The Goat Pen

Robert Mueller’s first duty is to the truth. His mandate as special counsel is to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 election. His powers in that role allow him to bring criminal charges if they are warranted. But his most fundamental obligation is to answer a complex question: What happened?

It’s clear that President Donald Trump doesn’t want that question to be answered. A purge of the Justice Department’s upper ranks, perhaps coupled with Mueller’s dismissal, now feels like a matter of when, not if.

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This is such bullshit. It doesn't really matter if Trump wants the question answered or not, the issue is does Mueller want the question answered or does he just want to bring down the President

because answering the question of Russian collusion doesn't have anything to do with what Paul Manafort did 7 years in the Ukraine or if Cohen paid a porn star hush money.

The pro-Trump people are fed up with this. They'd accept a clear cut answer, but we're 2 years into this and nothing is close to sticking to Trump and everything Mueller is doing seems to be a desperate attempt to salvage something out of all of this that meaningfully sticks to Trump - and if he can't find anything he'll keep making surgical strikes in an attempt to pro-long this to the mid terms.

So in his attempt to find the Russians meddling in the election with Trump, he is now using his position to meddle in the election to make sure Trump is neutered in the mid terms.

Instead of firing Mueller, Trump should call Mueller out in the press, out to congress and to the nation and demand that he wrap this case up within the next 4 weeks. If Mueller can't provide meaningful justification to the house judiciary committee to continue beyond that he shuts it down. If the DOJ refuses the request then Rosenstein is fired immediately. If Mueller presents credible evidence to the committee then he continues.

Again, prof - dumbass - your complete words were "colluded with Russians TO THROW THE ELECTION." The election was not thrown. You can't shake a Trump tree without all kinds of russians falling out, but that didn't win the EC for Donnie. Empty promises, dog whistles, and jingoism pulled that off. Russia meddled in our election almost surely without Donnie calling the shots..they didn't need him. Putin had the goods on him, still does, and will never earn a discouraging word from The Donald...of which we can all agree. I've said all along the investigation will reveal financial crimes including money laundering, and DJT's not subtle attempts to block it will add obstruction charges.

A caveat - if it turns out Trump himself engineered the release of stolen DNC emails the very evening of the Access Hollywood bombshell....nah, never mind. That was Roger Stone.

The pro-Trump people are fed up with this. They'd accept a clear cut answer, but we're 2 years into this

Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel on May 17, 2017. Sure you can say Poppadopolous kicked things off in April of '16, but apparent misdeeds have occurred well after that time, some as late as this year. So the calendar on this is fairly fluid, wouldn't you say?

bluetick wrote:

The pro-Trump people are fed up with this. They'd accept a clear cut answer, but we're 2 years into this

Mueller was appointed as Special Counsel on May 17, 2017. Sure you can say Poppadopolous kicked things off in April of '16, but apparent misdeeds have occurred well after that time, some as late as this year. So the calendar on this is fairly fluid, wouldn't you say?

no I wouldn't, if they know what they are then do something. This is politically motivated and its hypocrisy. There is clearly a different standard for politicians whose ideology they support.

Transcripts of secretly recorded meetings between Michael Cohen and the FBI:

Monday, 8:05 am, Michael Cohen’s office.

Gladys: I’m sorry Mr. Cohen but they barged right in and…
Cohen: It’s alright, Gladys…. Gentlemen, can I help you?
FBI Agent: I am Special Agent Smith, and this is my partner, Special Agent Smith. Are you Michael Cohen, and are you the attorney for Wobistics inc.?
Cohen: Yes I am.
FBI Agent: We know. We are here to collect your files on Wobistics. Memo’s, emails, texts, voicemails, everything. And while we’re here, we need the same on another one of your clients, Donald J. Trump.
Cohen: Do you have a search warrant?
FBI Agent: No.
Cohen: Good, because I’m not just going to hand over to you my client files. They are protected by law under attorney-client privilege.
FBI Agent: We’ll just wait here in your office while - what was her name… Gladys? - makes copies of the Wobistics and Trump files.
Cohen: The hell she will! Why do you want my files on Wobistics and Mr. Trump?
FBI Agent: As you know, Wobistics is an international financial trading company. The FBI has determined that Wobistics Inc. is laundering millions of dollars for international terrorist organizations. We have no evidence that they are actually doing this. So we are here to find evidence to support the agency’s determination. Our operation against Mr. Trump is classified, but I have been authorized to say that the Trump operation is unrelated to the Wobistics case.
Cohen: Look, guys, you are in way over your head. You’d better check with your supervisor and legal counsel before this goes any further. No lawyer in his right mind would give you his client files. If he did, he would be disbarred. And if you tried to use the information in those files, your whole case would be thrown out in any court in the country. So why don’t you go back to your office, get some better legal advice, and I’ll forget this ever happened, okay?
FBI Agent: So you are refusing to surrender the Wobistics file and the completely unrelated Trump operation?
Cohen: You’re damn right I’m refusing to surrender those files! Gladys, get the FBI Field Office on the phone. Ask for Agent Griffin. I went to law school with him. He’ll put a stop to this nonsense. Gentlemen, this meeting is over. Gladys will show you out. Good day. Hey, why are you both smiling?

Monday, 1:17 pm, Michael Cohen’s office

Cohen: What the f_____ is going on? Who are all these people? Gladys, why are you handcuffed to your desk?
FBI Agent: She is under arrest, just like you, schmuck. Mr. Cohen, you are under arrest. You have the right to…
Cohen: Arrest? Me? For what?
FBI Agent: Conspiracy to launder money, giving material assistance to a terrorist organization, Being Designated as an Enemy of the State…
Cohen: “Enemy of the State?” That’s not even a real charge.
FBI Agent: Yes it is, but you’ll never find it in the law books. It’s classified.
Cohen: Do you have a search warrant this time?
FBI Agent: Here it is, scumbag.
Cohen: This was signed… 15 minutes ago! And by a FISA court!
FBI Agent: Yeah… After we left here this morning, we stopped by Louise’s office on our lunch break, filled out an application for a FISA warrant, and Louise signed it for us. She's our FISA judge, and she helps us out all the time. She’s also a blast to party with.
Cohen: Okay, okay…. If you want to screw up whatever case you are building by seizing legal documents whose secrecy is protected by law, knock yourself out. You haven’t seen the last of this. I’ll see you in court.
FBI Agent: Shut up, douchebag. You’re still under arrest. The only court you’ll see will be your own trial. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say…
Cohen: I’m under arrest? But I am cooperating with the search warrant!
FBI Agent: Yeah, but you’re still under arrest for charges of conspiracy to launder money, providing material support to a terrorist organization and designation as an Enemy of the State.
Cohen: “Enemy of the State”? There is no such thing under the law!
FBI Agent: Oh yes there is, and you are one of them. But you’ll never see it in any law books. It’s classified.
Cohen: This is impossible! I’ve never conspired to launder money or aided terrorists!
FBI Agent: Oh yes you did. It says so right there on this FISA Warrant application. We've even got a witness. See, there’s this guy, Wilbur Dooksucks, a lawyer at the firm right across the street. Dooksucks has really got a hard on for you, man. Apparently, he will be going up against you in that Big Pharma fraud case coming up. Billions of dollars and millions in lawyer fees to the winner of that one. Anyway, he thinks you are pretty good and you might beat him court, so he hired this Brit spy to talk to some Russians and wrote a dossier about how you have been laundering money for ISIS. He even swears Al Baghdadi paid you to pee on his bedsheets. I don’t usually judge what other people to in their bedrooms, but that’s pretty sick, dude.
Cohen: I didn’t launder money for ISIS or pee on Baghdadi’s bedsheets! Can’t you see what Dooksucks is doing?
FBI Agent: Yeah, sure. Dooksucks is using false information to frame you so that he won’t have to go up against you in the courtroom and he will probably become an overnight millionaire before he’s thirty. That’s obvious. So what’s your point?
Anyway, what are you complaining about? When Dooksucks wins that case and becomes a millionaire, you won’t have to watch it. You’ll be in prison. Disbarred. Unemployed. Broke. You’re wife and kids will… hey… excuse me a minute…
Hey Gladys? Are you done putting together all those files on Wobistics and Trump? Remember what I told you: until we get those files, your kids and the baby sitter we have in custody downtown are all money launderers and terrorist sympathizers…. Oh quit yer bawling…. Tell you what; it’s getting close to quitting time. So don’t worry about the Wobistics files. We don’t really care about those anyway. Just make copies of the Trump files. Those are ones we are here for. Better yet, just give us the originals. Chop chop.
Remember what I told you, Gladys: help us, help you. If anybody asks you what happened, you ACCIDENTALLY gave us the files on Trump when you gave us the Wobistics files. Can you say ACCI-DENT-ALLY, Gladys?
Gladys: Acci-dent-ally.
FBI Agent: Good girl. So when all these Trump documents from his private attorney’s office somehow get leaked to CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo, ABC, NBC, CBS, USATODAY, we had nothing to do with it, RIIIIIGHT?.
Gladys: Riiiiiiiight.
FBI agent: Excellent. Now run along, and I hope your oldest son in college gets help with his drug problem. Thanks, Gladys. You’re the best.
Cohen: I’ve been looking at this warrant. The FISA judge says you can spy on me and seize all my records, but it doesn’t say you can arrest me!
FBI Agent: I know. Ain’t it sweet? When we kicked down Manafort’s door last year, we didn’t have a warrant for that either. It was a big screwup. I thought we were f__d for sure. But one of our suits just said, “Hey, if we had asked a judge for a warrant to kick down Manafort’s door, take all his stuff and point guns at his kids, then the judge would have given us one. Right?” Check it out: The judge from the Northern District of Virginia didn’t had a problem with it! He said everything was cool! Can you believe that? Ever since then, “After the fact warrants” are now standard Bureau procedure. In the next couple of days, when you’re busy trying not to get raped in the shower, we’ll go to a Northern District of Virginia judge and get an arrest warrant to do what we already did. It’s beauty-ful.
Well, we’re done here. Special Agent Acosta, deliver all these documents to Mr. Mueller’s office immediately. He’s waiting for them. Special Agent Smith, take Mr. Cohen into custody.
Hey Mikey, don’t take money to pee on bedsheets where you’re going, pal. Hahahahaha!.

Putin had the goods on him, still does, and will never earn a discouraging word from The Donald...of which we can all agree.

Well, The Donald seems to have slipped off whatever leash you imagine Putin has on him:

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump

Russia vows to shoot down any and all missiles fired at Syria. Get ready Russia, because they will be coming, nice and new and “smart!” You shouldn’t be partners with a Gas Killing Animal who kills his people and enjoys it!

LOL Syria moved their planes to Russian bases. GET READY, RUSSIA omg..gtfooh

You’ve been saying for over a year that Putin “has the goods” on Trump. So, that means Trump won’t dare launch any missiles unless his master, Putin, gives him permission, right?

BTW, I strongly disagree with Trump on this one. Assad is indeed an animal, who has been brutally attacking his own people, including with gas, for a long time. And Putin is the thug who enables him.

But this is the conceit that we Americans keep falling into over and over again. Some dastardly deed is committed by some tin pot dictator halfway around the world, where the US has no compelling national interest. If - and ONLY IF - it is televised on CNN - then we Americans get a tear in our eye, and instinctively want to start lobbing missiles and bombs at somebody - anybody - somehow believing this will save the children and will make the world a better place. (Funny, when Hutus and Tutus in Africa slaughter each other by the thousands, but it is NOT televised by CNN, that's a completely different story, but I digress...) We’ve been doing this, by presidents of both parties, ever since Vietnam. And we STILL haven’t learned our lesson, even after Iraq and Afghanistan.

I think Putin and Assad are goading Trump into bringing the US back into Syria, and if lucky, the whole Middle East. It has obviously worked. They know America’s strange penchant for moral crusades that always lead us into endless fruitless wars in the Middle East. And they know that America is perfectly horrible at those. America ALWAYS emerges from these misadventures worse off, not better. And Trump is falling for it.

SAD!

Although prof is an asshat about nearly all things Dotard I'll concede that he's been right-on and consistent about our too-many-to-count screw-ups in the ME. We aren't under the heel of the oil minister's anymore, and Israel can handle their own security quite nicely (ask'em)- but more than anything, refereeing centuries-old religious squabbles in that region is a sure loser. Terms like tar baby, quagmire, quicksand, and monkeyfuck work just as well. oprama's red line was BS, same as Trump's jingos about missiles and all. Hell, for five minutes Donnie actually had the correct notion about pulling out of Syria, but sadly that too has passed.

Stop agreeing, faggoths

Although prof is an asshat about nearly all things Dotard I'll concede that he's been right-on and consistent about our too-many-to-count screw-ups in the ME.

Thanks, uh, I think...

I was in both Gulf wars, and W's monumental stupidity and staggering incompetence in the second one still gets me emotional.

Looks like Trump just got Putin’s permission to strike Syria.

Because there was a couple of days between Trump announcing he was going to launch missiles at Syria, and the day he actually did it, I had enough time to call my IRA manager and buy up some Raytheon stock. 40 Tomahawk missiles, $1.4 million each, all will be replaced...

SWEET!

plus, he gave his owner enough time to move all their jets to Russian air bases.

Putin just gave Trump permission to have his highest composite poll in 11 months (not just Rasmussen):

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll ... -6179.html

UP UP UP!

More Kremlin-authorized good polling for Trump.

According to the notorious Dotard screed, WaPo, Trump is approved by %44 of Registered voters:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... _page.html

And this is after a few weeks of particularly frantic and robustly incontinent reportage on Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen. After last night's epic Jim Comey flameout, its looking better and better for the Orange One.

The WH lost their bid to regain control of the 800,000 Cohen documents and tapes. And..the Sean Hannity reveal!

The 2nd NY JD is gaining on the backstretch, about to pull even with Mueller Probe...the crowd rises in unison....

I guess the left are still hung up about sex.