Ex-FBI Director Mueller appointed DOJ Special Counsel

[Wooglin]

wooglin,



this is your original point.

and my point is that this is non-sensical because the government has been regulating and subsidizing basically every single energy source since day one. oil and coal -especially-.

[astralis]

your ENTIRE POINT is that coal is suffering because it's being "over-regulated out of existence" compared to other energy sources that get "subsidies".

is this your argument, or not?

[Ironduke]

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...request-507340

DOJ dismisses Nunes demand for Trump-Russia document

The Department of Justice on Friday dismissed Rep. Devin Nunes demand for an unredacted copy of the document that initiated the FBI’s investigation of links between Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign.

In a letter released Friday, the Justice Department reaffirmed their and the FBI’s response to House Intelligence Committees inquiries regarding the document.

Nunes, who is the House Intelligence Committee chairman, on Thursday sent a letter to the Justice Department demanding an unredacted copy of that document.

The Justice Department, however, have said they accommodated the committee in a “manner consistent with relevant legal precedents“ by providing members of the department and FBI to review the FISA applications and renewals in camera.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...ge-unit-507984

Manafort moves to suppress evidence found in storage unit

Lawyers for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort are arguing that what could be key evidence against him should be kept out of court because the FBI violated his Constitutional rights by illegally entering a storage locker belonging to Manafort's firm.

The FBI first got into the Alexandria, Va. storage unit last May with the assistance of an employee who worked at two or more of Manafort's companies, an agent told the federal magistrate judge who issued the warrant. Then, the agent used what he saw written on so-called Banker's Boxes and the fact there was a five-drawer filing cabinet to get permission to return and seize many of the records.

In a motion filed Friday night in federal court in Washington, Manafort's defense team contends that the initial entry was illegal because the employee did not not have authority to let the FBI into the locker. The defense also argues that the warrant was overbroad and that agents seizing records went beyond what limits the warrant did set.

"The FBI Agent had no legitimate basis to reasonably believe that the former employee had common authority to consent to the warrantless
initial search of the storage unit," attorneys Kevin Downing and Thomas Zehnle wrote.

Manafort is facing two indictments obtained by Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office. One, brought in Washington, charges Manafort with money laundering and acting as a foreign agent without registering with the Justice Department. Another, brought in Alexandria, accuses Manafort of tax fraud, bank fraud and failing to report foreign bank accounts.

[antimony]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]45715[/ATTACH]

You did a great impression of Trump right there. Great going, you do you

[Ironduke]

how many billions have we spent on securing the middle east and a constant oil supply?

the point is that all of these energy sources have had subsidies, often (justifiably) on national security grounds.

One could make a perfectly logical argument that conservation measures such as fuel efficiency standards, and things like investment in mass transit, are justifiable on national security grounds. That the less dependent we are on oil, the less exposure the United States has to disruptions in oil supply, thus enhancing our national security.

I believe part of the rationale France had with regards to going almost full nuclear for their electricity supply had to do with national security.

[zraver]

How much do you pay for sunlight, wind, tides, energy within the earth?

If local utilities have their way, as much as coal.

[Officer of Engineers]

How much do you pay for sunlight, wind, tides, energy within the earth?

On average, $75,000 sunk costs in solar panels, wind or tide turbines, and heat extraction pumps and about $5K to $10K every 5 years to replace the batteries for electrical storage.

[Ironduke]

Iceland did a great job tapping into that geothermal for electricity generation. As has New Zealand to a smaller extent. A smart move, but it's easy to tap into it when geothermal sources are practically right there at the surface just waiting to be tapped into.

Of course, there were pretty solid national security reasons for doing so, given their relative isolation and vulnerability to interdiction of imported energy resources in the event of an international conflict. Iceland, sitting pretty much atop trans-Atlantic cable traffic combined with virtually limitless, cheap energy and a cool climate has also given rise to a fairly profitable side hustle industry in webhosting and server farms.

Iceland sure got a lemon, but they found out how to make lemonade.

[Ironduke]

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...daniels-510921

Cohen raid strikes deep into Trump's inner circle

After President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, had his Virginia condo raided by the FBI last summer, Trump called the law enforcement move “pretty tough stuff”—and left it at that.

Not so on Monday, after FBI agents executed a series of search warrants on the law office and Park Avenue apartment of Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen. “I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys, a good man,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “It’s a disgraceful situation. … I’ve been saying it for a long time. I have this witch hunt constantly going on.”

The president portrayed the seizures in almost treasonous terms, framing them not solely as an attack on him but on all Americans.

“It's an attack on our country, in a true sense,” Trump declared. “It's an attack on what we all stand for.”

The raids on Cohen, overseen by the U.S. attorney’s office in New York, strike deeper into Trump’s inner circle than any of the myriad legal actions brought by special Russia prosecutor Robert Mueller, including the indictment of Manafort, who’s pleaded not guilty and is fighting charges of fraud and tax evasion, and the guilty plea by former national security adviser Michael Flynn to a charge of lying to investigators.

Cohen is among the loyal cohort that worked for Trump long before his campaign and remains close to the president. He told Vanity Fair last year that he’s “the guy who protects the president and the family. I’m the guy who would take a bullet for the president.”

An attorney for Cohen, Stephen Ryan, said earlier Monday that federal investigators had executed a series of search warrants and seized records following a “referral” from special counsel Mueller.

[Ironduke]

More here: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...en-flip-536926

Trump allies worry Cohen will flip

Longtime Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen is fighting the seizure of his records by federal investigators in New York, but people close to the president are fretting he might fold if he faces severe charges.

President Donald Trump and his outside advisers are increasingly worried that his longtime personal attorney might be susceptible to cooperating with federal prosecutors.

Two sources close to the president said people in Trump’s inner circle have in recent days been actively discussing the possibility that Michael Cohen — long seen as one of Trump’s most loyal personal allies — might flip if he faces serious charges as a result of his work on behalf of Trump.

“That’s what they’ll threaten him with: life imprisonment,” said Alan Dershowitz, the liberal lawyer and frequent Trump defender who met with the president and his staff over two days at the White House last week. “They’re going to threaten him with a long prison term and try to turn him into a canary that sings.”

FBI agents overseen by federal prosecutors in New York last week raided Cohen’s office and apartment, as well as a hotel room he’d been using. The Trump lawyer is a figure in the ongoing Russia investigation overseen by special counsel Robert Mueller in Washington, but Manhattan-based government attorneys said in court that he is also under separate investigation for his business dealings.

Cohen, who has not been publicly charged with any crimes, owns New York City taxi medallions. He has also been deeply involved in the $130,000 payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who has accused Trump of trying to cover up an affair she says the two had in 2006.

In an interview with CNN last week, Cohen called the raid “unsettling to say the least.” But he also said in the same interview that the federal agents were “extremely professional, courteous and respectful” — a dramatic departure from his usual combative style.

Those comments raised eyebrows among some in Trump’s inner circle, who noted that one of the president’s most ferocious attack dogs seemed unusually taciturn.

“When anybody is faced with spending a long time in jail, they start to re-evaluate their priorities, and cooperation can’t be ruled out,” said one Trump ally who knows Cohen.

Since the raid, the president and his advisers have been singularly focused on the risk of a potential federal prosecution of Cohen, which they view as a much bigger existential threat to the presidency than former FBI Director James Comey, whose book “A Higher Loyalty” has dominated headlines and even Trump’s Twitter feed even before its Tuesday release.

Trump has regularly ranted to friends and advisers about the investigation into Cohen, according to two other people familiar with the conversations. He believes strongly that the FBI raid has pushed the boundaries of attorney-client privilege, telling friends that he and his associates are being unfairly targeted.

“He’s not happy about it,” said one White House official.

[TopHatter]

but people close to the president are fretting he might fold if he faces severe charges.

Why fret? What's the big deal? Trump and his supporters have vehemently assured us that Trump has done nothing wrong and Mueller is chasing phantoms.

Why Are People Close To The President Worried About Cohen Singing Like A Canary To Mueller?

[astralis]

^ hmmmm.....

Cohen drops libel suits against Fusion GPS, Buzzfeed

Cohen moved to not continue with the cases late Wednesday, after suing the political research firm and publication for defamation earlier this year, Schwartz said...

Cohen had sued the two entities in January over claims made about him in the so-called Steele dossier.

The document, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, made unverified claims that Cohen had suspicious ties to Russian figures.

[TopHatter]

Trump’s Fox & Friends Interview Is a Nightmare for His Lawyers

There is a really important reason that criminal defense lawyers on television constantly remind their clients to keep quiet: Clients have a nasty habit of saying dumb things that make the already complex task of mounting a legal defense into an even more difficult one. And in what is probably not a coincidence, the clients who seem to be victimized most frequently by their own self-incriminating verbosity are the ones who, it turns out, had a whole lot to hide all along.

On Thursday, Donald Trump celebrated his wife Melania's 48th birthday by calling into Fox & Friends for an interview that ended up stretching for nearly 30 minutes. Even by his standards, this was a particularly unhinged performance. His voice never fell below a yell, and by the end of it, all three hosts were wearing the same thin, vacant smile, presumably to conceal the fact that producers had been screaming, "CUT HIM OFF, FOR GOD'S SAKE" in their earpieces for most of it.

The president mostly played the hits, railing against the evils of James Comey, Hillary Clinton, Democrat obstructionists, Jim Comey, "NO COLLUSION," the Department of Justice, and the former FBI director he fired last May. But it was a brief tangent about his relationship with longtime fixer and archetypical casino pit boss Michael Cohen that is causing the most consternation for Rudy Giuliani, Ty Cobb, Judge Jeanine, and whoever else is on Trump's legal team these days. In a court filing on Wednesday, Cohen revealed that he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in a lawsuit brought by Stormy Daniels, who seeks to return a $130,000 hush-money payment so that she can speak publicly about the extramarital affair she allegedly had with the president.

Cohen, if you'll recall, has bravely insisted that he paid Daniels without Trump's knowledge. This position is absurd, but it has allowed Trump to deny any involvement in the transaction, which Cohen, in what is perhaps the saddest display of misplaced loyalty imaginable, financed by borrowing against his own home. And yet here is what Trump shouted into a smartphone today on Fox & Friends, his voice echoing throughout the hallways of the executive residence:

"Michael would represent me and represent me on some things. He represents me like with this crazy Stormy Daniels deal, he represented me. And you know, from what I see he did absolutely nothing wrong."

You do not have to be a member of a state bar to understand that when your lawyer has been attempting to shield you from liability by insisting that he paid a six-figure sum on your behalf without telling you, publicly stating that your lawyer "represented" you in the matter is a devastating self-own. Just hours after the interview aired, the government cited it in a letter to the court as evidence that despite the president's social-media protestations, few (if any) of the Trump-adjacent documents seized from Michael Cohen's office earlier this month are likely to fall within the scope of attorney-client privilege.

This morning's spectacle underscores the reason that every reputable white-collar attorney in the country has been politely declining the opportunity to represent Donald Trump of late: The prestige normally associated with representing a sitting president isn't worth the hassle of managing a client who keeps incinerating carefully crafted defense strategies on live national television. Link
_________

It won't be Mueller that brings FuckFace Von Clownshoe crashing down. It'll be him and his own big mouth. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a "very stable genius" sounds like.

I love how he melts down on his own propaganda organ too. The most sycophantic, obsequious audience on the planet... He can't go on Twitter and accuse them of baiting or trolling him with "Gotcha!" moments.

I wonder what it'll take for Trump's diehard supporters to admit "Ok ok, we really fucked up"

[Bigfella]

I'm sure its all part of some '4D chess' strategy we mere mortals can't understand.

[tbm3fan]

It won't be Mueller that brings FuckFace Von Clownshoe crashing down. It'll be him and his own big mouth. This, ladies and gentlemen, is what a "very stable genius" sounds like.

I love how he melts down on his own propaganda organ too. The most sycophantic, obsequious audience on the planet... He can't go on Twitter and accuse them of baiting or trolling him with "Gotcha!" moments.

I wonder what it'll take for Trump's diehard supporters to admit "Ok ok, we really fucked up"

Sitting up in the President's quarter's, most every night just him and Fox News (designed to make you angry) instead of sleeping, he is getting more paranoid with each passing week.