I doubt Clinton would have been extensively investigated for her handling of emails if she was not a candidate for POTUS a simply retired quietly into private life.
Trump literally campaigned on “lock her up” and subsequently cried about an investigation he gave credibility to through his own public statements during the campaign.
I agree. The bar for starting an investigation should be lower for high gov’t officials. The downside of missing something is worse for them. But, the bar for indictments should be the same as everyone else.
The FBI needs to be cautious about publicity. Leaks of investigations of candidates for office are very bad.
I do think there is a flip side to this, though.
I consider our modern, professional bureaucracy to be very much superior to the old spoils system. (That Trump wants to bring back the spoils system is a clue.)
But I do think it creates the danger that the bureaucracy starts to control elected officials. We do not want the justice department or fbi using investigations as a club to control elected officials they don’t like.
The analogy I would make is the supreme court. Like the federal bureaucracy, that body is also isolated from electoral control. And anyone who doesn’t like the overturning of Roe is going to be especially sensitive to the potential issues created by justices not disclosing their financial interests.
We don’t just have to worry about the precedents trump creates. We also have to worry about the precedents created to stop him.
This is just more fodder in the Washington’s weaponization of investigation. Congress weaponizes investigations because an investigation always finds something and something can be spun however you want to spin it. I would look for more bullshit like this to continue under either party as long as us suckers continue to ingest the stuff our side creates.
Yes, the Durham probe is definitely a case of “both sides” are just as bad as each other.
Yup.
I half disagree. Investigations turn up real things all the time.
I’m not sure how to separate fake investigations (10 f*cking Benghazi investigations) from meaningful ones (Trump blocking $400M military aid to Ukraine).
Maybe there should just be more of an open routine investigation of everyone in a major position.
Imagine the chaos if garland issued his summary of the durham investigation findings.
Trying really hard to not be partisan here, but the likely answer is to look if it a Republican or Democratic lead investigation (at least starting with the Starr report, as i do not remember much trash politics before that).
Maybe there are significant Democratic lead special counsel/investigations that were all bluster, but if so i must have forgotten about them. Honestly open to a correction if i am missing something.
Came across this yesterday and was reminded of this thread:
Democrats spent the entire Trump Presidency investigating Republicans and Trump himself. Hard to say this is not a both sides issue. The impeachment was based on Trump linking funds to trying to make Ukraine investigate Hunter Biden who guess what was doing shady shit with his fathers name. You are being partisan. Democrats are shady but you don’t see it because you agree with their methods. Republic cans are shady to you because you don’t agree with them. When you do t agree with either of them like most of the middle it’s clear to see the whole system is rotten to the core. Hence a a both sides argument.
This is an incredibly dishonest take imo. Are you seriously trying to imply that trump did nothing wrong with respect to Ukraine and hunter Biden? That was one of the most egregious abuses of presidential power in our nation’s history.
Was this post meant as a joke?
It is factually incorrect, as Democrats did not have the ability to even have any investigation until 2019, as Paul Ryan did not initiate any Investigation of Trump, so they categorically did not spend the entire Trump Presidency investigating him.
Did Trump’s own justice department investigate him for his corruption? Yes, but the “Mueller special counsel investigation” is not something you can assign to the Democrats. But, your partisan hackery is now claiming that the Democrats are responsible for that investigation?!?!
And holy shit, are you actually claiming that Bipartisan impeachment of Trump for his actions wrt Ukraine was not justified, and that there was nothing wrong with “Trump linking funds to trying to make Ukraine investigate Hunter Biden?” And you are calling me partisan?
Also, if Hunter Biden did such horrible “shady” stuff to justify the witholding of military aid to Ukraine, as you imply, then where exactly are the charges or any evidence outside of wrong doing outside of Fox News/NY Post/WSJ trash opinion pieces?
I can’t believe in a million years you think it’s okay to link our funding of a major war with an investigation of “shady shit”.
Whatever you think Hunter or his father has done, there’s no way you think that Zelensky should have or not have tanks and missiles because of it.
I also don’t know what you think of the Ukraine War, or NATO, or Putin, or any of that stuff, but I’m positive you don’t think that Hunter Biden should be part of it.
I would agree with you that sometimes Democrats are bad people, but don’t go to silly lengths to make them all equal.
My recollection is that George Kent testified that Trump didn’t actually care whether or not the Ukrainians investigated Hunter Biden, just that they announce that they were going to do so. That is, he explicitly wanted the political gain from the investigation, and didn’t care about whether or not anything came of it factually. That is fundamentally corrupt.
This was before Putin invaded. It was related to providing already promised aid.
Yes, it was before the major invasion, but after Crimea, and during the small continuous war in Donbas. The US gave Ukraine $400 million to deal with Putin, and Trump tried to withhold it. And I think it’s reasonable to assume that money was spent on weapons used in the current big war.
Durham is testifying today. I’m not watching it, but my internets are filled with clips that reflect poorly on Durham. The earlier clips are from FoxNews, the later ones are from C-SPAN b/c FoxNews stopped airing the hearing after it became clear that it wasn’t going the way the Republicans wanted it to.