US Politics: The Ides of Mueller

[Kalbear]

1 hour ago, dmc515 said:

You're making my point.  It is indeed a problem - when doesn't Sessions have a conflict of interest, when shouldn't he recuse himself?

Point in fact, as this was in regard to the Clinton foundation, Jeff Sessions already publicly stated he WOULD recuse himself from anything involving this - which would presumably mean dismissing people based on their actions associated with it. 

 

[DMC]

31 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Point in fact, as this was in regard to the Clinton foundation, Jeff Sessions already publicly stated he WOULD recuse himself from anything involving this - which would presumably mean dismissing people based on their actions associated with it. 

 

Yep.  There were similar issues in regards to his involvement in the Comey firing.

[GAROVORKIN]

4 hours ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

There's nothing special about Steve Bannon. In fact, he's such a goddamn slob that he blew his shot at consolidating puppetmaster powers for decades to come.

He started out as nothing and he will end the same way.

[Jace, Extat]

4 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

He started out as nothing and he will end the same way.

There you go. Keep having takes as fresh as that and we cool

[LongRider]

32 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

He started out as nothing and he will end the same way.

Ohhhhh, such a deepity.  

[Mexal]

2 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Of course.  And did they speed up the IG report?  Pretty sure they've been working on it for quite awhile.  

Seems this was pretty abnormal. This is a statement from McCabe's counsel, also a former DOJ Inspector General.

Quote

The investigation described in the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) report was cleaved off from the larger investigation of which it was a part, its completion expedited, and the disciplinary process completed in a little over a week. Mr. McCabe and his counsel were given limited access to a draft of the OIG report late last month, did not see the final report and the evidence on which it is based until a week ago, and were receiving relevant exculpatory evidence as recently as two days ago. We were given only four days to review a voluminous amount of relevant evidence, prepare a response, and make presentations to the Office of the Deputy Attorney General. With so much at stake, this process has fallen far short of what Mr. McCabe deserved.

This concerted effort to accelerate the process in order to beat the ticking clock of his scheduled retirement violates any sense of decency and basic principles of fairness. It should make all federal government employees, who continue to work in an Administration that insults, debases, and abuses them, shudder in the knowledge that they could be next.

 

[Zorral]

Could this firing bite the soda jerk as much as firing Comey did?

Especially when all the Other Stuffs, along with This Stuff, is put together with the Cambridge Analytica superhighways to the soda jerk and his minions, the election and Russia?

The Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-campaign-consultant-took-data-about-millions-of-users-without-their-knowledge/2018/03/17/bab541f4-2a18-11e8-ab19-06a445a08c94_story.html?

Not to mention Russians being murdered in England.

[Shryke]

4 hours ago, dmc515 said:

But this was my point.  In reality, has Sessions been compromised due to Trump's threats on the entire DOJ, let alone FBI?  Yeah, I think so.  But legally setting a precedent that renders the head of a department incompetent due to the president's threats and criticisms would be concerning.  Anyway, the point is moot, as McCabe has provided a far better and specific reason for why he's being singled out - "I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey."

Again, the point is the DOJ has a solid defense because Sessions' articulated reason for the firing was accepting the recommendation of the OPR and the IG report.  I don't think he's ever made any statement on McCabe resembling Trump's statements.

They don't have a solid defence. There's plenty of evidence they have ulterior motives they fired him literally 26 hours before retirement and according to anything I've read they didn't even follow the full process. This is going to be a really weak defence. He is very clearly being singled out for vindictive action.

Again, just because you have cause to fire someone doesn't mean you can fire them for any random reason you want.

[GAROVORKIN]

2 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

Ohhhhh, such a deepity.  

Yes, I thought long and hard before I typed that one. 

[Mudguard]

The only way we can determine whether McCabe's firing was justified is if the Inspector General's report on McCabe is made public.  Supposedly, McCabe was fired for an unauthorized disclosure to the press and for lack of candor to investigators when asked about the alleged unauthorized disclosure.  McCabe has claimed that the investigators may have misunderstood what he was saying or that he misunderstood some of the questions from the investigators, and that this misunderstanding was the basis for the lack of candor charge.  There's no way to evaluate the validity of these claims without transcripts of the questioning and McCabe's response.

[Mudguard]

Trump has been doing a great job of helping Mueller build an obstruction of justice case against himself.  His tweets after McCabe was fired were insane.  I would call it unhinged if it was a normal person, but this is just another day for Trump.

[Shryke]

26 minutes ago, Mudguard said:

The only way we can determine whether McCabe's firing was justified is if the Inspector General's report on McCabe is made public.  Supposedly, McCabe was fired for an unauthorized disclosure to the press and for lack of candor to investigators when asked about the alleged unauthorized disclosure.  McCabe has claimed that the investigators may have misunderstood what he was saying or that he misunderstood some of the questions from the investigators, and that this misunderstanding was the basis for the lack of candor charge.  There's no way to evaluate the validity of these claims without transcripts of the questioning and McCabe's response.

This assumes McCabe's firing had anything to do with the report. Which is contradicted by everything Trump and his Admin have ever said or done.

[Kalbear]

Ultimately it doesn't matter, as pointed out above - because the person who fired him cannot be in any reasonable way seen as acting in good faith with respect to this issue, which is why he recused himself in the first place. The report can be (and almost certainly is) perfectly legitimate grounds for firing McCabe, but the other things behind it combined with the insane pace that it was done with and then combining that with Trump's obvious political motivations make it not matter in the least, just like the James Comey firing's reasons don't matter. 

[Kalbear]

Also, lol

 

Quote

 

That's one way of protesting Andrew McCabe's firing as deputy FBI director, roughly a day before he was set to retire: At least one Democratic congressman has offered McCabe a temporary job so he can get full retirement benefits — and McCabe appears to be considering.

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) announced Saturday afternoon that he has offered McCabe a job to work on election security in his office, “so that he can reach the needed length of service” to retire.

 

 

[Mexal]

This looks to be coming into focus now. Supposedly Maggie Haberman and Mike Schmidt have a story coming out that Muellers team recently sent a list of questions to Trumps lawyers that they’d ask in an interview. I take it they’re not enjoying them.

 

[LongRider]

Quote

Massachusetts attorney general Maura Healey (D) announced Saturday that her state will launch an investigation into Cambridge Analytica, a data firm used by the Trump campaign during the 2016 election, after Facebook suspended the firm.

"Massachusetts residents deserve answers immediately from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. We are launching an investigation," Healey tweeted.

http://thehill.com/policy/technology/378940-massachusetts-launches-investigation-into-cambridge-analyticas-use-of

Quote

Fox News’ gruff and most plausibly reasonable political analyst Brit Hume went to bat for Trump in a tweet on Friday, arguing that the fact that the FBI’s Office of Professional Responsibility found fault with Andrew McCabe made his firing an easy and obvious call.

Former FBI Special Agent Asha Rangappa just smacked Hume down. Anyone who understands the standards that FBI agents are held to understands that it’s easy to make a minor mistake that could run afoul of the OPR, says the former counterintelligence agent.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/03/former-fbi-agent-scorches-foxs-brit-hume-trying-justify-trumps-firing-mccabe/

[LongRider]

LOL

Mueller also has memos written by McCabe documenting his conversations with President Donald Trump, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

Quote

Washington (CNN)Special counsel Robert Mueller's team interviewed former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and asked about the firing of FBI Director James Comey, a source briefed on the matter confirmed to CNN.

The source would not say when the interview, first reported by Axios, occurred.

Mueller also has memos written by McCabe documenting his conversations with President Donald Trump, a person familiar with the matter told CNN.

The memos also detail what Comey told McCabe about his own interactions with Trump while he was FBI director, the source said, and are seen as a way to corroborate Comey's account in Mueller's probe on Russian interference in the 2016 election.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/17/politics/mccabe-memos-trump/index.html

[DMC]

3 hours ago, Mexal said:

Seems this was pretty abnormal. This is a statement from McCabe's counsel, also a former DOJ Inspector General.

 

Thanks.  Hm, it's weird to me the IG report was "cleaved off and expedited," considering the full report has been expected to be released publicly by March/April for awhile now.

2 hours ago, Shryke said:

Again, just because you have cause to fire someone doesn't mean you can fire them for any random reason you want.

This is a nonsensical statement.  It obviously means you should be able to fire them for cause.

34 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Also, lol

Yeah it's rather ironic that by firing McCabe in such a way, they created the capability for him to make exponentially more money in the future than any FBI pension could provide.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

Thanks.  Hm, it's weird to me the IG report was "cleaved off and expedited," considering the full report has been expected to be released publicly by March/April for awhile now.

Well, considering the previous data about how quickly the probe and the defense evidence was given notice, I'd say it's accurate. It's pretty clear they were trying to beat his pension. 

7 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

This is a nonsensical statement.  It obviously means you should be able to fire them for cause.

Let's try it again. Hypothetically, if you have a sexual relationship with your boss it is unlikely that your boss can fire you for cause; they would need someone else to do it, because no matter what just cause they may have they are completely ethically tainted by their existing relationship. 

The same principle applies here for Sessions. 

 

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Well, considering the previous data about how quickly the probe and the defense evidence was given notice, I'd say it's accurate. It's pretty clear they were trying to beat his pension. 

Don't think there's any question they were trying to beat the pension.  What's odd is the claim the IG report needed to be cleaved off and expedited considering its expected release in March/April.

16 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

The same principle applies here for Sessions.

I was saying the statement was nonsensical, not that Sessions should be able to fire him considering he's recused himself.