Biff's repeated statements about having no business in Russia?
- Thread starter Syskatine
- Start date
Well I’m no attorney.. lawyer? Whichever. But I do know that Cohen seems like a pretty unreliable witness.
But please, do go on. I always enjoy seeing you get wound up over process crime indictments.
As a layperson, that strikes m as a pitiful ROI. Or am I missing the point?
Re: "Process crime" indictments. Thanks, I've heard that talking point, as if some crimes don't really count. That's something you should put on your MAGA bumper stickers: "It was only a process crime."
Rel ROI: Well... manafort looks like he's in for life. Lots of other convictions. I think it's hard to evaluate the ROI before Mueller is done. I think he's paid for the investigation from all the forefeiture and recovery of Manafort's Russian blood money, so from that perspective he's paid his own freight. We don't have Flynn as NSA, that's great we dont' have someone with that character and incompetence as a national security advisor, right?
Like you, I just want some clean government and elected officials that have the country's best interests (and not their own) at heart. Right?
I've been hanging on the fire alarm since Trump's candidacy was viable. I'm telling you, we should have hanged Bush and Cheney when it became apparent they lied to get us in a war, and hanged Trump when he stepped off the plane from Helsinki. The republic would be much stronger and we'd have a better government.
There's an OU kid on the news this morning. He was in an apartment fire. He's in a fluffy pink bathrobe. That's an omen. The UT middle linebacker that has your hair-do is gonna win this weekend. Tomorrow will be a big day for hair. I want you conditioned, blow dried, starting with a man bun, then let that shit out come second half. Your hair on campus way back when is the reason we're 6-6 this year. It's your fault. Gundy saw it and it impacted him. If you acted more like Walt Garrison and less like the UT middle linebacker we'd be in the Big 12 championship this year.
Would such things actually be a crime? I, much like you, don't know much about federal law stuff. Didn't a bunch of folks get fired for parking in the wrong lot or something like that? Maybe even one of them is under grand jury investigation for parking in the handicap parking? I can't remember all those details.Anything yet? You'd think somebody would get charged for such conduct.
I hope you aren't saying that my hypotheticals actually happened in real life though. That would be a really bad look for the Justice Department.
You don’t find a lot of 100% truthful co-conspirators ever (before you get groggy, this isn’t a contention that Trump is definitely a co-conspirator). Most prosecution witnesses have some credibility problems. Prosecutors are real good at rehabilitation.
As far as ROI goes....approximately $60 mill on asset forfeitures so far from an approximately $40 million dollar investigation. Seems like a pretty decent return.
Okay that one got me.
I need to walk away again. You're right. I post a thread every so often to make myself let it go. He's such a fool and criminal and coward God only knows what they'll come up with on him. I'm astounded that people can't make that basic evaluation of Biff after hearing him speak for 30 seconds. He lies in every sentence.
1. I don’t think asset forfeiture from process crimes is the measure of success anyone was sold on re: the purpose of Mueller. It’s been a long time but I seem to recall it had something to do with Russian collusion right?
2. Is lying to Congress going to consistently be prosecuted now? Bad news for Coney, Clapper, Brennan and even Ms Ford if so.
3. Out of curiosity how would you go about rehabilitating this? “Mr Cohen, were you lying then or are you lying now that you are facing jail time for lying to Congress?”
Right? Kind of like Whitewater was all about a failed real estate venture. These just get totally out of control. Too bad there's historic precedent courtesy of the GOP.
Be careful, there were prominent posters alleging criminal liabilty of Hillary, promises made during the campaign.... and she still hasn't been charged. It's risky to believe what you hear about who's lying from FOX. Even now, lots of conservatives have a hard time explaining why, if Hillary committed crimes and Biff would have her prosecuted, nobody has prosecuted her. I'm sure we'll see it any day now, with Biff's SECOND hand-picked AG.
LIke they did with Rick Gates. Manafort was convicted of 8 felonies. Gates was an admitted liar and criminal, but they also had supporting evidence for what he said. Cohen also has tapes and lots of documents and electronic footprints. About every mafioso conviction is predicated on scumbag testimony.
1. You might want to read the actual authority document for the Mueller investigation. One could reasonably argue it is overbroad, but not that the convictions obtained so far weren’t within his jurisdiction. Measure of success for a criminal prosecution to me is whether someone is convicted of a crime and punished appropriately. Seems that is happening to me. Good to see you picking up on the MAGA buzzwords of the week, though (process crimes are STILL crimes by the way.) Also, Manafort convictions aren’t for process crimes. Finally, evidence that the Trump organization may have been offering a $50 million dollar penthouse free of charge during and around the election is pretty relevant information in a Russian collusion investigation. Probably doesn’t prove the case alone, but is certainly relevant.
2. Don’t know if it will or not. I hope when it can be definitively proven, it is. Don’t you? Because you kinda sound like you don’t think lying to Congress under oath is all that big a deal.
3. That one is actually REALLY simple. “I lied to Congress and then because at the time I thought I could get away with it. When the investigators established that they had definitive proof with separate corroborated evidence of me lying, I decided to come clean.” That’s gonna get a jury “makes sense” head nod almost every single time.
Hate to be seen agreeing with Sys, but Gates’s testimony is a prime example of how this works. There is other corroborating evidence in these types of things.
I voted for Bill Clinton and agree about that being overreach. But that’s a pretty weak justification for victory lapping here IMO.
To be clear, I am not in the “they got him now” crowd. I’m not victory lapping anything. I am still in “when the investigation concludes, we’ll see whether they got anyone or not” mode.
I am amused by the continued attempts to shrug all of this off as a “nothing burger” at this point though.
I am amused by the continued attempts to shrug all of this off as a “nothing burger” at this point though.
1. If you don't to be too closely linked to syskatine in this thread, don't worry about the origin of my buzzwords. I didn't know what to call such things, and the popular nomenclature seems to be "process crimes." No idea where I even heard that but it's not a partisan description as far as I know. Now, having said that, process crimes (or whatever) aren't what this guy and his dream team were brought in to do. If he comes up with something big, fine I'll eat crow. But I've been on record from day one (so, no MAGA indoctrination) as saying the Russia collusion stuff is bullshit. I suspect that a big part of the purpose of the Meuller investigation is to keep the focus on Trump rather than on FISA abuse, but I digress. As you said, we shall see. I've also never been an "end the investigation" guy. I just found it to be transparent bullshit that I think is not delivering on what it was sold to be - so far. Let it play out and let's see who's right and what the consequences of this investigation prove to be for all parties.
2. No I don't kinda sound like that. I'm pretty clearly saying the law should be evenly applied in the case of lying to congress which typically tends to go completely without consequence, depending on one's importance and connections. I couldn't care less about Cohen personally. He seems pretty trashy and is another bad hire for Trump. I just don't like to see such blatantly disproportionate application of the law and I don't like that Meuller has so much swing that he can dictate whether or not lying to congress is a crime *this time*
3. I'll defer to your expertise here but that sure sounds far from simple to me. Sounds like red meat for a defense attorney to establish your witness is a lying piece of shit from the get go. I'm sure a talented prosecutor could get people nodding, but it seems like an average defense guy could just keep pointing out that the guy is already a proven liar.
1. So far....I would agree. At the same time, despite the whining from Trump this hasn’t been an overly long investigation for these types of issues so far (based upon my experience), and you don’t play your hand out in public until the end. I agree completely with this sentiment....”Let it play out and let's see who's right and what the consequences of this investigation prove to be for all parties”. As far as it being cover for alleged FISA abuses....if it was for that it has failed miserably, how many FBI folks have lost their jobs so far. I’ve heard more on that than I have Russia in the past few months.
I’ll take your word re: buzzwords. It was just weird that I start seeing that term pop up hear for the first time the same week as it is the new MAGA social media word of the week.
2. Then we agree. Mueller is enforcing the law and if others haven’t in the past, that’s on them.
3. Keep in mind the prosecution goes first. They are going to have already put on the corroborating evidence they have and will address his prior lies before defense counsel gets their hands on them. In fact, that “lying now, or lying then question” rarely gets asked by defense counsel because more than anything it opens the door for prosecutors to redirect by again going over all the corroborating evidence. Kind of a rookie mistake, honestly. An experience defense counsel might make that argument in closing. It would be certainly more appropriate there.
Like I said, it is incredibly rare that prosecution witnesses that were previously involved with the accused are squeaky clean angels. That’s why you rehabilitate them with other evidence. It’s not purely a he said/he said kind of thing.
Pretty sure I used the same phrase when Flynn was indicted. Not 100% sure I did, but that's about the same time I started hearing that term.
I might add....
"We wish that criminals committed their crimes after inviting honest, godly people to watch and tell us what happened.. But they don't. Criminals typically commit crimes with other criminals. So you've heard from the kind of people that you'd expect to find around crime."
Don't get your hopes up man. You always do, and then you always have to justify why you are excited about Papadopolous going to do his 2 week sentence or something similar.
So.. how many cases have you been involved in that (not murder or something close related) have lasted ~2 years and have nothing criminal related to the target been found?
Do you think that if anything is found by Muller it will be a criminal offense?
I think you will say no, but I am interested in your opinion.
Lots and lots of cases/investigations Ihave been involved in last that long.
You’re the one claiming Trump is the “target”. I didn’t see that in his assignment from Rosenstein. IMO, he is doing a comprehensive investigation and seeing where it leads. The only person involved in the investigation I see consistently say Trump is the target is....Trump.
Other “special investigations” of DOJ....are notoriously long affairs:
Iran/Contra: 7 years
Whitewater: nearly 8 years
Mike Espy: 7 years
Henry Cisneros: 9 yeas
That’s why I think all this whining about how long it’s been with no results is completely overblown.
I avoid speculating or predicting about what an investigation will discover.
That has been my consistent position throughout. I think the “got him now” crowd and the “nothingburger” crowds are equally goofy.
To be fair, I was making a general statement about a "target". I was meaning most any long term investigation.
You are going back a few years beyond my memory in most of your examples. (you old fart, LOL) I know very little about the first 2 and have never heard of the last..
I guess my question would be if you think Whitewater was a wast of time and money? It seems, by my memory, that the Clinton's who were the real targets, walked away unscathed. Is that what is really going to happen here and I would guess not even close to who got charges/convicted in the Clinton deal.
I guess my real challenge with most of this is, there are not many people who have done zero that they could not be charged with in their life. At what point does an investigation be really limited to the real "target" and what they did? I think there are some here that have been bullied into doing or saying stuff just because they have been made too. Come on, if I get caught smoking and having some pot then charge me I guess, but dont try that crap years and years after hit happened when no one was actually killed or physically hurt.
A “process crime” during the Whitewater investigation ended up getting Willie impeached.
I don’t know what’s gonna happen. None of us really can until....it happens. Anything else is speculation and puffery for political gains.
Calling him "Willie" always makes me chuckle. What he did was wrong and I think he raped one or two of them. Him getting impeached was easy on him, IMO. We paid a lot of money for a BS show of nothing worth a crap.
And then there is this: https://pjmedia.com/blog/liveblogevent/live-blog-133/entry-247087/
