Loyalty is big in the GOP and Flynn will have trouble getting that sinecure precisely because he talked. If you do the time you get set up. (See; Liddy, North, et al). If you talk you get nothing (See Dean)
+10
Options
ButtersA glass of some milksRegistered Userregular
I actually hope Flynn doesn’t get any jail time. Send the message that you can either go to jail and hope Trump pardons you, or you could cooperate and just avoid jail.
Fuck that though, because he's a real piece of shit, even compared to most of the rest of them.
Nah. There should be a place in the legal system for redemption of some kind. If you come forward and tell everything you know to the best of your abilities in a timely manner, leniency should be bestowed upon you if possible.
If for no other reason than to encourage bad people to tell on worse people so that the worst people are caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
True, but on a karmic level I still want to see him face some sort of punishment for having the audacity to go up during campaign rallies and lead chants of “lock her up” while he was neck deep in illegal shit himself.
As would I.
But I'd far rather he be given a great deal that makes him sing so that we can hopefully end this nightmare of an administration. Flynn might be awful, but I'm personally perfectly fine with him getting to walk away from this if the bigger fish fry.
Reality is that he's not "walking away" even if he gets no jail. Walking away was the deal he.. walked away from. This is just Probably No Jail Time. His career is over, he'll never get clearance or work in government again... pleading guilty to a federal crime is no small thing, even if you don't have to sit in a cell. It damages your life and future prospects irreparably.
What does Gordon Liddy have to say about that?
I guess he had a tolerably OK run after Carter commuted his sentence, parlaying his fame into self-parody and media.
Then again, he was in line to run the FBI and might have ended up as AG if not for his conviction. His career in government was in fact over, and it did damage his life and future prospects.
Sure. He still made out okay in the end. Flynn's career and reputation are trash, but the likelihood that he still ends up 'okay' will always be there.
I suspect that he, and others, will end up regular guests on FOX News and other places. Though probably not until Trump is out of office. In this case, Flynn fell on his sword to protect his fool of a son. All things considered, he'll be just fine.
Spending the rest of his life as the poster child of 'democratic overreach' will probably pay well.
Oliver North got a seat on the Fox News life raft because he held out and probably would have been pardoned were he not released on a technicality. I'm not so sure Flynn gets the same treatment after turning on their president.
I saw it brought up somewhere that things are moving faster ever since that take home test Trump wrote his answers for. To think, they originally wanted to ask those directly a YEAR ago. Has Mueller been waiting a year for this to happen, waiting to catch Manafort and Trump in a perjury trap?
Trump praises Stone for not cooperating. Mueller recommends no jail time for Flynn for cooperating. That's stone cold.
To be a fly on the wall....
Hey I don’t mean to pick on you specifically, but can we as a group please refrain from using the Trump camp’s preferred formulation of ‘perjury trap’? Perjury traps are real and pretty bad things, and also nothing at all like the situation being described here. Letting their preferred language catch on is doing their job for them and casting an unnecessary shadow on what is and should be legitimate law enforcement work.
Along these lines, could we also get an update to the thread title?
+2
Options
No-QuarterNothing To FearBut Fear ItselfRegistered Userregular
Seems like a "perjury trap" would be something like what happened to Bill Clinton - he lied to avoid embarrassment at having a mistress, but having a mistress is not illegal.
Being trapped into either admitting a crime or lying to the FBI seems like a good thing, from the point of view of everyone else. It will make future sleazebags thinking of running for office think twice, knowing that their secrets need to stay buried.
Another example of a perjury trap would be, say, taking a statement under oath of someone saying "I never met Jane Example-Lady", who for the purposes of this, let's say was murdered by someone else, and then the cops coming in with "Oh yeah? Well we have proof that she worked at your office 5 years ago, and that you both went to a few meetings together. You have met Ms. Example-Lady!" And then indicting the person for perjury.
In that you a: didn't commit a crime, b: simply mis-remembered a detail (There are people who I've recently worked with whose last name I wouldn't recognize), and c: It's an inconsequential detail anyways. It's just setting up something that any person could reasonably accidentally lie with no harm.
I actually hope Flynn doesn’t get any jail time. Send the message that you can either go to jail and hope Trump pardons you, or you could cooperate and just avoid jail.
Fuck that though, because he's a real piece of shit, even compared to most of the rest of them.
Nah. There should be a place in the legal system for redemption of some kind. If you come forward and tell everything you know to the best of your abilities in a timely manner, leniency should be bestowed upon you if possible.
If for no other reason than to encourage bad people to tell on worse people so that the worst people are caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
True, but on a karmic level I still want to see him face some sort of punishment for having the audacity to go up during campaign rallies and lead chants of “lock her up” while he was neck deep in illegal shit himself.
If his actions take down a significant portion of the GOP I can live with that karmicly.
Another example of a perjury trap would be, say, taking a statement under oath of someone saying "I never met Jane Example-Lady", who for the purposes of this, let's say was murdered by someone else, and then the cops coming in with "Oh yeah? Well we have proof that she worked at your office 5 years ago, and that you both went to a few meetings together. You have met Ms. Example-Lady!" And then indicting the person for perjury.
In that you a: didn't commit a crime, b: simply mis-remembered a detail (There are people who I've recently worked with whose last name I wouldn't recognize), and c: It's an inconsequential detail anyways. It's just setting up something that any person could reasonably accidentally lie with no harm.
But that's what the trial would then be about. And I can't see many prosecutors wanting to take this shit to trial if it's not related to a crime, an obvious case of confusion or oversight, and inconsequential.
The shit that Trump and Co are getting themselves tangled in, is not that. It's that they commited crimes, knowingly lied, and those lies were germaine to the crimes.
The differences are frikkin legion (for the lies are many).
I saw it brought up somewhere that things are moving faster ever since that take home test Trump wrote his answers for. To think, they originally wanted to ask those directly a YEAR ago. Has Mueller been waiting a year for this to happen, waiting to catch Manafort and Trump in a perjury trap?
Trump praises Stone for not cooperating. Mueller recommends no jail time for Flynn for cooperating. That's stone cold.
To be a fly on the wall....
Hey I don’t mean to pick on you specifically, but can we as a group please refrain from using the Trump camp’s preferred formulation of ‘perjury trap’? Perjury traps are real and pretty bad things, and also nothing at all like the situation being described here. Letting their preferred language catch on is doing their job for them and casting an unnecessary shadow on what is and should be legitimate law enforcement work.
Along these lines, could we also get an update to the thread title?
Another example of a perjury trap would be, say, taking a statement under oath of someone saying "I never met Jane Example-Lady", who for the purposes of this, let's say was murdered by someone else, and then the cops coming in with "Oh yeah? Well we have proof that she worked at your office 5 years ago, and that you both went to a few meetings together. You have met Ms. Example-Lady!" And then indicting the person for perjury.
In that you a: didn't commit a crime, b: simply mis-remembered a detail (There are people who I've recently worked with whose last name I wouldn't recognize), and c: It's an inconsequential detail anyways. It's just setting up something that any person could reasonably accidentally lie with no harm.
But that's what the trial would then be about. And I can't see many prosecutors wanting to take this shit to trial if it's not related to a crime, an obvious case of confusion or oversight, and inconsequential.
The shit that Trump and Co are getting themselves tangled in, is not that. It's that they commited crimes, knowingly lied, and those lies were germaine to the crimes.
The differences are frikkin legion (for the lies are many).
Right, exactly, that's why Trump's use of "perjury trap" is hilariously wrong. He's not lying about something inconsequential because he's making an honest mistake and he just happened to use declarative language instead of hedging. He's using it as "I lied about the crime I committed, so it's totally unfair to ask me about the crimes I committed"
It's just that a "perjury trap" is like, actually a thing. And it could totally be used to screw someone. And if anything, that's probably why it's even more important not to fall into the trap of using it to describe what Mueller is doing.
Loyalty is big in the GOP and Flynn will have trouble getting that sinecure precisely because he talked. If you do the time you get set up. (See; Liddy, North, et al). If you talk you get nothing (See Dean)
Snitches get stitches. Trump has made the mob nature of the party really obvious but it's always been there.
Willfully (aka intentionally) false statement
Sworn statement
Material falsehood
Just something to think about when you're trying to come up with examples of perjury traps, which aren't actually a thing in my mind (police misconduct and misrepresentation, police coercion, police tampering with evidence - these are things)
Not remembering a woman at a work party is not intentional nor material, I would say
Lying to cops in an interview isn't perjury (may be a crime if you're talking to the FBI, but not perjury)
Cops catching you in a lie using facts known to them isn't a perjury trap
Willfully (aka intentionally) false statement
Sworn statement
Material falsehood
Just something to think about when you're trying to come up with examples of perjury traps, which aren't actually a thing in my mind (police misconduct and misrepresentation, police coercion, police tampering with evidence - these are things)
Not remembering a woman at a work party is not intentional nor material, I would say
Lying to cops in an interview isn't perjury (may be a crime if you're talking to the FBI, but not perjury)
Cops catching you in a lie using facts known to them isn't a perjury trap
I kind of want to mod my kids’ Mousetrap board game to be Perjury Trap now
If the investigation has Trump committing crimes, and Pence committing crimes, then things are gonna get interesting if Nancy Pelosi decides to go for the throat.
If the investigation has Trump committing crimes, and Pence committing crimes, then things are gonna get interesting if Nancy Pelosi decides to go for the throat.
As nice as it is to dream, we haven’t seen anything to actually suggest there is direct evidence of Pence doing crimes, have we?
For what it’s worth, he has done a great job of doing exactly what he needs to in order to make it out of this, which is just hover at a great distance and fade into the background while not drawing attention to anything he may or may not have known about what Trump was up to.
Like, the only thing we have him on is lying for Flynn, iirc?
+1
Options
Just_Bri_ThanksSeething with ragefrom a handbasket.Registered User, ClubPAregular
If the investigation has Trump committing crimes, and Pence committing crimes, then things are gonna get interesting if Nancy Pelosi decides to go for the throat.
Not really. The Senate won't convict.
...and when you are done with that; take a folding
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
If the investigation has Trump committing crimes, and Pence committing crimes, then things are gonna get interesting if Nancy Pelosi decides to go for the throat.
No way that happens. I can imagine a world where Republicans turn on the Administration. It's far fetched, but possible.
No way they let that happen though. At best, an agreement would be made that a relatively scandal-free, relatively milquetoast Republican would be put into the Vice Presidency (You finally made it, Mitt!), before both Trump and Pence are removed from office.
Else the McConnell would irongrip at least 33 other Senators, and they would just ride it out, hell or high water. No way McConnell allows a Democrat to take the Presidency.
To me, you don't actually have to go that far for the most relevant 'perjury trap' example - it's Clinton (Bill). He was brought in to testify about a legitimate investigation, and then is asked an embarrassing and irrelevant personal question where his choice is either to (1) deny and commit perjury, or (2) admit to an affair that will likely either leak or get into the public record.
Being asked to honestly answer questions relevant to the investigation happening isn't a perjury trap, it's normally just called an interview.
Should Bill Clinton have brazened it out and said "Yes, I did sleep with that woman. And if you will excuse me I need to go apologize to my wife very quickly."?
My immediate assumption from that clip is that Hannity is already implicated in something. Because that seems like it could easily be argued as attempted obstruction, given his close relationship to the President.
-edit-
Also because reality has just got silly the last few years.
MuddBudd on
There's no plan, there's no race to be run
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
My immediate assumption from that clip is that Hannity is already implicated in something.
A reminder that Hannity probably is connected to this somehow considering that he was one of Cohen's three clients.
Even if it's not directly connected... it still seems real wrong.
Is third-party obstruction a thing in our legal system?
Well he doesn't actually say "Mueller witnesses put a lid on it!" He seems to be making the argument that it's just too bad you can't trust the cops anymore, that's how bad the FBI is, and if they come to your house and ask you questions, you shouldn't talk to them. It probably is a message to witnesses too, but he's got plenty of cover here.
That said he is a party to this mess; because he talks to Donald near every night, advises him, and coordinates messages on his shows.
Hannity is shitty and awful, but what he's saying isn't illegal at all. It's actually not substantially different from saying "don't talk to the cops, they'll just try to pin something on you," which, in certain circumstances, wouldn't be terribly inaccurate.
I mean, the difference is that he's only saying this because the FBI is going after people on his team, but there's no credible way to spin this as illegal.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Hannity loves to say "Why don't you talk to cops? What have you got to hide?" when it's minorities getting fucked over by the law. But when it's rich, white dudes he apparently goes all "Snitches get stiches".
It's massively hypocritical. So a normal day for Sean Hannity.
+48
Options
VanguardBut now the dream is over. And the insect is awake.Registered User, __BANNED USERSregular
Hannity is shitty and awful, but what he's saying isn't illegal at all. It's actually not substantially different from saying "don't talk to the cops, they'll just try to pin something on you," which, in certain circumstances, wouldn't be terribly inaccurate.
I mean, the difference is that he's only saying this because the FBI is going after people on his team, but there's no credible way to spin this as illegal.
I think it's more significant because he's not denying crimes happened! He's not denying that people know crimes happened!
Posts
Oliver North got a seat on the Fox News life raft because he held out and probably would have been pardoned were he not released on a technicality. I'm not so sure Flynn gets the same treatment after turning on their president.
Along these lines, could we also get an update to the thread title?
And it's only Wednesday!
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Being trapped into either admitting a crime or lying to the FBI seems like a good thing, from the point of view of everyone else. It will make future sleazebags thinking of running for office think twice, knowing that their secrets need to stay buried.
In that you a: didn't commit a crime, b: simply mis-remembered a detail (There are people who I've recently worked with whose last name I wouldn't recognize), and c: It's an inconsequential detail anyways. It's just setting up something that any person could reasonably accidentally lie with no harm.
If his actions take down a significant portion of the GOP I can live with that karmicly.
But that's what the trial would then be about. And I can't see many prosecutors wanting to take this shit to trial if it's not related to a crime, an obvious case of confusion or oversight, and inconsequential.
The shit that Trump and Co are getting themselves tangled in, is not that. It's that they commited crimes, knowingly lied, and those lies were germaine to the crimes.
The differences are frikkin legion (for the lies are many).
It's a joke
Whoa spoilers...!
Right, exactly, that's why Trump's use of "perjury trap" is hilariously wrong. He's not lying about something inconsequential because he's making an honest mistake and he just happened to use declarative language instead of hedging. He's using it as "I lied about the crime I committed, so it's totally unfair to ask me about the crimes I committed"
It's just that a "perjury trap" is like, actually a thing. And it could totally be used to screw someone. And if anything, that's probably why it's even more important not to fall into the trap of using it to describe what Mueller is doing.
Snitches get stitches. Trump has made the mob nature of the party really obvious but it's always been there.
Willfully (aka intentionally) false statement
Sworn statement
Material falsehood
Just something to think about when you're trying to come up with examples of perjury traps, which aren't actually a thing in my mind (police misconduct and misrepresentation, police coercion, police tampering with evidence - these are things)
Not remembering a woman at a work party is not intentional nor material, I would say
Lying to cops in an interview isn't perjury (may be a crime if you're talking to the FBI, but not perjury)
Cops catching you in a lie using facts known to them isn't a perjury trap
But now I want the thread title to be a Ron Paul GIF. And I don’t think that's possible.
And that makes me sad.
I kind of want to mod my kids’ Mousetrap board game to be Perjury Trap now
“Russian action, spurred Mueller’s contraption! The traitors he’s catchin’! It’s Perjury Trap!”
And all you had to do was ask, and a dozen people stepped up within minutes. Giuliani couldn't be bothered to do that much.
As nice as it is to dream, we haven’t seen anything to actually suggest there is direct evidence of Pence doing crimes, have we?
For what it’s worth, he has done a great job of doing exactly what he needs to in order to make it out of this, which is just hover at a great distance and fade into the background while not drawing attention to anything he may or may not have known about what Trump was up to.
Like, the only thing we have him on is lying for Flynn, iirc?
Not really. The Senate won't convict.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
No way that happens. I can imagine a world where Republicans turn on the Administration. It's far fetched, but possible.
No way they let that happen though. At best, an agreement would be made that a relatively scandal-free, relatively milquetoast Republican would be put into the Vice Presidency (You finally made it, Mitt!), before both Trump and Pence are removed from office.
Else the McConnell would irongrip at least 33 other Senators, and they would just ride it out, hell or high water. No way McConnell allows a Democrat to take the Presidency.
EDIT: Pre mod edict.
Being asked to honestly answer questions relevant to the investigation happening isn't a perjury trap, it's normally just called an interview.
For this alone we owe Flynn, I dunno, a happy Christmas or something.
What a wild time to be alive when "stop snitchin'" is the conservative line.
-edit-
Also because reality has just got silly the last few years.
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
A reminder that Hannity probably is connected to this somehow considering that he was one of Cohen's three clients.
Even if it's not directly connected... it still seems real wrong.
Is third-party obstruction a thing in our legal system?
The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
Are you a third party when you are close friends with one party that you might be involved with other crimes as well?
Yeah that's like second-and-a-half'th party at best.
Well he doesn't actually say "Mueller witnesses put a lid on it!" He seems to be making the argument that it's just too bad you can't trust the cops anymore, that's how bad the FBI is, and if they come to your house and ask you questions, you shouldn't talk to them. It probably is a message to witnesses too, but he's got plenty of cover here.
That said he is a party to this mess; because he talks to Donald near every night, advises him, and coordinates messages on his shows.
He really wanted people to know that he's in favor of arm wrestling in order to settle disputes.
I mean, the difference is that he's only saying this because the FBI is going after people on his team, but there's no credible way to spin this as illegal.
It's massively hypocritical. So a normal day for Sean Hannity.
I think it's more significant because he's not denying crimes happened! He's not denying that people know crimes happened!