What are the legal terms at play here? Spoliation and fruit of the poisoned tree?
Seems like Manafort and Flynn won the anti-Mueller lottery.
I don't think so. It really depends on the rules of evidence in the Federal courts, doesn't it?
Like withholding evidence? Yeah, I'd think that would qualify.
Judge: Okay, FBI, which would you like to accede to: incompetence or willful misconduct?
FBI: Uh....
Judge: Case dismissed.
Like a laser beam, focus in to determine WHO ORDERED THE CESSATION OF “RETENTION” of these text messages! The system didn’t suddenly do it on its own accord.
I do not understand the legal posturing stipulated by this article. One does not “file for a dismissal” of a special counsel investigation. It is, by its very nature, a witch hunt. It wouldn’t be a court which would dismiss the special counsel.
Hopefully, the publication of the 4 page FISA memo from congress should provide enough cover that the DOJ can call a halt to the special counsel and disband the nonsense.
Criminals often find themselves in this kind of quick sand. Either destroy the evidence and have to deal with the incriminating nature of having destroyed evidence in the future. Or don’t destroy the evidence and deal with the incriminating nature of the evidence itself right away.
In this case, the criminals at the FBI decided they had to destroy the evidence. Thus we can safely conclude that the emails they destroyed were absolutely devastating to Obama’s corrupt administration and the Mueller shell game.
The biggest question now is whether or not we have sufficient jail capacity in this country to house all the Obama people who need to be incarcerated.
Of course manafort can use this. I’m sure he will. Trump has no charges against him. Why would he file Motions if there is no case pending? Doesn’t make any sense. It would be better if trump just shut down the Probe. I think a release of the FISA Memo would be a good and quick start.
Spoliation evidence is just about the worst thing a trial lawyer wants to be accused of.
It’s almost an automatic lose I think. Or dismissal. Would be nice to know of some cases where the prosecutor spoliated evidence and went on to win the case anyway.
Of course the NSA still has these Text messages, but NSA data is barred from use in Domestic law enforcement/court proceedings.
So the Government can subpoena the records from the commercial carrier, but that will take time, allowing Mueller more time for mischief. Also, the commercial carrier might only have metadata, not content.
Bttt.
5.56mm
I've worked in industry and for both federal and state institutions and you don't just "lose" this stuff, and it isn't just "backups". There are very strict legal requirements for retention that are codified by institutional Counsel, and you don't treat them as suggestions or recommendations. There is an infuriating tendency for the ignorant - I'm talking about you, Hillary - to dismiss this sort of thing as a "glitch" and pretend that it doesn't matter, that it happens all the time. Five months of data? Nobody did any QA on software "upgrades" for five months? Nobody tested records retention for five months?
Sorry, not buying it. This isn't some Mom and Pop auto parts store, this is the FBI. Whether these text messages were processed entirely internally is unknown, but generally a cell phone carrier is involved, who has its own set of records retention policies. Whether the NSA collects this is also unknown, which is one difference between this and Hillary's email scandal. But it's very obviously official business, and if it's being conducted on private personal cell phones or on private personal servers, it's not legal.
p
This is dumb