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ANALYSIS: Constitution Compels Sessions Dismiss Mueller From Non-Campaign Cases

Fishking said:
Nope. He was authorized to investigate Russian collusion. That means all authority is invested in tracking that down. Further, warrants can only be given for specific reasons, meaning his reasons were for collusion and any crime uncovered that is not related cannot be used. So something like money laundering wouldn't be part of that, obviously.

So, yes, it's exactly what happened.
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why do you believe that?
 
bubbabgone said:
I get his point, but I'm sure the argument is that dissecting business arrangements with Russia way back when can shed light on contemporary election practices and perhaps demonstrate motivational links.
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Pfft

It's just standard criminal law practice. Manafort's attorneys are desperately doing anything they can to keep Mueller at bay. They're not going to get anywhere with it, and they know it.
 
ashurbanipal said:
And my point is that: 1) The sufficient condition in that conditional statement is false (that is, it's not true that Mueller is taking actions reserved for the AG), and 2) even if he were, it would still not be the case that Mueller becomes a de facto AG.
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I'm afraid I don't know any other way to say it.
The writer believes Mueller came from outside the FBI and the AG's office and acted outside the scope of his charge by doing something the AG needed to authorize but didn't, then he was acting as the de facto AG in that respect.
"De facto is a Latin expression that means "in fact, in reality, in actual existence, force, or possession, as a matter of fact" (literally "from fact"). In law, it often means "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established."
 
bubbabgone said:
I'm afraid I don't know any other way to say it.
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Well...that's an odd response. The problem is not that I do not understand the point the author is trying to make. The problem is that his point is false. It's not a matter of restating the point...unless you think I'm arguing over the nature or meaning of the author's point. I assure you I am not. I am arguing that his point is false.

bubbabgone said:
The writer believes Mueller came from outside the FBI and the AG's office and acted outside the scope of his charge by doing something the AG needed to authorize but didn't
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Yes, I think that's more or less what the author believes. What the author believes is false.

bubbabgone said:
then he was acting as the de facto AG in that respect.
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Also false.
 
JasperL said:
First of all, the part of my post you omitted and ignored is significant. Mueller's investigation is subject to the ongoing oversight and approval of the AG, so it's nice you want to ignore that but it is deadly to your point.
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No it isn't. Just because Sessions has to approves of something doesn't make it correct. You think I have some kind of partisan loyalty over ideology or something? Boy are you mistaken.


Sorry, but the plain text of the power delegated to Mueller by Rosenstein proves you wrong.

Further, the idea that if the FBI starts a, say, drug investigation, then finds evidence of a child porn ring, and is unable to use the evidence for child porn uncovered in their drug investigation is laughable.
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Yes...ii, iii, c are a violation of the 4th Amendment. There needs to be a specific accusation of a crime (so far I've yet to hear of any actual crime stipulated to even begin the investigation) and then warrants need to be provided for that specific crime, searching for specific things related to that specific crime. The 4th Amendment isn't difficult to understand so really the only thing laughable is your inability to read plain English for comprehension.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So specifically they actually cannot just start tacking on any crime they come across. This is my last response to someone who cannot, will not, understand such very simple concepts.
 
Fishking said:
No it isn't. Just because Sessions has to approves of something doesn't make it correct. You think I have some kind of partisan loyalty over ideology or something? Boy are you mistaken.
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Correct has nothing to do with it. Why do you keep omitting the part of my response that addresses your point? To repeat:

"He does NOT have the powers of the AG because the AG has complete authority over the investigation, including the authority to fire Mueller this second and shut the whole thing down. If you want to assert that's irrelevant, fine, tell us why, but ignoring the point is lazy hackery."

Yes...ii, iii, c are a violation of the 4th Amendment.
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Bare assertion without argument or evidence ain't going to get it done here.

There needs to be a specific accusation of a crime (so far I've yet to hear of any actual crime stipulated to even begin the investigation) and then warrants need to be provided for that specific crime, searching for specific things related to that specific crime.
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OK, show me one of Mueller's warrants and demonstrate he hasn't met that burden.

The 4th Amendment isn't difficult to understand so really the only thing laughable is your inability to read plain English for comprehension.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
.
So specifically they actually cannot just start tacking on any crime they come across. This is my last response to someone who cannot, will not, understand such very simple concepts.
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Again, show me a warrant granted to Mueller's team that violates this standard.

While you're at it, can you cite case law to back up this notion that if, say, the local cops are investigating drugs, and find evidence of a child porn ring, that they're unable to pursue the latter? We'll wait for your evidence!
 
Fishking said:
No it isn't. Just because Sessions has to approves of something doesn't make it correct. You think I have some kind of partisan loyalty over ideology or something? Boy are you mistaken.

Yes...ii, iii, c are a violation of the 4th Amendment. There needs to be a specific accusation of a crime (so far I've yet to hear of any actual crime stipulated to even begin the investigation) and then warrants need to be provided for that specific crime, searching for specific things related to that specific crime. The 4th Amendment isn't difficult to understand so really the only thing laughable is your inability to read plain English for comprehension.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

So specifically they actually cannot just start tacking on any crime they come across. This is my last response to someone who cannot, will not, understand such very simple concepts.
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Just thought I'd note that Mueller has responded to this argument in detail. Seems he's a pretty good lawyer and prosecutor which should surprise no one and got authority along the way for his investigations from the acting AG.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4429556/Response-to-motion.pdf

See page 17 for example where Rosenstein specifically OKs the investigation into what became money laundering and tax evasion charges.
 
Fishking said:
Nope. He was authorized to investigate Russian collusion. That means all authority is invested in tracking that down. Further, warrants can only be given for specific reasons, meaning his reasons were for collusion and any crime uncovered that is not related cannot be used. So something like money laundering wouldn't be part of that, obviously.

So, yes, it's exactly what happened.
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Do you have even a clue how silly you sound? Any crimes they find investigating collusion (related or not), are fair game. What's worse, is, the tacit admission, by you, that you seem to think there may be crimes to find, and hope they go undetected, unpunished, because you keep the scope narrowed beyond what the scope actually is. Why is it imperative to you that non Russian "collusion" crimes should be gotrten away with because they are "beyond the scope" (which you've been shown repeatedly they aren't)? What does it say about you that you want actual crimes ignored?
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
That is because Sessions has to recuse himself from any matters regarding the Russia investigation.
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Normally something that huge would be enough cause for a guy like Sessions to have been fired a long time ago, like the day after he was forced to recuse himself, like "his recusal was enough of a demonstration that he was unfit to serve that he should have resigned the day after."

Normally. We left "normal" behind a long time ago.
 
bubbabgone said:
Right. And the writer's point was that, in his view, the investigation has expanded to what he believes is beyond the scope of Rosenstein's appointment letter.
I'd add ... investigated selectively.

An additional way to look at it is that there are certain provisions in Rosenstein's letter authorizing the Special Counsel that don't preclude Mueller from also investigating the Hillary Clinton campaign involvement with a set of Russian players trying to influence our election in their own way.
And since there's way more evidence of that right now, should he?
Given his charge, would you think he already is?
If he does, would you enthusiastically approve?
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The possibility that some Democrats, even Hillary, may be swept up in all of this doesn't bother me in the least, because if there are Democrats who are dirty, most of them are going to be the establishment Dems who have been slowly destroying the party's ability to be an effective liberal party all along, and we don't need them anyway.
And Hillary didn't win the election and she's not going to run again in 2020, or ever.
Believe me, we will not have a shortage of capable Democrats to fill the vacancies.
 
JasperL said:
Just thought I'd note that Mueller has responded to this argument in detail. Seems he's a pretty good lawyer and prosecutor which should surprise no one and got authority along the way for his investigations from the acting AG.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4429556/Response-to-motion.pdf

See page 17 for example where Rosenstein specifically OKs the investigation into what became money laundering and tax evasion charges.
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Ohhhhh SNAP!!!
bow.gif
roflmao.gif
Violin.gif
 
markjs said:
Do you have even a clue how silly you sound? Any crimes they find investigating collusion (related or not), are fair game. What's worse, is, the tacit admission, by you, that you seem to think there may be crimes to find, and hope they go undetected, unpunished, because you keep the scope narrowed beyond what the scope actually is. Why is it imperative to you that non Russian "collusion" crimes should be gotrten away with because they are "beyond the scope" (which you've been shown repeatedly they aren't)? What does it say about you that you want actual crimes ignored?
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The only person that sounds silly is you. How about you read the actual words of the 4th amendment and get back to me.

1. There has to be a declared crime.
2. Any search warrants have to be specifically targeted on recovering evidence for that crime.

Since no crime has been declared, and the warrants aren't even be relegated to the original intent of the investigation, which was Russian interference in the election, yeah...blah, blah, blah. Hopefully you never get law enforcement to get a burr up their butt over you and just start an open-ended investigation and just go through your entire life until they dig something up. If it were to happen, then maybe you'd understand abuse of power and tyranny.
 
JasperL said:
Just thought I'd note that Mueller has responded to this argument in detail. Seems he's a pretty good lawyer and prosecutor which should surprise no one and got authority along the way for his investigations from the acting AG.

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/4429556/Response-to-motion.pdf

See page 17 for example where Rosenstein specifically OKs the investigation into what became money laundering and tax evasion charges.
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It's cute that you think that the 4A can just be ignored so long as it has the AG's approval. Again, the wording is very clear, so I wonder why you cannot seem to understand it.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
The possibility that some Democrats, even Hillary, may be swept up in all of this doesn't bother me in the least, because if there are Democrats who are dirty, most of them are going to be the establishment Dems who have been slowly destroying the party's ability to be an effective liberal party all along, and we don't need them anyway.
And Hillary didn't win the election and she's not going to run again in 2020, or ever.
Believe me, we will not have a shortage of capable Democrats to fill the vacancies.
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How about some of the FBI senior personnel being swept up in all this?
You'll likely say "Yes, them too"and I would agree.
The problem is that they are the ones doing the investigation, doing the review of the evidence, and providing direction for the lead investigator who keeps them on board.
 
bubbabgone said:
How about some of the FBI senior personnel being swept up in all this?
You'll likely say "Yes, them too"and I would agree.
The problem is that they are the ones doing the investigation, doing the review of the evidence, and providing direction for the lead investigator who keeps them on board.
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Oh gosh, I didn't know that this thread was suddenly about me.
I should have worn a tie... :2wave:
 
Fishking said:
The only person that sounds silly is you. How about you read the actual words of the 4th amendment and get back to me.
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I cut out the rest for obvious reasons.

Legal argument - at least, legal argument that will get you anywhere in a court of law where people know what they're talking about - is not copy/pasting a statute or constitutional provision, then announcing what it must mean based on the announcer's personal declaration of what they think it means based on the words.

If you want to argue that something is unconstitutional in a way that is worth reading, you need to spend many many many hours diving through case after case after case. And the founders fully intended that. Only 2 framers at Philly disagreed with the notion that Article 3 imported traditional concepts of judicial review and applied it to the Supreme Court's functions, further, they didn't amend the constitution following Marbury.

Citing the "actual words" and then saying what they must mean is useless and foolish in the extreme.




"Ah-derrrrrrrrrrh, it says unreasonable and I say this is unreasonable, so unconstitutional!" is not an argument.
 
Fishking said:
The only person that sounds silly is you. How about you read the actual words of the 4th amendment and get back to me.

1. There has to be a declared crime.
2. Any search warrants have to be specifically targeted on recovering evidence for that crime.
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The problem with this argument is you have ZERO evidence the warrant was improper. You haven't seen the warrant, so how can you know the judge erred in issuing it? You haven't seen it so how do you know there isn't a specifically targeted purpose, with the search linked to a particular crime?

Since no crime has been declared, and the warrants aren't even be relegated to the original intent of the investigation, which was Russian interference in the election, yeah...blah, blah, blah. Hopefully you never get law enforcement to get a burr up their butt over you and just start an open-ended investigation and just go through your entire life until they dig something up. If it were to happen, then maybe you'd understand abuse of power and tyranny.
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Evidence for the bolded? Thanks!
 
Mr Person said:
I cut out the rest for obvious reasons.

Legal argument - at least, legal argument that will get you anywhere in a court of law where people know what they're talking about - is not copy/pasting a statute or constitutional provision, then announcing what it must mean based on the announcer's personal declaration of what they think it means based on the words.

If you want to argue that something is unconstitutional in a way that is worth reading, you need to spend many many many hours diving through case after case after case. And the founders fully intended that. Only 2 framers at Philly disagreed with the notion that Article 3 imported traditional concepts of judicial review and applied it to the Supreme Court's functions, further, they didn't amend the constitution following Marbury.

Citing the "actual words" and then saying what they must mean is useless and foolish in the extreme.

"Ah-derrrrrrrrrrh, it says unreasonable and I say this is unreasonable, so unconstitutional!" is not an argument.
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Sorry, but only an idiot needs someone to tell them what the 4th Amendment says and how it doesn't actually mean what it means when it's in very simple and plain English. You can hide behind whatever stupidity you want but the plain words of the 4A will always show you to be wrong.
 
JasperL said:
The problem with this argument is you have ZERO evidence the warrant was improper. You haven't seen the warrant, so how can you know the judge erred in issuing it? You haven't seen it so how do you know there isn't a specifically targeted purpose, with the search linked to a particular crime?

Evidence for the bolded? Thanks!
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Lol...you ask for evidence of a negative. Hilarious. Just goes to show how divorced from logic and reason you really are. Again, there was no declared crime...how about we do this the right way and you tell me, specifically, what crime was declared to initiate the investigation, because that's how this works.

I'll wait.
 
Mr Person said:
I cut out the rest for obvious reasons.

Legal argument - at least, legal argument that will get you anywhere in a court of law where people know what they're talking about - is not copy/pasting a statute or constitutional provision, then announcing what it must mean based on the announcer's personal declaration of what they think it means based on the words.

If you want to argue that something is unconstitutional in a way that is worth reading, you need to spend many many many hours diving through case after case after case. And the founders fully intended that. Only 2 framers at Philly disagreed with the notion that Article 3 imported traditional concepts of judicial review and applied it to the Supreme Court's functions, further, they didn't amend the constitution following Marbury.

Citing the "actual words" and then saying what they must mean is useless and foolish in the extreme.

"Ah-derrrrrrrrrrh, it says unreasonable and I say this is unreasonable, so unconstitutional!" is not an argument.
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Fishking said:
Sorry, but only an idiot needs someone to tell them what the 4th Amendment says and how it doesn't actually mean what it means when it's in very simple and plain English. You can hide behind whatever stupidity you want but the plain words of the 4A will always show you to be wrong.
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Your answer is that anyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid? That's all you've got?

See, from my perspective, the hilarious thing is that if you are ever accused of a crime, you will hire a criminal defense attorney. I further know that you will do that because despite what you say anonymously online, you know perfectly well that you don't have the slightest clue about what you're saying. You know perfectly well that if you stood up and told a judge that he should suppress the evidence because you have a personal opinion about what the words of the 4th means, the judge would laugh you right into jail.





PS: Calling me an "idiot" doesn't demonstrate that your personal opinion about the 4th means something. You have to actually go dig up some case law. Sorry, but that's just how it works.

Courts don't care if some guy said some crap on an anonymous internet forum. I'm sure you can work out why that might be. :lol:
 
Fishking said:
Lol...you ask for evidence of a negative. Hilarious. Just goes to show how divorced from logic and reason you really are. Again, there was no declared crime...how about we do this the right way and you tell me, specifically, what crime was declared to initiate the investigation, because that's how this works.

I'll wait.
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More smug idiocy in that post.

He didn't ask you to prove a negative. He asked you to do what I've done many times. He asked you to pop onto LexisNexis or Westlaw, research suppression cases with a similar fact pattern in the relevant jurisdiction, and then present to him a legal argument based on those cases as to why the warrant is allegedly improper. Now, LexisNexis and Westlaw cost money. You could probably make a half-assed "do" with Findlaw.com, which is free but not very good.

This requires finding the cases, reading them, and then analyzing how the decisions about how the decisions in those cases about the appropriateness of the warrant affidavits therein described line up with the fact pattern in the present case. Then, you make an argument. "My case is like X,Y,Z, which say I win. My case is not like A,B,C, which sound bad but actually aren't because of H,J,K distinguishing circumstances".

You see, the core of the law is the idea that like cases should be treated alike. That's why judges don't simply cite an amendment and spout off whatever imbecility they want to say based on the words alone.



THAT is how it works, no matter what you smugly declare. (And yes, I'm smugly declaring things too. But that's because I actually know what I'm talking about, while you clearly do not).
 
Fishking said:
It's cute that you think that the 4A can just be ignored so long as it has the AG's approval. Again, the wording is very clear, so I wonder why you cannot seem to understand it.
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Of course I never argued that. You're talking baseless drivel here, pretending that if you assert something several times but without a shred of backup, coherent argument, or evidence, we're supposed to take your assertions seriously. How about you back up your claims with......anything?

You're making claims about a deficient warrant - OK show me the warrant!
 
Mr Person said:
Your answer is that anyone who doesn't agree with you is stupid? That's all you've got?

See, from my perspective, the hilarious thing is that if you are ever accused of a crime, you will hire a criminal defense attorney. I further know that you will do that because despite what you say anonymously online, you know perfectly well that you don't have the slightest clue about what you're saying. You know perfectly well that if you stood up and told a judge that he should suppress the evidence because you have a personal opinion about what the words of the 4th means, the judge would laugh you right into jail.

PS: Calling me an "idiot" doesn't demonstrate that your personal opinion about the 4th means something. You have to actually go dig up some case law. Sorry, but that's just how it works.

Courts don't care if some guy said some crap on an anonymous internet forum. I'm sure you can work out why that might be. :lol:
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I didn't call you an idiot, just said those who can't understand the very, very, simple words of the 4th Amendment is one. Yes, I'd hire an attorney and I'd sue the **** out of whichever law enforcement agency that decided to just start an open-ended investigation on me without there being a suspected crime.

I know this is super hard for you but try and keep up. I have an idea. How about you read this, and tell me which parts are super confusing for you.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
 
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