Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues The Trump Administration Justice is coming

We also need to keep in mind that pardoning someone to keep him from testifying against you, is particularly ineffective. People who have been pardoned can't use the Fifth Amendment and can be compelled to testify against you under threat of indefinite jailing and fines. And Contempt of Court or Congress is not a pardonable offense.

Manafort is going to be a great example when he gets sentenced for the state crimes he already pleaded guilty to in his plea agreement. Since he continued to lie, the judges do not have to honor the agreement, so he can get the maximum sentences in several state prisons. Just think what that's going to do for anybody Mueller charges: They are going to foul their britches and then beg for a deal.

I've spent much of the morning reading Michael Cohen's sentencing submission, and contemplating the wheels of the bus going round and round over the bodies of various Trumps... (How Michael Cohen’s Plea Deal Implicates Donald Trump Jr. (HuffPo); Cohen was in ‘close and regular c... while crafting misstatement to Congress(The Hill)). Reading between the lines, however, Cohen was doing much of this "on behalf of" Trump, but not always "at the direction of" Trump. There is still wiggle room, as there usually is for most mob bosses.

Get ready for Mueller’s end game (Salon); ROBERT MUELLER'S ENDGAME MAY BE IN SIGHT (Wired). I believe the water is building behind the dam, and Fridays are always good days for indictments. There are, presently, 14 sealed indictments in D.C. District Court that were filed in August. We can anticipate 3 of them (Stone, Corsi, Trump Jr.), but who are the other 11? I'll bet Robert Mueller knows...

I tend to think Mueller may want to hold back for the House Intelligence Committee hearing transcripts he'll get in January. There are a LOT of Trump associates who could be flipped with potential perjury charges, in those transcripts. Also no sense in precipitating a showdown with Trump before the new House is seated.

>who are the other 11?

Maybe some lawyers who have crossed the line into criminal acts?

From quoted Wired article:

I think maybe we should speculate now on who WON'T be getting some coal? I think Melania is in the clear. She'll do alright. After she gets deported she'll go on to marry some Greek shipping magnate, Jackie O style. Baron will be okay, but will be raised by his sister Tiffany. I do think Jeff Sessions is on the hook for some stuff that made him recuse himself.

Watched SNL last night, they had a skit about all of this stuff (forcasting that Jackass goes down). My thought is what happens if Mueller finds NOTHING. I suspect we would have an entire nation operating under a pall of clinical depression.

Are you rewriting history> Mueller already has indictments and convictions.

Mueller has already found a lot of something, but... There is a real question of whether there will be enough specific information to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Trump himself directed it. Trump is a well-practiced mobster. He knows to be indirect with underlings to create "plausible deniability", as implausible as his denials are. Was he in it up to his eyeballs? No doubt, but can it be proved directly? Time, and Mueller, will tell.

I suspect there may be an implicit meaning of "what if there is not evidence of criminal collusion (conspiracy) or obstruction (of justice and investigation or Congress)?"

It is similar if not the same as asking, did L H Oswald shoot Pres Kennedy etal?

I think there are a couple of approaches to situations like we have. The one I like in this circumstance (only because there are only a finite number of possibilities) is to start with the premise, the Trump campaign criminally colluded with Russians to win an election.

It is relatively easy to process the premise. Start with all the campaign staff. Start with all the easily known Russian interactions. Follow the evidence. Either the accumulated evidence will meet the minimum requirements for criminal prosecution (or impeachment charges) of criminal conspiracy or it will not. In this case, the evidence should be overwhelmingly compelling or it should be dropped. There is no benefit to presenting a weak case to anyone, the public, grand jury, or Congress.

If there is not enough evidence to convince an armadillo Mr Trump or people in his campaign criminally colluded with Russians to win an election, then, clinch your jaw and accept it, and move on. There are more political battles to fight which are far more important than personal vendettas against some of the slugs who have been elected by an ignorant electorate.

Find long lasting solutions to our problems. The Founders gave us a frame work. We need to fill in the blanks.

Couldn't agree more!

Does THIS amount to witness tampering?

TWITTER

Maybe one of the reasons the Mueller investigation is taking so long is because Donald Trump continues to commit new crimes, every single day, it seems.

Tampering with a witness, victim, or an informant