Announcement

Collapse

Civics 101 Guidelines

Want to argue about politics? Healthcare reform? Taxes? Governments? You've come to the right place!

Try to keep it civil though. The rules still apply here.
See more
See less

McCabe case closed without an indictment

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • #31
    Originally posted by JimL View Post
    The Atty Gen's job is not to fix cases of interest to the President and his loyalists by intervening and overiding the prosecutors sentence recommendations which they determine by the U.S. sentencing guidelines.
    **Eric Holder** cough. Cough.

    Comment


    • #32
      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


      • #33
        Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View Post
        Did 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.
        As 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.

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by JimL View Post
          As 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.
          Sorry Jimmy, but the AG is the boss and the one over all the federal DA’s around the country. Do you seriously have no clue how the government works? Walk into a federal building and look at the wall, they will have somewhere the picture of their director, the secretary over their department, and the president (if it’s a group under the executive branch). Why do you think that is, Jimmy?
          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

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
            Again, 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.
            The 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.

            Comment


            • #36
              Originally posted by Sparko View Post
              You 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?

              Like I said, the Judiciary is not in his back pocket yet. Not that the DOJ is either, but the head of the DOJ is and 2000 federal prosecutors just signed on to a letter to that effect saying that the AG should resign for intervening to fix the cases of interests to the president and his corrupt buddies.

              Comment


              • #37
                Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                **Eric Holder** cough. Cough.
                Well, whether I agree with you or not, are you saying Eric Holder did the right and legal thing.

                Comment


                • #38
                  Originally posted by JimLamebrain View Post
                  The 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.
                  Still 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/
                  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


                  • #39
                    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

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Originally posted by Sparko View Post
                      You 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?

                      It's the same thing with the 'Trump-is-Putin's-puppet' charge. Despite Trump's bombing of Assad, continued sanctions against Russia (even adding more), lack of Crimean acknowledgement, support for Ukraine, and various other barely-reported conflicts, Trump is feverishly trying to put an end to the Russo-German pipeline, potentially costing Russia many billions of dollars. So, he either isn't Putin's puppet, or he is a very bad puppet.

                      https://clarion.causeaction.com/2020...many-pipeline/

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                        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?

                        [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.”
                        Blagojevich 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/

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Ronson View Post
                          Blagojevich 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/
                          People 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.

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                            Still 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/
                            Rationalizations 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.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by JimLamebrain View Post
                              Rationalizations 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.
                              Yes, the but the question is, knowing what we know, and what the DOJ knows from the Horowitz investigation, why didn't they press charges? It's not that they couldn't get a grand jury to indict. Rather, they simply didn't try. Personally, I don't share your complete lack of curiosity.
                              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


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by JimL View Post
                                People 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.
                                Blagojevich is a Trump loyalist?
                                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

                                Related Threads

                                Collapse

                                Topics Statistics Last Post
                                Started by little_monkey, Yesterday, 04:19 PM
                                16 responses
                                148 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post One Bad Pig  
                                Started by whag, 03-26-2024, 04:38 PM
                                53 responses
                                395 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Mountain Man  
                                Started by rogue06, 03-26-2024, 11:45 AM
                                25 responses
                                113 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post rogue06
                                by rogue06
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 09:21 AM
                                33 responses
                                197 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post Roy
                                by Roy
                                 
                                Started by Hypatia_Alexandria, 03-26-2024, 08:34 AM
                                84 responses
                                365 views
                                0 likes
                                Last Post JimL
                                by JimL
                                 
                                Working...
                                X