Schiff Issues Subpoena for Whistleblower Complaint Being Unlawfully Withheld

[dainthomas]

How much you wanna bet that if the whistleblower turns out to be a woman, Trump calls her "nasty"

And something about her looks.

 

[rommelrommel]

How much you wanna bet that if the whistleblower turns out to be a woman, Trump calls her "nasty"

That’s not even a bet, that’s just a law.

 

[K1052]

I knew Rudy is nuts but he's going full on mega unhinged. This lunatic represents the president.

Even among the president’s closest allies, Giuliani is now the subject of scorn. When I reached him by phone this morning, following House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff’s release of the full whistle-blower complaint at the center of the Ukraine scandal, he was, put simply, very angry.

“It is impossible that the whistle-blower is a hero and I’m not. And I will be the hero! These morons—when this is over, I will be the hero,” Giuliani told me.

“I’m not acting as a lawyer. I’m acting as someone who has devoted most of his life to straightening out government,” he continued, sounding out of breath. “Anything I did should be praised.”

This morning, a former senior White House official told me this “entire thing,” referring to the Ukraine scandal, was “Rudy putting shit in Trump’s head.” A senior House Republican aide bashed Giuliani, telling me he was a “moron.” Both individuals spoke on condition of anonymity in order to be candid.

“They’re a bunch of cowards,” Giuliani told me in response. “I didn’t do anything wrong. The president knows they’re a bunch of cowards.”

When I asked him about this specifically, Giuliani nearly began shouting into the telephone. “The State Department is concerned about my activities? I gotta believe [the whistle-blower] is totally out of the loop, or just a liar,” he said.
Giuliani went on to say that State Department officials had asked for his assistance. “If they were so concerned about my activities, why did they ask for my help? Why did they send me a bunch of friendly text messages reaching out for my help, thanking me for my help?” Giuliani said he planned to make sure these “friendly text messages” came out “in a longer story.”

Giuliani has no intention, however, of slowing the smear campaign. “If this guy is a whistle-blower, then I’m a whistle-blower too,” Giuliani said. “You should be happy for your country that I uncovered this.”

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/giuliani-ukraine-trump-biden/598879/

 

[hal2kilo]

"I could shoot a whistleblower on 5th avenue......"

He's testing that theory now. He gonna lose.

 

[hal2kilo]

I knew Rudy is nuts but he's going full on mega unhinged. This lunatic represents the president.











https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/giuliani-ukraine-trump-biden/598879/

He keeps it up, he may become the next investigation.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

I knew Rudy is nuts but he's going full on mega unhinged. This lunatic represents the president.











https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/giuliani-ukraine-trump-biden/598879/

"DID YOU ORDER THE CODE RED"

 

[Fanatical Meat]

From what I’ve heard and what I sort of know wasn’t part of Nixon’s problems come from transcripts redirected so much that the appeared to have different context?
Didn’t Nixon edit some transcripts?

What are the odds some of the current Presidents transcripts have sharpie pen writing added in?

**im not old enough to remember Nixon but I am old enough to remember some of the news reporting years later**

 

[UNCjigga]

From what I’ve heard and what I sort of know wasn’t part of Nixon’s problems come from transcripts redirected so much that the appeared to have different context?
Didn’t Nixon edit some transcripts?

What are the odds some of the current Presidents transcripts have sharpie pen writing added in?

**im not old enough to remember Nixon but I am old enough to remember some of the news reporting years later**

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing, but I do remember that Nixon famously hired a deaf Congressman to transcribe the actual audio tapes.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing, but I do remember that Nixon famously hired a deaf Congressman to transcribe the actual audio tapes.

Could be that, however I thought there were some “edits” made to the tapes.
Maybe I’m wrong.

 

[Sunburn74]

You're only dealing with half the issue here. Yes we need to protect whistleblowers, that's what the law was intended to do. Sure it might need to be changed.

The bigger picture issue we need to deal with was creating a mechanism for malfeasance in government to be reported to another independent branch where it can be investigated. This whistleblower complaint was sorta a back way of doing that and even so wasn't really a great avenue for doing that. The concern that needs to be addressed isn't the whistleblower being fired (although that's something we need to do for moral reasons) but rather the existing laws and checks and balances could prevent someone trying to prevent alerting others about a POTUS doing this stuff altogether. Separation of powers and executive privilege was almost successful in having Trump's actions never seen daylight.

The simple fact of the matter is executive privilege doesn't cover criminal activity. The complaint was regarding criminal activity. There was no reason to even give consideration to the OLC and their opinion regarding whether it could be disclosed or not.

 

[zinfamous]

From what I’ve heard and what I sort of know wasn’t part of Nixon’s problems come from transcripts redirected so much that the appeared to have different context?
Didn’t Nixon edit some transcripts?

What are the odds some of the current Presidents transcripts have sharpie pen writing added in?

**im not old enough to remember Nixon but I am old enough to remember some of the news reporting years later**

the main thing with Nixon is "Lordy, there were tapes."

But I don't think he edited any of them. The particularly damning bit was his request to Halderman to ask the FBI to stop the investigation.

That was the actual smoking gun. That one request inspired 4 or 5 GOP leaders, the very next day that it was discovered, to walk over to the WH (Saturday, I think this was), to tell him that they no longer supported him and he no longer had support in Congress to protect him from certain impeachment and conviction. He resigned 2 days later, I think.

...and now today. Trump has admitted to the same exact thing, in public, multiple times, for 2 years now. GOP won't do a fucking thing. He's now admitted to more. He's admitted to dealing with foreign leaders to influence our election in his favor. He's openly requested the same assistance to randomly interfere. He's now threatening execution of those that have made his crimes public.

He needs to be out of office last year.

 

[hal2kilo]

Not sure if we're talking about the same thing, but I do remember that Nixon famously hired a deaf Congressman to transcribe the actual audio tapes.

Yep, that's what happened. I lived through that history.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

Nixon did edit some transcripts, just saw this

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/25/trump-ukraine-that-time-nixon-released-doctored-transcripts-during-watergate/%3foutputType=amp

 

[interchange]

I actually agree with the Republicans on the committee about one thing—the whistleblower law does not explicitly deal with matters of executive privilege. Maguire acted within the confines of the law. You could say it was poor judgement to reach out to White House lawyers and OLC if they were involved in the complaint, but there was no other authority to provide DNI with counsel.

I may eat these words later, but at this point in time I think Maguire would make a decent permanent DNI.

This is the part that I can't understand and don't know the details. There are 2 things that I think have been proposed, and I couldn't listen to the testimony and don't know if this has been classified.
1. Maguire consulted with DOJ who stated that either it wasn't actually urgent or that it didn't fit under the whistleblower law because he wasn't actually intelligence that was being reported. The latter at least makes potential sense as a legal conflict. But if this is true in any fashion it is ludicrous for Maguire to seek DOJ input given the whistleblower complaint explicitly mentions the likelihood that Barr was involved.
2. Maguire went to White House Counsel who made some suggestion that the complaint covers material that may be under executive privilege. This I don't understand as they need to explicitly state they are asserting privilege, and that would absolve him from legal culpability as they are making the assertion. It is not his responsibility or DOJs responsibility to determine whether executive privilege applies.

The only possibility I can see that makes any sense to me as I agree Maguire seemed honest and genuinely interested in protecting the whistleblower is that Maguire just was innocent in letting White House counsel freeze his actions, stringing him along about asserting privilege. If so, this is a major mistake and makes me hesitant to support him going forward.

 

[interchange]

Overall, I think after it became clear the whistleblower account wasn't going to be kept away from Congress, Trump's administration decided to let Trump hang himself. Truly I think Trump believes he has done nothing wrong and thought that the transcript would support it. They are realizing the only thing you need to do to end Trump is not try to stop him from ending himself. Either that or we are royally fucked as a nation.

 

[Jhhnn]

I knew Rudy is nuts but he's going full on mega unhinged. This lunatic represents the president.











https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/giuliani-ukraine-trump-biden/598879/

Rudy is going under the bus & he knows it. It's great that other Trump sycophants are helping to put him there, too. That's how it all falls apart, when they turn on each other to save their own skins.

 

[hal2kilo]

This is the part that I can't understand and don't know the details. There are 2 things that I think have been proposed, and I couldn't listen to the testimony and don't know if this has been classified.
1. Maguire consulted with DOJ who stated that either it wasn't actually urgent or that it didn't fit under the whistleblower law because he wasn't actually intelligence that was being reported. The latter at least makes potential sense as a legal conflict. But if this is true in any fashion it is ludicrous for Maguire to seek DOJ input given the whistleblower complaint explicitly mentions the likelihood that Barr was involved.
2. Maguire went to White House Counsel who made some suggestion that the complaint covers material that may be under executive privilege. This I don't understand as they need to explicitly state they are asserting privilege, and that would absolve him from legal culpability as they are making the assertion. It is not his responsibility or DOJs responsibility to determine whether executive privilege applies.

The only possibility I can see that makes any sense to me as I agree Maguire seemed honest and genuinely interested in protecting the whistleblower is that Maguire just was innocent in letting White House counsel freeze his actions, stringing him along about asserting privilege. If so, this is a major mistake and makes me hesitant to support him going forward.

I'm kind of torn on

Nixon did edit some transcripts, just saw this

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.washingtonpost.com/history/2019/09/25/trump-ukraine-that-time-nixon-released-doctored-transcripts-during-watergate/%3foutputType=amp

Yes, the article refreshed my memory. I was thinking it was limited to lots of redactions, but I forgot that they thought it would be bad to hear Nixon curse, so most of that was edited.

 

[ivwshane]

the main thing with Nixon is "Lordy, there were tapes."

But I don't think he edited any of them. The particularly damning bit was his request to Halderman to ask the FBI to stop the investigation.

That was the actual smoking gun. That one request inspired 4 or 5 GOP leaders, the very next day that it was discovered, to walk over to the WH (Saturday, I think this was), to tell him that they no longer supported him and he no longer had support in Congress to protect him from certain impeachment and conviction. He resigned 2 days later, I think.

...and now today. Trump has admitted to the same exact thing, in public, multiple times, for 2 years now. GOP won't do a fucking thing. He's now admitted to more. He's admitted to dealing with foreign leaders to influence our election in his favor. He's openly requested the same assistance to randomly interfere. He's now threatening execution of those that have made his crimes public.

He needs to be out of office last year.

I think the lesson Republicans learned after Nixon was that if you stick together and do not break ranks you can get away with anything. Had the Democrats not won the house, they would be absolutely right.

The GOP is not only corrupt and not only supports a corrupt president but their loyalty is to their party not to their country. They are traitors to our democracy.

 

[sportage]

However, Richard Nixon had political morals, some what.
He eventually respected the will of the people and the process and when Nixon realized he'd be impeached, he quit.
Donald Trump, on the other hand, will continue to lie, twist, go bat shet crazy, and threaten every republican around him that they better remain loyal, or else.
Heck, Trump will probably force his fellow supportive republicans to wear a body cam. Including Melania.
Like the wicked witch of the west, Donald Trump is slowly melting... melting.... melting.... away.
He looks terrible, looks sad, has lost his cheery personality that we loved so dearly.
Is anyone concerned that when Trump goes down, he will take everyone down with him?
Trump may press "THE BUTTON" and take the entire world with him. Or, take Nancy Pelosi hostage. Or god forbid, shave Mike Pence head TOTALLY BALD.
Whatever Trump ends up doing for revenge, it won't be pretty.
In Trump's mind, if he has to pay then everyone has to pay, the ultimate price.
Isn't that how a cult leader reacts? To force the people to drink the kool-aid?
Democrats finally have what they have always wanted ever since Donald Trump took office, the smoking gun.
Now, will democrats survive to enjoy the moment? Or, will Trump take that all away in a huge fireball?

 

[Homerboy]

"DID YOU ORDER THE CODE RED"

Funny, that's exactly how I was reading Rudy's responses. In Jack's voice barking back.

 

[Jhhnn]

This is the part that I can't understand and don't know the details. There are 2 things that I think have been proposed, and I couldn't listen to the testimony and don't know if this has been classified.
1. Maguire consulted with DOJ who stated that either it wasn't actually urgent or that it didn't fit under the whistleblower law because he wasn't actually intelligence that was being reported. The latter at least makes potential sense as a legal conflict. But if this is true in any fashion it is ludicrous for Maguire to seek DOJ input given the whistleblower complaint explicitly mentions the likelihood that Barr was involved.
2. Maguire went to White House Counsel who made some suggestion that the complaint covers material that may be under executive privilege. This I don't understand as they need to explicitly state they are asserting privilege, and that would absolve him from legal culpability as they are making the assertion. It is not his responsibility or DOJs responsibility to determine whether executive privilege applies.

The only possibility I can see that makes any sense to me as I agree Maguire seemed honest and genuinely interested in protecting the whistleblower is that Maguire just was innocent in letting White House counsel freeze his actions, stringing him along about asserting privilege. If so, this is a major mistake and makes me hesitant to support him going forward.

Maguire tried to pocket the whistle blower complaint. That makes him complicit. Only Atkinson going around him to Congress prevented it from happening.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I'm kind of torn on

Yes, the article refreshed my memory. I was thinking it was limited to lots of redactions, but I forgot that they thought it would be bad to hear Nixon curse, so most of that was edited.

Okay that’s it. I knew I remembered something from 60 minutes(?) about edited transcripts

 

[ivwshane]

Maguire tried to pocket the whistle blower complaint. That makes him complicit. Only Atkinson going around him to Congress prevented it from happening.

I disagree. He was new to his position and was seeking guidance. His decisions were honest in their intent but wrong none the less.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

As someone else said, I really don’t think the President wants to be President anymore. His life sucks now and it was super good before becoming President.
Tons of money to roll around in, executive time that wasn’t tracked, banging porn stars.
Part of me wonders if he is subconsciously sabotaging himself.

I know I went all moonbeam on this

 

[HomerJS]

I disagree. He was new to his position and was seeking guidance. His decisions were honest in their intent but wrong none the less.

Not an excuse. All he had to do is ask "what does the law say". Once read to him complaint is to be turned over (no qualifications) you do that.

It's not complicated and for someone at his level the answer should have been obvious. He is guilty of answer shopping.