Nadler: I don't understand why Mueller didn't charge Donald Trump Jr.,Others in Trump Tower meeting

[at140]

Source: the hill.com

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said Sunday that he doesn't understand why special counsel Robert Mueller didn't charge Donald Trump Jr. and others involved in the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with criminal conspiracy.

Nadler, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," noted that Mueller said he didn't bring charges against those in the meeting because he couldn't prove they willfully intended to commit a crime.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/439902-nadler-i-dont-understand-why-mueller-didnt-charge-donald-trump-jr

---

Junior was thrilled to hear Russia was going to help his dad. Manafort & Jared Kushner also felt this was an important meeting and attended. Then 45 lied and said he never heard about this meeting until afterwards. Yeah right, and I still believe in tooth fairy, even after half my teeth are gone.

[MaryMagdaline]

1. I don't understand this either. I find it to be cowardly

[Freethinker65]

2. Whatever happened to "ignorance of the law is no defense"?

Jr. and others knew exactly what they were doing. They just figured they would never get caught nor have to suffer any consequences for their actions. Well, they got caught AND suffered no consequences. Must be nice.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Campaign finance law violations are specific intent crimes.

In other words, you have to intend to do a thing and you have to know that the thing is illegal, unlike general intent crimes where you just have to intend to do the act. As I read the report, Mueller didn't think he had enough proof that Beavis (or was it Butthead?) knew that getting dirt about Hillary from the Russians was actually illegal. Prosecutors would also have to prove that the "dirt" had a monetary value.

[PeeJ52]

5. But he didn't even investigate it. He didn't interview Don Jr. under oath...

How can you determine intent if you never even talk to someone?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

8. Maybe that's a question that a House committee member could ask.

[lagomorph777]

44. You can determine intent by their actions, such as LYING about it.

That certainly demonstrates consciousness of guilt.

[madville]

21. So if there had actually been some dirt and they paid for it then it

all would have been legal and called "opposition research" at that point?

IF they really didn't know that nonexistent "dirt" might potentially have had a monetary value as a campaign donation then there can't be a conspiracy case. It all seems pretty thin since the meeting turned into a bait and switch and no actual "dirt" was presented.

[pangaia]

12. "ignorance of the law is no defense"?... only applies if you are 'rich.'

[LiberalLovinLug]

40. "ignorance of the law is no defense"

Yes, I don't get it.

"On the facts here, the government would unlikely be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the June 9 meeting participants had general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful. The investigation has not developed evidence that the participants in the meeting were familiar with the foreign-contribution ban or the application of federal law to the relevant factual context," Mueller added.

Why did Mueller think he had to PROVE the participants had "general knowledge that their conduct was unlawful" as a perquisite to indicting them?

Does that mean the law has to PROVE that I had "general knowledge that my conduct was unlawful" if I get caught stealing, or shooting someone?

If you, or your close advisors, don't know the legal rules you have to play by to run for and win a political race....especially considering its for the highest political office in the damned country, you shouldn't be running for that office!

Mueller wimped out. In the end he bowed to Saint Ronnies 11th commandment

[former9thward]

57. "Ignorance of the law is no defense" is something said by those who have not been to law school.

It is a defense depending on the law. In this case intent to break the law must be shown. There was no evidence of that. Mueller did not "wimp" out. He followed the law. In any case this is campaign finance law. The penalties are almost always fines. Not something any prosecutor is going to get excited about in a case like this.

[LiberalLovinLug]

61. Well, then a lot folks here need to appolgize to Glenn Greenwald

And others that were warning about Democrats putting all their eggs in the Mueller basket.

[TwilightZone]

62. No Democrat in any position to do anything about it...

put all their eggs in the Mueller basket.

DU is not the real world. In the real world, there are multiple investigations ongoing, some of which have nothing to do with the Mueller report. These investigations began at almost the exact moment that Democrats were in a position to pursue them.

As for Greenwald, he should apologize to everyone for being a lying hack.

[LiberalLovinLug]

64. lol. What has he lied about?

He was right that the Mueller investigation would not produce the results Democrats were hoping for, for the very reasons that were finally given. That they would never find enough evidence that Trump knew enough or deliberately colluded or conspired with Putin, and that the obstruction charges would never be enough, limited as Mueller was.

If Democrats were so on board with that, why were some on here calling for Greenwalds head?

It was Rachel Maddow and the rest of the news media's responsibility to pursue all angles, and also you could include late night comedians, that's all fine and good, but it was for Democrats to go on air and say that whatever the Mueller report says, that is not as important as what the GOP are doing right NOW. Trump or no Trump. Trump is just the stooge. Much like GWB was, but in a different way, harder to handle. But in the end, its the GOP reps, many who will be here long after Trump, and the bills they are passing and dismantling, that should have been crowed about by Democratic reps and let the investigation go where it will. Maybe some tried to take the spotlight off of Trump, but not enough. He has always been the low hanging orange.

[ElementaryPenguin]

63. No way in the world Paul Manafort didn't know it was illegal

As he certainly would have informed the others - including the orange menace himself.

Evidently, Mueller is a conservator prosecutor who only tries (and always wins) slam dunk cases.

But his report has given us enough to impeach Trump many times over.

[Atticus]

4. I don't KNOW why, but here is a possible reason: if he'd indicted DT Jr, his daddy would have

pardoned him. Game over. But---

---with the evidence he found plus what is publicly known, when Trump loses in 2020, a new and unbeholden AG can indict him, convict him and put him away.

[Jedi Guy]

19. Is it also possible that a state prosecutor can take action, perhaps?

I know that Mueller's findings resulted in several spin-off investigations in other jurisdictions, like SDNY. Maybe it's possible for that to happen in this instance. Though campaign finance violations might be specifically federal crimes, so a state may not be able to take action on those. Not a lawyer, so I'm just spitballing.

[madville]

22. Everyone except Cohen is getting a pardon before he leaves office

There is no way they are going to take their chances when a new Democratic administration is slated to come in. They'll have two months between losing the election and handing the administration over, they can basically preemptively pardon everyone for any federal crime they think they may be vulnerable to.

[Honeycombe8]

24. I think it probably is because of the reason Mueller stated.

Which I think means that they were all naive and didn't realize it would be criminal, so no willful intent.

I don't buy that reason, but that's the reason he gave, apparently. (I haven't read the report myself, though, yet.)

I don't think Mueller is playing a slick strategy game. It seems he went after the Russians, got them, and then delineated the bad behavior of Trump & family without getting into sticky legal stuff involving a President, and closed the book. If Congress wants to get into the ugly sticky legal stuff, he left it to them.

[blueinredohio]

6. My understanding is THEY'RE ALL REPUBLICANS!

[mazzarro]

35. B-I-N-G-O! n/t

[ThoughtCriminal]

7. "Couldn't prove they willfully intended to to commit a crime"

They knew enough to lie about it.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

10. Did they lie because they knew they'd committed a crime or because

they knew what they did would be politically embarrassing or damaging if it got out? To that bunch, political damage was more worrisome than criminality.

[at140]

16. /This/

[Igel]

51. And, on top of that,

misrepresentation happened months later. In the interim, even if they had learned it would have been a crime but at the time they didn't know, they'd lie to cover it up but "it" wouldn't have been a crime.

It's not like the event happened and on the way out of the building they were deposed by the special counsel.

[Fiendish Thingy]

9. Nadler sure as hell better subpoena Jr. Jared and Ivanka

No executive privilege either, for any period before the inauguration.

[pangaia]

13. MY FEELING AS WELL..

Those 2 guys are sickos and Ivanka is.. I think she is an alien robot, frankly...

[at140]

15. or a Stepford wife!

She is definitely oh so robotic.

[cstanleytech]

11. Might he not have simply passed it on to someone else to investigate?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

17. Well, there are 12 redacted cases, so who knows?

[hughee99]

45. Do you believe Mueller said he wasn't going to prosecute this

In his report, but actually is? I don’t think that will help things for Dems, and will probably help republicans.

[Jedi Guy]

20. I'm curious about that, as well.

The investigation resulted in lots of spin-off investigations and such, so perhaps that'll happen here as well. I guess it'll depend a lot on whether or not a state prosecutor can go after them, since it might be the sole province of the feds for this specific crime. I'm not a lawyer, though, so I'm not sure on that.

[Leghorn21]

27. I'll betcha 3$ he did just that, tech!! Also, when I see jr mentioned, I always post this!:

Don't forget Spanish prosecutor Jose Grinda said that Don Jr should be "very concerned" about wiretaps of his meetings w Putin crony Alexander Torshin (also NRA's contact in Russia). Grinda turned those wiretaps over to FBI.

http://www.newsweek.com/trump-jr-should-be-concerned-over-putin-allys-wiretapped-calls-spanish-945753

Hang tough, everybody—-

[BlueStater]

14. That makes two of us.

Junior being a dipshit shouldn't excuse him from breaking the law.

[jrthin]

18. Well, neither do I. Was Mueller too lazy to do the heavy lifting?

[Hoyt]

29. I think that's a concern. It was a big job presumably near the end of his career.

I’m still working at near his age, but I’m not taking on another really big project, especially one where half the country is going to hate me unless it is really finessed.

[machoneman]

23. Look, Mueller is no dummy. Had he indicted Jr, Jared or Ivanka, pardons would have...

flown faster than the monkeys in the Wizard of Oz!

Instead, handing off any and all indictments to the NYS AG's office ensure that if and or when (we hope!) they all get their indictment papers Trump can do NOTHING to save there sorry asses.

[Jarqui]

25. He lied to congress - that's perjury

Are they saying that because he's Trump son, he didn't know lying to congress was a bad thing?

Same with Corsi.

And they stopped working their way up the responsibility tree to see who else they could flip?

Maybe they didn't want to provoke Trump who might have lashed out if they charged his son. Or Bill Barr stepped in and shut it down after they argued about it Mar 5th.

Deutsche Bank loaning Trump hundreds of millions after he defaults on his loans? How is that possible under normal business conditions when no other bank would touch him?

$30 million USD in Russian money going to the NRA and their ad buying mirrors the Trump campaign with two different ad companies that employ the same people? And there's not a peep out of Mueller on that?

Something is up. Another shoe has to drop.

This isn't over.

[Kaleva]

33. Did anyone in Congress send Mueller a referal about Trump Jr. lying to Congress?

That's how Cohen got charged.

"The Cohen guilty plea to false congressional testimony developed from a criminal referral Democratic Sen. Mark Warner sent to Mueller. So there you go"

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/11/cohen-pleads-guilty-to-lying-to-congress-in-new-deal-with-mueller-after-70-hours-of-testimony/

[emulatorloo]

26. Because Barr

[SHRED]

28. We need answers sooner rather than later

[Cicada]

30. Nadler's theory: Neil Sheehan meeting Ellsberg to get Pentagon Papers was criminal

If Neil Sheehan of the New York Times had encouraged Ellsberg to steal Pentagon papers then he would be guilty. But simply meeting Ellsberg to get the stolen papers is not a crime. How is Don Jr different from Neil Sheehan? I think Mueller knows the law better than Nadler does. The first amendment, which protects the right of the public to learn about candidates for public office, blocks prosecution of Don Jr. for trying to get information about Clinton. If Clinton agreed to meet Steele to get information about Trump stolen from Russian files would she too be a criminal? No. Mueller knows what is legal and what is protected by the first amendment.

[brush]

32. Oh, please. The Steele Dossier was originally repug oppo research against trump...

by another repug primary challenger. When trump prevailed the Clinton campaign took over funding of Steele, a respected British covert operative, hardly the same as Jr. and Kushner and Manafort meeting with Russians directly in trump tower with daddy waiting to see the Hillary dirt gained.

Or of trump calling for "Russia if you're listening...", and they were as the Russian-supplied Wikileaks dump of Dem emails soon followed. IMO that's no different than Nixon's plumbers breaking into Dem offices in Watergate and stealing info that the Nixon campaign received. That's called receiving stolen property. The only difference being the info received by the Nixon campaign was hard, paper documents. The trump info received was electronic but still stolen.

[Cicada]

34. Hillary getting dirt from Steele was legal, same with Don Jr.

Nadler’s theory:arranging receipt of stolen information is a crime. He’s wrong. Newspapers arrange receipt of stolen information every day. The Supreme Court has made it clear that the law against getting stolen property does not apply to information useful to the public to make public decisions. If it is legal for Clinton to arrange getting info Steele obtained contrary to the secrecy laws of Russia, contrary to Turkish laws about mail privacy then it is also legal for Don Jr to get info Russia got illegally. Nadler’s view of the law would jail almost every reporter in the US. We have a right to know about the creepy things Trump does. So too we have a right to know the creepy things Hillary does or Podesta does. Trump is a big time criminal. He deserves jail. But getting dirt on Hillary, assuming you do not encourage illegality in getting it, is protected because we have a right to know the truth about our public figures. Our right to know is essential to our democracy. Even when a creep like Don Jr is bringing us the information. Do you really want to block the public from learning about political candidates? Nadler’s theory would do that. This time Don Jr gets punished. Next time with Nadler’s law Cory Booker getting a leak from a bank employee with proof Trump gets illegal mob money will be jailed. No.

[brush]

41. Did you not get that the repugs were the ones who first hired Steele.

[hughee99]

46. No. Steele wasn't hired by Fusion GPS until after the Dems

Started footing the bills, in June 2016. Some of the content from before was included in the reports, but Steele was the one with the Russian contacts, and was hired, in part, for that access.

[brush]

47. I repeat, the Steele Dossier was a repug oppo operation against trump.

[hughee99]

48. "Did you not get that the repugs were the ones who first hired Steele."

No, they did not first hire Steele. Steele was not hired until June, after the repugs stopped funding the work.

[brush]

49. "...after the repugs stopped funding the work."

Are you not even reading your own writings?

[hughee99]

50. Do you? YOU said the republicans first hired Steele.

But neither actually hired him. He was hired by fusion gps, and they didn’t hire him until AFTER the republicans stopped paying and the Dems started.

[brush]

52. OK, I get it. The concept of repugs paying and hiring are different things to you.

Not me. They're the same thing.

[hughee99]

53. Ah, I get it, when you said the repukes first hired Steele,

You were wrong and want to pretend you weren’t.

If I drew a Venn diagram where one circle contained “Fusion GPS work that the republicans paid for”, and the other circle contains “work performed for fusion FPS by Christopher Steele”, those two circles would never overlap.

[brush]

54. I'll try to remember. Hiring and funding are totally different things.

Seriously?

[hughee99]

55. I'll try to remember, you are responsible for what a company does even after you're no longer

paying them to do work and someone else is.

[brush]

56. Whatever. The repugs are who begin paying for the Steele Dossier.

[hughee99]

58. Yes, there is information in the Dossier that the republicans paid for.

But much of the Russia information is related to Steele and his Russian contacts. Information the republicans didn't get during the primary when they were paying for it, because Steele had not yet been hired. The republicans paid for opposition research, research that was added to the "Steele Dossier" which wasn't written up until later, and that information that did not come from Steele (even though is "name" is on the dossier).

[Maxheader]

36. People that made billons of dollors...

off the new tax laws..

Don't want any bad press about their enabler..

And they can exert a lot of pressure..

[at140]

39. Yes! They are the real puppet masters

and the politicians and media are their puppets. 100% tax payer funded campaigns is the ONLY way to REDUCE corruption in politics. At least that will eliminate need for lobbyists.

[lark]

37. This is Exhibit B in my animus for Mueller.

He failed to follow the treason trails!!! My guess is he was ordered not to and followed orders - it's what "good" soldiers do. Exhibit A is knowing team drumpf lied 157 times about Russia and he says nothing to see here, they're too stupid to commit criminal conspiracy. This is just total and utter Russian Repug BS and Mueller should be ashamed of himself.

[sprinkleeninow]

59. It's so disappointingly disturbing. n/t

[DeminPennswoods]

38. Don't forget the SCO noted witnesses lied or invoked their

5th amendment privilege during interviews. That's what it made it hard for the SCO to make a case beyond a reasonable doubt, which is the standard they used to determine criminality.

[rockfordfile]

42. take a wild guess? What is Mueller? He shielded the un-American Republicans

[at140]

43. I am not so sure..

First, Mueller is a close friend of Comey. Second he is from the Bush wing of Repugs who hate Trump. Third he hired lawyers for the imvestigation who are mostly pro-democratic party. Mueller worked very hard to find evidence but simply did not enough to indict.

[DeminPennswoods]

60. Now we learn that Jr refused to testify voluntarily

about the meeting. That goes to the heart of intent when the guy who set up the meeting won't talk.