A pardon or commutation is more blatantly corrupt than the DOJ requesting a lighter sentence. Currently (and this is the line from the White House), Trump can claim he didn't ask for anything. He can't do that with other options.
Of course, it's laughable and clear what is going on, but perception does matter in some circles. Translation: current status quo is easier for Fox News to defend than a pardon, but they'd still find a way to justify that.
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Drake ChambersLay out my formal shorts.Registered Userregular
This is a tweet from Michael Bromwich, formerly DOJ Inspector General from 1994 to 1999.
Memo to all career DOJ employees
This is not what you signed up for. The four prosecutors who bailed on the Stone case have shown the way. Report all instances of improper political influence and other misdeeds to the DOJ IG, who is required to protect your identity.
Bromwich: It’s extremely serious. The department had to understand that filing a supplemental memo would undermine the line prosecutors and make the department look terrible. Yet they were willing to do that, apparently because that’s what the president wanted.
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AthenorBattle Hardened OptimistThe Skies of HiigaraRegistered Userregular
I know that's the only recourse they have... but if all the good AGs quit, won't we just be left with.. well.. the bad ones?
The policies of these ["self styled social justice reformer"] DAs also sabotage the effectiveness of community policing and “precision” policing, which depend heavily on obtaining information from members of the community. When DAs engage in catch-and-release and revolving-door policies, people in the neighborhood who might otherwise provide information are scared to come forward. These innocent people are rightly worried that the offender will be right back out on the street in a position to do them harm. [...]
These DAs think they are helping people, but they end up hurting them. These policies actually lead to greater criminality.
Strange how this mindset doesn't seem to apply to the convicted felons who worked for President Trump. For whom a standard sentencing guideline chart is now too onerous a sentence.
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ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
The Justice Department said Tuesday it will take the extraordinary step of lowering the amount of prison time it will seek for Roger Stone, an announcement that came just hours after President Donald Trump complained that the recommended sentence for his longtime ally and confidant was “very horrible and unfair.”
The move prompted near immediate protest from prosecutors on the case. One resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney. The second filed a notice with the court that he was leaving his position as a special prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, although he would remain as an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore.
The Justice Department said the decision to shorten the sentencing recommendation was made Monday night — before Trump’s tweet — and that prosecutors had not spoken to the White House about it.
99% sure that is a lie
Nah, the decision was made before the tweet but after Trump told them to.
Also accepting the pardon carries an admission of guilt.
Trump and Barr giving him a Get Out Of Jail Free card, while corrupt as fuck, doesn't carry the same caveates.
Does admitting guilt actually matter if conservatives don't care? It's not like it's going to prevent him from doing what he's been doing. Frankly, the only way I can see to stop him from going and committing more crimes is to put in in jail.
It fundamentally undermines their ability to claim this is a partisan witch hunt.
Also accepting the pardon carries an admission of guilt.
Trump and Barr giving him a Get Out Of Jail Free card, while corrupt as fuck, doesn't carry the same caveates.
Does admitting guilt actually matter if conservatives don't care? It's not like it's going to prevent him from doing what he's been doing. Frankly, the only way I can see to stop him from going and committing more crimes is to put in in jail.
It fundamentally undermines their ability to claim this is a partisan witch hunt.
Also accepting the pardon carries an admission of guilt.
Trump and Barr giving him a Get Out Of Jail Free card, while corrupt as fuck, doesn't carry the same caveates.
Does admitting guilt actually matter if conservatives don't care? It's not like it's going to prevent him from doing what he's been doing. Frankly, the only way I can see to stop him from going and committing more crimes is to put in in jail.
It fundamentally undermines their ability to claim this is a partisan witch hunt.
Also accepting the pardon carries an admission of guilt.
Trump and Barr giving him a Get Out Of Jail Free card, while corrupt as fuck, doesn't carry the same caveates.
Does admitting guilt actually matter if conservatives don't care? It's not like it's going to prevent him from doing what he's been doing. Frankly, the only way I can see to stop him from going and committing more crimes is to put in in jail.
Generally speaking the 'admiting guilt' aspect of a pardon is only a problem if it exposes you to a civil suit, or if you're a raging narcissist who has an existential fear of ever being seen as at fault, by anyone, in any context.
Also accepting the pardon carries an admission of guilt.
Trump and Barr giving him a Get Out Of Jail Free card, while corrupt as fuck, doesn't carry the same caveates.
Does admitting guilt actually matter if conservatives don't care? It's not like it's going to prevent him from doing what he's been doing. Frankly, the only way I can see to stop him from going and committing more crimes is to put in in jail.
It fundamentally undermines their ability to claim this is a partisan witch hunt.
Nope. Not one bit. This is how I fully expect it to go down:
1) Your ally gets busted breaking the law and is facing multiple years in federal prison.
2) You attack the prosecutors with a bunch of fallacious shit and smear them as enemies of all that is right and good, so much that all four of them quit the case and one even quits his job entirely.
3) Appoint your bestest best lawyer lapdog of lapdogs to make sure you get the results you want.
4) If the judge still won't violate their oath to uphold the law, you threaten to drop a pardon on your friend and praise it as fighting back against the Dems- you'll notice the orange moron drew on a lot of things, like Mueller, to make his "point" that the whole case against Stone was a Democrat-originating smear-job aimed at him because they couldn't get impeachment to stick.
5) If all else fails and the mean old judge still sentences your friend, you 'heroically' charge to the rescue with a pardon and slam it down to get your friend out of a jam while your local crowd of imbeciles cheers and loads their guns/sharpens their knives to go after the people (judges/prosecuters/jurors) who 'wronged' your friend and you, and sit back to enjoy the carnage in your brand new Banana Republic of America.
This is a tweet from Michael Bromwich, formerly DOJ Inspector General from 1994 to 1999.
Memo to all career DOJ employees
This is not what you signed up for. The four prosecutors who bailed on the Stone case have shown the way. Report all instances of improper political influence and other misdeeds to the DOJ IG, who is required to protect your identity.
Bromwich: It’s extremely serious. The department had to understand that filing a supplemental memo would undermine the line prosecutors and make the department look terrible. Yet they were willing to do that, apparently because that’s what the president wanted.
"Report all instances of improper political influence and other misdeeds to the DOJ IG, who is required to protect your identity."
Yeah, after all the current extended fuckery we've seen from this Administration, and their accompanying lackeys (Rand Paul being the most prominent), do you think anyone has that much faith that their identities will be protected if they do report improper political influence?
Which was clearly the point behind the whistleblower shit. "Nice anonymity you've got there, be a shame if something happened to it."
We're truly through the fucking looking glass with regards governmental accountability.
This is a tweet from Michael Bromwich, formerly DOJ Inspector General from 1994 to 1999.
Memo to all career DOJ employees
This is not what you signed up for. The four prosecutors who bailed on the Stone case have shown the way. Report all instances of improper political influence and other misdeeds to the DOJ IG, who is required to protect your identity.
Bromwich: It’s extremely serious. The department had to understand that filing a supplemental memo would undermine the line prosecutors and make the department look terrible. Yet they were willing to do that, apparently because that’s what the president wanted.
"Report all instances of improper political influence and other misdeeds to the DOJ IG, who is required to protect your identity."
Yeah, after all the current extended fuckery we've seen from this Administration, and their accompanying lackeys (Rand Paul being the most prominent), do you think anyone has that much faith that their identities will be protected if they do report improper political influence?
Which was clearly the point behind the whistleblower shit. "Nice anonymity you've got there, be a shame if something happened to it."
We're truly through the fucking looking glass with regards governmental accountability.
Just one point: The dude that Rand Paul has been going on about was pretty definitively NOT the whistleblower. Which makes it worse/better. Worse that this random dude is having their life ruined and better in that apparently the whistleblower protections have sorta worked? Or they've decided to not publicly crime and persecutor the whistleblower but that last option feels real unlikely.
"We need conservatives and Republicans to stand up for the rule of law, and if we don't have that, it's over."
Then it's over, because Republicans have been pretty blatant about their disregard for the rule of law.
On this, I have a sinking feeling that not only has the timer run out, the celebrations outside are ongoing, the lights are off, everything shut down, and we're still kneeling on the turf wondering just where it all went wrong.
Romney decided to rise up, but they made him a fucking example of what happens when you speak against the God-Emperor- cut off from money/party/stability- even his own family.
We're fooling ourselves if we need the Republicans to save us from this- they've tasted authoritarian fascist power, and they absolutely want more, even if it means selling the country to Trump to be his plaything.
The only thing that will make this end is a full Democrat takeover of Congress and the Presidency- so we can prosecute those assholes and toss them in fucking Supermax to make an example of them, and then try to go back to how things were- with lots of extra rules and regulations. We treat it as a fucking learning experience.
Hell, we should have done the same when Obama came into power- we SHOULD have prosecuted that fucker W and Cheney and all the rest of them. But we didn't, and that set the stage for this. It wasn't that they tried it in 2008, it's that we didn't give them any meaningful consequences when we voted them out, like jail time/fines/etc. in response. We let them get away with it because we wanted to "go back to normal", and that emboldened the party, especially when Romney ran in 2012 and lost and proved that a moderate Republican couldn't win.
And any petulant child that doesn't get any negative consequences for breaking the rules will always, always do it again, and worse, if he thinks he can get away with it: as proof, see current government.
Yeah im pretty sure the time is long past on this. I very much doubt a peaceful transfer of power next year. I think it's either they win through clandestine efforts that are either never investigated or deemed okay when people hear about them, or they refuse to let go of power when they fail to properly cheat the elections and no one stops them from illegally holding power.
It's pretty fuckin wild that the speculation there is only a little crazy and not totally fuckin bonkers.
If Sanders wins the nomination and looks like he'll beat Trump, I fully expect Trump to try and suspend or otherwise disable elections on the guise that fighting socialism is in America's best interests. There's no way that bullshit his lawyers spewed during the impeachment didn't resonate with him.
So, Barr has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
On March 31.
Attorney General William Barr has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee next month, the panel's chairman Jerry Nadler said Wednesday, giving them a forum to press the attorney general on the sentencing of Roger Stone and other controversies that have emerged in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's impeachment trial.
Nadler and the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to Barr on Wednesday that said they were confirming his testimony on March 31. In the letter, the Democrats signaled they plan to question Barr about three topics among other issues: overruling prosecutors on Stone's recommended sentence, the arrangement for the President's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to provide information on Ukraine and the pulled nomination of Jessie Liu, who ran the US attorney's office in Washington when it prosecuted the Stone case.
Nadler wrote that the three developments over the past week "raise grave questions about your leadership" at the Justice Departments.
...
The attorney general attending a hearing for the Judiciary Committee, which provides oversight of the Justice Department, is typical each year, as Cabinet officials across the federal government march to Capitol Hill after the budget is released.
But Barr has not testified before the committee since he was confirmed at attorney general last year. Barr has been in a prolonged standoff with the committee, and even boycotted a hearing last spring about former special counsel Robert Mueller's report after committee Democrats insisted on allowing staff attorneys to question him.
I wonder how many other investigations/cases Barr can interfere with between now and then.
I'm surprised Barr didn't just tell the house to go fuck themselves. Seems like it would save everyone some time at least, as Barr is just going to "I don't recall" and quantum executive priviledge his way through any questioning.
So, Barr has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee.
On March 31.
Attorney General William Barr has agreed to testify before the House Judiciary Committee next month, the panel's chairman Jerry Nadler said Wednesday, giving them a forum to press the attorney general on the sentencing of Roger Stone and other controversies that have emerged in the aftermath of President Donald Trump's impeachment trial.
Nadler and the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to Barr on Wednesday that said they were confirming his testimony on March 31. In the letter, the Democrats signaled they plan to question Barr about three topics among other issues: overruling prosecutors on Stone's recommended sentence, the arrangement for the President's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani to provide information on Ukraine and the pulled nomination of Jessie Liu, who ran the US attorney's office in Washington when it prosecuted the Stone case.
Nadler wrote that the three developments over the past week "raise grave questions about your leadership" at the Justice Departments.
...
The attorney general attending a hearing for the Judiciary Committee, which provides oversight of the Justice Department, is typical each year, as Cabinet officials across the federal government march to Capitol Hill after the budget is released.
But Barr has not testified before the committee since he was confirmed at attorney general last year. Barr has been in a prolonged standoff with the committee, and even boycotted a hearing last spring about former special counsel Robert Mueller's report after committee Democrats insisted on allowing staff attorneys to question him.
I wonder how many other investigations/cases Barr can interfere with between now and then.
Odds on a Trumper-tantrum and an executive-privilege claim scribbled on the back of a McDonald's playmat in crayon before lunchtime tomorrow? We all know this will never, EVER happen.
This is just another way for them to stick it to the Dems, because they know DoJ will never, ever enforce a subpoena not in Trump's interests again.
"We need conservatives and Republicans to stand up for the rule of law, and if we don't have that, it's over."
Then it's over, because Republicans have been pretty blatant about their disregard for the rule of law.
Hey now, if anyone could turn on Trump tomorrow* and, with a straight face**, act like it was the Democrats who have been supporting him all along, it's Mitch McConnell.
Yeah im pretty sure the time is long past on this. I very much doubt a peaceful transfer of power next year. I think it's either they win through clandestine efforts that are either never investigated or deemed okay when people hear about them, or they refuse to let go of power when they fail to properly cheat the elections and no one stops them from illegally holding power.
It's pretty fuckin wild that the speculation there is only a little crazy and not totally fuckin bonkers.
'Peaceful' transfer of power, but only after a lot of shredding and firings, I expect. A ton of people waking up to find they've been fired on Nov 4th.
It's why it's very important for congress to be gathering as much evidence as they can now, because it's just not going to be there afterwards - and the post-election investigations being a shambles is going to make the whole thing look really bad and just very political. Plus "the Dems only want testimony from disgruntled workers who got fired" is an instant CoA story.
Trump’s War Against ‘the Deep State’ Enters a New Stage
The suggestion that Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman should now face punishment by the Pentagon was one sign of how determined the president is to even the scales after his impeachment.
More axes are sure to fall. A senior Pentagon official appears in danger of losing her nomination to a top Defense Department post after questioning the president’s suspension of aid to Ukraine. Likewise, a prosecutor involved in Mr. Stone’s case has lost a nomination to a senior Treasury Department position. A key National Security Council official is said by colleagues to face dismissal. And the last of dozens of career officials being transferred out of the White House may be gone by the end of the week.
Others involved in the impeachment process may also pay a price. The administration plans to withdraw the nomination for Pentagon comptroller of Elaine McCusker, a Defense Department official who questioned the aid freeze, The New York Post reported. While the Senate has not been notified of such a move, an administration official said it was likely to happen after budget hearings this week.
The ousted officials were detailed from elsewhere in the government like the C.I.A., the Pentagon or the State Department and are returning to their home agencies. According to an administration official, the original plan was to use this downsizing as cover to remove Colonel Vindman as well without looking like a reprisal.
But in the end, the president did not want cover. He wanted to send a message — a message that Washington has received.
The Justice Department said Tuesday it will take the extraordinary step of lowering the amount of prison time it will seek for Roger Stone, an announcement that came just hours after President Donald Trump complained that the recommended sentence for his longtime ally and confidant was “very horrible and unfair.”
The move prompted near immediate protest from prosecutors on the case. One resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney. The second filed a notice with the court that he was leaving his position as a special prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, although he would remain as an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore.
The Justice Department said the decision to shorten the sentencing recommendation was made Monday night — before Trump’s tweet — and that prosecutors had not spoken to the White House about it.
99% sure that is a lie
I find it entirely plausible that DoJ leadership caught wind of it and said, "holy shit we can't do this we'll all be fired by tweet" or perhaps "we've got to fix this now before he 'corrects' us on Twitter and it looks like he's interfering at DoJ" and got out ahead of the White House on it.
Those aren't less troubling explanations than yours, obviously.
I'm surprised Barr didn't just tell the house to go fuck themselves. Seems like it would save everyone some time at least, as Barr is just going to "I don't recall" and quantum executive priviledge his way through any questioning.
That’s what he’d prefer to do. To go there and be an ass and tell them to fuck off to their faces.
I respect the decision but feel like the right play here is you ignore his directives and do the right thing and make him fucking fire you. If you just leave, no one ever has to explain his actions.
Judge, despite attempted intervention by the DOJ senior leadership, the prosecution still believe the sentencing guidelines based on the point system are fair and adequate and we would like to submit our memo and request in it's original unedited format.
Make him fire you and then file the biggest fucking lawsuit.
I understand that slowly backing away from the fire and leaving the building is a totally reasonable reaction, I just get mad when people let someone bully them into leaving their job when they were in the right - but they have too much to lose.
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FiggyFighter of the night manChampion of the sunRegistered Userregular
I respect the decision but feel like the right play here is you ignore his directives and do the right thing and make him fucking fire you. If you just leave, no one ever has to explain his actions.
Judge, despite attempted intervention by the DOJ senior leadership, the prosecution still believe the sentencing guidelines based on the point system are fair and adequate and we would like to submit our memo and request in it's original unedited format.
Make him fire you and then file the biggest fucking lawsuit.
I understand that slowly backing away from the fire and leaving the building is a totally reasonable reaction, I just get mad when people let someone bully them into leaving their job when they were in the right - but they have too much to lose.
I don't think that's what happened here. I'm not an expert on DOJ policy, but it's not like they could have spoken out publicly about this pressure without getting in legal trouble, right? Something, something disclosing information about an ongoing federal case.
Quitting all at the same time on the same day this decision came out is very clearly a protest. They could have slunk around until sentencing and said whatever they wanted, it wouldn't have actually gone anywhere. But quitting all at once? That sure made headlines loud and clear.
I respect the decision but feel like the right play here is you ignore his directives and do the right thing and make him fucking fire you. If you just leave, no one ever has to explain his actions.
Judge, despite attempted intervention by the DOJ senior leadership, the prosecution still believe the sentencing guidelines based on the point system are fair and adequate and we would like to submit our memo and request in it's original unedited format.
Make him fire you and then file the biggest fucking lawsuit.
I understand that slowly backing away from the fire and leaving the building is a totally reasonable reaction, I just get mad when people let someone bully them into leaving their job when they were in the right - but they have too much to lose.
As far as I've heard, only one of them QUIT-quit, they just withdrew from the case before the judge ruled on sentencing, but after convicting the son of a bitch and recommending she throw the book at him. I don't think there's anything more they could have or needed to do there.
This is crazy, they are still producing an impeachable scandal per week. At this rate they will run out of crimes and will have to repeat. Like someone said earlier, the leash is off now so everything is just getting done in the open for all to see. They don't need to care anymore.
This is crazy, they are still producing an impeachable scandal per week. At this rate they will run out of crimes and will have to repeat. Like someone said earlier, the leash is off now so everything is just getting done in the open for all to see. They don't need to care anymore.
That's been the problem these past 4 years. The systems is designed around stuff happening in private, when they just blatantly do it in the open, no one (especially the media) knows how to react to it
Government is slow, and Trump weaponized it. We have yet to respond in a fashion that meaningfully addresses this, because it’s part of the system and we’re trying to protect the system.
Edit: He just delays until the condition is normalized. Until the delaying itself is normalized.
The parts of Congress trying to stop him are waiting for Judicial opinions while Trump extends the time on those processes over years. And nobody on our side really wants that situation to be resolved because it’s become increasingly clear what will happen when 2/3 of the government says one thing and the president says another.
This is crazy, they are still producing an impeachable scandal per week. At this rate they will run out of crimes and will have to repeat. Like someone said earlier, the leash is off now so everything is just getting done in the open for all to see. They don't need to care anymore.
That's been the problem these past 4 years. The systems is designed around stuff happening in private, when they just blatantly do it in the open, no one (especially the media) knows how to react to it
And tends towards leniency. Cause people who have shame think along the lines "If it was THAT bad, surely they'd try to hide it.". People just aren't used to the shamelessness.
That's why the Ukraine thing was such a big deal. Because it was hidden. As we saw after, when Trump just said the same thing in public (and roped in China), the impact was severely lessened.
The Justice Department said Tuesday it will take the extraordinary step of lowering the amount of prison time it will seek for Roger Stone, an announcement that came just hours after President Donald Trump complained that the recommended sentence for his longtime ally and confidant was “very horrible and unfair.”
The move prompted near immediate protest from prosecutors on the case. One resigned as an assistant U.S. attorney. The second filed a notice with the court that he was leaving his position as a special prosecutor with the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, although he would remain as an assistant U.S. attorney in Baltimore.
The Justice Department said the decision to shorten the sentencing recommendation was made Monday night — before Trump’s tweet — and that prosecutors had not spoken to the White House about it.
Mr. Barr and his lieutenants intervened on Tuesday hours after Mr. Trump assailed the original sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years in a middle-of-the-night Twitter eruption. The president congratulated Mr. Barr on Wednesday “for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought” and said prosecutors “ought to apologize” to Mr. Stone.
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump's decision to abruptly withdraw a Treasury Department nomination for Jessie Liu, the former US attorney who headed the office that oversaw Roger Stone's prosecution, was directly tied to her former job, CNN has learned.
While head of the US Attorney's Office in Washington, Liu inherited many of the major ongoing cases from Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation and was also handling the politically charged case of former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, a frequent target of Trump's ire who is also a CNN contributor.
As Trump and administration officials weighed pulling Liu's nomination to serve as the Treasury Department's under secretary for terrorism and financial crimes, a central factor in the talks was how she had run the US Attorney's Office. The problem wasn't that she necessarily did anything wrong, one person familiar with the thinking said, but that she didn't do more to get involved in those cases.
According to a separate source familiar with the situation, despite multiple warnings from people around her that there was a campaign actively working against her, Liu was blindsided when her second potential nomination in a year fell apart.
The White House dismissed concerns from a group of conservative lawyers about her nomination, but remained hung up over her role overseeing the politically charged cases in the US Attorney's Office. It was the Stone sentencing recommendation that moved Trump to pull the nomination.
Amazing how casually these people admit to democracy destroying reprisals
Posts
Of course, it's laughable and clear what is going on, but perception does matter in some circles. Translation: current status quo is easier for Fox News to defend than a pardon, but they'd still find a way to justify that.
This is a tweet from Michael Bromwich, formerly DOJ Inspector General from 1994 to 1999.
He spoke to the Washington Post and called this an "extremely serious" break-glass moment.
Strange how this mindset doesn't seem to apply to the convicted felons who worked for President Trump. For whom a standard sentencing guideline chart is now too onerous a sentence.
It's also not accurate. Caspar Weinberger was given a blanket pardon before he could get even charged...at William Barr's recommendation
Nah, the decision was made before the tweet but after Trump told them to.
Steam: adamjnet
It fundamentally undermines their ability to claim this is a partisan witch hunt.
That's never stopped them before.
Which means what, exactly?
Generally speaking the 'admiting guilt' aspect of a pardon is only a problem if it exposes you to a civil suit, or if you're a raging narcissist who has an existential fear of ever being seen as at fault, by anyone, in any context.
Does that answer your question?
As a veteran myself this pisses me right the fuck off.
Nope. Not one bit. This is how I fully expect it to go down:
1) Your ally gets busted breaking the law and is facing multiple years in federal prison.
2) You attack the prosecutors with a bunch of fallacious shit and smear them as enemies of all that is right and good, so much that all four of them quit the case and one even quits his job entirely.
3) Appoint your bestest best lawyer lapdog of lapdogs to make sure you get the results you want.
4) If the judge still won't violate their oath to uphold the law, you threaten to drop a pardon on your friend and praise it as fighting back against the Dems- you'll notice the orange moron drew on a lot of things, like Mueller, to make his "point" that the whole case against Stone was a Democrat-originating smear-job aimed at him because they couldn't get impeachment to stick.
5) If all else fails and the mean old judge still sentences your friend, you 'heroically' charge to the rescue with a pardon and slam it down to get your friend out of a jam while your local crowd of imbeciles cheers and loads their guns/sharpens their knives to go after the people (judges/prosecuters/jurors) who 'wronged' your friend and you, and sit back to enjoy the carnage in your brand new Banana Republic of America.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
"Report all instances of improper political influence and other misdeeds to the DOJ IG, who is required to protect your identity."
Yeah, after all the current extended fuckery we've seen from this Administration, and their accompanying lackeys (Rand Paul being the most prominent), do you think anyone has that much faith that their identities will be protected if they do report improper political influence?
Which was clearly the point behind the whistleblower shit. "Nice anonymity you've got there, be a shame if something happened to it."
We're truly through the fucking looking glass with regards governmental accountability.
Authoritarianism experts say time is running out for Americans to stop Trump
"We need conservatives and Republicans to stand up for the rule of law, and if we don't have that, it's over."
Then it's over, because Republicans have been pretty blatant about their disregard for the rule of law.
Just one point: The dude that Rand Paul has been going on about was pretty definitively NOT the whistleblower. Which makes it worse/better. Worse that this random dude is having their life ruined and better in that apparently the whistleblower protections have sorta worked? Or they've decided to not publicly crime and persecutor the whistleblower but that last option feels real unlikely.
On this, I have a sinking feeling that not only has the timer run out, the celebrations outside are ongoing, the lights are off, everything shut down, and we're still kneeling on the turf wondering just where it all went wrong.
Romney decided to rise up, but they made him a fucking example of what happens when you speak against the God-Emperor- cut off from money/party/stability- even his own family.
We're fooling ourselves if we need the Republicans to save us from this- they've tasted authoritarian fascist power, and they absolutely want more, even if it means selling the country to Trump to be his plaything.
The only thing that will make this end is a full Democrat takeover of Congress and the Presidency- so we can prosecute those assholes and toss them in fucking Supermax to make an example of them, and then try to go back to how things were- with lots of extra rules and regulations. We treat it as a fucking learning experience.
Hell, we should have done the same when Obama came into power- we SHOULD have prosecuted that fucker W and Cheney and all the rest of them. But we didn't, and that set the stage for this. It wasn't that they tried it in 2008, it's that we didn't give them any meaningful consequences when we voted them out, like jail time/fines/etc. in response. We let them get away with it because we wanted to "go back to normal", and that emboldened the party, especially when Romney ran in 2012 and lost and proved that a moderate Republican couldn't win.
And any petulant child that doesn't get any negative consequences for breaking the rules will always, always do it again, and worse, if he thinks he can get away with it: as proof, see current government.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
It's pretty fuckin wild that the speculation there is only a little crazy and not totally fuckin bonkers.
On March 31.
I wonder how many other investigations/cases Barr can interfere with between now and then.
Link: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/12/politics/william-barr-testify-congress/index.html
Odds on a Trumper-tantrum and an executive-privilege claim scribbled on the back of a McDonald's playmat in crayon before lunchtime tomorrow? We all know this will never, EVER happen.
This is just another way for them to stick it to the Dems, because they know DoJ will never, ever enforce a subpoena not in Trump's interests again.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
pleasepaypreacher.net
Hey now, if anyone could turn on Trump tomorrow* and, with a straight face**, act like it was the Democrats who have been supporting him all along, it's Mitch McConnell.
Keep hope alive!
*November 4th
**Straightish
'Peaceful' transfer of power, but only after a lot of shredding and firings, I expect. A ton of people waking up to find they've been fired on Nov 4th.
It's why it's very important for congress to be gathering as much evidence as they can now, because it's just not going to be there afterwards - and the post-election investigations being a shambles is going to make the whole thing look really bad and just very political. Plus "the Dems only want testimony from disgruntled workers who got fired" is an instant CoA story.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/us/politics/trump-vindman.html
pleasepaypreacher.net
I find it entirely plausible that DoJ leadership caught wind of it and said, "holy shit we can't do this we'll all be fired by tweet" or perhaps "we've got to fix this now before he 'corrects' us on Twitter and it looks like he's interfering at DoJ" and got out ahead of the White House on it.
Those aren't less troubling explanations than yours, obviously.
That’s what he’d prefer to do. To go there and be an ass and tell them to fuck off to their faces.
Judge, despite attempted intervention by the DOJ senior leadership, the prosecution still believe the sentencing guidelines based on the point system are fair and adequate and we would like to submit our memo and request in it's original unedited format.
Make him fire you and then file the biggest fucking lawsuit.
I understand that slowly backing away from the fire and leaving the building is a totally reasonable reaction, I just get mad when people let someone bully them into leaving their job when they were in the right - but they have too much to lose.
I don't think that's what happened here. I'm not an expert on DOJ policy, but it's not like they could have spoken out publicly about this pressure without getting in legal trouble, right? Something, something disclosing information about an ongoing federal case.
Quitting all at the same time on the same day this decision came out is very clearly a protest. They could have slunk around until sentencing and said whatever they wanted, it wouldn't have actually gone anywhere. But quitting all at once? That sure made headlines loud and clear.
As far as I've heard, only one of them QUIT-quit, they just withdrew from the case before the judge ruled on sentencing, but after convicting the son of a bitch and recommending she throw the book at him. I don't think there's anything more they could have or needed to do there.
That's been the problem these past 4 years. The systems is designed around stuff happening in private, when they just blatantly do it in the open, no one (especially the media) knows how to react to it
Government is slow, and Trump weaponized it. We have yet to respond in a fashion that meaningfully addresses this, because it’s part of the system and we’re trying to protect the system.
Edit: He just delays until the condition is normalized. Until the delaying itself is normalized.
The parts of Congress trying to stop him are waiting for Judicial opinions while Trump extends the time on those processes over years. And nobody on our side really wants that situation to be resolved because it’s become increasingly clear what will happen when 2/3 of the government says one thing and the president says another.
And tends towards leniency. Cause people who have shame think along the lines "If it was THAT bad, surely they'd try to hide it.". People just aren't used to the shamelessness.
That's why the Ukraine thing was such a big deal. Because it was hidden. As we saw after, when Trump just said the same thing in public (and roped in China), the impact was severely lessened.
For President’s Day!
I am now 100% sure.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/us/politics/justice-department-roger-stone-sentencing.html