety hinges on the assumption that somehow she lacks integrity and is unable to resist being steamrolled by a former president. Because if she has integrity then anything he could say wouldn't matter. So it only looks like impropriety if you start out with the assumption that Lynch is corrupt.
t-dub
Vapor Sloth
Bullshit. Even in lower courts there are the same ethical standards that apply to all lawyers against this type of impropriety. If you do not understated this you are naive.
t-dub
Vapor Sloth
Actually yes it does.
That's not the way it works, you obviously are ignorant of the law and ethics.
lwien
Well-Known Member
I disagree. The appearance of impropriety has nothing to do with her integrity or lack thereof. Simply allowing him to enter her plane and engaging him in conversation is, in itself, improper, given the context of the situation.
But again, given how intelligent she is and how experienced she is in the intricacies of law, it boggles my mind that she would do such a thing.
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Gunky
Well-Known Member
Well, I disagree. In the case of Cheney and Scalia, there was a clear appearance of impropriety because a supreme court justice accepted gifts from someone involved in a case before his court. We don't know that he was in fact influenced, but the appearance at least of impropriety is there. In the case of Bill Clinton entering Lynch's plane for a brief chat, where is the appearance of impropriety? She did not accept any favors that we know about. Yes, it's conceivable she allowed him to address words to her in his wife's favor in regard to the email server investigation, but again, so what? If merely hearing someone speak constituted an appearance of impropriety the attorney general would have to live her term in walled-off isolation, stop taking phone calls or emails and cancel all her newspaper subscriptions. We are not talking about some court clerk in Podunk, Alaska. This woman is the attorney general of the United States. If we can't trust her not to go all wobbly just because Bill Clinton says something then she isn't fit for office anyway.
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lwien
Well-Known Member
His_Highness
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
There is no denying that the Clinton's have a trust and credibility issue. You can debate whether the trust issue is warranted but you can't deny it exists and is a major problem for Hillary. With the aforementioned fact taken into consideration......There's two ways to look at the Lynch/Clinton meeting.
It was either an incredibly stupid act or Bill saw an incredible opportunity he couldn't resist. So its either dumb or dumb like a fox. If I was asked to choose whether this was stupidity or opportunity.... I would choose opportunity because.....it smacks of a sense of entitlement that would allow someone to thumb their nose at the impropriety of such a meeting when the opportunity presented itself.
If anyone wants to buy into the possibility that the whole thing was just an innocent mistake on Bill's part because he just wanted to shoot the breeze about his grandkids ..... You are buying into the 'stupidity' aspect. I don't think he's that stupid.
It was either an incredibly stupid act or Bill saw an incredible opportunity he couldn't resist. So its either dumb or dumb like a fox. If I was asked to choose whether this was stupidity or opportunity.... I would choose opportunity because.....it smacks of a sense of entitlement that would allow someone to thumb their nose at the impropriety of such a meeting when the opportunity presented itself.
If anyone wants to buy into the possibility that the whole thing was just an innocent mistake on Bill's part because he just wanted to shoot the breeze about his grandkids ..... You are buying into the 'stupidity' aspect. I don't think he's that stupid.
Silat
When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
yawn. Politics is getting the way of common sense.
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lwien
Well-Known Member
I think a good way to NOT make this conversation personal is just to leave out the words "you" and "your", eh? I think we all want this thread to stay open, yes?
Silat
When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
Yes. YOU are correct.
Correct...
lwien
Well-Known Member
The FBI just came down with their recommendation for NOT assessing criminal charges against Hillary, but...............they did elaborate on how careless she was and gave Trumps campaign some GREAT talking points which I have no doubt they will take advantage of.
So, no indictment but make no mistake that there was damage done to her already questionable reputation. Comeys comments were damning to say the least. Will it make a difference? In the short term, I think she will take a hit in the polls but in the long term, the fear of a Trump presidency will prevail.
Bottom line......HUGE win for Hillary. Obviously, not a nicely wrapped present with a bow on top, but a present nonetheless.
So, no indictment but make no mistake that there was damage done to her already questionable reputation. Comeys comments were damning to say the least. Will it make a difference? In the short term, I think she will take a hit in the polls but in the long term, the fear of a Trump presidency will prevail.
Bottom line......HUGE win for Hillary. Obviously, not a nicely wrapped present with a bow on top, but a present nonetheless.
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His_Highness
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
Been listening to the debates on the FBI announcement. The debates stem from the fact that there seems to be enough meat on the bone to have charged Hillary. Minimally as a misdemeanor. Everything from questioning whether the Clinton/Lynch meeting had a part to play.... to whether James Comey will be gifted a position if Hillary wins the presidency.
Comey said 'The investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.' and 'Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.'
I'm somewhat torn.....on the one hand I'm glad she's not being charged. On the other hand, according to the talking heads who are lawyers themselves....she could have been prosecuted and the case won even though the penalty would have likely been minuscule and no more than a fine. So.....while I agree that no reasonable prosecutor would want to be involved in this circus .....the misconduct not being intentional shouldn't be a consideration. You either broke the law or you didn't. At least that's how it was always explained to me when I had to stand up in court.
Comey said 'The investigation has been sufficient to give us reasonable confidence there was no intentional misconduct in connection with that sorting effort.' and 'Although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.'
I'm somewhat torn.....on the one hand I'm glad she's not being charged. On the other hand, according to the talking heads who are lawyers themselves....she could have been prosecuted and the case won even though the penalty would have likely been minuscule and no more than a fine. So.....while I agree that no reasonable prosecutor would want to be involved in this circus .....the misconduct not being intentional shouldn't be a consideration. You either broke the law or you didn't. At least that's how it was always explained to me when I had to stand up in court.
cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
Trump’s ‘birther’ crusade was a scam wrapped in a con
07/05/16 09:20 AM—Updated 07/05/16 11:18 AM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, has developed a national persona based on some unfortunate pillars: racism and conspiracy theories.
Indeed, while we don’t hear much about the subject anymore, the GOP candidate’s rise to political notoriety came from Trump’s temporary obsession with President Obama’s birthplace.
The New York Times reported over the weekend on Trump’s fleeting anti-Obama crusade in 2011, when the Republican met with prominent figures in the birther “movement” and did a series of interviews in which Trump questioned the president’s country of birth.
As the Times report helped document, the GOP reality-show-personality-turned-conspiracy-theorist-turned-presidential-hopeful wasn’t exactly subtle. “Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?” he asked on ABC’s “The View.” “I want to see his birth certificate,” he told Fox News’ “On the Record.” And on NBC’s “Today Show,” he declared, “I’m starting to think that [the president] was not born here.”
The ridiculous campaign helped Trump cultivate ties to racist activists on the right-wing fringe, which years later, helped boost his GOP presidential candidacy.
The New York Republican has since dropped the issue – there are apparently other racially charged fights to pick and conspiracy theories to promote – but the Times’ latest article added a detail I don’t remember seeing reported elsewhere.
Mr. Trump also said repeatedly that he had sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to unearth information about Mr. Obama’s birth records. “They cannot believe what they are finding,” Mr. Trump told ABC’s “The View.” […]
But for all of his fascination with the president’s birth certificate, Mr. Trump apparently never dispatched investigators or made much of an effort to find the documents.
Dr. Alvin Onaka, the Hawaii state registrar who handled queries about Mr. Obama, said recently through a spokeswoman that he had no evidence or recollection of Mr. Trump or any of his representatives ever requesting the records from the Hawaii State Department of Health.
Let’s not brush past this too quickly – because the New York Times’ report appears to offer proof that the way in which he pushed a bogus scam was itself a bogus scam.
Let’s revisit precisely what Trump said and did in 2011:
“I have people that have been studying [Obama’s origins] and they cannot believe what they’re finding,” the would-be presidential candidate told NBC’s “Today.”
“You have people now out there searching – I mean, in Hawaii?” asked host Meredith Vieira.
“Absolutely,” Trump replied. “And they cannot believe what they’re finding.”
He added at the time that the president may be responsible for pulling off “one of the greatest scams in the history of politics.”
The irony is rich.
But not only was Trump peddling racist garbage, he appears to have also been lying about his own efforts. While he told a national television audience that he’d “absolutely” dispatched investigators to Hawaii, and those investigators had turned up extraordinary evidence, the Times’ latest reporting suggests Trump made up the whole thing: the investigators and the findings existed solely in Trump’s mind.
I can appreciate why this seems like old news – even he doesn’t push this particular nonsense anymore – but the revelation from the weekend nevertheless sheds new light on the 2016 candidate. Trump’s willingness to peddle a racist conspiracy theory told us something important about his character, but his willingness to lie to his own supporters about his efforts adds insult to injury.
07/05/16 09:20 AM—Updated 07/05/16 11:18 AM
By Steve Benen
Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive presidential nominee, has developed a national persona based on some unfortunate pillars: racism and conspiracy theories.
Indeed, while we don’t hear much about the subject anymore, the GOP candidate’s rise to political notoriety came from Trump’s temporary obsession with President Obama’s birthplace.
The New York Times reported over the weekend on Trump’s fleeting anti-Obama crusade in 2011, when the Republican met with prominent figures in the birther “movement” and did a series of interviews in which Trump questioned the president’s country of birth.
As the Times report helped document, the GOP reality-show-personality-turned-conspiracy-theorist-turned-presidential-hopeful wasn’t exactly subtle. “Why doesn’t he show his birth certificate?” he asked on ABC’s “The View.” “I want to see his birth certificate,” he told Fox News’ “On the Record.” And on NBC’s “Today Show,” he declared, “I’m starting to think that [the president] was not born here.”
The ridiculous campaign helped Trump cultivate ties to racist activists on the right-wing fringe, which years later, helped boost his GOP presidential candidacy.
The New York Republican has since dropped the issue – there are apparently other racially charged fights to pick and conspiracy theories to promote – but the Times’ latest article added a detail I don’t remember seeing reported elsewhere.
Mr. Trump also said repeatedly that he had sent a team of investigators to Hawaii to unearth information about Mr. Obama’s birth records. “They cannot believe what they are finding,” Mr. Trump told ABC’s “The View.” […]
But for all of his fascination with the president’s birth certificate, Mr. Trump apparently never dispatched investigators or made much of an effort to find the documents.
Dr. Alvin Onaka, the Hawaii state registrar who handled queries about Mr. Obama, said recently through a spokeswoman that he had no evidence or recollection of Mr. Trump or any of his representatives ever requesting the records from the Hawaii State Department of Health.
Let’s not brush past this too quickly – because the New York Times’ report appears to offer proof that the way in which he pushed a bogus scam was itself a bogus scam.
Let’s revisit precisely what Trump said and did in 2011:
“I have people that have been studying [Obama’s origins] and they cannot believe what they’re finding,” the would-be presidential candidate told NBC’s “Today.”
“You have people now out there searching – I mean, in Hawaii?” asked host Meredith Vieira.
“Absolutely,” Trump replied. “And they cannot believe what they’re finding.”
He added at the time that the president may be responsible for pulling off “one of the greatest scams in the history of politics.”
The irony is rich.
But not only was Trump peddling racist garbage, he appears to have also been lying about his own efforts. While he told a national television audience that he’d “absolutely” dispatched investigators to Hawaii, and those investigators had turned up extraordinary evidence, the Times’ latest reporting suggests Trump made up the whole thing: the investigators and the findings existed solely in Trump’s mind.
I can appreciate why this seems like old news – even he doesn’t push this particular nonsense anymore – but the revelation from the weekend nevertheless sheds new light on the 2016 candidate. Trump’s willingness to peddle a racist conspiracy theory told us something important about his character, but his willingness to lie to his own supporters about his efforts adds insult to injury.
Silat
When the Facts Change, I Change My Mind.
And we still have Drumpf in court for fraud at Drumpf U.
His_Highness
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king
Let he/she that is without sin cast the first stone......... Damn! No stones left anywhere!
I don't know if a form of comparison is being suggested here, but while Drumpf is embroiled in a rather minor civil dispute, Hillary has allegedly recklessly compromised national security - a most severe criminal matter. There is now a case against a young military serviceman who carelessly threw away a cell phone that contained a snippit with a highly classified image placed somewhere at or near a nuclear facility. He will serve 5-6 years behind bars along with a dishonorable discharge and a record that will haunt the rest of his life.
cybrguy
Putin is a War Criminal
Give me a break. What a ridiculously incomplete description, snappo. Shame on you...
"Prosecutors say the 10-year Navy vet used his cell phone to snap pictures of the classified engineering spaces on the attack submarine Alexandria, raising questions about his intentions to share them."
Yup, just like what Hillary did. Come on...
"Prosecutors say the 10-year Navy vet used his cell phone to snap pictures of the classified engineering spaces on the attack submarine Alexandria, raising questions about his intentions to share them."
Yup, just like what Hillary did. Come on...
grokit
well-worn member
This is well-argued and references actual felony violations, even if it's from a biased source.
FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook
by Andrew C. McCarthy
There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.
Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States.
In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.
I would point out, moreover, that there are other statutes that criminalize unlawfully removing and transmitting highly classified information with intent to harm the United States. Being not guilty (and, indeed, not even accused) of Offense B does not absolve a person of guilt on Offense A, which she has committed.
It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged. Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged.
It seems to me that this is what the FBI has done today. It has told the public that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require proof of intent to harm the United States. Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we’ve decided she shouldn’t be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information.
I think highly of Jim Comey personally and professionally, but this makes no sense to me.
Finally, I was especially unpersuaded by Director Comey’s claim that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case based on the evidence uncovered by the FBI. To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton’s conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/437479/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-let-hillary-hook
FBI Rewrites Federal Law to Let Hillary Off the Hook
by Andrew C. McCarthy
There is no way of getting around this: According to Director James Comey (disclosure: a former colleague and longtime friend of mine), Hillary Clinton checked every box required for a felony violation of Section 793(f) of the federal penal code (Title 18): With lawful access to highly classified information she acted with gross negligence in removing and causing it to be removed it from its proper place of custody, and she transmitted it and caused it to be transmitted to others not authorized to have it, in patent violation of her trust. Director Comey even conceded that former Secretary Clinton was “extremely careless” and strongly suggested that her recklessness very likely led to communications (her own and those she corresponded with) being intercepted by foreign intelligence services.
Yet, Director Comey recommended against prosecution of the law violations he clearly found on the ground that there was no intent to harm the United States.
In essence, in order to give Mrs. Clinton a pass, the FBI rewrote the statute, inserting an intent element that Congress did not require. The added intent element, moreover, makes no sense: The point of having a statute that criminalizes gross negligence is to underscore that government officials have a special obligation to safeguard national defense secrets; when they fail to carry out that obligation due to gross negligence, they are guilty of serious wrongdoing. The lack of intent to harm our country is irrelevant. People never intend the bad things that happen due to gross negligence.
I would point out, moreover, that there are other statutes that criminalize unlawfully removing and transmitting highly classified information with intent to harm the United States. Being not guilty (and, indeed, not even accused) of Offense B does not absolve a person of guilt on Offense A, which she has committed.
It is a common tactic of defense lawyers in criminal trials to set up a straw-man for the jury: a crime the defendant has not committed. The idea is that by knocking down a crime the prosecution does not allege and cannot prove, the defense may confuse the jury into believing the defendant is not guilty of the crime charged. Judges generally do not allow such sleight-of-hand because innocence on an uncharged crime is irrelevant to the consideration of the crimes that actually have been charged.
It seems to me that this is what the FBI has done today. It has told the public that because Mrs. Clinton did not have intent to harm the United States we should not prosecute her on a felony that does not require proof of intent to harm the United States. Meanwhile, although there may have been profound harm to national security caused by her grossly negligent mishandling of classified information, we’ve decided she shouldn’t be prosecuted for grossly negligent mishandling of classified information.
I think highly of Jim Comey personally and professionally, but this makes no sense to me.
Finally, I was especially unpersuaded by Director Comey’s claim that no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case based on the evidence uncovered by the FBI. To my mind, a reasonable prosecutor would ask: Why did Congress criminalize the mishandling of classified information through gross negligence? The answer, obviously, is to prevent harm to national security. So then the reasonable prosecutor asks: Was the statute clearly violated, and if yes, is it likely that Mrs. Clinton’s conduct caused harm to national security? If those two questions are answered in the affirmative, I believe many, if not most, reasonable prosecutors would feel obliged to bring the case.
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/437479/fbi-rewrites-federal-law-let-hillary-hook
Back off!!! I was just echoing what I half-heard on CNN... that's all the info they gave while I was multi-tasking and half-heard it anyway. Good for you and your better info... ain't you just the hotsy totsy know-it-all
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Gunky
Well-Known Member
As somebody once said, I'm sick and tired of hearing about that damn email server. So she cut some corners and Comey, a repub, took the opportunity to get a few shots in without actually indicting her. Whatever. She made some essentially technical errors about electronic communications. Trump on the other hand is demonstrably a grifter, crook, flaming bullshitter, bigot and ignoramus.