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Old 05-07-2018, 02:26 PM
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whell whell is offline
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In the mean time, Dershowitz weighs in:

An experienced federal judge has confirmed what I have been arguing for months, namely, that the modus operandi of special counsel Robert Mueller is to charge associates of President Trump with any crime he can find in order to squeeze them into turning against Trump.

This is what Judge T.S. Ellis III said at a hearing Friday: “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud … What you really care about is what information Mr. Manafort could give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment.”


This was precisely the point Ellis was making with regard to Manafort. A similar point could be made with regard to Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and perhaps to his personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Indeed, Flynn pleaded guilty to a highly questionable charge precisely because his son was threatened with prosecution.

Last week was not a good one for special counsel Mueller. Nor was it particularly good for Trump, as his new lawyer Rudy Giuliani presented a somewhat garbled narrative with regard to the payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. But it was an excellent week for the Constitution and for all Americans, because a federal judge made it clear that no one — not even the special counsel — is above the law and beyond scrutiny by our system of checks and balances.

In summary - Mueller was charged to go find any evidence of individuals colluding with Russia to impact the 2016 election. So, go find evidence of that, and that's fine. But Mueller doesn't, in Manafort's case, get to go back fish for potential "crimes" that occurred far in advance of 2016 just to put pressure on folks to act in a way that they otherwise would not. And making such charges are not evidence of crimes.

In Flynn's case, Mueller got Flynn to plead guilty to lying to the FBI, even though no one in the FBI suggested that Flynn lied about anything. It appears that Flynn pleaded guilty to keep Mueller from going after - and potentially destroying the career and future of Flynn's son. In the process, Flynn has been bankrupted and destroyed.

Whatever the Trump's campaign may or may not have done, this is just flat out wrong.
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