It was referred by the feds. It is now a state projectFolks keep mentioning the New York state AG. So far this raid seems to be a purely federal project. How does the state get tied into the info obtained?
What about a mandate that a single party can attain no more than, say, 40% of electoral college votes?Any system where 51% of the vote gives you 100% of the representation will strongly trend towards only two viable parties in any given election. The lack of a viable third party is a consequence of our voting system, which I find it unlikely people will change. (Ranked choice!)
I thought the Mueller team referred it to the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York?It was referred by the feds. It is now a state project
No, you're right on that I think. It's the closest thing we've had to an attempted ... coup? or attempt at dictatorial overthrow? or whatever you'd call it when the head of the executive branch basically usurps 'the everything'. Nixon would have been second, I guess.
As sad as it is to say, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the situation got 'handled' by some random citizen. I really, really don't want something like that to be the final news headline of this dumpster fire.
Deadman switch, I like the cut of your jib.In my mind some secret service or fired aid/advisor pulls a Frank Underwood and he takes a long dive down a set of very hard steps.
But in relation to Mueller, I hope he has his obstruction report already signed and prepared with big note that says "Tear open in event of firing". Inside is his report that basically lays out everything with a final note that says "If he fires me or a DoJ employee that oversees the special council in attempt to stop this investigation, it is our opinion it is a clear cut obstruction case and and recommend immediate action by congress".
Oh and that packet is mailed out to every major news outlet.
You are right, my mistake. SDNY is still federal just outside the purview of the special counselI thought the Mueller team referred it to the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York?
It was referred by the feds. It is now a state project
I feel like there's other options, it needs to be developed by very, very smart minds though. Implementing changes to how our government works, in terms of either additional checks/balances, limits to certain aspects of certain groups, or even fundamental changes in requirements such as always requiring at minimum a 3 party system could potentially limit the capability of something like this happening again. And by 'something like this' I'm more generally talking... not just the pres firing the DAG to avoid his own investigation.
I do feel like that needs to be an immediate and clear statement by congress though. A president flatly cannot obstruct justice on investigations toward him, or any that may have colluded to him. If someone's under investigation, the pres should *not* be able to halt that investigation. I would include pardons in that.
In my mind some secret service or fired aid/advisor pulls a Frank Underwood and he takes a long dive down a set of very hard steps.
But in relation to Mueller, I hope he has his obstruction report already signed and prepared with big note that says "Tear open in event of firing". Inside is his report that basically lays out everything with a final note that says "If he fires me or a DoJ employee that oversees the special council in attempt to stop this investigation, it is our opinion it is a clear cut obstruction case and and recommend immediate action by congress".
Oh and that packet is mailed out to every major news outlet.
This is developing splendidly. Really, all this moron had to do is not fire Comey. Instead he keeps doubling down on stupid.
Separate entity but they hear federal criminal casesNo, not really. This was a request by Mueller and approved by Rosenstein. It was then referred to the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office, which is entirely an entity of the Federal Government. It's not the NY AG, it's a US Attorney IN NY. It is confusing.
I was thinking that this is pretty much what the raid was about: orders and recommendation already written, they just needed to get the hard evidence that they already knew was there (informants), in hand. He would have a few days buffer, minimum, to add to the recommendations, photocopy, stuff some envelopes, hand them to the proper people, then sit back and open that bottle of 30 year Macallan, while loosely monitoring Twitter.
Separate entity but they hear federal criminal cases
No, you're right on that I think. It's the closest thing we've had to an attempted ... coup? or attempt at dictatorial overthrow? or whatever you'd call it when the head of the executive branch basically usurps 'the everything'. Nixon would have been second, I guess.
As sad as it is to say, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the situation got 'handled' by some random citizen. I really, really don't want something like that to be the final news headline of this dumpster fire.
Congress can create a law that firing IC investigating same entity is auto admission of obstruction of justice.So the solution would be to disallow the POTUS from removing any of his at-will appointees? That tells me we've created a problem without a good solution and the actual structure for this should be Independent Counsel reports to a branch other than the Executive. I'll be the first to admit that's likely an impractical solution in terms of implementation, but it's likewise impractical to make an Executive branch appointee an essentially unfire-able due to political considerations. Either the appointee is subject to at-will termination by the POTUS or they aren't and making it a situation where answering that in the affirmative causes a constitutional crisis then that's a crisis of our own poor design and lack of prior planning.
Behind the scenes in special counsel office:
Congress can create a law that firing IC investigating same entity is auto admission of obstruction of justice.
I dunno, maybe the firing of an at-will appointee/appointees should also come with the resignation from the position of POTUS, since it's clearly gotten bad enough that the POTUS had to retract his own appointees, suggesting he's unfit for the position of running the executive branch due to his inability to recommend/appoint quality people.So the solution would be to disallow the POTUS from removing any of his at-will appointees? That tells me we've created a problem without a good solution and the actual structure for this should be Independent Counsel reports to a branch other than the Executive. I'll be the first to admit that's likely an impractical solution in terms of implementation, but it's likewise impractical to make an Executive branch appointee an essentially unfire-able due to political considerations. Either the appointee is subject to at-will termination by the POTUS or they aren't and making it a situation where answering that in the affirmative causes a constitutional crisis then that's a crisis of our own poor design and lack of prior planning.
So the solution would be to disallow the POTUS from removing any of his at-will appointees? That tells me we've created a problem without a good solution and the actual structure for this should be Independent Counsel reports to a branch other than the Executive. I'll be the first to admit that's likely an impractical solution in terms of implementation, but it's likewise impractical to make an Executive branch appointee an essentially unfire-able due to political considerations. Either the appointee is subject to at-will termination by the POTUS or they aren't and making it a situation where answering that in the affirmative causes a constitutional crisis then that's a crisis of our own poor design and lack of prior planning.
Is there a way to simply write in that the disbanding of a special council requires a passing vote in both the senate and house? POTUS still has the ability to impede by selecting an AG that can limit the counsel scope and impede access to resources. But the AG (or acting AG) doesn't have to be in the position of being the person that has to kill the counsel. The fact that we've faced this twice now in the last 50 years means we should probably look into it better.