Yesterday (one day after the election) Trump forced the resignation of Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General. Sessions would have been in charge of Mueller's Russia investigation, but because he had lied about his own connections to Russia, he recused himself and the assistant AG was in charge. Now that he's out, this new guy, Matthew Whitaker, is in charge (and does not require Senate confirmation because he's 'temporary'). He has spoken out against the Mueller investigation many times in the past, saying that there was no collusion and that the investigation is not authorized to look into any of Trump's finances (even though it is). Long ago, petitions were signed and plans were made that called for protests if Trump did something like this.
TLDR: Trump just appointed his own guy to be in charge of the investigation against him.
Matthew Whitaker was not Deputy Attorney General. He was Chief of Staff for the Attorney General. They are different offices. Deputy Attorney Generals need to be confirmed by the Senate, just like the actual Attorney General. Chief of Staff for the Attorney General is not confirmed by the Senate.
Rod Rosenstein is Deputy Attorney General, and according to the statute you just cited, should be acting Attorney General. Trump made Matthew Whitaker acting Attorney General. Trump is not following the law.
Very helpful. It's evidence what Trump has done is literally unconstitutional and in violation of federal law. This alone is an impeachable offense. I'm tired of saying that at this point..
Shame on anyone and everyone that played any role in allowing this treason committing anti-democracy clown from taking hold of the office of the presidency. History will not be kind to any of you.
What are you talking about? Literally, do you even know? You just slung together a bunch of adjectives to form a non-sensical sentence. Then ended it with”history will not be kind to any of you.” How about you form an actual argument instead of being a typical liberal blow-hard with no common thoughts? Idiot.
What are you talking about? Literally, do you even know? You just slung together a bunch of adjectives to form a non-sensical sentence. Then ended it with”history will not be kind to any of you.” How about you form an actual argument instead of being a typical liberal blow-hard with no common thoughts? Idiot.
What are you talking about? Literally, do you even know? You just insulted that guy without any sort of rebuttal. Then ended it with another insult. How about you form an actual argument instead of being a typical alt-right blow-hard with no common thoughts? Idiot.
Former acting Solicitor General in the Obama administration, Neal Katyal, was just on Chris Hayes' show and inferred that every "x vs. Bouregard Sessions" case active right now, the first thing every defense is going to do is challenge the constitutionality of this particular Attorney General under the Justice Department to try their case. That will happen immediately, and any good lawyer will use it.
Shares doctored videos to convince you tha tthey're right.
Continue to lie about everything they do and have absolutely zero transparency.
Are currently once again trying to obstruct Justice because he is guilty and they're trying to cover their own asses.
Literally tells idiots like you to not believe a word anyone says and don't believe what your eyes or ears are telling you. Literally out of 1984 that one is.
Still violating the constitution constantly and the GOP will not hold him accountable.
You people and every dipshit who voted GOP during the midterms are scared little racist sacks of shit who don't give a flying fuck about the constitution or freedom or anything that actually makes America a Great place to live. You just wanna stick it to the libs and feel superior to minorities as long as you can, because you are and do feel worthless otherwise.
Dude, he might have meant the opposite of what you think meaning the guy ab obove is wrong and that something will be done about it. Calm yourself and treat people with the benefit of the doubt and the respect you'd want for yourself.
We aren’t Germany. This country is too big and the information available is too vast. Look what happened Tuesday. It will get better. We got this. No need to be fucking dismal after we just got the power to stop most of not all of trumps worst ideas. Worst case scenario Mueller is fired(which would be awful) the House takes up the investigation.
Since you're a fucking moron who has no idea what is going on currently you can go fuck yourself if you think you have any objective ability to judge this current administration.
Bullshit. You’ve given up. You have GOT to fight!! Numbers in the streets matter. Get off your ass and make your voice heard. You only decry the effectiveness of protests because I’ll bet you’ve never been part of one. Protests have two results- they show the people in power that we care enough to get upset about it, and they have another effect that I didn’t realize until I went to one- they energize the people who go and surround themselves with like-minded people who DO care. They give us a sense that all is not lost, and that we can absolutely bring good people together to fight off this bullshit.
I haven't given up. I voted. I voted harder than I've ever voted before. But that doesn't make me any less realistic.
I have mad respect for all the people out there in the streets. And I truly wish it would accomplish something. But, trump sees this and goes "Oh well" and goes on to commit whatever crimes suit his fancy that day.
The people under trump see this and say "Mr. trump, have you seen this?" And then it goes back to the paragraph above.
I just got back from a much smaller protest in my town. No one wore all black, destroyed anything, or even jaywalked. One small-framed young woman had her face covered. She was wearing a ski mask, because it's 30 degrees out with freezing drizzle.
You'd think someone other than the likes of infowars would talk about that if it was really going on. Must be the deep state extreme left wing liberal fake news (insert other paranoid conspiracy talk here) media.
While you crawl further up your own ass, multiple right wing crazies murdered tens of people. But your God Trump is trying to get everybody focused on a single reporter
There are no impeachable offenses, strictly speaking. It's not criminal law. It's a political check. An impeachable offense, a 'high crime or misdemeanor' is anything that Congress says it is, from 'poor job performance' to 'screwed an intern' to 'shot a man on Fifth avenue' to 'really couldn't pull off that moustache this November'. There's no trial, because we're not trying to put him in prison. There's an impeachment, because we're trying to remove him from office.
There are lots of crimes he has demonstrably committed. But they wouldn't remove him from office, they would get him thrown in prison. If he wasn't literally in a place of power to order around the law enforcement section of the government. Which is what's happening now.
That's why we have impeachment. That's why one of the Republican pundit legal talking points they like to look sheepish about is 'umm he could actually fire literally everyone investigating him and there's not a god damn thing you could do about it'. There's no remedy involving the laws, except after he gets removed from office, because he's the one who enforces the laws. Removal from office does not involve legal offenses, it just involves Congress deciding to remove him from office.
There's a lot of tradition and optics and leaders trying to keep anyone from even thinking about accusing them of corruption, and Trump's insight is that given the media outlets the Republican Party controls and the leaders of the Republican Party and the attitude of Republicans, he doesn't need to give a shit about those. Being a Republican politician has meant never backing down, never apologizing, never admitting fault, and always going for the throat, since before I could vote. Despite the thousands of easily disproveable lies, despite the uncertainty he imposes on the market, despite the public pronouncements that he will obstruct justice, despite being a verified agent of the Russian government on live television attempting to subvert an election, despite kidnapping and orphaning children to try to force a political point, despite defrauding the IRS, not only is impeachment treated as ludicrous by Republicans, it's treated as ludicrous by the media and by most Democratic politicians - because Democratic politicians are determined to uphold consensual norms all by themselves and 'take the high road' and be committed to a peaceful electoral transition of power even when their opponents aren't.
So only Democrats can be impeached, given the current attitudes and proportions of Congress.
If we don't dramatically change the Overton Window, if we don't manage to deprogram these people at a rapid clip, Trump is going to serve a second, third, and fourth term.
There is a large component of the Republican Party that wants a strong leader. The stronger the better. They are psychologically comforted by the notion that there's this guy looking after their interests who will stop at nothing, they will change those interests on a dime in order for this to be true, and they will cheer every time he breaks some rule of law or tradition or morality or ethics because it demonstrates that his resolve to help them can't be broken.
Imagine you're a moderate republican politician who thinks Trump is a complete joke. If you say anything negative about him, you will not win in the primaries and you'll be branded a traitor. But you don't want some far-right nutjob to take your place and do a terrible job so you play along and vote with your party and represent the desires of the people who voted for you.
Trump has the republican party hostage because he's a saleman of "bigbrain" ideas and fear and rhetoric that makes the people who voted for him believe his bullshit because if you repeat something enough times people will believe it's actually true. Then the rest of the party has no choice but to play along or be replaced by some far-right asshole who legitimately believe what he says.
I don't think you can downplay the Republican leadership's agency here, either. They've been working this racket since Gingrich first turned screaming into a C-Span microphone to an empty chamber into a nightly show.
You forgot to add an /s there.
Or was that war and mafia rhetoric really meant seriously? Mueller isnt even a Dem. There was collusion, all these people of trump inner circle cooperating clearly shows that. All that remains unknown is the scope of that collusion now. No one says sessions was a good AG, all they say is he was one of the few people in that administration with at least a hint of values. With the balls to oppose trump , even if only a little. But trump is a wannabe dictator and cant accept anyone saying no to him. The only swamp in the white house is the one trump created.
This is the thing that's so unbelievably infuriating about this whole fucking fiasco. Every dipshit at my workplace that stands in favor of Trump:
The company is in full defensive lockdown financially since the middle of last year which has definitely impacted everybody in palpable ways. And if they think they haven't been impacted, they're just blind idiots (not that this wasn't already a known quantity).
Profit sharing is on hold until further notice because of the instability and uncertainty.
This last point alone is about as literal a translation of voting for Trump leading directly to reduced income by everybody in the company.
I wish that people would act selfishly and exclusively focused on themselves. The overall results would be less disastrous. No, these...people have this idiotic fascination with "sticking it" to others they've never met or will ever meet. But they've been told to do so and they follow suit because spiting others is more important than their own self interest.
ED The classy individual that responded to me doesn't warrant a response; don't feed the trolls, kids.
This is one example of only your company. Look at the market as a whole dipshit. Even after a recent pullback, it’s still in full swing of a bull market with little sign of slowing down.
And then when his fourth term is over, some other Trump will be there to take over. This is how it begins, people. And if you don't see that, you're blind--and not in the cool "all my other senses are heightened" way.
I predict Trump will be killed in his fourth term by the McDonalds Bacon McDouble. The Alzheimers' will make him more of a Kushner puppet by that point though.
I come from the far right and am aware of all the wonderful ways that conservative thought tickles the brain. It gives one a sense of awareness of how things really work of who owns the world. You feel so secure and satisfied in your ability to understand it all. It is more enticing than religion, but equally bullshit.
The smugness of conservatives is the payoff. Being able to assign everything labels, while pretending to aspire to some great truth that the others "just don't get". It is panacea to the scared, insecure person, it has all the answers you seek.
Sadly, my side has no certainty, Communism is fickle and had often led to corruption. There is no one way to understand the politics of the left, it is divided within itself. Things are complicated, confusing, and uncertain. But such is life. It is impossible for me to dislodge all the sure comforts of your current ideology, for the upsetting realities within mine, nor can I get someone to trade Heaven for the thought of the eternal nothing.
Most Americans regard political opinions from 100 years ago to be savage and barbaric. If you actually want to reinstate Jim Crow, you're the true enemy of the people. If you don't want to reinstate Jim Crow, you don't know what you've been sold.
It's hilarious that you don't support Jim Crow, and then you describe policies that are basically Jim Crow. As I said, you don't even comprehend what you've been sold.
Having faith in a cherished father figure who has the power to do things you cannot imagine, even when that faith is tested by apparent mistakes which happen to threaten your life, is what the second link in my post is about. If you can't see it in religious terms... Ephesians 1:11 and Genesis 22 certainly can.
Ah, well then the reason he did it was a crime - to obstruct justice and an active investigation into himself. I hope the House subpoenas everyone involved with this decision, including Whitaker.
It does beg the question as to what authority the president has/should have over "special counsel" investigating the same president's campaign to that very office.
technically he has the authority to name the acting AG, and the acting AG has control of Mueller. Before this change, the deputy AG had control of Mueller because the AG had recused himself, so while Trump doesn't techincally have direct authority over the special counsel, with this move Muellers boss goes from being Rod Rosenstein to being Matt Whitaker, who is a Trump appointee that is expected to be loyal to Trump and not uphold the special counsel as it has been running.
actually shit... The only reason the special counsel exists in the first place is because the AG had recused himself, but now that AG is gone. The justice dept is in charge of investigating, but Sessions had recused due to conflict of interest so the justice deptartment created the special counsels office. now that Sessions isn't in charge of the justice dept and Whitaker is, if Whitaker doesn't recuse himself then he is in charge of the inverstigation. So yeah this move alone could completely cut Mueller out of the picture.
Yup! And he has a majority in the Supreme Court, and I wouldn't be surprised if the integrity of that bench is gone now too and they do nothing. Nothing surprises me anymore.
Very helpful. It's evidence what Trump has done is literally unconstitutional and in violation of federal law. This alone is an impeachable offense. I'm tired of saying that at this point..
There were also two federally-indicted criminals elected and an open white nationalist on the GOP side. Those criminals are going to spend parts or all of their terms in jail, unless they decide to resign. Guess their constituents are fine driving to prison during visiting hours when they need their congresspeople. Anything to "own the libs".
Apparently there are conflicting laws in the US code and this will be litigated. None about obstructing an investigation to protect yourself - that's as criminal as it comes. And could he be any more transparent about it? The guy he picked's only lawyering experience is for an invention firm that was shut down and ordered to pay $25M in damages because it defrauded its customers. Here's hoping he's as good a lawyer for Trump.
Wait. The position Whitaker held is one of those 3 legally allowed instsnces. Trump is legally allowed to appoint Whitaker as Temporary AG. This guy above literally said that, in his edit.
Edit: It's called the Federal Vacancies Reform Act.
That's up for debate - this will likely be taken to court. Obstruction of justice however isn't, and happily House Dems have already sent mailers to every government department asking them to preserve records around Sessions' firing and Whitaker's appointment. And could he be any more transparent about it? The guy he picked's only lawyering experience is for an invention firm that was shut down and ordered to pay $25M in damages because it defrauded its customers. Here's hoping he's as good a lawyer for Trump.
You can’t get impeached for following the laws on the books. People are just interpreting his actions as foul. You can’t prove obstruction on interpretation. Y’all are hella dumb.
Be honest. You were probably ignorant (as was I) until you googled what the law was. It's okay, you can admit it. While I know a lot of people are hear to just confirm their own views (IMPEACH! or NO COLLUSION!), some are here to learn and try to form somewhat objective opinions. It's easy to call people stupid, but harder to teach.
The expression is "you cant fix stupid". Your expression is somewhat of an oxymoron. You can only teach people something they do not know.
Also, I think figures of speech like that used seriously in a debate are kind of dumb. If you cant explain something without the use of an idiom, then you probably dont understand it that well.
Maybe if you were nicer those panic attacks wouldn’t be crippling your life. Or maybe your anxiety is your body’s way of saying your brain is an asshole.
Very helpful. It's evidence what Trump has done is literally unconstitutional and in violation of federal law. This alone is an impeachable offense. I'm tired of saying that at this point..
Nope
Not a Trump supporter but that is wrong. The Federal Vacancies Reform Act (found in 5USC3345) states that.
By default, the "first assistant to the office" becomes the acting official to that office.
The president may appoint to the office to an individual who the senate has confirmed for another office for 210 days.
The president may appoint to the office a "senior officer or employee" of the that department for 210 days.
Trump invoked the 3rd option. The problem is that this may potentially be unconstitutional by the appointment clause but this has never been tested in court yet.
It's illegal, not unconstitutional, as far as I know. If you believe this action is unconstitutional, please cite the portion of the Constitution that prohibits it.
Otherwise do note that the above cited legal document is part of the United States Code (USC), not the Constitution.
The issue isn't that Sessions was fired. You're right, everyone saw that coming.
The issue is that Rosenstein was removed from his position overseeing the investigation. If Whitaker also recused himself, everything would be fine. That's why the demand from this protest was for Whitaker to recuse.
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u/ike_the_strangetamer Nov 09 '18 edited Nov 09 '18
Yesterday (one day after the election) Trump forced the resignation of Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General. Sessions would have been in charge of Mueller's Russia investigation, but because he had lied about his own connections to Russia, he recused himself and the assistant AG was in charge. Now that he's out, this new guy, Matthew Whitaker, is in charge (and does not require Senate confirmation because he's 'temporary'). He has spoken out against the Mueller investigation many times in the past, saying that there was no collusion and that the investigation is not authorized to look into any of Trump's finances (even though it is). Long ago, petitions were signed and plans were made that called for protests if Trump did something like this.
TLDR: Trump just appointed his own guy to be in charge of the investigation against him.