Russia Investigation - Flynn's fault

[JustWinBaby]

(12-04-2017, 01:50 PM)hollodero Wrote: Yeah, it maybe is odd. Still using that "never used" phrase (I don't mean you, I mean the Trump defenders in general) to me seems like suggesting it's some ancient, out-dated rule and violating it was some kind of petty, trivial offense. It certainly doesn't look like that to me.

I don't think it was really intended to be used against a transition team of an incoming Administration.  There should be nearly 100% coordination and inclusion from the sitting and incoming Administration.  So, yeah, I do think in this case it's fairly trivial when Flynn is literally 4 weeks away from being confirmed and then he's just doing his job.

So while I agree the incoming Administration should not be undermining or interfering with the guy who is currently sitting in there chair, it also makes 0 sense for the current POTUS to be making deals and policy in his final 30 days that his successor does not agree with or intend to uphold.

I really don't think transition teams and world leaders sit on their thumbs in a self-enclosed cone of silence waiting 2 month until the inauguration to get down to business.

[hollodero]

(12-04-2017, 02:41 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: I don't think it was really intended to be used against a transition team of an incoming Administration.  There should be nearly 100% coordination and inclusion from the sitting and incoming Administration.  So, yeah, I do think in this case it's fairly trivial when Flynn is literally 4 weeks away from being confirmed and then he's just doing his job.

So while I agree the incoming Administration should not be undermining or interfering with the guy who is currently sitting in there chair, it also makes 0 sense for the current POTUS to be making deals and policy in his final 30 days that his successor does not agree with or intend to uphold.

I really don't think transition teams and world leaders sit on their thumbs in a self-enclosed cone of silence waiting 2 month until the inauguration to get down to business.

Yeah I get it, that's a fair point for sure. I get why a transition member would talk to Russians or anyone else about future policies or goals of the incoming president or whatever. 
Asking them to delay a vote though... - or whatever was going on with the sanctions and possible Russian countermeasures there - to me, that just takes it a step too far. It's undermining the current presidency, as you said. If upholding positions the next president won't uphold makes sense or not is a political question... maybe it doesn't, but that's not really the issue, isn't it. And as lang Obama is in power, he calls the shots and the policies and not his predecessor, and I guess period. If it weren't so, you might as well call the transition time an interregnum without an acting president.

[Belsnickel]

(12-04-2017, 02:41 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: I don't think it was really intended to be used against a transition team of an incoming Administration.  There should be nearly 100% coordination and inclusion from the sitting and incoming Administration.  So, yeah, I do think in this case it's fairly trivial when Flynn is literally 4 weeks away from being confirmed and then he's just doing his job.

So while I agree the incoming Administration should not be undermining or interfering with the guy who is currently sitting in there chair, it also makes 0 sense for the current POTUS to be making deals and policy in his final 30 days that his successor does not agree with or intend to uphold.

I really don't think transition teams and world leaders sit on their thumbs in a self-enclosed cone of silence waiting 2 month until the inauguration to get down to business.

This is why the Logan Act will not be used. Strict adherence to the law? Yeah, violated. But no court will uphold that. The reason the contact looks bad, though, is because it is proof that the incoming administration is telling a foreign government not to worry about sanctions that were put in place by the current administration for meddling in elections that the incoming administration just won. It looks shady as shit, but it isn't necessarily illegal.

[JustWinBaby]

(12-04-2017, 03:02 PM)hollodero Wrote: And as lang Obama is in power, he calls the shots and the policies and not his predecessor, and I guess period. If it weren't so, you might as well call the transition time an interregnum without an acting president.

Agreed.  It's definitely a very gray area.  You can't have the incoming administration undermining the sitting one, but that should go both ways.

The simple solution is not to have important ex-parte meetings during the transition period (which Flynn clearly violated).

The technical issue that is more concerning to me, and why the Logan Act makes sense even as applied to transition teams, is the fact that Flynn HADN'T been confirmed.  So while you could argue he's only guilty of starting the job early, clearing the confirmation hurdle (no matter how inevitable) is still very important to have been properly vetted by Congress.

[JustWinBaby]

(12-04-2017, 03:02 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: This is why the Logan Act will not be used. Strict adherence to the law? Yeah, violated. But no court will uphold that. The reason the contact looks bad, though, is because it is proof that the incoming administration is telling a foreign government not to worry about sanctions that were put in place by the current administration for meddling in elections that the incoming administration just won. It looks shady as shit, but it isn't necessarily illegal.

All fair points.  

I'm a little confused on the last point.  Article I just read said Russian sanctions were approved by the Senate in June of 2016, and included a provision that Trump could not repeal them without Congressional approval.  Haven't followed it that closely, but it appears it wasn't an 11th hour move from Obama nor could Flynn have been making such promises to repeal sanctions knowing Congressional approval was unlikely.

I think there may have been additional sanctions after the election, and maybe that explains it.

[Belsnickel]

(12-04-2017, 04:05 PM)JustWinBaby Wrote: All fair points.  

I'm a little confused on the last point.  Article I just read said Russian sanctions were approved by the Senate in June of 2016, and included a provision that Trump could not repeal them without Congressional approval.  Haven't followed it that closely, but it appears it wasn't an 11th hour move from Obama nor could Flynn have been making such promises to repeal sanctions knowing Congressional approval was unlikely.

I think there may have been additional sanctions after the election, and maybe that explains it.

Earlier sanctions were Magnitsky and Ukraine related. 29 December, Obama imposed sanctions for the election meddling. That was a purely executive move. It wasn't until this Congress was in session that they passed election related sanctions. It is my understanding that one of the contacts was regarding those sanctions.

[JustWinBaby]

(12-04-2017, 09:56 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Earlier sanctions were Magnitsky and Ukraine related. 29 December, Obama imposed sanctions for the election meddling. That was a purely executive move. It wasn't until this Congress was in session that they passed election related sanctions. It is my understanding that one of the contacts was regarding those sanctions.

Yeah, that makes sense.

But I'm not really seeing the crime or shadiness in the incoming Administration and Russia discussing what will happen with sanctions.  Like I said, I don't think that was the intent of the Logan Act.

[GMDino]

http://www.newsweek.com/former-trump-adviser-paul-manafort-worked-russian-intelligence-linked-figure-734982

Quote:The Trump campaign’s former chairman Paul Manafort ignored a judge’s order not to attempt to influence the media and worked to ghostwrite an article with a man tied to Russian intelligence, special counsel Robert Mueller’s office said Monday.


In court filings Mueller’s legal team said Manafort’s co-writer “is currently based in Russia and assessed to have ties to a Russian intelligence service.” The two were collaborating on the piece they intended to publish under another person’s name.

As recently as last Thursday, the two were drafting the opinion piece in English. It dealt with Manafort’s work in Ukraine, where he was a political consultant for Kremlin-allied former Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions.

Mueller’s team has the op-ed and says they will submit a sealed copy of it to the court so that it doesn’t become public.

“The editorial clearly was undertaken to influence the public’s opinion of defendant Manafort, or else there would be no reason to seek its publication,” wrote Mueller attorney Andrew Weissmann in the court filing. On November 8 a court ordered Manafort not to make statements that could interfere in a fair trial.

Along with his business partner Rick Gates, Manafort faces 12 criminal charges, including allegations of “conspiracy to launder money” and “conspiracy against the United States” for an alleged decade-long tax avoidance scheme. The two men have pleaded not guilty.

Read more: Paul Manafort should only be released if he can prove how much he’s worth, says Mueller

Manafort and Gates are currently under house arrest that limits them from traveling to different cities and bars them from leaving the country.

The two were among the first to be indicted as part of Mueller’s probe into whether the Trump campaign assisted Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Last week President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn was arrested and pleaded guilty to a charge of lying to the FBI in connection with the probe.

On Monday the special counsel’s lawyers argued that Manafort’s $11.5 million bail package, which would see him lose his GPS ankle bracelet, should be renegotiated because he sought to publish the article in direct violation of the court’s orders.
A bail agreement had been struck the same day Manafort’s op-ed was discovered.

“Although the Court could potentially address some of the deficiencies, the defendant has now demonstrated that he is willing to violate a Court Order,” Weissman wrote, arguing that the bail agreement should be quashed.

A source that spoke with The New York Times identified Manafort’s op-ed co-author as his protege Konstantin V. Kilimnik, a Russian-Ukrainian citizen trained by the Russian army as a linguist.

This August the Ukrainian prosecutor general opened an investigation into Kilimnik’s alleged ties to Russian intelligence, according to documents obtained by Politico. He had told one of his previous employers that he had a background with Russian intelligence. Kilimnik was not charged at the conclusion of the investigation.

Not morals, no ethics, no surprise.

[Belsnickel]

(12-05-2017, 02:29 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: Yeah, that makes sense.

But I'm not really seeing the crime or shadiness in the incoming Administration and Russia discussing what will happen with sanctions.  Like I said, I don't think that was the intent of the Logan Act.

Like I said, not sure if it is a crime. The application of the Logan Act is something someone with far more knowledge of federal statute than me would have to weigh in on. The shadiness, though, that is pretty clear. The sanctions announced on 29 December were for Russian meddling in an election. The result of said election was the election of Donald Trump as POTUS. If the person that benefited from this Russian meddling that the sanctions were intended to be retaliation for were to repeal those sanctions, it sends a message of thanks to the Russian government for their actions.

That's some shady shit.

[Belsnickel]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-deutsche-bank/deutsche-bank-gets-subpoena-from-mueller-on-trump-accounts-source-idUSKBN1DZ0XN

[hollodero]

(12-05-2017, 12:28 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-deutsche-bank/deutsche-bank-gets-subpoena-from-mueller-on-trump-accounts-source-idUSKBN1DZ0XN

Theeere's the money, there's the laundering, there we go.

[ballsofsteel]

(12-01-2017, 09:00 PM)treee Wrote: And what do you call the Republicans behavior in the federal government between the years 2008-2016?

That was different. The president during that time was black.

[JustWinBaby]

(12-05-2017, 12:12 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Like I said, not sure if it is a crime. The application of the Logan Act is something someone with far more knowledge of federal statute than me would have to weigh in on. The shadiness, though, that is pretty clear. The sanctions announced on 29 December were for Russian meddling in an election. The result of said election was the election of Donald Trump as POTUS. If the person that benefited from this Russian meddling that the sanctions were intended to be retaliation for were to repeal those sanctions, it sends a message of thanks to the Russian government for their actions.

That's some shady shit.

And if Trump hadn't won, the whole "Russian meddling" thing is probably quite a bit smaller, possibly not resulting in sanctions.

I can play the game too - that's some shady shit Obama pulled.

[Belsnickel]

(12-07-2017, 11:58 AM)JustWinBaby Wrote: And if Trump hadn't won, the whole "Russian meddling" thing is probably quite a bit smaller, possibly not resulting in sanctions.

I can play the game too - that's some shady shit Obama pulled.

I don't see it as shady when there was discussion about it well before the election occurred, when no one thought Trump would win. Waiting until after the election for something like that actually benefited Trump politically. Had sanctions been imposed prior to the election, it would have provided more ammunition for Clinton against Trump and would have forced a Trump response. By waiting until after the election, he intentionally kept his thumb off of the scales. If you think there would have been no sanctions had Clinton won, I don't know what to tell you, because I highly doubt that would have been the case. Especially given the bipartisan support for said sanctions in Congress to the point of them making them law in the new year.

[Mike M (the other one)]

(12-07-2017, 12:09 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I don't see it as shady when there was discussion about it well before the election occurred, when no one thought Trump would win. Waiting until after the election for something like that actually benefited Trump politically. Had sanctions been imposed prior to the election, it would have provided more ammunition for Clinton against Trump and would have forced a Trump response. By waiting until after the election, he intentionally kept his thumb off of the scales. If you think there would have been no sanctions had Clinton won, I don't know what to tell you, because I highly doubt that would have been the case. Especially given the bipartisan support for said sanctions in Congress to the point of them making them law in the new year.

I've said all along, No need to blame Trump for the Russian's behavior. 
It didn't matter who the Republican nominee was, the Russians were going to do everything they could to make sure it wasn't Hillary who was the next POTUS. We can argue and point and all of that about their meddling, but then again, those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Hillary and the Democrats were largely responsible for running some interference of their own during the last Russian elections, so don't be mad when the person that wins decides to get some payback.

[Belsnickel]

(12-11-2017, 12:53 PM)Mike M (the other one) Wrote: I've said all along, No need to blame Trump for the Russian's behavior. 
It didn't matter who the Republican nominee was, the Russians were going to do everything they could to make sure it wasn't Hillary who was the next POTUS. We can argue and point and all of that about their meddling, but then again, those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Hillary and the Democrats were largely responsible for running some interference of their own during the last Russian elections, so don't be mad when the person that wins decides to get some payback.

This does nothing to address any of my points. In addition, I have yet to see any solid evidence of US involvement in the last Russian elections. Even if I had, I would condemn those actions as I condemn the actions of Russia in the 2016 election. The casualness with which some people have taken the attitude that it's, paraphrasing, no big deal because we did it to them is extremely concerning. It is possibly one of the most anti-American sentiments I have ever encountered.