Originally posted by JimL
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McCabe case closed without an indictment
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Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View PostDid you tell that to JFK and Jack Kennedy? Other presidents did that, why is it suddenly a crime when Trump does it? The AG is the one that makes the determination and the DA’s do what he says. It’s the chain of command.
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Originally posted by JimL View PostAs usual you're just throwing crap at the wall and hoping it sticks. The AG is not the one who makes the recommendation, the actual prosecutors on the case make that recommendation and they go by the sentencing guidelines, which in this case, the Stone case, was signed off on by the AG and then retracted after Trump tweeted his disapproval.Last edited by lilpixieofterror; 02-18-2020, 09:32 AM."The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostAgain, where are you getting this from? Cite your source, because I can find nothing to suggest that the DOJ tried to indict but was shot down by a grand jury.
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Originally posted by Sparko View PostYou can't have it both ways, Jimmy. You guys talk about how Barr is Trump's puppet and he can control the justice department which makes him a dictator, yet he can't get someone he wants in jail to even stand trial?
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Originally posted by JimLamebrain View PostThe DOJ has been going at this case for 2 yrs, MM. A Grand Jury was convened in September and failed to indict. The DOJ then kept delaying until they knew they would have to either put up or shut up, so they shut up. If you can't find it then you aren't looking.
In October 2016, McCabe directed his counsel, Lisa Page, to leak investigative information about the FBI’s Clinton Foundation probe to reporter Devlin Barrett, then of the Wall Street Journal. The leak had the effect of confirming the existence of the investigation, something the FBI is supposed to resist. While his high rank gave him the power to authorize such a disclosure if it were in the public interest, the IG found that McCabe’s leak “was clearly not within the public interest.”
In fact, the Bureau’s then-director, James Comey, had tried to keep the Clinton Foundation probe under wraps, refusing to confirm or deny its existence even to the House Judiciary Committee. Comey had been right to stay mum: Public revelation would have harmed the probe and thrust the FBI deeper into the politics of the then-imminent 2016 presidential election, in which Hillary Clinton was the Democratic candidate and her investigation by the Bureau was an explosive campaign issue.
Notwithstanding these concerns, according to Horowitz’s report, McCabe orchestrated the leak “to advance his personal interests” — to paint himself in a favorable light in comparison to Justice Department officials amid an internal dispute about the Clinton Foundation probe (specifically, about the Obama Justice Department’s pressure on the Bureau to drop it). As the IG put it: “McCabe’s disclosure was an attempt to make himself look good by making senior department leadership . . . look bad.”
...
Thereafter, the FBI’s Inspection Division (INSD) opened an investigation of the leak. On May 9, 2017, McCabe denied to two INSD investigators that he knew the source of the leak. This was not a fleeting conversation. McCabe was placed under oath, and the INSD agents provided him with a copy of Barrett’s article. He read it and initialed it to acknowledge that he had done so. He was questioned about it by the agents, who took contemporaneous notes. McCabe told the agents that he had “no idea where [the leaked information] came from” or “who the source was.”
On July 28, 2017, McCabe was interviewed by the IG’s office — under oath and recorded on tape. In that session, he preposterously claimed to be unaware that Page, his FBI counsel, was directed to speak to reporters around the time of the October 30 Journal report. McCabe added that he was out of town then, and thus unaware of what Page had been up to. In point of fact, McCabe had consulted closely with Page about the leak. A paper trail of their texts and phone contacts evinced his keen interest in Page’s communications with Barrett. Consequently, the IG concluded that McCabe’s denials were “demonstrably false.”
Clearly concerned about the hole he had dug for himself, McCabe called the IG’s office four days later, on August 1, 2017, to say that, shucks, come to think of it, he just might have kinda, sorta told Page to speak with Barrett after all. He might even have told her to coordinate with Mike Kortan, then the Bureau’s top media liaison, and follow-up with the Journal about some of its prior reporting.
As the IG observed, this “attempt to correct his prior false testimony” was the “appropriate” thing for McCabe to do. Alas, when he was given an opportunity to come in and explain himself, he compounded his misconduct by making more false statements while under oath: In an interview with investigators on November 29, 2017, McCabe purported to recall informing Comey that he, McCabe, had authorized the leak, and that Comey had responded that the leak was a good idea.
These were quite stunning recollections, given that the deputy director had previously disclaimed any knowledge about the source of the leak. But McCabe took care of that little hiccup by simply denying his prior denial. That is, he insisted that he had not feigned ignorance about the leak when INSD interviewed him on May 9. Indeed, McCabe even denied that the May 9 interview had been a real interview. To the contrary, he claimed that agents had casually pulled him aside at the conclusion of a meeting on an unrelated topic, and peppered him out of the blue with a question or two about the Journal leak. As General Flynn could tell you, that sort of thing can be tough on a busy top U.S. government official . . . although Flynn did not get much sympathy for it when McCabe was running the FBI.
Again, the IG concluded that McCabe’s version of events was “demonstrably false.”
...
We may never get a satisfying explanation for the Justice Department’s decision to drop the McCabe probe. That’s the way it is when such complicated reasons and motives are at play.
The aforementioned challenge of hostile witnesses is not to be underestimated. In addition, there are growing indications that the Justice Department had lost confidence in the U.S. attorney who was overseeing the probe, Jesse Liu. As I noted this week, while Liu was once seen as a rising Trump administration star, she was quietly edged out of her post last month, and the White House just pulled her nomination to fill an important Treasury Department post.
There have been rumblings that the McCabe investigation was botched. Kamil Shields, a prosecutor who reportedly grew frustrated by her supervisors’ inordinate delays in making decisions about the McCabe probe, ultimately left the Justice Department to take a private-practice job. Another prosecutor, David Kent, quit last summer as DOJ dithered over the decision on whether to prosecute. Things became so drawn out that the investigating grand jury’s term lapsed. Meanwhile, the Justice Department endorsed Liu’s aggressive decision to bring a thin, politically fraught false-statements case against former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig, in connection with lobbying for a foreign country — the sort of crime that is rarely prosecuted. Craig was swiftly acquitted. Reportedly, Liu advocated charging McCabe, but the DOJ may have harbored doubts about her judgment.
No matter the outcome, the Justice Department stood to take some hits if McCabe had been charged. Focus on McCabe’s leak would have drawn attention to pressure DOJ officials had put on the Bureau over the Clinton Foundation investigation (which, reportedly, is likely to be closed without charges). It would also renew interest in the question of whether the FBI improperly allowed McCabe to play a role in Clinton-related investigations when his wife, as a political candidate, got major funding from Clinton-tied sources.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/...ccabe-charged/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
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Outrageous! More presidential interference in our justice system! This time Trump commutes the sentence of an Illinois Democrat, former Governor Rod Blagojevich! Trump is protecting his own agai...
Wait, what?
“I watched his wife on television; I don’t know him very well,” Trump said, acknowledging that the former governor appeared on his show Celebrity Apprentice. “Seemed like a very nice person, don’t know him. … I did commute his sentence.”
Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison after he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Barack Obama after he was elected president in 2008. To date, Blagojevich has served over seven years of his prison sentence.
Trump said that Blagojevich was prosecuted by “the same people, Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group” that prosecuted him, and acknowledged that even though the governor was a Democrat, he deserved release from prison.
“Very far from his children, they’re growing older. They’re going to high school now. They rarely get to see their father outside of an orange uniform,” Trump said. “I saw that, and I did commute his sentence.”
The president has frequently discussed the idea of a pardon for Blagojevich, as he views the 14-year penalty as too harsh just for “being stupid” by discussing something that “many other politicians say.”
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...jail-sentence/Last edited by Mountain Man; 02-18-2020, 02:26 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
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Originally posted by Sparko View PostYou can't have it both ways, Jimmy. You guys talk about how Barr is Trump's puppet and he can control the justice department which makes him a dictator, yet he can't get someone he wants in jail to even stand trial?
https://clarion.causeaction.com/2020...many-pipeline/
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostOutrageous! More presidential interference in our justice system! This time Trump commutes the sentence of an Illinois Democrat, former Governor Rod Blagojevich! Trump is protecting his own agai...
Wait, what?
[box]“I watched his wife on television; I don’t know him very well,” Trump said, acknowledging that the former governor appeared on his show Celebrity Apprentice. “Seemed like a very nice person, don’t know him. … I did commute his sentence.”
Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison after he tried to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by former Sen. Barack Obama after he was elected president in 2008. To date, Blagojevich has served over seven years of his prison sentence.
Trump said that Blagojevich was prosecuted by “the same people, Comey, Fitzpatrick, the same group” that prosecuted him, and acknowledged that even though the governor was a Democrat, he deserved release from prison.
“Very far from his children, they’re growing older. They’re going to high school now. They rarely get to see their father outside of an orange uniform,” Trump said. “I saw that, and I did commute his sentence.”
The president has frequently discussed the idea of a pardon for Blagojevich, as he views the 14-year penalty as too harsh just for “being stupid” by discussing something that “many other politicians say.”
https://www.statesmanjournal.com/sto...on/2430609001/
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Originally posted by Ronson View PostBlagojevich wasn't "stupid" but I agree his crime hardly deserves 14 years. There are people in prison for attempted murder serving the same amount of time.
https://www.statesmanjournal.com/sto...on/2430609001/
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Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostStill no sources cited. Everything I can find suggests that the DOJ never even attempted to indict despite the evidence uncovered by Horowitz which roved that McCabe not only leaked sensitive information to the media, but he lied about it for months. Trust me, Jimmy, this thing is a lot more complicated than your soundbite talking points have led you to understand.
In October 2016, McCabe directed his counsel, Lisa Page, to leak investigative information about the FBI’s Clinton Foundation probe to reporter Devlin Barrett, then of the Wall Street Journal. The leak had the effect of confirming the existence of the investigation, something the FBI is supposed to resist. While his high rank gave him the power to authorize such a disclosure if it were in the public interest, the IG found that McCabe’s leak “was clearly not within the public interest.”
In fact, the Bureau’s then-director, James Comey, had tried to keep the Clinton Foundation probe under wraps, refusing to confirm or deny its existence even to the House Judiciary Committee. Comey had been right to stay mum: Public revelation would have harmed the probe and thrust the FBI deeper into the politics of the then-imminent 2016 presidential election, in which Hillary Clinton was the Democratic candidate and her investigation by the Bureau was an explosive campaign issue.
Notwithstanding these concerns, according to Horowitz’s report, McCabe orchestrated the leak “to advance his personal interests” — to paint himself in a favorable light in comparison to Justice Department officials amid an internal dispute about the Clinton Foundation probe (specifically, about the Obama Justice Department’s pressure on the Bureau to drop it). As the IG put it: “McCabe’s disclosure was an attempt to make himself look good by making senior department leadership . . . look bad.”
...
Thereafter, the FBI’s Inspection Division (INSD) opened an investigation of the leak. On May 9, 2017, McCabe denied to two INSD investigators that he knew the source of the leak. This was not a fleeting conversation. McCabe was placed under oath, and the INSD agents provided him with a copy of Barrett’s article. He read it and initialed it to acknowledge that he had done so. He was questioned about it by the agents, who took contemporaneous notes. McCabe told the agents that he had “no idea where [the leaked information] came from” or “who the source was.”
On July 28, 2017, McCabe was interviewed by the IG’s office — under oath and recorded on tape. In that session, he preposterously claimed to be unaware that Page, his FBI counsel, was directed to speak to reporters around the time of the October 30 Journal report. McCabe added that he was out of town then, and thus unaware of what Page had been up to. In point of fact, McCabe had consulted closely with Page about the leak. A paper trail of their texts and phone contacts evinced his keen interest in Page’s communications with Barrett. Consequently, the IG concluded that McCabe’s denials were “demonstrably false.”
Clearly concerned about the hole he had dug for himself, McCabe called the IG’s office four days later, on August 1, 2017, to say that, shucks, come to think of it, he just might have kinda, sorta told Page to speak with Barrett after all. He might even have told her to coordinate with Mike Kortan, then the Bureau’s top media liaison, and follow-up with the Journal about some of its prior reporting.
As the IG observed, this “attempt to correct his prior false testimony” was the “appropriate” thing for McCabe to do. Alas, when he was given an opportunity to come in and explain himself, he compounded his misconduct by making more false statements while under oath: In an interview with investigators on November 29, 2017, McCabe purported to recall informing Comey that he, McCabe, had authorized the leak, and that Comey had responded that the leak was a good idea.
These were quite stunning recollections, given that the deputy director had previously disclaimed any knowledge about the source of the leak. But McCabe took care of that little hiccup by simply denying his prior denial. That is, he insisted that he had not feigned ignorance about the leak when INSD interviewed him on May 9. Indeed, McCabe even denied that the May 9 interview had been a real interview. To the contrary, he claimed that agents had casually pulled him aside at the conclusion of a meeting on an unrelated topic, and peppered him out of the blue with a question or two about the Journal leak. As General Flynn could tell you, that sort of thing can be tough on a busy top U.S. government official . . . although Flynn did not get much sympathy for it when McCabe was running the FBI.
Again, the IG concluded that McCabe’s version of events was “demonstrably false.”
...
We may never get a satisfying explanation for the Justice Department’s decision to drop the McCabe probe. That’s the way it is when such complicated reasons and motives are at play.
The aforementioned challenge of hostile witnesses is not to be underestimated. In addition, there are growing indications that the Justice Department had lost confidence in the U.S. attorney who was overseeing the probe, Jesse Liu. As I noted this week, while Liu was once seen as a rising Trump administration star, she was quietly edged out of her post last month, and the White House just pulled her nomination to fill an important Treasury Department post.
There have been rumblings that the McCabe investigation was botched. Kamil Shields, a prosecutor who reportedly grew frustrated by her supervisors’ inordinate delays in making decisions about the McCabe probe, ultimately left the Justice Department to take a private-practice job. Another prosecutor, David Kent, quit last summer as DOJ dithered over the decision on whether to prosecute. Things became so drawn out that the investigating grand jury’s term lapsed. Meanwhile, the Justice Department endorsed Liu’s aggressive decision to bring a thin, politically fraught false-statements case against former Obama White House counsel Greg Craig, in connection with lobbying for a foreign country — the sort of crime that is rarely prosecuted. Craig was swiftly acquitted. Reportedly, Liu advocated charging McCabe, but the DOJ may have harbored doubts about her judgment.
No matter the outcome, the Justice Department stood to take some hits if McCabe had been charged. Focus on McCabe’s leak would have drawn attention to pressure DOJ officials had put on the Bureau over the Clinton Foundation investigation (which, reportedly, is likely to be closed without charges). It would also renew interest in the question of whether the FBI improperly allowed McCabe to play a role in Clinton-related investigations when his wife, as a political candidate, got major funding from Clinton-tied sources.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/...ccabe-charged/
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Originally posted by JimLamebrain View PostRationalizations for dropping the case is all you've got, MM. The fact is that they convened a Grand Jury, they failed to get an indictment, and they delayed and delyed, continuing to ask the Judge for more time until after 2 yrs of trying they realized the futility of going forward and dropped the case.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
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Originally posted by JimL View PostPeople like Blagojevich, and the NYC Police commisioner who was also pardoned by Trump, they get harsher sentences than Joe Shmoe because of the positions of public trust that they hold. Stone, rather than 7-9 yrs, could have gotten up to 20 years under the sentencing guildlines, and if he held a position of public trust, he probably would have. Trump is just trying to let his corrupt loyalist know that he has their backs, that he is going to pardon them, and he wants you to get used to it as well. Trump believes that he is the law.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
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