I am not a lawyer, and I’m not even really a Trump defender. I do, though, defend the Trump Voter. In light of the IG report, we are 2/3 of the to the utter, complete vindication of the Trump Voter. Durham will bring it home with the results of his investigation… But I have some questions and observations…
Where did you get the idea that “conservatives” oppose the exclusionary rule? I can see politicians on the right otherwise trying use it to differentiate themselves from an opponent on the left, but to ascribe opposition to the exclusionary rule to conservatism as a philosophy is simply a lazy caricature of conservatism.
I DON’T MEAN TO SHOUT BUT I STARTED AN ANSWER AND LOST IT SO I’VE TAKEN YOUR REMARKS OFF LINE TO INTERSPERSE MY REPLIES AND I MUST MAKE MY WORDS DIFFERENT FROM YOURS.
WHERE DID I GET THE IDEA?
OVER FORTY YEARS IN CRIMINAL LAW IN VARIOUS ROLES.
HAVING BEEN A JUDGE WHO HAD TO RUN IN PARTISAN ELECTIONS.
WATCHING SOME PROFESSORS ON A LIST WHERE I HAD POSTED DAILY FOR OVER TEN YEARS PUTTING TOGETHER AN AMICUS TO ATTACK MIRANDA. I KNOW THOSE GUYS AND I KNOW THEIR POLITICS.
ALL THAT SAID, DID YOU MISS MY APOLOGY JUST IN CASE I MISCHARACTERIZED SOMEBODY?
And then this:
“Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding, but Mr. Trump’s defenders have so far been limited to attacks on the process because they have been unable to attack the facts. I understand we are living in the time of post-truth politics, but don’t we need to have reliable facts undergirding the debate over whether a POTUS should be impeached and, if so, should he be removed from office?”
Have you not put the cart before the horse here? In a civil case if no facts are in dispute the plaintiff can petition for summary judgment as to how the law applies to those facts. But when facts are in dispute, you have a trial — and the “process” of the trial is necessary to the “finding” of the facts. Are you seriously arguing there are no facts in dispute here?
IT DEPENDS ON WHICH OF MANY ARTICLES ARE ON TRIAL. BUT IT’S DEFINITELY POSSIBLE TO IMPEACH THIS POTUS WITH A SUMMARY JUDGMENT IF SUCH EXISTED.
https://medium.com/@steverussell_9575/can-impeachment-be-decided-by-summary-judgment-34d14f33544b
Let’s take the Mueller Report as an example. The problem goes much deeper than the exclusionary rule; it drives all the way down to whether the investigation had a valid predicate.
WITHOUT AN EXCLUSIONARY RULE, IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHETHER “THE INVESTIGATION HAD A VALID PREDICATE.” THAT’S MY WHOLE POINT: PEOPLE WANT TO ARGUE IRRELEVANT POINTS OR THEY THINK THERE IS AN EXCLUSIONARY RULE.
Horowitz seemed to believe it did, but Durham went out of his way to point out that facts he is uncovering may suggest otherwise. If the investigation had no valid predicate, then what is there for Trump to obstruct?
CONGRESS’ DUTY TO OVERSEE EXECUTIVE FUNTIONS TO INFORM LEGISLATION AND PARTICULARLY FUNDING.
Will you point to the indictments? Let’s see, there were two: Russia’s hacking of the DNC server; and the Russian troll farm “defrauding the United States.”
As to the first (and this goes to my profession in cyber security and work as an expert witness in the field), the FBI has never had, nor do they have today, custody of the “original specimen(s)” required to authenticate the forensic image(s) supposedly showing evidence of the hack. Based on federal rules of evidence and long standing precedent, this is simply fatal. I read the entire indictment and from my perspective as an expert witness/consultant (usually at the defense table), there is not one single triable fact alleged in the indictment. The matter would frankly not make it past the preliminary hearing!
SO HOW DID MR. PAPADOPOULOS FIND OUT WHO DID THE HACK BEFORE THE FACT OF THE HACK WAS PUBLIC?
AND YOU ARE MAKING THE HOUSE PROVE TOO MUCH. IT DOES NOT MATTER WHO DID THE HACK AS LONG AS IT CAME FROM OUTSIDE THE US AND THE MATERIALS STOLEN WERE KNOWINGLY USED.
And then there was the troll farm which the Mueller report characterized as working in tandem with the Russian state. Too bad the troll farm owners showed up to defend themselves and as a result we learn not one single piece of admissible evidence exists to support that claim — to the point where the judge forbade Mueller from publicly stating anything of the sort, even though it was right there in his report! This, more than anything else, was why his testimony was such a disaster.
THEY DID NOT SHOW UP TO DEFEND. THEY SHOWED UP TO EXPLOIT FEDERAL DISCOVERY RULES. IF I WERE REPRESENTING THE GOVERNMENT, I TOO WOULD HAVE BACKED OFF UNLESS THE INDIVIDUAL DEFENDANTS WERE IN COURT.
And these are the two poles of the circus tent that was the Mueller investigation — started by the felonious leaking of memos which were classified before the ink even dried on the paper by Jim Comey. (Again, in my field we deal with classified information daily. Any notes taken of a conversation between the President and the FBI director will be considered classified at least SECRET until reviewed and determined to be otherwise. Memos are not classified because they are marked; they are marked because they are classified.)
MY OWN CLEARANCE WAS TOP SECRET-CODEWORD AND I AM NOT SIMILARLY INFORMED. BUT WHY DOES IT MATTER TO IMPEACHMENT?
So please explain where and how you have found “reliable facts undergirding the debate.”
So are we now going to appeal to the Ukraine call? You state:
“The latest fallback position is that the whistleblower who reported the Ukraine affair is anonymous. Under the Whistleblower Act, a whistleblower is always anonymous. While anonymity is supposed to protect the whistleblower, it has not stopped Mr. Trump from trashing the reputation of the unknown whistleblower or from threatening retaliation.”
I have to train on the Whistleblower Act once each year to keep my clearance, and the Whistleblower Act covers reporting misconduct in government agencies — but expressly excludes communicating classified information to Congress! Now recall, and you can confirm this by looking up the PDF of the transcript, the document is originally marked TOP SECRET//ORCON (originator controlled). This is standard procedure for a transcript of calls between the President and other heads of state. Again, these things are treated as classified before the ink is even dry, and then if necessary a review is done to determine whether they can be declassified. In this case Trump ordered the declassification of the transcript AFTER the so-called whistleblower communicated the information to Congress.
DID YOU READ THE COMPLAINT? THE WHISTLEBLOWER DID NOT QUOTE THE PHONE CALL; HE CHARACTERIZED IT BY WAY OF EXPLAINING WHAT HE WAS ALARMED ABOUT. THERE WAS SOMETHING INCLUDED WITH THE WHISTLEBLOWER’S TEXT THAT WAS CLASSIFIED BUT IT WAS ALSO SEALED. I CAN’T IMAGINE THE IG WAS NOT CLEARED AND HE CERTAINLY HAD NEED TO KNOW BECAUSE HE WAS REQUIRED TO OPINE ON THE URGENCY OF THE COMPLAINT.
ONCE MORE, THOUGH — LET THE WHISTLEBLOWER BE A LYING SCUMBAG OR A FELON, WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE UNLESS THERE IS AN EXCLUSIONARY RULE SUPPRESSING ALL EVIDENCE FOUND AS A RESULT OF TIPS BY LYING SCUMBAGS OR FELONS?
The short and sweet is the so-called whistleblower broke the law!
But let’s set that rather inconvenient fact aside.
IT MIGHT BECOME INCONVENIENT FOR THE WHISTLEBLOWER, BUT I CAN’T SEE ANY INCONVENIENCE TO THE IMPEACHMENT…..UNLESS YOU CREATE AN EXCLUSIONARY RULE LIKE THE ONE IN CRIMINAL PROCEDURE.
If the charge is Trump extorted help for personal political motives, then do we not have to have “fact witnesses” who can speak from first-hand conversations as to Trump’s state of mind? We have heard from one and only one such “fact witness” (Sondman) and his testimony as to such a conversation is exculpatory! Everyone else who testified spoke to their opinions, not to facts. Please tell me we have not dispensed with the distinction.
THAT’S SIMPLY NOT TRUE. THE MILLION BUCK AMBASSADOR WAS NOT THE ONLY PERSON WHO HEARD THE CALL….AND I’M AT A LOSS TO SEE HIS “REFRESHED” TESTIMONY AS EXCULPATORY, WHICH IS WHY HE HAD TO TESTIFY AGAIN AFTER HE LAWYERED UP.
And if the charge is Trump “obstructed Congress”? By what, asserting their separate and equal powers and requiring Congress go to court to compel compliance?
IT IS OBSTRUCTION OF CONGRESS TO GIN UP FRIVOLOUS LITIGATION TO AVOID THE LAW. EVEN NIXON DID NOT GO SO FAR.
So I’ll ask again: Where and how are you finding your “reliable facts undergirding the debate?”
I DON’T DOUBT THAT IT’S POSSIBLE TO RAISE FACTUAL ISSUES….IF ONE HAS ACCESS TO EVIDENCE THE POTUS HAS FAILED TO PRODUCE. THAT’S WHAT TRIALS ARE FOR.
