is it a stretch to say barr is guilty of coverups?

[aubiefifty 16,760]

the mueller report basically is supposed to be handed off to congress so they can do their thing with the investigation. so barr basically lying to the american people about the reports conclusions as well as redacting a ton of info that by law congress is supposed to be able to see so they can come to their own conclusions just seems iffy to me. what do you guys think?

  my personal opinion is barr should be removed from office. i think he is a disgrace and is acting under orders from trump. he turned his back on the truth AND the american people. maybe i am missing something?

[AUDub 11,147]

It’s a stretch to say he outright lied. Stunning lack of candor is a fair description though. 

[homersapien 11,366]

He totally misrepresented what Mueller concluded. That's close enough to lying for me.

[DKW 86 7,419]

3 hours ago, AUDub said:

It’s a stretch to say he outright lied. Stunning lack of candor is a fair description though. 

Pretty good stuff. Meanwhile, Trump endured 30 months of lies and smears and half-half-half-half truths. The bottom line is the same and I think and respect Pelosi on this one, we don’t have time to do investigations and impeach. Any more investigations are going to look like piling on. Trump is already going to make “witch hunt” a buzz word for 2020. We have to beat him at the ballot box. He already looks like a sympathetic victim to many people. We need to focus on issues which the American People want. Look at Bernie Sanders on Fox. He was warmly received there. Move on and win.   

[AUDub 11,147]

3 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

Pretty good stuff. Meanwhile, Trump endured 30 months of lies and smears and half-half-half-half truths. The bottom line is the same and I think and respect Pelosi on this one, we don’t have time to do investigations and impeach. Any more investigations are going to look like piling on. Trump is already going to make “witch hunt” a buzz word for 2020. We have to beat him at the ballot box. He already looks like a sympathetic victim to many people. We need to focus on issues which the American People want. Look at Bernie Sanders on Fox. He was warmly received there. Move on and win.   

Were he not president, he’d likely be under indictment for obstruction right now. Make of that what you will. 

[DKW 86 7,419]

5 minutes ago, AUDub said:

Were he not president, he’d likely be under indictment for obstruction right now. Make of that what you will. 

He would be and should be. I don’t think he ever will be though. He will be tried and convicted on money laundering etc because that is the bread and butter of SDNY. 

[AUDub 11,147]

Nola laughs, but I’m not the only one that feels this way. Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/19/barr-obstruction-mueller-trump-226664

 

Quote

For nearly a month, the American public has been under the impression, thanks to a four-page "summary" by Attorney General William Barr, that Robert Mueller could not decide whether President Donald Trump had obstructed justice because of “difficult questions of law and fact.” Barr suggested that the special counsel, after 22 months of investigation, simply couldn’t make up his mind and left it to his boss to decide.

Now that we have seen almost the entire report of more than 400 pages, we know Barr intentionally misled the American people about Mueller’s findings and his legal reasoning. As a former federal prosecutor, when I look at Mueller’s work, I don’t see a murky set of facts. I see a case meticulously laid out by a prosecutor who knew he was not allowed to bring it.

Mueller’s report detailed extraordinary efforts by Trump to abuse his power as president to undermine Mueller’s investigation. The case is so detailed that it is hard to escape the conclusion that Mueller could have indicted and convicted Trump for obstruction of justice—if he were permitted to do so. And the reason he is not permitted to do so is very clear: Department of Justice policy prohibits the indictment of a sitting president.

Mueller still could have reached a conclusion regarding obstruction of justice, but he believed it would be unfair to reach a conclusion that Trump could not rebut in court. How do we know this? Because Mueller says it. If he had reached a conclusion that Trump obstructed justice, Mueller wrote, Trump could not go to court to obtain a “speedy and public trial” with the “procedural protections” afforded to a criminal defendant by the Constitution.

Though Mueller determined there was no “collusion” between the Trump campaign and the Russian government, he makes clear that proving obstruction does not require the existence of such an underlying crime. There are many reasons, including fear of personal embarrassment, to explain why the president might have tried to impede the special counsel’s investigation. “The injury to the integrity of the justice system is the same regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong,” Mueller wrote. Moreover, Mueller’s team “found multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations.”

 

 

[DKW 86 7,419]

We have the upper hand in spades w/r to issues. Win on that. Making the bastiche into anything other than a loser gives him sympathy votes. 

[AUDub 11,147]

3 minutes ago, DKW 86 said:

He would be and should be. I don’t think he ever will be though. He will be tried and convicted on money laundering etc because that is the bread and butter of SDNY. 

If it happens, it will be after he is out of office. It ultimately falls on Congress. This is a good of a road map to impeachment as they were going to get. Unfortunately, nothing will get done there. 

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

Just now, AUDub said:

If it happens, it will be after he is out of office. It ultimately falls on Congress. This is a good of a road map to impeachment as they were going to get. Unfortunately, nothing will get done there. 

If Congress was smart, they would bring Chuck Rhoades on board. Obstruction is immensely complicated due to its associated substantive technicalities. I guarantee you Rhoades is Congress' best bet. 

[AUDub 11,147]

1 minute ago, NolaAuTiger said:

If Congress was smart, they would bring Chuck Rhoades on board. Obstruction is immensely complicated due to its associated substantive technicalities. I guarantee you Rhoades is Congress' best bet. 

Good to know you have jokes. Substance isn’t really your thing. 

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

3 minutes ago, AUDub said:

Good to know you have jokes. Substance isn’t really your thing. 

Just trying to fit in. Get Rhoades on board, quickly. 

[homersapien 11,366]

1 hour ago, AUDub said:

Nola laughs, but I’m not the only one that feels this way. Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/04/19/barr-obstruction-mueller-trump-226664

 

 

Nola laughs because he can't conjure up a reasoned argument.

[DKW 86 7,419]

1 hour ago, AUDub said:

If it happens, it will be after he is out of office. It ultimately falls on Congress. This is a good of a road map to impeachment as they were going to get. Unfortunately, nothing will get done there. 

I agree, 100%. But i think that the outcome is already guaranteed. We get him out of office, he gets arrested and tried before all this gets past statute of limitations. If he makes the second term, almost everything will be off the table.

On the other hand, I dont think he really ever thought he would get elected in the first place and with his crazy policies lately, i wonder if he really wants to get re-elected.

[TexasTiger 12,831]

7 hours ago, AUDub said:

It’s a stretch to say he outright lied. Stunning lack of candor is a fair description though. 

He outright lied. But I don’t think you get more than a censure.

[DKW 86 7,419]

You cant censure a President...Where is that in the Constitution?

[AUDub 11,147]

1 hour ago, DKW 86 said:

You cant censure a President...Where is that in the Constitution?

It’s a decades old DOJ policy. The remedy is the political process of impeachment. 

Edit. Misread that. Congress can indeed censure the President. 

[DKW 86 7,419]

5 hours ago, AUDub said:

It’s a decades old DOJ policy. The remedy is the political process of impeachment. 

Edit. Misread that. Congress can indeed censure the President. 

Show me. You cannot censure a President...from all I have read, it has no legal standing and no power. I would argue that it would be challenged and overruled by SCOTUS. Where is it authorized? 

 

[TexasTiger 12,831]

10 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

Show me. You cannot censure a President...from all I have read, it has no legal standing and no power. I would argue that it would be challenged and overruled by SCOTUS. Where is it authorized? 

 

It carries no weight. Congress can vote to do it. There’s nothing to appeal.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censure_in_the_United_States

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

18 hours ago, DKW 86 said:

You cant censure a President...Where is that in the Constitution?

I think it would actually be forbidden under the Constitution, as it would likely possess every aspect of a Bill of Attainder. There is also strong SCOTUS precedent against it. 

[TexasTiger 12,831]

2 hours ago, NolaAuTiger said:

I think it would actually be forbidden under the Constitution, as it would likely possess every aspect of a Bill of Attainder. There is also strong SCOTUS precedent against it. 

It’s happened.

[AU64 10,122]

Answer to the OP Question:

Not a stretch...more like nuts....grasping at straws, or something like that.   

That was easy...

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

1 hour ago, TexasTiger said:

It’s happened.

Are you referencing Andrew Jackson in 1834? 

[NolaAuTiger 3,295]

On 4/19/2019 at 7:52 PM, AUDub said:

Congress can indeed censure the President.

The overwhelming weight of authority, including SCOTUS jurisprudence, says otherwise - at least if it is implemented with a punitive purpose or meant to be a legislative declaration of blameworthiness. Also, the one time it did happen, Bill of Attainder was not raised (but should've been). 

[DKW 86 7,419]

6 hours ago, NolaAuTiger said:

The overwhelming weight of authority, including SCOTUS jurisprudence, says otherwise - at least if it is implemented with a punitive purpose or meant to be a legislative declaration of blameworthiness. Also, the one time it did happen, Bill of Attainder was not raised (but should've been). 

My reading was that it was vacated before SCOTUS could react. Anywhere near correct? 

Any interaction between branches automatically goes back to Constitutional Empowerment, and I am choosing those words precisely. Congress is not empowered to censure a President and that is why Clinton never got censured.