The Roger Stone Trial

#226
#226
volinbham said:
Not sure but that's kind of a follow on to the selective and over the top prosecution to begin with. I'm not excusing it but this smacks of saving face and getting some hits in a large scale investigation that nailed absolutely no one for the alleged misdeeds.
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I wonder if his attorney made that argument to the jury? You have a right to remain silent but the constitution doesn’t give you a right to use misdirection to cover up your misdeeds. Society has taken that privilege away by passing these laws. Whether the laws are improperly applied here was a question for the jury. Who decided that it was appropriate.

If I’m being objective, I can’t say that 7-9 isn’t excessive even in light of what he said to Credico. I tend to think 3-6 would be about right in my mind but I don’t know enough about Roger Stone or the facts here.

All I know is that he told a witness in a federal case that they should “prepare to die” and was threatening their dog, if they testified against him. That needs to be punished with some jail time because, outside of this fantasy land of partisan politics, it’s a real problem.

The defenses I’ve seen of lying to or obstructing Congress/the FBI/the special counsel vacillate between a presumption that a witness gets to determine the validity of the investigation, or that the investigation is judged in hindsight by its results. The first is too subjective. The second would create an incentive for people to commit the crime that is supposed to be deterred by the law. It’s in your interest to lie to try to foil the investigation. Same with threatening witnesses or destroying evidence. It would be a counter productive policy.
 
#227
#227
volinbham said:
Barr sees how the entire Trump/Collusion effort was flawed and how the FBI and Congress knew Stone wasn't colluding but still went after him hard to get something on him.

As head of DOJ his job it to be fair and since the investigation/prosecution was flawed he's trying to interject some sanity.

But, but I know - Orange Man Bad so let's nail Stone.
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So lemme get this right, we bring in the local dealer from the corner so we can question him and maybe get sufficient evidence to arrest Rocco, who's widely suspected of running the local ring. The corner drug dealer is having none of it. He lies out the wazoo and tampers with other witnesses we are talking with. Ultimately, we can't get enough on Rocco to bring charges--in no small part because of the actions of this guy. So your view is that because we didn't get the big fish, we gotta let go of (or at least go easy on) the corner drug dealer?

Now you tell me, what incentive structure does that create?
 
#229
#229
evillawyer said:
So lemme get this right, we bring in the local dealer from the corner so we can question him and maybe get sufficient evidence to arrest Rocco, who's widely suspected of running the local ring. The corner drug dealer is having none of it. He lies out the wazoo and tampers with other witnesses we are talking with. Ultimately, we can't get enough on Rocco to bring charges--in no small part because of the actions of this guy. So your view is that because we didn't get the big fish, we gotta let go of (or at least go easy on) the corner drug dealer?

Now you tell me, what incentive structure does that create?
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poor analogy - you left out the part where we know from pretty much the beginning that Rocco is innocent of what we are alleging. We use "evidence" we know is sketchy at best and which we've been told is fabricated. We use this BS evidence without telling a judge the origins to do surveillance on Rocco's corner drug dealer and shake him down to confess to something we already know didn't happen. We can't get any of them on any of what we are alleging so we throw the book at the drug dealer and say "See! We got em."
 
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#230
#230
RockyTop85 said:
I wonder if his attorney made that argument to the jury? You have a right to remain silent but the constitution doesn’t give you a right to use misdirection to cover up your misdeeds. Society has taken that privilege away by passing these laws. Whether the laws are improperly applied here was a question for the jury. Who decided that it was appropriate.

If I’m being objective, I can’t say that 7-9 isn’t excessive even in light of what he said to Credico. I tend to think 3-6 would be about right in my mind but I don’t know enough about Roger Stone or the facts here.

All I know is that he told a witness in a federal case that they should “prepare to die” and was threatening their dog, if they testified against him. That needs to be punished with some jail time because, outside of this fantasy land of partisan politics, it’s a real problem.

The defenses I’ve seen of lying to or obstructing Congress/the FBI/the special counsel vacillate between a presumption that a witness gets to determine the validity of the investigation, or that the investigation is judged in hindsight by its results. The first is too subjective. The second would create an incentive for people to commit the crime that is supposed to be deterred by the law. It’s in your interest to lie to try to foil the investigation. Same with threatening witnesses or destroying evidence. It would be a counter productive policy.
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Yeah, I'm not arguing to let him off and agree that witness tampering is serious. On the other hand I have to look at the origins and tactics of the prosecution through the whole thing which we know were fraught with all sorts of misdeeds and violations.

Midrange punishment more reasonable IMHO.
 
#231
#231
evillawyer said:
Ok, so can you give me a reason it's cool for Papa Droops Barr to step into this case? I had assumed you would give me a unitary executive argument, but maybe you know the absurd consequences that leads to when it comes to prosecutorial discretion.
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It’s already been covered in bham’s post

“
The FBI knew it was BS and Congress knew it was BS.

It's not justice to exact revenge when your larger case falls to pieces. It's not justice prosecute some for lying to Congress but completely ignore others.

But I know you hate Trump so congrats”

That covers it nicely, especially the last sentence.

Look at Manafort. Hey he’s a scum bag however nobody GAF about his 10 year old financial crimes until he was linked to Trump now he’s public enemy number one and a hardened criminal? BS.
 
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#232
#232
FLVOL69 said:
Hey LG one in four at a Trump rally identify as a democrat. One more term of Trump and your parties history ..😂
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giphy.gif
 
#236
#236
volinbham said:
Yeah, I'm not arguing to let him off and agree that witness tampering is serious. On the other hand I have to look at the origins and tactics of the prosecution through the whole thing which we know were fraught with all sorts of misdeeds and violations.

Midrange punishment more reasonable IMHO.
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The witness intimidation was indeed over the top. He needs to be punished on that one for sure, self inflicted and totally unnecessary and they can’t let that stand as prosecutors.
 
#237
#237
#242
#242
volinbham said:
Which of those were charged with colluding/working with Russia to interfere in the election?

Zero
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Not being charged with a crime is one matter, another matter is their behavior altogether. Simply put: If they did nothing wrong, why did everyone lie about it?

From Wiki:

Conspiracy or coordination
To establish whether a crime was committed by members of the Trump campaign with regard to Russian interference, investigators "applied the framework of conspiracy law", and not the concept of "collusion", because collusion "is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law."[78][79] They also investigated if members of the Trump campaign "coordinated" with Russia, using the definition of "coordination" as having "an agreement – tacit or express – between the Trump campaign and the Russian government on election interference." Investigators further elaborated that merely having "two parties taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests" was not enough to establish coordination.[80][81]

The investigation found there were over 100 contacts between Trump campaign advisors and individuals affiliated with the Russian government, before and after the election, but the evidence was insufficient to show an illegal conspiracy.[82] The New York Times estimated as many as 140 contacts between "Mr. Trump and his associates and Russian nationals and WikiLeaks or their intermediaries" in the report.[83]

The special counsel identified two methods the Russian government tried to communicate with the Trump campaign. "The investigation identified two different forms of connections between the IRA and members of the Trump Campaign. [...] First, on multiple occasions, members and surrogates of the Trump Campaign promoted – typically by linking, retweeting, or similar methods of reposting – pro-Trump or anti-Clinton content published by the IRA through IRA-controlled social media accounts. Additionally, in a few instances, IRA employees represented themselves as U.S. persons to communicate with members of the Trump Campaign in an effort to seek assistance and coordination on IRA-organized political rallies inside the United States", the report states.[65]

Secondly, the report details a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016. The intent of the meeting was to exchange "dirt" on the Clinton campaign. There was speculation that Trump Jr. told his father. However, the special counsel could not find any evidence that he did.[65] The office declined to pursue charges for two reasons: the office "did not obtain admissible evidence" that would meet the burden of proof principle beyond a reasonable doubt that the campaign officials acted with general knowledge about the illegality of their conduct; secondly, the office expected difficulty in valuing the promised information that "exceeded the threshold for a criminal violation" of $2,000 for a criminal violation and $25,000 for a felony punishment.[84]

The Report cited several impediments to investigators' ability to acquire information, including witnesses invoking their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, witnesses deleting electronic communications or using encrypted or self-destructing messaging apps, limitations of interviewing attorneys or individuals asserting they were members of the media, information obtained through subpoenas that was screened from investigators due to legal privilege, and false or incomplete testimony provided by witnesses.[6][7][85][8][86]

While conspiracy/coordination was not proven, Mueller's report left many unanswered questions, such as whether the myriad secret contacts between Trump associates and Russians, which they lied about, constituted, using Mueller's words, "a third avenue of attempted Russian interference with or influence on the 2016 presidential election"? Benjamin Wittes has written about this:

Put another way, what is the story these contacts tell if it's not one of active coordination? They surely aren't, in the aggregate, innocent. They aren't normal business practice for a presidential campaign. When Mueller asks whether they constituted some sort of third avenue for Russian interference, he's really asking, in the prosecutorial language available to him, what to make of them.... To my mind, anyway, that's the story Mueller told in this section. It may not be a crime, but it is a very deep betrayal.[87]​
George Croner of the Foreign Policy Research Institute has also expressed his concerns with what he describes as a "curiously flaccid" approach taken by Mueller in dealing with what the public would normally interpret as "coordination". He sees Mueller's dependence on a formal "tacit agreement" approach as "an overly cautious" and "legalistic construct":

To most individuals, at some point, persistent parallel conduct coupled with "multiple links" between the participants increasingly suggests that the conduct is coordinated—not coincidentally parallel.... t is not surprising that many are confounded by the Special Counsel's inability, or refusal, to render a conclusion on what is publicly perceived as having been the raison d'être of the inquiry.[88]​
 
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#243
#243
volinbham said:
poor analogy - you left out the part where we know from pretty much the beginning that Rocco is innocent of what we are alleging. We use "evidence" we know is sketchy at best and which we've been told is fabricated. We use this BS evidence without telling a judge the origins to do surveillance on Rocco's corner drug dealer and shake him down to confess to something we already know didn't happen. We can't get any of them on any of what we are alleging so we throw the book at the drug dealer and say "See! We got em."
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In the russia portion of the Mueller report they specifically discussed the fact that they could not get the information they needed to make a more definitive conclusion. Manafort and Prince both, for example, deleted text messages.
 
#245
#245
1972 Grad said:
I hope that Trump pardons Stone, Manafort, and whoever else was caught up in this war against Trump.
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Trump, Stone, and Manafort.......the Unholy Trinity.
They can call up Bannon and rekindle their role as the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse.
 
#246
#246
evillawyer said:
In the russia portion of the Mueller report they specifically discussed the fact that they could not get the information they needed to make a more definitive conclusion. Manafort and Prince both, for example, deleted text messages.
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I delete text messages. Is that a problem?
 
#249
#249
evillawyer said:
In the russia portion of the Mueller report they specifically discussed the fact that they could not get the information they needed to make a more definitive conclusion. Manafort and Prince both, for example, deleted text messages.
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I guess they should have smashed them with a hammer
 
#250
#250
evillawyer said:
In the russia portion of the Mueller report they specifically discussed the fact that they could not get the information they needed to make a more definitive conclusion. Manafort and Prince both, for example, deleted text messages.
Click to expand...

The Horowitz Report says "hi"
 
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