A few things. I'm not sure it's clear whether Mueller's team were the ones who chose to do this raid. From the reporting, it seems like Mueller went to Rosenstein with information, Rosenstein decided it wouldn't be beneficial for Mueller to pursue this part of the investigation, so they referred it to SDNY. SDNY were probably the ones who chose to do this raid.

Second, I've heard many justice correspondents in the media theorize that they must have had something more damning than just evidence of a FEC violation. Raiding the offices and residences of the president's personal attorney is obviously a big deal.

The Access Hollywood tape reporting(thanks NYT for another scoop) is interesting. It'd be nice if Cohen would tell Maggie Haberman about the documents he doesn't want us to know about though.

BTW, is Cohen going crazy? He talked to Don Lemon on the record yesterday evening, and today he had lunch with Trump hater Donny Deutsch.

They searched because the fraud-exception trumps confidentiality.

They either believe or they have evidence that there is ongoing fraud. This is the only way a judge would approve such a raid.

This post was edited by Skinned on Apr 11 2018 02:31pm

that's the rub bud, he's not, never has been. turn back the clock to before the public even knew Mueller's name and i was saying we needed strict guidelines on the purvue of a potential investigation. we didn't get it, because congress and senate at the time were uneasy about being anti or pro trump. they sat back and let it happen. but as we dont really have that specific purvue we cant really hold him to it. there's a logical assumption that he should be headed down a path, but that path has a million tangents and there's no clear reason not to pursue them while u can, as an investigator.



Hillary's lawyers were crafty and pulled client privilege in a place that they got away with it pertaining to certain talks that could have changed the entire investigation. but in that specific case the second wikileaks released the info the servers were wiped. In this case, although the stormy story broke, there's a legitimate chance that Cohen felt safe enough in client privilege protection that he wouldnt have deleted info, or would have a personal copy he felt was safe. as i said, i dont expect mueller to find the smoking gun even with the element of surprise, but i dont think campaign finance is his real goal. i think he thinks this will lead to a lot more.

When this whole thing began there was some arguments that if Trump was innocent, then he had nothing to fear from an investigation and it would clear up the matter and exonerate him, thus removing the cloud of suspicion and allegations of collusion. It made a case for an apolitical resolution to the politicized circus. But where we stand right now makes it look like that isn't going to happen, and instead of looking at Russian interference Mueller has branched off on some of those million tangents, both financial crimes by people in Trump's orbit and going after Cohen/Trump on sex scandals and hush money of all things. In the most charitable and good faith interpretation, Mueller is using his counsel to overturn every stone and scrutinize Trump's circle with far, far greater harshness than anything the rest of the political world has to deal with, his rivals in particular. And in the bad faith interpretation, he's just looking to take down Trump by any means possible. But either way, its becoming apparent that even if Trump is completely innocent of the collusion allegations, Mueller is going on a fishing expedition for anything else he can nail Trump on.

I'd still like that point cleared up Icemage was asking me about- I can't find anything to suggest either way now- whether Mueller was making this referral on Cohen based on his voluntary full disclosure, or whether Mueller was proactively investigating him. Either way is bad, and I'm not sure which is worse: If he's investigating defensive counsel than that's dangerously close to unethical misconduct, and the same thing if he's betraying the good faith cooperation Trump's attorney offered. Either way, the fact that here we are a year later and Robert Mueller has been seizing attorney-client privileged communications twice under dubious legal pretense and is digging into stormy daniels and the access hollywood tape is ridiculous. If this case wasn't so politicized, if everyone was acting in good faith and giving everyone else the presumption of good faith, then Trump would have fired Mueller and the DoJ involved in such an overreach in a heartbeat. Its only political pressure holding him back from that righteous indignation.

Women voters: “sex work is work too!”
Also Women voters: “#metoo”

consent... a concept that will forever stay a mystery to the simple-minded...

Ain't no cringe like incel cringe.

Leftists dont even have a consistent definition for consent

Conservatives invented true consent



I got laid yesterday

This post was edited by EndlessSky on Apr 12 2018 11:24am

i agree on nearly all points, i just dont find it all that important, tbh. The fact of the matter is if you were able to take an honest secret poll on the real opinions of GOP senators/congresspeople you'd find they hate Trump by-and-large. He's an obstacle for them in Washington DC, he's brought a unilateral increase in exposure and scrutiny on them, he's made it impossible for them to break ranks without personally being held accountable in their districts BUT adherence to his platform can bring about as much backlash. He set a bomb off in DC. So it's a bit hard for me to feel sorry for him, a monkey could see this all coming. He's getting lip service in public and his ass waxed in private. He will get no protection and will shaky legal judgements against him over and over. taking on the establishment is a game of chess, should be incremental, trump's playing tic tac toe. bad move by a moron who has an ego large enough to convince him the lumps will work themselves out.

Trump's turning out to be conservative light in legislation and all talk. If he loses the house in 2018 and faces nothing but a bullshit impeachment trial that would never pass senate i'll be tickled pink. he cant keep his team on any one topic long enough to do anything, under an impeachment trial he'll do even less. He can become the executive order POTUS who's a glorified veto stamp so his time in office can be undone as fast as Obama's.

this circus is my best case scenario to be frank, and im not buying any of the "THIS IS THE END OR THE WORLD, BAD PRECEDENT, WE ALL NEED TO BE WORRIED ABOUT CLIENT PRIVILEGE" horseshit Dershowitz is peddling either. The highest nail gets the hammer, and trumps a nail on a different scale. if this results in more scrutiny on the position of POTUS and a delusion of the power of the executive branch moving forward my boner may never come down.



Consent, something that can be retroactively withdrawn for any reason.

This post was edited by thesnipa on Apr 12 2018 11:41am