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Trump warned of a ‘constitutional crisis’ if president faced an investigation

Fenton said:
Wrong, the FBI director is a subordinate of the President, and has no special Constitutional authority over the President or Congress

Thats why the President can fire a FBI director, just as Trump did and just as Bill Clintin did.

The President has the authority to tell a FBI director to drop a investigation, it wouldnt be smart but it wouldnt be illegal either
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Exactly.

The act in itself may not otherwise be criminal. It become criminal only when found so in it's totality.

- If Trump fired Comey for good reason, it's legal.

- If Trump fired Comey to impede the march to justice, it can be found criminal.

Similar to the way a private citizen can ordinarily legally depose of his personal effects, unless they become pertinent to a criminal investigation. Then his otherwise legal activity becomes criminally liable.
 
Fenton said:
Lol !! Deshowitz is RIGHT, and so was I.
" Hack " is attacking someone who's imminently more knowledgable and qualified than you because you care more about some BS partisan narrative than you do the truth

Your'e just making this up as you go along
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Dershowitz is the one making things up. First of all has he forgotten Nixon and Clinton? They both had obstruction charges in their impeachment. So his contention that a President may not be impeached for obstruction is not only wrong it is dead wrong. But there are 3 other reasons that there is already a good obstruction case for Trump.

It is not easy to prove that a president committed the crime of obstruction, but if publicly reported facts are accurate, Mr. Mueller is likely to find that he has a strong case against Mr. Trump.

Obstruction of justice is a serious offense that lay at the core of Bill Clinton’s impeachment and forced the resignation of Richard Nixon. The Watergate-era cliché “The cover-up is worse than the crime” misses the point that the cover-up is a crime. Congress has made it a felony for any person — including the president — to “corruptly” interfere with a proceeding before a federal agency. Powerful evidence has emerged in recent weeks suggesting that President Trump did indeed interfere with the F.B.I. investigation of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, which is part of the broader Russia inquiry.

So far, the case against Mr. Trump involves three key events. First, James Comey said that when he was the F.B.I. director, the president told him in a Valentine’s Day chat, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” Two Federal Courts of Appeals have held that similar “I hope” statements can — depending on the context — support charges of obstruction.

Second, President Trump reportedly asked the director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, in a private meeting in late March if Coats could get the F.B.I. to back off its Flynn probe. President Nixon’s attempt to use the C.I.A. to shut down the Watergate investigation was one of the reasons the House Judiciary Committee voted for articles of impeachment on obstruction charges.

Last, President Trump fired Mr. Comey on May 9 and then said on television that the firing was related to the Russia inquiry — a signal to Comey’s replacement, Acting Director Andrew McCabe, that he should roll back the investigation if he wanted to stay on as F.B.I. chief.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/opinion/the-case-for-obstruction-charges.html
 
iguanaman said:
Dershowitz is the one making things up. First of all has he forgotten Nixon and Clinton? They both had obstruction charges in their impeachment. So his contention that a President may not be impeached for obstruction is not only wrong it is dead wrong. But there are 3 other reasons that there is already a good obstruction case for Trump.



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/opinion/the-case-for-obstruction-charges.html
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The NYTs ? Lol !

Your'e still wrong and Dershowitz and I am right. He's a Constitutional scholar and your a angry liberal with a axe to grind.
Stamping your feet and throwing a tantrum and calling people names changes nothing.

The President can legally shut down a investigation just has he can legally pardon criminals
 
Fenton said:
The NYTs ? Lol !

Your'e still wrong and Dershowitz and I am right. He's a Constitutional scholar and your a angry liberal with a axe to grind.
Stamping your feet and throwing a tantrum and calling people names changes nothing.

The President can legally shut down a investigation just has he can legally pardon criminals
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You can take your pick of Consititional lawyers they all say the same thing. Presidential power may not be used "corruptly" which is what stopping or intefering with an investigation into your own campaign is. Like I said, obstruction has already been used TWICE in articles of impeachment in the last 50 years. That alone should take you back a notch. It certainly is a valid "crime and misdemeanor" under the Constitution. Dershowitz is still a hack.
 
Fenton said:
The NYTs ? Lol !

Your'e still wrong and Dershowitz and I am right. He's a Constitutional scholar and your a angry liberal with a axe to grind.
Stamping your feet and throwing a tantrum and calling people names changes nothing.

The President can legally shut down a investigation just has he can legally pardon criminals
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So you think Clinton could have shut down Whitewater? That would have been corrupt too. I'm shocked that you believe this President can do no wrong and is free to be as corrupt as he pleases to be because "he can pardon criminals". Do you think our founders did that so the President could be a crook and get away with it? Are you from somewhere else? Mars? Nothing in our Constitution is consistent with that belief. Maybe you should read it.
 
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MrPeanut said:
I can't think of a single politician that openly lies and contradicts himself more often than Trump. Why does anyone actually trust him?
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Because he tells them to....





...cause he is and many of his voters are not....
 
iguanaman said:
You still don't get it. A President doesn't tell the FBI director what to do. They are independent and any violation of that independence can be prosecuted as obstruction.
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The FBI is a part of the Justice Department, which means it's director is subordinate to the attorney general. Who in turn is subordinate to the president.

All of whom are members of the Executive Department. The Constitution gives sole executive authority to the president. That's why Truman had the sign on his desk "The buck stops here."
The authority of the FBI is delegated to it by the president. It has no independent authority and power on its own. The director serves at the pleasure of the president. The director can be fired by the president. The president can stick his or her nose into any investigation he wishes. The president, after all, swears an oath that laws be faithfully executed.

The question of course becomes political- is it wise for the president to interfere in an investigation? No. But it's not illegal either. Unless the purpose of the interference is to corruptly obstruct the investigation. But since there was no criminal investigation occurring, there is no justice to obstruct.
 
iguanaman said:
A President may not perform corrupt acts with his powers.s.
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This is true. However, we know that there was no criminal investigation occurring. So there is no 'justice' being sought. Thus, nothing to obstruct.
 
The National Review is a conservative rag. :roll:
 
Athanasius68 said:
This is true. However, we know that there was no criminal investigation occurring. So there is no 'justice' being sought. Thus, nothing to obstruct.
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Except that Flynn is and was most definitely under criminal investigation. I don't know why you said that.
 
iguanaman said:
Except that Flynn is and was most definitely under criminal investigation. I don't know why you said that.
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Yes. But let's be honest. Nobody cares about Flynn. It's what Flynn 'knows' which is where all the hullabaloo is about.
Right?
Trump asks Comey to give up on Flynn. Comey doesn't and continues the investigation. Nothing more is said by Trump about it.
Trump fires Comey and it becomes that he is trying to obstruct the investigation into Flynn, because Flynn knows where all the dead bodies are buried in the Russian collusion scandal. Trump wants to keep his involvement in it secret.
Except that the Tussian investigation was not a criminal investigation, but rather a counterintelligence one. Which means there is nothing criminal going on which Trump needed to worry about. No obstruction.
 
Athanasius68 said:
Yes. But let's be honest. Nobody cares about Flynn. It's what Flynn 'knows' which is where all the hullabaloo is about.
Right?
Trump asks Comey to give up on Flynn. Comey doesn't and continues the investigation. Nothing more is said by Trump about it.
Trump fires Comey and it becomes that he is trying to obstruct the investigation into Flynn, because Flynn knows where all the dead bodies are buried in the Russian collusion scandal. Trump wants to keep his involvement in it secret.
Except that the Tussian investigation was not a criminal investigation, but rather a counterintelligence one. Which means there is nothing criminal going on which Trump needed to worry about. No obstruction.
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Maybe if every day until these investigations end, you close your eyes, tap your heels together and say "There is nothing criminal going on which Trump needed to worry about. No obstruction" 1000 times a day, then your ridiculous wish might come true! Or maybe you could write a Political Fiction novel and peddle it to TrumpBots! Thank you for sharing your humorous and narrow view!
 
Athanasius68 said:
Yes. But let's be honest. Nobody cares about Flynn. It's what Flynn 'knows' which is where all the hullabaloo is about.
Right?
Trump asks Comey to give up on Flynn. Comey doesn't and continues the investigation. Nothing more is said by Trump about it.
Trump fires Comey and it becomes that he is trying to obstruct the investigation into Flynn, because Flynn knows where all the dead bodies are buried in the Russian collusion scandal. Trump wants to keep his involvement in it secret.
Except that the Tussian investigation was not a criminal investigation, but rather a counterintelligence one. Which means there is nothing criminal going on which Trump needed to worry about. No obstruction.
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That convoluted logic makes no sense at all. Interfering with a criminal investigation with corrupt intent is obstruction. You outlined what makes Trumps pressure on Comey corrupt. That it was to save his own neck. End of story.
 
iguanaman said:
That convoluted logic makes no sense at all. Interfering with a criminal investigation with corrupt intent is obstruction. You outlined what makes Trumps pressure on Comey corrupt. That it was to save his own neck. End of story.
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Aye. But since there was no criminal investigation of Trump, there was nothing to hide.
Trump made no effort to stop the investigation after Comey rebuffed the request (which by the way was witnessed by nobody). Kind of tough to talk about corrupt intent with such facts.
 
cuban smokes said:
Trump warned of a ‘constitutional crisis’ if president faced an investigation

Trump warned of a 'constitutional crisis' if president faced an investigation | MSNBC


In June 2016, after the Democratic presidential primaries, Barack Obama officially threw his support behind Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump, borrowing a page from Fox News, pushed a very specific line: “Never before,” the Republican tweeted, “has a president endorsed someone under investigation” by the Justice Department.

Trump predicted that Clinton’s election would bring “an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis” because of the looming investigation and suggested Americans would not want to endure a second Clinton administration marred by scandal.

Three days later, Trump insisted that Clinton, as president, couldn’t possibly be expected to govern – because the investigation into her email server protocols would make such an endeavor impossible.

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Will the Trump administration be able to 'govern' now that the tables have been turned? :lol:
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Perhaps, even if the tables are actually turned. I don't know that the tables have been turned.
 
fmw said:
Perhaps, even if the tables are actually turned. I don't know that the tables have been turned.
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well, let's look at some of the verbiage .............

Trump predicted that Clinton’s election would bring “an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis” because of the looming investigation and suggested Americans would not want to endure a second Clinton administration marred by scandal.

Three days later, Trump insisted that Clinton, as president, couldn’t possibly be expected to govern – because the investigation into her email server protocols would make such an endeavor impossible.


OK, what is Trump facing? An investigation? OK, you tell us, have the tables turned?

I don't know; maybe .................
 
He should go back to the business world where his money would actually have a chance of covering up his horrible failures.
 
cuban smokes said:
Trump warned of a ‘constitutional crisis’ if president faced an investigation

Trump warned of a 'constitutional crisis' if president faced an investigation | MSNBC


In June 2016, after the Democratic presidential primaries, Barack Obama officially threw his support behind Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump, borrowing a page from Fox News, pushed a very specific line: “Never before,” the Republican tweeted, “has a president endorsed someone under investigation” by the Justice Department.

Trump predicted that Clinton’s election would bring “an unprecedented and protracted constitutional crisis” because of the looming investigation and suggested Americans would not want to endure a second Clinton administration marred by scandal.

Three days later, Trump insisted that Clinton, as president, couldn’t possibly be expected to govern – because the investigation into her email server protocols would make such an endeavor impossible.

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Will the Trump administration be able to 'govern' now that the tables have been turned? :lol:
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Trump is a proven liar and he and his cabal have brought all of this on themselves. What Obama did or didn't do has nothing to do with the way Trump behaves and who he chose to be his cabinet members. I can't see a constitutional crisis in this anymore than the one that did not exist under Nixon. The sad fact for America and the rest of the cultured world is that Donald Trump cannot be trusted to anything factual anymore. He set himself on fire with all of this and he deserves to burn up like a pack of matches.
 
Cardinal said:
Given that Trump far exceeded the very worst of anything he and his supporters criticized Clinton for, a fair question to ask of them is if all of their criticisms were fake, or if they were vocalizing their intent to create a purposeful golem that would encapsulate everything they hated about Clinton in the understanding that it was "their turn."

Sure, I kind of set that up to lead the reader toward a certain perspective, but it's still true.
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The real hilarity is that Trump believes that a majority of us will give a rat's ass about what happens to him.

His 65% disapproval rating indicates a big **** You to Trump from most Americans.
 
Any constitutional crisis in which Trump is involved is of his own making. It was Trump who decided to fire Comey, admitting the purpose was to quash the investigation into Russian election interference. It was Trump who tried to manipulate Comey into dropping the investigation into Flynn's conflict of interest.

Trump and his supporters have no one else to blame but Trump for the mess in which Trump is currently involved.
 
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