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  • Albany Rifles
    replied
    Originally posted by tbm3fan View Post
    So it looks like kiss my ass lasted 24 hours.
    He forced the issue to be done IAW the law and the Constitution.

    IAW the regulations the Deputy DA for the SDNY takes over until a Senate confirmed replacement occurs and not the Administration's hand picked successor who may or may not allow the investigations to continue.

    A solid win for the Constitution.

    Leave a comment:


  • snapper
    replied
    I think it's pretty basic; use 'reasonable force'. This does not include kneeling on the back of a persons neck when they say they cannot breathe for however long. Cuff them and let them breathe. It does not include shooting a person you know to be unarmed since you have no reason to believe they are an immediate danger to you or anyone else.

    Leave a comment:


  • Double Edge
    replied
    Apparently its the unions that stop reform

    How Police Unions Became Such Powerful Opponents to Reform Efforts | NYT | Jun 06 2020

    But listen to what the NYPD union is saying and you get a different message.



    Did anyone think to ask the cops what they think ? No, because they are the problem

    As a result of the protests they have to go light. Know what happens then, crime goes up

    The crooks won. The community & the cops lost.

    The pols interfere in the job of the cops.

    So this so called reform is bills getting passed, hundreds of pages long that no one read.

    Nobody thought to involve the cops when they were being drafted.

    Quick fix, make the problem go away.

    The cops read them and they're seeing stars.
    Last edited by Double Edge; 22 Jun 20,, 03:14.

    Leave a comment:


  • surfgun
    replied
    Due to Fox News phobia,
    Here is another source.
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/sa...ue/ar-BB15KtqI

    Leave a comment:


  • tbm3fan
    replied
    Originally posted by surfgun View Post
    Apparently, in San Francisco Ulysses S. Grant is offensive?
    https://www.foxnews.com/us/ulysses-g...-san-francisco

    Clueless again. Forget Fox and read directly from the City. Vandals did lots of damage that day to not only statues but also commemorative benches, Apple Cider Press sculpture, a sphinx statue, drinking fountains, pathways and a balustrade. They damaged everything, comprende... Oh, Spanish for understand.

    Leave a comment:


  • tbm3fan
    replied
    So it looks like kiss my ass lasted 24 hours.

    Leave a comment:


  • surfgun
    replied
    Apparently, in San Francisco Ulysses S. Grant is offensive?
    https://www.foxnews.com/us/ulysses-g...-san-francisco

    Leave a comment:


  • TopHatter
    replied
    Trump distances himself from Geoffrey Berman firing after AG Barr says president was behind decision

    President Donald Trump dismissed Manhattan's chief federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman on Saturday after the prosecutor who had launched a series of criminal inquires targeting the president's allies refused to resign, Attorney General William Barr said in a letter to Berman.

    "Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so," Barr wrote.

    Barr said Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss would serve as the acting chief of the office until a permanent successor could be seated.

    Almost as soon as the letter was made public, however, Trump appeared to distance himself from the attorney general's statement, saying that the decision to remove Berman was Barr's to make.

    "I'm not involved," Trump told reporters before departing for a campaign rally in Oklahoma.

    The action comes after an extraordinary confrontation late Friday night in which Barr first announced that Berman would be "stepping down," only to have the prosecutor fire back that he had no intention of resigning his post.

    The clash thrust the Justice Department into fresh turmoil, raising new questions about its independence from a White House that has sought to remove members of the administration it has cast as disloyal.

    Barr and Berman discussed his tenure earlier Friday while the attorney general was in New York meeting with New York Police Department officials, a person with knowledge of the matter said Saturday. At that time, Berman was offered other positions in the administration, including chief of the Justice Department's Civil Division in Washington. The source who is not authorized to comment publicly said Berman believed that the conversation was only the start of a longer conversation about possible personnel changes.

    "Unfortunately, with your statement of last night, you have chosen public spectacle over public service," Barr said in the letter, referring to the prosecutor's refusal to capitulate.

    "Your statement also wrongly implies that your continued tenure in the office is necessary to ensure that cases now pending in the Southern District of New York are handled appropriately. This is obviously false. I fully expect that the office will continue to handle all cases in the normal course and pursuant to the Department’s applicable standards, policies, and guidance. Going forward, if any actions or decisions are taken that office supervisors conclude are improper interference with a case, that information should be provided immediately to Michael Horowitz, the Department of Justice’s Inspector General."

    Barr said he was asking Horowitz to review any claims of improper interference.

    It wasn't immediately clear whether Barr's letter would represent the final word on the Berman's tenure and whether the prosecutor would challenge the action, as he was not nominated by a president or confirmed by the Senate. And with Trump now distancing himself from Barr, it also wasn't clear who had directed the prosecutor's removal.

    Berman was appointed as interim U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York in 2018 by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions following a purge of federal prosecutors in the early days of the Trump administration.

    When the interim term of 120 days lapsed without a formal nomination by the president, the judges in the New York district exercised their authority to make Berman’s appointment official, at least until another candidate is nominated and confirmed.

    Since Friday night, Berman has leaned heavily on that judicial authority to maintain control over the Justice Department’s most prestigious office outside of Washington, D.C.

    “I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning, my position to which I was appointed by the judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York,” Berman said after Barr abruptly announced that the prosecutor was “stepping down."

    “I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate," he said.

    The crucial Justice Department office has prosecuted Trump's former personal attorney Michael Cohen and is heading an investigation of the president's lawyer and close adviser Rudy Giuliani.

    The Giuliani inquiry has focused in part on the former New York mayor's work with business associates Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who helped Giuliani seek damaging information in Ukraine about the family of Joe Biden, the former U.S. vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee for president in the 2020 election.

    This week, Trump national security adviser John Bolton revealed in a book that the president once sought to interfere in a federal investigation of a Turkish bank to pacify Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The inquiry also has been headed by Berman’s office.

    More: Judge clears way for John Bolton to publish his book, rejecting Trump administration effort to block it

    A Justice Department opinion, although authored more than 40 years ago, addresses the lines of authority in such unusual cases. It concludes that the president — not the attorney general or a consortium of judges — has the power to remove a U.S. attorney who holds the position by judicial appointment.

    In such cases, the opinion states, "the power of removal may be even more important to the president than the power of appointment.

    "Indeed, it is the power to remove, and not the power to appoint, which gives rise to the power to control," the memorandum states. The document raised potential conflicts of interest if judges were authorized to remove prosecutors.

    "Due process problems could arise if a court, through the exercise of its removal power, (was) enabled to control the manner in which a prosecutor performs his official duties. We therefore are of the opinion that the power to remove a court-appointed U.S. Attorney rests with the president," the memo states.

    In his letter to Berman Saturday, the attorney general also asserted that the president had unquestioned authority to remove a judicially appointed U.S. attorney

    "Indeed, the court’s appointment power has been upheld only because the Executive retains the authority to supervise and remove the officer," Barr wrote.

    Some legal analysts, however, disagreed, saying that provisions of the law allowing for the judicial appointments of U.S. attorneys should control.

    "Berman is the Acting U.S. Attorney by dint of a 'judicial' appointment," University of Texas law professor Stephen Vladeck tweeted Saturday. "There’s a pretty good argument that, per the plain language of (the law) he gets to keep serving in that post until the 'vacancy' is filled through Senate confirmation of a permanent successor."

    David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor in Miami, believed Berman's interpretation is "correct."

    "The Department of Justice opinion is simply that — an opinion," Weinstein said, adding that the document is not binding. He said Trump lost his control over Berman when he failed to nominate a candidate during Berman's interim tenure.

    "This all falls back on the president because of his failure to act," Weinstein said, adding that a resolution may be up to the courts.


    The urgency of Barr's Friday night action also was not immediately clear. Equally unexpected was the accompanying announcement that Trump intended to nominate Jay Clayton, the Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, who has no experience as a federal prosecutor.

    Instead, Barr hailed Clayton's "management experience and expertise in financial regulation."

    A person familiar with Clayton's selection said the former SEC chairman had expressed an interest in the prosecutor's job, as he planned to leave the administration and his position in Washington.

    Until Clayton's nomination is considered by the Senate, the attorney general said Friday night that the president was appointing New Jersey's chief federal prosecutor, Craig Carpenito, to take Berman's place, beginning July 3. On Saturday, Barr walked that announcement back, saying that Berman's top deputy, Strauss, would take charge as acting U.S. attorney until a replacement was seated.

    Rather than argue that Berman was being removed for cause, the attorney general lavished praise on the prosecutor, saying he performed with "tenacity and savvy."

    "The attorney general, himself, acknowledged that there was no reason for his removal," Weinstein said. "I think we're in for a battle. I think Berman should stand his ground. What does he have to lose? If he does, this could end up in the Supreme Court."
    ____________

    And right on time, the dumpster fire continues to burn brightly.

    Trump probably threw Barr under the bus for admitting that he fled to the White House bunker like a little bitch.

    Leave a comment:


  • Officer of Engineers
    replied
    Originally posted by TopHatter View Post
    Donald Trump fires US Attorney for Southern District Who Was Investigating Giuliani
    That man makes it impossible say anything positive about his Administration.

    Leave a comment:


  • tbm3fan
    replied
    Later on Berman then tells Barr kiss my ass....

    Leave a comment:


  • TopHatter
    replied
    Donald Trump fires US Attorney for Southern District Who Was Investigating Giuliani

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a surprise move, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday that it was replacing Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan whose office has been investigating Rudolph W. Giuliani, the personal lawyer of U.S. President Donald Trump.

    Attorney General William Barr said in a press release late on Friday evening that Trump intends to nominate Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to replace Berman as head of the Southern District of New York.

    The reason for Berman's departure could not be immediately determined.

    "I learned in a press release from the Attorney General tonight that I was 'stepping down' as United States Attorney. I have not resigned, and have no intention of resigning my position, to which I was appointed by the Judges of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York," Berman said in a statement.

    He said that until a presidentially appointed nominee was confirmed by the Senate, the office's "investigations will move forward without delay or interruption."

    Since being appointed to the post in January 2018, Berman has not shied from taking on powerful figures in Trump's orbit.

    He oversaw the prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal lawyer, indicted two Giuliani associates and launched a probe into Giuliani in connection with his efforts to dig up dirt in the Ukraine on Trump's political adversaries.

    While the Senate considers Clayton's nomination, Trump has appointed Craig Carpenito, currently the U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, to serve as the acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District, Barr said in his statement.

    Berman, who served on Trump's transition team, could not immediately be reached for comment. Berman had replaced Preet Bharara, who was himself fired soon after Trump became president.

    Bharara said the timing and manner of the move to replace Berman was strange.

    "Why does a president get rid of his own hand-picked US Attorney in SDNY on a Friday night, less than 5 months before the election?" Bharara wrote on Twitter.

    Clayton, a former Wall Street lawyer seen as a bipartisan consensus-builder during his time leading the SEC, also could not immediately be reached for comment.
    ___________________

    Just gets more and more blatant every single day.

    Leave a comment:


  • Albany Rifles
    replied
    Originally posted by astralis View Post
    back during the impeachment he made it clear that he was willing to testify...but only if Congress "compelled" him to do so.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...u-might-think/

    he thought that it was a done deal because it would have only taken 4 GOP Senators to get him to testify. only 2 voted for it.

    it's not a matter of him being a coward. Bolton betrayed his country for money.

    as did 51 other GOP Senators.
    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

    So much this

    Leave a comment:


  • Oracle
    replied
    Trump wants Xi to buy agricultural goods so that he's re-elected. Trump is not fit to hold any constitutional post.

    Leave a comment:


  • astralis
    replied
    back during the impeachment he made it clear that he was willing to testify...but only if Congress "compelled" him to do so.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...u-might-think/

    he thought that it was a done deal because it would have only taken 4 GOP Senators to get him to testify. only 2 voted for it.

    it's not a matter of him being a coward. Bolton betrayed his country for money.

    as did 51 other GOP Senators.

    Leave a comment:


  • TopHatter
    replied
    Bolton’s Bombshell Memoir: Trump Asked China’s President to Help Him Win the Election

    President Trump appealed to China’s President Xi Jinping to help him win the 2020 election by increasing the Chinese government’s agricultural purchases from American farmers, former National Security Adviser John Bolton writes in his bombshell forthcoming memoir.

    During a one-on-one meeting at the G20 Summit in 2019, Trump “stunningly, turned the conversation to the coming U.S. presidential election, alluding to China’s economic capability to affect the ongoing campaigns, pleading with Xi to ensure he’d win,” Bolton writes, according to an excerpt in the Wall Street Journal.

    It was one of several disturbing instances Bolton outlines of Trump appealing to foreign dictators for his own gains—a pattern of behavior that he says went far beyond the Ukraine aid saga.

    Trump was willing to kill off criminal probes against Turkish and Chinese companies to “in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked,” Bolton writes, alleging that Trump was willing to intervene in probes against Turkey’s Halkbank and China’s ZTE to curry favor with either country’s leaders.

    “The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn’t accept,” Bolton writes.

    Several media outlets got their hands on an advanced copy of Bolton’s book, The Room Where It Happened, on Wednesday, ahead of its release next week—and despite the Department of Justice’s attempts to halt its publication.

    In it, Bolton paints a picture of his former boss as an idiot who thought Finland was part of Russia, a megalomaniac who governs based on gut instinct, and the butt of jokes from even his most trusted aides. He joked about executing American journalists, delivered an autographed copy of Elton John’s Rocket Man to Kim Jong Un and thought invading Venezuela would be “cool,” Bolton writes.

    ‘He is so full of shit’
    Bolton makes no qualms about throwing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo under the bus in the 592-page book.

    He writes that, during Trump’s 2018 meeting with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Pompeo slipped Bolton a note that referred to Trump. It said: “He is so full of shit.”

    Bolton says that he and Pompeo also shared their disdain for the president after Trump had a phone call with South Korea’s president in the lead up to the 2018 summit with Kim. Pompeo told Bolton he was “having a cardiac arrest” after listening in on the call. Bolton sympathized with Pompeo, describing it as a “near death experience.”

    In another instance, Bolton writes that Trump once told him that former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had used a sexist obscenity to describe Nikki Haley, then the ambassador to the United Nations.

    Bolton doubted it was true but found it yet another example of Trump trying to pit staff against each other. In fact, Haley was so highly regarded inside the White House that Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump floated the idea of her replacing Vice President Mike Pence in the 2020 ticket. Bolton said it would be a mistake, and Trump seemed to agree.

    Other staff routinely flirted with quitting in disgust. “What if we have a real crisis like 9/11 with the way he makes decisions?” former Chief of Staff John Kelly said as he contemplated resigning one day.

    “He second-guessed people’s motives, saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government,” Bolton writes, adding that Trump was singularly obsessed with winning a second term.

    Support for internment camps and foreign interference
    Some of the most damning revelations in the book, however, are Bolton’s accusations of Trump’s willingness to interfere in criminal investigations, and use foreign powers to achieve his domestic aims. In turn, foreign leaders appeared happy to appease the president as a means of manipulation.

    During the same G20 meeting that he asked for Xi’s help to win the election, Trump expressed support for the Chinese government’s use of internment camps for 1 million Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang, the book says. They have repeatedly been exposed as extraordinarily inhumane to China’s ethnic minority.

    “According to our interpreter,” Bolton writes, “Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”

    When Xi said he wanted to work with Trump for another six years, Trump replied that people thought the two-term constitutional limit on presidents should be removed. Xi replied that the U.S. had too many elections, and he didn’t want Trump to lose. Trump nodded approvingly, Bolton wrote.

    In another example of foreign manipulation during a 2019 phone call, Russian President Vladimir Putin compared Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó to failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. It was, Bolton writes, part of a “brilliant display of Soviet style propaganda” aimed at boosting support for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro. It “largely persuaded Trump,” he adds.

    Bolton says he was so alarmed by Trump’s willingness to do favors for dictators like Erdogan and Xi that he discussed them with Attorney General William Barr.

    For example, Trump told Erdogan that Halkbank’s legal issues—related to violating the administration’s sanctions on Iran—would disappear once the “Obama people” in the Southern District of New York were “replaced by his people,” Bolton writes.

    Bolton claims that Barr was also worried about Trump’s behavior—but it’s not clear what resulted from their conversation.

    ‘Deeply disturbing’ Ukraine allegations
    Democrats and Republicans have been united in their criticism of Bolton, who refused to testify before the House during impeachment proceedings but instead took a $2 million book contract.

    House impeachment manager Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said on Wednesday that Bolton “ran and hid” when it truly mattered.

    “It is curious to me that he now has something to say when he could have stepped forward as a patriot when they stakes were high and the president was on trial,” he said. “He ran and hid in the other direction.”

    In his book, Bolton confirms that Trump did explicitly link security aid for Ukraine to investigations involving Biden and Hillary Clinton. Trump said on August 20 that “he wasn’t in favor of sending them anything until all the Russia-investigation materials related to Clinton and Biden had been turned over,” Bolton writes, adding that Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mark Esper tried eight to 10 times to get Trump to release the aid.

    He calls Trump’s decision to hold aid “deeply disturbing” but stops short of supporting impeachment. Instead, he says Democrats badly bungled the impeachment proceedings.

    “I thought the whole affair was bad policy, questionable legally and unacceptable as presidential behavior,” he writes.

    House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) tweeted on Wednesday that Bolton’s staff “showed real courage” by testifying during impeachment hearings.

    “When Bolton was asked, he refused, and said he’d sue if subpoenaed,” Schiff said in a statement. “Instead, he saved it for a book. Bolton may be an author, but he’s no patriot.”

    Mopping up for Jared and Ivanka
    Bolton writes of his disdain for Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s constant efforts to insert themselves in foreign policy and domestic affairs.

    When Bolton learned that Kushner was going to be calling the finance minister of Turkey, he briefed Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin “on this new ‘son-in-law channel’ and they both exploded.” To Pompeo, it was yet another example of Kushner’s meddling in international negotiations, as he did with the “never quite ready Middle East peace plan.”

    In late 2018, Trump came under fire for writing a bizarre defense of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman over the killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. But, according to Bolton, the main goal of the exclamation point-laden statement was to draw attention away from Ivanka using her personal email for government business.

    “This will divert from Ivanka,” Trump said, according to the book. “If I read the statement in person, that will take over the Ivanka thing.”

    Damning books on Trump are hardly rare but Bolton’s book is the first to be written by such a high-ranking administration officials, and a lifelong conservative, who was present for some of the most consequential foreign policy decisions.

    Bolton, a vocal Russia and North Korea hawk, became Trump’s third national security adviser in 2018 and had aims of withdrawing the U.S. from several international agreements, like the Iran nuclear deal.

    He resigned late September after clashing with Trump over several foreign policy directives. Naturally, Trump claimed he fired him.
    ________________
    John Bolton is a fucking coward. Not a shred of courage in his useless body.

    Also, let's pretend that Bolton has conjured up fully half of this book out of thin air and his imagination: Donald Trump is STILL a fucking criminal.

    Leave a comment:

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