Originally posted by Mountain Man
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What Exact Crime Is Trump Guilty Of?
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Geislerminian Antinomian Kenotic Charispneumaticostal Gender Mutualist-Egalitarian.
Beige Federalist.
Nationalist Christian.
"Everybody is somebody's heretic."
Social Justice is usually the opposite of actual justice.
Proud member of the this space left blank community.
Would-be Grand Vizier of the Padishah Maxi-Super-Ultra-Hyper-Mega-MAGA King Trumpius Rex.
Justice for Ashli Babbitt!
Justice for Matthew Perna!
Arrest Ray Epps and his Fed bosses!
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Originally posted by Sam View PostIf you can't manage, after numerous corrections, to understand that Clinton's campaign wasn't working with Ukraine to "dig up dirt" on Trump, what hope do you have of advancing on other topics?
--Sam
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
It is all in the link...Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by seer View PostWhat Exact Crime Is Trump Guilty Of?
Campaign finance:
52 USC 30121(a)
"It shall be unlawful for a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation [including any "thing of value"] [for an electoral campaign]... from a foreign national."
Campaigns can purchase things with money from foreign nationals, including opposition research, which they commonly do. But campaigns cannot be donated things for free except under specific conditions (i.e. by American citizens, less than $2700 per person, and the campaign has to file forms declaring the donations) and they can't ask for things to be donated for free.
Paid for = legal. Received for free = illegal.
e.g. Hillary's 2016 campaign paid for some opposition research on Trump to be carried out by some foreign firms, which was legal because it was paid for at market value by campaign funds, whereas if it had been donated for free to the campaign by those foreign firms then it would have been totally illegal under the above law.
He ask Zelensky to look into the Biden thing
This is an absolutely clear cut case of a campaign finance violation, which Trump appears to have admitted to, and which the memo about the call released by the White House shows he's guilty of. 100% obviously guilty.
there was no quid pro quo
However, it's being alleged (and sure looks like) there was quid pro quo: He withheld military aid from them and made its restoration conditional on them helping him with Biden stuff.
The whistleblower's allegations were that before the call the Trump administration blocked military aid from Ukraine, then prior to the call the White House agreed to have the call only on the condition Ukraine would help Trump investigate Biden, and that during the call Trump mentioned the subject 8 times.
The summary of the call released by the White House has Trump saying that Ukraine is "not doing enough" for America in return for aid, and that Trump would like them to "do me a favor" of investigating Biden. This is taken by most people to be a strong confirmation of the quid pro quo.
A quid pro quo would violate the Bribery statue:
18 USC 201 B 2
"a public official, directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for being influenced in the performance of any official act"
Trump would be personally receiving something of value for himself and his campaign in exchange for changing how he performs his official acts (i.e. choosing to give or not give US military aid to the Ukraine). That's a clear cut bribery violation if a quid pro quo can be shown.
There are a few other follow-on crimes that Trump make also have committed. For example, Extortion, and Obstruction of Justice. e.g. If Trump realized he was probably guilty of the above crimes, and so tried to hide the evidence of his guilt by, let's say, moving the transcript of the call containing his wrongdoings out of the normal location and storing it somewhere else so investigators couldn't find it and so couldn't discover his guilt, that could be Obstruction of Justice.
The problem it seems is that he may have asked a foreign government to help with his election by looking into the Biden thing.
First, Biden is not actually his Democrat opponent.
Trump actually was Clinton's opponent when the Ukraine Government was helping her campaign dig up dirt on Trump: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...ackfire-233446
Also, nothing stops a foreign government from deciding it likes one candidate over another and doing whatever it pleases to try and promote one candidate, so long as it doesn't collude with the official campaign while doing so or gift anything to that campaign. US law doesn't try and control the actions of those foreign governments, it tries to control the actions of the US's politician's official campaigns, who are prohibited from receiving free donations of cash or information from those foreign governments. Russia can legally publish 1000 articles about how they like Trump, and Ukraine can legally publish 1000 articles about how Paul Manafort was a Bad Guy in Ukraine and how Trump is bad for associating with him and how Hillary is the better choice. But the US campaigns aren't allowed to request that they do so for free (that would be soliciting a thing of value), though they are allowed to pay them to do so (Again: Paid for by campaign funds = legal. Received for free = illegal).
So the Trump campaign would be legally allowed to pay for Rudy to fly to the Ukraine and pay people there to give him information about Biden / Biden's son. That would be legal. Paid for by campaign funds = legal. Trump asking for that information, for free, from the Ukrainian president, is illegal. (Also, Rudy's claim that he did the work for free, if true, would be illegal) Doing so after withholding US military aid and threatening to continue withholding it until his campaign is given this information, is triply illegal (Campaign finance violation + Bribery + Extortion).
And remember, every congressperson is well aware of what is legal vs illegal under campaign finance laws because every single one of them has had to run and win their own campaigns for office, most of them multiple times. So they're all well-briefed as to the details of the rules and have personal experience navigating them. So even if the basic rules (Paid for by campaign funds = legal. Received for free = illegal) are unfamiliar to you, they're very very familiar to all the congressmen and senators who are looking at this. That's why after the White House released the memo about the Ukraine call, all the politicians could read that and spot the illegal behavior instantly. Whereas the average person who doesn't understand the law can be confused by things like Hillary's campaign paying for some opposition research from Ukrainian companies and get confused as to why that is legal when this is not.Last edited by Starlight; 10-01-2019, 02:20 AM."I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
"Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
"[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein
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Hello Starlight. A most welcome, hopefully not brief, return, again!“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
“And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
“not all there” - you know who you are
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Originally posted by seer View PostOnly two Presidents have been impeached - neither removed from office. They both included actual crimes. You would think that an actual crime would be necessary to remove a duly elected President. If not, I do fear where this will end up...
Some crimes the president just cannot be prosecuted with while in office. He actually has already committed an obvious crime, but it wasn't as politically significant. Look at the weather chart incident. https://www.iflscience.com/environme...federal-crime/
It is the suspicious circumstance in which Zelensky’s aid was solicited in light of the accusations made by the whistleblower that have brought about an impeachment inquiry into whether or not there is enough evidence to proceed with an impeachment trial. From what I have read, the president is not on trial at the moment-the president has not been formally charged with a crime for which there would be an impeachment trial. I think that to ask for the certainty or judgement of impeachment proceedings may be premature.
Originally posted by Mountain Man View PostExcept the Constitution says "high crimes and misdemeanors" which imply proven violations of the law and not something vague and highly subjective like "conduct unbecoming of a president".
All sections of the constitution and the vocabulary below for Impeachment come from: https://constitutionus.com/
Article 1, Section 2, Clause 5: The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers; and shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.
Article I, Section 3, Clause 7: Judgment in Cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
Article 2, Section 4: The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Article 3, Section 2, Clause 3: The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed.
Vocabulary:
Impeachment - formal accusation of wrongdoing
Impeachments - formal accusations of wrongdoing
Originally posted by seer View PostHe ask Zelensky to look into the Biden thing - there was no quid pro quo that we know of. The problem it seems is that he may have asked a foreign government to help with his election by looking into the Biden thing. First, Biden is not actually his Democrat opponent. Second, the double standard. Trump actually was Clinton's opponent when the Ukraine Government was helping her campaign dig up dirt on Trump: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...ackfire-233446
If there is any benefit from Ukraine aiding in the election, such as if info on Biden would be useful, then this might not sit well with the FEC’s instructions on foreign volunteers for a committee.
https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/
Generally, an individual (including a foreign national) may volunteer personal services to a federal candidate or federal political committee without making a contribution. The Act provides this volunteer "exemption" as long as the individual performing the service is not compensated by anyone.
If the aid that was withheld and then offered back to Ukraine was in fact related to the research, then it could be argued that Trump bribed Zelensky.
This does offer an interesting list of potential crimes, but there is also a matter of corruption and whether or not the president has kept of presidential oath to protect the constitution of the United States. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/v...kraine-scandal
According to Adam Schiff, no quid pro quo is necessary to violate the presidential oath. I think this paragraph makes an interesting observation of a lot of things we have seen with Trumps presidency.https://time.com/5686104/trump-ukrai...hment-offense/ Legal experts say Trump’s call with Zelensky, in which he asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden’s son Hunter and may have implicitly tied foreign aid money to the request, may not have violated the letter of the law. “That would be politicizing law enforcement investigations and particularly politicizing a foreign law enforcement investigation for personal political gain,” says national security lawyer Bradley Moss. “I don’t know if the law has quite caught up to that idea, because we haven’t really contemplated the notion.”Last edited by Ana Dragule; 10-01-2019, 02:37 AM.I am become death...
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Originally posted by Starlight View PostThe summary of the call released by the White House has Trump saying that Ukraine is "not doing enough" for America in return for aid, and that Trump would like them to "do me a favor" of investigating Biden. This is taken by most people to be a strong confirmation of the quid pro quo.
campaign law snip
You silly people love to get your hopes up and then dashed again, eh? Gluttons for punishment.Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.
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Originally posted by Starlight View PostCampaign finance law, and the bribery statutes are two of the most obvious laws he appears to have broken.
Campaign finance:
52 USC 30121(a)
"It shall be unlawful for a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation [including any "thing of value"] [for an electoral campaign]... from a foreign national."
The summary of the call released by the White House has Trump saying that Ukraine is "not doing enough" for America in return for aid, and that Trump would like them to "do me a favor" of investigating Biden. This is taken by most people to be a strong confirmation of the quid pro quo.
Atheism is the cult of death, the death of hope. The universe is doomed, you are doomed, the only thing that remains is to await your execution...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o&t=3s
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Originally posted by seer View PostYou Sam have not corrected anything. Tell me exactly where the Politico investigation is off:
Ukrainian government officials tried to help Hillary Clinton and undermine Trump by publicly questioning his fitness for office. They also disseminated documents implicating a top Trump aide in corruption and suggested they were investigating the matter, only to back away after the election. And they helped Clinton’s allies research damaging information on Trump and his advisers, a Politico investigation found.
It is all in the link...
2) If a "Clinton ally" = "Clinton campaign" then the Trump campaign is in a whole mess of trouble.
You've been told, repeatedly by numerous people, that the Clinton campaign did not hire or coordinate with Alexandra Chalupa in her work regarding Paul Manafort (who, mind you, was known and notorious in Ukraine at the time). That you continue to peddle a falsehood indicates an utter inability to grapple with even the basic complexities of reality.
--Sam"I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"
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Originally posted by seer View PostIt could just as well prove Biden innocent...Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
Than a fool in the eyes of God
From "Fools Gold" by Petra
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Originally posted by seer View PostGood, so what makes you think Trump was looking for something of value for his campaign rather than exposing a past coverup, like with the Crowdstrike thing in the same conversation? And if Biden was guilty of a quid pro quo with the threat of withholding funds why isn't that a legitimate ask? It could just as well prove Biden innocent, which would not help Trump in the least. So what value exactly did Trump receive?
That is false - the favor thing had nothing to do with Biden, but Crowdstrike.
Trump has said that he asked Zelenskyy to investigate the Bidens. It's right there in the transcript: Trump asks for a favor, starts talking about Crowdstrike. Zelenskyy responds, reassuring Trump that he's spoken with Giuliani and that he "surrounds [himself] with great people" and that "all the investigations will be done openly and candidly". Trump then pivots directly to "you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair". That's Lutsenko, who Giuliani had been haranguing to begin an investigation into Joe Biden but was fired by Zelenskyy. Trump calls his termination unfair, praises Giuliani, and then says "The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son".
This is really one of the sadder talking points to land on, demanding a tortured parsing of Trump shaking Zelenskyy down for investigations into "Crowdstrike" and the Bidens in exchange for military aid. Everyone who reads the transcript knows what Trump was demanding from Zelenskyy -- not least because Trump himself confirmed the Biden ask when questioned and didn't bother to mention the Crowdstrike ask -- and only the propagandists think they can get away with claiming otherwise.
--Sam"I wonder about the trees. / Why do we wish to bear / Forever the noise of these / More than another noise / So close to our dwelling place?" — Robert Frost, "The Sound of Trees"
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Originally posted by Sam View PostTrump has said that he asked Zelenskyy to investigate the Bidens. It's right there in the transcript: Trump asks for a favor, starts talking about Crowdstrike. Zelenskyy responds, reassuring Trump that he's spoken with Giuliani and that he "surrounds [himself] with great people" and that "all the investigations will be done openly and candidly". Trump then pivots directly to "you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that's really unfair". That's Lutsenko, who Giuliani had been haranguing to begin an investigation into Joe Biden but was fired by Zelenskyy. Trump calls his termination unfair, praises Giuliani, and then says "The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son".
This is really one of the sadder talking points to land on, demanding a tortured parsing of Trump shaking Zelenskyy down for investigations into "Crowdstrike" and the Bidens in exchange for military aid. Everyone who reads the transcript knows what Trump was demanding from Zelenskyy -- not least because Trump himself confirmed the Biden ask when questioned and didn't bother to mention the Crowdstrike ask -- and only the propagandists think they can get away with claiming otherwise.
--SamSome may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
Than a fool in the eyes of God
From "Fools Gold" by Petra
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Originally posted by Starlight View PostCampaign finance law, and the bribery statutes are two of the most obvious laws he appears to have broken.
Campaign finance:
52 USC 30121(a)
"It shall be unlawful for a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation [including any "thing of value"] [for an electoral campaign]... from a foreign national."
Campaigns can purchase things with money from foreign nationals, including opposition research, which they commonly do. But campaigns cannot be donated things for free except under specific conditions (i.e. by American citizens, less than $2700 per person, and the campaign has to file forms declaring the donations) and they can't ask for things to be donated for free.
Paid for = legal. Received for free = illegal.
e.g. Hillary's 2016 campaign paid for some opposition research on Trump to be carried out by some foreign firms, which was legal because it was paid for at market value by campaign funds, whereas if it had been donated for free to the campaign by those foreign firms then it would have been totally illegal under the above law.
Right, which is illegal: "It shall be unlawful for a person to solicit [the free donation of a "thing of value" for an electoral campaign]... from a foreign national."
This is an absolutely clear cut case of a campaign finance violation, which Trump appears to have admitted to, and which the memo about the call released by the White House shows he's guilty of. 100% obviously guilty.
Quid pro quo is not relevant to the campaign finance violations issue above.
However, it's being alleged (and sure looks like) there was quid pro quo: He withheld military aid from them and made its restoration conditional on them helping him with Biden stuff.
The whistleblower's allegations were that before the call the Trump administration blocked military aid from Ukraine, then prior to the call the White House agreed to have the call only on the condition Ukraine would help Trump investigate Biden, and that during the call Trump mentioned the subject 8 times.
The summary of the call released by the White House has Trump saying that Ukraine is "not doing enough" for America in return for aid, and that Trump would like them to "do me a favor" of investigating Biden. This is taken by most people to be a strong confirmation of the quid pro quo.
A quid pro quo would violate the Bribery statue:
18 USC 201 B 2
"a public official, directly or indirectly, corruptly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in return for being influenced in the performance of any official act"
Trump would be personally receiving something of value for himself and his campaign in exchange for changing how he performs his official acts (i.e. choosing to give or not give US military aid to the Ukraine). That's a clear cut bribery violation if a quid pro quo can be shown.
There are a few other follow-on crimes that Trump make also have committed. For example, Extortion, and Obstruction of Justice. e.g. If Trump realized he was probably guilty of the above crimes, and so tried to hide the evidence of his guilt by, let's say, moving the transcript of the call containing his wrongdoings out of the normal location and storing it somewhere else so investigators couldn't find it and so couldn't discover his guilt, that could be Obstruction of Justice.
Not merely 'asked', which would be a Campaign Finance violation (for which people are often imprisoned in the US), but 'demanded in exchange for resuming military aid' which is both Bribery and Extortion. And then he hid the evidence which is Obstruction of Justice.
Not relevant. It's common for campaigns to do opposition research against all the major possible candidates on both sides of the aisle. That's 100% legal if they pay for it from official campaign funds and report the expenditure. It's not legal to have it donated freely to them. It doesn't matter if the firms they buy the opposition research material from are foreign or domestic, what matters is that it's paid for out of campaign funds, and declared on the campaign expenditures filed with the FEC. Paid for by the campaign = legal. Freely given = illegal.
Her campaign was allowed to pay for opposition research from Ukrainian sources from campaign funds. The requirement is that they be purchased at market value rather than gifted / donated freely to the campaign. Again: Paid for by campaign funds = legal. Received for free = illegal.
Also, nothing stops a foreign government from deciding it likes one candidate over another and doing whatever it pleases to try and promote one candidate, so long as it doesn't collude with the official campaign while doing so or gift anything to that campaign. US law doesn't try and control the actions of those foreign governments, it tries to control the actions of the US's politician's official campaigns, who are prohibited from receiving free donations of cash or information from those foreign governments. Russia can legally publish 1000 articles about how they like Trump, and Ukraine can legally publish 1000 articles about how Paul Manafort was a Bad Guy in Ukraine and how Trump is bad for associating with him and how Hillary is the better choice. But the US campaigns aren't allowed to request that they do so for free (that would be soliciting a thing of value), though they are allowed to pay them to do so (Again: Paid for by campaign funds = legal. Received for free = illegal).
So the Trump campaign would be legally allowed to pay for Rudy to fly to the Ukraine and pay people there to give him information about Biden / Biden's son. That would be legal. Paid for by campaign funds = legal. Trump asking for that information, for free, from the Ukrainian president, is illegal. (Also, Rudy's claim that he did the work for free, if true, would be illegal) Doing so after withholding US military aid and threatening to continue withholding it until his campaign is given this information, is triply illegal (Campaign finance violation + Bribery + Extortion).
And remember, every congressperson is well aware of what is legal vs illegal under campaign finance laws because every single one of them has had to run and win their own campaigns for office, most of them multiple times. So they're all well-briefed as to the details of the rules and have personal experience navigating them. So even if the basic rules (Paid for by campaign funds = legal. Received for free = illegal) are unfamiliar to you, they're very very familiar to all the congressmen and senators who are looking at this. That's why after the White House released the memo about the Ukraine call, all the politicians could read that and spot the illegal behavior instantly. Whereas the average person who doesn't understand the law can be confused by things like Hillary's campaign paying for some opposition research from Ukrainian companies and get confused as to why that is legal when this is not."The man from the yacht thought he was the first to find England; I thought I was the first to find Europe. I did try to found a heresy of my own; and when I had put the last touches to it, I discovered that it was orthodoxy."
GK Chesterton; Orthodoxy
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Originally posted by seer View PostHe ask Zelensky to look into the Biden thing - there was no quid pro quo that we know of. The problem it seems is that he may have asked a foreign government to help with his election by looking into the Biden thing. First, Biden is not actually his Democrat opponent. Second, the double standard. Trump actually was Clinton's opponent when the Ukraine Government was helping her campaign dig up dirt on Trump: https://www.politico.com/story/2017/...ackfire-233446
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Originally posted by lilpixieofterror View PostObama broke campaign finance laws too. Clinton did both. When will they go to prison?
I'm always still in trouble again
"You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
"Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
"Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman
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While Trump goes about trying to undermine the Mueller report, he is doing more Mueller stuff. Amazing incompetence. Is Trump clinically insane?“I think God, in creating man, somewhat overestimated his ability.” ― Oscar Wilde
“And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence” ― Bertrand Russell
“not all there” - you know who you are
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