Trump calls 'treason' on Comey, McCabe and 'a number of people'
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Trump calls 'treason' on Comey, McCabe and 'a number of people'
Dylan Stableford 15 hours agoPresident Trump on Thursday escalated his attacks on those involved in launching the federal investigation into his campaign’s contacts with Russia, saying “a number of people” should be tried for treason.
He also delivered what he thinks should be the verdict: Guilty.
Among them: former FBI Director James Comey; ex-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe; Peter Strzok, the deputy assistant director of counterintelligence; and Lisa Page, an FBI attorney who was romantically involved with Strzok at the time the probe began in 2016.
Speaking to reporters at a White House event announcing aid for farmers and ranchers hurt by China’s trade policies in retaliation for American tariffs, Trump was asked which officials he specifically believes are guilty of treason.
“I think a number of people,” Trump said. “They have unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person. If you look at Comey, if you look at McCabe, if you look at probably people higher than that, if you look at Strzok, if you look at his lover, Lisa Page, his wonderful lover.”
Politically motivated investigations meant “to take down the wrong person,” if they occurred — all the people Trump mentioned deny it — are not grounds for a charge of treason, according to the U.S. Constitution, which says in Article III: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
The president and his allies have frequently pointed to texts exchanged between Strzok and Page — published last year by the Senate Homeland Security Committee — saying they showed bias against Trump.
Trump at the White House on Thursday. (Photo: Carlos Barria/Reuters)
In one exchange, the pair discussed having “an insurance policy” should Trump win the 2016 election over Hillary Clinton.
“Should she lose, we’ll have an insurance policy and get this guy out of office,” Trump said, misquoting the text. “That’s what they said and that’s what they meant. That’s treason. That’s treason.”
Strzok and Page testified that the “insurance policy” reference had to do with seriousness with which they were approaching the investigation — and nothing to do with stopping Trump from becoming president or his removal from office.
Trump said the ongoing congressional investigations into his conduct are similar, though he stopped short of calling them treasonous.
“That’s what’s happening right now, without the ‘treason’ word I guess, but that’s what’s happening now,” he said. “They don’t feel they can win the election, so they’re trying to do the thousand stabs. Keep stabbing.”
Trump added: “I would think, seriously, that Bob Mueller and his group of 18 killers have gone over my taxes. They’ve gone over my financial statements to a level that no one has gone over them before. And they were not discussed [in the Mueller report]. They weren’t even brought up.”
It is not known to the public whether Mueller did in fact obtain Trump’s tax returns, which the president has refused to disclose. That is believed to be one of the questions congressional investigators want to ask Mueller, in testimony they have requested ever since his report was filed.
Trump, who originally said he had no objection to Mueller’s appearance, is now trying to block his testimony.
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“I think a number of people,” Trump said. “They have unsuccessfully tried to take down the wrong person. If you look at Comey, if you look at McCabe, if you look at probably people higher than that, if you look at Strzok, if you look at his lover, Lisa Page, his wonderful lover.”
Politically motivated investigations meant “to take down the wrong person,” if they occurred — all the people Trump mentioned deny it — are not grounds for a charge of treason, according to the U.S. Constitution, which says in Article III: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
The president and his allies have frequently pointed to texts exchanged between Strzok and Page — published last year by the Senate Homeland Security Committee — saying they showed bias against Trump.
In one exchange, the pair discussed having “an insurance policy” should Trump win the 2016 election over Hillary Clinton.
“Should she lose, we’ll have an insurance policy and get this guy out of office,” Trump said, misquoting the text. “That’s what they said and that’s what they meant. That’s treason. That’s treason.”
Strzok and Page testified that the “insurance policy” reference had to do with seriousness with which they were approaching the investigation — and nothing to do with stopping Trump from becoming president or his removal from office.
Trump said the ongoing congressional investigations into his conduct are similar, though he stopped short of calling them treasonous.
Not sure what we should call the actions of the left to overturn the election of Trump....treason and sedition are probably a bit too strong, but they were definitely illegal and devious. We'll let Barr and Durham figure it all out. Now that Durham is in the mix, Mueller is afraid to speak up because of what happened before.
The Perils and Opportunities of Mueller’s Testimony
There is a substantial and impatient audience both within and outside Congress for Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s testimony on the Russia investigation. The House judiciary committee is negotiating for Mueller to appear, and while the Trump administration is busily objecting to other appearances, such as that of former White House Counsel Don McGahn, it seems prepared to relent in the case of Mueller. President Trump has tweeted out his unhappiness about a potential appearance by Mueller, but he also stated that the decision rests with Attorney General William Barr. And Barr recently declared that whether Mueller appears will be the special counsel’s “call.” In any event, there is now a settled expectation that the Russia investigation cannot come to a close until Congress has heard from Robert Mueller.
It turns out that, according to press reports, Mueller has his own reservations. The New York Times reports that the judiciary committee’s negotiations with Mueller have gone slowly. Moreover, “House aides involved in the report say they have gotten the sense that Mr. Mueller, and some of his aides, would rather let his written report speak for itself than push him into the partisan fray.” Under discussion between the special counsel and the House majority are possible limits on his testimony, including portions delivered in closed session.
This news should prompt close attention to the role Mueller can most constructively play from this moment on, now that he has concluded his inquiry and written his report. The time may have arrived to phase out the intense focus—the “Mueller-centricity”—that has so long dominated the debate over the Russia-Trump campaign alliance and the president’s acts of obstruction.
What worries Mueller about the requested testimony? Of course, he fears the political circus: a hearing in which the majority and minority clash with Mueller caught in the middle and unable to deliver a clear or coherent narrative. Rather than clarify issues and questions left open in the report, the hearing could compound the confusion and supply ammunition for another round of unedifying political claims and counterclaims. He may also worry that classified information cannot be adequately protected in this setting. He could be asked questions he cannot answer in public, with the result that he may appear evasive or that his refusal to respond will encourage irresponsible interpretations of the reasons for his silence.
The testimony also would not be entirely congruent with the conception of the special counsel’s role as defined by the governing regulations, which anticipate that the special counsel will set forth his conclusions only to the attorney general. Unlike the independent counsel model, Mueller does not have independent obligations to disclose information to Congress or the public, nor does he have the discretion to determine those parts of his work he might provide outside the Department of Justice. Of course, Congress has every right to call for his testimony, and it has done so. But when he does appear, he will be stepping outside the role envisioned for the counsel. This may add to Mueller’s discomfort as a law enforcement professional known to prefer “going by the book.”
For these reasons, when Mueller does testify, he may decline to part significantly from the material presented in his report. He wrote what he wrote. It is worth recalling that when Mueller sent Barr a letter questioning the attorney general’s four-page summary of the report, he stressed the language of the report itself. From his standpoint, what he had already written, in the final report that he submitted to the attorney general, was the best statement of his findings. It would be curious if the scrupulous Mueller would take the occasion of public testimony to riff on his report. It is far more likely that he would stick to the script.
If he largely uses any testimony to rephrase what appears in his report, critics of Trump may become enraged that, one more time, Mueller left them disappointed. Republicans intent on diverting attention from the damaging material in the report will revel in this disappointment.
By contrast, if Mueller decides to elaborate on his conclusions, the outcome may not be any more productive. Democrats may push him to put the finest possible point on those elaborations while Republicans accuse him of going beyond his brief. Then the country will face the inevitable if misleading charge that Mueller has editorialized in the style of James Comey’s press conference comments decrying Hillary Clinton’s “carelessness.” For the first time in his investigation, Mueller will have been made a party to a press event not of his own choosing, and any comments he offers beyond the ground covered in his report will open him up, however unfairly, to the claims that he is a prosecutor “gone rogue.” The outcome of all this could be less, not more, public clarity about Mueller’s conclusions.
This is not to suggest in any way that Mueller should not testify. It is to strike a note of caution about importance to be attached to that testimony. Mueller did his job and laid out at length, in more than 400 pages, his analysis and the conclusions he was prepared to reach. Now Congress has its own responsibilities, which Mueller should not be expected to assume on its behalf. As Walter Dellinger has pointed out , Mueller’s report contains massive amounts of material upon which Congress can make various investigative and oversight judgments.
Those judgments can include the initiation of an impeachment inquiry, or escalation in that direction if Congress cannot overcome, through negotiation and accommodation, the administration’s refusal to cooperate with its investigation. If Congress elects not to pursue impeachment, it still has the option of censure, a response to the Mueller report that has generally underrated potential. A carefully structured censure resolution puts Congress on record on the activities that should not, for want of congressional action, pass as acceptable.
So, yes, Mueller should testify, but expectations should be set realistically, and Congress should not suggest that it is overly dependent on that testimony in its assessment of the import of his findings or the next steps in responding to them.
There is one clear public service that Mueller could render with his testimony and which would present none of the problems that seem to be troubling him as he negotiates his appearance with the House. He could reflect on his experience operating under the current special counsel rules.
Written to provide for an independent law enforcement function in cases like this one without the excesses of the old independent counsel statute, the regulations do not provide for the special counsel to report directly to Congress or the public, or to identify and assess potential grounds for impeachment. They provide some but not extensive guidance on the scope of the attorney general’s supervision.
This is the question Mueller could be asked that he could freely and constructively answer: Given the purposes of the regulations, how would you consider revising them in the light of experience to better achieve those objectives?
Most critically, Mueller could clarify the impact on the special counsel’s work of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinions that purport to immunize the president from criminal prosecution while in office. When addressing this issue, he will almost certainly seek to avoid being baited into suggesting that, but for the opinions, he would or would not have prosecuted the president on this record. But he can provide useful information on the ways in which the opinions could be clarified or improved, with particular attention to his view that they blocked him from reaching a final conclusion about the obstruction issues. He might be asked, for example, whether he checked with OLC on his reading of the opinions and the limits that, in his view, they imposed.
In this way, Mueller’s testimony could provide an opportunity to look ahead, not only back, and help with the next stage in the difficult task of designing procedures to hold presidents and other senior executive branch officials accountable for compliance with the law. The independent counsel rules did not work for one set of reasons; now, for different reasons, the special counsel rules have also been shown to be flawed. Robert Mueller can help fix them.
What did 'the left' do that was illegal? I've asked this basic question multiple times and never receive an answer.
You're forgetting Huber's investigation that has been going on for over a year. That one should be wrapped up pretty quick here.
bs. you just ignore the answers.
cheers
Everything you said is not true.
your first problem with that comment?
everything I said is true.
the second problem with your comment?
I do not listen to traitors or people who support traitors. scum of the earth
luckily for me, as always, time will prove all. I was not wrong when I said these investigations were coming OVER 2 yrs ago and im not wrong about where those investigations will end up either.
now give me one of your infamous wack attacks for old times sake?
cheers
Everything you said is a lie.
I usually don't pay attention to whackjobs.
Why would anybody in their right mind not be prejudiced against Trump? He's prejudiced against everybody else.
This is the true 'underbelly' of MAGA. The right wing--being led by the Kremlin--is using ( its ) trump card.
Treason is a harsh word to use. Trump uses it freely. Why? Deflection? Projection? Or instructed?
Ignorance?
Willful ignorance in his case.
It's not President trump like you and a lot of people are supposing, it's KING trump, "ruler of the free world" and thus anything that isn't glowing praise or a testament of his divinity, is therefore treason. Anybody that has ever said anything "bad" to his royalness, anybody who has ever disagreed or ever said "no," or any female who turned him down for a date or didn't at least let him have a grope or looked at him without a expression of obedience and worship is guilty of treason.
It's much easier to understand if you think of it that way.
Putin telled him so, so there.
That shameful, embarrassing display at the WH yesterday when Shitbag lined up his toadies and had them each take a turn lying about and praising his behavior is the kind of thing tin pot dictators love to do. Shitbag has turned our executive branch into a global laughing-stock.
'That shameful, embarrassing display at the WH yesterday when Shitbag lined up his toadies and had them each take a turn lying about and praising his behavior is the kind of thing tin pot dictators love to do. Shitbag has turned our executive branch into a global laughing-stock.'
Trump responded on Thursday by going on what can only be described as a Pelosi rant, at a White House event for farmers and ranchers. He began by showing the nation that he was in full possession of his faculties, contrary to the House speaker’s insinuation, by proclaiming: “I am an extremely stable genius.”
Then he proceeded to counter Pelosi’s claim that he had “flipped out” and had a “tempter tantrum” at Wednesday’s aborted meeting by insisting he had been calm. “I was so calm. I was extremely calm.”
Lest there was any remaining doubt that he was entirely calm in the face of Pelosi’s provocations, he paraded in front of the cameras a long line of White House staffers including his counselor Kellyanne Conway, strategic communications chief Mercedes Schlapp, press secretary Sarah Sanders and others and invited them to provide eye-witness accounts of his calmness.
Conway: “Very calm … you were very calm.”
Sanders: “Very calm.”
Schlapp: “You were very calm.”
“I couldn’t have been more calm,” Trump concluded. In the course of the function Trump had uttered the word “calm” in a preternaturally calm voice to America’s bemused farmers and ranchers no fewer than nine times.
Cannot imagine a self-respecting individual using words to genuflect before our President...but there it was!
This farmer/rancher is pretty sure that Trump is stupid and insane.
And the media and the left wingers just hang onto his every word and can't resist repeating and posting them over and over.
Trump has the idiotic left wing right where he wants them. They are the true laughing stocks of the world.
Actually the vast majority of the world can't stand Trump. America has lost prestige thanks to Trump's ongoing idiocy.
[delete]
When he out right asked at a rally for Russia to hack HRC, that IS treason imo.
Hillary asked Russia to find dirt on Trump....imagine that!
Where is the outrage?
I think both of them made the comments jokingly.
Some things you should not joke about.
Oh wait, Hillary actually did try to get dirt on Trump from Russia.
there is a difference between being facetious and being treasonous.
hint: cracking a joke is not the same as fabricating an investigation to remove a sitting president.
cheers
sorry, ya got no time outs left on the clock.
they are all going down - no debates even matter anymore.
personally?
I have been waiting near 50yrs to see the treasonous globalists fall.
and it is going to be awesome
Pretty sure that air and ocean travel makes everything global. How is that treasonous?
global trade is not treasonous nor is it "globalism"
all your word games aside... and just so ya know...
fabricating evidence to oust a sitting president? that is treason.
trump stopping the globalists agenda? that is priceless/
but seriously... if you do not know the difference between globalism and global trade your not qualified to have this discussion
cheers
Just so you know
Article 3 Section 3 US Constitution: "Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."
I'm not seeing your definition anywhere in there. Where are you getting yours from? Is it from the GCG? (General Conservative Gut) Or the more frequently accessed by Republicans, the DTR? (Donald Trumps Rectum). It seems far closer to draw the comparison of Trump and his cohorts "adhering to" our "enemies" and giving them "aid and comfort". Russia attacked us and Trump and company bent over backwards to thank them. That's treason.
"A total of 251 contacts between Trump’s team and Russia-linked operatives have been identified , including at least 37 meetings. And we know that at least 33 high-ranking campaign officials and Trump advisers were aware of contacts with Russia-linked operatives during the campaign and transition, including Trump himself . None of these contacts were ever reported to the proper authorities. Instead, the Trump team tried to cover up every single one of them."
“the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference .”
After reading that timeline it's hard to imagine that the investigation was all predicated on "fabricated evidence". The Steele dossier, while much remains uncorroborated or was found that it couldn't be corroborated, there was much of it that was. All the details about Aleksej Gubarev and his botnet scheme were found true (even though he tried to claim it was all false and sued, the case was thrown out) as well as the numerous contacts it detailed between Trump associates and Russians or pro-Russian Ukrainians.
So they legally investigated and while they were unable to find concrete evidence of criminal conspiracy, as the Mueller report specifies, because " lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference" , it doesn't mean they didn't find anything. They also detail at least 10 accounts where Trump attempted to obstruct their investigation into those Russian contacts, and while the justice department felt a sitting President can't be indicted and thus didn't want to make a conclusion as to obstruction, they left a clear roadmap for congress to do their job and expose this lying piece of garbage for what he really is, a small minded moron scared out of his mind, running around the white house ordering everyone to jump on the imaginary grenades to protect him.
that will not be a problem for long. all will be revealed in time. and in the end everyone will know what's what and who's who.
your not afraid of a little transparency are you? seems the dems are very afraid.
all those who yelled the loudest? have the most to lose. politician and media talking heads alike.
even nadler is feeling the heat.
cheers
You are missing the point.....Some things you don't joke about in front of his sheeple.
everything can be joked about at any time.
hint: people generally do not conspire with russians during a public speech.
they she used private servers for things like that.
cheers
it is only the left who thinks he was serious...
so maybe we should not crack jokes around the left instead.
their highly educated brains cannot handle sarcasm very well.
That leaves you out, of everything.
American's applauding the derisive language being used and broadcasted by our President and elected leaders truly grieves me. We've become a nation of ill-mannered, self-centered adults providing the worst possible example for our children and grandchildren.
What are we teaching? Lies are fine, trampling over your fellow man with words is how we prove your manhood or womanhood. Counter punching, the nastier the better, has become the norm in our society. Our continued emboldenment of nasty, as good behavior, is driving the values and morality of our kids into the sewers.
This is the President of the United States of America, not some thug running a street gang. If you're applauding, stop! Just stop.
Don't have kids, but if I did, I would warn them about being anything like Trump.
There was a time to oppose the King was treason in America. Before 1776 it was.
Today, in America, it is on par with treason to not oppose The King of Vulgarians...
Problem being that there is still a line that can't be crossed without going to prison. This president has crossed it.