The Trump Crime Family

sambuca said:

I thought Cohen he said he had no knowledge that Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia.

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I assume you didn't watch. He claimed he had no direct knowledge of collusion (undefined) but had his suspicions. But as I said, he confirmed he was working on the Moscow deal the whole time with Trump's knowledge and input, he confirmed that he heard Stone talk to Trump about the Wikileaks email dumps in advance, he confirmed he thought Jr was setting up the meeting with the Russians in New York. As long as you don't consider any of those things "collusion" because they aren't directly talking about "we are going to help you win the election", then yes. For you, those dots don't add up to anything. For other people they do. Remember that he was specifically told he wasn't allowed to talk about Russia details, so this is the stuff that was generic enough and already known enough that he was allowed to talk about it.

One of the things I liked about his testimony was he was fairly careful not to get out over his skis. He had all kinds of opportunities to say damaging things about Trump that would have dominated coverage for several days if not weeks, but didn't do it. That was a huge problem for the GOP strategy of "everything you say is a lie and you can't be trusted". If that's true, then by denying it, Cohen was actually saying Trump and Russia directly colluding quid pro quo was true, Trump beats his wife, Trump has a love child, etc. I understand why they went with that tactic (although refusing to defend Trump in any way didn't seem tactically sound) but I don't think it was as effective as they would have liked.

As for the dog and pony aspect of it, that is an issue with the open hearings. The closed hearings tend to be more serious - which is maybe why the Republican members mostly didn't bother to show up. Since they don't have a defense, they were only playing for cameras. Even the open hearing gave us what --- a half dozen to a dozen new Trump crimes to look into? A list of witnesses to call to verify those allegations Information that there are still ongoing investigations Cohen is helping with.

These things are an ongoing process. I am not sure why people think it will be a 1 hour meeting and boom, everything solved. This isn't a courtroom drama.

Valcazar said:

That was a huge problem for the GOP strategy of "everything you say is a lie and you can't be trusted".

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I wonder, does anyone else (besides you) know about that "GOP strategy"? I have not watched the entire hearings, just saw a few clips, so I could have easily missed it. The few GOP reps that I heard were indeed saying that Cohen can't be trusted, but no one claimed that everything he says is a lie. They were in effect saying that his testimony can not be relied upon, as he is a known liar, and so anything he says may be a lie. Do you by any chance see the distinction?

As this ridiculous assertion is the basis of your "reasoning" (FLOABW), the rest of your post can (and should) be disregarded.

The great things about conspiracy theories is you can keep overlaying conjecture on top of conjecture to get the answer you want. It's an awful lot to ask us to suspend disbelief that a bunch of yahoo, partisan Congressmen are smarter than the Mueller team and are going to uncover some wrongdoing with Russia that Mueller missed.

Throw in Cohen's attorney Lanny Davis a Clintonite of the first order and you have your show. Ta-daaa!!!

I like how you admit you didn't watch it. But as you yourselves pointed out, the argument the GOP made was he could not be trusted because of his prior history. They even brought a "Liar, liar, pants on fire" sign. However, by being measured in his responses, and not pursuing every wild conspiracy theory, Cohen weakened that approach. Since they didn't even once try to defend Trump, the gamble didn't really pay off for them.

There is no conspiracy theory there, anyone watching saw that dynamic play out.

More interesting is the set of sentencings over the end of the week. Manafort ended up with 7.5 years or so, thanks to Judge Ellis rejecting the sentencing guidelines.
I honestly have no idea what to expect out of Flynn's after the last time, and I tend to lean toward Roger Stone having put his foot in his mouth.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/vi...o_get_him.html

"We are not the reservoir of objectivity that I think we were," Koppel lamented in the interview.

"We have things appearing on the front page of the New York Times right now that never would have appeared 50 years ago. Analysis, commentary on the front page," Koppel said.

This is the same Koppel who told Hannity directly to his face that he (Hannity) was bad for America.

It's kind of curious that this thread has quieted down just as the Mueller probe started to wind down. As far as Flynn, I have a feeling that whatever is revealed by Mueller won't be anything involving Trump. Just a hunch.

Don't worry conspiracy theories never die. They just get retold and retold. Similar to the JFK assassination, you can believe whatever you want to believe happened during the 2016 election. The difference is Oliver Stone won't wait thirty years to film a fictional account.

Interesting summary by Barr indeed. The biggest shocker in all of this is how Mueller appears to have punted on the issue of obstruction. When a guy goes on to inflict a self wound on national TV to say he fired the FBI director because of the "Russia thing" and get rid of his attorney general for recusing himself, the evidence was in plain sight. But either way I abide by the findings, particularly if Barr's summary is sufficiently faithful to Mueller's words.

Carmine Falcone said:

When a guy goes on to inflict a self wound on national TV to say he fired the FBI director because of the "Russia thing" and get rid of his attorney general for recusing himself, the evidence was in plain sight.

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Obviously, Mueller must be completely blind to have missed that "evidence in plain sight". And in retrospect it is quite clear what he did wrong: he failed to consult with merb posters, especially the more knowledgeable among them (us).

Patron said:

The purpose of law enforcement is not to seize and keep assets.

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Yes, that stinks, no argument about that. In fact, I think it would be a good idea to try to figure out how that (bad joke of an) investigation came about and who exactly caused the huge bill that taxpayers must be so happy to pay. Perhaps some specific people could even be held accountable? Naaah, wishful thinking, I guess.

Carmine Falcone said:

Interesting summary by Barr indeed. The biggest shocker in all of this is how Mueller appears to have punted on the issue of obstruction. When a guy goes on to inflict a self wound on national TV to say he fired the FBI director because of the "Russia thing" and get rid of his attorney general for recusing himself, the evidence was in plain sight. But either way I abide by the findings, particularly if Barr's summary is sufficiently faithful to Mueller's words.

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I've never taken you to be 110% vested into the collusion/conspiracy theory although it had its appeal. None of us know all the backroom drama. I would say if you work at the pleasure of the President and you were trying to undermine him, the President's instincts were correct and legitimized. I keep hearing that Comey and his ego are not well-regarded within the FBI rank and file. If you allow yourself to hear the narrative of the attempt to take down Trump or at the least weaken him, you would say Comey, McCabe and Strzok were totally whacked.

Somehow the Press had convinced quite a bit of the nation, that the President is legally required to allow legacy staff to do their thing regardless of what that might be. As far as Jeff Sessions, the Press guilted him into recusing himself because he had met the Russian Ambassador which was quite common for Senators. Rod Rosenstein seemed to have taken on the job of supervising the Special Counsel with particular zeal. Not to mention his signature on FISA warrants. I'm guessing he resigns fairly shortly. Don't worry about him. He will go work for a prominent N.Y.-Washington law firm. There are no losers in the Washington Swamp.

Looking ahead the House committees will likely move on to the following:

The Trump Foundation
The Inaugural Committee spending
The Stormy/McDougal pay-offs
Tax evasion

Perhaps I'm missing something. I think the first three will not lead to impeachment. Perhaps some fines. Tax evasion makes me think of statue of limitation. We do know a high net worth individual is probably audited frequently. I actually don't see how Trump's taxes leads to impeachment. More than likely, the House Dems will just use all of the above to try to embarrass Trump.

Crystal ball tells me that in October, 2020 Adam Schiff will be saying there is a bombshell revelation coming.

Moi fait longtemp que je le dis que Trump est un innocent

cheers,

Quoi! Sérieux?

jalimon said:

My best bet is Russian bank are supporting too many of his investment, and he knows too well Putin has all the leverage he wants on that.

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How do you say sarcastic in French? Sarcastique ??
Sambuca after all these months you still haven`t figured out Jal`s sense of humour ?

Vous parlez de trahison,
vous parlez de la guillotine pour l'accusé ou vous-même.

cloudsurf said:

How do you say sarcastic in French? Sarcastique ??
Sambuca after all these months you still haven`t figured out Jal`s sense of humour ?

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Hehe well Cloud to tell you the truth I was not even sure all french merbite would get the joke either

Sambuca in french slang when someone does something idiot we say "criss d'innocent"

You know in all honesty, no sarcasm I swear, I do think Trump makes a lot sense for many of his policy. He would have been a much more successful businessman and president if he was not a arrogant idiot bulier and liar.

Cheers,

The media in the US is quiet, wonder why? Movie stars freaking out, perfect.

No more Trump crisis I am worried the economy will go down deeper now.

^^^^^ Assume you mean in Canada..