SELLC wrote:

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I thought we should get into how much money this two year fishing expedition is costing Americans...

It's a tiny fraction of what the debt financed tax cuts for billionares is costing us.

1st off, I voted for Trump and no Russian convinced me to do so...

You have prejudices in your DNA, and are therefore one of the people who didn't require any Russian disinformation. You had plenty of your own disinformation, so congratulations on that I guess!

That being said this bogus fishing expedition serves only to keep people like Holder, Comey, Lynch, Rice, Clintons and Obamas from getting their day in court. Many people feel that these people crossed the line with their tarmac meetings, illegally unmasking and using intelligence agencies to fix an election, lying, cheating and outright treason in some peoples minds! It blows my mind that these criminals are walking free without being under any form of investigation while our current sitting President who was freely elected is literally being prosecuted while in office for bogus offenses!

Republicans were in charge of the FBI at the time, and are still in complete control of the Justice Department. They have made a determination, and you are free to take it up with them, they are your people after all.

How much do you think this circus sideshow that has been allowed to continue under AG Sessions, Rothenstein and Mueller cost the American people? Well we already know its costing well over $100 million dollars because that much they have admitted... But what has this clownery cost us overseas? Dont you think that this absurd fishing expedition is giving other countries the feeling that they dont have to respect Trump? That maybe they will just hold out and Trump will somehow be fired or removed from office? 

Trumps actions are why they don't respect him, not the investigation in to his campaign's ties to Russia.

Over the course of two years and all of the distractions in that time I think this fishing expedition has cost this nation almost a Trillion dollars by now!

This coming from a guy who probably still thinks one of Obama's trips cost enough to double the national debt, sigh.

Having a sitting President investigated like this is an absolute joke! It makes our President appear to be a paper bull! Unlike other countries we have term limits here, and a 4 year check / balance system so the office of the President should not be impeded during a Presidents Tenure, especially in this way! 

You didn't feel the same about Clinton did you? How about Nixon?

I am willing to bet that had Trump clamped down on this BS from the start, and had people in his office prosecuting the past Administration that China, Russia and many others would have had much more respect for Trump and probably wouldnt have tried him so much. Trump has to walk around like a dog with his tail between his legs during this otherwise unprecedented fishing expedition. And for what? Because Democrats lost the election? 

Obama would have been well within his right to prosecute George W. Bush for war crimes, but he took the high road.

I just dont understand it... and I damn sure dont want this setting precedent that its just okay to open fishing expeditions on Americans like what has been done to Trump! If they do it to him, they damn sure would do it to you! 

The U.S. President isn't a king, and is subject to oversight.

I really think this is costing us more than a trillion dollars, as we wont be getting back the time that has been wasted and that is more precious than the money!

I know the same to be true of Trump's presidency.

 

-- Edited by PowerStroker on Friday 17th of August 2018 11:00:04 AM

Obama didn't create our 20 Trillion national debt. He contributed to it, but it began under the Reagan administration. The Bush wars and Trump tax cuts just put it on steroids though.

Eh, no Shawnee... IIRC it was proven that Obama spent more than ALL of the other Presidents before him COMBINED!

YES!

If we take a look at this chart (and assume it came from a nonpartisan source), we will see that when Obama took office in 2009 we already had a national debt of $12.311 Trillion. Now, we should factor the truth that just as a massive barge cannot stop on a dime, neither can expensive policies like wars that began under a prior administration. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars alone I would ballpark estimate at about $3-4 Trillion when you factor in everything including veterans benefits that must be paid out for life. Since those were started under the Bush administration, I think it would be fair to say that the actual debt load inherited by Obama was more in the range of $16 Trillion even though about 3-4 of it wasn't spent by him, just spent during his watch by preexisting policies. That leaves about $4 Trillion that could actually be attributed to Obama administration policies, and I would argue that much of that was necessary debt financed stimulus spending in order to dig us out of the great recession he also inherited. 

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White House Counsel Has Cooperated Extensively With Muellers Obstruction Inquiry

WASHINGTON The White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, has cooperated extensively in the special counsel investigation, sharing detailed accounts about the episodes at the heart of the inquiry into whether President Trump obstructed justice, including some that investigators would not have learned of otherwise, according to a dozen current and former White House officials and others briefed on the matter.

In at least three voluntary interviews with investigators that totaled 30 hours over the past nine months, Mr. McGahn described the presidents furor toward the Russia investigation and the ways in which he urged Mr. McGahn to respond to it. He provided the investigators examining whether Mr. Trump obstructed justice a clear view of the presidents most intimate moments with his lawyer.

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Among them were Mr. Trumps comments and actions during the firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, and Mr. Trumps obsession with putting a loyalist in charge of the inquiry, including his repeated urging of Attorney General Jeff Sessions to claim oversight of it. Mr. McGahn was also centrally involved in Mr. Trumps attempts to fire the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, which investigators might not have discovered without him.

For a lawyer to share so much with investigators scrutinizing his client is unusual. Lawyers are rarely so open with investigators, not only because they are advocating on behalf of their clients but also because their conversations with clients are potentially shielded by attorney-client privilege, and in the case of presidents, executive privilege.

A prosecutor would kill for that, said Solomon L. Wisenberg, a deputy independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, which did not have the same level of cooperation from President Bill Clintons lawyers. Oh my God, it would have been phenomenally helpful to us. It would have been like having the keys to the kingdom.

Mr. McGahns cooperation began in part as a result of a decision by Mr. Trumps first team of criminal lawyers to collaborate fully with Mr. Mueller. The presidents lawyers have explained that they believed their client had nothing to hide and that they could bring the investigation to an end quickly.

Mr. McGahn and his lawyer, William A. Burck, could not understand why Mr. Trump was so willing to allow Mr. McGahn to speak freely to the special counsel and feared Mr. Trump was setting up Mr. McGahn to take the blame for any possible illegal acts of obstruction, according to people close to him. So he and Mr. Burck devised their own strategy to do as much as possible to cooperate with Mr. Mueller to demonstrate that Mr. McGahn did nothing wrong.

It is not clear that Mr. Trump appreciates the extent to which Mr. McGahn has cooperated with the special counsel. The president wrongly believed that Mr. McGahn would act as a personal lawyer would for clients and solely defend his interests to investigators, according to a person with knowledge of his thinking.

In fact, Mr. McGahn laid out how Mr. Trump tried to ensure control of the investigation, giving investigators a mix of information both potentially damaging and favorable to the president. Mr. McGahn cautioned to investigators that he never saw Mr. Trump go beyond his legal authorities, though the limits of executive power are murky.

Mr. McGahns role as a cooperating witness further strains his already complicated relationship with the president. Though Mr. Trump has fought with Mr. McGahn as much as with any of his top aides, White House advisers have said, both men have benefited significantly from their partnership.

Mr. McGahn has overseen two of Mr. Trumps signature accomplishments  stocking the federal courts and cutting government regulations  and become a champion of conservatives in the process.

But the two rarely speak one on one the White House chief of staff, John F. Kelly, and other advisers are usually present for their meetings and Mr. Trump has questioned Mr. McGahns loyalty. In turn, Mr. Trumps behavior has so exasperated Mr. McGahn that he has called the president King Kong behind his back, to connote his volcanic anger, people close to Mr. McGahn said.

This account is based on interviews with current and former White House officials and others who have spoken to both men, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss a sensitive investigation.

Through Mr. Burck, Mr. McGahn declined to comment. A spokesman for the special counsels office also declined to comment for this article.

Asked for comment, the White House sought to quell the sense of tension.

The president and Don have a great relationship, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement. He appreciates all the hard work hes done, particularly his help and expertise with the judges, and the Supreme Court nominees.

The president stressed that the White House had been cooperative with the investigation, tweeting on Saturday evening after this article was published that Mr. McGahn had been allowed to speak to the special counsel.

Mr. McGahns route from top White House lawyer to a central witness in the obstruction investigation of the president began around the time that Mr. Mueller took over the investigation into whether any Trump associates conspired with Russias interference in the presidential election.

When Mr. Mueller was appointed in May 2017, the lawyers surrounding the president realigned themselves. Mr. McGahn and other White House lawyers stopped dealing on a day-to-day basis with the investigation, as they realized they were potential witnesses in an obstruction case.

In the following weeks, Mr. Trump assembled a personal legal team to defend him. He wanted to take on Mr. Mueller directly, attacking his credibility and impeding investigators. But two of his newly hired lawyers, John M. Dowd and Ty Cobb, have said they took Mr. Trump at his word that he did nothing wrong and sold him on an open-book strategy. As long as Mr. Trump and the White House cooperated with Mr. Mueller, they told him, they could bring an end to the investigation within months.

Mr. McGahn, who had objected to Mr. Cobbs hiring, was dubious, according to people he spoke to around that time. As White House counsel, not a personal lawyer, he viewed his role as protector of the presidency, not of Mr. Trump. Allowing a special counsel to root around the West Wing could set a precedent harmful to future administrations.

But he had little ability to intervene. His relationship with the president had soured as Mr. Trump blamed him for a number of fraught moments in his first months in office, including the chaotic, failed early attempts at a ban on travelers from some majority-Muslim countries and, in particular, the existence of Mr. Muellers investigation.

The son of a Treasury Department investigator, Mr. McGahn, 50, briefly attended the Naval Academy before transferring to Notre Dame, graduating in 1991. He attended Widener Universitys Commonwealth Law School in Pennsylvania, then came to Washington and climbed the ranks of the Republican establishment, alternating between private firms and a stint on the Federal Election Commission.

Mr. McGahn joined the Trump team as an early hire said to like the candidates outsider position. His lack of a degree from a top law school bothered Mr. Trump, but the candidate saw that Mr. McGahn was respected by most of his peers, according to veteran party strategists.

Though he was a senior campaign aide, it is not clear whether Mr. Muellers investigators have questioned Mr. McGahn about whether Trump associates coordinated with Russias effort to influence the election.

Mr. McGahns decision to cooperate with the special counsel grew out of Mr. Dowds and Mr. Cobbs game plan, now seen as misguided by some close to the president.

Last fall, Mr. Muellers office asked to interview Mr. McGahn. To the surprise of the White House Counsels Office, Mr. Trump and his lawyers signaled that they had no objection, without knowing the extent of what Mr. McGahn was going to tell investigators.

Mr. McGahn was stunned, as was Mr. Burck, whom he had recently hired out of concern that he needed help to stay out of legal jeopardy, according to people close to Mr. McGahn. Mr. Burck has explained to others that he told White House advisers that they did not appreciate the presidents legal exposure and that it was insane that Mr. Trump did not fight a McGahn interview in court.

Even if the president did nothing wrong, Mr. Burck told White House lawyers, the White House has to understand that a client like Mr. Trump probably made politically damaging statements to Mr. McGahn as he weighed whether to intervene in the Russia investigation.

Inside the counsels office, lawyers feared that on the recommendation of Mr. Dowd and Mr. Cobb, the White House was handing Mr. Mueller detailed instructions to take down the president and setting a troubling precedent for future administrations by giving up executive privilege.

At the same time, Mr. Trump was blaming Mr. McGahn for his legal woes, yet encouraging him to speak to investigators. Mr. McGahn and his lawyer grew suspicious. They began telling associates that they had concluded that the president had decided to let Mr. McGahn take the fall for decisions that could be construed as obstruction of justice, like the Comey firing, by telling the special counsel that he was only following shoddy legal advice from Mr. McGahn.

Worried that Mr. Trump would ultimately blame him in the inquiry, Mr. McGahn told people he was determined to avoid the fate of the White House counsel for President Richard M. Nixon, John W. Dean, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Watergate scandal.

Mr. McGahn decided to fully cooperate with Mr. Mueller. It was, he believed, the only choice he had to protect himself.

This sure has echoes of Richard Nixons White House counsel, John Dean, who in 1973 feared that Nixon was setting him up as a fall guy for Watergate and secretly gave investigators crucial help while still in his job, said the historian Michael Beschloss.

Mr. Trumps lawyers still had a chance to keep Mr. McGahns insider knowledge from the special counsel. By exerting attorney-client privilege, which allows the president to legally withhold information, they would have gained the right to learn what Mr. McGahn planned to tell investigators and what he might reveal that could damage the president. But the presidents lawyers never went through that process, although they told people that they believed they still had the ability to stop Mr. Mueller from handing over to Congress the accounts of witnesses like Mr. McGahn and others.

Mr. Mueller has told the presidents lawyers that he will follow Justice Department guidance that sitting presidents cannot be indicted. Rather than charge Mr. Trump if he finds evidence of wrongdoing, he is more likely to write a report that can be sent to Congress for lawmakers to consider impeachment proceedings.

Unencumbered, Mr. Burck and Mr. McGahn met the special counsel team in November for the first time and shared all that Mr. McGahn knew.

To investigators, Mr. McGahn was a fruitful witness, people familiar with the investigation said. He had been directly involved in nearly every episode they are scrutinizing to determine whether the president obstructed justice. To make an obstruction case, prosecutors who lack a piece of slam-dunk evidence generally point to a range of actions that prove that the suspect tried to interfere with the inquiry.

Mr. McGahn gave to Mr. Muellers investigators, the people said, a sense of the presidents mind-set in the days leading to the firing of Mr. Comey; how the White House handled the firing of the former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn; and how Mr. Trump repeatedly berated Mr. Sessions, tried to get him to assert control over the investigation and threatened to fire him.

Despite the Trump lawyers insistence that cooperation would help end the inquiry, the investigation only intensified as last year came to a close. Mr. Mueller had charged Mr. Trumps former campaign chairman and his deputy and won guilty pleas and cooperation agreements from his first national security adviser and a campaign adviser.

Mr. Dowd said that cooperation was the right approach but that Mr. Mueller had snookered Mr. Trumps legal team. The White House has handed over more than one million documents and allowed more than two dozen administration officials to meet with Mr. Mueller in the belief that he would be forced to conclude there was no obstruction case.

It was an extraordinary cooperation more cooperation than in any major case no president has ever been more cooperative than this, Mr. Dowd said, adding that Mr. Mueller knew as far back as October, when he received many White House documents, that the president did not break the law.

As the months passed on, it became apparent that Mr. McGahn and Mr. Burck had overestimated the amount of thought that they believed the president put into his legal strategy. Rather than placing the blame on Mr. McGahn for possible acts of obstruction, Mr. Trump has yet to even meet with the special counsel, his lawyers resisting an invitation for an interview. Mr. McGahn is still the White House counsel, shepherding the presidents second Supreme Court nominee, Brett M. Kavanaugh, through the confirmation process.

Mr. Mueller, armed with Mr. McGahns account, is still trying to interview witnesses close to the president. But the White House has a new lawyer for the investigation, Emmet T. Flood, who has strong views on privilege issues. When the special counsel asked to interview Mr. Kelly, Mr. Flood contested the request, rather than fully cooperate.

Reads to me like this investigation itself will be meddling in the upcoming November 2018 elections if this fishing expedition is allowed to roll past September.

Thats the bottom line...

And I am willing to bet these kinds of tactics were exactly what got Comey fired in the first place! 

Its getting ridiculous and I am willing to bet if this thing isnt wrapped up by September some more people are going to get fired. Enough is enough...

Rastus wrote:

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I've been checking the user list of late, & it seems we have some Russian friends visiting !

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 I'm pretty sure Rex is actually a Russian bot.

Influence the election!? LOL!

Thats one hell of a stretch, even for a liberal like you!

Often times people take a deal so they dont have to go thru the aggravation of trial...

Regardless, these people took the money... so it really doesnt matter much what they say now. 

But they think its important, until of course the reality of their contractual obligation comes to light when they are sued and have to return the money.

PowerStroker wrote:

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You seem more concerned about the enforcement of private nondisclosure agreements than the fact that such agreements may have had the intended purpose of defrauding the American electorate.

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 Agreed !

Don't forget about the vast number of folks that have contracted TDS lol !

What aid may come forward here on this issue is unclear...

Flashback: Remember When Obama Campaign Was Fined $375,000 For Campaign Reporting Violations And No Jail Time?
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AUGUST 21, 2018 3:26 PM
POLITICS
(Gateway Pundit) On Tuesday, Trumps former personal attorney Michael Cohen surrendered himself to the FBI after it was reported he reached a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

Michael Cohen admitted he violated campaign finance laws in relation to the Stormy Daniels payment at direction of a candidate. He paid off the porn star over $100,000 in a hush money agreement which she later violated.

Democrats and their liberal media cheered that this was the end of the Trump regime.

But it wasnt that long ago that a presidential campaign was charged with much worse.

In 2013 Maggie Haberman at Politico reported on the criminal campaign reporting violations against the Obama campaign.



According to the Politico the Obama campaign was fined $375,000.

President Barack Obamas 2008 campaign was fined $375,000 by the Federal Election Commission for campaign reporting violations one of the largest fees ever levied against a presidential campaign, POLITICO has learned.

The fine laid out in detail in FEC documents that have yet to be made public arose from an audit of the campaign, which was published in April.

thegatewaypundit.com/2018/08/flashback-remember-when-obama-campaign-was-fined-375000-for-campaign-reporting-violations-and-no-jail-time/

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 Or this fellow perhaps....

Yup ^^^ that's about it.