Posted on 04/16/2019 3:19:40 AM PDT by reaganaut1
If the Federal Bureau of Investigation is to recover its lost reputation, the first item on Attorney General William Barr’s agenda must be to make good on something that set off a frenzy when he proposed it last week: an honest accounting of the FBI’s spying on the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. To do it, Mr. Barr would be well advised to use a grand jury, the same tool used by special counsel Robert Mueller in his investigation.
Right now the American people don’t even know when the FBI investigation into the Trump campaign really started. Officially it began July 31, 2016, set off by a tip from Australia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Alexander Downer, that Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos had told him Russia had damaging information on Hillary Clinton. But the accumulating evidence—confidential informants were reportedly reaching out to Trump campaign officials well before July 31—casts doubt on the party line.
Mr. Mueller showed how to get answers. A grand jury, with the powers to subpoena and indict, would wonderfully concentrate many Beltway minds now not inclined to cooperate.
...
Today the best candidate for a grand jury appearance may be former FBI general counsel James Baker. In closed testimony before the House Judiciary Committee released last week by Georgia Republican Rep. Doug Collins, Mr. Baker acknowledged his role in channeling Trump-Russia dirt commissioned by Clinton operatives to the FBI.
Under questioning, Mr. Baker agreed that the way the FBI handed the Russia investigation was “abnormal.” He further revealed he is under criminal investigation for leaks. On the advice of lawyers, he refused to answer questions about his contacts with reporters or whether Mr. Papadopoulos had been spied on via a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
Do you want them to do something before the investigation is complete?
Would you say the same thing with The Mule's investigation?
Charge POTUS with something without an investigation?
Re: Convene a Grand Jury in Texas.
Since all, or almost all, the crimes took place in Washington D.C., that will never happen.
As for criminal trials, since all, or almost all, the defendants live in the Washington D.C. metro area, it is very unlikely those trials can be moved, unless the defendants agree.
This is one of these “who is going to bell the cat?” conundrums.
America itself is in a morass of nod, wink. Is the so called “deep state” worse than most of us would be if gifted with the kind of powers it gets? Would we offer the power back to the Lord according to His wishes, or would we pursue our gut druthers without even a stop by the bible?
We (America) may be in a situation where “mass repentance” (i.e. a revival) is the only thing that can lift us from it. This would free us from that conundrum without a conventional political purge. No one will hang from a lamp post — because Jesus hung from a cross.
I’m wondering what Donald Trump is expecting to happen. Is he expecting this mealy mouthed FBI to deliver up a big nothingburger, whereupon he will get the political support needed to put those pompous goof-offs out of business.
The FBI was an agency for a cause for an age — in its founding days, that was prohibition and its knock-on effects in the criminal world.
If it still did that kind of thing, it would be investigating street drug dealers. But it seems that it’s gotten too big for its britches.
We’ve got a kennel of pit bulls looking for something to bite at a time when the body politic is simply sick of it all.
I wonder if Donald Trump is waiting for the Tea Party to crank out an “Abolish the FBI” bill.
“Do you want them to do something before the investigation is complete?”
Before, during, after, I don’t really care. Just doing something, anything, would be an improvement over the big pile of nothing they are doing so far.
“Would you say the same thing with The Mule’s investigation?
Charge POTUS with something without an investigation?”
Oh, with Mueller we didn’t have any doubt that he was actually doing something because he was busy actually convening grand juries and indicting people throughout the process. You know, like a prosecutor who wants to get his job done, and unlike the Obama appointee tag team that Sessions dumped this on so it would go nowhere.
WOW! Your sources must be really well informed to allow you to know that nothing is happening there.
Or is that just an assumption on your part.
...he was busy actually convening grand juries and indicting people throughout the process.
He didn't/couldn't indict anybody. That is a grand jury duty.
Yeah...so much to be proud of...
https://www.justice.gov/sco
All that money for, basically, process crimes.
You seem so proud of him.
“WOW! Your sources must be really well informed to allow you to know that nothing is happening there.”
You don’t need “sources” to know that they have produced no results. That is a simple observation anyone can make.
Go ahead and compare it to the Mueller investigation, as you did before. How long did Mueller and his team take before they were convening grand juries, issuing subpoenas, and filing indictments. It certainly doesn’t take two years to begin the first steps of this kind of process.
Yet we see none of that happening with Horowitz and Huber, the Obama appointee tag team, because they obviously have no intention of doing any of that. If they did, we would already see them doing it.
“He didn’t/couldn’t indict anybody. That is a grand jury duty.”
A semantic objection is not a real objection. I guess you can’t argue with the actual logic in my post if you have to nit pick like that. Mueller convened the grand juries, presented the cases, and got the indictments. In colloquial terms, they were Mueller’s indictments, even if he had to use the process of the grand jury to issue them.
“All that money for, basically, process crimes.”
At least he produced some results, even if they weren’t the ultimate results he was going for. Nobody can argue Mueller was doing nothing, unlike Horowitz and Huber.
“You seem so proud of him.”
You brought him up, but I can’t imagine why, since he is the perfect counterexample to your argument. I’m more than happy to point that out.
They’re being dragged... kicking and screaming... to the truth.
Just doing something, anything, would be an improvement over the big pile of nothing they are doing so far.
See what I mean?
Go ahead and compare it to the Mueller investigation, as you did before.
Like you're about to do?
How long did Mueller and his team take before they were convening grand juries, issuing subpoenas, and filing indictments.
Clue: Huber/Horowitz aren't Mueller.
Would you agree that Mueller had to keep his investigation in the limelight? Couldn't he have waited until the end of his investigation to bring charges?
Prosecutors have been using grand jury to investigate former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe
At that time, the public knew only the broad outlines of what Horowitz had discovered. In mid-April, the inspector general made public his damaging report. Horowitz referred his findings to the U.S. attorney's office in the District, which at some point launched its own investigation into the former deputy director's conduct.
Get my drift?
Oh, yeah, different situation. Flynn had to be removed from his position ASAP, thus the early indictment and announcement of it.
Never mind. Bad question on my part.
Mueller convened the grand juries, presented the cases, and got the indictments.
So what! That isn't evidence that Huber/Horowitz aren't doing anything like you've asserted.
Nobody can argue Mueller was doing nothing, unlike Horowitz and Huber.
Your suppositions aren't proof of anything. Do you know that a grand jury hasn't been created in the Huber/Horowitz investigations?
For that matter...Do you know that referrals haven't already been handed down in the Huber/Horowitz investigations?
Such referrals don't have to be announced to the public, do they?
“You’re changing the goalposts.”
Excuse me? My very first post made it clear that they have produced no results, as I just said again. What is changing?
“So what! That isn’t evidence that Huber/Horowitz aren’t doing anything like you’ve asserted.”
It’s evidence that it doesn’t take two years to start showing some results if you are actually intending to produce those results. We see no results from Huber and Horowitz, the Obama appointee all-star team hand-picked by super-efficient AG Sessions though. The logical conclusion is that they obviously aren’t that concerned about producing results.
“Your suppositions aren’t proof of anything.”
Neither are your suppositions proof that Sessions’ schmucks are actually accomplishing anything.
“Do you know that a grand jury hasn’t been created in the Huber/Horowitz investigations?”
Where would that theoretical grand jury be convened? In Utah where they can’t indict any of the conspirators? I suppose it might exist, but ain’t nobody seen hide nor hair of it. Maybe it exists but is doing the same thing as Huber and Horowitz, a whole lot of nothing.
You know what I do know? The perps are still walking free, without a care in the world, collecting their pension checks, and living their lives. Horowitz and Huber have still not produced a single result that has changed any of that.
Perhaps they just need another six to eight years of triple-secret undercover work in Utah and then they’ll bring the hammer down.
Got it. Thanks for playing.
“So you don’t know anything yet you make your assertions anyway.”
I know that Horowitz and Huber are a couple of leftie Obama appointees who haven’t produced any results of note yet and don’t seem to be in any hurry to do so.
Perhaps it wasn't just the Judiciary Committee that was held up. Perhaps Huber and Horowitz were as well...thus the seeming lack of action of which you decry.
Paraphrase - you can't look into it unto we're done looking into it.
It sure is something to consider if you hadn't already thought about it.
Ridiculous. Baker,, a obvious witness, would head the Grsnd Jury? Someone who had conviction but ultimately coward? He has to be friends with everyone under investigation. Anything he says now may just be trying to save his hide.
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