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Fragile Bird

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The crime of outing national intelligence sources:

https://lawfareblog.com/day-we-cant-protect-human-sources-president-and-house-intelligence-committee-burn-inform

. . .  what happens when the intentional outing of U.S. intelligence assets is the province not of rogue insiders, not of foreign hackers or foreign agents, not of people who end up spending the rest of their lives as fugitives, but of senior officials in two branches of this country’s government who are most responsible for protecting those assets? To wit, what happens when the Chairman of the House intelligence committee and the President of the United States team up to out an FBI informant over the strenuous objection of the bureau and the Department of Justice—and manage to get the job done? And what happens when they do so for frankly political reasons: to protect the president from a properly predicated counterintelligence investigation involving the activity of an adversary foreign power? . . . .

If it’s not clear whether Nunes and his staff helped the Daily Caller float the name in the first instance, it is totally clear what they did with the story once it became public: If the Daily Caller has its facts right, Nunes seems to have elevated the matter and begun demanding information about him from the FBI and Justice Department. Instead of acting to protect the source, as one would expect the chairman of the House intelligence committee to do, in other words, he began pushing for the Justice Department and FBI to turn over information about him—thereby endangering him. . . .

Trump’s tweets on Friday made it impossible for the press to continue holding back what they had. Given that the Daily Caller had already published a fair bit about these meetings and that the name was floating freely around the conservative media ecosystem and that the president himself—the person who is ultimately responsible for protecting the information—was now actively misrepresenting it to feed conspiracy theories, how could the Times keep quiet anymore? How can a major news organization withhold information to protect executive branch equities when the executive branch itself is not merely not protecting it but actively lying about that information at the highest levels for overtly political purposes?

And so the Times published. And the Post followed suit. In some ways, it’s amazing that both papers waited so long—and that they continued to withhold the name when they did so.

Donald Trump did not leak the name of an intelligence source, and the record is not at all clear that Devin Nunes or his staff did so either. But the record is entirely clear that both men behaved in a way that actively contributed to the outing of an informant.

What are the consequences when the president and the intelligence community leadership behave this way? The honest answer is that we don’t know. Something like this has never happened before. But it’s fair to say that there are profound risks at many levels. . . .

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24 minutes ago, Zorral said:

The crime of outing national intelligence sources:

https://lawfareblog.com/day-we-cant-protect-human-sources-president-and-house-intelligence-committee-burn-inform

. . .  what happens when the intentional outing of U.S. intelligence assets is the province not of rogue insiders, not of foreign hackers or foreign agents, not of people who end up spending the rest of their lives as fugitives, but of senior officials in two branches of this country’s government who are most responsible for protecting those assets?  . . .

Ask Scooter Libby and Dick Cheney

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9 hours ago, Pony Empress Jace said:

In this country being black or going to school are crimes deserving of death. What's the harm in lynching a few oligarchs and their minions?

 

Sorry for DP....

Well if we hung all the liars Trump's crowfood thirty million times over and Pence is sitting at the desk with a majority in both houses.

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3 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Sorry for DP....

Well if we hung all the liars Trump's crowfood thirty million times over and Pence is sitting at the desk with a majority in both houses.

I disagree, Pence would swing too.

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17 minutes ago, LongRider said:

I disagree, Pence would swing too.

Among all the lying about health matters, let's not forget all these men's lies concerning women's needs for reproductive health care -- and indeed, even suggesting now and again, that women, like so many other Others, may not actually be humans.  This does cause great physical and emotional harm -- indeed, even death.  So yah, they should all swing too, if causing death is the criterian.  It's kinda hard, at least from a distance (as I'm a softie up close and personal) not to be pleased about that.

[Cue -- the French Terror!!!!!!! because those aristos, in one way or another, did each and all cause deaths.]

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53 minutes ago, Zorral said:

What are the consequences when the president and the intelligence community leadership behave this way? The honest answer is that we don’t know. Something like this has never happened before. But it’s fair to say that there are profound risks at many levels. . . .

Short answer there are no consequences.

Longer answer set by the precendet of Cheney and "Scooter" Libby. A commuted sentence, to be pardoned by the next Republican goverment coming in. As we all know or learned a sitting President can't be indicted by special counsel. And as the house intelligence committe is a) not willing and b) be itself involved, there'll be no consequences.

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7 minutes ago, Notone said:

Short answer there are no consequences.

Longer answer set by the precendet of Cheney and "Scooter" Libby. A commuted sentence, to be pardoned by the next Republican goverment coming in. As we all know or learned a sitting President can't be indicted by special counsel. And as the house intelligence committe is a) not willing and b) be itself involved, there'll be no consequences.

Justice has given an opinion that a President can't be indicted. That doesn't mean a court would agree. The matter has not been tested.

The more important issue is the Republicans, led by Giuliani, are saying that since a President can't be indicted, why should Trump be questioned by Mueller. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

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Just now, Fragile Bird said:

Justice has given an opinion that a President can't be indicted. That doesn't mean a court would agree. The matter has not been tested. 

The more important issue is the Republicans, led by Giuliani, are saying that since a President can't be indicted, why should Trump be questioned by Mueller. That's a whole different kettle of fish.

First of all, you are the lawyer, you have the expertise on the matter.

Having that said, I thought the precedents (Nixon and Clinton) were the courts ruled sitting President can't be indicted. I just follow the story a bit on CNN, since I have some issues to deal with atm, I am not paying as much attention to it, as I should. So if I understood that bit wrong, I stand corrected.

No, if a President can't be indicted (check paragraph above, so that is again open for correction), and the GOP is seemingly unwilling to move against him, then what are the consequences for Trump, that was the point.

That's not talking about Giuliani and his (to me) rather questionable logic. I'd argue an interview with the special council is part of the investigation. Just because a sitting POTUS can't be indicted, it doesn't mean he can't be investigated. And mixing those things up is looking to me like a rather blatant attempt to muddy the waters. WHich is again, just lay persons opinion.

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14 minutes ago, Triskele said:

Trump is now tweeting that he demands "and will tomorrow officially demand" that the DOJ looks into this informant.

Some thoughts from Benjamin Wittes on this. Could get messy if he officially demands an investigation.

Just now, Notone said:

First of all, you are the lawyer, you have the expertise on the matter.

Having that said, I thought the precedents (Nixon and Clinton) were the courts ruled sitting President can't be indicted. I just follow the story a bit on CNN, since I have some issues to deal with atm, I am not paying as much attention to it, as I should. So if I understood that bit wrong, I stand corrected.

No, if a President can't be indicted (check paragraph above, so that is again open for correction), and the GOP is seemingly unwilling to move against him, then what are the consequences for Trump, that was the point.

That's not talking about Giuliani and his (to me) rather questionable logic. I'd argue an interview with the special council is part of the investigation. Just because a sitting POTUS can't be indicted, it doesn't mean he can't be investigated. And mixing those things up is looking to me like a rather blatant attempt to muddy the waters. WHich is again, just lay persons opinion.

Fragile Bird is right. The "president cannot be indicted" train of thought is based on an opinion by the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice. They provide the guidelines the Justice Department work under. Now, these opinions were written at a time when the Justice Department was part of an administration where the President was under significant investigation (Nixon and Clinton) so it could be overruled by a more modern interpretation, but that won't be this administration. The courts have never ruled on this.

Guliani is trying to lay the ground work for Trump ignoring a subpoena. I don't know what the legal ramifications are for this as, I know the courts allowed a civil case to move forward and requires the President to answer the subpoena, but I do not know about a criminal case since I don't think it's ever been tested before.

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1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Among all the lying about health matters, let's not forget all these men's lies concerning women's needs for reproductive health care -- and indeed, even suggesting now and again, that women, like so many other Others, may not actually be humans.  This does cause great physical and emotional harm -- indeed, even death.  So yah, they should all swing too, if causing death is the criterian.  It's kinda hard, at least from a distance (as I'm a softie up close and personal) not to be pleased about that.

[Cue -- the French Terror!!!!!!! because those aristos, in one way or another, did each and all cause deaths.]

Just for funsies:

All False statements involving Mike Pence

http://www.politifact.com/personalities/mike-pence/statements/byruling/false/

These include false statements from him as gov and VP.

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It looks like there has been a real shift in the generic ballot towards parity (its only about D+4 right now), and Trump has also gained a bit in his approval ratings. This makes November a little bit more interesting, but I am hopeful some of these trends will reverse themselves by then.

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6 minutes ago, IheartIheartTesla said:

It looks like there has been a real shift in the generic ballot towards parity (its only about D+4 right now), and Trump has also gained a bit in his approval ratings. This makes November a little bit more interesting, but I am hopeful some of these trends will reverse themselves by then.

Enthusiasm gap is still large and there is a higher share of young people registering and voting in primaries than usual. I'm hopeful that these trends hold.

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