Did Trump try to fire Mueller?

[Belsnickel]

(02-06-2018, 10:52 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: Well, to be fair the system is so different now that many states now compel them to vote a certain way. 

Oh, I know. It's just fun to poke fun.

(02-06-2018, 10:52 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: We have a document based essay on the electoral college that we've had to edit. One document shows all of the times the popular vote winner lost, so we had to add one more. Another has a quote defending the EC by stating that it protects the two party system and prevents eccentric millionaires and single issue demagogues from jumping in. 

[Belsnickel]

A good read from Reason: https://reason.com/volokh/2018/02/07/some-thoughts-on-nunes-affair

[CKwi88]

Trump has blocked the release of the Democrat members' Memo.

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/09/584699083/trump-will-not-immediately-release-democratic-memo-suggests-revisions

[GMDino]

https://www.npr.org/2018/02/09/584673003/no-3-justice-department-official-rachel-brand-will-step-down

Quote:Updated at 7:11 p.m. ET


The No. 3 official at the Justice Department will be stepping down after less than a year, leaving a key vacancy in the succession of people who are tasked with overseeing the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The Justice Department announced Friday evening that Associate Attorney General Rachel Brand will be leaving her job in the coming weeks to take a position in the private sector. A source told NPR that Brand, who was sworn in last May, has been in talks about becoming the top lawyer at Walmart.

Other sources said Brand has chafed for months at the limits of her post at DOJ. President Trump has repeatedly attacked the law enforcement agency and sought to cast doubt on special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

NATIONAL SECURITY
The Russia Investigations: 5 Takeaways About The Inescapable Nunes Memo

Her role at the Justice Department was doubly important because Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the Russia investigation, given his role with the Trump campaign. That left Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein overseeing Mueller's investigation, and Trump and GOP allies have attacked Rosenstein at times.

NATIONAL SECURITY
Democrat Says Memo 'Deliberately Misleading,' Trump Says It 'Totally Vindicates' Him

Scrutiny of Rosenstein from conservatives allied with Trump escalated last week after a Republican memo authored by House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., detailed how Justice Department and FBI officials including Rosenstein authorized surveillance on Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page, who had contact with Russians.

ANALYSIS
Nunes Memo: What's In It And What's Not

Asked last Friday after the memo's release whether he still had confidence in Rosenstein, Trump responded, "You figure that one out," raising the specter he might fire the deputy attorney general. However, the White House quickly denied any plans to remove Rosenstein.
But if he was let go, that would have left Brand next in line to oversee Mueller's investigation, among Rosenstein's other responsibilities.

"The men and women of the Department of Justice impress me every day," Brand said in a statement. "I am proud of what we have been able to accomplish over my time here. I want to thank Attorney General Sessions for his leadership over this Department. I've seen firsthand his commitment to the rule of law and to keeping the American people safe."

Sessions also praised her work, calling her a "lawyer's lawyer."

"I know the entire Department of Justice will miss her, but we join together in congratulating her on this new opportunity in the private sector. She will always remain a part of the Department of Justice family," Sessions said in a statement.

Brand is an expert in national security and helped defend the administration's efforts to renew a foreign surveillance law. But she had a relatively small staff and a portfolio of issues that focused mostly on civil litigation, civil rights and other issues. In recent months, Brand delivered speeches in the administration's fight against human trafficking.

Her office oversees the Antitrust Division, the Civil Division, the Environment and Natural Resources Division, the Tax Division, the Office of Justice Programs, the Community Oriented Policing Services, the Community Relations Service, the Office of Dispute Resolution, the Office of Violence Against Women, the Office of Information and Privacy, the Executive Office for United States Trustees and the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission.

Brand was also a top Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, helping pick nominees for federal judgeships. And she previously clerked for Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

"Rachel Brand is a lawyer of the highest caliber and integrity. I was proud to work for her in the Bush administration when she ran the Justice Department's Office of Legal Policy and was proud to call her a colleague at [George Mason University's] Scalia Law School," national security expert and adjunct law professor Jamil Jaffer told NPR. "I'm certain that she'll do great things going forward and will be in public service again in the near future."

The news of Brand's departure was first reported by the New York Times.

[GMDino]

I saw Trump's tweet about FBI texts being "bombshells" but literally nothing followed about it.

Now we know why.

https://thinkprogress.org/fox-news-latest-bombshell-fraud-def2fc228456/

Quote:Early Wednesday, Fox News published an explosive new story alleging President Obama sought detailed briefings about the Clinton email investigation. The report is based on texts between FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page released by the Senate Committee on Homeland Security on Tuesday.


In a text sent on September 2, 2016, Page tells Strozok that “potus wants to know everything we’re doing.” Fox News claims this text “raises questions about Obama’s personal involvement in the Clinton email investigation.”

Fox News is hyping the story on air repeatedly as a bombshell, calling it “shocking.”

President Trump, an avid viewer of Fox News, got the message.

Quote:[/url][url=https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump]Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump

NEW FBI TEXTS ARE BOMBSHELLS!
11:10 AM - Feb 7, 2018

The theory is being pushed by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), who recently advanced and then retracted a claim that there was a “secret society” in the FBI seeking to undermine Trump. Johnson released a report to accompany the emails called “THE CLINTON EMAIL SCANDAL AND THE FBI’S INVESTIGATION OF IT.”

Quote:On September 2, 2016, Page wrote about preparing talking points for Director Comey because “potus wants to know everything we’re doing.” This text raises additional questions about the type and extent of President Obama’s personal involvement in the Clinton email scandal and the FBI investigation of it.

There is just one problem: The entire Fox News story is a fraud.

It’s simply not a plausible interpretation of the September 2, 2016 text exchange that Obama was seeking a briefing on the Clinton email investigation.

FBI Director James Comey closed the Clinton email investigation on July 5, 2016. It was not reopened until October. The same trove of text messages released Tuesday reveals that the FBI did not even become aware of additional emails on Anthony Weiner’s laptop until September 28, 2016.

Fox News suggests the texts were referring to talking points regarding the Clinton email case. But those talking points, according to documents released by the Senate, were completed in June. That makes sense because they were prepared in advance of Comey’s announcement in July.

So what was Obama interested in? Most likely, he wanted information about the counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia, which was active on September 2, 2016. Obama has publicly said that he confronted Putin about election interference a few days later at the Group of 20 meeting in China, telling the Russian leader to “cut it out.”

“[I]t has to be about the Russia probe,” former Department of Justice official Matthew Miller told ThinkProgress in reference to the September 2, 2016 texts.

There was nothing inappropriate about Obama seeking a briefing on the Russia investigation. “[S]ince the Russia investigation was a counterintelligence, not a criminal, investigation at that time, it was totally appropriate for Obama to be briefed,” Miller said. “The Department of Justice is allowed to brief and coordinate with the White House on national security matters, including terrorism and espionage.”

Don’t hold your breath for Fox News to correct this false report. It will likely be presented to millions of viewers tonight on primetime television. But that does not make it true.

UPDATE (2/7, 4:32PM): The Wall Street Journal, speaking to associates of Strzok and Page, confirms that the texts refer to the Russia investigation not the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Quote:Text messages from 2016 show preparation to brief Barack Obama about Russia’s interference in that year’s election, according to associates of the FBI employees involved in the exchange, not, as a Republican senator suggested, meddling by the then-president in the federal Hillary Clinton email investigation.

[BmorePat87]

After saying it will be released, Trump is now blocking the release of the Schiff memo.