The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    DoJ Craziness Thread

    By PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/07/2020 - 2:59pm |

    DoJ claims they can't release Mueller grand jury info to House.

    DoJ starts withdrawing Flynn cases.

    What else?

    Comments


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/07/2020 - 3:26pm

    I clicked and saw the word Sullivan:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 6:35pm

    This is brilliant. Sullivan is saying "tell me more."


    by moat on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 7:11pm


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 11:24pm

    Friends of the Court to the rescue!

    I hope they videotape the explosion of Barr's brain over at DOJ. I guess Trump was right when he said:

    " A lot of things are going to be told over the next couple of weeks "


    by moat on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 8:53am

    Most important (to me)is that it seems the decision on this case is up to Sullivan and not Barr/DoJ, whatever Barr's wishes and any DoJ filings. IANAL, but it seems like it's no longer a matter of contesting parties, and instead a decided court matter fully under Sullivan's purview and no one else's, shirt of a successful appeal.

    Of course a guilty plea plus sentencing might be pardoned, but it would reflect poorly on the Doofus-un-Chief, who's been using this to slime the FBI - he would then have to rage against activist judges, despite the DoJ already signing off on this plea twice.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 9:08am

    Agreed, pardoning Flynn would be expending political capital with little quid pro quo.

    Barr was supposed to fall on the grenade for the team and prevent further judicial review. If that has the opposite effect, they will have few friends on this Supreme Court (should it go that far). Roberts has already told Trump to get off his lawn regarding judges.


    by moat on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 9:43am

    This looks to me like it's going to go on forever. Justice is there, it's just slow:


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 12:02pm

    Oh, this is different - now it's slow raking over the coals, justice style. Barr will be having 0 fun - absolutely no upside.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 1:46pm

    Correct me if I am wrong, but this is the first time Barr actually tried to remove the authority of a Judge by one his moves.

    He suppresses information. He swaps out attorneys to say stuff he wants them to say in cases. He overrides the power of Inspector Generals to run his own witch hunts in many agencies. But now he has tried to determine an outcome through a motion in court. It doesn't look like the work of a genius.

    One thing I wish to confirm is whether the withdrawal of charges by the DOJ means they have given up any grounds to submit any other motions. I have checked many law wonk sites and nobody is giving me satisfaction on that point. Maybe it so unprecedented that everybody's Westlaw program crashed.


    by moat on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 3:41pm

    Sullivan for sure suspendd further motions from the defendents. From MTWheel sounds like Barr not including transcripts he relies on, but evidence that contradicts what he's withholding doesn't bode well for further motions except a hail Mary mandamus. My shallow takeaway to date.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 4:59pm

    M Wheeler is important because she was predicting this case would end up exploding from the contradictions of each motion playing out in court for a long time. I did not notice the specific exclusion of further motions from DOJ. Where did you see that?

    The self identified Law blogs are keeping their powder dry by not commenting on the options available to the different parties. We are in a new territory.


    by moat on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 5:25pm

    Roundly criticized by 2000 former attorneys - but no amount of disapproval will away Barr from his chosen mission - to be Trump's hack. I mean, that's why he wrote that famous op-ed.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 5:28pm

    I understand the intentions of the players. Is this a response to my comment?


    by moat on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 5:39pm

    Nope, see below - had this copied, wanted to paste before disappeared.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 5:40pm

    I didn't mean to say Sullivan prevented DoJ submitting more. I simply meant they'd made a middle of it, including refusing to release the transcripts they then relied on - oops!

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/05/11/bill-barr-did-not-provide-the-most...


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/14/2020 - 5:39pm

    Next, as per the SCOTUS stopping the vote count in Florida in 2000, or disenfranchising voters due to "fraudulent voting";

    July, 2020  - Under a Trump Executive order, the DOJ has ordered that under threat of imprisonment and fines, COVID-19 death certificates must each be validated by AG Bob Barr, as misreporting by doctors and hospitals of the deaths is, according to AG Barr: 

    "a violation of the presidents rights under the 14th Amendment, and unfair to a sitting president to be associated with malfeasance and partisan attacks related to a pandemic for which he has rapidly and effectively taken every action to protect the American people. This is something for historians to decide decades hence. It is widely known that due to widespread fraudulent Democratic Party incited activity in coroner's offices, ER departments and hospitals and "out the back door" black market sellers of masks and PPE that the causes of death in many, many cases have been erroneously and disgracefully misused to attack this president".

    Robert's SCOTUS has overruled a lower court stay on the Executive Order and its enforcement, saying they traditionally "give deference to Republican presidents seeking election" and the Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case sometime in 2021 or 2022. The COVID-19 death total has since the DOJ action, entered a rapid decline in numbers.


    by NCD on Thu, 05/07/2020 - 4:51pm

    Thanks, reading the impartial court decision helps to clarify the germane issues.


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/07/2020 - 5:14pm


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 1:58am

    Sentencing turned totally personal.
    Please Trump is the name of the game.
    https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/07/top-prosecutor-in-flynn-case-ab...


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 6:19am

    Trump threatens Wray's 10 year appt


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 10:04am

    Fire him, Pence can run the FBI, HE WAS ELECTED!.

    Trump needs to clean out whoever is sending out all those food stamps too. Nobody can eat that much, many, many many billions wasted COULD BE USED ON PAINTING THE WALL!


    by NCD on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 11:12am

    "We don't need no jalapeños. We don't need no guacomol..."


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 11:29am


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 11:28am

    I have no inclination to defend Trump whom I despise or Barr or anybody else that comes to mind in the current administration.  I also see no reason to give any benefit of doubt to the spawn of J. Edgar Hoover. The story of Flynn is distorted greatly in different directions depending on which side is telling but is only one part of a bigger story, one which is not as simple and cut and dried as so many would have it.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 12:30pm

    So you've got a new bromance with Turley, who can't seem to find anything wrong with the new National Security Advisor lying to the incoming President about his lobbying activity with Turkey (including discussing kidnapping a US resident out of the country), along with telling our major enemy that it's ok they interfered with the election - the sanctions the current President has on will be dropped ASAP after inauguration.

    And then Flynn got a sweetheart deal to just admit he lied - no jail time, a gentleman's agreement to leave his son alone - which he agreed to *TWICE* under oath to a judge - but then decided to get a new attorney to contest it, and when she went utter batshit crazy, refiling the same inane Brady shit over and over, Barr decided to step right in and call it quits - snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

    So, Lulu's back, eh? Just remember, it's over when it's over - there's still a rather pissed off judge involved, and they're not going to snow him likely.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 12:49pm

    Sullivan specifically made him repeat his guilty plea in open court to put the kibosh on this sort of bullshit. And now the DOJ becomes a coconspirator.
     


    by moat on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 3:45pm

    The important charges of the Turley article, to my mind, are that the reporting of the issue by CNN is bad and that the FBI had some bad actors driving the prosecution who were given a pass. I do not believe that either charge qualifies as bullshit since they are both self evidently true regardless any judgement of Flynn. Your mileage obviously varies.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 05/08/2020 - 9:55pm

    They let McCabe dangle for over a year whether they would charge, as Trump's revenge - he had to sue them to shit or get off the pot.

    Marcy talks about Years thinking the Flynn-Russian ambassador meeting was no big deal - and then she saw the actual content of th meeting (whe e *Fynn* brought up loosening Obama's sanctions), and that's when they went from closing down to re-upping and warning people - hardly a vendetta "out to get Flynn" as Team Trump contends.

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/05/08/damning-new-details-from-mary-mcco...

    (More articles there - you could try reading non-apologist sites)


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 3:35am

    And here's a Marcy Wheeler piece showing how McCabe was railroaded - fired because they were assured he would be convicted, except he had reasonable explanations, so charges were dismissed but still they refused to clear him , leaving him in limbobut you, Lulu, are happy to pander Turley's bullshit because you've found another Russian supporting line if propaganda to support - predictability is certainly one of your strong suits. That people like Turley subsume their law credentials to helping these fuckers break legal precedent and policy is certainly an awful aspect of the current Trump-Barr full court press, but no need to follow blindly along with this crap.

    Read it -it's thorough, unlike the Turley hatchet job.

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/02/16/the-stakes-and-misinformation-abou...

     Report can only make such a claim because it entirely left out the testimony of one of the most central players, Kortan. And as McCabe has made clear, in the OPR adjudication, his team did not get the exculpatory information involving Kortan until two days before the final decision.

    Reports of why the grand jury refused to indict have pointed to Kortan’s testimony, and it’s clear why: because his testimony totally undermines the conclusions of the IG Report and therefore any basis to indict him.

    Most importantly, McCabe submitted an email showing that he informed Comey (and some of the other senior FBI people whom the IG Report claimed didn’t know he was involved) that he was involved in the WSJ story.

    With the declination of McCabe, DOJ has admitted that a key reason they claim to have relied on (a claim McCabe disputes) on rushing McCabe’s firing is false: he’s not likely to face prison time, because a grand jury won’t even indict him. And that may increase the chances that McCabe will get to prove precisely why he was rushed out the door with Trump screaming about him all the way.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 3:47am


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 8:30am

    Toobin summarizes

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-michael-flynn-dismissal...


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 9:03am

    BMaz summarizes - tl;dr sentencing/sanctions still up to Judge Sullivan, he will not be cowed, he handled the Stevens case, we shall see.

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/05/07/trump-pride-and-doj-prejudice-the-...


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 9:14am

    Not that it matters, but just for fun, I ran across confirmation that There's always a tweet:

     


    by artappraiser on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 2:02am

    More Marcy timeline

    The Priestap notes that the frothy right is pointing to as proof of abuse makes quite clear that the point of the interview was not to create a perjury trap, but to see whether Flynn would be honest about his relationship with the Russians.

    Bob Litt, who (per these same records) was the first person to raise the Logan Act, analyzed the ways that Timothy Shea’s motion conflicts with the FBI’s DIOG. He described the interview to be, first and foremost, about counterintelligence.

    The attorney general and his minions are making the astounding argument that when the FBI—aware of extensive Russian interference in U.S. politics in order to benefit the Trump campaign—learned that the incoming national security advisor requested that Russia not respond to the sanctions that were imposed in response to that interference and then lied to other government officials about that, it could not even “collect information or facts to determine” whether this created a counterintelligence threat. This cannot be right. Even if the prior investigation into Flynn had been closed, which it had not, these circumstances at a minimum justified an assessment under standard FBI policy.

    In fact, the department’s motion virtually concedes the point. It dismisses Flynn’s lies to Pence and Spicer by saying that “[h]ad the FBI been deeply concerned about the disparities between what they knew had been said on the calls and the representations of Vice President Pence or Mr. Spicer, it would have sought to speak with them directly, but did not.” But that would be a kind of investigative activity, and under the DIOG, either the FBI has a basis to investigate or it doesn’t. If the facts justified talking to Pence about Flynn, they justified talking to Flynn.

    Once you have a predicated investigation into 18 USC 951, adding another potential crime (the Logan Act) does not change that the investigation into 18 USC 951 remained, per Shea, ongoing.

    In his interview, Barr misrepresents the record to claim what Flynn did — undermining the punishment imposed on a hostile foreign country after they attacked us — was “laudable.”

    They did not have a basis for a counterintelligence investigation against Flynn at that stage, based on a perfectly legitimate and appropriate call he made as a member of the transition. So.

    [snip]

    Let me say that, at that point, he was the designated national security adviser for President-Elect Trump, and was part of the transition, which is recognized by the government and funded by the government as an important function to bring in a new administration. And it is very typical, very common for the national security team of the incoming president to communicate with foreign leaders.

    And that call, there was nothing wrong with it whatever. In fact, it was laudable. He– and it was nothing inconsistent with the Obama administration’s policies. And it was in U.S. interests. He was saying to the Russians, you know, “Don’t escalate.” And they asked him if he remembered saying that, and he said he didn’t remember that.

    There are several problems with this claim.

    For starters, at first, Mary McCord agreed with this take. She dismissed the call for the same reasons Barr still does — that this was just the typical communication between an incoming national security team and foreign leaders.

    Two things changed her mind.

    The first was the evidence that Flynn was lying about what he did to others in the incoming Administration.

    It seemed logical to her that there may be some communications between an incoming administration and their foreign partners, so the Logan Act seemed like a stretch to her. She described the matter as “concerning” but with no particular urgency. In early January, McCord did not think people were considering briefing the incoming administration. However, that changed when Vice President Michael Pence went on Face the Nation and said things McCord knew to be untrue. Also, as time went on, and then-White House spokesperson Sean Spicer made comments about Flynn’s actions she knew to be false, the urgency grew.

    It is normal for officials in incoming Administrations to reach out to foreign leaders. But it is not the norm for incoming officials to freelance, to set policy that no one else in the Administration knows about. And the public evidence at the time the FBI interviewed Flynn was that he had done this on his own and was actively hiding it form his colleagues (as indeed the current record says he was).

    The record that Barr distorted in this interview shows that FBI was in a holding pattern until there was public evidence that Flynn had lied to others in the Administration, which not only changed the calculus about warning the Administration, but created urgency to take an investigative step FBI might not otherwise have done.

    The other thing that changed McCord’s mind about whether this was the normal pre-inauguration outreach was reading the transcript.

    After reading them, she felt they were “worse” than she initially thought; she noted that her recollection of them is that Flynn proactively raised the issue of sanctions, and she feels it is hard to believe he would forget talking about something he raised himself.

    Sally Yates described Flynn make a series of asks, some of which remain classified.

    And McCord wasn’t the only one who responded that way. Once Mike Pence and Reince Priebus read the transcripts, Flynn was out the door the next day.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 4:10pm

    “And the fact that there is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free. That’s the kind of stuff where you begin to get worried that basic — not just institutional norms — but our basic understanding of rule of law is at risk. And when you start moving in those directions, it can accelerate pretty quickly as we’ve seen in other places.” - Obama

    Except I don't understand - Flynn wasn't *charged* - he pled guilty - twice, and was ready to be sentenced to *0* time, yet instead he withdrew his plea, exposing him to serving time for that perjury. Why?

    (And why can't Obama distinguish between a charge and an actual legal admission of guilt? So much sloppy legal analysis everywhere. Now extending to medical analysis.)


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 4:38am

    A couple of years ago I commented here that Obama's Spygate house of cards would collapse due to the morons who perpetrated this demonic hoax left a paper trail that couldn't be covered up or destroyed. It took too long but finally the documented evidence is flowing and much mush more is coming exposing the scum that will pay for their evil deeds.

    The snowflake rats are cornered and panicked, their heads are spinning and they spew projectile vomitus, they destroyed themselves but they won't be allowed to destroy us.

    It's a great but sad day for America! 


    by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 4:54pm

    Which documents are you referring to?


    by moat on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 5:38pm

    I suspect it has something to do with along these lines, see this thread

    https://twitter.com/wesyang/status/1259187866552369153


    by artappraiser on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 5:56pm

    You are correct. That line of thought has been going on while all this other stuff has been going on.

    But it is odd that none of that rose to the level of evidence in actual cases in front of actual judges.

    And it still has not.

    Edit: As a challenge to a troll, asking a question is not an admission to a confusion about the sources of their information.


    by moat on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 6:19pm

    I just glanced at the Drumpf's tweets and I would recommend that those into this whole story should  take a look at them too (unfortunately); he's retweeting the fellow travelers...


    by artappraiser on Sun, 05/10/2020 - 7:08am

    I see what you mean.


    by moat on Sun, 05/10/2020 - 9:45am

    "the perps must be pursed"

    "they love ruining people"

    (these from Trump suppurating COVIDIANS)  - + a sarcastic Trumptard misspelling


    by NCD on Sun, 05/10/2020 - 10:33am

    Who were you then back in the day?


    by moat on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 5:42pm

    I hear the Macedonians have regrouped. Ajde ajde, mofos. Yippie tay yay.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 6:30pm

    It just so happens that I had a friend who went back to Macedonia when the "Yugoslavia" collapse was happening.

    He returned but refused to have anything to do with his former friends.

    The limits of observation.


    by moat on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 7:24pm

    It's complex, like everything Balkans. I certainly don't mean to imply more than a minority are up to some crap. But still lives some longing for the old Tito, Milosevic and Soviet influence days.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 8:31pm

    I remember an episode in a bar on a Friday night several decades ago when one of my Polish colleagues said this:

    "The Serbs went off when you said they were Serbs."

    I thought he was nuts at the time but am coming around to his logic these days.


    by moat on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 9:06pm

    I recommend "Once There Was a Country" ("Underground"). A bit like a cultural psychiatry session?


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 9:55pm

    Are you referring to Achebe (Biafra) or Angelou (Haiti}?


    by moat on Sun, 05/10/2020 - 5:37pm

    I'm guessing a Serbian film


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 05/10/2020 - 6:21pm

    Kinda Bosnian


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 4:17am

    You kind of sound like a whiny snowflake rat. What is up with that? What happened to the Triumph Upon a America theme?

    Sad.


    by moat on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 5:45pm


    by artappraiser on Sat, 05/09/2020 - 12:21pm

    Balancing the check book I realized that I´d wasted an enormous part of  my life (who cares ? ! ) in  an effort on which my  friend Charlie would have never spent a second  . Which led to   remembering   the then local NPR scientic guy. recollecting  a one time Einstein colleague´s affectionate memory of  Einstein occasionally -saying   (I'll finally get to a point )"I have to go off and have a Tink.¨

    Barr  should go off and have aTink.

    In spades.


    by Flavius on Sun, 05/10/2020 - 12:50pm

    Einstein was capable of having a rational thought process.


    by rmrd0000 on Sun, 05/10/2020 - 1:13pm

    David Frum makes a good observation:

    Flynn’s release by Barr only strengthens the suspicion that back in December 2016, Flynn acted with Trump’s approval. Flynn’s release by Barr only strengthens the suspicion that Flynn and Kislyak were furthering a corrupt arrangement between Trump and Putin. Flynn’s release by Barr only strengthens the suspicion that the corrupt arrangement continues to this day.


    by moat on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 8:06am

    well big fucking deal, pardon my French. because if he's been getting away with it for 3 1/2 years, and continues to get away with it, we're pretty well screwed. so yeah, we can sit back gloating in that we caught the Emperor without any clothes, but I've come to the conclusion he likes showing his dick. we seem to be working with different sets of rules and different expectations.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 8:09am

    I didn't get a gloating vibe. Frum was making your point in so far as Trump/Pence doesn't cover up from the incident by denying it anymore.


    by moat on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 8:25am

    Well, I think it still revels in the feeling that, "we caught you", even though we largely knew what Trump was up to 4 years ago - we were all pretty sure Trump knew what Flynn was doing, and that his denials were about as believable as Putin not knowing Russians were in Crimea & Donbas instead of "little green men".
    Even Frum's summary about the "Russian Hoax" is misleading - we've long known how much of the important stuff was done, and the fight has been less over "did he do anything wrong?" or even much "how did they dod it" and much more over "give me the goddamn documents, you anti-Constitutional fucks" to prove it. Sadly their attack on the Constitution, stonewalling, obstructing justice, destroying evidence, and simply breaking every political & legal norm they can is being interpreted as somehow a draw, as if they'd played us to a tie in chess rather than overturned the board and locked one of the judges in a closet. (yeah, take that for an allusion to Anthony Kennedy, or any number of cases of judicial foul play). Think back to how many investigations we thought were being spun off in 2017-2018, and how many (SDNY? Maria Butina & NRA? Erik Prince's perjury? what UAE was going meeting with Trump in Dec 2016?) were pre-empted & buried.
    They've got us watching government like a Netflix series - simply observers, price takers in this business of government, "shocked" insomuch as we'll watch the next episode to see how it turns out (& what next outrage supersedes this one), but not so far as we'll have any influence on the script, turn it back into one of Law & Order.


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 8:48am


    by PeraclesPlease on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 11:42am

    According to CNN:

    Shea is a registered lawyer in the District of Columbia but hasn't been registered in the DC District Court, the trial-level federal court for the area, explaining at least in one aspect why he personally couldn't submit the document electronically on Thursday.

    That suggests Shea is going to have to locate somebody other than himself in order to refile.


    by moat on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 12:28pm

    Obama says "There is no precedent that anybody can find for someone who has been charged with perjury just getting off scot-free."  “The rule of law is at risk”. 


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 9:05pm

    Note first comment on Turley's article:

    Ben says:

    May 11, 2020 at 3:33 PM

    It’s astonishing to me that Professor Turley would omit the critical factual difference between Stevens and Flynn — namely, that Flynn pleaded guilty. That fact distinguishes all of the cited case law and it’s embarrassing (not to mention dishonest) for Turley to draw any analogies. Obama might have said “charged with perjury” instead of “pleaded guilty”; I’m sure he would own up to the imprecision. It’s clear what he meant. I imagine that eight years of being president could dull his mind to such details.


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 9:16pm

     Read the very next post on that site.  we can afford to talk about the dirty little secrets over here in a corner of the electroverse. I am going to vote along with everyone here for Biden so no harm done, even if there is something we would rather not consider or if we do would rather not face..


    by A Guy Called LULU on Mon, 05/11/2020 - 9:47pm


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 3:32am

    Hey Lulu, Jared lied to Mueller, which Turley will ignore (along with Russian meetings in Trump Tower).

    How many heads can 1 person put in the sand? (kind of a Catholic question)

    https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/05/jared-kushner-rick-gerson-r...


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 5:18am

    I don't want to talk about Flynn or any of this, just not that interested.

    I was just glancing at your link and I saw right away: it is either a mistake or intentionally dishonest legal analysis. The topic of your link is not actually getting into all of this on this thread, it is a specific argument about a specific Barack Obama statement, that Obama's statement is incorrect. That there is precedent. And that is sloppy and wrong! It's a laundry list of citations that don't apply! It's the old switcheroo.

    Though he's been out of practice a while, I would just like to remind: Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004 after a Harvard Law Degree, so Turley's not dealing with chopped liver opponent here.

    How often does Turley do this? I don't really know and don't care. But if I were you, I would take his analysis with a skeptical eye. If one were judging by this post of his, looks like it's meant to feed a fan base raw meat without rigorous thinking and not up to the par of debate with colleagues of equal training. To get more clicks leading to more media appearances, maybe, just spit something out that looks like you know what you are doing, but it's bullshit.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 8:32am

    I don't want to talk about Flynn or any of this, just not that interested.

    You didn't really need to post a long comment emphasizing that you do not want to hear opinions or facts that you don't want to hear, that has long been apparent. As a person so obviously interested in politics and invested in offering an opinion on every subject here brought up at Dag as well as on most of the participants and offering so many news links from sources which have at times been absolutely wrong in either their facts or their interpretation, if not both, I posit that there are people with whom you disagree who are telling stories that you really need to hear. 

    You criticize Turley’s analysis and opinion because he says that Obama is mistaken and wrong on a point of law and derisively question who is Turley to criticize a Constitutional scholar of Obama’s stature. Turley’s entire career has been as a Professor of Constitutional law, rather than a short lived position used as a stepping stone to another career, and he is a lawyer who has actually litigated very many cases in which Constitutional questions were relevant.  Of course none of that guarantees that he is right on the point in question but it does give him standing to speak on the subject and for his opinions to be considered, IMO.  At times, maybe just when it fits your mood or supports your position, you seem to agree that hearing dissenting voices is worthwhile.  

    Here’s a worthwhile Sunday read: “…nothing should temper partisanship more than an awareness that somewhere, on some issue, people with whom you disagree are telling a story that you really need to hear.”

    Posted at dagblog by AA.

    https://www.

    nytimes.com/2019/07/27/opi

     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 12:35pm

    you derisively question who is Turley to criticize a Constitutional scholar of Obama’s stature. 

    Oh yeah, where did I do that? Nope not me. Reading comprehension, it's fundamental.

    I was actually saying that Obama is nearly up to Turley's stature. Though he has not been active of late in the field, Certainly an Obama is more up to challenge a Turley or vice versa about what is a danger to the rule of law than a Guy Called Lulu.

    I was simply pointing out that the link you wanted to share with all of Dagblog, I took you up on it and looked at it. And it looked to me like this was a very sloppy post by Turley in response to a leaked Obama comment. And that commenter "Ben" caught him at the sloppiness right away.

    Turley is capable of better. I am sure there is a valid legal argument about what Obama said. But this time Turley suspiciously did not, throwing out a bogus "both sides do it" argument based on faux comparatives.

    THAT IS ALL. Nothing else. If you don't like people looking at your links, don't share em, pick em more carefully.

    Edit to add: Lawyers do this all the time with plebes in non-political circumstances, I learned through actual experience. They will throw out a lot of case law quotes that have nothing to do with nothing to impress you to back off. All you have to do is realize a lot of it is just bogus bluster to get you to back off from questioning them.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 1:17pm

    Apologies if I misinterpreted and then misrepresented your notions of Turley.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 2:14pm

    Turley didn't give any fucking facts - he pointed to 2 docs of 100+ pages each as if they could speak for themselves. He can go fuck himself - he's a lying colluding hack.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 2:17pm

    Here's some timelines that Turley will try to ignore

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2017/05/09/the-curious-timing-of-flynn-events...


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 1:46am

    Flynn pleaded guilty *twice*.

    Besides not saying he was working for Turkey, more important is he lied to the FBI about his assurances to the country that just hacked us to circumvent sanctions the then-Administrion had just put on said rogue power. Of course Lulu loves all things Russia, but for most of us surreptitiously helping out the Russian Ambassador earns a file in the intelligence community. That partisans are trying to make this a scandal is itself scandalous.

    BTW, the Russians liked having Flynn at that Moscow dinner table with Jill Stein, Putin, and other heavies. Why'd they bother? More than just optics? Guess the plane tab earned Kislyak a (collusionary)) heads-up at least.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 1:58am

    What is disingenuous or ignorant in Turley's citing of the Stevens case as an example to cast aspersion upon Obama's statement is that the Stevens case is specifically referred to in Judge Sullivan's December letter in response to a request to dismiss:

    Mr. Flynn’s requested relief is dismissal of this case. See Def.’s Reply, ECF No. 133 at 36; see also Def.’s Sur-Surreply, ECF No. 135 at 17. He seeks dismissal of the charges against him and the entire prosecution for government misconduct. E.g., Def.’s Reply, ECF No. 133 at 7, 23 n.15, 36; Def.’s SurSurreply, ECF No. 135 at 17. The government disagrees. See Gov’t’s Surreply, ECF No. 132 at 12-15. This case is not United States v. Theodore F. Stevens, Criminal Action No. 08–231(EGS), the case that Mr. Flynn relies on throughout his briefing. In that case, the Court granted the government’s motion to dismiss, and the government admitted that it had committed Brady violations and made misrepresentations to the Court. In re Special Proceedings, 825 F. Supp. 2d 203, 204 (D.D.C. 2011) (Sullivan, J.). Even if Mr. Flynn established a Brady violation in this case, dismissal would be unwarranted because “[t]he remedy for a Brady violation is retrial, not dismissal.” United States v. Borda, 941 F. Supp. 2d 16, 19 n.1 (D.D.C. 2013) (citing Pettiford, 627 F.3d at 1228). “[D]ismissal is appropriate only as a last resort, where no other remedy would cure prejudice against a defendant.” Pasha, 797 F.3d at 1139. [my emphasis]

    Obama spoke in a loose fashion but the Judge  has not. He is focused upon a defendant who has pleaded guilty twice in a plea bargain deal who wants to keep the benefits of that deal after reneging on the plea itself. That is why Brady violations (should they prove to exist) only kick the matter to a retrial.


    by moat on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 1:46pm

    A retrial would give the DoJ the option to then not retry, no?
    Somehow we passed retrial when Flynn pled guilty twice, in my ignorant opinion.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 2:09pm

    I don't know how the retrial process would work where the original case was brought by the Special Counsel Mueller along with Van Grack and Ahmad. I take your point that the present DOJ are not going to put their best people on it.

    But the Plea Agreement itself has some consequences (without regard to outcomes) that explains why Sullivan keeps rolling his eyes at many of  the Defendants' arguments. It is worth reading the whole document to appreciate how deeply the people who drafted it did not want to be fucked by persons planning on ditching it later. Here is one slice of the pie:

    Your client agrees that, should the conviction following your client's plea of guilty pursuant to this Agreement be vacated for any reason, any prosecution, based on the conduct set forth in the attached Statement of the Offense, that is not time-barred by the applicable statute of limitations on the date of the signing of this Agreement (including any counts that the Government has agreed not to prosecute or to dismiss at sentencing pursuant to this Agreement) may be commenced or reinstated against your client, notwithstanding the expiration of the statute of limitations between the signing of this Agreement and the commencement or reinstatement of such prosecution. It is the intent of this Agreement to waive all defenses based on the statute of limitations with respect to any prosecution of conduct set forth in the attached Statement of the Offense that is not time-barred on the date that this Agreement is signed.


    by moat on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 3:21pm

    But that's what I mean - "any prosecution may be commenced or reinstated against your client" - not only "not retried with prejudice" - prosecution stands for the most part.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 3:38pm

    That is why the charging document is separate from the plea agreement. It intentionally keeps the possibility of discovery alive in a manner that the Shea motion is trying to squash on the grounds of "materiality." 

    A retrial order will not revive the corpse but it doesn't bury the body either. Barr needs to get the bodies underground.


    by moat on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 4:03pm


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 11:40pm

    Marcy nails it again: Writ of Mandamus is filed by Flynn's lawyer.


    by moat on Wed, 05/20/2020 - 2:19pm

    Wow, Powell really likes poking the bear. Would like to see her get swatted back for a change.


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/20/2020 - 2:54pm

    Sullivan has been crafting his decisions with an eye upon the appeal process for a long time. This motion amounts to appealing a decision that has not been made yet. I wouldn't be surprised if the D.C. Courts simply respond by something like:
    "We will review the matter when the sentencing function of the court is completed."


    by moat on Wed, 05/20/2020 - 8:45pm

    Good Sullivan summation
    https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/05/13/the-legal-posture-of-the-flynn-cas...


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 3:58pm


    by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 05/13/2020 - 3:59pm

    just ran across, haven't read cause I don't want to spend a Vanity Fair click on it, so use or not:


    by artappraiser on Tue, 05/12/2020 - 1:53pm

    Did the FBI entrap Flynn? A lawyer explains motion to drop charges. This is a 20 minute video giving analysis of the law as related to the case at hand. I also recommend this one for those interested. And finally this one which is quire long but again, IMO, worth listening to. It includes a transcript.


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 9:43am

    Of course Flynn talked to Kislyak - how else was Trump going to start getting dirt on Biden?

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/05/15/schrodingers-materiality-how-to-both-sides-mike-flynn-journalism-like-a-rock-star/

    Of course it might be seen as necessary for "new information" to change the DoJ's mind actually be new.

    Bill Barr’s DOJ has this to say about whether Mike Flynn’s lies to the FBI on January 24, 2017 were material.

    It was material to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation to know the full extent of the defendant’s communications with the Russian Ambassador, and why he lied to the FBI about those communications.

    [snip]

    The defendant’s false statements to the FBI were significant. When it interviewed the defendant, the FBI did not know the totality of what had occurred between the defendant and the Russians. Any effort to undermine the recently imposed sanctions, which were enacted to punish the Russian government for interfering in the 2016 election, could have been evidence of links or coordination between the Trump Campaign and Russia. Accordingly, determining the extent of the defendant’s actions, why the defendant took such actions, and at whose direction he took those actions, were critical to the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation.

    [snip]

    As the Court has already found, his false statements to the FBI were material, regardless of the FBI’s knowledge of the substance of any of his conversations with the Russian Ambassador. See Mem. Opinion at 51-52. The topic of sanctions went to the heart of the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation. Any effort to undermine those sanctions could have been evidence of links or coordination between the Trump Campaign and Russia.

    You might be forgiven for believing that Bill Barr’s DOJ didn’t made a vigorous argument to Judge Emmet Sullivan that Flynn’s lies were material, one that remains active before Sullivan, because almost no coverage of recent events concerning Flynn accounts for the posture of the case, in which there are at least four pending decisions before Sullivan. Several of those active representations argue Flynn’s lies were material

    PS - didn't find the transcript, just a silly article by silly Glenn Greenwald.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 10:52am

    R minder - dirt is why Trump trusted Xi


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/16/2020 - 5:31am


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 11:47am

    The only transcripts of the phone calls between Flynn and Kislyak I have seen are heavily redacted. All of that sort of information, including Grand Jury testimony is hidden deeply inside Bill Barr's State.

    The whole argument around the validity for a counterintelligence investigation centers upon the Russian efforts to interfere with the election. One needs to show that was a hoax to rule out legitimate motivations to investigate the Trump campaign,  the direct benefactor of those efforts. I have not seen any arguments that the investigation of the Russian efforts was corrupt.

    If a coven of witches was trying to stop Trump from being President they should have considered doing their dirty work before he was elected. Instead, the Witch of the West, James Comey kicked the Clinton campaign in the teeth in the last hours before the election. That is why Trump approached him to see if he was one of his Fellas. If one forgets all that and shoots up a little Bleach, then Greenwald is absolutely correct. QED.

    Greenwald is disingenuous when he mentions that Flynn was not charged for being an agent of the Turks while leaving out how it was part of the plea deal:

    In consideration of your client's guilty plea to the above offense, your client will not be further prosecuted criminally by this Office for the conduct set forth in the attached Statement of the Offense.

    That overlooked bit of quid pro quo is a loose football now that the prosecution has vacated the case. To avoid monkey business with manipulating court decisions, the Guilty Plea agreement includes this:

    It is the intent of this Agreement to waive all defenses based on the statute of limitations with respect to any prosecution of conduct set forth in the attached Statement of the Offense that is not time-barred on the date that this Agreement is signed.


    by moat on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 1:09pm

    Regarding the transcripts we can't see, this opinion was put forward by Gleeson, O'Neil, and Miller:

    And the court could compel the department to reveal the one thing it has thus far refused to show — the actual evidence underlying the prosecution. To help Flynn, the department has made public documents it jealously guards in almost every other case, including confidential memos and internal deliberations. But it has balked at disclosing the transcripts of the very conversations with the Russian ambassador that Flynn admitted he lied about when the FBI interviewed him.


    by moat on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 1:22pm

    The dog that refused to bark.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 2:26pm


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 5:14pm

    Another opinion about Flynn's case and with some related commentary.

     


    by A Guy Called LULU on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 1:43pm

    "opinion"? Taibbi BS - how about seek out truth, Lulu, rather than another distorted agenda-filled crap "opinion" - it would do your soul good. you're searching for something, but I don't think you're going to find it with these idiots.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 2:05pm

    David Frum: What lies & secrets did Flynn cover up?

    https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/05/secrets-flynn-lied-con...


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 2:19pm

    David Frum's Trump primer

     


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 2:21pm

    The Turley arguments that Tabbi is referring to keep failing to mention that Flynn made a guilty plea agreement that has consequences regardless of the charges being made. There can be valid reasons to leave the agreement which is why Sullivan asked all those questions about his counsel and the process when he required Flynn to plead guilty again. The reason for that clarity is to preserve the integrity of the agreement.

    One of the points Sullivan keeps repeating in his decisions is that the plea agreement doesn't make the  charges go away if the case is dismissed for any reason. It requires the case be tried again. There are rules concerning double jeoporady. If a defendant breaks their agreement, they have not been tried yet.

    The possible contempt of court charges relate to breaking that agreement as a matter of perjury incurred to swearing to guilt and innocence in the same sentencing trial case. It has nothing to with the charges themselves.


    by moat on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 2:36pm

    Note to add:

    It is understandable that Taibbi would not be attuned to the legal niceties of the matter as he is a journalist who has been promoting the Deep State Coup narrative for some time. He looks for certain words and finds what he is looking for.

    But Turley is an actual lawyer who knows the issues I am pointing to better than this unfrozen caveman carpenter. His misrepresentations amount to dishonesty.


    by moat on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 4:13pm

    Precisely. But again, lawyers, being trained in advocacy, spin as much as pundits sometimes. It's just the sloppiness in this one example. He was basically spinning out gobbedlygook that anyone paying attention would notice. Whereas cherry picking case law to support one's case and leaving out case law that went against one's case is like: what they are trained to do.


    by artappraiser on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 4:29pm

    Uh, lawyer-as-columnist/analyst is not same as lawyer for the defense.
    Should be much more 360-degree exploration, not a full biased tilt.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 4:39pm

    The balancing point between your and Peracles' observations is the problem of arguments based upon authority. When someone is advocating for somebody but not admitting to that intention, the use of one's "qualifications" become suspect. "I am a doctor and telling you to take this drug" is different from "I am your neighbor and have been taking this drug and it has been great."

    Once it has been demonstrated that the doctor is actually selling the drug, that should put the kibosh on the whole "Doctor" thing. But in our public discourse, that sort of disqualification is not a simple result.


    by moat on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 5:30pm

    Good summation.


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/16/2020 - 2:21am

    Haven't watched this, just posting it for y'all cause it looks like it might keep ya busy laugh


    by artappraiser on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 1:59pm

    Thanks, but I'm diving into 14 episodes of Berlin Alexanderplatz followed by a Shoah marathon.

    Someone clue me in how it was.


    by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 2:11pm

    David Rohde has a new piece on Barr's overall impact @ The New Yorker, comes highly recommended; I ran across not because Maddow posted it but because Lara Rozen retweeted Maddow:


    by artappraiser on Fri, 05/15/2020 - 9:57pm

    Bannon's collusion script


    by PeraclesPlease on Sat, 05/16/2020 - 5:45pm

    Aaron Blake @ WaPo via MSN so no paywall:


    by artappraiser on Mon, 05/18/2020 - 7:16pm

    Bad Analysis - no, Barr just largely said he's going to treat any criminal accusations of Trump as nonsense, even as he has an investigator spreading a wide net over possible Obama, Biden & staff actions for any possible questionable activities whatsoever. It's 5 1/2 months until election day, so there's no time to actually take any possible charge to court, but plenty of time to dig up accusations as dirt to taint Biden & Obama's administration.
    Note that Barr is not condemning Trump's digging for dirt on Biden in Ukraine and China, the former for which Trump was impeached and held a kangaroo court in the Senate just 3 1/2 months ago.

    "And what happened to the president and I’ve said this many times, what happened to the president in the 2016 election and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent. It was a grave injustice and it was unprecedented in American history. The law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president."

    The proper investigative and prosecutive standards of the department of justice were abused, in my view, in order to reach a particular result. We saw two different standards of justice emerge, one that applied to President Trump and his associates and the other that applied to everybody else. We can’t allow this ever to happen again. The Durham investigation is trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and it will determine whether there were any federal laws broken. And if there were, those who broke the laws will be held to account....

    "Now under the longstanding standards of the department, criminal charges are appropriate only when we have enough evidence to prove each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt." - notice that Barr is doing a bait-and-switch - criminal charges follow an investigation, and the Durham investigation is decidedly a *CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION* - while Mueller's investigation of Trump Tower meetings with Russians and Flynn lying about his meeting with Kislyak and Erik Prince & Jared setting up back channels with Russia and Trump operative Roger Stone coordinating Hillary email leaks with Wikileaks & Guccifer and Manafort giving WI/PA/MI/MN polling data to Kilimnik while Maria Butina was fluffing the NRA wasn't just inconclusive but "baseless".

    Feel the unlevel playing field. Yet our stupid gobsmacked press falls for it again.
    =============================================

    And secondly, President Trump has recently said that he wants to see the justice department prosecute figures of the Obama administration, president Obama and Joseph Biden for what he calls crimes. Is that something the DOJ will do.

    William Barr: (22:48)
    Okay. Let me ask the director to respond to the first question and then I’ll come back and answer the second.

    William Barr: (23:51)
    Pete, I’m not going to comment on what the president or vice president Biden for that matter, say in connection with their campaigns. But I will address the role of the department of justice. I think as you know, I’ve commented since I have been attorney general and even during my confirmation hearings that over the past few decades, there have been increasing attempts to use the criminal justice system as a political weapon. The legal tactic has been to gin up allegations of criminality by one’s political opponents based on the flimsiest of legal theories. This is not a good development. This is not good for our political life, and it’s not good for the criminal justice system. And as long as I’m attorney general, the criminal justice system will not be used for partisan political ends. And this is especially true for the upcoming elections and in November.

    William Barr: (25:07)
    We live in a very divided country right now, and I think that it is critical that we have an election where the American people are allowed to make a decision, a choice between President Trump and vice president Biden based on a robust debate of policy issues. And we cannot allow this process to be hijacked by efforts to drum up criminal investigations of either candidate. And I’m committed that this election will be conducted without this kind of interference. Any effort to pursue an investigation of either candidate has to be approved by me. And what happened to the president and I’ve said this many times, what happened to the president in the 2016 election and throughout the first two years of his administration was abhorrent. It was a grave injustice and it was unprecedented in American history. The law enforcement and intelligence apparatus of this country were involved in advancing a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against the president.

    William Barr: (26:29)
    The proper investigative and prosecutive standards of the department of justice were abused, in my view, in order to reach a particular result. We saw two different standards of justice emerge, one that applied to President Trump and his associates and the other that applied to everybody else. We can’t allow this ever to happen again. The Durham investigation is trying to get to the bottom of what happened, and it will determine whether there were any federal laws broken. And if there were, those who broke the laws will be held to account. But this cannot be and it will not be a tit for tat exercise. We are not going to lower the standards just to achieve a result. The only way to stop this vicious cycle, the only way to break away from a dual system of justice is to make sure that we scrupulously apply a single and proper standard of justice for everybody.

    William Barr: (27:40)
    Now under the longstanding standards of the department, criminal charges are appropriate only when we have enough evidence to prove each element of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt. That is the standard we’re applying. Now I have a general idea of how Mr. Durham’s investigation is going and as I have indicated, some aspects of the matter are being examined as potential crimes. But we have to bear in mind what the Supreme Court recently reminded us of in the bridge gate case. The court said there, there’s a difference between an abuse of power and a federal crime. Not every abuse of power, no matter how outrageous, is necessarily a federal crime. Now as to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement, based on the information I have today, I don’t expect Mr. Durham’s work will lead to a criminal investigation of either man. Our concern over potential criminality is focused on others. Thanks for your question, Pete. The next question.


    by PeraclesPlease on Tue, 05/19/2020 - 6:29am


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/21/2020 - 2:02am


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/21/2020 - 2:10am


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/21/2020 - 2:19am

    Flynn's call was worse than thought - much worse.

    https://www.emptywheel.net/2020/05/09/the-logan-act-is-just-the-cherry-o...


    by PeraclesPlease on Thu, 05/21/2020 - 3:22am

    thread complaining about Jonathan Turley selling out his reputation lying and misrepresenting for god knows what reason by Walter Shaub who was with the Office of Gov. Ethics in various positions, including director, from 2006 thru 2017


    by artappraiser on Thu, 05/21/2020 - 5:14pm