Donald Fires FBI Director who's investigating Russian Election Hacking
- Thread starter The Thriller
- Start date
RandyForRubio
Well-Known Member
"Does it seem like a bigger deal when it's said "A private citizen tasked his employee to conduct diplomatic affairs instead of the POTUSA"? "
@Harambe, if you really wanted to be accurate, you would realize the term private citizen is not proper in this case. A non-biased take would say, "The President-elect tasked his NSA to be to conduct diplomatic affairs in preparation of his role as President in the future."
That, would be accurate.
@Harambe, if you really wanted to be accurate, you would realize the term private citizen is not proper in this case. A non-biased take would say, "The President-elect tasked his NSA to be to conduct diplomatic affairs in preparation of his role as President in the future."
That, would be accurate.
Take over before the deadline?
Read; not be involved. Not sit in on meetings. Completely take over, AND WITHOUT LETTING THE SITTING ADMINISTRATION know, or even seek approval?
If you're gonna go with that, I expect some serious linked evidence. Cuz it doesn't exist.
RandyForRubio
Well-Known Member
"Does it seem like a bigger deal when it's said "A private citizen tasked his employee to conduct diplomatic affairs instead of the POTUSA"? "
@Harambe, if you really wanted to be accurate, you would realize the term private citizen is not proper in this case. A non-biased take would say, "The President-elect tasked his NSA to be to conduct diplomatic affairs in preparation of his role as President in the future."
That, would be accurate.
@Harambe, if you really wanted to be accurate, you would realize the term private citizen is not proper in this case. A non-biased take would say, "The President-elect tasked his NSA to be to conduct diplomatic affairs in preparation of his role as President in the future."
That, would be accurate.
Was he in office? Did he have the job of the POTUS? No.
Do I have to use the S word?
RandyForRubio
Well-Known Member
Was he merely a private citizen? No.
Did I say he was in office? No.
Did I say he had the job of the POTUS? No.
Was there anything inaccurate about what I said? No.
Yes. Until taking office, he doesn't have that job, and can not speak for the nation. There's a reason we have a president and a vice president, not two co-presidents.
Good.
Yes. He IS a private citizen until he is sworn in. That's where the line is drawn, and has always been drawn.
Whether you know it or not, what you're advocating here, or at very least feigning ignorance to, is the subversion of the existing administration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion
Hell mang... just read the first couple lines and you'll get it.
donnie won the election, and he took office. As much as I don't like it, it's how it is. But he knew WHEN it was to be his time. And he opted to push it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subversion
Hell mang... just read the first couple lines and you'll get it.
donnie won the election, and he took office. As much as I don't like it, it's how it is. But he knew WHEN it was to be his time. And he opted to push it.
RandyForRubio
Well-Known Member
Oh. So he wasn't the President-elect at the time? Because the President-elect is not a private citizen. Acting like he/she is, is being obtuse for the sake of being obtuse.
Look, I was hoping we could use this to get rid of Trump, but it just isn't that big of a deal.
Obama gave quite a few speeches where he was titled as the President Elect, where he talked about how different he was going to run things. If you think he, or other president-elects, haven't done similar things to this, then you're crazy. It's basic common sense.
RandyForRubio
Well-Known Member
"Hey guys. I know these policies were just put in place. Don't worry too much about that, I don't plan on continuing that when I take office."
That ain't subversion.
That ain't subversion.
You don't know that. For all you know it was this:
Flynn: "Hey, Russia. I see there's some **** gone down"
Russia: "Yeah, man, we didn't do anything"
F: ".. you're sure?"
R: "Well... there were some things. But the public can't know"
F: "Cool. donnie'll be in office soon, and will be sure to not know what you did. 'member that time we did that one thing"
R: "Ya... 'I member! He pee'd on those chicks"
F: "That's gotta stay quiet too"
R: "Ok. Send us some uranium. Maybe summa that mustard gas you can't use?
F: "whut?"
R: "Well, we can buy an article in the times to tell every body about the peeing thing again"
F: "OK FINE. BYE"
But what was said wasn't really important. The fact that someone other than a current official, or at least someone given authority to discuss it, can have some serious repercussions. That's why it's not done, and never has been done, like what we're seeing here.
Well there's the fact that there is a specific law that forbids what Trump did. I mean, you can say it doesn't sound that bad, not too big a deal, but it's against the law. So the Trump campaign broke the law and then carried out a half-assed cover up. Mueller is investigating the campaign and is bringing charges when he discovers laws were broken. That's what's going on here. You can think it's a big deal or a "nothingburger" but ultimately the courts will answer that question.
Obama giving speeches as president-elect was a public thing. He was not going behind the back of the outgoing president. He was not arranging secret "understandings" with a foreign government. They are not comparable.
Even if what Trump's campaign did ends up not being a big deal, they still allegedly broke the law. The law is in place to prevent an incoming president from undermining the current administration, in ways small and large.
Even if what Trump's campaign did ends up not being a big deal, they still allegedly broke the law. The law is in place to prevent an incoming president from undermining the current administration, in ways small and large.
Joe Bagadonuts
Well-Known Member
Nobody but you (who I have heard) is accusing him of taking over before being sworn into office. I won't be surprised to discover that you are at the cutting edge of a new trend, though. The reality is that conversations go on, not just in this transition of administration but in all transitions. The statements of the President Elect have repercussions. Foreign leaders call to congratulate. Lobyists position themselves. All sorts of people pave the way for the interests they represent. I'm confident that if anyone was digging for it that examples of insinuations, promises, threats, etc. could be found in virtually every presidential transition. Obama sent signals to foreign leaders that he was going to handle numerous things differently than Bush had. Bush did the same thing to Clinton. Clinton did the same thing when he came in. But this time we are going to go crazy about it because Trump must be eliminated at all costs.
But I'm not accusing him of taking over the whole of the government. That's in your head.
I'm accusing him of acting unlawfully, and carelessly. Make sure you understand the difference. Once you understand that difference, you'll see everyone else saying the same thing.
Edited for clarity.
Last edited:
DutchJazzer
Banned
The president cannot obstruct justice!
DutchJazzer
Banned
He was not a private citizen he was PRESIDENT ELECT!
DutchJazzer
Banned
and lets ignore the fact that obummer did it before the election results as an actual private citzen. candidate obummer. and is doing it after he was president!
Joe Bagadonuts
Well-Known Member
What I said you claimed was "in my head" because you wrote:
You're the one who added "whole government" to that last post, not me. Are you trying to back off your claim by suggesting that I claimed you went even farther than you did? Nice try.
Red
Well-Known Member
Flynn's plea and the significance of the lying in the Russia investigation:
https://www.lawfareblog.com/flynns-plea-and-significance-lying-russia-investigation
....."The question remains: Why the lying? It seems that the Flynn lies make sense if connected to the others told by Trump and others with Trump’s knowledge about the Russian relationship over the course of his campaign and presidency. Trump has boasted periodically about the transformative potential of an improved diplomatic and strategic relationship with Russia. But at the same time, he has categorically rejected suggestions that the relationship was personally or politically beneficial to him. Trump denied extensive business or financial ties to Russia and any political alliance built on mutual interest, which during the campaign included a shared animus toward Clinton and the objective of electing him. In numerous instances, Trump’s claims have foundered on the known facts. He and those acting under this direction have engaged in an extensive pattern of misleading and flatly false statements about the Russia relationship.
Of course, one could conclude that Trump has misread his exposure on the Russia relationship and has lied to no purpose in the end except to cause avoidable problems for himself. In other words, as some defenders of the president may argue, it all looks worse than it is, and the president cannot help making it look worse. He goes overboard and heaps falsehood on top of falsehood, even where the truth would be less harmful than the lies.
Or one could just as plausibly conclude that once Trump had for all intents and purposes made another of his “deals”—this time with a foreign government and for a benefit that was political, personal, or both—he felt compelled to embark on a program of lies and to enlist the full cooperation of is aides and associates. This is a deal he could not admit to have made. And the lying, especially the lying under his direction, may be the best evidence so far on the public record that he thought he had a deal that had to remain denied—whatever the risk of lying.
What very plausibly motivated the specific lies in the Flynn case was a need to deny specific, private commitments to Russia that tend to support the appearance of, and substantiate the affirmative case for, what might be termed a special understanding with the Putin regime. Perhaps any such indication would have seemed especially dangerous in the immediate aftermath of the campaign, when the Russians had been identified as aggressively intervening on his behalf—and with his encouragement—in the election. Trump may have felt extremely uneasy about the appearance of an American quo for the Russian quid.......
........It appears, then, that there is emerging a defense that a number of people told foolish lies, but nothing of more global significance. The president promoted this view specifically in another post-plea statement, by tweet: It was “a shame” that Flynn had lied to the FBI, “because his actions during the transition were lawful.” He ended the tweet: “There was nothing to hide!”
But perhaps there was. On a more comprehensive view, when examining the Flynn lies within the overall context of the stream of misrepresentations and known facts about the Russia relationship with Trump and his 2016 campaign, the Flynn episode is a good reason to expect intense, continuing investigative focus on the Russia connection. That is a more plausible ground for the lying, and the president’s involvement in it, than anxiety about the propriety, legality or political fallout from conversations with the Russians only weeks before taking office—and about issues on which his position was well known. The question of what has been generically called “collusion” is what has most concerned the president, what he has most vehemently challenged, and what would most motivate him to enlist others like Flynn in a program of concealments or falsehoods. It is useful in considering this possibility to once more recall the president’s dictation of the fallacious account of the Trump Tower campaign meeting with the Russian emissaries."
https://www.lawfareblog.com/flynns-plea-and-significance-lying-russia-investigation
....."The question remains: Why the lying? It seems that the Flynn lies make sense if connected to the others told by Trump and others with Trump’s knowledge about the Russian relationship over the course of his campaign and presidency. Trump has boasted periodically about the transformative potential of an improved diplomatic and strategic relationship with Russia. But at the same time, he has categorically rejected suggestions that the relationship was personally or politically beneficial to him. Trump denied extensive business or financial ties to Russia and any political alliance built on mutual interest, which during the campaign included a shared animus toward Clinton and the objective of electing him. In numerous instances, Trump’s claims have foundered on the known facts. He and those acting under this direction have engaged in an extensive pattern of misleading and flatly false statements about the Russia relationship.
Of course, one could conclude that Trump has misread his exposure on the Russia relationship and has lied to no purpose in the end except to cause avoidable problems for himself. In other words, as some defenders of the president may argue, it all looks worse than it is, and the president cannot help making it look worse. He goes overboard and heaps falsehood on top of falsehood, even where the truth would be less harmful than the lies.
Or one could just as plausibly conclude that once Trump had for all intents and purposes made another of his “deals”—this time with a foreign government and for a benefit that was political, personal, or both—he felt compelled to embark on a program of lies and to enlist the full cooperation of is aides and associates. This is a deal he could not admit to have made. And the lying, especially the lying under his direction, may be the best evidence so far on the public record that he thought he had a deal that had to remain denied—whatever the risk of lying.
What very plausibly motivated the specific lies in the Flynn case was a need to deny specific, private commitments to Russia that tend to support the appearance of, and substantiate the affirmative case for, what might be termed a special understanding with the Putin regime. Perhaps any such indication would have seemed especially dangerous in the immediate aftermath of the campaign, when the Russians had been identified as aggressively intervening on his behalf—and with his encouragement—in the election. Trump may have felt extremely uneasy about the appearance of an American quo for the Russian quid.......
........It appears, then, that there is emerging a defense that a number of people told foolish lies, but nothing of more global significance. The president promoted this view specifically in another post-plea statement, by tweet: It was “a shame” that Flynn had lied to the FBI, “because his actions during the transition were lawful.” He ended the tweet: “There was nothing to hide!”
But perhaps there was. On a more comprehensive view, when examining the Flynn lies within the overall context of the stream of misrepresentations and known facts about the Russia relationship with Trump and his 2016 campaign, the Flynn episode is a good reason to expect intense, continuing investigative focus on the Russia connection. That is a more plausible ground for the lying, and the president’s involvement in it, than anxiety about the propriety, legality or political fallout from conversations with the Russians only weeks before taking office—and about issues on which his position was well known. The question of what has been generically called “collusion” is what has most concerned the president, what he has most vehemently challenged, and what would most motivate him to enlist others like Flynn in a program of concealments or falsehoods. It is useful in considering this possibility to once more recall the president’s dictation of the fallacious account of the Trump Tower campaign meeting with the Russian emissaries."