Politics MUELLER LIKELY TO LOSE FLYNN PROSECUTION

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by MARIS61, Feb 13, 2018.

  1. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    Lanny seems somewhat confused about all this law stuff. :dunno:
     
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  2. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    It doesn't have to be pursued. A pardon will squelch any possible indictment. I've heard this from an attorney. Other attorneys were present and did not object.
     
  3. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    I'm not confused by what I've heard from highly reputable attorneys such as former Federal prosecutors.

    More likely, you are confused.

    By the way, it's not often that the far right wins a case at the Supreme Court or any other Federal court for that matter. Ever wonder why? Probably not.
     
  4. bodyman5000 and 1

    bodyman5000 and 1 Lions, Tigers, Me, Bears

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    You do know Bundy had all the charges dropped?
     
  5. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    Dismissed with prejudice. Probably some prosecution error. He can be retried so he's certainly not out of it.

    How should he be able to use public land for his benefit and to our detriment without paying rent? Had he not grazed there, someone else could have and they would have payed their rent. We lost money.
     
  6. bodyman5000 and 1

    bodyman5000 and 1 Lions, Tigers, Me, Bears

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    Irrelevant. All of it.

    https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...se-against-cliven-bundy-and-sons-bars-retrial
     
  7. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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  8. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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  9. bodyman5000 and 1

    bodyman5000 and 1 Lions, Tigers, Me, Bears

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    It was irrelevant to our discussion of a pardon. I asked you if you knew something I didn't because you were speaking as though Bundy could still face charges. When you said @maris was more likely the confused one I really had to wonder.
     
  10. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    He could still face charges, just not those particular charges. He's not likely to keep/have kept his nose clean.

    barfo
     
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  11. bodyman5000 and 1

    bodyman5000 and 1 Lions, Tigers, Me, Bears

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    He could have a trunk full of dead hookers and be charged. So could you. Not me though.

    I have a hatchback
     
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  12. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    You should have partitioned this out from the other part of my post.
     
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  13. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    They've got those little curtains you can draw over your packages and dead bodies so no one can see.
     
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  14. bodyman5000 and 1

    bodyman5000 and 1 Lions, Tigers, Me, Bears

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    My hatch holds quite a bit with the seats folded down but with them up the cargo cover only hides maybe 2 large suitcases worth.


    This is Vegas, I'm sure I could find a hooker small enough.
     
  15. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    I've never seen a good looking hooker. Something about it turned me off even before I met my wife.
     
  16. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    No, there is not room for them, the live hookers completely fill the available space.

    barfo
     
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  17. barfo

    barfo triggered obsessive commie pinko boomer maniac Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Sounds like you studied the situation carefully.

    barfo
     
  18. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    You have to in my business. In other words, never cross me.
     
  19. Lanny

    Lanny Original Season Ticket Holder "Mr. Big Shot"

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    Incidentally, Ford pardoned Nixon although Nixon was never indicted.
     
  20. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    Time to dust off this thread.

    Mueller strikes out trying to nail Trump – Flynn sentencing memo is a big nothing

    By Gregg Jarrett | Fox News
    Mueller's office tells judge Flynn should get little or no prison time.
    A sentencing memo that Special Counsel Robert Mueller filed in U.S. District Court in Washington Tuesday recommending little or no prison time for President Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn doesn’t implicate the president in any wrongdoing.

    The memo isn’t a “smoking gun” showing President Trump colluded with Russians to win the 2016 presidential election or did anything else illegal. In fact, the memo isn’t even a squirt gun. In terms of President Trump’s conduct, it amounts to nothing of any significance.

    In recommending that Flynn – who served as President Trump’s national security adviser for just 24 days – get a sentence ranging from no prison time to six months at most, the memo filed by Mueller said Flynn has offered "substantial" help to investigators about "several ongoing investigations."

    “Given the defendant’s substantial assistance and other considerations set forth below, a sentence at the low end of the guideline range – including a sentence that does not impose a term of incarceration – is appropriate and warranted," the memo states.

    The sentencing memo says that Flynn was interviewed 19 times by prosecutors on Mueller’s team and other Justice Department lawyers. But crucially, the memo doesn’t specify anything that Flynn told Muller’s team regarding allegations against President Trump or anything else.

    Flynn, who succumbed to Mueller's intense pressure by pleading guilty to making a false statement to the FBI, has cooperated with the special counsel's investigation into alleged Trump-Russia collusion to avoid a long prison sentence.

    However, the sentencing memo and a heavily redacted addendum filed by Mueller suggest that Flynn provided absolutely no meaningful information that Trump conspired or coordinated with Russia to win the 2016 presidential election.

    Flynn pleaded guilty in last December to making false statements to the FBI with regard to his communications with Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak.

    Flynn and Kislyak allegedly spoke in late 2016 about the U.S. sanctions the Obama administration had placed on Russia. Flynn was fired on Feb. 13, 2017, for misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other Trump administration officials about his talks with Kislyak.

    Flynn also admitted to making false statements about his work as an unregistered foreign agent to benefit the Turkish government. But there is no connection between that work and President Trump.

    The memo isn’t a “smoking gun” showing President Trump colluded with Russians to win the 2016 presidential election or did anything else illegal. In fact, the memo isn’t even a squirt gun.

    The sentencing memo – less than six pages long – makes no mention of any evidence Flynn might have given to support Mueller's mandate. The addendum – five pages long – is so heavily redacted with infamous black lines that it is difficult to comprehend. But it appears that Flynn offered prosecutors assistance in two areas.

    First, Flynn contributed something to an unidentified criminal case that is not being handled by the special counsel and, thus, not directly collusion-related.

    Second, Flynn seems to have answered candid questions about the Trump transition team's conversations with foreign governments after the presidential election in 2016 and before Inauguration Day. Again, this would not be relevant to "collusion" to win the election because the election was already over.

    The documents filed in court Tuesday make a passing reference to the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from interfering in diplomatic disputes with foreign governments. But no one has ever been convicted under the act, passed in 1799. Lawyers, judges, and constitutional scholars regard the law as unconstitutional.

    Nevertheless, this long dormant law does not apply to members of presidential transition teams who are acting not as private citizens, but as incoming government representatives of the person about to assume the presidency. They would therefore be constitutionally authorized to conduct foreign affairs. Every president-elect has his transition members engage with foreign governments to prepare for the challenges that lay ahead.

    Not even Mueller would be foolish enough to bring a case under the Logan Act, especially since Flynn did not interfere in a diplomatic dispute under the meaning of the act. To the contrary, Flynn sought ways to de-escalate tensions over U.S. sanctions President Obama imposed on Russia by asking the Russian government to limit its response "in a reciprocal manner."

    By doing this, Flynn was acting for the benefit of the U.S. government and in a manner not inconsistent with the Obama administration's wishes and policy.

    Flynn's other contact with Russia, also referenced in the court documents, dealt with a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements on the West Bank. However, this, too, would not fall under the Logan Act, since the U.S. took no position on the U.N. resolution. By abstaining, it neither supported the resolution nor opposed it.

    And since the U.N. measure imposed no sanctions, it was nothing more than an idle diplomatic statement. Flynn, or anyone else in the incoming Trump administration, can hardly be accused of interfering.

    There are other reasons to believe that Flynn’s "substantial assistance" to the Mueller investigation had nothing to do with "collusion" with the Russians. He was never charged with the underlying crime, whatever that is.

    Moreover, since Mueller is moving ahead with sentencing, he will not be using Flynn as a witness. This indicates that Flynn has nothing of significance that would be useful in any potential prosecution.

    Flynn should never have been prosecuted. The FBI agents who interviewed him concluded that he was telling the truth. This was confirmed by both former FBI Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe, when they testified before congressional investigators. Had Mueller been forced to prove his case in court, he would have lost.

    The law requires that a false statement be made "willfully and knowingly" (18 U.S.C. 1001). If Flynn’s recollection of the conversation with Russian Ambassador Kislyak is inconsistent with a transcript of their conversation, secretly recorded, it is not a crime. If Flynn interpreted his discussion differently than the FBI, it is also not a crime.

    As I explained in my book, “The Russia Hoax: The Illicit Scheme to Clear Hillary Clinton and Frame Donald Trump,” Flynn pleaded guilty not because he lied, but because Mueller crushed him financially and threatened to take legal action against the retired Army general's son.

    With his assets dwindling – and forced to sell his home to pay his mounting legal bills – Flynn finally surrendered under the intense emotional strain and monetary pressures.

    Flynn's decision was understandable. Mueller's actions were, and are, unconscionable and wrong.

    On Tuesday night Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani likened the offenses Flynn pleaded guilty to committing to “spitting on the sidewalk, with major repercussions for many.”

    The former New York City mayor said nothing in the Flynn sentencing memo even suggested Trump presidential campaign or candidate Trump colluded with Russia, and said Mueller’s team was made up of “overzealous media inspired prosecutors. They are sick puppies.”

    Giuliani was right. But, of course, that won’t stop the anti-Trump media frenzy of demonizing President Trump on a daily basis and trying to convince the American people – without evidence – that he is an illegitimate president put into the Oval Office by Russia.
    https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/mue...-trump-flynn-sentencing-memo-is-a-big-nothing
     

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