From Dershowitz [emphasis mine]:
The statement by special counsel Robert Mueller in a Wednesday press conference that “if we had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said that” is worse than the statement made by then-FBI Director James Comey regarding Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential campaign…
Comey was universally criticized for going beyond his responsibility to state whether there was sufficient evidence to indict Clinton. Mueller, however, did even more. He went beyond the conclusion of his report and gave a political gift to Democrats in Congress who are seeking to institute impeachment proceedings against President Trump…
Until today, I have defended Mueller against the accusations that he is a partisan. I did not believe that he personally favored either the Democrats or the Republicans, or had a point of view on whether President Trump should be impeached. But I have now changed my mind. By putting his thumb, indeed his elbow, on the scale of justice in favor of impeachment based on obstruction of justice, Mueller has revealed his partisan bias. He also has distorted the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system.
To Dershowitz—who, whatever his politics (and he remains a Democrat as far as I can tell) is a strong defender of liberty and the safeguards against abuse of power by the legal system—that latter offense, “distoring the critical role of a prosecutor in our justice system,” may even be worse than the first offense, because it is systemic. When you destroy a system of protection, there is danger to everyone, not just to partisans.
Dershowitz continues [emphasis mine]:
Virtually everybody agrees that, in the normal case, a prosecutor should never go beyond publicly disclosing that there is insufficient evidence to indict. No responsible prosecutor should ever suggest that the subject of his investigation might indeed be guilty even if there was insufficient evidence or other reasons not to indict. Supporters of Mueller will argue that this is not an ordinary case, that he is not an ordinary prosecutor and that President Trump is not an ordinary subject of an investigation. They are wrong. The rules should not be any different.
Remember that federal investigations by prosecutors, including special counsels, are by their very nature one-sided. They hear only evidence of guilt and not exculpatory evidence. Their witnesses are not subject to the adversarial process. There is no cross examination. The evidence is taken in secret behind the closed doors of a grand jury. For that very reason, prosecutors can only conclude whether there is sufficient evidence to commence a prosecution. They are not in a position to decide whether the subject of the investigation is guilty or is innocent of any crimes.
And that is why, whatever a person’s feelings are about president Trump, all people should be outraged at this. But they are not; not at all. And that’s a terrible sign of the ignorance of the populace, and the partisanship that would overrun basic guarantees of liberty to us all.
Every constitutional expert has been against the entire Mueller investigation since the start. One good thing it gave time to uncover the corruption the obvious coup attempt. The more investigators dig the more they find. They are all up to eir ears in it including Mueller.
@kitt: Mueller is still concerned that his part of this will be revealed when all the documents are declassified. Everyone should be alarmed by Mueller’s actions to violate proper procedures during investigations. The anthrax case is typical Mueller. It is past time that prominent people are standing up for justice.
he is a jackoff. when the work is published in book form-toilet paper no different that the Sears Catalog
Justice or national security was never the reason for Mueller’s or any other of the investigations of Trump. It’s all politics and desperation. Mueller failed the Democrats miserably so he is trying to provide them what they want.
So, they can take the twists and turns of how they manipulate the meaning of the report and use it to impeach, if they want. That still does not provide any evidence to CONVICT and remove Trump from office, though no doubt the Democrats would be happy just to accuse Republicans of merely protecting the President.
Mueller is not partisan. He only appears so when the situation is viewed through a partisan lens. Unfortunately that distorted view is encouraged by virtually all of our media sources.
In fact, everything that Mueller has said or and done can be more easily explained by a single, simple assumption: Not having the power to indict, he has nevertheless become convinced that a criminal is holding the highest office in the land, and using the powers of that office to protect himself from the only constitutional remedy—the oversight power and impeachment power of Congress.
@Greg: Mueller is bitterly partisan and he has proved it beyond any possible dispute.
@Greg: simple assumption: lack of evidence is the simple assumption. You dont know what Mueller is convinced of despite the pondering of the media. He had previously in front of witnesses declined that his failure to come to a conclusion was because of the policy, as the AG testified to. Now his announcement, what an purely political asshole.
@Deplorable Me, #6:
Robert Mueller is a lifelong republican; Rod Rosenstein is a lifelong republican; James Comey was a lifelong republican, until the GOP collectively sold their souls to the devil in 2016.
@kitt, #7:
Robert Mueller, to the entire nation on May 29, 2019:
I have no difficulty whatsoever understanding what that statement means. After an exhaustive investigation, has concluded that the man occupying the White House has committed a crime.
@Greg: Comey is a commie from a commie school. Mueller is a lifelong putz and failure who was more concerned with a scalp than justice, Rod was going to wear a wire into the White House a treasonous puke.
They are all perfect democrats.
“If we had confidence that the President did not commit a crime, we would have said so.” We just did not have the evidence to do it.
@Greg:
You seem to take the position that every Republican is scumbag trash until they denounce other Republicans; then they are gods. No, sorry, scumbaggery knows no party and, apparently, neither does anti-American loyalty to the liberal agenda of wrecking our government driven by sore-losership. Comey succumbed to pressure from Lynch to obstruct justice and give Hillary a pass on grievous crimes. Mueller took up the liberal mantel and perpetrated a witch hunt against Trump which, in the end, completely failed to achieve the liberal assignment.
To refuse to admit that no crimes can be found committed by Trump is partisan hackery. Nothing else.
@kitt, #10:
Trump is a lifelong confidence man, who has led 40 percent of the population down a garden path to the brink of authoritarianism. A signpost on the edge reads: “Unitary Executive Theory.”
All it takes at that point to end the republic is one empowered populace leader who holds himself above the law, and one dis-empowered Congress that fails to rein him in—because the DoJ has no power to touch a sitting president.
@Deplorable Me:
Perhaps partisan hackery is far closer to home than republicans realize. Crimes have been found. Mueller is simply not allowed to call them that, because the DoJ as a whole is not allowed to do so.
@Greg:
Greggie Goebbels, you are so wrong you are not just pathetic, you are a lunatic.
@Greg:
Oh. Provide again that explanation you have provided about exactly HOW all the mountainous volumes of clear evidence all your Democrats and all your blathering media liberals had right at their fingertips, ready to be shown to the public to prove Trump colluded with Russians to win the election just suddenly vanished and has been forgotten, THEN tell me what a “con man” Trump is.
Indeed they have. Illegal spying and surveillance by Obama and the FBI, obstruction by Lynch, Comey, Obama and Hillary, collusion with Russians to alter the outcome of the 2016 election by Hillary, Obama and the DNC and lying to the FICA judge to illegally gain a warrant to spy on the Trump campaign. REAL crimes.
Mueller cannot make an accusation without any evidence to back it up, so he makes a statement to ignorant people that even though no one can see them, there are crimes… and the ignorant people all gobble it right up. Yummy, yummy.
@Deplorable Me:
Whether or not Democrats are conning people has nothing at all to do with whether or not Trump is conning people. Trump can be a conman even if other people are conmen, too.
@Michael: What is evident is that you don’t even know what a “con” is. You are perfectly happy to be made a total fool of by your lying Democrats (they made a total fool of you all, in case you hadn’t noticed) yet you imagine all varieties of lies and cons from Trump. Small matter that Trump said there was no collusion… and there wasn’t. Or that the FBI was spying on his campaign… which they were. Or that the “investigation” was a witch hunt… which it was. You and your ilk simply CHOOSE to believe lies because they tickle your liberal penchant for hatred.
The lies are Democrat productions, not Trump’s.
@Deplorable Me:
“Legally surveilling as part of a counterintelligence investigation,” you mean?
Oh, there I go again: parsing words!
@Deplorable Me: Isnt that adorable they think lying to a FISA judge to obtain a warrant is a perfectly legal way to spy on a Presidential campaign.
Wonder if he has his certification of insanity framed yet.
@kitt: Guys, give up on Michael. He still has not read the constitution. If he reads it, he will never understand the significance of it. He does not understand that lying to the FISA court to spy on us citizens who are part of the US government is treason at worst and many other felonies in between.
@Michael: No, I meant spying because that’s what they did. Tell me, what charges have been brought against Carter Page, the EXCUSE for beginning the spying? Or, is there a DOJ rule against charging him, too?
And how about the untimely disappearance of all that evidence proving beyond any doubt Trump’s collusion with the Russians? Where did all that go? Or, were your Democrats simply LYING from the beginning?
@kitt:
I believe they call it “ends justifying the means”. In this case, any illegal act was justified to try and reverse a legal election when the Russian-supplied porn didn’t do the trick.
@Randy: Democrats opposed the Patriot Act because they said the government would abuse the capabilities and spy on citizens. Now that Obama has done exactly that, they love it.
@Randy: Given up on him already he hasnt got a reply from me all day, no matter how many rabbitholes he tossed out so he wouldnt have to opine on the subject matter.
@Deplorable Me, #15:
Why has Trump misused his powers of office in an effort to block access to every bit of evidence and testimony that he possibly can? Do you have some simple explanation for that, which doesn’t require an abysmal level of gullibility and/or stupidity to be believed?
@Greg:
He hasn’t blocked access to all that evidence Schiff had. Where is it? Schiff said he had evidence proving with certainty that Trump colluded with Russians; where is it?
Without those lies, there would have been no investigations and no phony accusations (now that “collusion” went up in smoke) of obstruction. Your entire fantasy of removing Trump from office is based totally on lies.
I certainly have no explanation for your endless supply of gullibility and stupidity.