Jeff Sessions is out

The Off-Topic forum for anything non-LDS related, such as sports or politics. Rated PG through PG-13.
_MeDotOrg
_Emeritus
Posts: 4761
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:29 pm

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _MeDotOrg »

It's only Friday night. I don't know how much investigators will have found by Monday. Here's an article from the notorious failing left-wing Forbes:

In emails uncovered by the FTC investigation, Whitaker personally threatened a customer who complained, according to a story in the Miami New Times that was picked up by other news outlets.

The emails the FTC obtained, in fact, suggests Whitaker used his background as a U.S. attorney to try to silence customers who claimed they were defrauded by the company and sought to take their complaints public.

In this case, Whitaker sent an intimidating email to a customer on August 25, 2015, who had contacted World Patent Marketing with his grievances and and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

The FTC docket reviewed by New Times contains an email exchange on page 362 of 400 that described what happened next.

Rather than expressing concern about the customer’s charge of being cheated, Whitaker wrote him to let him know that he, Whitaker, was “a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois...Your emails and message from today seem to be an apparent attempt at possible blackmail or extortion.”

“You also mentioned filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and to smear WPM’s reputation online. I am assuming you know that there could be serious civil and criminal consequences for you if that is in fact what you and your ‘group’ is doing. Understand we take threats like this quite seriously...Please conduct yourself accordingly.”


Apparently, though, he picked on the wrong customer.

“Do not email me with your scare tactics,” the customer known as “A. Rudsky” wrote back. Claiming that he, too, was an attorney, he added: “Stop with your BS emails...You are party to a scam...You will be exposed. I hope I make myself clear, Mr. Whitaker.”

God Bless you, A. Rudsky.
I would love to see Whitaker at a television Senate confirmation hearing. Whitaker's odds of actually surviving questioning are the same as Jeff Sessions sending Jared Kushner a Hanukkah card.

Seriously, Whitaker is so patently unqualified for the job and has so many conflicts of interest, not to mention a potential criminal investigation, that it strains credulity for anyone to think there is a legitimate reason that he should leapfrog Rosenstein. It will be interesting to see which members of the Grand Old Party will select Lindsay Graham's popular elective surgery, the spine-ectomy. For a party that hates unnecessary elective surgery, it's an increasingly popular procedure.

In Mike Whitaker, Trump finally has his Roy Cohn. Also, perhaps his Harry Bennett. Get ready for a street fight.
"The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization."
- Will Durant
"We've kept more promises than we've even made"
- Donald Trump
"Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist."
- Edwin Land
_canpakes
_Emeritus
Posts: 8541
Joined: Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:54 am

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _canpakes »

MeDotOrg wrote:It will be interesting to see which members of the Grand Old Party will select Lindsay Graham's popular elective surgery, the spine-ectomy. For a party that hates unnecessary elective surgery, it's an increasingly popular procedure.

Indeed. These days, amongst Republicans, it is second only to orchiectomy.
_Chap
_Emeritus
Posts: 14190
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:23 am

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _Chap »

MeDotOrg wrote:In this case, Whitaker sent an intimidating email to a customer on August 25, 2015, who had contacted World Patent Marketing with his grievances and and filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau.

The FTC docket reviewed by New Times contains an email exchange on page 362 of 400 that described what happened next.

Rather than expressing concern about the customer’s charge of being cheated, Whitaker wrote him to let him know that he, Whitaker, was “a former United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois...Your emails and message from today seem to be an apparent attempt at possible blackmail or extortion.”

“You also mentioned filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and to smear WPM’s reputation online. I am assuming you know that there could be serious civil and criminal consequences for you if that is in fact what you and your ‘group’ is doing. Understand we take threats like this quite seriously...Please conduct yourself accordingly.”

Apparently, though, he picked on the wrong customer.

“Do not email me with your scare tactics,” the customer known as “A. Rudsky” wrote back. Claiming that he, too, was an attorney, he added: “Stop with your ____ emails...You are party to a scam...You will be exposed. I hope I make myself clear, Mr. Whitaker.”



MeDotOrg wrote:Seriously, Whitaker is so patently unqualified for the job and has so many conflicts of interest, not to mention a potential criminal investigation, that it strains credulity for anyone to think there is a legitimate reason that he should leapfrog Rosenstein.


This scam participant and paid facilitator of the theft of Veterans' savings through false promises followed by attempted intimidation is a man after Trump's heart.

In Whitaker, Trump thinks he has found a person like himself, who will protect him against the losers who don't believe that a big rich guy should be able to do just what he wants, whatever the law says or the little people think.

That, for Trump, is 'a legitimate reason that he should leapfrog Rosenstein'.
Zadok:
I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
_canpakes
_Emeritus
Posts: 8541
Joined: Wed Dec 07, 2011 6:54 am

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _canpakes »

Chap wrote:In Whitaker, Trump thinks he has found a person like himself, who will protect him against the losers who don't believe that a big rich guy should be able to do just what he wants, whatever the law says or the little people think.

That, for Trump, is 'a legitimate reason that he should leapfrog Rosenstein'.


Of course, we can't ever see Trump do anything without having to lie about some part of it ...

President Donald Trump is saying he didn’t previously know his newly appointed and already controversy-plagued acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker. On Friday, before leaving for a trip to Paris, Trump said, “I don’t know Matt Whitaker.” After arriving in France, Trump claimed on Twitter he did not know Whitaker until Whitaker joined his administration and that the two have not had “social contact".

These claims are, at best, extremely misleading. The New York Times reports that Trump became aware of Whitaker in the summer of 2017 when he saw Whitaker on CNN insisting that there had no been no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Soon after, then-White House Counsel Donald McGahn interviewed Whitaker about joining Trump’s team to serve as what the Times calls a “legal attack dog” against special counsel Robert Mueller.

Before the McGahn interview, Whitaker told a fellow CNN contributor that he was going on the network in hopes that Trump would appoint him as a federal judge in Iowa. After the position with Trump’s legal team didn’t pan out, Whitaker kept attacking Mueller on CNN and conservative talk radio. In October 2017, he became then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ chief of staff and quickly ingratiated himself with a range of Trump’s associates.

In September,Trump began asking friends and administration officials what they thought about replacing Sessions with Whitaker. In October, Trump said on Fox & Friends, “I can tell you Matt Whitaker’s a great guy. I mean, I know Matt Whitaker.”

There are a few reasons why Trump is now distancing himself from such a great guy:

* Whitaker was a paid member of the advisory board for World Patent Marketing, which was shut down after the Federal Trade Commission accused it of perpetrating a massive scam. The company is reportedly being investigated by the FBI. Unlike several board members, Whitaker ignored a letter from a court-appointed receiver asking that he return the money he was paid.

* Whitaker has called the judiciary the “inferior branch” of government and said judges should have a “biblical view,” specifying that it should be a New Testament perspective.   

* Whitaker has called the appointment of Mueller as special counsel “ridiculous” and “a little fishy.”

* As Mother Jones’ David Corn reported, Whitaker has said a president call kill any investigation and that Trump cannot commit obstruction of justice.


https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... -whitaker/
_Res Ipsa
_Emeritus
Posts: 10274
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:37 pm

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _Res Ipsa »

Res Ipsa wrote:
Dog, can you actually quote the portion of that order that sets out the scope of the special prosecutor's investigation? (Hint: this is a reading test.)


Bumping for the Dog.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
_Doctor CamNC4Me
_Emeritus
Posts: 21663
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 11:02 am

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _Doctor CamNC4Me »

"I know Matt Whitaker."

"I don't know Matt Whitaker."

That's our President.

- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.

Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
_Doctor Steuss
_Emeritus
Posts: 4597
Joined: Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:57 pm

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _Doctor Steuss »

Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:"I know Matt Whitaker."

"I don't know Matt Whitaker."

That's our President.

- Doc

Who are you going to believe, the President of the United States of America when he says he knows Whitaker, or the lying fake news media when they say he knows Whitaker?
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
_Res Ipsa
_Emeritus
Posts: 10274
Joined: Fri Oct 05, 2012 11:37 pm

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _Res Ipsa »

As the Dog is unwilling or unable to take a simple reading test, I'll lay out how badly he already failed it. First, a recap:

Water Dog wrote:Exactly this. Since when do we launch fishing expeditions? Probable cause? I always thought investigations were meant to follow crimes. What is the crime? What is the basis for the investigation? Is there a dead body? Is something missing, that was stolen? There should be evidence of some crime before one goes hunting for the cause of it. What is the crime? Butthurt democrats that don't like the results of an election? Butthurt bureaucrats that don't like the president firing Comey?


He asked for crimes, so I gave him two:

Res Ipsa wrote:Of course we have crimes -- go look at the indictment of hostile foreign agents who attempted to interfere with our elections. On top of that, the DNC was the victim of theft. So, the notion that Mueller lacks "crimes" to investigate is rubbish.


But the Dog claimed these crimes have nothing to do with the special prosecutor's investigation:

Water Dog wrote:These indictments had nothing to do with the special prosecutor.

...

You gave me crimes that have nothing to do with the special investigation.


Dog even linked to the order that appointed the special prosecutor, which he obviously never read. The relevant language from the order states:

(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James B. Corney in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:

(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and

(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and

(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).

(c) If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.


So, the scope of the investigation includes any links between the Russian Government and individuals associated with the Trump campaign, but the actual scope is defined as whatever Comey said in his testimony. What did he say?

I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia's efforts. As with any counterintelligence investigation, this will also include an assessment of whether any crimes were committed.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/pos ... b80b5c0c0a

The scope of the special prosecutor's investigation is "the "Russian government's efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election." Both the indictment of individuals connected with the Internet Research Agency and the Russian Military officers who stole documents from the DNC and John Podesta were squarely within the Special Prosecutor's authority. To claim otherwise is to spread a lie.

I think it's important to understand how far those who attack Mueller's investigation are willing to go: they will flat-out like about even the scope of the investigation itself. They are willing to tear down the DOJ and the FBI to protect the president and his cronies, and they don't care how many lies they have to tell to do it.
​“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”

― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
_Chap
_Emeritus
Posts: 14190
Joined: Mon Jun 11, 2007 10:23 am

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _Chap »

Res Ipsa wrote:I think it's important to understand how far those who attack Mueller's investigation are willing to go: they will flat-out like about even the scope of the investigation itself. They are willing to tear down the DOJ and the FBI to protect the president and his cronies, and they don't care how many lies they have to tell to do it.


"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of Donald Trump".
Zadok:
I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis.
Maksutov:
That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
_MeDotOrg
_Emeritus
Posts: 4761
Joined: Sun Jun 17, 2012 11:29 pm

Re: Jeff Sessions is out

Post by _MeDotOrg »

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin today said that she thinks Trump simply has a problem processing loss. He told the American people that they were going to get "sick and tired of winning". His go-to pejorative is 'loser'.

Donald Trump has been losing a lot lately, from the House of Representatives to his frosty reception in Europe, from the court cases and investigations concerning his charities, taxes and emoluments, to directing payoffs for a porn star and Playmate. Trump has built a career by never admitting defeat. He is getting his ass kicked, and he is enraged. When he was a Real Estate or Television promoter he could get away with being John Miller or John Barron to fight back, and use his connections with the Enquirer to keep a lid on things.

But that's not the way things work when you're the President. The lid that Trump has kept on his payoffs and business dealings is being slowly pried up. And this is even before we start talking about his swampy cabinet or the Mueller investigation. Everything is slowly crumbling before his eyes, with friends and family looking at possible perjury charges. I always feared that the lame duck period after the election would be an especially volatile one.

We are not at the end of the road, but it is possible to see the edge from here. Donald Trump has lived a life where his feet have rarely spent a lot of time in contact with the ground. And in his own way, you must give him credit. Nearly 63 million Americans bought into his illusion, and handed him the keys to the country. The more Americans bought his illusion, the more energized he became.

But now that adoration of the President is diminishing, his appetite for the job is fading. If he is not in front of an adoring crowd, he stops getting energized. And when he stepped outside the bubble of campaigning, went to Europe and got a reality check on how the rest of the world feels about him. And it stung.

Trying to look back and find a historical precedent for this period in American history is impossible. I don't know where things go from here.
"The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization."
- Will Durant
"We've kept more promises than we've even made"
- Donald Trump
"Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist."
- Edwin Land
Post Reply