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Author Topic: Trump fires FBI Director James Comey  (Read 5823 times)
Fau Teixeira
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« Reply #15 on: May 10, 2017, 04:42:15 pm »

dichotomy is the word there .. not dillema
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Spider-Dan
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« Reply #16 on: May 10, 2017, 05:11:24 pm »

It could actually be either (they are frequently interchangeable).  In this case, I'm saying that the "false dilemma" - a supposedly exclusive choice that actually isn't exclusive at all - would be how to fire Comey without firing the person in charge of the investigation.  There is no dilemma there.
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SCFinfan
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« Reply #17 on: May 13, 2017, 08:19:23 am »

Allow me to ask the following, as I haven't kept up with what is going on really.

But are we sure the prez is under investigation by the FBI?

Googled, found this: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-what-grassley-and-feinstein-said-about-trump-the-fbi-and-russia/article/2622899

After a bit of research, I grasp that Washington Examiner is probably biased, but, that doesn't make the quotations false.

Then I see this in, of all places, Vox: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/11/15625990/comey-deserved-fired-no-constitutional-crisis-liberals-hyperventilate

And while it doesn't take the same angle as the Examiner piece (i.e. Trump himself is not under investigation) it does take the tack of saying there's never been any real linkage between Trump and the Russians, and that Nixonian comparisons are out-of-bounds.

So, I don't know. I'm not a constitutional scholar, but what this seems like is a blunder executed by a political neophyte who isn't taking all the necessary precautions, and whose blunder is being taken advantage of by the decidedly liberal media.
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Sunstroke
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« Reply #18 on: May 13, 2017, 02:33:53 pm »


^^^ I do like how you note that the Washington Post is "probably biased," but nothing noted about Vox, which is "definitely" biased. In case you missed the most subtle hint, the term "liberals hyperventilate" in the URL should have been your first clue.
 ;-)

Nothing that Trump has done since taking office has been Presidential. Presidents don't lash out on Twitter at people who make fun of him. Presidents don't go to National Prayer Breakfasts and ask the country's religious leaders to pray for his reality show's ratings. Presidents don't go to a foreign country and ask their political leaders to "not build any wind farms off the coast from one of my golf courses."

Donald Trump isn't a President, despite the - questionable - election results. He holds the office, but he simply doesn't have the intellectual capacity or emotional stability necessary to do the job. Every day he sits in that chair, there's just that much more mess that we'll need to clean up once we get a real President in office.


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"There's no such thing as objectivity. We're all just interpreting signals from the universe and trying to make sense of them. Dim, shaky, weak, staticky little signals that only hint at the complexity of a universe that we cannot begin to comprehend."
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SCFinfan
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« Reply #19 on: May 13, 2017, 05:03:05 pm »

^^^ I do like how you note that the Washington Post is "probably biased," but nothing noted about Vox, which is "definitely" biased. In case you missed the most subtle hint, the term "liberals hyperventilate" in the URL should have been your first clue.
 ;-)

Washington Examiner, not WaPo.

Vox is typically liberal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox_(website)

That's what I was trying to get across when I said "[t]hen I see this in, of all places, Vox".

Nothing that Trump has done since taking office has been Presidential. Presidents don't lash out on Twitter at people who make fun of him. Presidents don't go to National Prayer Breakfasts and ask the country's religious leaders to pray for his reality show's ratings. Presidents don't go to a foreign country and ask their political leaders to "not build any wind farms off the coast from one of my golf courses."

I'm not disagreeing. I didn't vote for him. But this is off-topic to the point of the thread.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2017, 05:04:41 pm by SCFinfan » Logged
Spider-Dan
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« Reply #20 on: May 14, 2017, 02:53:09 am »

Comey was extremely careful to make sure not to specifically state whether he was or was not investigating Trump.  Such a refreshing change of heart from last year, when he was happy to explain, in great detail, every aspect of any Hillary investigation!  The People Need To Know, after all.

But ultimately, SC, your argument is really semantics.  Trump has repeatedly claimed that he himself is not under investigation, but has made no such claim about his campaign.  So firing the person investigating the actions of your campaign is a distinction without a difference.
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SCFinfan
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« Reply #21 on: May 14, 2017, 09:24:39 am »

Comey was extremely careful to make sure not to specifically state whether he was or was not investigating Trump.  Such a refreshing change of heart from last year, when he was happy to explain, in great detail, every aspect of any Hillary investigation!  The People Need To Know, after all.

But ultimately, SC, your argument is really semantics.  Trump has repeatedly claimed that he himself is not under investigation, but has made no such claim about his campaign.  So firing the person investigating the actions of your campaign is a distinction without a difference.

Semantics are, in many cases, the law. I don't doubt the veracity of your statement, but I also don't doubt a judge (or a jury) agreeing with what I wrote above. I've seen it happen before, much to my shock and amazement.
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Spider-Dan
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« Reply #22 on: May 14, 2017, 03:40:53 pm »

Let me clarify: firing someone because they are investigating your campaign is just as much of a conflict of interest and abuse of power as firing someone because they are investigating you.

It's like the difference between theft and embezzlement.  They aren't The Same Thing, but they are still both crimes.  So it doesn't make any difference to claim that Comey wasn't investigating Trump's ties to Russia but WAS investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, because Trump firing him over either one of those things is still obstruction of justice.
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SCFinfan
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« Reply #23 on: May 14, 2017, 06:22:24 pm »

Let me clarify: firing someone because they are investigating your campaign is just as much of a conflict of interest and abuse of power as firing someone because they are investigating you.

It's like the difference between theft and embezzlement.  They aren't The Same Thing, but they are still both crimes.  So it doesn't make any difference to claim that Comey wasn't investigating Trump's ties to Russia but WAS investigating the Trump campaign's ties to Russia, because Trump firing him over either one of those things is still obstruction of justice.

It's alleged obstruction of justice. When the man is impeached and on trial before the Senate, I'll grant your point.
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Spider-Dan
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« Reply #24 on: May 14, 2017, 06:29:47 pm »

Yes, the allegations are of obstruction of justice, which is a crime.  So how does "Trump himself isn't being investigated" change the discussion?   Whether he's trying to block the investigation of himself or his campaign, either one would be the same crime.
« Last Edit: May 14, 2017, 06:31:22 pm by Spider-Dan » Logged

Phishfan
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« Reply #25 on: May 15, 2017, 10:26:32 am »

It's alleged obstruction of justice. When the man is impeached and on trial before the Senate, I'll grant your point.

OJ is not a killer  Roll Eyes
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Spider-Dan
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« Reply #26 on: May 16, 2017, 08:42:46 pm »

So while we're on the topic of obstruction of justice:

" President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

“I hope you can let this go,” the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

The existence of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.

Mr. Comey wrote the memo detailing his conversation with the president immediately after the meeting, which took place the day after Mr. Flynn resigned, according to two people who read the memo. The memo was part of a paper trail Mr. Comey created documenting what he perceived as the president’s improper efforts to influence a continuing investigation."


Remember: when Hillary's unemployed husband briefly met with the Attorney General that was not leading the investigation into her e-mails, this was a Shockingly Brazen attempt to improperly derail the FBI's case.  But when the President himself, who has the power to fire the FBI director (and did!), directly tells him to stop the investigation... move along, nothing to see here.

Can you imagine the absolute... effing... firestorm if Obama had personally met with Comey and told him to "drop this e-mail thing"?  The wailing and gnashing of teeth by Republicans standing up to this tyrant who fashions himself above the rule of law?

But We Gotta Get These Tax Cuts Done, so it's another round of "Hillary lost, get over it!" for everyone.
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CF DolFan
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« Reply #27 on: May 17, 2017, 01:25:29 am »

I realize the "unbiased" MSM is writing Trump's obituary but it looks like Comey is setting himself up for problems. Well ... if the supposed memos do exit. My feelings is that the info will be retracted or changed in a couple of days just like most things do after the damage has been done.

An attorney wrote this in a blog for Mike Huckabee today.

Serious questions about James Comey's credibility in this regard.

18 USC § 4 reads: "Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both."

This is called misprision of a felony.

Concealing knowledge of a felony and failure to report is, itself, a felony.

First, if the former FBI director was taking notes of meetings where the President had allegedly told him to drop a criminal investigation (i.e., to obstruct justice), then why did Comey wait until now to reveal this? In fact, by keeping his notes private until now, he was concealing them. Right? (That is the first element of misprision -- concealment.)

Second, if Comey did not reveal this information "as soon as possible ... to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States," then that means only one of two things ---

(A) Comey did not think the President had committed any crime, or

(B) Comey was committing a crime, himself, (i.e. misprision of a felony) in order to have something to hold over the President.

On the other hand, if he did, in fact, reveal this to a judge, or to the Attorney General, or to any other person in authority, then by revealing this information to the press, Comey may be impeding an active investigation.

So if these memos actually do exist, this does not look good for Comey. Which makes me wonder if they do, in fact, exist.

If I were Comey, I would certainly lawyer up and plead the 5th if he is called to testify before Congress.
« Last Edit: May 17, 2017, 01:31:28 am by CF DolFan » Logged

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Spider-Dan
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« Reply #28 on: May 17, 2017, 01:35:08 am »

That sounds an awful lot like more of the "The real crime was the leak!" logic that has been frequently deployed in Trump's defense.

CF, I think it's worthwhile to mention that a significant component in confirming that the aforementioned conversation was, indeed, a directive from Trump to drop the Russia investigation was... Trump firing Comey for not dropping it (which happened several months after this meeting).  So Comey could quite easily say, "I had my suspicions, but I wasn't certain if he was sincerely telling me to stop the investigation until he fired me, which made it clear that the meeting earlier was intended to dissuade me."
« Last Edit: May 17, 2017, 01:42:12 am by Spider-Dan » Logged

CF DolFan
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« Reply #29 on: May 17, 2017, 01:54:55 am »

Not at all. It looks more like a disgruntled employee who fabricated either fabricated evidence after the fact or someone who was willing to keep a felony a secret until he was fired for the very secret he was keeping. Either way it does not paint him in a "truthful" light.

If Trump was "asking" him to drop the case then he should have reported him and we all would be agreeing Trump committed a crime. As it is Comey looks like a disgruntled employee ... at least to half of society.
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