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malonema1

Trump walks back sanctions against Russia, contradicting Nikki Haley - TODAY.com - 0 views

www.today.com/...-chuck-todd-says-1221829187930

trump politics US

shared by malonema1 on 01 May 18 - No Cached
  • Trump does deserve credit for North Korean talks, Chuck Todd says
  • Meet the Press Moderator joins Sunday TODAY’s Chuck Todd and says President Donald Trump deserves credit for helping create conditions to start talks of denuclearization with North Korea, but says some questions still loom. {"1222279235816":{"mpxId":"1222279235816","canonical_url":"https://www.today.com/video/oregon-trucker-recounts-walking-36-miles-after-losing-his-way-1222279235816","canonicalUrl":"https://www.today.com/video/oregon-trucker-recounts-walking-36-miles-after-losing-his-way-1222279235816","legacy_url":"https://www.today.com/video/oregon-trucker-recounts-walking-36-miles-after-losing-his-way-1222279235816","playerUrl":"https://www.today.com/offsite/oregon-trucker-recounts-walking-36-miles-after-losing-his-way-1222279235816","ampPlayerUrl":"https://player.today.com/offsite/oregon-trucker-recounts-walking-36-miles-after-losing-his-way-1222279235816","relatedLink":"","sentiment":"Neutral","shortUrl":"https://www.today.com/video/oregon-trucker-recounts-walking-36-miles-after-losing-his-way-1222279235816","description":"Jacob Cartwright, a truck driver in Oregon, accidentally plugged the wrong address into his GPS and wound up lost more than 100 miles out of his way. 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malonema1

Is Trump closer to obstruction of justice? - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...world-us-canada-40208812

politics trump comey

shared by malonema1 on 10 Jun 17 - No Cached
  • Is Trump closer to obstruction of justice?
  • James Comey may not have added much new detail in testimony on Thursday about his one-to-one meetings with Donald Trump but he did add something: he set the scene, and law professors say that could be a missing piece in an obstruction of justice case against the president.
  • We knew that already - Mr Comey made details of the meeting public several weeks ago - and Committee Republicans sought on Thursday to paint it as an innocent exchange: "I hope" was not an instruction, they said.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • So what's changed? Alex Whiting, a Harvard Law professor and former federal prosecutor, said the oral testimony gave new and legally significant insight into how Mr Comey interpreted the president's words in the moment.
  • Mr Comey's testified on Thursday that he clearly understood Mr Trump to be pushing him to drop the inquiry. We also heard for the first time that the president cleared the room before making the remarks, removing even Mr Comey's boss, the attorney general.
  • "Whether it's a case that should be prosecuted, or whether it merits impeachment, those are separate questions, but the elements are now there for obstruction. There was a corrupt intent to impede justice. I think you could charge this case."
  • "In his oral testimony, he made it clearer that he believed Trump was trying to obstruct justice. He said that when Trump used the word hope, he understood that to be a command of some sort, and that strengthens the case for obstruction.
  • "Everybody is parsing the words of course, but I don't know that Comey's testimony strengthens or weakens an obstruction case," he said. The meetings described by Mr Comey were however "clearly inappropriate", he said. "This is simply not how Americans want a president to conduct himself."
  • "Comey put his credibility on the line today and he did it in a very public way," he said. "Now it's a credibility contest between him and the president, and I think it's safe to say Comey is winning that contest."
  • Both those scenarios remain unlikely however, at least for the meantime. It is effectively impossible to bring criminal charges against a sitting president - the case would have to be brought by the executive branch, of which Mr Trump is the boss.
  • So Mr Comey's testimony will not trigger legal proceedings any time soon, but it does have the potential to damage the president's political standing and resonate with moderate voters, Mr Posner said."Obstruction of justice is clearly on the minds of a lot of people and I think it damages the president politically," he said. "He continues to have supporters of course. But for many people in the middle, their opinion of the president will decline and their reservations will strengthen."
Javier E

Was Mueller's dodge on obstruction a blunder - or brilliant? - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...struction-blunder-or-brilliant

trump crisis investigation justice Justice Dept.

shared by Javier E on 09 Jun 19 - No Cached
  • Had Mueller made a “traditional prosecutorial judgment” and accused the president of obstruction, then the report would become a more typical internal prosecution memo — the kind that never see the public light of day. The policy against publicly accusing those who have not been charged could have given Barr a ready excuse to withhold the report from the public, or at a minimum to redact a great deal of volume 2 that deals with obstruction of justice.
  • Mueller’s approach left us with the best possible result, under the circumstances: Overwhelming evidence of obstruction with no plausible excuse for keeping that evidence a secret.
  • By writing his report the way he did, Mueller did everything in his power to ensure that Congress received the maximum amount of information possible. It remains to be seen what Congress will choose to do with it.
carolinehayter

House Democrats are still pursuing Trump's tax returns but Biden administration may not... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

politics us Trump Economics policy

shared by carolinehayter on 01 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • After notching recent wins in their long hunt for material to help bring legal accountability to former President Donald Trump, congressional Democrats fear the Biden administration won't be helpful when it comes to obtaining the documents they covet the most: Trump's tax returns.
  • But four months into President Joe Biden's term, liberal advocates and some lawmakers are growing impatient that the Justice Department hasn't done more to expose the Trump administration's alleged misdeeds -- and in some cases has even tried to help shield them.
  • Last week, Garland's Justice Department partly sided with Barr. The department partially appealed a judge's order to release a 2019 memo written for Barr about how to handle Mueller's findings on Trump and obstruction of justice. The Justice Department tried to offer some transparency: A federal judge had slammed the department for considering the optics of the Mueller report's rollout, and the department made that section public.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • It's "a return to business as usual for DOJ -- and not DOJ swinging as frantically to an anti-Trump agenda as it did to the pro-Trump one that I and many other observers abhorred,"
  • "I appreciate the independence. I don't always agree with the positions," said Eisen, who would like to see more released by the Justice Department. "They're going to act with that same independence in defense of what they perceive to be in the long-term interests of the executive branch."
  • The Biden administration now has control over three high-profile documents that are still central to Democrats' court fights related to Trump: Trump's tax returns, held by the IRS; grand jury material underpinning the Russia investigation; and the key internal memo to former Attorney General William Barr justifying the decision not to charge Trump with obstruction in former special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
  • Trump's taxes have been the white whale of Democratic investigators for years,
  • Trump's tax returns are no longer completely under lock and key, either. The Manhattan district attorney obtained them earlier this year through a lawsuit of his own.
  • In late April, federal agents executed search warrants on Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani. Democrats have also received some documents related to Trump's Washington hotel lease that the Trump administration had kept hidden. And on Friday, House Democrats will finally get the chance to interview former White House counsel Don McGahn about Trump's efforts to obstruct justice.
  • But the department is now fighting to keep redacted six-and-a-half pages of legal analysis on whether a criminal case against the then-President was merited, even if he could not be charged under Justice Department policy.
  • Congressional Democrats urged Garland not to appeal the judge's decision.
  • "There is this institutional rivalry between executive and legislative branches that overlays or perhaps underlays the misbehavior that the judge found within the department,"
  • The Justice Department's stance shouldn't be a surprise, given that Biden came into office with a team that was vowing to move on from the Trump-era controversies.
  • The House committees that investigated Trump, however, have vowed to keep pursuing their cases that are tied up in court.
  • The Supreme Court was set to hear an appeal from the administration as it sought to keep grand jury documents cited in the Mueller report under seal, after the House won access in court. That hearing has been postponed.
  • The House's push for financial documents and Trump's tax returns has another obstacle beyond the Biden administration: Trump himself. The former President's involvement in the cases, now as a private citizen who has several teams of lawyers protecting his interests, may be one reason for the stalemates.
Javier E

Stop Talking about 'Norms' - Talking Points Memo - 0 views

talkingpointsmemo.com/...stop-talking-about-norms

norms conflict of interest crime trump crisis

shared by Javier E on 24 May 18 - No Cached
  • By talking so much about “norms” and the violation of “norms” we’re confusing the situation and even confusing ourselves.
  • “Norms” aren’t laws for a reason. They are like bumpers on the roads of our civic and political life which are there to keep people of basically good faith from crossing lines they shouldn’t cross. They can also be warning posts so others can see when someone is either going down a bad path or needs to be brought back into line.
  • One reason that “norms” aren’t laws is that sometimes new or unique sets of facts create situations in which they do not or cannot or should not apply.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • But the problem with almost everything President Trump is doing today is not that he’s violating norms. The problem is that he is abusing his presidential powers to cover up his crimes and his associates’ crimes. Full stop.
  • The norms are just the orange rubber cones he knocked over when he drove out of his lane and headed for the crowded sidewalk.
  • These are not ‘conflicts of interest’. A ‘conflict of interest’ is a case in which the nature of a situation makes it impossible for a person to separate their personal interests from their public responsibilities (or to appear to do so)
  • What we’re seeing now are not conflicts of interest. They’re straight-up corruption.
  • We have an increasingly open effort to make vast sums of money with the presidency. It’s happening in front of our eyes, albeit not quite as visibly as the coverup.
  • for more than a year, President Trump has continued a nonstop effort to cover up his and his associates’ crimes
  • obstruction of justice statutes universally do not require proof of an underlying crime. You’re not allowed to stymie or obstruct a lawful criminal investigation. Full stop. The effort to do so generally speaks for itself in creating a presumption of guilt.
  • As is often the case with Presidents, this goes beyond mere statutes: the point is the substance of obstructing justice which the President is not only clearly doing now but has been doing more or less openly for more than a year.
  • The other problem with “norms” – perhaps the really critical one – is that they can easily sound like some precious bureaucratic niceties which simply aren’t that important
  • Again, we’re confusing the issue. It’s not norms. The President is trying to obstruct and stymie and hamstring a lawful investigation into his own crimes and those of his associates: by repeatedly lying, firing and threatening to fire people, intervening in law enforcement decisions in his own interest, fabricating fake stories to impede the investigation.
lmunch

Trump's Pardons: The List - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...who-did-trump-pardon.html

Trump Pardons Clemency

shared by lmunch on 20 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • With hours to go before President Trump left office, the White House released a list early Wednesday of 73 people he had pardoned and 70 others whose sentences he had commuted.
  • On the list were at least two people who had worked for Mr. Trump: Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist, and Elliott Broidy, a former top fund-raiser. Both received full pardons.
  • The rapper Lil Wayne, born Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., received a full pardon after pleading guilty to possession of a firearm and ammunition by a felon in December. Mr. Trump also granted a commutation to another rapper, Kodak Black, whose legal name is Bill Kapri (though he was born Dieuson Octave). In 2019, he was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for lying on background paperwork while attempting to buy guns.
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • Mr. Trump issued full pardons to Nicholas Slatton and three other former U.S. service members who were convicted on charges related to the killing of Iraqi civilians while they were working as security contractors for Blackwater, a private company, in 2007.
  • Mr. Manafort, 71, had been sentenced in 2019 to seven and a half years in prison for his role in a decade-long, multimillion-dollar financial fraud scheme for his work in the former Soviet Union. He was released early from prison in May as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and given home confinement. Mr. Trump had repeatedly expressed sympathy for Mr. Manafort, describing him as a brave man who had been mistreated by the special counsel’s office.
  • Mr. Stone, a longtime friend and adviser of Mr. Trump, was sentenced in February 2020 to more than three years in prison in a politically fraught case that put the president at odds with his attorney general. Mr. Stone was convicted of seven felony charges, including lying under oath to a congressional committee and threatening a witness whose testimony would have exposed those lies.
  • Mr. Kushner, 66, the father-in-law of the president’s older daughter, Ivanka Trump, pleaded guilty in 2004 to 16 counts of tax evasion, a single count of retaliating against a federal witness and one of lying to the Federal Election Commission. He served two years in prison before being released in 2006.
  • Michael T. Flynn, a former national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. about his conversations with a Russian diplomat, and whose prosecution Attorney General William P. Barr tried to shut down, was the only White House official to be convicted as part of the Trump-Russia investigation.
  • The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution gives presidents unlimited authority to grant pardons, which excuse or forgive a federal crime. A commutation, by contrast, makes a punishment milder without wiping out the underlying conviction.
  • Joe Arpaio, an anti-immigration crusader who enjoyed calling himself “America’s toughest sheriff,” was the first pardon of Mr. Trump’s presidency.
  • Conrad M. Black, a former press baron and friend of Mr. Trump’s, was granted a full pardon 12 years after his sentencing for fraud and obstruction of justice.
  • Former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois was sentenced in 2011 to 14 years in prison for trying to sell or trade to the highest bidder the Senate seat that Mr. Obama vacated after he was elected president.
  • Susan B. Anthony, the women’s suffragist, was arrested in Rochester, N.Y., in 1872 for voting illegally and was fined $100. Mr. Trump pardoned her on Aug. 18, the 100th anniversary of the ratification of 19th Amendment, which extended voting rights to women.
  • Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., a former owner of the San Francisco 49ers, pleaded guilty in 1998 to concealing an extortion plot. Mr. DeBartolo was prosecuted after he gave Edwin W. Edwards, the influential former governor of Louisiana, $400,000 to secure a riverboat gambling license for his gambling consortium.
  • Alice Marie Johnson was serving life in a federal prison for a nonviolent drug conviction before her case was brought to Mr. Trump’s attention by the reality television star Kim Kardashian West.
  • Jack Johnson, the first Black heavyweight boxing champion, was tarnished by a racially tainted criminal conviction in 1913 — for transporting a white woman across state lines — that haunted him well after his death in 1946. Mr. Trump pardoned him on May 24, 2018.
  • Dinesh D’Souza received a presidential pardon after pleading guilty to making illegal campaign contributions in 2014. Mr. D’Souza, a filmmaker and author whose subjects often dabble in conspiracy theories, had long blamed his conviction on his political opposition to Mr. Obama.
  • Zay Jeffries, a metal scientist whose contributions to the Manhattan Project and whose development of armor-piercing artillery shells helped the Allies win World War II, was granted a posthumous pardon on Oct. 10, 2019. Jeffries was found guilty in 1948 of an antitrust violation related to his work and was fined $2,500.
  • Ten years ago, Bernard B. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner, was sentenced to four years in prison after pleading guilty to eight felony charges, including tax fraud and lying to White House officials.
  • I. Lewis Libby Jr., known as Scooter, was Vice President Dick Cheney’s top adviser before Mr. Libby was convicted in 2007 of four felony counts, including perjury and obstruction of justice, in connection with the disclosure of the identity of a C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame.
  • Mr. Trump’s decision to clear three members of the armed services who had been accused or convicted of war crimes signaled that the president intended to use his power as the ultimate arbiter of military justice.
  • Michael R. Milken was the billionaire “junk bond king” and a well-known financier on Wall Street in the 1980s. In 1990, he pleaded guilty to securities fraud and conspiracy charges and was sentenced to 10 years in prison, though his sentence was later reduced to two. He also agreed to pay $600 million in fines and penalties.
  • Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven Hammond, were Oregon cattle ranchers who had been serving five-year sentences for arson on federal land. Their cases inspired an antigovernment group’s weekslong standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon in 2016 and brought widespread attention to anger over federal land management in the Western United States.
  • David H. Safavian, the top federal procurement official under President George W. Bush, was sentenced in 2009 to a year in prison for covering up his ties to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist whose corruption became a symbol of the excesses of Washington influence peddling. Mr. Safavian was convicted of obstruction of justice and making false statements.
  • Angela Stanton — an author, television personality and motivational speaker — served six months of home confinement in 2007 for her role in a stolen-vehicle ring. Her book “Life of a Real Housewife” explores her difficult upbringing and her encounters with reality TV stars.
Javier E

Why the Tea Party Isn't Going Anywhere - Theda Skocpol - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...282591

republicans tea party

shared by Javier E on 28 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • Here is the key point: Even though there is no one center of Tea Party authority—indeed, in some ways because there is no one organized center—the entire gaggle of grassroots and elite organizations amounts to a pincer operation that wields money and primary votes to exert powerful pressure on Republican officeholders and candidates.
  • Tea Party influence does not depend on general popularity at all. Even as most Americans have figured out that they do not like the Tea Party or its methods, Tea Party clout has grown in Washington and state capitals. Most legislators and candidates are Nervous Nellies, so all Tea Party activists, sympathizers, and funders have had to do is recurrently demonstrate their ability to knock off seemingly unchallengeable Republicans (ranging from Charlie Crist in Florida to Bob Bennett of Utah to Indiana’s Richard Lugar). That grabs legislators’ attention and results in either enthusiastic support for, or acquiescence to, obstructive tactics
  • footholds gained are not easily lost. Once solid blocs of Tea Party supporters or compliant legislators are ensconced in office, outside figures like Dick Armey of FreedomWorks (in 2011) and Jim DeMint of Heritage Action (in 2013) appoint themselves de facto orchestrators, taking control away from elected GOP leaders John Boehner and Mitch McConnell.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Americans may resent the Tea Party, but they are also losing ever more faith in the federal government—a big win for anti-government saboteurs. Popularity and “responsible governance” are not the goals of Tea Party forces, and such standards should not be used to judge the accomplishments of those who aim to undercut, block, and delay—even as Tea Party funders remain hopeful about holding their own or making further gains in another low-turnout midterm election in November 2014.
  • Anyone concerned about the damage Tea Party forces are inflicting on American politics needs to draw several hard-headed conclusions.
  • Democrats need to get over thinking that opinion polls and media columns add up to real political gains. Once the October 2013 shutdown ended in supposed total victory for President Obama and his party, many Democrats adopted a cocky swagger and started talking about ousting the House GOP in 2014. But a clear-eyed look shows that Tea Party obstruction remains powerful and has achieved victories that continue to stymie Democratic efforts to govern effectively—a necessary condition for Democrats to win enthusiastic, sustained voter support for the future, including in midterm elections
  • Also worth remembering is that “moderate Republicans” barely exist right now. Close to two-thirds of House Republicans voted against bipartisan efforts to reopen the federal government and prevent U.S. default on loan obligations, and Boehner has never repudiated such extortionist tactics
  • Cruz may very well enjoy unified and enthusiastic grassroots Tea Party support from the beginning of the primary election season. In the past, less extreme GOP candidates have always managed to garner the presidential nomination, but maybe not this time. And even if a less extreme candidate finally squeaks through, Cruz will set much of the agenda for Republicans heading into 2016.
  • at least three successive national election defeats will be necessary to even begin to break the determination and leverage of Tea Party adherents. Grassroots Tea Partiers see themselves in a last-ditch effort to save “their country,” and big-money ideologues are determined to undercut Democrats and sabotage active government
  • Our debates about federal budgets still revolve around degrees of imposed austerity. Government shutdowns and repeated partisan-induced “crises” have greatly undercut U.S. economic growth and cost up to a year’s worth of added jobs. Real national challenges—fighting global warming, improving education, redressing extreme economic inequalities, rebuilding and improving economic infrastructure—go unaddressed as extreme GOP obstructive capacities remain potent in Washington and many state capitals.
  • Unless non-Tea Party Republicans, independents, and Democrats learn both to defeat and to work around anti-government extremism—finding ways to do positive things for the majority of ordinary citizens along the way—Tea Party forces will still win in the end. They will triumph just by hanging on long enough to cause most Americans to give up in disgust on our blatantly manipulated democracy and our permanently hobbled government.
Javier E

Republicans' mindless obstruction has helped create something far worse - The Washingto... - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...5-b0fd-073d5930a7b7_story.html

gop crisis obama demagogue

shared by Javier E on 12 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • The party is in an existential crisis, and this sort of mindless obstruction, practiced on Capitol Hill for much of the past seven years, is partly to blame. Republican lawmakers, fearing pressure and primary challenges from extreme conservatives, refused to engage in anything that might be perceived as cooperating with Obama — and so the legislature ground to a halt. The failure to produce, or to do much to address the nation’s economic and security woes, caused more disgust with Washington. This, in turn, allowed the rise of a populist demagogue.
malonema1

Trump walks back sanctions against Russia, contradicting Nikki Haley - TODAY.com - 0 views

www.today.com/...ting-nikki-haley-1212661827918

trump politics US

shared by malonema1 on 01 May 18 - No Cached
  • Trump walks back sanctions against Russia, contradicting Nikki Haley
  • President Trump is walking back plans to impose new economic sanctions against Russia announced Sunday by U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley. 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  • Amid the historic developments formally ending the Korean War, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has promised to close down a nuclear test site in May. 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  • ...1 more annotation...
  • North Korea to close down nuclear test site in May
anonymous

4 Proud Boys Charged With Conspiracy Over Capitol Attack : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...piracy-over-jan-6-capitol-riot

shared by anonymous on 20 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Four alleged leaders of the Proud Boys have been indicted in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol over allegedly conspiring, including in discussions on encrypted messaging apps, to obstruct the certification of President Biden's Electoral College victory.
  • The indictment unsealed Friday charges the defendants — Ethan Nordean, Joseph Biggs, Zach Rehl and Charles Donohoe — with six counts, including obstruction of an official proceeding, obstruction of law enforcement, destruction of government property and conspiracy.
  • Nordean is the president of his local Proud Boy chapter in Washington state; Biggs is a Proud Boy member and organizer in Florida; Rehl is the president of a local chapter of the group in Philadelphia; and Donohoe is the president of his local Proud Boy chapter in North Carolina. Nordean and Biggs had previously been charged by complaint.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • The defendants are the latest with ties to the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, to face conspiracy charges over their alleged roles in the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol by Trump supporters.
  • Two days before Congress met to certify the results, Washington, D.C., police arrested the Proud Boys chairman, Enrique Tarrio.
  • Prosecutors allege that after Tarrio's arrest, Donohoe expressed concern that encrypted communications that included Tarrio were now compromised and in the hands of police.
  • Donohoe then created a new channel, called "New MOSD," on an encrypted messaging app that included his co-defendants. Donohoe also, according to the indictment, "took steps to destroy or 'nuke' the earlier channel."
  • Donohoe posted a message that same day to the new channel in which he says: "Hey have been instructed an listen to me real good!
  • Later that day, an individual identified in court documents only as an unindicted co-conspirator posted: "[W]e had originally planned on breaking the guys into teams. Let's start divvying them up and getting baofeng channels picked out," referring to channels on handheld radios.
  • The following day, the indictment says, a new encrypted messaging channel called "Boots on the Ground" was set up for Proud Boys in Washington.
  • That evening, Biggs posted a message to the channel that said he was trying to get a sense of their numbers so they can "go over tomorrow's plan."
  • Rehl told the channel he was on his way to Washington and was bringing radios with him. He added that there was a person who would program the devices later that evening.
  • That same evening, Biggs allegedly posted a message that read: "We have a plan. I'm with Rufio."
  • The indictment alleges that the members of the encrypted messaging channels were told to meet at the Washington Monument at 10 a.m. on Jan. 6.Proud Boys did show up at the monument at 10, including the defendants, according to the indictment. From there, the group marched to the Capitol with Nordean, Biggs and Rehl near or at the front of the crowd.
  • Once there, the indictment says, the defendants "charged toward the capitol by crossing over the barriers that had been violently disassembled and trampled by the crowd moments before."
  • The Proud Boys are not the only extremist group to see its members charged with conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot. Members of the Oath Keepers, a far-right paramilitary group, are also facing conspiracy charges. So far, more than 300 people have been charged in connection with the Capitol breach. Prosecutors say at least 100 more could still be charged.
anonymous

DC police have often arrested more people than they did during the Capitol siege - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by anonymous on 12 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • Sixty-one: That's the number of arrests Washington, DC, police made the day rioters laid siege to the Capitol in protest of President-elect Joe Biden's electoral victory.
  • More have been arrested since, and several jurisdictions are now involved in hunting down the supporters of President Donald Trump who invaded and ransacked the Capitol during a joint session of Congress to affirm Biden's win.
  • Yet during an episode described as insurrection and an attempted coup, police made only 61 "unrest-related" arrests that day -- and only about half of those were on Capitol grounds,
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • 133 LGBTQ activists, October 8, 2019
  • Activists sat in First Street in an act of civil disobedience, reported the Washington Blade, an LGBTQ news outlet that quoted US Capitol Police saying the demonstrators were charged with crowding, obstructing and incommoding.
  • 147 climate change protesters, January 10, 2020
  • In the 14th week of protests, Joaquin Phoenix and Martin Sheen were among the stars who found themselves in custody, as Capitol Police verified scores of people were charged with crowding, obstructing or incommoding.
  • 181 Obamacare supporters, September 25, 2017
  • When the GOP began attempts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act in the summer of 2017, protests erupted week after week in the capital, spurring several days of arrests. On two separate days in July, Capitol Police confirmed to CNN officers had arrested 80 and then 155 protesters who had entered the halls of Congress to engage in peaceful protests -- sit-ins, chanting, lying on the ground and the like.
  • 217 Trump inauguration protesters, January 20, 2017
  • Six officers were injured, and police deployed pepper spray after, CNN reported, "Bursts of chaos erupted on 12th and K streets as black-clad 'antifascist' protesters smashed storefronts and bus stops, hammered out the windows of a limousine and eventually launched rocks at a phalanx of police lined up in an eastbound crosswalk.
  • 302 Brett Kavanaugh opponents, October 4, 2018
  • The arrests began mid-afternoon with 293 people arrested for unlawfully demonstrating in a Senate building and nine more arrested later in another Senate building, a Capitol Police spokeswoman said. All were charged with crowding, obstructing or incommoding, the department said.
  • 316 Black Lives Matter protesters, June 1, 2020
  • No one asked such questions in June, when Black Lives Matter protesters, decrying the deaths of George Floyd and other African Americans at the hands of police, took to the streets to find military helicopters hovering over the city, National Guard troops patrolling the streets and tear gas filling the air.
  • 372 Keystone pipeline protesters, March 2, 2014
  • As President Barack Obama's administration reviewed plans for the $5.3 billion Keystone XL pipeline, almost 1,000 demonstrators marched from Georgetown University to Secretary of State John Kerry's home and then to the White House, where they acted out a "human oil spill."
  • 400+ 'Democracy Spring' activists, April 11, 2016
  • It began in Philadelphia with protesters from several groups marching 150 miles south to stage a sit-in on the Capitol steps, denouncing the influence of big money on politics and Congress' refusal to reverse it.
  • 575 immigration policy protesters, June 28, 2018
  • More than 1,000 women marched through Washington, protesting the Trump administration's policy of separating children from their parents at the US-Mexico border. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat from Washington, was among the hundreds arrested, according to Capitol Police.
  • 12,000+ Vietnam War opponents, May 1, 1971
  • This isn't officially included on this list. It isn't the fairest comparison, given that half a century has passed and the country looks markedly different than it did in 1971. But the May Day protests against the Vietnam War have been described as the "largest mass arrest" and "largest mass acquittal" of demonstrators in US history.
Javier E

Opinion | How Giuliani Might Take Down Trump - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...rudy-giuliani-trump.html

RICO crime conspiracy

shared by Javier E on 05 Mar 19 - No Cached
  • Those explosive — and arresting — hearings led to the 1970 passage of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, better known as RICO, a law designed to allow prosecutors to go after enterprises that engaged in extended, organized criminality. RICO laid out certain “predicate” crimes — those that prosecutors could use to stitch together evidence of a corrupt organization and then go after everyone involved in the organization as part of an organized conspiracy. While the headline-grabbing RICO “predicates” were violent crimes like murder, kidnapping, arson and robbery, the statute also focused on crimes like fraud, obstruction of justice, money laundering and even aiding or abetting illegal immigration.
  • What lawmakers heard Wednesday sounded a lot like a racketeering enterprise: an organization with a few key players and numerous overlapping crimes — not just one conspiracy, but many. Even leaving aside any questions about the Mueller investigation and the 2016 campaign, Mr. Cohen leveled allegations that sounded like bank fraud, charity fraud and tax fraud, as well as hints of insurance fraud, obstruction of justice and suborning perjury.
  • RICO was precisely designed to catch the godfathers and bosses at the top of these crime syndicates — people a step or two removed from the actual crimes committed, those whose will is made real, even without a direct order.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Exactly, it appears, as Mr. Trump did at the top of his family business: “Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates,” Mr. Cohen said. Mr. Trump, Mr. Cohen said, “doesn’t give orders. He speaks in code. And I understand that code.”
  • The sheer number and breadth of the investigations into Mr. Trump’s orbit these days indicates how vulnerable the president’s family business would be to just this type of prosecution. In December, I counted 17, and since then, investigators have started an inquiry into undocumented workers at Mr. Trump’s New Jersey golf course, another crime that could be a RICO predicate
Javier E

The James Comey Memos Are Credible - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...558611

trump legal

shared by Javier E on 21 Apr 18 - No Cached
  • If we accept that Comey’s story has been remarkably consistent over time, and has been corroborated, as Comey has also said, by the contemporaneous FBI witnesses to whom he claims to have told about the events in real time—a few points follow.
  • First, the president will not realistically defeat an obstruction-of-justice charge—whether it arises in a criminal context or, as is more likely, as an allegation he has to contend with in the political realm—by throwing dust in the air about what happened.
  • Second, it follows that the president will have to make his defense on obstruction on different grounds: Ultimately, he’s going to have to argue that the conduct Comey is describing is acceptable behavior
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The result is that, third, the facts are likely to get worse—maybe much worse—for Trump. Mueller, remember, doesn’t just know Comey knows
millerco

An Article of Impeachment Against Donald J. Trump - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...impeachment-donald-trump.html

US trump politics history impeachment

shared by millerco on 29 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • There are good reasons to be wary of impeachment talk.
  • Congressional Republicans show zero interest, and they’re the ones in charge.
  • Democrats, for their part, need to focus on retaking Congress, and railing about impeachment probably won’t help them win votes.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Is serious consideration of impeachment fair? I think the answer is yes. The evidence is now quite strong that Donald Trump committed obstruction of justice. Many legal scholars believe a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime. So the proper remedy for a president credibly accused of obstructing justice is impeachment.
  • Trump has already tried to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating the Trump campaign — it’s time to put together the same sort of list for Trump.
  • During a dinner at the White House on Jan. 27, 2017, Trump asked for a pledge of “loyalty” from James Comey, then the F.B.I. director, who was overseeing the investigation of the Trump campaign.
  • On Feb. 14, Trump directed several other officials to leave the Oval Office so he could speak privately with Comey. He then told Comey to “let this go,” referring to the investigation of Michael Flynn, who had resigned the previous day as Trump’s national security adviser.
  • On March 22, Trump directed several other officials to leave a White House briefing so he could speak privately with Daniel Coats, the director of national intelligence, and Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director. Trump asked them to persuade Comey to back off investigating Flynn.
  • In March and April, Trump told Comey in phone calls that he wanted Comey to lift the ”cloud” of the investigation.
anonymous

Polar opposites Trump and Mueller barrel toward a showdown - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US trump crisis culture policy politics

shared by anonymous on 30 May 18 - No Cached
  • President Donald Trump and Robert Mueller may be contemporaries but are temperamental opposites, divided most deeply by their respective contempt and reverence for the institutions of US government.
  • The raging, conspiratorial attacks on Twitter escalated a strategy orchestrated by Trump and polemicist allies in conservative media to discredit Mueller's eventual findings, to taint his probe as a Democratic plot and to unite Republican voters behind the President to secure his hold on office.
  • Mueller may be unique in this riotous political era. Most people identified by Trump as enemies -- rival political candidates, Democratic congressional leaders or critics in the arts and the media -- feel they have no choice but to defend their reputations.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Another possible reason for Trump's ire was revealed by The New York Times Tuesday in a report that said Mueller was looking into whether Trump's demands on Jeff Sessions in early 2017 to rescind his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation and subsequent pressure on the attorney general to resign played into the obstruction case.
  • A CNN/SSRS poll this month showed that 44% of voters approve of how Mueller is handling the investigation -- down four points from March. Only 17% of GOP voters approve of the special counsel now, down from 29% in March.
  • So Trump hopes to build a wall against impeachment -- by making it impossible for GOP lawmakers to defy the sentiments of their voters and by coalescing in any impeachment proceedings.
  • So it's no wonder the Trump attacks are fueling suspicions that the President does indeed have something to hide.
  • That suspicion also points to the great unknown of the entire showdown between the President and the special counsel.
Javier E

Andrew Sullivan: Donald Trump and the Art of the Lie - 0 views

nymag.com/...mp-and-the-art-of-the-lie.html

trump asylum American idea

shared by Javier E on 19 Jun 19 - No Cached
  • For Trump, lying is central to his disturbed psyche, and to his success. The brazenness of it unbalances and stupefies sane and adjusted people, thereby constantly giving him an edge and a little breathing space while we try to absorb it, during which he proceeds to the next lie. And on it goes. It’s like swimming in choppy water. Just when you get to the surface to breathe, another wave crashes into you.
  • Bannon, Wolff writes, came to understand that the lies were “compulsive, persistent and without even a minimal grounding in reality.” This is not to deceive the public. This is simply the way Trump behaves — in private and public
  • Recall this famous passage from Ron Suskind, reporting on the Bush White House for the Times:
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about Enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create reality. And while you are studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’
  • What Trump adds is a level of salesmanship that is truly a wonder to behold. He is a con man of surpassing brilliance and conviction, and every time he survives the fallout of a con, he gets more confident about the next one.
  • a presidential con man at this level of talent, legitimized by public opinion, enlarged and enhanced by the office and its trappings, is far harder to catch. It seems to me we had one shot of doing this definitively —the Mueller investigation — and we failed
  • . Sympathizing with people whose livelihoods have vanished is entirely the moral thing to do. But unemployment and poverty are not the same as persecution, and the migration is self-evidently economic. Nonetheless, Sieff’s central figure in the story is going to claim asylum when he reaches the border. In other words, the generosity of America in providing asylum for the persecuted is being fraudulently exploited by hundreds of thousands of immigrants.
  • The worry about a president receiving assistance from a foreign country, let alone inviting it, was one of the central concerns of the Founders when they came up with the mechanism of impeachment. It need not be a conspiracy or a crime. It was about violating the integrity of the American political system — to the advantage of another country.
  • Combine the blithe ease with which Trump considers this impeachable offense with his now-demonstrated attempts to obstruct justice, and now add a legal claim that the Congress cannot oversee what might be presidential criminality … well, you have a situation that impeachment was specifically designed for.
  • A tyrant’s path to power is not a straight line, it’s dynamic. Each concession is instantly banked, past vices are turned into virtues, and then the ante is upped once again. The threat rises exponentially with time
  • So, of course, Trump has upped the ante again. Why wouldn’t he? He has proven that he can obstruct justice and get away with it, so now he is not only refusing to comply with any subpoenas and barring critical witnesses from testifying, but claiming, through his lawyers, that the only branch of government that can investigate the president’s compliance with the law is the executive branch itself, over which the president has total control:
  • The current crisis in immigration is, in fact, a giant and flagrant abuse of the very meaning of asylum. Just as illegal immigration is an affront to legal immigration, so blatantly fraudulent asylum pleas trivialize and exploit those who genuinely need our help.
blythewallick

Trump Acquitted of Two Impeachment Charges in Near Party-Line Vote - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ump-acquitted-impeachment.html

politics US history trump culture crisis Policy

shared by blythewallick on 06 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — After five months of hearings, investigations and revelations about President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine, a divided United States Senate acquitted him on Wednesday of charges that he abused his power and obstructed Congress to aid his own re-election, bringing an acrimonious impeachment trial to its expected end.
  • It was the third impeachment trial of a president and the third acquittal in American history, and it ended the way it began: with Republicans and Democrats at odds. They disagreed over Mr. Trump’s conduct and his fitness for office, even as some members of his own party conceded the basic allegations that undergirded the charges, that he sought to pressure Ukraine to smear his political rivals.
  • At the Capitol earlier in the day, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who presided over the trial, put the question to senators shortly after 4 p.m.: “Senators how say you? Is the respondent, Donald John Trump, president of the United States guilty or not guilty?”
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • “It is, therefore, ordered and adjudged that the said Donald John Trump be, and he is hereby, acquitted of the charges in said articles,” declared Chief Justice Roberts after the second article was defeated.
  • “The verdict of this kangaroo court will be meaningless,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said moments before the vote. “By refusing the facts — by refusing witnesses and documents — the Republican majority has placed a giant asterisk, the asterisk of a sham trial, next to the acquittal of President Trump, written in permanent ink.”
  • Like this one, the trials of Presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton also ended in acquittal — a reflection of the Constitution’s high burden for removing a chief executive.
  • “Today, the sham impeachment attempt concocted by Democrats ended in the full vindication and exoneration of President Donald J. Trump,” said Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary. “As we have said all along, he is not guilty.”
  • But most argued that the conduct was not sufficiently dangerous to warrant the Senate removing a president from office for the first time in history — and certainly not with an election so near. Others dismissed Democrats’ arguments altogether, insisting their case was merely an attempt to dress up hatred for Mr. Trump and his policies as a constitutional case.
  • “There will be so many who will simply look at what I am doing today and say it is a profile in courage,” Mr. Jones said before the vote. “It is not. It is simply a matter of right and wrong.”
  • The possibility of impeachment has hung over Mr. Trump’s presidency virtually since it began, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, initially resisted it. After Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel who investigated Russia’s election interference in 2016 and possible collaboration with the Trump campaign, found 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump, she said impeachment was too divisive a remedy to pursue.
  • Impeachment was seriously contemplated for a president only once in the first two centuries of the American republic; it now has been so three times since the 1970s, and two of the past four presidents have been impeached.
nataliedepaulo1

Comey's Testimony Sharpens Focus on Questions of Obstruction - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-legal-comey-hearing.html

politics

shared by nataliedepaulo1 on 09 Jun 17 - No Cached
  • WASHINGTON — If one believes James B. Comey’s account of his encounters with President Trump, it could present a prosecutable case of obstruction of justice, several former prosecutors said Thursday.
  • “My supposition as a prosecutor would be that Flynn has something on the president,” she added. “You will recall that Flynn asked for immunity, saying that he has a story to tell. Perhaps the president believed that ending the investigation meant that Flynn would never tell that story. I assume investigators will be delving into this, as it is clearly relevant to whether the president acted with a corrupt intent in trying to derail the Flynn investigation.”
malonema1

Trump: Answer About Comey Tapes Coming 'In the Very Near Future' | Politics | US News - 0 views

www.usnews.com/...coming-in-the-very-near-future

trump politics comey

shared by malonema1 on 10 Jun 17 - No Cached
  • Trump: Answer About Comey Tapes Coming ‘In the Very Near Future’
  • President Donald Trump on Friday said he would soon reveal whether recordings of his conversations with former FBI Director James Comey existed, leveraging his skills as a showman to heighten anticipation on one of Washington's most burning questions. "Well, I'll tell you about that maybe sometime in the very near future," Trump said in response to a reporter's question during a White House press conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis. Asked later by another reporter whether he was hinting at the existence of such tapes, which he suggested in a tweet last month he might possess, Trump was again cagey.
  • "No collusion, no obstruction," Trump said, adding of Comey, "he's a leaker." "Yesterday showed no collusion, no obstructions – we are doing really well," he said, again blaming his political opponents for ginning up a non-existent scandal to distract from their electoral failures. "That was an excuse by the Democrats who lost an election that some people think they shouldn't have lost," he said.
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