同情特朗普
- 主题发起人 ccc
- 开始时间
- 注册
- 2003-04-13
- 消息
- 238,897
- 荣誉分数
- 37,360
- 声望点数
- 1,393
- 注册
- 2003-04-13
- 消息
- 238,897
- 荣誉分数
- 37,360
- 声望点数
- 1,393
- 注册
- 2003-04-13
- 消息
- 238,897
- 荣誉分数
- 37,360
- 声望点数
- 1,393
How a careful reading of court documents suggests Robert Mueller has already subpoenaed Donald Trump
A pattern of filings and rulings suggests the question being argued is whether the president will have to appear before the grand jury, which would mean he's already been summoned
Washington Post
Updated: November 1, 2018
Remember Robert Mueller? The special counsel may have been quiet – respecting the traditional protocol that prosecutors don’t take public steps affecting a campaign in the final weeks before an election — but he hasn’t stopped working. And once the election is over, the Russia scandal is likely to heat up again.
We were reminded of that by the exposure of what was apparently a ludicrous scheme on the part of some fringe right-wingers to falsely accuse Mueller of sexual misconduct. Meanwhile, a team of Post reporters reveals that Mueller is aggressively pursuing longtime Trump associate and political dirty trickster Roger Stone regarding his contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign.
The question is whether Stone — who is, among other things, the former business partner of onetime Trump campaign chairman and convicted felon Paul Manafort — coordinated WikiLeaks’s release of Democratic emails stolen by Russia, which were timed to inflict maximum damage on the Clinton campaign.
Stone claims that his contacts with WikiLeaks were meaningless and he didn’t coordinate its activities. But if he did (and let’s just say nobody in politics would take Stone’s word on anything), and if he was in communication with his old buddy and client Donald Trump, his old buddy and partner Paul Manafort, or anyone else in the Trump campaign, then what you’ve got there is the magic word: collusion.
In this Sept. 26, 2017, file photo, longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone arrives to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
That’s a lot of ifs, of course. But the truth is we already know there was collusion. We have to keep reminding ourselves that the president’s campaign chairman, son and son-in-law/chief adviser took a meeting with a group of Russians for the specific purpose of colluding, and then afterward the president lied about it.
But to return to Mueller, there’s another intriguing story line, one that has to do with the still-unresolved question of whether the president will answer his questions and whether he will be forced to issue a subpoena to get that cooperation. Nelson Cunningham, a former prosecutor and Clinton administration official, examines a series of recent, unusual legal filings related to a conflict between Mueller and Trump’s attorneys over a grand jury subpoena, in which the person being subpoenaed is not identified. Cunningham makes a good case that the pattern of filings and rulings suggests that the question being argued over is whether the president will have to appear before the grand jury, which would mean that Mueller has already subpoenaed Trump. It’s a little complicated, but here’s the summary:
“We cannot know, from the brief docket entries that are available to us in this sealed case, that the matter involves President Donald Trump. But we do know from Politico’s reporting that it involves the special counsel and that the action here was filed the day after [Trump lawyer Rudy] Giuliani noted publicly, “[W]e’re pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena.” We know that the district court had ruled in favour of the special counsel and against the witness; that the losing witness has moved with alacrity and with authority; and that the judges have responded with accelerated rulings and briefing schedules. We know that Judge [Gregory] Katsas, Trump’s former counsel and nominee, has recused himself. And we know that this sealed legal matter will come to a head in the weeks just after the midterm elections.”
U.S. President Donald Trump leaves after speaking at a reception commemorating the 35th anniversary of the attack on Beirut Barracks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. Yuri Gripas/Bloomberg
If this really is about whether Trump will testify, it would mean that one of the biggest and most important questions in the entire investigation is on its way to being answered. All along, Trump’s lawyers have been utterly horrified at the prospect of the president testifying under oath, because they are certain he’d commit perjury. “Why do you want to get him under oath? Do you think we’re fools?” Giuliani has said. “You want to get him under oath because you want to trap him into perjury. Well, we’re not going to let you do that.”
But the thing about a perjury trap is that you can’t fall into it unless you’re willing to commit perjury. A perjury trap usually occurs when the witness doesn’t realize everything the prosecutor knows, so he thinks he can lie and get away with it. Then when the prosecutor asks the right questions, the witness lies and he’s caught in the trap.
But that’s not what Trump’s lawyers are afraid of. They worry that Trump will commit perjury almost no matter what he gets asked about, because that’s just what Trump does. Or at the very least, he’ll be confronted about previous lies, get evasive and disingenuous, and wind up looking guilty as sin.
If Cunningham’s interpretation is correct, it would mean we’re beyond where Kenneth Starr and President Bill Clinton ended up. Clinton rebuffed Starr’s requests for an interview, Starr got fed up and issued the subpoena, and instead of fighting it the courts, Clinton’s lawyers negotiated for a long interview not before the grand jury but in the White House. The result was that the question of whether the president had to answer an independent counsel’s subpoena was never definitively resolved.
If Trump is willing to take a chance with the courts, he has good reason to think they’ll protect him. After all, one way or another a case will end up at the Supreme Court – where there are five conservative justices who have shown time and again that serving the interests of Republican presidents and the Republican Party is high on their list of priorities.
In any case, it’s looking as though the special counsel’s investigation is approaching its climax. Even if Trump doesn’t have to answer questions, we’ll learn what Mueller has discovered about what he and his aides did in 2016. Even if Trump gets a new attorney general after the midterms and orders that person to fire Mueller, it will probably be too late. And then it’ll be up to the political system – Congress and the voters – to decide what to do about it.
A pattern of filings and rulings suggests the question being argued is whether the president will have to appear before the grand jury, which would mean he's already been summoned
Washington Post
Updated: November 1, 2018
Remember Robert Mueller? The special counsel may have been quiet – respecting the traditional protocol that prosecutors don’t take public steps affecting a campaign in the final weeks before an election — but he hasn’t stopped working. And once the election is over, the Russia scandal is likely to heat up again.
We were reminded of that by the exposure of what was apparently a ludicrous scheme on the part of some fringe right-wingers to falsely accuse Mueller of sexual misconduct. Meanwhile, a team of Post reporters reveals that Mueller is aggressively pursuing longtime Trump associate and political dirty trickster Roger Stone regarding his contacts with WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign.
The question is whether Stone — who is, among other things, the former business partner of onetime Trump campaign chairman and convicted felon Paul Manafort — coordinated WikiLeaks’s release of Democratic emails stolen by Russia, which were timed to inflict maximum damage on the Clinton campaign.
Stone claims that his contacts with WikiLeaks were meaningless and he didn’t coordinate its activities. But if he did (and let’s just say nobody in politics would take Stone’s word on anything), and if he was in communication with his old buddy and client Donald Trump, his old buddy and partner Paul Manafort, or anyone else in the Trump campaign, then what you’ve got there is the magic word: collusion.
In this Sept. 26, 2017, file photo, longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone arrives to testify before the House Intelligence Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington. J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo
That’s a lot of ifs, of course. But the truth is we already know there was collusion. We have to keep reminding ourselves that the president’s campaign chairman, son and son-in-law/chief adviser took a meeting with a group of Russians for the specific purpose of colluding, and then afterward the president lied about it.
But to return to Mueller, there’s another intriguing story line, one that has to do with the still-unresolved question of whether the president will answer his questions and whether he will be forced to issue a subpoena to get that cooperation. Nelson Cunningham, a former prosecutor and Clinton administration official, examines a series of recent, unusual legal filings related to a conflict between Mueller and Trump’s attorneys over a grand jury subpoena, in which the person being subpoenaed is not identified. Cunningham makes a good case that the pattern of filings and rulings suggests that the question being argued over is whether the president will have to appear before the grand jury, which would mean that Mueller has already subpoenaed Trump. It’s a little complicated, but here’s the summary:
“We cannot know, from the brief docket entries that are available to us in this sealed case, that the matter involves President Donald Trump. But we do know from Politico’s reporting that it involves the special counsel and that the action here was filed the day after [Trump lawyer Rudy] Giuliani noted publicly, “[W]e’re pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena.” We know that the district court had ruled in favour of the special counsel and against the witness; that the losing witness has moved with alacrity and with authority; and that the judges have responded with accelerated rulings and briefing schedules. We know that Judge [Gregory] Katsas, Trump’s former counsel and nominee, has recused himself. And we know that this sealed legal matter will come to a head in the weeks just after the midterm elections.”
U.S. President Donald Trump leaves after speaking at a reception commemorating the 35th anniversary of the attack on Beirut Barracks in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2018. Yuri Gripas/Bloomberg
If this really is about whether Trump will testify, it would mean that one of the biggest and most important questions in the entire investigation is on its way to being answered. All along, Trump’s lawyers have been utterly horrified at the prospect of the president testifying under oath, because they are certain he’d commit perjury. “Why do you want to get him under oath? Do you think we’re fools?” Giuliani has said. “You want to get him under oath because you want to trap him into perjury. Well, we’re not going to let you do that.”
But the thing about a perjury trap is that you can’t fall into it unless you’re willing to commit perjury. A perjury trap usually occurs when the witness doesn’t realize everything the prosecutor knows, so he thinks he can lie and get away with it. Then when the prosecutor asks the right questions, the witness lies and he’s caught in the trap.
But that’s not what Trump’s lawyers are afraid of. They worry that Trump will commit perjury almost no matter what he gets asked about, because that’s just what Trump does. Or at the very least, he’ll be confronted about previous lies, get evasive and disingenuous, and wind up looking guilty as sin.
If Cunningham’s interpretation is correct, it would mean we’re beyond where Kenneth Starr and President Bill Clinton ended up. Clinton rebuffed Starr’s requests for an interview, Starr got fed up and issued the subpoena, and instead of fighting it the courts, Clinton’s lawyers negotiated for a long interview not before the grand jury but in the White House. The result was that the question of whether the president had to answer an independent counsel’s subpoena was never definitively resolved.
If Trump is willing to take a chance with the courts, he has good reason to think they’ll protect him. After all, one way or another a case will end up at the Supreme Court – where there are five conservative justices who have shown time and again that serving the interests of Republican presidents and the Republican Party is high on their list of priorities.
In any case, it’s looking as though the special counsel’s investigation is approaching its climax. Even if Trump doesn’t have to answer questions, we’ll learn what Mueller has discovered about what he and his aides did in 2016. Even if Trump gets a new attorney general after the midterms and orders that person to fire Mueller, it will probably be too late. And then it’ll be up to the political system – Congress and the voters – to decide what to do about it.
- 注册
- 2003-04-13
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- 238,897
- 荣誉分数
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- 1,393
Trump has continually mentioned these troops at his various rallies across the US while he was campaigning for Republicans running for Congress.
Originally, Trump said that he was going to send 5,000 troops to the border, but the number soon rose to 10,000 and 15,000.
However, the Trump administration was required to submit a request for these troops through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
DHS claimed that they would act as “emergency law enforcement” and would serve as “crowd and traffic control”.
The Pentagon was quick to deny their request, saying it was a matter that should be handled by the state or local law enforcement.
While the Department of Defence (DoD) denied the request, they did say that they would provide air surveillance and logistical support for Customs and Border Protection (CMP) agents as well as medical support and engineers.
The DHS’s request that the troops be equipped with live-fire weapons was also rejected.
The Pentagon said that active-duty soldiers were not allowed to take part in missions of that nature without the President giving them further stipulations.
A DHS official told ABC News affiliate kitv.com: "While DHS has discussed the need for potential assistance with force protection of CBP personnel, calling this line of support 'law enforcement activities' would be factually inaccurate.”
According to US law, US troops are not allowed to participate in domestic law enforcement unless it is a time of emergency.
Triumphs consistently called the caravan coming towards the US a major threat.
In a speech at the White House last Thursday, Trump hinted at the possibility that soldiers at the border would shoot people who threw rocks at them.
He argued that rocks were similar to guns and that the group of 3,000 for migrants are an “invasion”.
The mission that sends troops to the border, also known as Operation Faithful Patriot, has come under extreme criticism from current and former military officials.
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff retired General Martin Dempsey called the operation a "wasteful deployment of over-stretched soldiers and Marines that would be made much worse if they use force disproportional to the threat they face.”
Trump appeared to have walked back his comment about shooting anyone who throws a rock at the troops.
He said: "If our soldiers are going to be hit in the face with rocks, we're going to arrest those people.
“That doesn't mean shoot them.”
He added that any arrests made will happen "quickly and for a long time”.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/worl...t-caravan-donald-trump-US-troop-mexico-border
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The Nov. 6 U.S. midterm elections are seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump. While voter turnout will have a huge impact on the results, at this point the pundits have the Democrats winning the popular vote and gaining control of the House of Representatives, while the Republicans hang on to the Senate. (JIM WATSON / AFP/GETTY IMAGES)
Turnout is expected to be high. A driving force, on both sides, is rage: rage toward the president; rage the president has tried to foment against migrants, the news media and Democrats, among others.
This is not a “the economy, stupid” kind of election. Despite the low unemployment rate, Democrats are favoured to win the popular vote and win control of the House of Representatives on the intensity of opposition to Trump among people of colour and college-educated white women. Trump, going with his gut over the guidance of some party officials, has chosen a fearmongering focus on immigration over a sunny-days message of rising prosperity.
In a three-rally blitz on Monday, Trump painted an apocalyptic and wildly dishonest picture of what might happen if voters pick the “Democrat mob” over Republicans: cities overrun with dangerous illegal immigrants, steel mills shut down, citizens kicked off their health care.
Democrats, who have campaigned on health care above all else, closed with a more factual warning: Republicans have long tried to replace Obamacare with laws that would weaken protections for people with pre-existing health conditions, and they will do so again if they are given new majorities.
The midterms battleground is much wider than in presidential elections, with competitive contests everywhere from the plains of North Dakota to the wealthy California coastal suburbs of Orange County. Hovering over every race is Trump, who is both a blessing and a curse for his party.
The election will be decided in two distinct kinds of places. Many of the key House races are in affluent suburban districts where Trump underperformed in 2016 and polls suggest many women have grown ever more dismayed by his behaviour. Republican House strategists worry his scorched-earth rhetoric will do more harm than good in these districts.
But many of the key Senate battlegrounds are conservative states, like Missouri and Montana, where Trump excelled in 2016 and remains popular. Republicans are favoured to maintain or slightly expand their slim 51-seat to 49-seat Senate advantage, and Trump’s ability to strategically inflame white-working-class and rural conservatives may be a key factor.
Democrats need 23 seats to take the House. Aided by Republican retirements and an unprecedented flood of donations, most of them from women, they appear to be nearly guaranteed to gain at least somewhere in the mid-to-high teens. But 23 is no sure thing: polls suggest their leads are narrow in many of the seats that could push them into the mid-20s or even the mid-30s.
The final polls varied, but they were generally good for Democrats. A CNN poll gave Democrats the largest margin, a 13-point advantage; an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll had the Democratic lead at 7 points. Forecasting website FiveThirtyEight gave Democrats an 88 per cent chance to win the House, Republicans an 81 per cent chance to keep the Senate.
Even if Republicans do hold on in the Senate, a Democratic takeover of the House would be a pivotal moment in Trump’s presidency. Democrats would gain the power to thwart Republicans’ legislative agenda, launch investigations into Trump’s activities, subpoena his officials, obtain his tax returns, and, possibly, to impeach him at some point in the future.
A Democratic House victory would also serve as a warning to Republican officeholders about their policies, their devotion to the president, and the brand of campaigning they have chosen this time. Trump has closed the race with a torrent of lies, mostly about immigration, and a television ad so racist that Fox News announced it would stop airing it. “The character of our country is on the ballot,” former president Barack Obama said on Twitter on Monday.
Trump began last week to warn that a loss might be coming, suggesting it would not be a big problem: “My whole life, you know what I say? ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out.’” Bracing for defeat, he said on a conference call with supporters Monday that he wasn’t sure the election could fairly be considered a referendum on him. But at a rally in Cleveland later, he conceded, “In a sense, I am on the ticket.”
The surest sign of Trump’s concern about the House came in an interview with conservative Sinclair Broadcasting. For the first time in his presidency, he offered an actual answer when he was asked if he had any regrets.
“I would say tone. I would like to have a much softer tone,” he said. “I feel, to a certain extent, I have no choice. But maybe I do.”
