Schiff Issues Subpoena for Whistleblower Complaint Being Unlawfully Withheld

[fskimospy]

Are you going to sue Trump in the Webster-Merriam court of law? Or are you trying to reprise the scene from Judd Nelson in the movie "From the Hip" where as a lawyer he asks the judge to have a special motion on the admissibility of the word "asshole"?

I'll tell you what, since Bill Clinton "betrayed a trust" with his affair and lying under oath, if you try him for treason and subsequently execute him then I'll happily allow you to prosecute Trump under the same standard.

No one is trying Trump for treason in a court of law so that should be game over here.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

It's amazing how much power these diversion conversations hold. Makes me wonder how intentional they are. Controlling someone's attention is the most powerful form of manipulation. From a certain perspective, it's really the only form.

It's SOP in propaganda and in human conversation, for reasons I don't completely understand from a psychological perspective. Perhaps it's the human equivalent of a laser pointer and a cat, losing focus on whatever was being paid attention to swipe at a pawful of nothing.

Back to the real topic, I should think that under the "umbrella", proceedings including subpoenas would have more influence in courts to back them up, and in a more timely fashion, although I admit I'm not sure what this will look like.

 

[dank69]

Evidently not Hillary's trust since she knew full well who Bill was and if she still trusted him she was too naive to have ever been SoS. If not when she married him, certainly after when he cheated on her repeatedly yet she stayed with him for her own chance at reaching the Oval Office.

Just like Trump can't have betrayed any American's trust since we never had it for him to begin with, except for his followers who probably cheer on what he did with Ukraine.

What the fuck do you *think* you know about their marriage? Maybe they have an open marriage, for all you know. Oh that's right, you think everyone is just like you. That's why you think it is okay to fuck other people over if you can gain an extra buck, because you just assume everyone else is a piece of shit like you who would do the same.

 

[ewdotson]

No word on exactly why the White House has access to the whistleblower report at all...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1176704781534081028

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

No one is trying Trump for treason in a court of law so that should be game over here.

We could always stop and get back to the subject at hand? In a legal sense Glenn is correct, Weld IMO is stirring up fervor based on ignorance or a lie on his part, and treason is being used as a synonym for treachery in the common sense of the word.

This is of course a "party" being held on the head of a pin.

So, do you think Shiff's subpoena has a greater chance to be properly answered since Pelosi launched a formal inquiry?

 

[fskimospy]

It's SOP in propaganda and in human conversation, for reasons I don't completely understand from a psychological perspective. Perhaps it's the human equivalent of a laser pointer and a cat, losing focus on whatever was being paid attention to swipe at a pawful of nothing.

Back to the real topic, I should think that under the "umbrella", proceedings including subpoenas would have more influence in courts to back them up, and in a more timely fashion, although I admit I'm not sure what this will look like.

I doubt this has any substantive legal meaning, it’s all about moving the House and the country in favor of impeachment.

Trump and co. will continue to ignore subpoenas and will continue to lose in court, only to file additional appeals and requests for en banc review in order to attempt to delay investigations until after November 2020. At that point if he wins again they will simply act with impunity.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

No word on exactly why the White House has access to the whistleblower report at all...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1176704781534081028

Color me not surprised. Executive actions which may serve to protect a President aren't valid and we learned that with Nixon.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I doubt this has any substantive legal meaning, it’s all about moving the House and the country in favor of impeachment.

Trump and co. will continue to ignore subpoenas and will continue to lose in court, only to file additional appeals and requests for en banc review in order to attempt to delay investigations until after November 2020. At that point if he wins again they will simply act with impunity.

Perhaps, but going back to Watergate those tactics were slapped down pretty hard. There is no Executive Privilege in such cases and testimony happens or we have jail and almost certainly no ability to pardon.

Edit- naturally the Fifth may be taken but not on the behalf of another.

 

[jman19]

Color me not surprised. Executive actions which may serve to protect a President aren't valid and we learned that with Nixon.

Won’t stop this admin from obfuscating as best they can. The Trump base won’t care.

 

[fskimospy]

Color my cynical but I do not think the courts will save us. They are not equipped to handle an executive with no interest in good faith.

 

[glenn1]

I doubt this has any substantive legal meaning, it’s all about moving the House and the country in favor of impeachment.

Trump and co. will continue to ignore subpoenas and will continue to lose in court, only to file additional appeals and requests for en banc review in order to attempt to delay investigations until after November 2020. At that point if he wins again they will simply act with impunity.

Isn't that basically the Dem strategy? Ambiguous investigations to keep it in the news for the entire election cycle with hopefully an occasional court decision in their favor, with a hope it drags down his approval ratings enough to have him lose in 2020? In what way would having a "successful" and fast articles of impeachment help Dems since it would just go to the Senate to die?

 

[fskimospy]

Isn't that basically the Dem strategy? Ambiguous investigations to keep it in the news for the entire election cycle with hopefully an occasional court decision in their favor, with a hope it drags down his approval ratings enough to have him lose in 2020? In what way would having a "successful" and fast articles of impeachment help Dems since it would just go to the Senate to die?

I sincerely doubt it.

Ambiguous investigations are good when your target hasn’t really done anything wrong. Then you just throw up a lot of shit and innuendo and hope all the ambiguity does what you couldn’t do unambiguously.

I think the Democrats’ strategy was pretty simple - Trump is a lifelong criminal and is currently engaging in unprecedented levels of corruption while in office so let’s just expose all that in painful detail. No need for ambiguity when the guy you’re investigating is guilty.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Won’t stop this admin from obfuscating as best they can. The Trump base won’t care.

The base becomes irrelevant to a certain degree. While this situation is wildly beyond Watergate with Nixon being vastly more ethical and moral (yep I said it), the SCOTUS may have to wade in and while many are Trump appointed, Gorsuch is on record as speaking against Trump in matters that concern justices and is very much a Constitutionalist in a traditional old school Conservative sense. If given a choice between what the Founders intended and Trump I think the latter is in serious trouble. Kavanaugh? 60/40 for Trump, and Thomas will be the puppet he always was.

If I am correct and the SCOTUS issues a warrant for the detainment of individuals, in the Executive Branch or not, don't expect law enforcement rank and file to oppose a Federal Marshal.

IMO we are at the point where the red line holds or we reply to the spirit of Franklin "We're sorry, we could not keep the Republic".

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

Isn't that basically the Dem strategy? Ambiguous investigations to keep it in the news for the entire election cycle with hopefully an occasional court decision in their favor, with a hope it drags down his approval ratings enough to have him lose in 2020? In what way would having a "successful" and fast articles of impeachment help Dems since it would just go to the Senate to die?

There's nothing ambiguous about an impeachment inquiry. It was started and based on things that can be pointed to. It has a starting point and like any investigation begins but does not end there. Will it bring down Trump in 2020? If the facts bring out serious offenses should it not regardless of party or candidate?

Will it benefit the Dems? Perhaps so but a sham republic is too high a price to pay. I'd have said this if Hillary or Obama or George Washington's ghost were in office and you ought to know that. Screw party, screw sensibilities and to paraphrase "woe to he who evil does".

 

[interchange]

It's SOP in propaganda and in human conversation, for reasons I don't completely understand from a psychological perspective. Perhaps it's the human equivalent of a laser pointer and a cat, losing focus on whatever was being paid attention to swipe at a pawful of nothing.

I have a minor interest in magic. Almost all of it boils down to occupying someone's attention so they don't notice what you are really doing. The thing is, you can't simply point and say squirrel to be effective. You have to occupy the mind by assigning a task, or providing an expectation that something important is going to happen where you have directed their attention to, or in the case of these threads saying something with a very disagreeable component to it you can't just ignore. I haven't set those expectations here or provided that conflict or given anyone a task, so I don't expect my peripherally off topic response to derail the thread. In that case, you are free to attend to something but retain your capacity to passively attend to your environment. So if there is something important around you, your brain will switch attention back to it.

 

[UNCjigga]

No word on exactly why the White House has access to the whistleblower report at all...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1176704781534081028

Because our current DoJ represents Trump’s interests and not the American people’s.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I have a minor interest in magic. Almost all of it boils down to occupying someone's attention so they don't notice what you are really doing. The thing is, you can't simply point and say squirrel to be effective. You have to occupy the mind by assigning a task, or providing an expectation that something important is going to happen where you have directed their attention to, or in the case of these threads saying something with a very disagreeable component to it you can't just ignore. I haven't set those expectations here or provided that conflict or given anyone a task, so I don't expect my peripherally off topic response to derail the thread. In that case, you are free to attend to something but retain your capacity to passively attend to your environment. So if there is something important around you, your brain will switch attention back to it.

We'll return to the topic to be sure, but I cannot completely disregard my nature and fail to observe fundamental "rules" of behavior in the social animal that we are. The difficulty that I have is determining what lies beneath the statements that some make, and the deeper level of actions and behaviors interest me.

 

[jman19]

The base becomes irrelevant to a certain degree. While this situation is wildly beyond Watergate with Nixon being vastly more ethical and moral (yep I said it), the SCOTUS may have to wade in and while many are Trump appointed, Gorsuch is on record as speaking against Trump in matters that concern justices and is very much a Constitutionalist in a traditional old school Conservative sense. If given a choice between what the Founders intended and Trump I think the latter is in serious trouble. Kavanaugh? 60/40 for Trump, and Thomas will be the puppet he always was.

If I am correct and the SCOTUS issues a warrant for the detainment of individuals, in the Executive Branch or not, don't expect law enforcement rank and file to oppose a Federal Marshal.

IMO we are at the point where the red line holds or we reply to the spirit of Franklin "We're sorry, we could not keep the Republic".

I agree - the Trump base alone won’t be enough for re-election, I was more pointing to the fact that there’s a seemingly impenetrable barrier of voters who will ignore reality so long as this administration tows the line of god, guns, abortions, immigration and packing the courts with conservatives. The real test will be how many voters who previously pulled the lever for “burn it down” and “drain the swamp” realize they were completely lied to by a con man.

 

[interchange]

We'll return to the topic to be sure, but I cannot completely disregard my nature and fail to observe fundamental "rules" of behavior in the social animal that we are. The difficulty that I have is determining what lies beneath the statements that some make, and the deeper level of actions and behaviors interest me.

No you can't. No one can. It's fundamental human nature, and it's important for societal function. The problem here is when that is being weaponized. Skeptics don't have some magical ability to do otherwise. They can't override their attentional system. A professional pickpocket will still steal their wallet without them knowing when it has happened. The only power they have is to understand how it is done and what has happened and use this knowledge to direct a response. That's all I hope to provide. Awareness of what has happened so that you can choose your response more freely. But you're not going to ever be unaffected by the tactic.

 

[VRAMdemon]

I agree - the Trump base alone won’t be enough for re-election, I was more pointing to the fact that there’s a seemingly impenetrable barrier of voters who will ignore reality so long as this administration tows the line of god, guns, abortions, immigration and packing the courts with conservatives. The real test will be how many voters who previously pulled the lever for “burn it down” and “drain the swamp” realize they were completely lied to by a con man.

They will release a redacted and edited transcript that makes it not that bad. Then they will release a redacted report that makes it worse, but they've already set the stage. Then when the full report comes out and is damning, it will seem to be not all that terrible.

We already saw this with the Mueller report. It worked then, and this is their plan now. Most of America has checked out and moved on. I hope I'm wrong.

If I were Pelosi I would have waited until after the whistleblower testified, or was prevented from doing so before formally making a declaration, just to make sure I didn't stake the entire process on a pig in a poke. She may know some details about the complaint that aren't public knowledge, so I'll remain cautiously optimistic.

 

[ivwshane]

I agree - the Trump base alone won’t be enough for re-election, I was more pointing to the fact that there’s a seemingly impenetrable barrier of voters who will ignore reality so long as this administration tows the line of god, guns, abortions, immigration and packing the courts with conservatives. The real test will be how many voters who previously pulled the lever for “burn it down” and “drain the swamp” realize they were completely lied to by a con man.

No, the real test will be whether or not people care enough to get out and vote. Voter participation was around 55%, if I remember correctly, under the circumstances it needs to be 70%+!

 

[VRAMdemon]

The transcript is released. And for an exculpatory document, it's pretty damning. Trump asking the president directly to work with Barr and Giuliani to investigate Biden.

"The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great."

And yet, I can see why Trump thinks it was a perfect phone call:

* He's told that Ukraine is learning from Trump and draining the swamp
* He's told that foreign leaders are staying at his hotels
* He's told that Merkel sucks
* He's told that Rudy has a direct line to a foreign president

I seriously wonder what Ukrainians are thinking, since their president has been exposed as such a MAGA sycophant.

When I read those in the transcript I genuinely laughed. That Ukrainian president is pretty smart. He knows that the way to Trump's heart is through flattery and he layered it on so thick it would seem awkward to anyone else but Trump.

Hard to see how he is not impeached. Then, let each GOP senator go on the record saying that this shit is just peachy.

 

[interchange]

If this is Trump's best defense... Well, damn!

 

[Jhhnn]

They will release a redacted and edited transcript that makes it not that bad. Then they will release a redacted report that makes it worse, but they've already set the stage. Then when the full report comes out and is damning, it will seem to be not all that terrible.

We already saw this with the Mueller report. It worked then, and this is their plan now. Most of America has checked out and moved on. I hope I'm wrong.

If I were Pelosi I would have waited until after the whistleblower testified, or was prevented from doing so before formally making a declaration, just to make sure I didn't stake the entire process on a pig in a poke. She may know some details about the complaint that aren't public knowledge, so I'll remain cautiously optimistic.

The act of withholding the whistleblower report is a violation of the law regardless of the content.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

If this is Trump's best defense... Well, damn!

Well the Mueller report cleared him of obstruction too.

I don't want to know how his mind works and I have no desire to engage in empathy. It is a shame that humans can become so twisted and worse that they can use that to their advantage with the gullible. We're too... human sometimes.

 

[VRAMdemon]

If this is Trump's best defense... Well, damn!

Have you always wanted to intimidate the leader of a foreign country? Want to imitate your favorite political leader and bully your way through diplomacy?

Then call 1-999-TALK-TUF and threaten a foreign leader with loss of defense funding if he won't do your bidding! Get political concessions, frame your opponents, or just show off to the world! Call 1-999-TALK-TUF and you can let your narcissistic impulses run free!

Call 1-999-TALK-TUF now! Dictators are standing by!