Lawrence O'Donnell says they need 2/3's for impeachment, and they can't get it.
Jeanne - I am not an attorney but I know that the location in which the crime occurred can be (should be?) the place where the charges are filed. I believe that's why the NY AG is heavily involved but that's because many of the crimes being investigated occurred in NYC. So "handing off to the states" could mean many.
Remember this too: http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/332991-fbi-raids-office-of-gop-consulting-firm-in-maryland
I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on tv.
-q
When and if (may the gods helps us) Mueller and Rosenstein get fired, millions of us will take to the streets. This will be an act of war on our democracy and the Republicans will be to blame. It will be brutal and chaotic, but in the long run it will be the undoing of that party and the end of TRUMP.
It's really amazing to see the sheer hubris of the Republicans ...do they really think that firing these men will shut down the investigation and we the people will sit back and allow it. Loved London's protest yesterday w/ Baby Trump, I hope that blimp has miles to travel, because will need him here.
Som federal crimes can be state crime too, and if Mueller is referring some crimes to state attorneys general, then those states can prosecute some crimes even if Mueller is fired. Or at least until SCOTUS rules that you can't do that (would be double jeopardy), and I think they're taking up at issue in the next term.
Btw, only governors can pardon for state crimes, btw. I don't see any blue state governors doing that.
Hey, Jeanne, in answer to your question, I just read that Mueller has split off the handling of Russian collusion to an internal DOJ foreign affairs office, something else to SDNY i think, and Mueller's retaining mob behavior, corruption & money laundering and other fiscal crimes.
Basically, he can flip any of that to a state where a server might have been, a bank located, a trump property located, a collaborator residing etc. Think about that--if a Senator has been complicit in collaboration with Russia, a lawsuit can be filed in his home state.
Intuitively, my sense is that Mueller saw this endgame at the outset & that is in part why so many investigators have been called in and given aspects of the case to handle. That information will *never* be contained or walled off by the GOP. Mueller made sure of it.
Investigations of NRA complicity can be sent to the Virginia courts, as their headquarters is in VA.
Now that is not to say things won't be a mess. Trey Gowdy is probably up to his ears in corruption, but trying him in his home state of SC when SC is the 9th most conservative state in the nation, with a grade of F in terms of judicial corruption likely wouldn't get him convicted. Or if he was, there may well be movements to impeach the judges who would do so. So SC would fracture along political lines ....
It feels to me like some of that kind of thing *is* going to happen, which will be part of the uproar we sense. But having it work out this way ends up exposing how deep the seeds of corruption have been sown in the Republican party--which is utterly necessary for us to heal as a country.
R1
I found this scan that I posted of Mueller last summer. It's very long and involved, but the part I like is this:
Aware that president may fire him.
- But the information is in a lot of places.
- The information is not just in Mueller’s hands.
- Also he has taken steps to prevent being fired. He has sent out veiled warnings through associates.
- Warnings to Sessions – if you fire me, you are ultimately going to be in worse shape than you already are.
- In case he is fired, he has covered his tracks, as Comey did before him. Spreading the evidence around so that firing him will not help Trump. Many analysts and investigators at the FBI are passionate about this work. They are honored to be contributing. So too many people know too much for it to be squashed by firing the Special Prosecutor.
Jeanne, thank you for both the current scan of Trump and reminding us of what you saw last year.
I have a very strong sense that the information is not just in the hands of state prosecutors, but also in the hands of some of our allies' intelligence units and leaders. I suspect that is why Trump has been lashing out at some of our allies' leaders over the past month: he knows they already know the truth about him. And that may also be why they have put up with his antics with such frozen smiles on their faces: they know what is coming for him. While our allies obviously can't prosecute Trump, there are other measures they can take to safeguard us if it becomes necessary and I believe those measures have already been discussed and planned for.
This news also just broke. The special master in the Michael Cohen case in NY released an additional 880,000 additional documents to the NY prosecutors late yesterday, which brings the number of pieces of evidence prosecutors now have access to up to over 2 million pieces. http://thehill.com/homenews/news/397050-judge-releases-nearly-884k-more-items-seized-from-cohen Methinks it can't be coincidence that those additional 880,000 pieces of evidence were quietly released by the special master on the same day as yesterday's indictments.
So, yes, things are accelerating behind the scenes in ways we may not fully understand or see just yet. I'm also taking comfort in Maria D. White's prediction that all will be made clearer by August 10.
And, I want to take a moment to say that I would be going stark raving mad if it were not for Jeanne's kindness in providing this centering space. Thank you Jeanne.
Does anyone have any feeling about the hack into the RNC (not DNC) website in 2016? The Russians hacked them too, just didn't release any information. I really feel like the intensity of the republican politicians' craziness has to do with them believing that there's dirt on them out there, thus they try to stifle the investigation. I feel like it's more that just money too, and more than just collaboration with the Russians. Something really, really dark.
I have given this some thought. It is possible that the information from the RNC hack was used to keep the RNC and certain key congressmen/senators in line with the plan. In other words, the RNC hack was not for public disclosure purposes but blackmail purposes. That would explain why certain people - Congress members/Senators, Cohen, even some cabinet members - have acted so panicked about Mueller and the investigation.
Roger Stone may have a role in the RNC hack too. He has long been known to be able to dig up dirt on politicians who need to be kept in line or eliminated. For instance, I wondered why Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced NY state governor showed up at Michael Cohen's first day in court. I did some research and discovered that many believed that Roger Stone was responsible for the revelations about Spitzer being made public that ended his public career. Stone himself even hinted at that in a Vanity Fair interview. And I won't go into the details, but Cohen was involved as well.
And, there are connections between Eliot Spitzer and Jared Kushner and the Trumps. Spitzer was the NY Attorney General when Jared Kushner's father, Charles, was convicted of illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. Trump made a big campaign contribution to Spitzer when he was running for NY Attorney General, and then Spitzer humiliated Trump by returning the money after he was elected and found out that Trump had real estate and business cases waiting in the AG office for prosecution (I suspect there was more to this story than just that).
So, Trump, Kushner, Cohen and Stone very likely had a history of gathering dirt on people to keep them in line or eliminate them. Perhaps the RNC was hacked by the Russians to get goods for blackmailing GOP members so that they'd do Trump's bidding or at least be afraid of crossing him. You know, just planning ahead.
Just a wild guess, but it may also be that the RNC hacking piece was not described in detail in the indictments yesterday because that information needs to be kept under wraps for other indictments down the road. After all, Michael Cohen was named the co-chair of the RNC finance committee during this time.
There are no coincidences in this tangled web. Like any good spider web, everything is connected once you start seeing how the strands of the web fit together. And, I'm sure that Mueller is very, very good at seeing how the strands of the spider web fit together.
(And yes, I know it sounds like I'm some sort of conspiracy kook. But all of the above comes from articles from respectable news sources that were published well before Trump announced his 2016 Presidential bid. ).
That totally makes sense RosieHeart. As for Roger Stone, of anyone remembers the "Brook Brothers" riots that interrupted some of the recounts in the 2000 Florida election/Bush v. Gore, Stone was the one who planned it. And he also predicted something would come out about Al Franken before news broke out about him. The guy's a total bottom feeder, but a well connected one. He creeps me the heck out.
Rosieheart, my internal truth-sensors lit up like a slot machine with solid $$$$$ re: our allies being given info on Trump et al via the intelligence services. No kidding, I think you nailed it. R1
Thanks for some rays of hope, Zoron. Ever since 11/9, my husband and I have been joking "Well, we're overdue for the military junta to take over..." We've been rooting on those within the upper echelons of the military to do the right things. I've been sending them light, as well, to stay strong in the coming storm. Same for Mueller and company - I think of them every day. I'm proud of Agent Strzok for how honest and defiant he was. And then when I see people like Trey Gowdy, it's like has happened to me with people in person in the past, only now it happens on TV too -- I literally see them as their soul is. Trey Gowdy to me looks like Gollum from Lord of the Rings when I look at him, only covered in more slime. Nunes looks like a goblin... I find this part of my abilities somewhat entertaining, moreso that I don't have to be in the same room with these monsters to see them as they really are.
Some of you have brought up the number of "coincidences" related especially to Roger Stone (and others) which reminded me of a passage I read recently in Malcolm Nance's book, "The Plot to Destroy Democracy" where he said that; "coincidences take a lot of planning". As a former Navel Intelligence officer, he doesn't believe in them. (Great but disturbing book btw.)
Absolutely right Paul W. Also, your comment reminded me of something Hillary Clinton said in the 90s, when she went on a morning talk show to defend Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky hoopla. She said there was a "vast right wing conspiracy" that was trying to bring down her husband. I think her comment ended up being dismissed because he'd been lying about his involvement in the affair. But some of the players during that time are around for this current production of right wingers -- Kellyanne Conaway's husband (who repped Paula Jones in her suit against Clinton), and the newest sup ct pick, Brett Kavanaugh (who was part of the Ken Starr investigation, and who was later on Bush team for Bush v. Gore). And we know Stone was involved in creating chaos surrounding the recount.
There is an entire network of people, including very rich ones (Jeanne's oligarch predictions) who are and have been for decades trying to seize control in ways that are completely undemocratic. Now they've added nationalism and treason to the mix because there is no end to how low they'll go to gt and start in power. Truly scary.
Some of you have brought up the number of "coincidences" related especially to Roger Stone (and others) which reminded me of a passage I read recently in Malcolm Nance's book, "The Plot to Destroy Democracy" where he said that; "coincidences take a lot of planning". As a former Navel Intelligence officer, he doesn't believe in them. (Great but disturbing book btw.)
Thanks for sharing that, Paul W. Based on your recommendations on this forum, I've just started reading The Plot to Destroy Democracy. So far, it's fascinating!
I'd also recommend Trump/Russia, by AP investigative reporter Seth Hettenya, which is another well researched book about all of Trump's connections to Russia, going back to the 1980s. The chapter on Michael Cohen's connections and dealings with Russia was a real eye opener.
Just be sure you're in a VERY positive mood when you start reading either of these; they are not cheery, light reading. :)