Brad Sallows
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Either they had access or they didn't. Right now the only information available is that they didn't.
A Deeply Fractured US
- Thread starter BeyondTheNow
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Maybe it is in some alternative universe.
It must be nice to be so blissfully ignorant that you can publicly ridicule dissenting opinion.
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Dissenting opinion that isn't based on any corroborable facts and that doesn't even make logical sense when evaluated against established facts is not an opinion worth taking seriously.
You denounced main stream media, but while even I agree MSM is extremely biases, at least the underlying facts that they base their stories on are verifiable and true. It seems like the stories you espouse are from media sources who care very little about whether or not their claims can be backed up by any actual facts.
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It must be nice to be so blissfully ignorant that you can keep blaming everyone else for wrongdoing and blithely ignore the huge orange elephant in the room.
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Go ahead, call this lawyer a liar. He's accusing the US government of non disclosure, in public, on TV. What do you think they'd do if he was lying?
www.foxnews.com
Former lawyer for 'QAnon Shaman' says Jan. 6 footage wasn't shown to client, calls prison sentence a 'tragedy'
The former attorney of Jacob Chansley, known nationally as the "QAnon Shaman," tells Tucker Carlson the Jan. 6 footage released Monday was never presented to his client.
www.foxnews.com
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lol, what non disclosure? He took a plea and didn't go to trial.Go ahead, call this lawyer a liar. He's accusing the US government of non disclosure, in public, on TV. What do you think they'd do if he was lying?
Former lawyer for 'QAnon Shaman' says Jan. 6 footage wasn't shown to client, calls prison sentence a 'tragedy'
The former attorney of Jacob Chansley, known nationally as the "QAnon Shaman," tells Tucker Carlson the Jan. 6 footage released Monday was never presented to his client.
But sure, lets rely on short out takes provided exclusively to a main steam media station, that definitely isn't biased, that somehow negates that he and hundreds of others violently stormed the capitol building and broke shit, and then tried to storm the Senate to prevent confirmation of democratic election results through thuggery. I'm sure there is nothing in the 40k hours of video that would be damning for the rioters who trespassed in the Capitol and got a number of people killed.
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Go ahead, call this lawyer a liar. He's accusing the US government of non disclosure, in public, on TV. What do you think they'd do if he was lying?
Former lawyer for 'QAnon Shaman' says Jan. 6 footage wasn't shown to client, calls prison sentence a 'tragedy'
The former attorney of Jacob Chansley, known nationally as the "QAnon Shaman," tells Tucker Carlson the Jan. 6 footage released Monday was never presented to his client.
He did it "in public" on Tucker Carlson, which Fox's own lawyers have established in court is not factual reporting. So, I expect them to do nothing. This is the same lawyer who said of the Jan 6th defendents: "they’re all fucking short-bus people. These are people with brain damage, they’re fucking retarded, they’re on the goddamn spectrum.” He can keep digging a hole for himself.
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Geez, imagine that. This isn't even a Republican friendly newscaster.
www.nbcnews.com
Republicans launch an investigation into the Jan. 6 committee
Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., who will lead the investigation, was accused by the House’s former Jan. 6 panel of giving tours of the Capitol complex in the days leading up to the riot.
www.nbcnews.com
The proceedings that truly matter regarding January 6th are the judicial ones. So far over 1000 people have been charged criminally for participating to various degrees in the storming of the Capitol. About 450 have been convicted and sentenced so far, 67 of them at trial. One has been acquitted at trial, and 13 cases have been dismissed- so overall, prosecutors have a very high batting average. DOJ believes there may be up to 1000 more chargeable suspects.
Additionally, there is the federal Special Counsel investigation that will determine if there are grounds to pursue indictment of anyone other than those who were actually on the ground, for any offences pertaining to preventing the peaceful transition of power. That investigation is ongoing and has seen quite a number of witnesses testify before the Grand Jury. Most recently, earlier this past week, a federal judge ordered that former VP Mike Pence will be required to testify before the grand jury on that matter, so investigators and the special counsel have clearly been working their way from the ground level all the way up to the former senior executive levels.
So, sure, Congress can do its thing and whoever is in power will hold their inquiries and votes, etc. That can result in referrals for the sort of meaningful prosecutorial actions I've outlined above. What really mattes in the legal realm is what the courts do. They're doing a lot.
Additionally, there is the federal Special Counsel investigation that will determine if there are grounds to pursue indictment of anyone other than those who were actually on the ground, for any offences pertaining to preventing the peaceful transition of power. That investigation is ongoing and has seen quite a number of witnesses testify before the Grand Jury. Most recently, earlier this past week, a federal judge ordered that former VP Mike Pence will be required to testify before the grand jury on that matter, so investigators and the special counsel have clearly been working their way from the ground level all the way up to the former senior executive levels.
So, sure, Congress can do its thing and whoever is in power will hold their inquiries and votes, etc. That can result in referrals for the sort of meaningful prosecutorial actions I've outlined above. What really mattes in the legal realm is what the courts do. They're doing a lot.
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I'm not speculating. Nobody knows what's happening inside the DOJ. I'm certainly not professing to know. I can wait and see what happens. Let's not forget. The DOJ and the FBI are being investigated right now by Congress. I wonder why such upstanding and beyond reproach departments find themselves in such a pickle.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/politics/house-republicans-investigation-doj-fbi/index.html
They’re being investigated by a Republican controlled committee in the House of Representatives, so it would be more accurate to say they’re being investigated by a House committee than all of Congress. In any case, I’m sure you put exactly as little weight to that investigation as you did to Democrat-controlled House proceedings like the Jan 6th committee or both impeachment trials- right?
On a rested and timely note, Washington Post has a lengthy and detailed article today on the investigative progress in the classified documents investigation, built on numerous sources. It sounds like that investigation is really strongly revolving around investigation of obstruction, and it cites investigators as having evidence that Trump personally handled and went through boxes of documents after the subpoena for document return was received. If this reporting accurately related what investigators know and are looking at, personal jeopardy for Trump in that investigation now seems a bit more likely than before. No indication on whether a decision on indictment is at all close. Investigators recently got a favourable ruling on compelling testimony from one of Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran, which means the investigation has closed in awfully close to the top. Doesn’t mean we’ll know any time soon how this one’s gonna go, though.
Article link for anyone who can get around the paywall. I was able to access it from a Twitter link on my phone: https://t.co/F8yazGEjU9
Brad Sallows
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Chansley isn't responsible for what other people did, so dragging them into the discussion is vacuous.
The question isn't whether something shows Chansley is not guilty - if the video shows he was somewhere he was not allowed to be, he's guilty of that. The question is whether the defence had access to information that might reasonably have been used to mitigate sentence.
People in government and authority aren't insensitive to appearances. How they immediately react to defuse potential scandal differs according to how much they believe they can push back, but they do push back. If Chansley's lawyer was lying or mistaken, all someone had to do was say so. Instead, we observe Chansley's conditions suddenly improved shortly after a lot of people had a chance to see part of what went on. Bad timing award candidate, I suppose.
The main beef about the release of the video is that some - maybe much - of it is bound to undermine the story the committee carefully narrated.
The question isn't whether something shows Chansley is not guilty - if the video shows he was somewhere he was not allowed to be, he's guilty of that. The question is whether the defence had access to information that might reasonably have been used to mitigate sentence.
People in government and authority aren't insensitive to appearances. How they immediately react to defuse potential scandal differs according to how much they believe they can push back, but they do push back. If Chansley's lawyer was lying or mistaken, all someone had to do was say so. Instead, we observe Chansley's conditions suddenly improved shortly after a lot of people had a chance to see part of what went on. Bad timing award candidate, I suppose.
The main beef about the release of the video is that some - maybe much - of it is bound to undermine the story the committee carefully narrated.
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Why? That's simple. They had the audacity to investigate Trump and even "raid" his residence. If there's anything that is ACTUALLY political in all of this, it's the republican/MAGA responses to legitimate actions by the DOJ and FBI. The GOP and otherwise MAG supporters have no evidence but are making wild claims based purely on politics.
Brad Sallows
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The charitable explanation for the document investigation migrating to "obstruction" is that going after prominent politicians for mere unauthorized possession has become problematical.
Brad Sallows
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Rule of law and anarcho-tyranny both are based on legitimate actions. But they are essentially incompatible philosophies. Sure, some people are upset at what is being done. But the broad impression I have is that many more people are upset by a sense that rules are not being applied without favour.
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The only reason it seems one sided is because it IS one sided, but not because the democrats are applying rules "with favour", but because there's enough actual evidence (many of it already public) that Trump has actually done shit (a lot of shit) worth having rules applied to.
The concept you're missing here is 'intent'. Government materials, even classified ones (or ones bearing classification markings) can be mishandled by mistake. Such a security breach is not necessarily criminal; it requires intent linked to some fraudulent purpose. If the documents had simply been returned to the National Archives as legally required, there never would have been a criminal investigation because there would be nothing to investigate. However, based on what has become public so far through court records like the search warrant affidavit, we know that investigators believe that, after a subpoena was served to return documents, an attestation was falsely signed attesting that all documents had been returned. That was clearly a lie because the FBI found a bunch more. Based on media reporting, sources are alleging that active steps were taken by various parties to move/conceal documents after the subpoena. That would escalate the matter to obstructing an investigation. Obstruction also requires intent, and it's a pretty serious matter as it perverts the very ability of the justice system to do its job.
It now seems exceptionally unlikely that the whole classified documents subpoena, search, and seizure could not have taken place but for someone being, at a minimum, grossly negligent. It's within the realm of possibility that a few people were so grievously bad at their jobs and so inept at things they were tasked to do, that it's all a big mistake and no offense took place. That seems unlikely though. What seems more likely is that someone, somewhere, knew that over a hundred classified documents were declared to have been returned, but were actually kept at the Mar a Lago estate. That's obstruction. Who knew, what they knew,a nd when, is an obvious focus for investigation. It doesn't mean the other offences named in the search warrant are off the table, but the same intent necessary to build a prosecutable case for obstruction would also be the intent that could elevate the handling of those documents to criminal offences. It will likely be much easier for prosecutors to simply work on and prove obstruction. If an indictment is forthcoming, the offences on that indictment will tell us what prosecutors think they can prove. My experience with prosecutors is that they're generally cautious about laying charges that aren't pretty solid, though of course I've not worked in the American system, nor on something with this sort of profile. If anything, though, I think prosecutors would be inclined to more caution in this case, not less.
Brad Sallows
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The document investigation against Trump started with "he has stuff he's not allowed to have" and proceeded with that. Fine. Follow through. Not just on him, though - also on everyone else who has stuff they're not allowed to have. It's the law.
Back to the real world - there's no way they'll do that. Disappointing, I suppose, but there are some things that Just May Not Be Done - like prosecute a presidential candidate for "gross negligence" under a statute that specifies "gross negligence", after drafting a statement that describes her behaviour as "grossly negligent" (and subsequently changing it to "extremely careless" to avoid the obvious embarrassment).
Silver lining, though: nearly every barrier - hard or soft - the Trump-addled crowd pushes through comes back to bite them within months. Biden's own document retention issues are only a recent example.
Back to the real world - there's no way they'll do that. Disappointing, I suppose, but there are some things that Just May Not Be Done - like prosecute a presidential candidate for "gross negligence" under a statute that specifies "gross negligence", after drafting a statement that describes her behaviour as "grossly negligent" (and subsequently changing it to "extremely careless" to avoid the obvious embarrassment).
Silver lining, though: nearly every barrier - hard or soft - the Trump-addled crowd pushes through comes back to bite them within months. Biden's own document retention issues are only a recent example.
Brad Sallows
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18 s 1924 doesn't say anything about fraudulent intent.
"Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both."
It can't plausibly be argued that anyone at that level has not been briefed more than once on what is expected.
"Whoever, being an officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States, and, by virtue of his office, employment, position, or contract, becomes possessed of documents or materials containing classified information of the United States, knowingly removes such documents or materials without authority and with the intent to retain such documents or materials at an unauthorized location shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for not more than five years, or both."
It can't plausibly be argued that anyone at that level has not been briefed more than once on what is expected.
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Two tiered justice system
The same way Trump was investigated for the last six years by the Democrat congress and house committees.
Wow, thought we were having a discussion. Nice ad hominem, personal attack. It appears every time you start getting annoyed at the way the discussion is going, you drag out that same old trope questioning my integrity.
If we can't do this without the personal attacks, I won't do it at all. You win. Have a nice day.
