ChiGoose

I honestly don't see this as a problem. Pretty standard campaign stuff. The issue at hand is if she, or campaign officials, directed Sussman to disclose the info to the FBI while telling the FBI that he was doing so on his own behalf. Throwing chum to the media: 👍 Trying to deceive the FBI: 👎

Colluding with a foreign country is NOT treason. Treason is defined by 18 USC § 2381 as: While Russia may be an adversary, we were not at an open state of war with them. Nor does accepting help in an election likely meet the standard of "giving aid and comfort" since it would be Trump, not Russia, that is primarily benefitting. I would be willing to bet against this.

Where did treason come from? That's never been part of the discussion. And as to the evidence, I would really suggest checking out the actual Mueller report. It has a significant amount of evidence. Concluding that because someone was not charged with a crime means that they did not commit a crime would be assuming a perfectly operating legal system that does not exist in this country or any country. My wife has made me watch enough Dateline to know that sometimes people get away with crimes for years and years before they are eventually charged (if they ever are).

Politics. Mueller felt he could not indict a sitting president so he essentially treated the report as a roadmap for impeachment. However, impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. You could have unassailable evidence that the President committed crimes but it basically comes down to how many Senators are from the opposition party, not the actual truth of the matter at hand. We saw this with Clinton's impeachment too. In fact, until Trump's second impeachment, no Senator had ever voted to remove the President of their own party. Now, the DoJ could still indict Trump but that raises many of the same political concerns I've outlined previously. Even if the evidence is ironclad, the DoJ would be immediately called out as a political actor who is only going after Trump because of politics. Given the hits to the reputation of the DoJ over the last several years, an institutionalist like Garland may be reluctant to pursue that path.

This notion is really hard to square with the pages and pages of evidence of the Trump campaign working with individuals working on behalf of the Russian government in the Mueller report. I would like to think that if we had the same amount of evidence of the Clinton campaign working with the Chinese to help her get elected, we would be outraged as well. In any event, it is clear from reading the actual report that Mueller did not specifically accuse Trump of committing crimes solely because he felt he could not indict a sitting president (giving him the opportunity to respond and clear his name via trial) and not because there was no evidence of crimes. Given that Sussman going to the FBI was not the predicate to launch the Mueller investigation, and that Mueller actually found ample evidence of connections between the Trump campaign and Russians, I have a hard time believing that this Sussman trial is the loose string that Durham will pull to unearth some vast conspiracy. Like I've said before, if Durham gets a guilty verdict here and then starts getting guilty verdicts up the chain of the Clinton campaign, I'll change my mind. But I'd wager the chances of that are fairly slim. Even if Sussman is found guilty (which he may be), I'd expect that'll be the high water mark of Durham's investigation or at least close to it.

Well... this is starting to get out of hand... This thread was originally started as a discussion about the Sussman trial and in two pages it has devolved into sh!tposting, mudslinging, and talk about being triggered and Putin for some reason. I think there are valid disagreements to be had, but since I've really tried to get involved on this board over the last week or so, it seems that people are more interested in yelling at each other and making broad sweeping claims rather than actually engaging on any particular topic. It really feels like everybody tries to sort every post into either Left or Right and then brings all of their assumptions and accusations to bear based on that assessment regardless of the actual discussion at hand. I will give credit to DrsGhost, Tiberius, Doc, Westside, and Buffalo Timmy for trying to stay on topic, but I feel like this thread is on the cusp of falling into the same scrapheap of garbage threads littering this part of the forum. Anyhoo, I'd suggest reading the Mueller Report. It's dense but heavy on facts and citations. The media has done an absolutely terrible job covering what is in it, but it is very clear from the record that the Trump campaign had many connections to Russians and even collaborated at some points. That does not mean that Trump is a Russian toadie or in Putin's pocket. Both groups were interested in a Trump victory (or at least damaging Clinton should she succeed), but it does not appear they engaged in an agreement to corporate on that goal. At the time of the 2016 election, I still considered myself a Republican, but Trump and the party's support for him were too much for me to endorse and I ended up leaving. It's ok to change course sometimes. I still maintain that the Sussman trial is being made out to be much more than it is, and that it is not going to end in some big unraveling of a Clinton conspiracy. That being said, if Sussman is convicted and then Durham starts securing convictions up the chain, I reserve the right to change my mind. If anyone wants to actually seriously discuss the actual facts of the Sussman case (or any other interesting topic) and where they may lead, I'm down for it. But if this is going to just devolve into the rest of the garbage I see on the PPP part of the message board, I suppose I can log off for a couple years and see if things get better.

Fair enough. I will state that if what Kash Patel states comes to pass (Sussman is convicted and Durham starts getting convictions up the chain, proving a conspiracy), that will be convincing to me. I'm not ruling it out, I just don't see it as the most likely outcome. I hold no water for Clinton, I was still a Republican in 2016. I am just skeptical that she is capable of pulling off a complicated nationwide hoax, but we shall see.

EDIT: I answered this based on the president committing a crime. As stated in the Mueller Report "collusion" isn't actually a crime as laid out in a statute. I would agree that they probably should be prosecuted but I'm not confident that they definitely would be. I don't think we've ever had a former president criminally prosecuted before. The closest we came was Nixon but that became impossible when Ford pardoned him. Prosecuting a president is far trickier than your average citizen because they have additional protections (executive privilege, duties as president, etc.) that would need to be overcome in the trial. It also will immediately be politicized, potentially putting a stain on the office leading the prosecution. So even if an investigative body has a strong case, they may be reluctant to bring it unless they are 100% certain they could secure a guilty verdict. And even then, they would have to weigh that against political concerns. I don't love it, I think there is plenty enough evidence to indict Trump on obstruction of justice as well as breaking Georgia election law, but I'm not confident that will actually happen. Bottom line for prosecutors: you come at the king, you best not miss.

I am skeptical that it ends up going that far. The case against Sussman is far from a slam dunk and conviction is certainly not assured. And even if Sussman is convicted on a single charge of lying to the FBI, would the sentence be so high that he would roll over (assuming there really is some big conspiracy here)? It's definitely not impossible, but at the current stage, it seems fairly improbable to me.

Here's an article from two years ago outlining who was indicted and who plead guilty or was convicted: https://www.axios.com/2019/11/15/trump-associates-convicted-mueller-investigations Collusion is not a legal term and it's a big reason why the media coverage on this was so bad. Mueller specifically noted in the report on page 2: The report then goes on to document a myriad of interactions between individuals in the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, including sharing internal polling data with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. However, because conspiracy requires an agreement between parties, Mueller was not able to state affirmatively that there was a conspiracy. Coordinating and working with Russian agents towards a shared goal is not enough if you do not have an actual agreement between the parties. That being said, the report also detailed numerous instances that meet or may meet the standards of obstruction of justice. In setting the stage for that part of the report (Volume II), Mueller states that he was not making a prosecutorial judgement because the sitting president could not be indicted under guidance from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC). Stating that the president committed a crime without indicting the president would not allow him a chance to clear his name through a trial. Therefore, Mueller would not make a decision on indictment. However, he did note the following: Volume II then details out 10 instances where the president may have committed obstruction of justice, including several instances in which all prongs of obstruction are strongly supported by the evidence. This is a helpful chart for understanding the obstruction of justice evidence in the report: https://www.lawfareblog.com/obstruction-justice-mueller-report-heat-map In terms of impeachment? That's a political process. It was highly unlikely, no matter the facts, that any president would be removed on impeachment in our currently polarized time if it required a significant number of votes from their own party. Also, one must never underestimate the ability of the Democratic Party to fumble every opportunity it is handed.

What about it was a hoax? I've read the Mueller report and it is very thorough. I definitely think the media coverage was generally very poor, but the media is generally bad at covering politics and incredibly bad at covering legal issues. So a legal investigation into a political campaign spawned a lot of poor quality news stories. That being said, there were something like 30 indictments arising out of that investigation. Those aren't a hoax.

This really seems like we're all jumping to conclusions on alleged specifics of a document that hasn't even been drafted yet. We can spin comments like Johnson's anyway we want but it doesn't mean anything until there is an actual proposal on the table.

There were definitely problems with the Russia investigation but it was certainly not a hoax and was not predicated on the Steele dossier nor Sussman's meeting with the FBI. So it's not surprising that Durham didn't find any vast conspiracy or even big wrongdoing. In fact, if this is all he was able to find, it probably bolsters the investigation's findings. It looks like people are making the Sussman trial into some big referendum on Mueller / the Russia investigation, but it's definitely not that. The investigation was not based on Sussman's tip and the FBI quickly dismissed the information that Sussman provided to them anyway. This is a fairly straightforward §1001 case, though whether or not the jury convict is not yet clear this early on. If Sussman is convicted, that means he should have told the FBI explicitly that he was working on behalf of a client(s). Drawing conclusions beyond that would not be a good idea nor based in any facts on the record.

I read some recaps of the trial today and thought I would try to sum them up here for those who don’t have time to read all the news. Facts of the case: the Clinton campaign engaged Michael Sussman as lawyer during the 2016 presidential election campaign. In September of 2016, Sussman reached out to an FBI contact about information he had about the Trump campaign. Sussman told the FBI that he was doing so not on behalf of any of his clients*. At the meeting, Sussman provided a thumb drive he said contained data that showed that the Russian bank Alfa Bank had a connection to servers belonging to the Trump organization. In the Fall of 2021, Sussman was indicted on one count of violation of 18 U.S. Code § 1001 (a)(2) for not disclosing to the FBI that he was working on behalf of any client when he conveyed those allegations against the Trump campaign. Subsection (a)(2) reads as: This charge has two prongs that Special Counsel Durham must prove to secure a guilty verdict: Sussman knowingly and willfully lied when he said he was not acting on behalf of any client when meeting with the FBI That the lie was material The prosecution gave their opening statements that included the following: Sussman was actually working on behalf of the Clinton campaign and another client when he met with the FBI Sussman’s goal was to create an “October surprise” by having FBI investigations into Trump generating negative headlines about him leading into the 2016 election. Sussman lied because he believed that if the FBI knew he was working for a political campaign, they would find his claims less credible. The defense made the following arguments in their opening: Sussman regularly worked with the FBI and they knew he worked with the Clinton campaign and the DNC The prosecution cannot prove that Sussman lied since only he and FBI lawyer James Baker were in the meeting; neither of them took notes and Baker’s memory is unreliable. In any event, the information provided by Sussman appears to have been quickly debunked by the FBI as not credible. Sources: Indictment (charge is on page 27): https://www.justice.gov/sco/press-release/file/1433511/download 18 U.S. Code § 1001: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/1001 Washington Post: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/opening-statements-set-in-trial-linked-to-russia-probe/2022/05/17/620d479e-d596-11ec-be17-286164974c54_story.html The Hill: https://thehill.com/regulation/3491229-sussmanns-defense-lawyer-calls-durham-prosecution-an-injustice/ Kansas City Star: https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/national-politics/article261511192.html *Sussman had other clients in addition to the Clinton campaign, including a data specialist who is also involved in the case

Am I missing something? These make it sound like countries want to start discussing how to prepare for pandemics in the future but there are basically no specific language on what that means. Seems like they aren't even at the starting line yet...

Is there a link to the proposal document from WHO?

It really does seem like he's trying to find a way out without having to pay the $1 billion penalty.

Anyone else going to the season opener at SoFi stadium? Where's the best tailgating?

There are two main factual issues that will need to be decided by the jury (the finder of fact in trials): Did Sussman lie when he said he was acting on his own out of a true concern of potential crimes? Someone who discovers potential criminality and reports it to the FBI is not necessarily doing it on behalf of their employer Durham alleges that Sussman was actually working at the campaign's behalf to push negative stories about Trump to damage his campaign If Sussman lied, was the lie "material" in that it impacted the decisions that the FBI made? Given the nature of the information provided by Sussman, would the FBI have acted differently or treated it differently had they known that he was working for the Clinton campaign? This is going to hinge on the testimony on the case and who the jury feels is more believable about the two prongs above. To succeed on a §1001 charge, Durham will need to convince the jury both that Sussman lied, and that the lie had a material impact on the FBI's investigation. Sussman will likely make two arguments: that he was a concerned citizen not acting under direction of the campaign, or in the alternative, if he did lie, it was not material to how the FBI would investigate his claim. Ultimately, the penalty should Sussman be convicted is a fine and/or imprisonment of no more than five years. Given the facts that I've seen (and I admit I have not been following this super closely), I would not expect a heavy sentence should Sussman be found guilty. However, any conviction for lying to the FBI would likely end his legal career.

Nah, that's someone else. Sussman was a lawyer for a firm working with the Clinton campaign who reported an alleged connection between the Trump organization and a Russian Bank. He has been charged with one count of lying to the FBI for not disclosing that he was representing the political campaign when he met with the FBI. He told his contact at the FBI that he was coming on his own behalf, not on behalf of any client. An important point of the dispute will be if the jury determines that he was in fact acting on his own to alert the FBI of a potential crime, or (as Special Counsel Durham alleges), this was part of an effort by the Clinton campaign to discredit Trump. Durham alleges that this was a material lie because if the FBI knew he was actually working on behalf of a campaign, they would have acted differently. Ultimately, the information that Sussman provided to the FBI (that servers in Trump Tower were communicating with Alfa Bank) were deemed to be not credible or not true. I'm not even sure they were mentioned in the Mueller report.

If it's what you say, I love it. Especially later in the summer

With the new Tyrod deal, I wouldn't use a 1st round pick on a QB unless I thought they were very likely to be a Super Bowl caliber player. I don't see that with the guys in this draft. We should definitely take a QB, but not in the first round.

The Bills Backers bar here in Chicago that I like to go to for games plays a lot of the old Bills/Buffalo songs/jingles/radio calls during commercial breaks. It's great to hear them, especially the ones that were before my time. I ended up adding a bunch to my phone so I can enjoy them whenever I want.

That was my thought too. Ended up being a roller coaster year: beating teams that were better than us, and losing to teams that were worse than us.

Letting Woods walk was the right call regardless of our cap situation. I liked him enough, but he was overvalued. I also liked Gilmore, but he is only effective in certain schemes. Even if he was going to fit our newest scheme, it was going to be too much money with our cap. In an ideal scenario where we had cap space and a scheme that fit his talents, I would have kept him. Since that wasn't the case, it was right to let him walk.