The Trump Investigation(s) Thread

[Grifman]

Yeah, I was about to say you're in for a surprise.

Speaking of the dossier, it seems like another part of the dossier has been confirmed:

Sources: Mueller has evidence Cohen was in Prague in 2016, confirming part of dossier

This is huge. Why has Cohen so adamantly denied being in Prague if he wasn't doing anything illicit there. And he's just the sort of guy Trump would send to deal with the Russians.

[Skinypupy]

Whelp, www.lyincomey.com is now an actual thing that has been created by the Republican National Committee.

Does anyone in the GOP have a maturity level greater than a 12 year old? Jesus.

[Carpet_pissr]

I couldn’t care less what his sexual proclivities are. Seriously. If he likes to watch people pee, or get peed on (not quite sure what the specific allegations are), that’s his business.

Watching hookers pee on a bed that the Obamas slept in isn't the problem, per se (aside from what it tells us about his character). Being subject to blackmail by the Russians because of it is the problem.

True dat.

[Rip]

Well if they have that kind of leverage on him they sure seem to be pissing it away.

[Zarathud]

Well, Trump admitted to the Russians that firing Comey relieved "great pressure."

[hepcat]

Well if they have that kind of leverage on him they sure seem to be pissing it away.

Nah, Trump told his master when the strike was coming so they could evacuate everyone. Never say Putin didn't make a wise purchase, my friend.

[Holman]

Tweeted video is perfect. Watch it with sound.

Oh, and the guy in the blue jacket who makes the other guy get up when Cohen arrives is apparently Rotem Rosen, a Russian oligarch or oligarch heir connected to Trump's 2013 Moscow visit.

[Blackhawk]

Assuming the nation survives, I may actually thank Trump. Trump managed to hold a black light on Washington so that all the stains stand out and are easy to find and clean. It could be his greatest accomplishment - draining the swamp after all!

[abr]

Just follow the Trump.

[Holman]

Full rant mode this morning. Five or six Comey tweets in quick succession. (Quick for him. It still takes him ten or twelve minutes to compose a sentence.)

I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty. I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His “memos” are self serving and FAKE!

EDIT:

Still going strong:

Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past. I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!

Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!

[pr0ner]

Full rant mode this morning. Five or six Comey tweets in quick succession. (Quick for him. It still takes him ten or twelve minutes to compose a sentence.)

I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty. I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His “memos” are self serving and FAKE!

It takes Trump so long to Tweet because he has to finish waiting for Fox and Friends to tell him what to tweet.

I know that Mission Accomplished! tweet against the media was spurned by a Fox and Friends segment this morning. I turned it on for 30 seconds to see what they were talking about - they showed an MSNBC montage against using that phrase, and the Fox chryon was about media frenzy over Trump's use of the term.

[msteelers]

Trump is right. Comey very well could go down as the worst FBI director in history. His actions directly led to the worst president in history.

[Zarathud]

On the other hand, my spirits are uplifted and happy by Trump's worry about his FAKE ATTORNEY being investigated. Cohen admitted he will do anything for his meal ticket.

[Carpet_pissr]

“All lawyers are deflated and concerned”

Oh noes.

[Isgrimnur]

First thing we do is deflate all the lawyers.

[Max Peck]

Best practices dictate that they be deflated prior to defenestration, otherwise they tend to just float off whilst buoyed with their own hot air.

[YellowKing]

Rant your way into a stroke, you orange ape.

[Rip]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/commentary ... residency/

To many on the Right, the ABC interview sounded an awful lot like a former Clinton staffer talking to a partisan Trump hater. And for obvious reasons.

One GOP campaign operative told me Comey's book "is a home run for us. This guy hates Trump, and he ran the FBI. If they had anything on Trump, he'd know it, and he'd tell it."

Consider this: In the month or so between the Stormy Daniels interview on "60 Minutes" and the Comey interview last night, President Trump has been hit with a nonstop stream of negative press. And yet according to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll, Trump's approval is at 44 percent among registered voters.

Donald Trump is not going to be shamed out of office by Jim Comey, or pushed out by an angry press corps, or laughed out by late-night comics. Yes, it's still possible he might be led out of the Oval Office in handcuffs by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, but at this point that looks like a long shot.

Which means Democrats will be forced to drive Donald Trump out of the White House the old-fashioned way: The ballot box.

[malchior]

All I'm seeing above is more evidence that the only weapon "Conservatives" have nowadays to defend Trump is smearing anyone who speaks up.

*Edit: quoting Conservatives because there are still actual Conservatives who abhor what the Republican party has become.

[YellowKing]

I love how Trump supporters have managed to paint 40% approval ratings as a positive.

[LordMortis]

I don't doubt he will be around to 2020.

The odd thing about Michael Graham's representation is that he states Comey is trying to shame Trump out office and yet the headlines of the lying media all over this morning state Trump Comey says different... The same thing Graham does. So that says to me Graham is a tool, whoever he is

http://abcnews.go.com/Site/transcript-j ... d=54488723

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll give you a strange answer. I hope not because I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they're duty bound to do directly. People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values.

We'll fight about guns. We'll fight about taxes. We'll fight about all those other things down the road. But you cannot have, as president of the United States, someone who does not reflect the values that I believe Republicans treasure and Democrats treasure and Independents treasure. That is the core of this country. That's our foundation. And so impeachment, in a way, would short circuit that.

[YellowKing]

I'm not sure how you can shame someone out of office who already does such a great job of shaming himself. I mean this is a guy who still uses the term "slimeball" like he stepped out of a Dick Tracy comic.

[El Guapo]

I don't doubt he will be around to 2020.

The odd thing about Michael Graham's representation is that he states Comey is trying to shame Trump out office and yet the headlines of the lying media all over this morning state Trump Comey says different... The same thing Graham does. So that says to me Graham is a tool, whoever he is

http://abcnews.go.com/Site/transcript-j ... d=54488723

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll give you a strange answer. I hope not because I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they're duty bound to do directly. People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values.

We'll fight about guns. We'll fight about taxes. We'll fight about all those other things down the road. But you cannot have, as president of the United States, someone who does not reflect the values that I believe Republicans treasure and Democrats treasure and Independents treasure. That is the core of this country. That's our foundation. And so impeachment, in a way, would short circuit that.

I'm not going to quibble too much about the best way to remove Trump from office. That said, I think there's some value in impeachment (or resignation pending impeachment), because I think it would be better for the long-term health of American institutions for Trump to leave office in unequivocal disgrace, as opposed to leaving normally after losing an election.

[Moliere]

I love how Trump supporters have managed to paint 40% approval ratings as a positive.

Really? That's exactly what I would expect given our 2 party system. 40% will love you regardless of what you do. 40% will hate you regardless of what you do. And the remaining 20% decide every election. Polling data will vary depending on audience and the question asked but here's one example for Obama sitting at 30-40% Strong Approve rating. Doesn't mean he was good or bad. Just a product of our 2 party system. Another one with more polling examples shows higher numbers for Obama both positive and negative. Again not surprising.

[Kraken]

I don't doubt he will be around to 2020.

The odd thing about Michael Graham's representation is that he states Comey is trying to shame Trump out office and yet the headlines of the lying media all over this morning state Trump Comey says different... The same thing Graham does. So that says to me Graham is a tool, whoever he is

http://abcnews.go.com/Site/transcript-j ... d=54488723

JAMES COMEY: Yeah, I'll tell you, I'll give you a strange answer. I hope not because I think impeaching and removing Donald Trump from office would let the American people off the hook and have something happen indirectly that I believe they're duty bound to do directly. People in this country need to stand up and go to the voting booth and vote their values.

We'll fight about guns. We'll fight about taxes. We'll fight about all those other things down the road. But you cannot have, as president of the United States, someone who does not reflect the values that I believe Republicans treasure and Democrats treasure and Independents treasure. That is the core of this country. That's our foundation. And so impeachment, in a way, would short circuit that.

I'm not going to quibble too much about the best way to remove Trump from office. That said, I think there's some value in impeachment (or resignation pending impeachment), because I think it would be better for the long-term health of American institutions for Trump to leave office in unequivocal disgrace, as opposed to leaving normally after losing an election.

I'm ambivalent until Mueller's findings provide some reliable facts about the extent and severity of Trump's probable crimes. As much as I detest Trump and want him gone ASAP by any means, I'm sympathetic to Comey's argument. At the same time, actions should have consequences proportional to their severity, and I wonder if losing an election (as 50% of all presidential contenders always must) is a punishment that fits the crime...so I'm also sympathetic to your POV. This will become clear when Trump's alleged crimes are proven or dismissed.

[Jeff V]

I love how Trump supporters have managed to paint 40% approval ratings as a positive.

Meet the Press reported it fell to 37% yesterday.

[The Meal]

Data.

[stessier]

Trump's lawyers are arguing that he is the only one who should be able to judge where or not the things seized from Cohen are protected under Attorney/Client Privilege. So they should give him all the documents and he will review them and pass on the ones that are not protected.

That seems there should be no chance of that argument succeeding, but we are through the looking glass, so who knows?

[El Guapo]

Trump's lawyers are arguing that he is the only one who should be able to judge where or not the things seized from Cohen are protected under Attorney/Client Privilege. So they should give him all the documents and he will review them and pass on the ones that are not protected.

That seems there should be no chance of that argument succeeding, but we are through the looking glass, so who knows?

One analyst I was reading was basically say (correctly, from what I can tell) that they're basically trying to convert a search warrant process into a subpoena process. When the government subpoenas documents the process is basically what they are asking for here - the subpoena'd party goes through the documents and produces any that are responsive and not privileged, and gives the government a log of any responsive document withheld on the basis of privilege, along with a brief description outlining (at a high level) the circumstances surrounding the privilege. There's no obvious reason why the court would be eager to grant that super unusual request. They could well be willing to appoint a neutral "special master" to oversee the privilege review in lieu of the DOJ taint team, but that wouldn't get Trump much as there's no real reason to think that the special master would get much different results than the taint team.

[Isgrimnur]

Wasn't Mr. Fed's point that that whole reason for the warrant was that they didn't believe that the subpoena process was viable to preserve the documents?

[El Guapo]

Wasn't Mr. Fed's point that that whole reason for the warrant was that they didn't believe that the subpoena process was viable to preserve the documents?

Indeed. The government (at least the criminal authorities) are free to use either process as they deem fit, and it's way more burdensome to execute the search warrant process (with a subpoena you don't need to show anything to a federal judge, for example). So what grounds would there be to force the government to basically go back to a subpoena process after all this has been done (and a federal judge has signed off)? Who knows.

So it would be pretty shocking (at least at first glance) if the court entertained the idea.

[stessier]

Wasn't Mr. Fed's point that that whole reason for the warrant was that they didn't believe that the subpoena process was viable to preserve the documents?

Yeah, and that is addressed in the letter to the judge. Trump's team says that was the only reason for the warrant and since the risk of losing the documents has passed, it is appropriate to allow him to review them as if they were subpoenaed. I'm not a lawyer, but it actually makes some sense to me. Unfortunately.

[El Guapo]

Wasn't Mr. Fed's point that that whole reason for the warrant was that they didn't believe that the subpoena process was viable to preserve the documents?

Yeah, and that is addressed in the letter to the judge. Trump's team says that was the only reason for the warrant and since the risk of losing the documents has passed, it is appropriate to allow him to review them as if they were subpoenaed. I'm not a lawyer, but it actually makes some sense to me. Unfortunately.

If you don't trust the DOJ's taint team (and honestly, you should), the likely remedy is a special master. Especially given that these aren't Trump's documents. They're Cohen's documents, some of which concern Trump. It would be bizarre to give control over the process to a third party to the matter.

[Isgrimnur]

Because, if there is an expert in attorney-client privilege, it's the client??

[El Guapo]

So Cohen's attorneys have said that he has a whopping three clients - Trump, Broidy, and a third MYSTERY CLIENT. They've been refusing to disclose the third client's name. But the judge at the hearing apparently just ruled that they have to.

[El Guapo]

Because, if there is an expert in attorney-client privilege, it's the client??

To be fair, many people have said that Trump is the best at attorney-client privilege. All the time, people are saying that Trump is just the best, that people are blown away by how good he is at attorney-client privilege.

[Jag]

And Sean Hannity is mystery client the third. You can't make this shit up.

I hope they drag that self righteous scumbag down.

[stessier]

Wasn't Mr. Fed's point that that whole reason for the warrant was that they didn't believe that the subpoena process was viable to preserve the documents?

Yeah, and that is addressed in the letter to the judge. Trump's team says that was the only reason for the warrant and since the risk of losing the documents has passed, it is appropriate to allow him to review them as if they were subpoenaed. I'm not a lawyer, but it actually makes some sense to me. Unfortunately.

If you don't trust the DOJ's taint team (and honestly, you should), the likely remedy is a special master. Especially given that these aren't Trump's documents. They're Cohen's documents, some of which concern Trump. It would be bizarre to give control over the process to a third party to the matter.

I fully agree and hope the judges see it that way.

[El Guapo]

Oh man there has to be a great story there.

[Isgrimnur]

That is hilarious.