Even if Trump obstructed justice, so what?

[ElNono]

stop beating yourself up

he's not talking about himself...

[RandomGuy]

HIRONO: So if the Attorney General or senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation, can they halt that FBI investigation?

COMEY: In theory yes.

HIRONO: Has it happened?

COMEY: Not in my experience. Because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that -- without an appropriate purpose. I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that we don't see a case there and so you ought to stop investing resources in it. But I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason, that would be a very big deal. It's not happened in my experience.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1705/03/wolf.02.html

Let's parse words here.

Is there a difference between being asked to do something, and being ordered to do something?

Secondly: Does the question he is answering refer to the president? or "Attorney General or senior officials at the Department of Justice"

If it is the latter, would it be possible for him to answer that question in that way, if Trump had asked him to stop investigating? if Trump had ordered him investigating?

[RandomGuy]

in the fake news testimony you showed me (CNN is the source and therefore fake news) he mentions DOJ interference, not presidential. i'll wait to hear him speak, i'm sure the contents of the memos will come up.

Looks like I'm not the only one to pick up on that.

[Reck]

Just shows he has support from the bottom to the top, tbh.

Tell me how Trump's gonna win re-election scrah.

[ducks]

tell me again how he was not going to get elected in the first place or wait he did

the last year will matter what is going on with jobs and the economy
all this other stuff will not matter

[Mitch]

Tell me how Trump's gonna win re-election scrah.

Why do you keep asking, Bro? I already told you: by simply doing nothing go hurt the average American and doing something to keep his base happy.

You should worry more about your girl preparing for her third run or putting little chelsy forward

[Reck]

Why do you keep asking, Bro? I already told you: by simply doing nothing go hurt the average American and doing something to keep his base happy.

You should worry more about your girl preparing for her third run or putting little chelsy forward

Such a righwing thing to do: when people talk about how ty Trump is doing, defer to Hillary.

Get it through your head bro, Trump is not only not getting re-elected, he's not going to last his first term.

[Mitch]

Such a righwing thing to do: when people talk about how ty Trump is doing, defer to Hillary.

Get it through your head bro, Trump is not only not getting re-elected, he's not going to last his first term.

Seriously, Reck. I answered your question, Im simply saying you should watch out for another Clinton running

Trump is staying, quote me on that, I'll probably still post here in 2020

[Chucho]

Such a righwing thing to do: when people talk about how ty Trump is doing, defer to Hillary.

Get it through your head bro, Trump is not only not getting re-elected, he's not going to last his first term.

LOL. The Leftist Media sensationalism has slowed. Slow the false braggadocio, holmes.

[boutons_deux]

Is there a difference between being asked to do something, and being ordered to do something?

The way Comey understood Trash, and how Comey"answered" got him fired, needs no "parsing".

[RandomGuy]

Hate to burst your bubble RG

05/03/2017

HIRONO: Yes. And so speaking of the independence of not just the judiciary but I'd like you to clarify the FBI's independence from the DOJ apparatus. Can the FBI conduct an investigation independent from the department of Justice. Or does the FBI have to disclose all it's investigations to the DOJ? And does it have to get the Attorney General's consent?

COMEY: Well we work with the Department of Justice, whether that's main justice or U.S. attorney's offices on all of our investigations.

And so we work with them and so in a legal sense we're not independent of the department of justice. We are spiritually, culturally pretty independent group and that's the way you would want . But yes, we work with the Department of Justice on all of our investigations.

HIRONO: So if the Attorney General or senior officials at the Department of Justice opposes a specific investigation, can they halt that FBI investigation?

COMEY: In theory yes.

HIRONO: Has it happened?

COMEY: Not in my experience. Because it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something that -- without an appropriate purpose. I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that we don't see a case there and so you ought to stop investing resources in it. But I'm talking about a situation where we were told to stop something for a political reason, that would be a very big deal. It's not happened in my experience.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1705/03/wolf.02.html

https://www.yahoo.com/news/conservat...004656560.html

Hate to burst yours. Even the apologists are hemming and hawing.
Conservative legal scholars debate: Can the president obstruct justice?

[RandomGuy]

But Mukasey, who served under Republican President George W. Bush, then went on to make a series of comments that were severely disapproving of Trump’s reported conduct.

First, Mukasey said he was not sure Trump understood the implications of what he was doing.

“As the story is told … it’s kind of informal: ‘Hey, would you cut this guy some slack? He’s a nice guy.’ And that kind of conversation about an ongoing proceeding, conducted in a manner that is extraordinarily informal … suggests complete unconsciousness of what it is that’s actually happening,” Mukasey said.

He continued: “That conversation might be appropriate to a minor disciplinary matter at a big corporation. It’s not appropriate to a criminal investigation. The inability to distinguish the one from the other, I think, is extraordinary.”

The implication in Mukasey’s comments seemed to be that President Trump does not understand the job he now holds. It’s a concern that was echoed by Bob Bauer, a former White House counsel to President Obama.

“The missing piece here, alarmingly, is a conception of the presidency. He seems to be imagining that he is running one of his companies,” Bauer wrote Wednesday. “Where [former President Richard] Nixon put the government at risk with a misbegotten political morality, Trump is failing, badly, because he is vainly running on a certain marketplace morality, compatible with his temperament, that once won him money and attention.”

One observer in the room at the Federalist Society meeting said he was surprised by the strength of Mukasey’s condemnation. And sources with expertise in the matter of presidential power said that Mukasey’s comment about the president’s legal authority to end an investigation is true as a technical matter but does not obviate the issue of obstruction of justice.

A president can intervene in a situation where he or she believes there has been bad judgment on the part of prosecutors, legal experts said. But when a president’s personal interests or behavior are in question, and he involves himself, it raises the issue of obstruction.