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Justice Department Distances Itself From Giuliani

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  • #31
    Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post
    - I love it -

    Would you like some pristine beachfront property in Arizona?
    I'd love some. Havasu Lake has some very nice beachfront property.

    Or... did you mean seafront property?
    Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

    MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
    MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

    seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

    Comment


    • #32
      Originally posted by Roy View Post
      I'd love some. Havasu Lake has some very nice beachfront property.

      Or... did you mean seafront property?
      Recalling a conversation with Jorge I see.


      I hope the old irascible sourpuss is doing well.

      I'm always still in trouble again

      "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
      "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
      "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

      Comment


      • #33
        Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
        Recalling a conversation with Jorge I see.

        I hope the old irascible sourpuss is doing well.
        So do I. He still owes TWeb money.
        Jorge: Functional Complex Information is INFORMATION that is complex and functional.

        MM: First of all, the Bible is a fixed document.
        MM on covid-19: We're talking about an illness with a better than 99.9% rate of survival.

        seer: I believe that so called 'compassion' [for starving Palestinian kids] maybe a cover for anti Semitism, ...

        Comment


        • #34
          In Ukraine, the quid pro quo may have started long before the phone call
          By David Ignatius
          Columnist
          Oct. 31, 2019 at 8:01 p.m. EDT
          A standard theme in detective thrillers is that the perpetrator feels compelled to return to the scene of the crime. It’s an irrational urge, and readers of such potboilers are often left wondering whether the protagonist secretly wants to get caught.

          Unlike a detective thriller, with a clear contract between the writer and her readers to provide everything needed to understand a crime, real life provides interested parties with no guarantees that sufficient evidence will ever be provided, or even a guarantee that behind the indicators is a crime waiting to be revealed.
          What led to Trump’s first meeting on June 20, 2017, with Ukraine’s then-President Petro Poroshenko? Ukraine had hired the lobbying firm BGR Group in January 2017 to foster contact with Trump, but nothing had happened . . . and then the door opened. Why?

          On June 7, less than two weeks before Poroshenko’s White House meeting, Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, had visited Kyiv to give a speech for the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, headed by a prominent Ukrainian oligarch. While Giuliani was there, he also met with Poroshenko and his prosecutor general, Yuriy Lutsenko, according a news release issued by the foundation.

          Just after Giuliani’s visit, Ukraine’s investigation of the so-called black ledger that listed alleged illicit payments to former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort was transferred from an anti-corruption bureau, known as NABU, to Poroshenko’s prosecutor general, according to a June 15, 2017, report in the Kyiv Post. The paper quoted Viktor Trepak, former deputy head of the country’s security service, saying: “It is clear for me that somebody gave an order to bury the black ledger.”

          Black ledger’ investigation appears to come to a halt
          By Veronika Melkozerova.
          Published June 15, 2017.
          Updated June 15 2017 at 9:21 pm
          Ukrainian journalist and member of parliament Sergii Leshchenko holds pages showing alleged payments to Donald Trump’s then-presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort from a secret ledger of the political party of ex- Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on Aug. 19. The ledger contains handwritten notes of $2 billion in bribes or under-the-table payments. The investigation has stalled.

          After a year of investigation by Ukrainian law enforcement, the case of the black ledger — a secret, handwritten list of $2 billion in shady payments by the political party of ousted Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych — appears to have stalled.

          When reports of the finding of the ledger first surfaced last year, the scandal led to the resignation of the chairman of Donald J. Trump’s presidential election campaign team, Paul Manafort, whose name was found in the ledger next to sums of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

          But the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine has now passed the black ledger documents to the Special Investigations Department of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine, according to report published by the office on June 9.

          June 9 was two days following the Giuliani lecture:

          08.06.2017
          107th Mayor of New York City Rudy Giuliani Gave Public Lecture at the Invitation of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation
          On June 7, 2017, Rudy Giuliani, 107th Mayor of New York City, at the invitation of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, gave a public lecture “Global Challenges, the Role of the US and the Place of Ukraine”. More than 600 Ukrainian students, scholars and opinion-makers were among the listeners of the lecture.

          At the tail end of the article is the reference to the above indication in Ignatius' column.
          Besides giving the lecture, Rudy Giuliani met with the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, the Prime Minister of Ukraine Volodymyr Groysman, the Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine Yuriy Lutsenko, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Pavlo Klimkin as well as young Ukrainian reformers.

          Pinchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch, has an interesting history of his own.

          Monopolies thrive as toothless state bows to moguls
          By John Marone.
          Published March 19, 2010.
          Updated March 19 2010 at 1:00 am
          Ukraine’s Anti-Monopoly Committee is supposed to be the country’s watchdog against oligarchs disdainful of healthy competition, but the dog doesn’t have any teeth, and it isn’t fed well either.

          Relevant to Pinchuk ...
          Kryvorizhstal, the biggest of the country’s big three steel makers, was bought by Mittal Steel (which later merged with Arcelor) after now former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko wrested the prized asset away from oligarchic control. As prime minister in 2005 after the Orange Revolution, she cancelled a previous auction of Kryvorizhstal conducted under the presidency of Leonid Kuchma, which was widely regarded as being rigged in favor of well-connected billionaires.

          Rinat Akhmetov, Ukraine’s richest man, and Viktor Pinchuk, Kuchma’s son-in-law, acquired Kryvorizhstal for about $800 million in a 2004 tender despite much higher bids made by foreign companies, including Mittal Steel. Later, in 2005, Tymoshenko reversed this sale, and held a nationally-televised repeat auction that netted a record-breaking $4.8 billion.

          Note the phrases, "the presidency of Leonid Kuchma" and "Pinchuk, Kuchma's son-in-law."


          Evidence previously available to date showed Giuliani had been involved in opposition to anti-corruption work in Ukraine since early this year. It now seems likely this involvement extends back to nearly the beginning of the Trump presidency, and includes opposition to the Mueller investigation of Trump's campaign manager, Manafort, who has continued to advise Giuliani in his efforts from behind bars.

          I believe the Justice Department is wise to distance itself from Giuliani, but may have begun the process far too late. Barr is linked with Giuliani's efforts by name in the transcript of the Ukraine call from July 25 of this year, a linkage that could have been, and arguably should have been, curtailed far earlier.

          Comment


          • #35
            So more supposition, speculation, confusing correlation with causation... and still no hard evidence indicating that President Trump or anybody in his administration is guilty of a crime.
            Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
            But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
            Than a fool in the eyes of God


            From "Fools Gold" by Petra

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
              So more supposition, speculation, confusing correlation with causation... and still no hard evidence indicating that President Trump or anybody in his administration is guilty of a crime.
              There are arguments for and against the proposition that Giuliani was acting officially on behalf of the Trump administration, but from the call transcript alone there's no doubt Trump had authorized him to act for his administration in Ukraine. With the arrests of two of Giuliani's closest confederates in the Ukraine campaign, it's beyond reason to believe Giuliani will not be charged himself. Either one or both of them will turn, or their assistance will prove unnecessary.

              While he should be allowed the legal presumption of innocence, he is on public record, on television in fact, admitting to asking for foreign assistance against the Bidens on behalf of his client, the president. That's a crime, and hard evidence.

              This behavior in the person of Ambassador Sondland has been described variously by Bolton, Hill, and Vindman of the National Security Council as "wrong" and "inappropriate," and reported as such to Eisenberg, legal counsel to the NSC. It has been criminally referred to Barr's Justice Department. In Bolton's case, before ordering Hill to speak to "the lawyers," i.e., Eisenberg, he described it as a "drug deal" cooked up with Mulvaney, whose position as an official of the Trump administration is not up for debate.

              Moreover, with further clarifications imminent, if only from opening statements of the witnesses appearing in the impeachment inquiry, it is presumptuous to assume no further hard evidence of criminality will emerge.

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                ...he is on public record, on television in fact, admitting to asking for foreign assistance against the Bidens on behalf of his client, the president. That's a crime, and hard evidence.
                What specific law was broken?
                Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                Than a fool in the eyes of God


                From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                  What specific law was broken?
                  It does not apply to a "specific law". The notion that only criminal conduct can provide sufficient grounds for impeachment does not fit with either the views of the founders or with historical practice. Alexander Hamilton described impeachable offenses as arising from "the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust". - Federalist 65. And this certainly applies to Trump's shenanigans with the president of Ukraine.
                  “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                    What specific law was broken?
                    It's in the footnote:

                    52 U.S.C. § 30121(a)(2)
                    Last edited by Juvenal; 11-02-2019, 02:53 AM.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                      It's in the footnote:

                      52 U.S.C. § 30121(a)(2)
                      2019-11-02_03-56-13.jpg

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Following up after referencing an expert summary of the relevant section of the Mueller report ...
                        Even assuming that the promised information constituted a “thing of value” subject to the foreign national contribution ban, the Office determined that the government would not be likely to obtain a conviction for two other reasons. First, the Office lacked evidence likely to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that these individuals acted with knowledge that their conduct was illegal. Second, the government would have difficulty proving that the value of the promised information exceeded the $2,000 threshold for a criminal violation and/or the $25,000 threshold for felony punishment. Evidence of the value of the offered information would likely be unavailable, especially given that the offered information apparently was not produced.

                        ... and the relevant section of the Mueller report itself, Potential Coordination: Foreign Agent Statutes (FARA and 18 U.S.C. § 951) / Campaign Finance, pp. 183-191, (PDF 191-199), there are relevant issues beyond § 30121, previous post, related to charging decisions, given in § 30191, as summarized above.

                        2019-11-02_04-44-02.jpg

                        While Trump, Jr., et al., could reasonably defend themselves as not "willfully" violating the statute, Giuliani, who has already acted as Trump's attorney on campaign finance violations, cannot. More, the "deliverable" sought by the Trump administration — a public announcement of an investigation into the Bidens by the Ukrainian president — cannot similarly be considered as lacking value to the campaign because of its rejection by the campaign.

                        The applicability of such a statement is explicitly referenced in the Mueller report.

                        2019-11-02_05-09-52.jpg

                        § 30104 includes time periods for which election contributions must be filed, hence currently applicable.

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Tassmoron View Post
                          It does not apply to a "specific law". The notion that only criminal conduct can provide sufficient grounds for impeachment does not fit with either the views of the founders or with historical practice. Alexander Hamilton described impeachable offenses as arising from "the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust". - Federalist 65. And this certainly applies to Trump's shenanigans with the president of Ukraine.
                          False. The Constitution explicitly defines impeachment as a remedy for "high crimes and misdemeanors" and names two crimes -- bribery and treason -- as an example of the nature and seriousness of the crimes that would warrent impeachment. This narrative that the President doesn't actually need to be guilty of a crime to be impeached is not supported by a plain reading is the Constitution.
                          Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                          But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                          Than a fool in the eyes of God


                          From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                            [ATTACH=CONFIG]40620[/ATTACH]
                            I can't see how that law is relevant because Trump's conversation with Zelinsky had nothing to do with any upcoming political campaign, and besides that, Trump never asked for anything that had monetary value. In fact, multiple witnesses who head the call firsthand have said nothing illegal transpired, and that includes Vindman who whined about the call being "inappropriate" but was forced to concede that it wasn't a crime.
                            Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                            But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                            Than a fool in the eyes of God


                            From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                              I can't see how that law is relevant because Trump's conversation with Zelinsky had nothing to do with any upcoming political campaign, and besides that, Trump never asked for anything that had monetary value. In fact, multiple witnesses who head the call firsthand have said nothing illegal transpired, and that includes Vindman who whined about the call being "inappropriate" but was forced to concede that it wasn't a crime.
                              It beggars belief to suggest an investigation into the Bidens had nothing to do with the upcoming presidential election, and there's no question that investigations cost money, likely enough to exceed the felony standard in § 30104. In response to the consensus that he will soon be charged, Giuliani has recently corrected his lapse in legal representation.

                              The real question, in my opinion, is whether Trump's actions, whether legal or illegal, rise to the level that he must be removed to protect the integrity of the office and the security of the United States, my personal standard of what constitutes "High Crimes and Misdemeanors." The House will of course set their own.

                              The above characterization of the tone of Vindman's statement is irrelevant and beyond inappropriate when describing a decorated, purple heart veteran. "Support our troops" is still an honored principle among Republicans.

                              'He's a patriot': Republicans defend key impeachment witness from attacks
                              Senior GOP lawmakers rejected the assault from conservative pundits on Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman.

                              By BURGESS EVERETT and MELANIE ZANONA
                              10/29/2019 12:03 PM EDT
                              Updated: 10/29/2019 04:02 PM EDT
                              Republican leaders are stepping up to defend Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman against vicious attacks from President Donald Trump's allies.

                              Republicans may quibble with the substance of Vindman’s testimony as they try to protect Trump from the fast-moving impeachment inquiry. But congressional GOP leaders say it’s out of bounds to question Vindman’s patriotism and allegiance to the United States, as some conservative pundits did on Monday night.

                              Several top Republicans on Tuesday made emphatic statements in support of Vindman, a National Security Council official who heard Trump’s phone call with the Ukrainian president and testified that it was improper for Trump to demand an investigation into Joe Biden and represented a threat to U.S. national security.

                              “That guy’s a Purple Heart. I think it would be a mistake to attack his credibility,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the No. 2 Senate Republican, said in an interview. “You can obviously take issue with the substance and there are different interpretations about all that stuff. But I wouldn’t go after him personally. He’s a patriot.”

                              Vindman was attached to the NSC at the time; his interest, like Fiona Hill's and John Bolton's, was in national security, not legal compliance, which is why their issues were referred to Eisenberg and Ellis. The former has already been asked to provide information to the impeachment inquiry. The latter is named in a statement, and will likely also be called.

                              In Vindman's detailed opinion, Giuliani was promoting a false narrative that ran counter to our national security interests, and directed toward actions against the Bidens that had nothing to do with national security, in his stated opinion. The entailed inappropriateness of Sondman's actions has been publicly reinforced by both his immediate superior, Fiona Hill, and her superior, John Bolton, the National Security Advisor at the time.

                              That's more cover than any aide could ask for.

                              There's a strong argument taking shape that Trump's actions surrounding the withholding of military aid allocated for Ukraine, directly and through representatives, including Mulvaney, Giuliani, Sondman, Volker, and Perry; ran counter to our national security interests, which is itself beyond troubling, and more, was supportive of Russia's military adventurism in the Donbass region, Crimea, and the Sea of Azov.

                              While I am not sure if the former is sufficient, I believe the latter, even if inadvertent, is.

                              There is no excuse for the president of the United States to be uninformed or misinformed about the need to unambiguously oppose Russia's military expansionism in Europe, and surely not in support of fringe conspiracy theories endlessly debunked by the greatest intelligence agencies ever assembled in the history of humanity. This can't be allowed to stand. This is America. We are exceptional. If we don't stand up for freedom, no one will take our place, and Reagan's thousand points of light will be extinguished, one at a time.

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Juvenal View Post
                                It beggars belief to suggest an investigation into the Bidens had nothing to do with the upcoming presidential election...
                                Whether or not you think it "beggars belief" is entirely irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what the evidence shows, and to date, there is zero evidence that Trump was motivated by the upcoming election, zero evidence that Ukrainian officials had any idea that military funding had been temporarily suspended, and zero evidence that President Zelensky took any specific action to get the funding restored. Folks like Vindman can whine and pontificate about politics all they want, but that is not evidence of a crime.

                                The entire case against Trump is based on the presumption that he's guilty, and Democrats are simply trying to backfill the evidence to make their accusations stick. It's such a travesty of justice that all American patriots, whether they like Trump or not, should be incensed by the abuse of power being exercised by House Democrats. The real danger is that Democrats could succeed in their coup, which will set the very dangerous precedent that a president can be impeached and removed from office purely as a matter of political expediency, which will, in effect, turn the Office of the President into a puppet of Congress.
                                Last edited by Mountain Man; 11-02-2019, 12:36 PM.
                                Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                                But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                                Than a fool in the eyes of God


                                From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                                Comment

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