Posted on 03/04/2017 8:43:24 PM PST by ForYourChildren
Highly respected liberal law professor and constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley at George Washington University, seemingly one of the few intellectually honest liberals left in America — someone who objectively has criticized both Democrats and Republicans when he thought they were out of bounds — was asked to respond to the stunning charges from President Trump on Saturday that Obama illegally wiretapped Trump Tower during the presidential campaign against Democrat Hillary Clinton and that he was considering legal action.
After CNN anchor Fredricka Whitfield and her guests sounded like Obama’s legal defense team all Saturday morning, Professor Turley provided an alternative to CNN’s shameful coverage of the accusation and its ramifications, characterizing the alleged spying by Obama as “disturbing” and that everyone in should have be interested in having the scandal investigate.
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(Excerpt) Read more at politistick.com ...
Well...I would assume The OBama admin WAS surveiling ALL of them.
Question. Can they appoint a special prosecutor from the House of Reps? Or does it have to be someone from outside?
You don’t appoint a special prosecutor from Congress. You find a rabid junkyard dog with a law degree.
These are separate matters.
The supposed criminal investigation into whether Trump or his people colluded with whoever hacked the DNC and/Podesta does not appear to even exist. Notice that Sessions has not recused himself yet, merely said that he would if there ever was such an investigation. There has to be some predicate for an investigation to even commence, and there appears to be no predicate here such that an investigation has commenced.
The coming investigation into whether Obama and his aides illegally abused national security intelligence gathering tools to collect information against Trump is a separate matter and it is hard to imagine any way that Sessions had any personal involvement in the use of these intelligence gathering tools by Obama or his team so as to be a fact witness in this second investigation.
I found it out. Never mind.
They have to appoint someone from outside the Government.
Read my last message again. Sessions doesn't have to recuse himself because he had any "personal involvement" in the use of these intelligence gathering tools by Obama. He has to recuse himself because he was likely a victim in this case, along with Trump.
You can't have someone prosecuting a case before a grand jury, and presenting evidence that includes transcripts of that prosecutor's conversations with the target of an illegal surveillance operation. The prosecutor is a "witness" in this scenario even if he never formally testifies.
There is NO need for a special prosecutor. That is a process that stupid and gutless repubtards use to make dims happy and allow them to queer investigations.
Let the DOJ do it with Sessions in close oversight. Ignore the wailing from the left.
I see your point, but I don’t think the substance of any of those calls that were intercepted (whether or not some of them may have included Sessions) is going to be considered evidence relevant to the question of whether Obama and/or his team illegally made use of national security intelligence gathering tools.
The criminal questions will be (1) did the Obamaites misrepresent the facts to the FISA court so as to illegally obtain a FISA warrant (an ex ante question) or (2) even if a warrant was legally obtained, did they exceed the scope of the warrant in the actual gathering of intelligence.
The substance of any calls, including any call Sessions may have been on, should not ever enter into evidence.
A prosecutor in a case against a car thief has to step down from the case if the same thief stole the prosecutor's car six months earlier.
I understand your sentiment, but you clearly do not understand how the law works.
The notion being that Sessions would have some sort of personal animus against Obama because his own calls with Trump were listened to — hmm, strikes me as a bit of a stretch.
You may be right that he will in fact recuse himself, though. His wording at the time of his confirmation about what he would recuse himself from was kind of broad and vague and they might decide it would be stronger from a political point of view for him to recuse himself.
It has nothing to do with whether or not there would be a personal animus. The scenario I presented represents a classic definition of a conflict of interest for a prosecutor. Any ethical prosecutor would recuse himself from the case in this situation.
The classic case of a conflict of interest for a prosecutor is if he has some material conflict of interest that could HINDER him from performing his duties, like the defendant being his son-in-law or the defendant owing him money.
Lawyers are EXPECTED to be zealous in pursing a case. A prosecutor also has additional special responsibilities under the ethical code, but not having an extra dislike of a defendant is not one of them.
I’ve seen his commentary on Fox for years and never knew he was a liberal. He was always a straight-up guy.
My my my, we have two of the most well-known Democrats in the country now defending President Trump.
Whoda thunk it.
I’m hoping this will give a lot more of the smarter Dems the opportunity to join them.
If there is any evidence that Sessions' calls or e-mails are among those that were intercepted under the FISA warrant that is the subject of a criminal case, his name is going to appear on the witness list even if he never gets called to testify.
As soon as his name appears on the witness list, he cannot stay on the case unless he intends to argue that he is not a material witness in the case. There isn't a judge in the land who would agree with that argument. More importantly, he would come off looking very foolish and unprofessional simply by going to any great lengths to stay on the case.
As I said before, I disagree that the substance of the calls intercepted and the various parties thereto would be considered relevant evidence for a prosecution of Obama and his team for the crimes I indicated for the reasons I gave.
In a legal case, both parties have a wide degree of latitude in getting information to support their case in the discovery phase -- even to the point of getting access to information that may ultimately be kept out of the courtroom for one reason or another when the case goes to trial.
This story is growing legs.
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