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I think it's hilarious what Conway is doing. You have to wonder what life is like around the Conway dinner table at night. :lol:
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The President just committed another crime this morning
- Thread starter Cardinal
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I think it's hilarious what Conway is doing. You have to wonder what life is like around the Conway dinner table at night. :lol:
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https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1512
I have a tough time seeing that tweet as intimidation, a threat, or corruptly persuading Stone not to testify just off my first reading of the statute. But I haven't looked at any caselaw.
I have a tough time seeing that tweet as intimidation, a threat, or corruptly persuading Stone not to testify just off my first reading of the statute. But I haven't looked at any caselaw.
Mach
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I agree, they must have an interesting dinner table conversation.
But Kelly Ann hates Trump too, she just feels she's doing good for the Republican party (by meeting her career ambitions!) by suffering the fool.
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On the other hand, this could be an incentive to run. He'd have 4 more years free from indictment.
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Roger Stone is evil incarnate, going back to Nixon. He is the missing link behind Watergate, Dick Cheney, Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich, Paul Manafort and Trump. If anybody deserves a cup of Putin's plutonium tea it is Roger Stone.
Roger Stone is to Nixon's White House Plumbers what the "20th hijacker" was to 9/11.
The only difference is, he never got caught, but instead of choosing to retire and "grow his olives and tomatoes", he thought he was invincible and decided he wanted some second wind.
May he rot in Leavenworth for a good twenty years along with Manafort and Corsi.
Roger Stone is to Nixon's White House Plumbers what the "20th hijacker" was to 9/11.
The only difference is, he never got caught, but instead of choosing to retire and "grow his olives and tomatoes", he thought he was invincible and decided he wanted some second wind.
May he rot in Leavenworth for a good twenty years along with Manafort and Corsi.
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Every time Trump commits a crime a Trump appointee gets water wings for the swamp.
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He's one of the minority of conservatives who have principles.
This alone won't bring Trump down but it will be part of a stack of charges which will include obstruction of justice and witness tampering.
Trump is not finishing his term. When confronted with the mountain of evidence against Trump, even Republicans will vote to remove him.
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What in his Tweet is illegal? There is no there their............................
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Again, what crime? Show me an actual law thats been broken and not based on your poor interpretation of the facts?
jonny5
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I concur. Its obviously just an off hand comment, not an intention to tamper. The OP probably isnt even serious either, just wants to attack Trump on anything.
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From Susan Hennessey of Lawfare:
Yes, the president’s larger course of conduct is relevant to demonstrating his overall obstructive intent, and it helps smooth some of the edges of legal theories that don’t neatly apply to the exercise of Article II powers: examining a larger pattern of behavior means there's no need to get bogged down in the question of, for example, whether a president can obstruct justice by giving the FBI director an order that it is his constitutional prerogative to give. But wholly apart from the president's larger course of conduct, discrete violations of criminal statutes are important for a number of reasons. The principle way a president defends the “rule of law,” after all, is by actually following the law. We’d suggest that the president attempting to influence witnesses in the broad daylight of Twitter is as significant a breach of his constitutional duty as it would be if he were to secretly promise pardons in private—both are, in and of themselves, impeachable offenses.
True, the president may have also committed other offenses. But the seriousness of this individual transgression, even standing alone, should not be lost.
Recognizing where all the elements of a discrete statutory violations are present does have practical consequences, even outside a courtroom. While we’ve argued in the past, along with colleagues, that Congress could impeach the president for violating his oath of office even absent a direct violation of law, the fact is that it is extremely unlikely to do so. All three times the legislative branch has seriously considered articles of impeachment—against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton—it has involved allegations of actual lawbreaking. And in the case of Nixon’s and Clinton’s impeachments, those allegations specifically concerned the obstruction of justice. Indeed, the articles of impeachment against those two presidents describe conduct that looks a lot like witness tampering."
Susan Hennessey is the Executive Editor of Lawfare and General Counsel of the Lawfare Institute. She is a Brookings Fellow in National Security Law. Prior to joining Brookings, Ms. Hennessey was an attorney in the Office of General Counsel of the National Security Agency. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of California, Los Angeles.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/donald-trumps-tweet-about-roger-stone-witness-tampering
Yes, the president’s larger course of conduct is relevant to demonstrating his overall obstructive intent, and it helps smooth some of the edges of legal theories that don’t neatly apply to the exercise of Article II powers: examining a larger pattern of behavior means there's no need to get bogged down in the question of, for example, whether a president can obstruct justice by giving the FBI director an order that it is his constitutional prerogative to give. But wholly apart from the president's larger course of conduct, discrete violations of criminal statutes are important for a number of reasons. The principle way a president defends the “rule of law,” after all, is by actually following the law. We’d suggest that the president attempting to influence witnesses in the broad daylight of Twitter is as significant a breach of his constitutional duty as it would be if he were to secretly promise pardons in private—both are, in and of themselves, impeachable offenses.
True, the president may have also committed other offenses. But the seriousness of this individual transgression, even standing alone, should not be lost.
Recognizing where all the elements of a discrete statutory violations are present does have practical consequences, even outside a courtroom. While we’ve argued in the past, along with colleagues, that Congress could impeach the president for violating his oath of office even absent a direct violation of law, the fact is that it is extremely unlikely to do so. All three times the legislative branch has seriously considered articles of impeachment—against Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton—it has involved allegations of actual lawbreaking. And in the case of Nixon’s and Clinton’s impeachments, those allegations specifically concerned the obstruction of justice. Indeed, the articles of impeachment against those two presidents describe conduct that looks a lot like witness tampering."
Susan Hennessey is the Executive Editor of Lawfare and General Counsel of the Lawfare Institute. She is a Brookings Fellow in National Security Law. Prior to joining Brookings, Ms. Hennessey was an attorney in the Office of General Counsel of the National Security Agency. She is a graduate of Harvard Law School and the University of California, Los Angeles.
https://www.lawfareblog.com/donald-trumps-tweet-about-roger-stone-witness-tampering
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I don't think trump wrote that tweet.
Too eloquent. Like someone with command of the language.
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So when you get pulled over for a taillight out and you have a dead body in the back seat you should just get off with a fix it ticket, right?
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From Renato Mariotti (former Federal Prosecutor):
"George Conway, Neal Katyal and other highly respected attorneys quickly noted that Trump’s tweet looks a lot like witness tampering. They’re right—it does. But proving beyond a reasonable doubt that it’s witness tampering is more challenging than it might seem at first glance.
I’ve included the relevant jury instruction below. Mueller would need to prove, among other things, that Trump had “corrupt” intent and acted with the intent to cause Stone to withhold testimony."
"Because of the challenges of proving “corrupt” intent, and the legal challenges Trump could bring, I think the best way for a prosecutor to charge today’s tweet would be as part of a larger conspiracy to obstruct justice, instead of as a stand-alone crime. I’ve been convinced since January that Trump obstructed justice for the reasons I explained in the piece linked earlier in the thread. That larger scheme would be easier to prove than a case based on a single tweet."
https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/1069671987918835713
So a broader legal consensus appears to be shaping that proving criminal intent on this one tweet alone would be extremely difficult. However, as part of the larger context of obstruction of justice, Trump's tweet would be considered as strong evidence of that crime.
"George Conway, Neal Katyal and other highly respected attorneys quickly noted that Trump’s tweet looks a lot like witness tampering. They’re right—it does. But proving beyond a reasonable doubt that it’s witness tampering is more challenging than it might seem at first glance.
I’ve included the relevant jury instruction below. Mueller would need to prove, among other things, that Trump had “corrupt” intent and acted with the intent to cause Stone to withhold testimony."
"Because of the challenges of proving “corrupt” intent, and the legal challenges Trump could bring, I think the best way for a prosecutor to charge today’s tweet would be as part of a larger conspiracy to obstruct justice, instead of as a stand-alone crime. I’ve been convinced since January that Trump obstructed justice for the reasons I explained in the piece linked earlier in the thread. That larger scheme would be easier to prove than a case based on a single tweet."
https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/1069671987918835713
So a broader legal consensus appears to be shaping that proving criminal intent on this one tweet alone would be extremely difficult. However, as part of the larger context of obstruction of justice, Trump's tweet would be considered as strong evidence of that crime.
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while i recognize this post was submitted in support of the larger issue concerning what would be found ample impeachable evidence against the president, the portion remaining above is what gives me heartburn
any conclusion that the president's tweet about stone's lack of testimony against the president being found a high crime or misdemeanor is misguided when actually reading what tRump posted. in no way could his words about stone be alleged as witness 'tampering'. 'lauding' would work. however, that is no violation of law
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Because the rule of law does not matter anymore. Trump's crimes are all null and void.
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A case whose key facts - as determined by how those facts affect the application of precedent to the case at hand - line up in every single respect that matters. They don't have to be identical facts.
For example, the question of whether it is tampering would not depend on whether or not the accused is a President. (That would affect whether or not an indictment is sought while he is in office, but not whether or not it is a crime).
The broader point is simpler: law does not work the way so many people seem to think. It's not about reading some words and then announcing whether or not the case at hand sounds like it fits within those words. It's about a vast tapestry of cases in which different facts lead to different results.
So, someone saying 'this doesn't sound like it's over the line' isn't saying anything unless they summarize cases closest to the one at hand on both sides of the line, specifically mentioning how their facts lead to their results and then arguing why the present case is closer to whatever case(s) we want to say should govern the result here.
It's sort of like if a call in sports were not determined just by the officials' judgment at the time, but rather determined only after the officials reviewed every other call they'd made in similar circumstances in the past along with all the calls made by other officials in the same way, then decided which calls the current one is most like.
So basically, the experts were speaking from their experience. One might demand that they cite some cases, but that's not going to happen on twitter. But if someone here wants to say they're wrong - that it's not over the line - then it's on that person to point to actual case law. And if they can't......well....maybe they shouldn't suggest the people who know what they're doing got it wrong, debate site or not.
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Do you even know what you're trying to say? I can't decipher what you think you're saying here.
Cardinal posted the legal opinions of people qualified to have legal opinions. Those opinions were that this is witness tampering. We're talking federal prosecutors, professors, people who have had many years of experience and training that inform their opinion, none of which you have. You announced that either their having stated the opinions or Cardinal's having posted them or both was "hatred".
That was stupid, bad, and dumb. The second layer of foolish dishonesty happened you utterly failed to find an appellate decision where someone doing something like what Trump just did was ruled to be not witness tampering
And now you're demanding to know "Which crime exactly do you think meets this threshold"? What's that even supposed to mean? It's right there in the OP: federal witness tampering.
You know nothing about federal witness tampering, but you've just got to run some kind of blinkered interference for Trump. So even though you know perfectly well that you haven't the slightest clue of what you're talking about when it comes to a question of law and also know that you don't know how to go about obtaining said clue, you still have to flippantly brush off his corrupt and criminal act. Why?
Is it really that important to *get* liberals? We're done as a country if that's where we are. You killed it. Congrats.
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I see her point, but she is part of the reason for the divide now. Within the Republican party, you are either with Trump or you are against him. There aren't too many that are fence sitters when it comes to him. None that I've seen, anyway. There were at first, but now that he's gone completely off the rails, you're either hanging on for dear life, or you jumped off the Trump train several miles back. Right now, by justifying his behavior so vehemently, she is not only on the train, but probably up in the conductor's car.
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Either that, or he will resign, and blame it on the evil Democrats being out to get him, and fabricating evidence, much like he and his base do now.
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You know the defense of everything Trump does by Trump supporters seems to be "he didn't know" or "he was just saying" or something along those lines. But the woman that registered to vote and voted for 20 years (unknowlingly) illegally deserves 8 years on prison.
These people sure do have a twisted view of justice.
These people sure do have a twisted view of justice.
Conaeolos
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So I should just ignore the quoted law does not at all address the quoted tweet in any way?
18 USC 1512 : with search for relevant sections: "withhold testimony"
is exemplified by
Yeah that does not follow. You should read the links provided sir.
No I put a dismissive emoticon to show my annoyance of how hard is is to get good information about an opposing opinion on a relvent poltical topic especialy when in such a great format. "hate is a hell of a drug" refers to how hate of a person(or any zeal) can skew otherwise logical people into horribly illogical positions/opinions.
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Yeah, it does follow to any rational adult capable of reading and understanding simple English.
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You're lying.
I said 18 U.S. Code § 1512(b). Why did you post 18 U.S. Code § 1512(a)? This is 18 U.S. Code § 1512(b), which was the legal code I posted in the OP:
(b) Whoever knowingly uses intimidation, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to—
(1) influence, delay, or prevent the testimony of any person in an official proceeding;
(2) cause or induce any person to—
(A) withhold testimony, or withhold a record, document, or other object, from an official proceeding;
(B) alter, destroy, mutilate, or conceal an object with intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding;
(C) evade legal process summoning that person to appear as a witness, or to produce a record, document, or other object, in an official proceeding; or
(D) be absent from an official proceeding to which such person has been summoned by legal process; or
The fact that you need to resort to lying shows that you're aware you're in the wrong.
Conaeolos
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As stated it was the context of a full return for "withhold testimony"...I orginally had just this quote 1512(b) but changed to "with search for relevant sections: 'withhold testimony'" to include both contexts...you rightfully provided the full link so I am not sure were you think I am skewing the source.
But please do explain - how does 1502(b) refer to the tweet in question? Yes I get the "withhold testimony" connection I mean that b) section.