The anthropology of warring "human" tribes!

MONDAY, APRIL 22, 2019

What Nadler and Mueller have said:
Yesterday morning, Jerrold Nadler appeared on Meet the Press.

Last evening, Future Anthropologists Huddled in Caves (TM) cited one of Nadler's remarks through the auspices of their official news service, FAHIC NEWS.

Their report was conveyed to us through one of the nocturnal submissions the haters disparage as "dreams." Below, you see the remark these future scholars chose to call into question.

"It's bred in the bone," these scholars have said. They're asking us to consider this comment by Nadler as an anthropological matter:
NADLER (4/21/19): What [Mueller] couldn't prove was that there was, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there was a criminal conspiracy. Although in the one case, I do not understand why he didn't charge Don Jr. and others in that famous meeting with criminal conspiracy, because they were—

He said that he didn't charge them because you couldn't prove that they willfully intended to commit a crime. Well, you don't have to prove that. All you have to prove for conspiracy is that they entered into a meeting of the minds to do something wrong and had one overt act.

They entered into a meeting of the minds to attend the meeting to get stolen material on Hillary. They went to the meeting. That's conspiracy right there.
Fresh from his shout-out to us last October, Chuck Todd let Nadler's statement go. Almost surely, though, you can see the anthropological significance of what Nadler said.

It's as we told you on Saturday! (Scroll down to column by Stephens.) We know of no evidence that Donald Trump Junior was ever told that the Russkie lawyer at the famous Trump Tower meeting would be bearing "stolen" information.

Certainly, the Mueller report makes no such assertion. And the Mueller report is now taken as holy writ on our own pseudo-liberal side in our nation's evolving tribal war.

The Mueller report doesn't claim that Trump Junior was told that he'd be receiving stolen information. In the email exchange which led to this meeting, no such claim was made.

But so what? The claim that Trump Junior was promised "stolen information" is quickly becoming a standard part of the tribal warfare which now passes as American politics and American upper-end "journalism."

Nadler is a major governmental official. As far as we know, he's a thoroughly decent person.

That said, his claim that Trump Junior (and others) attended the now-famous Trump Tower meeting to receive "stolen material" is the sort of statement we liberals routinely denounce as a "lie" when such statements are made by The Others, by those from the rival tribe.

Meanwhile, Nadler didn't simply make this apparent misstatement. He said Mueller should have "locked him up" on the basis of this claim. Our old pal Chuck made no attempt to challenge Nadler's misstatement!

Trump Junior said he'd love to get some "stolen" information! This is becoming part of the propaganda we "liberals" are being sold by our tribal leaders.

Beyond that, have you noted how often we liberals are told that Trump Junior was promised "dirt" on Candidate Clinton in the email exchange which led to this famous meeting?

That's a term of propaganda. No such term appeared in those emails, or in the sections of the Mueller report which deal with this matter. The embellished term is being used, again and again, merely to excite "the base" in this ongoing tribal war.

In their latest press release, Future Anthropologists (TM) present this as an anthropological matter. According to the scholars' release, our species isn't "the rational animal." They're rejecting this claim, which has long been bruited, though only by ourselves.

We are instead "the tribal animal," these future scholars insist. As Professor Harari has suggested, we're the animal which is inclined to engage in tribal "gossip" and compelling group "fictions," with a vast inclination toward "intolerance" thrown in.

The future scholars are warning us that treatment of the Mueller report is breaking down into a standard tribal dispute, with the standard group dissembling being seen on both sides. The Mueller report could even be part of this process itself, these disconsolate scholars have charged!

"Within this species, blatant illogic will tend to appear at such heavily fraught tribal moments," these shivering future savants have said. They call attention to the peculiar highlighted statement in an otherwise sensible op-ed column by Professor McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to the Russkies:
MCFAUL (4/21/19): The actions of social media companies and traditional media organizations require similar scrutiny. How could Russian actors so easily broadcast partisan and false information on social media platforms? Why did the "sweeping and systematic" Russian attacks (to use Mueller's words) get so little attention from the broadcast and print media in 2016? Why did some journalists and commentators wrongly label this attack on our country a "hoax"? Were government officials, including those in charge of the investigation at the time, deliberately misleading the media, or could more have been done to dig deeper into this story before November 2016? What is the proper use of stolen data in future reporting?

We also need a more thorough and precise assessment of the intentions behind contacts between campaigns and foreign governments, companies or individuals to develop policy prescriptions—be they norms or laws—for future elections. (If these assessments are in the classified parts of the Mueller report, they should be published.) Mueller decided that these contacts were not criminal, but they were, in my view, wrong. They should not be repeated.

Candidates should not be in direct contact with foreigners to obtain compromising material on their opponents. They should not encourage foreign governments to steal property from their opponents and then promote the widespread dissemination of that illicit material. And they should not engage in business deals with foreign partners in ways that could be construed as conflicts of interest...
The bulk of McFaul's column makes perfect sense. But how about this prescription:

"Candidates should not be in direct contact with foreigners to obtain compromising material on their opponents."

Really? Candidates shouldn't obtain compromising material on their opponents "from foreigners?"

The press release from FAHIC NEWS notes the fact that sponsors of the Steele dossier were doing exactly that! They paid a foreigner, Christopher Steele, to obtain information about Candidate Trump from other foreigners—mainly from Russkies, along with the stray Ukrainian.

Can you think of any reason why they shouldn't have done that? For ourselves, we cannot! But:

"At times like these, puzzling claims will be made by even the brightest parties," the future scholars have said. "It's all part of the genetic inheritance of the war-like tribal species currently under review."

We noodled through two different files over the weekend. On the one hand, we tried to use the accountability records of the Ohio Department of Education to get a fuller picture of the Akron Public Schools.

Good lord! Bureaucratic incompetence runs wild in such indecipherable records as these. We're not sure we've ever seen less useful alleged information.

We plan to discuss the anthropological significance of this depressing matter this week. But it does involve the ridiculous claim that we humans are fundamentally "rational," at least as that self-flattering term is generally understood.

We also read through more of the Mueller report over the weekend. Initially, we'd found the report underwhelming. Before too long, it had us wondering about the basic assumptions we've been sold about Russkiegate by waves of paid propagandists within our own floundering tribe.

We "liberals" have been sold various bills of goods through the two years of this process. (Remember how many times you were assured that Trump Junior telephoned Dear Old Dad as soon at that meeting was over?) Needless to say, "conservatives" have been toyed with too.

This practice stems from our basic genetic inheritance, Future Anthropologists (TM) have now thoughtfully said. More and more, we find their position convincing—perhaps a bit sobering too.

We plan to discuss their assessments all week. In their view, what's happening here just isn't real pretty—and remember, they're huddled in caves!

This just in: Unconfirmed reports about Future Psychologists of the Savanna (TM), a rival academic group


64 comments:

  1. Somerby claims that no one said the info at that meeting with the Russians was "stolen." Does he think Clinton was turning over her emails to Russians or Republicans willingly? The possibility that it was not stolen is ludicrous. Of course it was stolen and there is no need for anyone to explicitly refer to it as stolen, for it to be stolen.

    Somerby has lost his mind. He pretends to be logical in the name of respecting fairness to those accused, but he is just being ridiculous in service of Trump and his cadre of criminal minions. Somerby's contortions make us wonder what happened to him.

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    1. I haven't read the Mueller report (400+ pages!!). But is there anything in it that says it was communicated to the Trump team that the meeting with the Russians was specifically going to concern 'stolen emails'; or was it just generic negative info about Clinton? As I understand it, in fact no "stolen emails' or other negative info was even passed on at the meeting. I don't see how you can convict anyone over this even if they are loathsome people.

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    2. As I understand it, the Trump people were specifically seeking Clinton emails and were disappointed to find out that the Russians weren't offering them. See Isikoff & Corns book on Trump and the Russians.

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    3. 1:54,

      No. Trump was working a separate track for that.


      As detailed in the Report,

      Kaveladze --"puzzled" by the list of attendees and that he checked with one of Emin Agalarov's assistants , Roman Beniaminov , who said that the purpose of the meeting was for Veselnitskaya to convey "negative information on Hillary Clinton."

      No, TDH is technically correct. No one used the word "dirt". However, the term "Russian government" was used amply.

      The original invitation to Donald Jr. promised:

      "... to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father....






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    4. I believe Bob Somerby suffers from dementia.

      There is a giant chasm between the Steele dossier and what Trump and his campaign did.

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  2. http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/04/warren-and-race

    I will be voting for Warren.

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  3. I'm wondering which specific gene is it that results in this gossip trait? I had thought that human irrationality was long understood to be a prevalent trait - and I don't see how genetics adds anything to it. Also, I don't think you need genetics to explain the fact that people all too often twist, invent, distort, slant, facts - consciously or unconsciously - to advance their own position, or base their opinions on unexamined psychological biases.

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    1. Somerby knows absolutely nothing about social psychology. It is obvious in everything he writes.

      You don't need a specific gene in order for something to have a genetic basis. Many traits are not traceable back to one gene, but to a combination of genes.

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    2. anon 1:57, I was being facetious about a "specific gene."

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  4. If it's isn't already against the law for Americans to meet with America's enemies, then it should be. Why would Trumps people meet with the Russians in the first place, whether anything criminal was discussed or not?

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  5. You liberals are a zombie cult, Bob.

    Anyhow, what the hell is "stolen information"? Do liberals 'own' information like Heinz their ketchup recipe and Coke their "secret ingredient"?

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    1. I see the zombie dembot at 12:48 PM is still pretending go be the dumbest person on the internet. Is there anything he won't do to protect the Establishment Elites?

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    2. ************
      b. Campaign Efforts to Obtain Deleted Clinton Emails

      After candidate Trump stated on July 27, 2016, that he hoped Russia would "find the
      30,000 emails that are missing," Trump asked individuals affiliated with his Campaign to find the deleted Clinton emails.264 Michael Flynn-who would later serve as National Security Advisor in the Trump Administration-recalled that Trump made this request repeatedly, and Flynn subsequently contacted multiple people in an effort to obtain the emails.265

      Barbara Ledeen and Peter Smith were among the people contacted by Flynn. Ledeen, a long-time Senate staffer who had previously sought the Clinton emails, provided updates to Flynn about her efforts throughout the summer of 2016.266 Smith, an investment advisor who was active in Republican politics, also attempted to locate and obtain the deleted Clinton emails. 267
      ***************

      Just one example of many from the investigation where Donald J Chickenshit, Acting President, had instructed his campaign to commit a felony.


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    3. Hey, Hillary, when are you going to deliver 31,000 emails requested by the authorities?

      We know you ordered to smash those phones with hammers and to 'bleach' the hard drives, but you should still have a copy stashed somewhere, eh? You do, don't you? Don't be a witch, tell us.

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    4. Was it a felony to look for Clinton's emails?

      As you said, Sen. Grassley staffer Barbara Ledeen, and the late Peter Smith, were engaged in looking for them prior to Trump tasking Flynn with that.

      No charges related to looking were brought by Mueller against any of
      these players.

      We do know that the Russian attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, stated that she had info on Clinton, and that Trump, Jr could well have thought that the emails might be that info.

      The NY attorney’s office, had denied Veselnitskaya re-entry into the country, but shortly afterwards, she was allowed back in June 2016, by a visa issued by the State Department.

      Veselnitskaya went to work for Glenn Simpson, of Fusion GPS and the Steele Dossier fame. She met with Simpson the day prior to her meeting with Trump, Jr, and the day after it.

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    5. I'm curious. How do you suppose trump expected his band of liars beggars and thieves to illegally obtain the private personal emails of a former Secretary of State? Google? Look through her garbage?

      **********
      Computer fraud, codified by 18 U.S. Code § 1030, is similar to wire fraud, except this crime applies only to use of computers, as opposed to telephones and radios. It also requires some sort of interstate connection. However, the law applies only to computers used:
      by or for financial institutions, like banks or the U.S. government, and
      in such a way that the computer impacts interstate or foreign commerce or communication of the U.S.

      Presumably, Palin's connection to the federal election and Senator McCain brought the federal computer fraud law into play. Kernell was convicted of unauthorized access to a protected computer, which falls under the description of computer fraud.
      ********

      That's just one Federal statute. So let me ask you, who the hell was Donald J Chickenshit thinking he had perfect license to steal her emails?

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    6. I don't think anyone has license to hack a computer or to steal anyone's property, but people can legally acquire that info, from people who have done that, or info describing that info, in all sorts of forms.

      You may be plotting a terrorist attack on your computer. If someone hacks you and gives your worst enemy that info, will they go to jail, even if they had proclaimed that they were trying to get their hands on anything that would take your bad self off to Gitmo.

      I think it's a less cut-and-dry lock'em up issue than you imply, and I think Mueller did too.

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    7. There was no legal way to obtain her personal property other than walking up to her front door and asking her for them. Cut the double talking bullshit.

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    8. Dear Hillary,
      I don't want to risk giving you apoplexy again, so I'll be as gentle as possible: don't you think that once you start using your personal accounts for secret communications about official government business, the horse is out of the barn already? Can't have it both ways, my dear.

      And then, when the government requests these emails, you immediately 'bleach' them?

      And then you play innocent victim?

      Tsk, tsk, tsk.

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    9. Dear Hillary,
      If you're going to live 24/7 in Mao's head, at least start paying rent.

      Delete
  6. Somerby doesn't understand the difference between paying for opposition research and receiving it for free from a foreign entity.

    Somerby used to urge us to visit conservative websites and listen to conservative cable in order to understand what is being said there, pointing out lies we were supposedly being told and truths conservatives were hearing. This tendency to visit such sites is causing him to repeat here the arguments used by the right to propagandize their base. Uproar over Hillary's supposed commissioning of the Steele report is a right wing concern. So is the idea that it is OK to engage with foreigners who want to help you get elected (as long as they are not brown faced immigrants). It is clear that Somerby has been reading and watching such sources and equally clear that he hasn't been reading or watching the places where answers to this stuff are provided.

    If I didn't know about Somerby's history as a liberal blogger back during Clinton's presidency, I would consider Somerby a conservative blogger. I would find his conceits about anthropologists and Aristotle impenetrable and I wouldn't waste any time here.

    The problem is that Somerby labels himself a liberal even while excoriating liberals and expressing this wrong-headed nonsense from right wing sources.

    This man is not a liberal and he is not expressing anything even close to the kind of liberal discussion that occurs on other liberal blogs and in columns.

    Somerby says he found the Mueller report underwhelming and he talks about being sold a bill of goods by cable reporters. He forgets that Mueller and many of his investigators are Republicans. Mueller's report is a balancing act between the desire to conduct an actual investigation and his desire to refrain from personally harming or accusing the President. Mueller avoids responsibility to consequences of the knowledge he collected by refusing to draw conclusions about crimes. But the crimes are there and liberal cable did talk about them and the Mueller report's facts confirm them.

    I don't know whether Democrats will impeach Trump or whether the clock will simply run out on his term and someone else will take over. I don't actually care which happens. I do believe that Mueller gave us the goods on Trump and he is clearly guilty of the stuff that liberal cable talked about, and just because Mueller doesn't explicitly say so doesn't make Trump or his family innocent.

    Somerby insists that Mueller must draw the conclusion or the wrongdoing didn't happen. That's nonsense. It is the same thing Barr did. Mueller gave Barr and the Republicans wiggle room to evade what the report clearly shows, and Somerby is grabbing that room too in order to proclaim that nothing bad happened at that meeting. He is wrong. And Somerby is acting like a Republican when he suggests that no explicit conclusion from Mueller equals innocence.

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    1. The Trump Campaign could have bought "opposition research".

      Both Roger Stone and Michael Caputo were approached by Russian, Gennady Vasilievich (aka Henry Greenberg) with information.

      Greenberg (referenced in the Mueller report) has a record of violence in several counties, and for the past 15 years, was allowed into the U.S., as a Russian informant to the FBI , via a temporary visa provided by the agency.

      He offered information to Caputo and Stone for the price of two million dollars, but was rejected by them.

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    2. Why pay for it when you’re getting it for free?

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    3. So which is a crime when it comes to oppo research? Getting it free or paying for it?

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    4. Look up the statute yourself.

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  7. I agree that it is wrong (feeble-minded) to look to Mueller for judgments we can run with. He assembled facts. Up to us to use them well. Warren already had my vote. Every week she reminds me why .

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  8. “"Candidates should not be in direct contact with foreigners to obtain compromising material on their opponents."

    Really? Candidates shouldn't obtain compromising material on their opponents "from foreigners?"”

    Note that Somerby paraphrases McFaul, incorrectly, and then objects as if McFaul had said what Somerby said.

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    1. You are correct, but to be fair, Somerby is clearly suffering from dementia.

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  9. “Beyond that, have you noted how often we liberals are told that Trump Junior was promised "dirt" on Candidate Clinton in the email exchange which led to this famous meeting?

    That's a term of propaganda. No such term appeared in those emails”

    The email to Jr said:

    “The Crown prosecutor of Russia[a] met with his father Aras this morning and in their meeting offered to provide the Trump campaign with some official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.

    This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.”

    “Dirt” is a shorthand way of saying “Incriminating information.” It’s unclear how the two terms are substantially different, and “incriminating information” would have been understood as “dirt” by everyone at that meeting.

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    1. Probably the same zombie dembot who thinks Trump handing the economy to the Establishment Elites shows he's "of the people". He goes by the name Mao Cheng Ji on the internet, but we all know him as a zombie dembot.

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  10. Was the incriminating information that was going to be shared at that Trump Tower meeting “stolen?” From the email to Jr:

    “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump – helped along by Aras and Emin.”

    To emphasize: the information is “part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump”, which, as we now know, *did* include stolen information. It isn’t clear whether the information that was going to be shared at the meeting came from the hacked emails, but it is possible.

    At any rate, Somerby has had plenty of opportunities to look at the law about campaign coordination to see the illegality of that meeting, and the coordination in general, but he seems to want to enable this kind of finagling rather than shut it down. His rationale, straight out of the mouth of Giuliani, is that “anyone would have done this”. Except that not everyone did it. Somerby’s roommate Al Gore is a case in point:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/14/us/the-2000-campaign-the-debate-gore-aide-receives-then-lets-go-of-hot-potato.html

    The Steele Dossier is a red herring, because that was paid opposition research, not a foreign government volunteering its support and its stolen information to help its favored candidate.

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    1. anon 2:36 - what statute in the U.S. Code are you referring to and what are the citations to cases that support what you say? my impression, this at best is an argumentative, far-fetched stretch, and would set a bad precedent when it goes the other way against Dems - are we going to have endless investigations and obsessions over meaningless trivialities? [Answer to question - probably yes]

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    2. This has been discussed before, in this blog. This is the statute:

      52 U.S.C. § 30121 and generally, 11 CFR 110.20.

      https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/52/30121

      It doesn’t seem like a meaningless triviality, especially when the Trump Tower meeting is part of a much larger pattern of foreign influence, which included social media disinformation campaigns, stealing emails from Democrats, and accessing voter databases, in order to help Trump.

      And, of course, Republicans will always investigate Democrats, but that doesn’t mean their bogus investigations are justified. Despite Somerby’s insistence, the Steele Dossier, which originated at the request of a Republican, but transferred to Clinton, is NOT the same thing Trump was doing. Democrats do not collude with foreign governments to win elections.

      Or perhaps Somerby thinks they should?

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    3. Republicans do not collude with foreign governments to win elections either though. Didn't you read the report? Aren't you paying attention?

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    4. Mueller thought there was no formal conspiracy. There was plenty of collusion, though. Did *you* read the report?

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    5. It's rather like when Comey got in front of cameras and laid out everything Clinton had done in the email thing that gave him 'pause'. Just as you thought he was going to recommend charging her, he said he wouldn't because he could not find any criminal intent in her actions.

      Similar, except that you don't have to intend to be criminally reckless with classified info to get into big trouble, you just have to be reckless with the stuff.

      Peter Stzrok changed the language in the first draft of Comey's report from describing Clinton's actions as "grossly negligent" to less compelling ...."careless".

      The DOJ had already told Comey that they weren't interested in getting a recommendation to charge, because they didn't think it would go anywhere.

      Frankly, I would like to see a panel of prosecutors debate which scenario they'd like to try, a homegrown server with deleted emails and broken devices and immunity given up the whazoo, to the what Mueller mulled over for two years.

      That I would like to see.



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    6. You probably wouldn’t like the results of that debate.

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    7. Forget voting, we're all disinterested legal experts and non-partisan constitutional scholars now.

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    8. So, why does the Constitution contain the impeachment clause? Obviously, we could just wait till the next election and allow a criminal president to get away with it, and hope that his criminal conduct doesn’t corrupt the next election and keep him in power.

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    9. he [Comey] said he wouldn't [indict Clinton] because he could not find any criminal intent in her actions.
      Similar, except that you don't have to intend to be criminally reckless with classified info to get into big trouble, you just have to be reckless with the stuff.


      You’re being reckless, though not criminally so, in using terms that sound like legal language when they’re not.

      The statute that Comey was looking into with regard to Clinton’s emails criminalizes unauthorized removal of national defense information from a place of safety. The Supreme Court has imposed the requirement of intent to cure the statute’s violation of substantive due process. (In other words, the statute as written is unconstitutionally vague.)

      While careless handling of classified material can get you into trouble, that trouble generally isn’t of the criminal kind. Such carelessness can get your clearances revoked or get you fired, but it generally won’t land your butt in prison. And that’s if you’re a grunt, not someone with Senate confirmation.

      Negligence extreme enough to overcome lack of intent is criminal negligence, and that’s a high bar for a prosecutor to get over, especially in the absence of dire consequences.

      As an aside, there were other compelling reasons not to indict Clinton. First of all, the statute requires removal, and Clinton was sent several classified documents by others. Secondly, the statute doesn’t mention classified material, but rather national defense information. The gov has a terrible habit of over-classifying documents, so they’d have to prove the classified emails (which, as I recall, were all at the lowest level — confidential) comprised national defense info.

      I believe the technical term is “immunity given up the wazoo” — no ‘h’. And I can’t tell whether you think prosecutors would rather go to trial when witnesses have been granted immunity. If immunized witnesses don’t implicate the target of an investigation, then prosecutors would rather not go to trial.

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    10. The debate would be hypothetical in that prosecutors would start from the reference point of the beginning rather than considering how each investigation was conducted in reality, by Mueller or by Comey and company.

      In making decisions about negligence and intent, our prosecutors could consider many things, such as the deletion of 30K emails, the utilization of Fitbit technology, the smashing of devices, as well as what they would require in return for the offers of immunity.

      One commenter here emphatically replied that it's likely I wouldn't like the result of that debate. Well, that's the nature of debate.

      I'd still pay to hear it.



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    11. 10:41 PM asks:

      ...why does the Constitution contain the impeachment clause?

      Because it was written by elites who not only failed to anticipate the evolution of a two party system but who, therefore, could not begin to envision that officials one day would put loyalty to their party ahead of any constitutionally imposed duties.

      As late as the Nixon administration there was a consensus that all members of the insider elite would be protected, at least, against the illicit scheming of any individual against the rights of others in good standing. Watergate was a burglary of the Democratic National Committee offices- Nixon was going to get away with secretly bombing Cambodia and not paying his taxes but he did not get away with crossing a line in going against his opposition's elite.

      However, if not by the time of Reagan then certainly by the time of Bush 43, the members of the Republican party elite have put a defense of their standard bearer ahead of any other value. (The Democratic party elite probably remain willing to turn on a popular leader in their own party- Republican politicians fear their base, Democratic politicians have contempt for their base.)

      When the House of Representatives is in the control of a Democratic opposition the impeachment clause empowers Democrats to use it for the purposes of political theater but it's a dead letter when it comes to threatening a president. No electorally viable president, at least not a Republican one, will ever again be at risk of conviction for impeachment in the Senate and, therefore, no such a president serves under any de facto constitutional constraint whatsoever. The only constraint on a Republican president, assuming voting machines in enough states still render true results, is through elections.

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    12. "The only constraint on a Republican president, assuming voting machines in enough states still render true results, is through elections."

      That would be good, if it was true: at least presidents are elected. Unfortunately, as we observed during the last 2 years, it's the 'deep state' - the cabal of unelected business elites and government (especially state security services) bureaucrats - who act pretty much without any constrains.

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    13. Ain't that the truth Mao.

      Wikipedia says [LINK]:

      [QUOTE]
      Joseph P. Nacchio (born June 22, 1949 in Brooklyn, New York) is an American executive who was convicted of insider trading related to his time as chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Qwest Communications International.

      He was convicted of 19 counts of insider trading in Qwest stock on April 19, 2007 – charges his defense team claimed were U.S. government retaliation for his refusal to give customer data to the National Security Agency in February, 2001. This defense was not admissible in court because the U.S. Department of Justice filed an in limine motion, which is often used in national security cases, to exclude information which may reveal state secrets. Information from the Classified Information Procedures Act hearings in Mr. DiNaccio's case was likewise ruled inadmissible.
      [END QUOTE]

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    14. Cecelia, your ignorance of the matter of the Great Email Scandal in Search of Something Scandalous is stark and I have to believe willful.

      the reference point of the beginning.. is the fact that was clear and obvious from Day 1 that the Secretary of State had no intention of using her daily routine communications via her email for transmission of classified matters.

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    15. I don't think HRC had that intention either.

      I think she wanted to thwart FOIA.

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    16. I don't think HRC had that intention either. That's funny, since that was the entire focus of the security referral. Of course that was not her intention, but they had to find some pretext to prolong the controversy literally up until the Democratic Convention to damage her as much as possible politically.

      I think she wanted to thwart FOIA.

      Of course you have no basis in fact or logic to suspect that.

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    17. Oh dear. Such tenderness for Hillary R Chickenshit, Two-Times Loser Presidential Candidate.

      It's so touching. Excuse me while I go and cry in the corner...

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    18. Anon 5:45, I've been a trial lawyer for more than 40 years. I'm not a federal election law expert by any means, but I am not a layman when it comes to reading statutes. 52 U.S.c. s.30121(a) states "It shall be unlawful for (1) a foreign national, directly or indirectly, to make (A)a contribution or donation of money or other thing of value, or to make an express or implied promise to make a contribution or donation, in connection with a Federal, State, or local election . . . ." Section 30121(a)(2) makes it unlawful for "a person to solicit, accept, or receive a contribution or donation described in subparagraph (A) . . . from a foreign national." (These are the relevant portions of the statute.) 11 CFR s.110.20 contains definitions. It refers to 11 CFR 300.2(e) for the definition of the word "donation." Section 300.2(e) defines "donation" as a "payment, gift, subscription, loan, advance, deposit or anything of value given to a person, but does not include a contribution." Apparently, somewhere else there is a definition of the word "contribution" - I'm not spending the time to track that down). The argument against Trump is that the info re Clinton from the Russians would constitute a donation or contribution. I checked on Fastcase - there are only about 6 reported court cases on s. 30121 - none of them even come close to addressing the issue of whether negative information of a candidate is a donation or contribution. Totally different issues. I think it is a big stretch to call negative information a donation or contribution under the statute. All the other examples are about tangible gifts. I think the principle of ejusdem generis (look it up) supports my view. The statute has some obvious ambiguities aside from what is meant by 'other thing of value.' What is an "implied promise to make a contribution or donation?" And here, no negative info was actually provided. That this argument has been flogged to such an extreme is ridiculous.

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    19. Cecilia - I wonder if you ever read Trump's official reason for firing Comey - it was because of Comey's actions in screwing Clinton by the way he handled the email announcements. But, following on my take on the Trump team meeting with the Russians, again the statute on which Clinton attackers hang their hat on is ambiguous at best, and it would have been horrible to prosecute Clinton for the emails. I looked at cases under the statute - none of them were comparable. The whole email thing was stupid.

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    20. "Hillary R Chickenshit"

      Relax zombie dembot.

      Delete
    21. "The whole email thing was stupid."

      Well, it depends what was in those 30K bleached ones, doesn't it.

      There had to be a reason to go to such lengths to destroy them.

      Of course the reason could be as simple as clinical paranoia, but that would also be interesting, wouldn't it?

      Delete
    22. 10:10,
      Jared and Ivanka's private email servers say "Hello".

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    23. Mao, The FBI forensically recovered some of the deleted emails - nothing incriminating there. I understand her lawyers did the deleting - there's no evidence they acted corruptly. Not recovered ones - no way to know - what do you think, revealing our negotiating strategy with Iran. or giving secrets to ISIS? I doubt it. The whole state secret thing is way overdone anyway. There's no evidence any harm was done to anyone by any of her emails. The whole thing was stupid, and it was right not to prosecute her. (Gives Trump the basis for him, in his typical a-hole manner - to call her 'crooked Hillary' though) The email situation only came to light after 8 GOP Bengazi investigations. It's Alice in Wonderland stuff.

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    24. No, Mao, you fucking coward. You don't get to peak under Hillary Clinton's skirt anymore. You need to learn how to stand on your own like a man.

      The stupidity of your continual references to her personal emails that you and your Russian troll farm buddies never got to read is funny if not so sad.

      Under the policy guidelines she was operating under at the time, she was required to delete any emails she did not want to retain as Federal Records. This is explicitly stated. And the ones she chose to retain were to be printed out hard copy and filed in box. That was the level of sophistication IT policy she was operating under.

      Throughout the 4 years she was serving as Secretary of State she would have been free to delete anything she decided to even if she had been working on with the state.gov system. The fact that she was able to retrieve almost the entire 4 year history of her work emails, is evidence enough of how everything she said from Day 1 was proven to be true. She simply used her own cellphone and email because the equipment the SD provided was dogshit.

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    25. Leave it to Mao to be the last person to realize the NY Times was pretending to care that Republicans were pretending to care about Hillary's email server.
      Mao would like you to know he's way smarter than the average Conservative. He'll get no argument from me on that part.

      Delete
    26. "I understand her lawyers did the deleting"

      So, the Clinton crime family lawyers, then?

      Tsk. And come to think of it - who among us could blame them? No one wants to sleep with the fishes...

      Delete
    27. That's your response??? "Clinton crime family lawyers???" - i.e, your fall back Goebblesian defamation? (after all she couldn't hire Roy Cohn, him being dead and all).

      Delete
    28. Lighten up, old man, lighten up.

      Delete
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