Ministry of Truth?

[Dill]

(05-20-2022, 05:33 PM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: That's why I am asking you if you agree or disagree that Trump did what Mueller said he did,

and if you agree, whether you think Trump's actions were against the law. 
If you don't think they were against the law, would you also argue that they shouldn't be--that a president who obstructs an investigation into his actions is well within his rights, and shouldn't be subject to accountability? 

If we agree with Mueller that Trump did what he did, and if we agree with the law that it was wrong,
then I don't see how one could argue back from non prosecution to say "no case there." 

Sure, to read the MR I would probably say 'yeah it sounds like Trump did those things. And yes if he did, they're against the law.' But at this point and until they're proven in a court of law, they're really just accusations. It's one side. So to say that he definitively did them....? IDK. Give me a trial, then I will KNOW for sure. But Garland isn't doing that and his opportunity to do so is rapidly evaporating. So really, we can talk until we're blue in the face, but we will never really know for sure.  Show. Me. The indictment. 

Your legal logic is still questionable.
 
I can think of plenty of instances in which prosecutors, judges and ordinary citizens would agree that a crime has "definitively" been committed, even if no one is charged. E.g., if police find a body with hands tied and a bullet hole in the back of the head, or someone embezzles a million dollars from your local bank. Few would say those cases only "sound like" crimes, and we cannot know for sure until there is an indictment.
 
In the above examples, there is only a question of who did it. But there is no such question of who, in a public interview with Lester Holt, confirmed that he repeatedly asked Comey if Trump himself was under investigation, and then had the “made-up [Russia investigation] story” in mind when he fired him. https://www.factcheck.org/2017/05/trump-fire-comey/.* There is no question that WH and DOJ officials—Trump’s own men—are ON RECORD as refusing to carry out Trump directions to hinder investigation—including to fire Mueller.
 
But you can’t be sure Trump actually did the things we saw him do in public interviews, or that his own people testify to, unless there is a trial? You can’t be sure the law says these actions are wrong?
 
*Post Mueller, Trump has also, in a public interview, claimed that firing Comey saved his presidency.
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-draws-attention-admission-fired-145805083.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall

(05-20-2022, 05:33 PM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: Are you faulting Garland for NOT indicting when you think he should?
Or are you, as I wondered, arguing that if Trump has not been indicted then there must not be a case there, and that's why Garland has no "confidence"? Not because (as J and W suggest in one of their hypotheses) the DOJ is swamped with other Trump damage--1/6 and the Green Bay Sweep? 

The Statute of Limitations has already expired on several of the charges in the Mueller Report with several more expiring by the end of summer. 
Why if there was anything that Garland thought significant enough and was a strong enough case to win against Trump, would he not indict, especially given that their SOLs are expiring? 

Lol, that makes zero sense. It's now or never with several of the charges in the MR. Given the SOLs, don't you think that those crimes should take precedence over 1/6 and the GB Sweep? You and J and W are suggesting that they're going to just give up on the chance to ever prosecute the crimes in the Mueller Report because of 1/6 whose SOLs won't be expiring for another 4 plus years. 

Well no, I don't think Trump obstruction charges should take precedence over 1/6 and the Green Bay Sweep. A direct attempt to subvert the valid results of a presidential election originating within the Executive, and coordinating RNC members in seven states with sitting members of Congress, is a FAR MORE SERIOUS CRIME with far more serious consequences for democratic government.

 
The results of Trump obstruction should have been impeachment. Trump is past that now. If charged now, the result would at best be fines and perhaps some imprisonment, what others have gotten for much less obstruction. Further, as J and W explain, that prosecutors have allowed the SOL to run out on some of the MR’s charges doesn’t mean they will allow the more serious ones to elapse. So it's a bit premature to write that off, and illogical to assume that absence of prosecution is somehow evidence the obstruction didn't occur.
 
Trump’s party protected him from illegally disrupting U.S. foreign policy to coerce an ally into creating disinformation helpful to Trump's re-election campaign, and the Senate could not even impeach him for siccing a mad crowd on the Capitol to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power and threaten their own lives. This continued placing of party above the law brings us to another point:
 
There is a statute of limitations on the 1/6 and Green Bay Sweep investigations as well—much shorter than any MR charges against Trump. If the Republicans win Congress in 2022, the Republican Party leadership will end investigations into the Republican Party leadership.