aggiehawg said:

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Gates is Manafort's long term business partner so I don't really consider him more than an appendage of Manafort when he was on the Trump campaign. He was Manafort's assistant, not Trump's.

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wikipedia

Quote:

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Gates stayed on as number two in the campaign after Manafort was forced out, and then went to work as deputy chairman of the Donald Trump Inaugural Committee. He helped to form a pro-Trump nonprofit group called America First Policies but was removed from the organization due to his involvement with Manafort's overseas ventures

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Took the blame for Melania's plagiarism too.

Huh. Thought he left at the same time as Manafort did. My bad.

Alex Trusko is the kid that opened the storage to the FBI

RoscoePColtrane said:

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Alex Trusko is the kid that opened the storage to the FBI

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He and Gates are the only two I recognized, well other than immunity group guys made public a few days ago.

Interesting connections:

Steele (gives dossier) to State Department - Winer - Nuland - Kerry - FBI
Steele (gives dossier ?) to McCain - FBI
Steele (gives dossier) to Kramer (works for McCain) - ?BuzzFeed - Takes 5th before Congress
Kagan (Nuland's husband) writes OP ED with Kramer for Brookings Institute

Another case where a spouse may have played an important role regarding the scheme.
Also note the association between Kagan & Kramer with the Brookings Institute. Who recently joined the Brookings Institute? James Baker, former FBI General Counsel.

aggiehawg said:

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RoscoePColtrane said:

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Alex Trusko is the kid that opened the storage to the FBI

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He and Gates are the only two I recognized, well other than immunity group guys made public a few days ago.

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Manafort was issued 12 blanks subpoenas today for his witnesses.

Along with the usual pretrial motions, technology use by both parties and transcript requests.

Another piece of info on Nuland's husband Kagan.
No one knows for certain how McCain obtained his copy of the dossier. Roger Stone claimed that a friend (Dan Senor) of Paul Singer, the billionaire who initially funded Fusion GPS to find dirt on Trump, was the route the dossier came to McCain via Fusion GPS. Senor sat of the same board of directors at FPI as Kagan. Senor had ties to Romney...all being Never Trumpers.

drcrinum said:

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Another piece of info on Nuland's husband Kagan.
No one knows for certain how McCain obtained his copy of the dossier. Roger Stone claimed that a friend (Dan Senor) of Paul Singer, the billionaire who initially funded Fusion GPS to find dirt on Trump, was the route the dossier came to McCain via Fusion GPS. Senor sat of the same board of directors at FPI as Kagan. Senor had ties to Romney...all being Never Trumpers.

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Why don't they question McCain? It seems people plead the fifth and then they are forgotten about. It makes it look like Congress does it all for show. When someone pleads the fifth, that should be an indicator get more aggressive.

GreyhoundDad said:

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Why don't they question McCain? It seems people plead the fifth and then they are forgotten about. It makes it look like Congress does it all for show. When someone pleads the fifth, that should be an indicator get more aggressive.

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McCain's on his death bed. Nobody is going to disturb him...the longer he survives the better, because if he died, then whoever replaced him till the Midterm Election (presumably his wife) could go to DC and vote 'No' on something important to spite Trump, such as the next SCOTUS pick.
Kramer's a different animal. He refused to testify before the HPSCI, using his 5th Amendment right, but he has an additional problem. If he gave the copy of the dossier to BuzzFeed that was published, then he could be sued along with BuzzFeed. If BuzzFeed fingers him, that would be something, because everyone would know that McCain was behind it.

Side note: I hope something happens with his complaint. Out of curiosity, I checked to see if I was shadowbanned tonight. Yup! QFD, and I am a nobody on Twitter, just a conservative.

McCain is so far gone at this point that any death bed confession or admission of anything would not be credible, nor perhaps, admissible.

aggiehawg said:

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McCain is so far gone at this point that any death bed confession or admission of anything would not be credible, nor perhaps, admissible.

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It just frustrating. It seems like over and over again Congress basically says "Heck, we asked questions but he/she didn't want to answer. Oh well." They drop it when even the average person on TexAgs can think of all kinds of follow up actions. Thanks for all your comments on this thread.

GreyhoundDad said:

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aggiehawg said:

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McCain is so far gone at this point that any death bed confession or admission of anything would not be credible, nor perhaps, admissible.

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It just frustrating. It seems like over and over again Congress basically says "Heck, we asked questions but he/she didn't want to answer. Oh well." They drop it when even the average person on TexAgs can think of all kinds of follow up actions. Thanks for all your comments on this thread.

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To a certain degree, this isn't terribly different that a football Saturday, except 325 million people are involved, instead of 350 K graduates (and other esteemed guests of Texags) of A&M.

Every fan from Antartica to Abilene knows what calls should HAVE been made, or the right kind of defense, after the play is run. I'm so certain our leaders in DC have zero idea what to ask, or what to do, and I get pissed. There's likely some truth to those thoughts, but more often than not, most of the reps who count (freedom caucus) have already been briefed, or thought of a particular action.

Of course, I could be wrong, but it seems similar.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/watergate-figure-john-dean-warns-084702589.html

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/07/27/five-clues-don-jr-s-trump-tower-meeting-was-set-up-as-dem-dirty-trick/amp/

Quote:

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Five Clues Don Jr.'s Trump Tower Meeting Was Set Up as Dem Dirty Trick

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Interesting read.

Maybe when we reach 1,000 pages?

http://theweek.com/speedreads/787243/rudy-giuliani-called-michael-cohen-honest-honorable-lawyer-may-now-hes-incredible-liar

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1023051848146509824.html

Interesting thread on an article written by a former Bush/Obama official (April Doss who worked under Senator Warner on the Senate Intel Comm) who is attempting to protect the Deep State. If you want to read the article being criticized:

https://www.weeklystandard.com/april-doss/carter-page-devin-nunes-the-fbi-and-the-truth-about-fisa-warrants

Dersh has an interesting article in The Hill.

Quote:

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Just imagine a prosecutor going through all of your tweets, all of your conversations, all of your actions and all of your emails in search of a plausible theory of criminality based on an accordion-like statute such as obstruction of justice. If Mueller manages to cobble together an obstruction of justice case from innocent communications, then this dangerous precedent will lie around like a loaded gun ready to be used by any vindictive prosecutors against any plausible target. That target could be you or someone you love. It could be a Democrat or a Republican. It could be a liberal or a conservative.

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Quote:

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I recall a case when the Equal Rights Amendment was pending and the votes of Illinois legislators were essential to secure ratification by that state. A naive young woman approached a legislator and offered a contribution to his campaign in exchange for a commitment that he would do the right thing and vote for equal rights for women. The woman was arrested and charged with attempted bribery under a vague, open-ended statute. Civil libertarians were properly outraged.

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Quote:

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The time has come indeed, it is long overdue for all Americans to take a hard look at broad, ambiguous and open-ended statutes, which empower prosecutors to be "creative." There is a concept in criminal law known as lenity: If there are numerous ways of interpreting a statute, the law requires that it be interpreted in the most reasonably narrow way, so as to avoid empowering prosecutors to target unpopular defendants. Failing to apply this concept to constitutionally protected tweets, messages, emails, etc., should concern every civil libertarian, even those who are anxious to find legal weapons with which to target President Trump.

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Quote:

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The problem with turning communications all of which by themselves are noncriminal into an overarching criminal obstruction case is that life is lived prospectively while prosecutors look at evidence retrospectively. As the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard put it, "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forward." Translated into legal language, this means that isolated statements may have an innocent intention at the time they were made but, when looked at "backwards," they may appear to be part of a guilty pattern. Even more fundamentally, crime requires both guilty acts and guilty intentions. There is considerable danger in turning innocent acts especially constitutionally protected ones into criminal obstruction based on an intent inferred after the fact from a pattern that may not have been contemplated or apparent at the time of the acts. This is what Mueller seems to be doing, if the report is accurate.

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Don't restrict this to just Trump's tweets but rather put it into perspective regarding FISA warrants on USPers. Particularly with the look back ability with two hops.

And the FBI/DOJ giving outside contractors access to NSA raw meta-data before Rogers shut it down in 2016.

Pretty scary when you think about it.

Hawg, you're not helping the healthy cyinicism I already had for your industry!!

The day a tweet overrides Article 2 powers of the POTUS, it's time for me to check out.

I honestly think the NYT is trolling the left to keep them engaged.

This is another Joke, I love Dershowitz.

fasthorses05 said:

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Hawg, you're not helping the healthy cyinicism I already had for your industry!!

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Former industry. Part of the reason why I quit. Somewhere along the way we have taken the "professional" out of the law profession.

We have an adversarial system where everyone is supposed to play by the same rules. It's not perfect by any means but it works when there is a level playing field.

I understand why some lawyers think I am being overly critical of Team Mueller's actions but I am taking a 30,000 feet view of the process as Dersh has so simply explained above.

It's not that Manafort is a sleazy guy and probably guilty of all types of shady acts, it is that a secret (for ten months) counter-intelligence investigation was used to nail him. I have a problem with that as it heavily tilts the playing field.

aggiehawg said:

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fasthorses05 said:

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Hawg, you're not helping the healthy cyinicism I already had for your industry!!

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Former industry. Part of the reason why I quit. Somewhere along the way we have taken the "professional" out of the law profession.

We have an adversarial system where everyone is supposed to play by the same rules. It's not perfect by any means but it works when there is a level playing field.

I understand why some lawyers think I am being overly critical of Team Mueller's actions but I am taking a 30,000 feet view of the process as Dersh has so simply explained above.

It's not that Manafort is a sleazy guy and probably guilty of all types of shady acts, it is that a secret (for ten months) counter-intelligence investigation was used to nail him. I have a problem with that as it heavily tilts the playing field.

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Who you sound like is Dershowitz. You have to admire his consistency. Its amazing that one of the people most respect today is indeed a Democrat, while certainly not a Leftist. A credit to the profession it used to be.

Speaking of taking the "professional" out of the profession, Exhibits "A" and "B":



I cannot believe Avenatti took the position that Michael Cohen (a man he has sued and is represented by counsel) could properly give consent for an ex parte meeting. That is ethics 101.

And Cohen taping his clients without their knowledge?

Incredible.

aggiehawg said:

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Speaking of taking the "professional" out of the profession, Exhibits "A" and "B":



I cannot believe Avenatti took the position that Michael Cohen (a man he has sued and is represented by counsel) could properly give consent for an ex parte meeting. That is ethics 101.

And Cohen taping his clients without their knowledge?

Incredible.

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Could you believe Avenatti told Dershowitz he felt sorry for his students, and Alan says yeah I know they've only gone on the be SCOTUS (plural) and judges and some of the finest people in America.

Avenatti is delusional.

DrHeadShrink said:

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https://www.yahoo.com/news/watergate-figure-john-dean-warns-084702589.html

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John Dean misses the mark here, me thinks. He was a White House lawyer participating in an illegal cover-up.

Cohen was Trump Organization in-house lawyer and occasionally Trump's personal attorney before he was elected. If Cohen had anything of magnitude criminally on Trump, Mueller would have kept the case instead farming it out to SDNY. Plus we would have heard about it by now.

The CFO of the Trump Organization being subpoenaed by the grand jury is concerning, however. Might be nothing. Might be something. Cohen is just the conduit for getting to him and Mueller's hand are clean since it is SDNY.

Far beyond delusional, he's unethical as hell and should have his ticket ripped.

Y'all remember the bald guy who defended Gotti for so long?

That's who they remind me of.

fasthorses05 said:

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Y'all remember the bald guy who defended Gotti for so long?

That's who they remind me of.

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Bruce Cutler?

aggiehawg said:

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Far beyond delusional, he's unethical as hell and should have his ticket ripped.

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He's only a member of the California bar, so I guess that where to look. Oh what have we here.

Rule 2-100 of the California Rules of Professional Conduct speaks clearly to this matter.

http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Portals/0/documents/ethics/2d_RRC/California-Rules-Professional-Conduct.pdf

He's already under investigation by the bar for various ethics violations and he's in bankruptcy court over his failed firm.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4433390/Avenatti-Bar-Complaint.pdf

And he want to gag order the proceedings, not sounding likely.

Pretty amazing he's made it this far.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1023211172869238785.html

Interesting thread looking into details of Mueller's indictment of the 12 Russian 'hackers'. It seems that the Russian military intelligence service GRU was registering a specific domain & purchasing servers in Missouri early in 2015, the domain being the one which the malware on the DNC server communicated with...long before the 2016 Presidential Election Campaign began...while US intelligence was asleep. No collusion.

Yep, that's our boy!

He always brought a certain confidence into the room, even though I only saw it on the tele.

During WW2 the USA was blessed with having the " Greatest Generation " of leadership which extended into the early 1960's . Mueller is a discrace, compared to these highly educated and real life experienced American leaders with great " Common Sense " Based on what we know has happened before and after the election of Donald Trump, the " Deep State " leaders do not appear to be " Grownups " , they appear to be " Children " along with the MSM and the Democrats! Real American Historians will some day expose this failed leadership driven by severe jealousy, bias and greed !

oysterbayAG said:

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During WW2 the USA was blessed with having the " Greatest Generation " of leadership which extended into the early 1960's . Mueller is a discrace, compared to these highly educated and real life experienced American leaders with great " Common Sense " Based on what we know has happened before and after the election of Donald Trump, the " Deep State " leaders do not appear to be " Grownups " , they appear to be " Children " along with the MSM and the Democrats! Real American Historians will some day expose this failed leadership driven by severe jealousy, bias and greed !

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I'm not saying your wrong, just not completely correct, IMO.

The first thing I thought of was the "Greatest Generation" comment. As per Prager, and I agree, they were great in everything except parenting, since their kids grew up during the early, and late, 1960's. Not a good endorsement.

Otherwise, my little brain is pondering a comment about Trump and the Deep State, but dinner hasn't provided the neurons to fire properly.