Discussion: Rep. Schiff ‘Worried’ GOP Plans To Shut Down House Intel’s Russia Probe

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#244

Ok…the first thing you need to understand, is there are several investigations going on, simultaneously. The House Intelligence Committee, which Rep. Schiff is the ranking member of (which means, he is the leader of the minority in that Committee), is one of the. There is also one going on in the Senate counterpart, as well as one in the Senate Judiciary Committee (which oversees things like…the DoJ, and thus, the FBI). These are all Congressional investigations, and don’t actually have an prosecutorial power…if they find wrong doing, they have to submit their findings and recommendations over to the DoJ to prosecute.

Since these are Congressional, they are by nature, political. And the majority party can “shut down” any or all of them, because they have the votes (in theory). There would however been TREMENDOUS backlash to such a move (doing such political moves comes with a political cost), and given the backdrop of it being increasingly likely that the republicans lose the House…that could lead to some very bad consequences for republicans.

Then we have the Special Counsel investigation, led by Robert Mueller. Mueller was appointed after the head of the FBI, James Comey, was fired by Trump. The FBI under Comey was conducting several investigations into numerous people in the White House at the time of the firing…some of these were counter intelligence investigations, some of these were criminal investigations. The Special Counsel has essentially taking over all of the criminal investigations that were being done by the FBI, as well as expanded into more criminal investigations. The Special Counsel, however, largely uses FBI agents to do a lot of their investigative work.

The President cannot fire Mueller directly. Normally, the Attorney General would have that responsibility, but AG Sessions has recused himself (because he is under investigation), and his deputy, Rosenstein, now has that responsibility. But its not an “at large” power, meaning, Mueller can only be fired “for cause”, and the rules regarding the Special Counsel are very specific as to what causes would be allowed.

The Special Counsel investigation is NOT something either party in Congress can shut down. It is non partisan and unbiased run by professionals. The non partisan and unbiased part are the parts that some republicans are now attacking, under guidance from the White House. Since Trump cannot directly fire Mueller, or realistically remove him without causing an even bigger firestorm, they see their path forward is to question the credibility of the Special Counsel. That is what you are seeing playing out now.

Coincidentally, the rumors around D.C. is that another big indictment is about to land. This makes this sudden escalation in these moves all the more suspicious.

Hope all of this helps. Good luck on your assignment.

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#245

Kelly and the Christianistized portions of the military.

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#246

That’s a concerning degree of competence all right. Question is whether they envision imposing their vision militarily on what the saner ones among them ought to know is a majority of the population.

#247

You got that right. I think it took a wildly unpopular §resident to wake up the populous to the fact that the GOP ONLY has the donor class as a constituency. Trumpites blinded by racism are now realizing the campaign promises and legislative agenda was all a spetacular grift by the tRUMP syndicate.

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#248

Much simpler: Remove Trump to save us from the Russians.

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#249

So do the rest of us.

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#250

I agree with @floydmaster here. Somewhere in their (warped) rationalization, ratwingers see the authoritarianism as a republican one of sorts. I could be wrong, but it goes a long way in the abrupt capitulation. Read Sen. Graham.

@mattinpa @daveyjones64

#251

That would be a difficult case to prove in court, assuming just the facts we have in the public domain. Nunes is a sitting republican and Chair of the Committee. As such, he has tremendous latitude in what he says or does, because its protected political speech. He would have to interfere in an actual investigation and/or judicial proceeding for it to be obstruction.

Trump pressuring Senators to shut down the investigations, IS Obstruction of Justice, to the letter of the law. Nunes, however, as Chair, has the authority to shut down or lead his Committee pretty much where ever he likes. He can subpoena unflattering documents from the FBI and DoJ in attempts to embarrass them, or lead off on a wild goose chase that distracts from the real issues. Its wrong, and it comes at a political cost, but its not Obstruction.

And even if Mueller could bring a case against Nunes, it doesn’t necessarily means he leaves the committee. That would be solely up to Ryan. An indicted Congressman is still a Congressman, there is no impeachment process…merely the election box.Nor have I seen any indication that Ryan would remove Nunes. He only appointed Conaway and Gowdy because Nunes voluntarily, sort of recused himself (but not really. Except on Saturdays. In the early evening).

I do agree that Nunes is probably very dirty, and very compromised…most likely by the Russians as well. But there are several concerns that make me think Mueller isn’t going to go down that path.

First, Nunes is in Congress, not the White House. If and when Mueller expands his investigations to include sitting members of Congress…Congress is going to get EXTREMELY defensive. The cries of expanding beyond his mandate will be deafening, as will the cries of partisan witch hunt.

Second, such an indictment/investigation sets up a very bad optic for Mueller. It would be easy to make such an investigation appear to be retaliatory in nature…ie, Nunes is giving him a hard time, so he indicts Nunes…that’ll teach anyone to question Mueller. Rightly or wrongly, that optic will exist. And, given the difficult of achieving a conviction I outlined above, that optic would be extremely troublesome to the actual work Mueller is doing.

Thirdly, Mueller appears to be zeroing in on the actual main target…Trump himself. Two things arise from that that make pursuing Nunes problematic. First is a simple resource management issue. Any involvement by Nunes is way down on the food chain, but would require significant resources by the Special Counsel’s office to pursue. Second, if he does go after an indictment against Trump, clearly he wants as many people in Congress on his side (or at least, not at odds with him) as possible, so they will impeach, and he can avoid the entire constitutional argument of whether or not a sitting President can be criminally indicted.

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#252

The organizing and the size of the response overwhelmed the attempts to block them. They tried. There is a list I failed to bookmark: closure of DMV making it difficult to obtain photo ID, police intimidation, long line due to inadequate voting machines, misinformation spread on voting locations, police intimidation.

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#253

Next step in Trumpers’ attempt to assume absolute power.

#254

I watched Maddow last night and she had a panel of former U.S. Attorneys on, and I believe they were in agreement that bias was one of those rules. Perhaps that is why the conservative media is laying it on thick…?

I normally would predict an unhinged tweetstorm from Cheetolini, but in light of your (very informative-educational) post, I should instead expect escalations of the pressure to end investigations, fire Mueller.

Side note: Your well written and insightful posts give us non-lawyers here, valuable perspective. Thank You.

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#255

I believe that plays a significant part, yes. I also think that A) Ryan is spectacularly bad at the job, and thoroughly hates it B) Ryan is facing the first actual hard campaign of his life in 2018 against Randy Bryce C) Ryan is facing a series of very difficult “must pass” bills that he has been kicking down the road for the past year or so, that he will have to deal with in 2018. And dealing with them will make him VERY unpopular, particularly with the HFC Masters who hold his chain.

My own personal suspicion…and its obviously not confirmed anywhere…is that Ryan does indeed have knowledge of Russian money flowing into GOP House races and coffers. Fund raising, something he is not very good at and by all accounts despises having to do (not fund raising was one of his demands when he took the Speaker seat, and it was promptly ignored), is a very crucial part of the Speaker job. Easy money from Russia was probably a temptation that Ryan couldn’t refuse to get that odious task off his plate.

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#256

Thank you for writing this. It is exactly what I needed to hear today. I stomped out of the house tonight after picking a fight with my fiance about whether one should worry about things that haven’t happened yet. I insisted that I should start worrying as soon as possible; he did not. Sometimes you need to hear it from someone else to see the wisdom in it. :wink:

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#257

There seemed to be some talk that Rohrabacher had some ‘suspicious’ Russian associations as well. Perhaps this is bigger than the 2016 cycle…?? GOP in bed with foreign adversary??

Ok, upon further review (read @geofu54 & @tomanjeri posts earlier in thread), scratch that last question.

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#258

“Ramsey said the national Democratic party declined to support her over the lawsuit.”

As reported looks like fired employee made false claims.

#259

You missed one part: Trump tries to help Russia by trying to lift the sanctions,

#260

Voters chose someone else. Bug in the Electoral College landed us with him. Plus some help from Russia.

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#261

Things are so bad that the EPA’s buildingr just became a whistleblower. Good on you, building!

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#262 
    ajm

Voters chose someone else. Bug in the Electoral College landed us with him. Plus some help from Russia.
…
I know but still millions…tens of millions did vote for him and to me I find that deeply disturbing. Those people knew what they were buying and they did it anyway. They actively voted against their direct self interest. I have seen this behavior before but never at this scale. A huge majority of these folks still today avidly support trump against their self interest. They know full well the tax bill is ripping them off. That it enriches large corporations. They applaud the death of a free internet. They have no problem with Russian interference in our elections. They applaud trump’s making money from foreign sources (emoluments clause), his obstruction of justice, collusion, and all the rest. They are cool with it all. They are quite willing to hand our country to any adversary. We’re like a beached whale spewing goods and money and our sacred rights with a sign that says “FREE Come and Get It!” And I take deep offense at that.

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#263

These people eat their own young! How else to explain making children pay for corporate greed?

Run for office- the 2018 elections are less than a year away! And if Trump and Louie Gohmert can get elected what’s to stop a qualified candidate?

Become a Precinct Committee Officer, sometimes it’s a Ward officer. You’ll meet with neighborhood Dems and get out the vote. Find good citizens willing to run for office.

Register people to vote. If you need to help people overcome the GOP-led Voter run-around help them do that.

Run for School Board. Make sure Civics is being properly taught. Think a majority of America knows how government works? Just 26% of eligible voters in America voted for Trump and half of eligible voters stayed home last November. Today’s 12-year olds will be voting for President in 8 years.

Run for Mayor, City Council, County Commissioner, Borough Assembly.

Get appointed to your Planning Commission. Know everything going on in your community.

Run for State Legislature or Congress. The next census is in 2020, just over 2 years from now, when we redraw Congressional Districts.

And get rid of GERRYMANDERING! Safe GOP seats gave us such intellectual giants as Louie Gohmert and Steve King. In most cases it’s the state Legislature that draws Congressional boundaries. Make it FAIR, OPEN and HONEST! We can do this!

Overturn Citizens United. Money is NOT speech and Corporations are NOT people- at least not until Texas executes one, and overturn any voter ID laws that are clearly an attempt to disenfranchise the poor and people of color.
.




“If you’re disappointed by your elected officials, grab a clipboard, get some signatures, and run for office yourself.”
-President Barack Obama

“Those who would purposely mislead or seek to confuse others are bad people. Worse, they are evil.”
-Kathleen Parker

You Got To Run!

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