@Cycloptichorn,
Cycloptichorn wrote:That's an unsupportable assertion on your part.
We'll see.
Off-topic tangent: Ever watch the Terminator TV series? If so, remember how that one terminator would always respond with a calm "we'll see" whenever he was told that he'd been thwarted?
Cycloptichorn wrote:What, specifically, are the Democrats 'working to produce' that's contrary to law and justice?
I accuse the Democrats of (deliberately and maliciously) working to produce:
a) unjustified criminal investigations and
b) wrongful convictions of innocent people.
Cycloptichorn wrote:If Trump and his associates end up being charged with crimes, by the legal arm of our government, that's consistent with law and justice.
Not if the investigation was unjustified to begin with. And not if they are innocent and wrongly convicted.
Cycloptichorn wrote:Be specific in your answer here, vague assertions do your argument no favors.
I don't know how I can be any more specific.
Cycloptichorn wrote:You made some mutterings, but you never directly addressed the fact that it is Republican appointed by a Republican DoJ that's doing the actual investigation.
"
He was naive and caved in to Democratic pressure to appoint Mueller. He was wrong to do so."
Cycloptichorn wrote:You seem unable to admit this, because it doesn't pin anything on the Dems and that's your ultimate goal here.
No. My ultimate goal is to convince the general citizenry to put an end to the Democrats' witch hunts.
What the Democrats are doing horrifies me. The witch hunts remind me of McCarthyism, and I am naturally opposed to punishing innocent people (though thankfully Scooter Libby was spared prison time).
Cycloptichorn wrote:1, it's only your personal opinion that the investigation is 'unjustified.' The FBI and DoJ clearly believe it is, in fact, justified. So does the GOP Congress. So does a majority of American citizens. Your opinion is absolutely meaningless in the face of these facts.
It is a fact that criminal investigations are only justified if there is a reason to believe a crime has taken place. It is also a fact that there is no basis here for concluding that a crime has taken place. Reality matters no matter how many people oppose it.
Cycloptichorn wrote:2, nobody's been charged with a crime yet, let alone convicted, so you have no basis to conclude their their convictions are in fact 'wrongful.'
Scooter Libby was charged and convicted.
Cycloptichorn wrote:3, you have no data that anyone is in fact innocent of crimes, yet you're preemptively declaring them to be so. This doesn't speak to a sense of impartiality on your part.
I have ample data that Scooter Libby was completely innocent of all wrongdoing.
Cycloptichorn wrote:I did so in the last post.
Collusion means they are working together to achieve a goal (in this case an election result). I haven't seen any evidence of Trump and Russia working together to help Trump win the election.
Receiving damaging information about your opponent when it is offered (or going to listen to a sales pitch when someone says they are offering such information) is not the same as working together to achieve a result.
Cycloptichorn wrote:You're wrong there. It is in fact illegal to collude with a foreign government to influence an American election. L0ok it up.
I strongly dispute this. I claim there is no such law.
There is a law prohibiting foreign-sourced gifts and campaign contributions. But that law doesn't prohibit collusion.
Cycloptichorn wrote:This is a falsehood on your part. 100%. Trump has made numerous false statements regarding his Russian connections (and really every single topic he discusses).
I looked into a few of alleged Russia lies some time back. At the time the topic of the day involved claims that administration officials were lying, not Trump himself, so it was the alleged lies of administration officials that I looked into.
The alleged lies all tended to be either honest mistakes (quickly corrected), statements taken wildly out of context to make them seem like a lie when they weren't, or truthful statements wrongly characterized as a lie.
If Trump spouts continual falsehoods though, that would argue against ill intent regarding untrue Russia statements (should any of those statements turn out to be be untrue).
Cycloptichorn wrote:I don't agree with that point at all. It's like saying there's no evidence that mob bosses do anything illegal, because their underlings are the ones who actually attack people and steal things.
I also see no evidence of Trump's underlings committing any crimes for him. Probably Flynn and Manafort failed to register as foreign agents, but that is far from them committing illegal acts for Trump.
Cycloptichorn wrote:The truth is that you have no idea what the investigators do and don't know about Trump and his communications with his underlings re: Russia.
I know. That's why my posts tend to address the possibility of crimes being found.
Cycloptichorn wrote:If one of his underlings (or kids even!) did something illegal, and Trump knew about it, and investigators can prove that he knew, he's guilty of Obstruction of Justice if he later lied about that publicly or took other steps to sabotage an investigation into those crimes. And guess what? He did exactly that on multiple occasions.
Obstruction for lying in public is rather a stretch.
Also, exercising discretion over whether to pursue a case is not obstruction. Otherwise prosecutors would be guilty of obstruction every time they decide not to prosecute a case.
Cycloptichorn wrote:I'm gonna be honest here, and I don't want you to take this as an insult because I don't mean it that way: you're ignorant as to the level of jeopardy that Trump is in. There are any number of ways that this thing could blow up in his face, directly.
I'm not insulted. But I strongly disagree about his level of jeopardy. The worst case scenario for Trump is that they actually find criminal wrongdoing. If that comes to pass, the Clinton precedent will prevent him from being removed from office, and he won't be charged as long as he remains president. That's not such a bad situation for him. If some state keeps threatening to prosecute him as soon as he leaves office, he could probably withhold vital funding for them until they agree to stop their witch hunting.
Cycloptichorn wrote:And no, he will not be able to pardon his way out of it, no matter how many times you assert that he can (illogically).
Trump can pardon any federal crime.
The only danger that seems even remotely plausible is state charges against someone close to Trump. But given my skepticism that there were any crimes to begin with, with the specific subset of state crimes being even more unlikely, and with the statute of limitations preventing charges for older crimes, I think this danger is slim.
