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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (1131078)	4/21/2019 1:25:09 PM
From: Wharf Rat	1 Recommendation Recommended By rdkflorida2 Respond to of 1577191

"being concerned about how the investigation would wreck his ability to get things done is not proof of, or even evidence of, obstruction of justice." No, but firing people, and saying, "Fired cuz of Rusher" is. So is telling people to lie to a Grand Jury. "I don't see it" Maybe this will help. I would be remiss if I didn't point out that the SDNY is apparently also looking at obstruction. Appendix: Instances of Obstruction in the Mueller Report By Victoria Clark, Sarah Grant, Quinta Jurecic Thursday, April 18, 2019, 11:43 PM This is an appendix to Lawfare's initial analysis of the Mueller report, listing instances of obstruction as described in the report. Read the analysis here. The first episode of possible obstruction of justice the report discusses is Trump’s conduct involving his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, and FBI Director James Comey. Mueller’s team describes Flynn’s efforts, following the Obama administration’s imposition of sanctions on the Russians for their activities during the 2016 election, to make contact with the Russian government, let them know that the Trump administration wanted better relations, and encourage them not to retaliate. Flynn later lied about his communications with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, first to incoming Vice President Mike Pence and Sean Spicer, and subsequently to the FBI when agents questioned him in late January 2017. This conduct formed the basis of Flynn’s indictment on 18 U.S.C. § 1001charges. In early January 2017, Trump was briefed on the intelligence community’s high-confidence conclusions that the Russians interfered in the election. Comey also privately briefed Trump on “sensitive material” in the Steele Dossier, including the “unverified allegation that the Russians had compromising tapes of the President involving conduct when he was a private citizen during a 2013 trip to Moscow for the Miss Universe Pageant.” The report includes in a footnote the following detail: “On October 30, 2016, Michael Cohen received a text from Russian businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze that said, ‘Stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there's anything else. Just so you know ....’ 10/30/16 Text Message, Rtskhiladze to Cohen. Rtskhiladze said ‘tapes’ referred to compromising tapes of Trump rumored to be held by persons associated with the Russian real estate conglomerate Crocus Group, which had helped host the 2013 Miss Universe Pageant in Russia.” Trump also asked a number of intelligence community leaders whether they could make public statements refuting the allegations in the Steele reports. After senior leaders at the Department of Justice notified the White House Counsel’s office that Flynn had lied about his discussions with Kislyak, Trump invited Comey to dinner at the White House. Despite being warned by Chief of Staff Reince Priebus not to discuss Russia matters, Trump brought up the Steele report and whether the FBI could investigate to prove the allegations contained in it were false. He also stated that he expected Comey’s loyalty. Flynn ultimately resigned in mid-February, and Trump met alone with Comey one more time to ask him to encourage him to “see [his] way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go.” When challenged by the media about the White House’s account of why Flynn was fired, Trump continued to deny any Russian contacts and pressed for then-Deputy National Security Adviser KT McFarland to write an internal memo stating that Trump did not direct Flynn to contact Kislyak about the sanctions. Analyzing this conduct through the lens of criminal obstruction, Mueller’s team writes that substantial evidence corroborated Comey’s account of Trump telling him to let the Flynn investigation go, and that they were able to establish that Trump connected the Flynn investigation to the FBI’s broader Russia investigation. Trump told Chris Christie that he thought that terminating Flynn would end “the whole Russia thing.” Next, the special counsel describes Trump’s reaction to Attorney General Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation and Comey’s confirmation in congressional testimony of the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference. lawfareblog.com