Sunday, March 24, 2019

Trump is as Innocent as Hillary

VOX Donald Trump isn’t being charged with obstruction — but Mueller didn’t exonerate him
Trump appointee William Barr made the decision not to charge the president.

NPR Mueller Report Doesn't Find Russian Collusion, But Can't 'Exonerate' On Obstruction

NPR Barr's Letter

Now Trump interprets this as "No Collusion, No Obstruction, Complete and Total EXONERATION, KEEP AMERICA GREAT!", which of course is incorrect.  When all that really happened was the justice department does not think they have a strong enough case to file criminal charges.

The good or bad side of this is that the Congress has different criteria for judging if improper actions have taken place, so I assume we will be hearing about this topic for a LONG TIME..

Kind of like the Conservatives who are certain that Hillary broke some law or did something wrong after the justice department decided to not press charges in her case either.  Based on Trump's warped view of reality... Apparently she also has been fully exonerated... :-)

6 comments:

John said...

The Atlantic tries to explain What a President can be Impeach For

"Thus it appears that the political offences of the Constitution for which civil officers are removable embrace, besides the high crimes and misdemeanors of the criminal law, a range as wide as the circle of official duties and the influences of official position; they include, not only breaches of duty, but also misconduct during the tenure of office; they extend to acts for which there is no criminal responsibility whatsoever; they reach even personal conduct; they include, not merely acts of usurpation, but all such acts as tend to subvert the just influence of official position, to degrade the office, to contaminate society, to impair the government, to destroy the proper relations of civil officers to the people and to the government, and to the other branches of the government.

In fine, it may almost be said, that for a President to have done anything which he ought not to have done, or to have left undone anything which he ought to have done, is just cause for his impeachment, if the House by a majority vote feels called on to make it the ground of charges, and the Senate by a two-thirds vote determines it to be sufficient; for the safety of the state is the supreme law, and these bodies are the final judges thereof."

John said...

It seems to me that the House will impeach him.

But he is safe since the GOP controls the Senate..

Sean said...

1.) Barr's letter defined the "no collusion" very narrowly -- as in no connections between members of the Trump campaign team and members of the Russian government. But, of course, that leaves out much of the communications that we know happened. We know that Paul Manafort gave Trump campaign polling data to a Ukranian guy with Kremlin connections. That falls outside of Barr's definition in the letter. We know that Roger Stone and Don Jr.m at various points, had contacts with Wikileaks. That also falls outside of Barr's definition in the letter. We need to see the entire report to know what was discovered. I'm not surprised, though, that Mueller didn't find anything that was criminally chargeable there.

2.) The Mueller team apparently agonized for months over the obstruction of justice issue, but Barr and Rosenstein were able to decide and issue their own report in less than 48 hours?

Sean said...

It's also worth noting that Donald Trump's position on 11/9/16 was that Russia didn't hack anybody and nobody on his campaign had ever talked to any Russians and he never had any business interests in Russia. These have been exposed as mere fables told by a chronic liar.

John said...

Agreed, he is certainly that.

Even now he probably denies their involvement since it implies he did not win on his own.

John said...

Now look the GOP wants to start their own witch hunt and charge the tax payers even more for it.

If I were Trump, I would avoid having anyone else opening those closets...