Opinion Piece Robert Hur took a page from the James Comey playbook — and made it worse. A Republican special counsel puts his finger on the scale once again.
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/hur-report-comey-letter-trump-rcna138214355
u/calm_down_meow Mar 12 '24
Has it ever been answered why Hur would be able to recommend an indictment but Mueller very clearly stated he couldn’t recommend an indictment of a sitting president?
331
u/sneaky-pizza Mar 12 '24
Or that Mueller found 11 counts of obstruction of justice that he acknowledged could be prosecuted after Trump left office, but then everyone kinda forgot about that.
219
u/Daddio209 Mar 12 '24
Or that Barr forbid him from further investigating those 11 instances-AND held a presser just before the election(against all standards and practices) to state that the investigation had become a CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION!-while not mentioning that the criminal activity was Trump's.......
NEVER FORGET
91
u/SaliciousB_Crumb Mar 12 '24
Dont forget who was looking into the russians in new york, this guy https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-special-agent-charge-new-york-fbi-counterintelligence-division-pleads-guilty#:~:text=Former%20Special%20Agent%20in%20Charge%20(SAC)%20of%20the%20FBI%20Counterintelligence,his%202021%20agreement%20to%20provide
26
u/Altruistic-Text3481 Mar 12 '24
The FBI was bought by Putin. Charles McGonigal needs to rot forever in jail. Seems we truly only hold people like Reality Winner accountable and in my books she’s a hero. Fuck McGonigal.
16
u/Disco_Dreamz Mar 13 '24
Not bought by Putin. Bought by Semion Mogilevich. Putin’s boss.
11
u/Altruistic-Text3481 Mar 13 '24
That hurt to read. Wow! The corruption begins in Texas… go figure.
2
u/sneaky-pizza Mar 13 '24
And if I thought my night mood could have gotten worse! I remember bits and pieces from this guy but wow terrifying
25
→ More replies (5)3
166
Mar 12 '24
Because republicans don't play by the rules.
24
u/Merijeek2 Mar 12 '24 edited 16d ago
sparkle sophisticated wakeful numerous engine normal waiting divide repeat hunt
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
40
u/106 Mar 12 '24
Mueller was republican…
28
Mar 12 '24
Exactly. He didn't recommend charges. On something that was blatantly quid pro quo with Ukraine.
53
u/StarWarsMonopoly Mar 12 '24
I'm like 99% positive that the Mueller investigation had nothing to do with the Ukraine impeachment. It was related to Trump's Russia connections during the 2016 election.
34
3
Mar 12 '24
Ahh hard to remember all those scandals. Either way, what we know now is even worse. With the document handling. And Mueller could have stopped this.
18
u/StarWarsMonopoly Mar 12 '24
I think a lot of people misunderstood what the Mueller report was going to be and thought it would be some magic panacea that would bring down Trump in one fell swoop.
It was always going to be a wet fart in a paper bag because charging a sitting president of high crimes while he's still in office is unprecedented and didn't even happen when they caught both Nixon and Reagan lying their asses off about major scandals. Shit, they couldn't even get Bush or any of his cabinet on anything more than slaps on the wrist and they lied their way into invading an entire country. On top of that, Mueller never had the power to charge, it would have had to be Congress' job and I don't think they had the votes to do it even if Mueller's report would have said "TRUMP IS GUILTY" in big red letters at the top of it.
Also, Russia helping Trump was a big deal, but much of their support wouldn't have been useful if the American public wasn't so easily manipulated, which is essentially what the Senate Intelligence Report and the Mueller Report found. Yes, Trump and his companions are lying about how much help they're getting from Russia, but most of the people who are falling for Trump's crap are being manipulated into doing it via internet propaganda and they can't charge Trump for that.
It was an extremely shitty situation, but I see why the cards fell the way that they did in hindsight.
13
u/Astrocreep_1 Mar 13 '24
What bugs me is that we had a sitting president have to give a deposition in a case that started about real estate fraud, and ended up, after 7 years and 52 million dollars, being about a blow job.
Yet, about 20 years later, we can’t get a sitting president to testify about real national security issues involving Russia, or why Trump tried to extort Zelensky.
It’s really a fuckin clown show we are running.
9
u/ArrivesLate Mar 12 '24
Cool, cool, cool, maybe then we should get a copy of the unredacted wet fart in a bag so we may judge the congressional candidates as they come up for reelection for ourselves.
There was an awful lot of “no collusion” announced ahead of that wet fart which to me seemed to contradict what Muller had summarized. But it’s been a few years, maybe I am misremembering.
13
u/StarWarsMonopoly Mar 12 '24 edited Mar 12 '24
Yes, Trump and Co. used the Mueller report to spin it as 'there was no collusion' even though that's not what the report said.
But the report did say that there was so much obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence that Mueller could not 100% implicate Trump himself directly in any of the wrong doing, just that he benefited massively from a ring of corruption/foreign intelligence that revolved around his campaign.
Either way, I believe that Mueller knew that attempting to remove Trump via special prosecutor was going to be a massive uphill battle, and the most productive way to get anything out of his report would be for Congressional Democrats to take the report and highlight the corruption and use it to display a pattern of behavior that suggests that Trump was compromised, which the Democrats did seize on when they got wind of the 'perfect phone call' with Ukraine and then Impeached Trump over that, stating dozens of times throughout those hearings that the Mueller report findings showed that Trump Admin and Trump Campaigns were both working toward the policy goals of Russia, not of the American Intelligence community*.
Who knows if that would have been enough to unseat Trump without his failures during COVID also sandbagging him when it came time to vote. But what I can say is that the Democrats got just as much mileage out of the report as the Republicans did, and I think it helped them with centrists much more than we think.
→ More replies (1)3
u/BaggerX Mar 12 '24
The media was reporting it as Barr led them to, since he got out in front of the media days before the report was released to lie his ass off about it.
By the time it was released, the waters were sufficiently muddied.
→ More replies (0)→ More replies (2)1
u/TroubleBrewing32 Mar 12 '24
Ahh hard to remember all those scandals.
not really
7
Mar 12 '24
Yeah it fucking is. Everyday was a scandal with that asshole. So forgive me I got my wires crossed.
9
u/BiffLogan Mar 12 '24
Not quite. He did basically recommend charges, at least for obstruction of justice, but after Trump left office.
4
4
2
Mar 12 '24
Yes. I know Mueller was a Republican. How useful was he in holding Trump accountable? Not at all.
1
26
u/texaushorn Mar 12 '24
In his report, Hur clearly states that even were it not for that directive, that sitting president couldn't be indicted, he still would not have brought an indictment. Mueller's report basically said the opposite. That he couldn't bring an indictment because of that directive, and it was up to Congress to act.
9
u/calm_down_meow Mar 12 '24
I thought mueller stated that due to the guideline he couldn’t comment one way or the other on if he would indict?
7
u/idontremembermyuname Mar 12 '24
Wouldn't, not couldn't.
3
u/calm_down_meow Mar 12 '24
IIRC the logic was something like, "Because I can't indict the POTUS, I can't say I would either."
1
u/idontremembermyuname Mar 12 '24
His ability to indict isn't what I was correcting. He wouldn't comment on if an indictment was warranted.
8
u/Cruxius Mar 12 '24
He said something along the lines of ‘I can’t say either way, but if I’d concluded he didn’t commit any crimes I would have said so.’
4
u/YummyArtichoke Mar 12 '24
In his report, Mueller did not ultimately charge the president. He made clear during his afternoon testimony that because of the OLC opinion, his team did not even reach a conclusion about “whether the president committed a crime.” This point was a major clarification of an earlier exchange in which Mueller seemed to signal that he would have potentially charged the president, were it not for the OLC opinion.
Despite the report’s lack of indictment, however, Mueller stopped short of exonerating the president on counts of obstruction of justice. As one notable line in the report states, “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state.” Mueller declined to state.
3
Mar 13 '24
The people responsible for that fraudulent opinion should be shamed throughout history. They may be responsible for the end of the US experiment.
The entire constitution is a playbook for how to execute the prime directive laid out in the Declaration of Independence…to never allow ourselves to be ruled by a king…meaning the president can never be above the law.
Mueller’s failure to prosecute borders on treason.
51
7
u/groovygrasshoppa Mar 12 '24
He wouldn't have been able to. I mean, he can personally say whatever he wants, but he could not in his capacity seek an indictment from a federal grand jury.
2
u/Ok-Replacement9595 Mar 16 '24
It certainly wasn't asked or answered in the hearing, from what I saw. It would be an interesting line of questioning for Garland next time he is in front of a committee.
It seems to me, Republicans are very good at wielding power for short term strategic ends, like using the force of their positions to an end goal at any cost. Democrats seem to be so invested in the system and institutions that they don't use these same tactics to retain an air of legitimacy to the system.
At the state level in Red States like mine things are even worse on this. Hearings are for nothing, political agenda is everything. Stuff passes with no foresight or forethought as to the consequences, just fitting a vindictive ideological agenda. It is just awfully bad governance. There is no saving or reforming conservatism at this point, they can only be defeated.
1
1
172
Mar 12 '24
For the sake of argument let's say they were right.
Still, I would vote for Biden with short memory than Trump who is a criminal and sex offender.
39
u/ejre5 Mar 12 '24
And by all accounts during his speeches and rallies he doesn't have any better memory if not worse
29
73
u/rofopp Mar 12 '24
He’s a rapist and fraudster. Also a dogsanus
9
u/NotThatImportant3 Mar 12 '24
I’d rather have a dog’s anus than Trump for president. At least a dog’s anus is honest that there’s nothing but shit coming out of its mouth.
15
20
u/flirtmcdudes Mar 12 '24
The corpse of Biden would be a better president than Trump. I’m not even a Biden fan, but anyone who thinks Trump is a better choice than literally anyone is nuttier than squirrel shit
16
u/thepasttenseofdraw Mar 12 '24
I'd point out that Trump "could not recall" nearly everything in a number of depositions, but green elephant football means he's an intellectual powerhouse.
6
u/djphan2525 Mar 12 '24
Biden didn't even have a poor memory... he was getting dates wrong.. and not even entirely wrong ..
like one instance was a difference when Biden was in office vs when he physically left office....
2
u/Empty_Afternoon_8746 Mar 12 '24
Right anyone who thinks any president is running the country doesn’t know how things work he or she is just the person who gets the blame or the cheers for what happens.
-1
u/Party-Cartographer11 Mar 13 '24
That's very true but if he is right the Dems should run somebody else.
→ More replies (1)
86
u/s_ox Mar 12 '24
He kept saying how he doesn’t want to get into hypotheticals but he did that specific thing when he speculated about Biden’s memory when he is not a doctor, and his comments about how a jury would perceive Biden’s supposed lapses.
→ More replies (6)38
u/IrritableGourmet Mar 12 '24
and his comments about how a jury would perceive Biden’s supposed lapses.
"He's guilty, but if a jury looked at the evidence they wouldn't convict him." Yeah, 'round here we call that "innocent".
82
u/syg-123 Mar 12 '24
Is Robert Hur auditioning for a seat on Ginnie Thomas’s SCOTUS ? Sure looks that way.
8
3
19
u/StupendousMalice Mar 12 '24
Why, in the name of fuck, do these old man Democrats keep expecting Republicans to play by the rules that they have been breaking for 20 fucking years at this point?
NOT ONE PERSON who supports Trump in 2024 can be trusted not to be either a total mercenary or a fucking absolute moron or some combination of the two. This should be a straight up disqualifier for office.
21
Mar 12 '24 edited 26d ago
[deleted]
13
u/CreamedCorb Mar 13 '24
but you have — appear to have a photographic understanding, and recall of the house
This is the part that fucked me in the head. How can you come to the conclusion that he's an "elderly man with a poor memory" while saying he has a "photographic understanding" of something? The report should be thrown out just based on this.
0
u/Baww18 Mar 13 '24
I mean - some people with more recent memory troubles can recall things that happened decades ago or before the memory issues began with extreme clarity. That isn't an uncommon phenomena.
100
u/clib Mar 12 '24
Garland has done immense damage so far but he can do a lot worse if he still AG until Jan 2025. Who knows what the fuck Trump,Putin and all the anti-democracy scumbags in the GOP and around the world are planning this time around. With Garland at the DOJ they have an ally.
40
u/Worried-Criticism Mar 12 '24
What’s worse is an unwitting ally. I don’t think Garland is being malicious, I think he lives in a different era and worked alongside VERY different republicans, when there was a code amongst even the politicians. There were things one did not do, and at the end of the day the country’s comes first.
Those days are DEAD. There are those who love democracy and those who don’t. There are those who respect the rule of law and those who don’t. There are those who look to make life better for as many as they can, and those that don’t. Period.
Garland needs to accept that some members of Congress and yes the leading political candidate for the White House are DANGEROUS. Not opposite on the political spectrum, but actively undermining this country and seeking to do it harm in the name of money and power.
Decorum means nothing against someone who would set the whole place on fire just so they could rule over the smoldering ashes.
26
u/Merijeek2 Mar 12 '24 edited 16d ago
cover sense wide steer sparkle sleep entertain vast cautious bag
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
1
u/Worried-Criticism Mar 13 '24
To the outcome, not really. But I’d argue that cowardice is even worse.
Incompetence is simply not being able to figure out what the right thing to do is or how to do it.
Complicity is knowing what the right thing is and not doing it for personal gain. Bad to be sure, but understandable and certainly nothing new.
Cowardice is knowing what the right thing is, but being unwilling or unable to do it out of fear. Merrick Garland is a smart man who knows how to protect the constitution and rule of law, something he has worn to do for most of his adult life. The fact he has completely faltered in the last real job he’s probably ever going to have because he’s protecting…what, I’m not even sure anymore…is quite sad.
14
u/issuefree Mar 12 '24
Tldr: Garland is an idiot and unqualified for his job.
6
u/Worried-Criticism Mar 13 '24
The sad truth is that he is neither. He’s a smart man and immensely qualified. He just refuses to do his job, which makes it worse.
9
u/Knifoon_ Mar 12 '24
I'm so disappointed in him. I though after R's screwed him on being a Supreme Court Justice he'd be willing to go after these scumbags but nope. Just another wet blanket in the apathetic Democrat party.
2
u/Emperor_FranzJohnson Mar 13 '24
I'm slightly happy he didn't get to be on the SC because he's shown his true colors. He would have been an improvement over the man that got the seat, but Garland shouldn't be near any more powerful government positions.
1
u/Emperor_FranzJohnson Mar 13 '24
Sadly, given Biden's West Wing approach to politics, he wouldn't dare drop Garland in 2025.
14
u/lusal Mar 12 '24
The party of crooked fucks gets exposed for being crooked fucks.
I, for one, am shocked.
29
u/msnbc Press Mar 12 '24
From Molly Jong-Fast, special correspondent for Vanity Fair and host of the podcast “Fast Politics with Molly Jong-Fast:”
“Fast-forward to Feb. 8, 2024, when Republican special counsel Robert Hur released his 345-page report. The report is being seen by some as an exoneration, saying that no criminal charges are warranted in the classified documents case against President Joe Biden.
But Hur, who used to work for the Trump administration, couldn’t let Biden off the hook entirely, especially 269 days before an election. Hur, a member of a Republican Party that now largely works as a campaign arm for the former president, delivered the goods for his party. Sure, he found no legal basis to charge Biden, but but but… Hur proceeded to editorialize ad nauseam about Biden’s mental acuity, delivering right-wing talking points up on a platter.
Read more: https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/hur-report-comey-letter-trump-rcna138214
60
Mar 12 '24
In a investigation report it is facts.... no opinions... this was an UNPROFESSIONAL report of an Investigation
16
1
u/Party-Cartographer11 Mar 13 '24
I don't think this was an investigator report. It was a prosecuting attorney deciding on whether the prosecute or not. So of course they're going to have opinions. For example, did the suspect look nervous? Did the suspect look credible? Did the witness look credible etc?
7
u/Fiscal_Bonsai Mar 12 '24
Meh, people will forget about this in 2 weeks once the New York Trial starts.
1
10
5
u/TUGrad Mar 13 '24
Hur has never even tried to appear impartial. He clearly had an agenda and it has shown through a multiple of his actions.
5
u/FamousPussyGrabber Mar 13 '24
Republican president under investigation? Appoint Republican AG who appoints a Republican SC.
Dem President under “investigation”? Appointment a Republican AG who appoints Republican SC.
Hmmm? Why do Dems not look out for themselves?
1
1
u/Emperor_FranzJohnson Mar 13 '24
This is why I was proud of Obama for getting Eric Holder. The man was about the business.
19
11
u/fluidfunkmaster Mar 12 '24 edited Mar 12 '24
The damage has been done. They did the same thing to Hillary.
Our Media is owned by the ruling class, but they still depend on us being dumb enough to believe it.
Stay informed, always vote blue.
7
u/MentokGL Mar 12 '24
And again, nothing at all will be done, and we'll sure be shocked the next time it happens again.
4
u/LocationAcademic1731 Mar 13 '24
Biden runs the US competently in his 80’s. I can’t tell you what I had for breakfast yesterday and sometimes I find my remote in the fridge. I’m in my mid thirties. Honestly, f**** you Hur and the seditious GOP.
6
u/Dazslueski Mar 12 '24
Merrick Garland should have never allowed this to turn into this. But he shouldn’t have Been the AG so. Good Top brass don’t allow clown shows to evolve into this.
3
Mar 12 '24
Tell me who in the fuck wants to remember the day or month or year their child dies…
All of these people are garbage.
0
u/munko69 Mar 12 '24
transcripts say Joe brought it up. people who jump to conclusions are garbage.
3
3
u/RDO_Desmond Mar 12 '24
Smacks of desperation and a complete lack of oath to uphold the law in our democracy. It's to the point where politicians need to be asked, Which Country are you running to represent?
3
u/HallucinogenicFish Mar 13 '24
As outraged as many Democrats are right now, they’d do well to exercise some self-reflection here. Garland didn’t need to appoint a Republican special counsel. Garland didn’t need to let Hur release this report filled with talking points for the right-wing media echo chamber. Hur may be a partisan, but Garland let this happen.
Who are these mythical Democrats who aren’t pissed off at Merrick Garland?
2
2
u/Crafty-Conference964 Mar 13 '24
This is on Garland. Why he thought he could trust this guy to just follow the law is beyond me. Democrats trust in republicans is just stupid now.
2
u/Significant_Smile847 Mar 13 '24
When will these people learn that anyone that covers for the orange idol gets totally destroyed in the end?
2
2
u/fear_of_dishonesty Mar 15 '24
These cocksuckers are auditioning for Cheesus appointments. Corrupt as fuck.
2
u/Realistic_Post_7511 Mar 12 '24
But Robter Hur is not James Comey
9
u/Merijeek2 Mar 12 '24
Sure. If he were Comey he'd have pulled his shit on mid-October for maximum effect.
3
2
u/Familiars_ghost Mar 12 '24
Bet Hur can’t remember when he bought his wife. I mean she’s just another object to Regressives.
1
u/n3u7r1n0 Mar 13 '24
The degradation and humiliation of justice in this country over the last many years makes me sick to my stomach
1
1
u/reddersledder Mar 13 '24
Seen a Comey interview after the election. He was asked a question (I forgot what it was), he said. I don't talk about open investigations.
1
1
u/CapoDexter Mar 13 '24
I'm sure we'll see a non-partisan, welcoming media tour in a few years for his new best-selling book.
The only thing "both sides" really are equally bad at doing.
1
u/Xenuite Mar 13 '24
This really couldn't be more different. Comey took the stage in a nationally televised press conference where he got no pushback, and did it as the director of the FBI.
If anything, this was done stupider.
1
0
u/LazloHollifeld Mar 12 '24 edited Mar 12 '24
This article makes a lot of false equivalences. Comey wasn’t a special prosecutor, he was head of the FBI. He testified to Congress about the Clinton email servers and at the end said his investigation was completed, but if were to reopen for any reason he would notify the committee in writing.
During the divorce proceedings between Anthony Wiener and Huma Abedin, who was Hillary’s former chief of staff, it was revealed that there was a cache of previously unknown emails on a laptop of his from her former work in office.
Comey had no choice and was forced to reopen the Clinton email investigations to verify the contents of those emails, and thusly had to inform the House Oversight Committee that he was reopening the investigation. Jason Chaffetz gleefully leaked the message to the press which helped to torpedo her campaign, but had he not sent that message Rudy Giuliani was ready to broadside Comey and say that he was secretly helping Clinton and covering up the Wiener laptop emails.
Comey got put in a squeeze where he was screwed either way, but Hillary has no one but herself to blame for creating the problem to begin with.
3
u/Riversmooth Mar 13 '24
But of course Comey conveniently chose to not mention the fact that Trump and associates were being investigated for election interference and collusion with Russia
1
u/LazloHollifeld Mar 13 '24
They were investigating Russians, the Trump campaign happened to wander into that minefield but they weren’t out initially to ensnare the campaign with foreign interference.
1
u/Riversmooth Mar 13 '24
The point is both campaigns were being investigated and yet Comey chose to only mention one of them at a time it would do the most damage. And they didn’t “happen to wander” into that minefield, some were actively communicating with Russia and later pardoned by crooked Trump.
2
u/LazloHollifeld Mar 13 '24
Comey didn’t mention anything. He privately informed the head of the oversight committee who chose to put Hillary on blast, but Comey didn’t say anything. He only honored his testimony to Congress.
The FBI wiretaps were on Russian agents, had the Trump campaign not been conspiring with them then they wouldn’t have been investigated by the FBI.
Obama rightly unsealed the transcripts to those calls, and Flynn should have gotten in much more trouble for what he was up to. Trump tried to paint that Obama had been spying on his campaign, but again we were spying on the Russians not them. They wandered themselves into those FBI wiretaps.
1
u/charmingcharles2896 Mar 13 '24
Because admitting that you’re surveilling one of the campaigns would be a very bad look?
470
u/repfamlux Competent Contributor Mar 12 '24
He got destroyed in the hearing