kpete
kpete's JournalYES! -Speaker Pelosi wrote to her Caucus quoting Mueller: Vowing "CONGRESS WILL NOT BE SILENT."
“Congress has authority to prohibit a president’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice” and laying out next steps.
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https://twitter.com/sfpelosi/status/1119038734157004800
A sampling of things Trump doesn't recall
https://twitter.com/OrenKessler/status/1119039099992793088
Charles Pierce: Save the Republic. Impeach the President.
The Mueller Report Is a Challenge to Congress: Save the Republic. Impeach the President.
We surrendered it without firing a shot. Now the way forward is clear.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
APR 18, 2019
The results are in the report released by Robert Mueller and his investigators on Thursday. It is a document that shows clearly that every guardian of the republic—especially including the people themselves—surrendered it to an international criminal cabal without firing hardly a shot. Also in that report is a challenge: there is one last chance to avert the threat, and it lies with the United States Congress, and with the people who elected its members. Mueller has dropped it all in the country's lap. He did what he could.
Subpoena them all. Put them under oath and on television. Begin impeachment inquiries on Monday. (You can have the weekend. I'm generous.) Fumigate the entire government because, what we have now, and what Mueller illustrated, is the political equivalent of a plague cell. Fumigate it. Burn its furnishings. This administration is candida auris, the anti-bacterial superbug that The New York Times tells us is running amuck in hospitals.
The man at Mount Sinai died after 90 days in the hospital, but C. auris did not. Tests showed it was everywhere in his room, so invasive that the hospital needed special cleaning equipment and had to rip out some of the ceiling and floor tiles to eradicate it.“Everything was positive — the walls, the bed, the doors, the curtains, the phones, the sink, the whiteboard, the poles, the pump,” said Dr. Scott Lorin, the hospital’s president. “The mattress, the bed rails, the canister holes, the window shades, the ceiling, everything in the room was positive.”
That's the national government right now. Everything in it is positive.
There is no question that the president* is in deep contravention of his oath of office. He has not faithfully executed his office. He has not preserved, protected, or defended the Constitution of the United States. There is hardly a single one of the 400-odd pages on which cannot be found a violation of the constitutional oath.
.............
Mueller's diagnosis is clear and uncompromising. He has given us all the bad news at once and left the choice of treatment up to the patient. And, whether we have the stomach for it or not, it's time to take the painful cure. There is an ancient remedy that was asserted in 1974, by the late Barbara Jordan, Democrat of Texas, the last time the republic was as sick as it is today.
It is wrong, I suggest, it is a misreading of the Constitution for any member here to assert that for a member to vote for an article of impeachment means that that member must be convinced that the President should be removed from office. The Constitution doesn't say that. The powers relating to impeachment are an essential check in the hands of the body of the Legislature against and upon the encroachments of the Executive. The division between the two branches of the Legislature, the House and the Senate, assigning to the one the right to accuse and to the other the right to judge, the Framers of this Constitution were very astute. They did not make the accusers and the judgers -- and the judges the same person....
...James Madison again at the Constitutional Convention: "A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution." The Constitution charges the President with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, and yet the President has counseled his aides to commit perjury, willfully disregard the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, conceal surreptitious entry, attempt to compromise a federal judge, while publicly displaying his cooperation with the processes of criminal justice.
"A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution."
MORE::
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a27198446/mueller-report-congress-impeachment/
"Well, House Democrats, the truth is that he isn't 'fucked' until you do your job."
Dear Democrats: Mueller Just Handed You a Road Map for Impeachment. Follow It.
DEAR HOUSE DEMOCRATS,
You told us to be patient. You told us to be cautious. You told us to wait for Robert Mueller.
Well, the time for waiting is over. And the moment for impeachment hearings has arrived.
Forget the mendacious Attorney General William Barr, and his repeated — and repeatedly dishonest — attempts to summarize and spin the special counsel’s report prior to publication.
You now have access to the report itself, and even the “lightly redacted” 448 pages provide you with a clear and detailed roadmap for impeaching Donald Trump, in line with Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution: “The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Listen to special counsel Robert Mueller. “With respect to whether the President can be found to have obstructed justice by exercising his powers under Article II of the Constitution, we concluded that Congress has authority to prohibit a President’s corrupt use of his authority in order to protect the integrity of the administration of justice,” he writes, adding: “The conclusion that Congress may apply the obstruction laws to the President’s corrupt exercise of the powers of office accords with our constitutional system of checks and balances and the principle that no person is above the law.”
Got that? The special counsel — who listed 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice in his report, and refused to “exonerate” the president — placed the decision firmly in your court. This is the impeachment referral you claimed you were waiting for.
...............
The Rest:
https://theintercept.com/2019/04/18/dear-democrats-mueller-just-handed-you-a-roadmap-for-impeachment-follow-it/
http://time.com/5573385/donald-trump-mueller-reaction/
https://twitter.com/cgreensit/status/1118979283320483841
A Kremlin official called Hope Hicks' cell ph at 3am on elec night to convey a message from Putin!
page 153:
https://www.scribd.com/document/406729844/Mueller-Report
https://twitter.com/JesseLehrich/status/1118938576849375233
FINALLY - NYT Gets A Headline Right.
https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1118959407847677953
Journalist Michael Cohen Tweeting Up A Storm Of Evidence
Columnist Boston Globe. Author, Clear and Present Safety https://amzn.to/2VBeB6e Sign up for my newsletter https://bit.ly/2E1RPie . Michael.cohen@globe.com
One thing that comes across in the report is that Trump and WH officials repeatedly and brazenly lied to the American people about his involvement with Russia. Here, Mueller provides evidence that Trump edited the statement on the Trump Tower to make it factually untrue:
https://twitter.com/speechboy71/status/1118902525091090433
MORE:
https://twitter.com/speechboy71/status/1118900194953891840
https://twitter.com/speechboy71/status/1118900573544288256
https://twitter.com/speechboy71/status/1118901773253660672
https://twitter.com/speechboy71/status/1118903204815753216
https://twitter.com/speechboy71/status/1118904484330135552
Mueller delivered an impeachment case with ribbon and a bow
*and* reminded Congress that the Constitution places the responsibility to act on it squarely on them.Mueller team determined "not to apply an approach that could potentially result in a judgment that the President committed crimes." However, they would've said so if they had "confidence ... the President clearly did not commit obstruction of Justice" and they're not saying so.
Reading these together, Mueller is effectively saying "we concluded the President intentionally obstructed justice, but, because we can't indict him, we also can't say that explicitly in this report, and so we instead urge Congress to impeach him for it."
https://twitter.com/HoarseWisperer/status/1118935236316991488
https://twitter.com/MaxKennerly/status/1118928891371040768
UPDATED TO INCLUDE:
The Mueller Report Is an Impeachment Referral
The special counsel has concluded he can neither charge nor clear the president. Only Congress can now resolve the allegations against him.
Mueller has now delivered 10 credible allegations of obstructive behavior on the part of the president. For all of Trump’s bluster, those claims are now a matter of public record, and will hang over his presidency, despite the decision of his own appointee to clear him in the matter.
Article:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/mueller-report-impeachment-referral/587509/
THIS!
The equivalent of saying Trump didn't obstruct justice bc Trump was frustrated would be to say Bill Clinton didn't obstruct justice because he ejaculated.https://twitter.com/emptywheel/status/1118880567850876929
Poor Dear Leader-ITS NOT OBSTRUCTION IF THE PRESIDENTS FEELINGS ARE HURT
"And as the Special Counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks. "
https://twitter.com/DavidCornDC/status/1118873474582351873
MORE:
Rush transcript of key part of Barr’s remarks, essentially justifying Trump’s behavior because he thought the investigation wasn’t fair.
In assessing the president’s actions discussed in the report, it is important to bear in mind the context. President trump faced an unprecedented situation, as he entered into office and sought to perform his responsibilities as president, federal agents and prosecutors were scrutinizing his conduct before and after taking office and the conduct of some of his associates. At the same time there was relentless speculation in the news media about the president’s personal culpability, yet as he said from the beginning, there was, in fact, no collusion. As the special counsel’s report acknowledges, there is substantial evidence to show that the president was frustrated and angered by his sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents and fueled by illegal leaks.
Again this is rush transcript. Here’s the video.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/critical-portion
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