The pretense is over that the Mueller investigation is still about Russian campaign collusion
NY Times Editorial: If Trump “has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does he care about the [attorney-client] privilege in the first place?”
There isn’t much of a pretense anymore that the Mueller investigation is about alleged Russian campaign collusion.
Maybe it started out about collusion, but it veered off course within a couple of months, when Mueller decided that Paul Manafort needed to be investigated for conduct many years ago having nothing to do with the campaign, or even Russia. Rod Rosenstein created the paperwork in early August 2017 to retroactively expand Mueller’s investigation and justify Mueller conduct that already had taken place.
The raid on Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen’s law office by the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York, was at the referral of Mueller, and signed off by Rosenstein. That raid was a frontal assault on Trump’s business and personal history.
If reporting is accurate, the records seized concerned not just payments to Stormy Daniels, but also the Access Hollywood tape revealed during the campaign. It’s fair to assume that a wide range of records going beyond those salacious topics were grabbed by the FBI, including Trump’s other personal and business dealings over a long period of time.
The seizure of Cohen’s records surely goes more directly to taking down Trump for conduct unrelated to the campaign much less Russian collusion.
The NY Times Editorial Board is honest about the goal, The Law Is Coming, Mr. Trump:
Mr. Trump has spent his career in the company of developers and celebrities, and also of grifters, cons, sharks, goons and crooks. He cuts corners, he lies, he cheats, he brags about it, and for the most part, he’s gotten away with it, protected by threats of litigation, hush money and his own bravado. Those methods may be proving to have their limits when they are applied from the Oval Office. Though Republican leaders in Congress still keep a cowardly silence, Mr. Trump now has real reason to be afraid. A raid on a lawyer’s office doesn’t happen every day; it means that multiple government officials, and a federal judge, had reason to believe they’d find evidence of a crime there and that they didn’t trust the lawyer not to destroy that evidence….
Mr. Trump also railed against the authorities who, he said, “broke into” Mr. Cohen’s office. “Attorney-client privilege is dead!” the president tweeted early Tuesday morning, during what was presumably his executive time. He was wrong. The privilege is one of the most sacrosanct in the American legal system, but it does not protect communications in furtherance of a crime. Anyway, one might ask, if this is all a big witch hunt and Mr. Trump has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does he care about the privilege in the first place?
That last highlighted sentence is very instructive. Would the NY Times Editorial Board be willing to give up its attorney-client privilege in litigation against the NY Times? If the NY Times has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why would it care about the privilege in the first place?
Alan Dershowitz has been a voice of reason as to the harm done to the protection of the attorney-client privilege by the desire to take down Trump,
Many TV pundits are telling viewers not to worry about the government’s intrusion into possible lawyer-client privileged communications between President Trump and his lawyer, Michael Cohen.
But this analysis completely misses the point and ignores the distinction between the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution on the one hand, and the Fourth and Sixth Amendments on the other.
The Fifth Amendment is an exclusionary rule. By its terms, it prevents material obtained in violation of the privilege of self-incrimination from being used to incriminate a defendant – that is, to convict him or her of a crime.
But the Fourth and Sixth Amendments provide far broader protections: they prohibit government officials from in any way intruding on the privacy of lawyer-client confidential rights of citizens.
In other words, if the government improperly seizes private or privileged material, the violation has already occurred, even if the government never uses the material from the person from whom it was seized.
Not surprisingly, therefore, firewalls and taint teams were developed in the context of the Fifth Amendment, not the Fourth or Sixth Amendments. Remember who comprises the firewall and taint teams: other FBI agents, prosecutors and government officials, who have no right under the Fourth and Sixth Amendments even to see private or confidential materials, regardless of whether it is ever used against a defendant.
The very fact that this material is seen or read by a government official constitutes a core violation….
If the ordinary citizen sees that even the president’s confidential communications with his lawyer can be seized and perused, he or she will be far less willing to engage in such communications. As a society we value such communications; that is why our laws protect them and that is why it should be extremely difficult for the government to intrude upon them, except as a last recourse in extremely important cases.
From what we know, this case does not meet those stringent standards….
Someday soon, government is going to have to justify its decision to conduct this raid. I challenge any reader who is not concerned about the raid to honestly answer the following question: If the raid had been conducted on Hillary Clinton’s lawyer’s office and home, would you be as unconcerned? The truth now!
This is an all-out assault on Trump and the election result.
It’s no longer about Russian collusion, if it ever was.
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Comments
I am sickened to my core by our government today and what we have allowed/enabled it to become. Our forefathers went to war over far, far less. Today’s generation will just sit and stare at their smartphones until everything comes crashing down.
And then, it will be too late. . .
Professor Jacobson:
“This is an all-out assault on Trump and the election result.”
It never was about Russian collusion………
“You have nothing to fear, if you have nothing to hide.” Pius Thicknesse, Ministry of Magic, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Also attributed to Joseph Goebbels and Sinclair Lewis.
What if Cohen is never indicted, but oppsie somehow all the privileged information is “accidentally” leaked to the press? Could there be any recourse for these violations? Isn’t this the likely goal anyway?
If you actually took action on all the people who should be censored because of this travesty of justice. Hell, I don’t even like Trump and it’s pissing me off.
Our justice system is supposed to be reactive not proactive. By which I mean they are supposed to find investigate crimes that are found, not investigate until crimes are found. Trump should fire Mueller, Rodstein, and Sessions all at the same time. Either that or tell Session to put reasonable limits on the investigation.
“Reasonable limits” were passed long ago.
Certainly nothing that could ever reverse an election result if that privileged information were published in the press just a few weeks prior – in time to sway enough votes, but late enough to have any hope of reversing the damage.
First – you cannot un-ring a bell.
Second – no one in the Deep State is ever held accountable.
Deep State means never having to say you’re sorry.
a question which i have asked before:
Can POTUS make a direct appeal to SCOTUS for immediate action to stop this travesty ?
And Professor, I really do appreciate you following all of this and providing further comment. I am also reading and researching this mess, but it is always a welcomed sight to see you reporting on such matters and reading what you have to say.
And on a different note, as always, my prayers are with you and your wife for strength and healing. I am also praying that God touch both of you and that you both may feel His presence and gain strength from it.
“Mr. Trump has spent his career in the company of developers and celebrities, and also of grifters, cons, sharks, goons and crooks.”
Not his fault NYC and surrounding areas are all run by Democrats who want their bribes.
I have zero doubt that Trump bribed lots of local politicians as a developer. And that lots of people know about instances or even have incontrovertible proof. And that none of them are coming forward because of the number of Democrats who would have to be taken down if they went after Trump for that.
“And that none of them are coming forward because of the number of Democrats who would have to be taken down if they went after Trump for that”
Democrats are nothing if not hypocrites. They will happily prosecute Trump on the slimmest of pretenses while ignoring far worse crimes by their political allies (see Clinton, Hilary).
I knew someone in NYC who needed to get a building permit for changes to an existing building (small corporation owned). Turned out there were no plans on file for the original building, whether because the NYC Building Dept lost them, or building Inspectors were bribed, er – encouraged back in the ’30s when it was built. In any event no permit could be issued for the changes until there was a plan for the original building on file. For a mere $400.00 cash encouragement a copy of the original plans magically appeared in the files and the permit was issued.
Yeah, NYC is a cesspool of Democrats.
I’m sue that “grifters” mention is a call out to the Clintons
Great comments about this by Ace.
“And then we have the completely thuggish stunt of raiding the offices of the President’s personal lawyer in search of, what exactly? Evidence of Russian collusion? No; check stubs showing the President paid off a lying, public fornicator to keep her from revealing an alleged affair he had with her 12 years ago from going public and somehow inventing a case of misuse of campaign funds. I can feel the bile rising from my churning gullet and my BP spiking right about now, don’t you?
And so, all the masks have been dropped and the naked tactics of thugs and tyrants who have been driven insane because their plan to install one of the most horrible public figures ever to emerge on the American political landscape as President in order to complete the 100-year counterrevolution was derailed by a “gavone” billionaire from Queens (PBUH).
The question is not the justifiability of if Robert Mueller should be fired and this thing shut down. The question is what are the consequences to the President and to the citizenry?”
http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=374755
“…wise to keep Mueller where he is. The fact that Tubby Riefenstahl and others of his ilk are goading PDT into it, and that the GOP-e is doing a reverse-psychology thing by warning him against it sets alarm bells off, especially since Mueller is dangerously close to crossing a red line by going after PDT personally…”
ibib.
Catch what Sean Hannity reveals about Mueller’s un-wise work history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPGROJIKLv4
What is the prize? It isn’t Trump as a person, it is possession of the presidency and ALL the marbles that go with it…. trillions and trillions of dollars, global power and control… unfettered by checks and balances now. Facebook pages, Google and Amazon data scraped into a database of individuals for marketing but also for profiles to be used to craft legislation and control of the populace. Manipulation of citizens to nudge their decisions. Truly loyal citizens do not mind having their mail read, phones tapped, the home applianced bugged, car mileage and local tracked, purchases tallied. This was science fiction 20 years ago… now it is beyond imagination. All politics is now international… Russians are pikers if they had any influence at all when compared to non-governmental private corporate entities and national security agencies tasked at whims of a Deep State Directorate. The option may not be a triple Scotch or a bunch of Valium piles… the real option may be both at once.
Sorry for misspelled words… the computer didn’t have rant control engaged. What a time to hope for a Pre-Trib Rapture.
Meanwhile Sessions sits on his ass doing nothing.
Sessions, Rosenstein and Mueller all need to get fired, now. Sure the Democrats are going to whine about it, but this charade has gone on too long already.
Sessions is in on the plot.
When is everyone going to get that?
Yup, no investigation will yield any conclusion that will cause harm to the DOJ/FBI regardless of the fact that the activities occurred during previous administrations.
You are correct that the individuals engaged in this attempted coup won’t suffer any consequences. But the harm to the Bureau, DoJ and the rule of law has already occurred and won’t be reversed for decades. Many citizens who a mere decade ago mostly trusted the US government in the area of criminal law, no longer do so. Trust is a fleeting thing easily damaged through carelessness or, in this case, deliberate actions with the unintended consequence of causing the public to lose trust in the Just Us system.
j Edger Hoover is clapping with glee from hell.
the Dems don’t get it. If in some future, if we survive this, and the DeepState decides they don’t want a (D) to win or reverse that election, who will they complain to ?
See Joe Lieberman’s treatment by the deepState – no patriots allowed – only the bolsheviks.
Yes, harm has already been done to the DOJ/FBI/CIA/NSA(and 17 national security agencies yada yada yada) but there has also been damage to the executive branch or at least the executive branch under DNC control as Obama demonstrated that all the intelligence agencies the IRS, FEC, the Environment Dept. Labor boards etc can all be readily called to arms in support of Far-Leftist DNC agenda. However all efforts are being made to see that no new investigation will yield actionable offenses which can tar the DOJ/FBI.
I’m starting to worry that Mr. Sessions and Mr. Pence are too much alike in their views and general outlook, which, incidentally are mine also. Mr. Trump did the hard work of getting elected; he shouldn’t be pressured to step aside, either by opposition or those coming from his “own side”. It would not be “right” for Pence to step into a slot he never had to carve out, himself. Trump should have his full time of office, I believe. Mr. Trump is more mature now than he was twelve years ago (S.D.), and we shouldn’t fear a further such embarrassment.
Unfortunately, many Republican senators and congressmen are ready to do more than whine about it.
They deserve horsewhipping, but firing them plays into Trump’s enemies hands.
I’ve seen this movie before…
I think it was called Whitewater
Nope. Whitewater involved actual crimes, both by the Clintons and many others. The Clintons managed to protect themselves, by putting up multiple levels of coverup, so that investigators had to spend all their time investigating those and could never get to any actionable evidence of the underlying crimes. But it was clear from the beginning what those crimes were — bribe-taking on a retail scale. They jointly operated the Arkansas state house as a business; Hillary would collect the quid and Bill would supply the quo. But there’s a difference between knowing what’s going on and finding evidence to prove it beyond reasonable doubt, and they successfully prevented that evidence from ever emerging. Starr did, however, convict several dozen of their accomplices, including a sitting state governor, who were thrown under the bus to protect the main criminals.
(This tactic worked so well that Mrs Clinton used it again in her more recent scandals; the investigation of her actual crimes turned into an investigation of her unorthodox email practices, the whole point of which was to hide the underlying crimes.)
I really meant the DC, inside the beltway side of the story
Speaking to all my lawyer acquaintances here: From my laymen’s perspective, this battle has been fought, and lost. The sanctity of attorney-client privilege is finished. The fact the Paper of Record, in the United States of all nations, has asked publicly, why do you care about attorney-client privilege unless you have something to hide, only underlines the defeat.
No, it was never unlimited, but now it is worthless, and that is a permanent change. Presidents? They come and go. This will stay.
This will likely wind up being heard in the Supreme Court.
SCOTUS (all of them) need to put forth a public declaration about the travesty occuring to remove the 4,5,6 amendments.
the question is, who will the military side with –
we have already lost our REPUBLIC, the only question is what can be salvaged!!!!
… before or after Ginsberg is hyper-ultra-extreme-aborted by the Creator ?
Well do you think the NYT would be singing the same song if it or they were on the receiving end?
So, the first thing that Presidente Trump should do is fire Sessions, transfer Rosenstein to Alaska and bring in some AUSA from Iowa as acting AG. Then have him quietly reopen the Servergate, Clinton Foundation and Uranium One investigations. Secure warrants and clean out every possible location where incriminating documents may be found, including the law firms representing the Clintons. Go after any businessman who ever gave a penny to the Clinton Foundation. Find charges and indict Mueller. Start going after politicians, both sitting and retired, particularly those from the Obama Administration. See how fast this BS comes screeching to a halt. If Trump continues to play the game by the opposition’s rules, we all lose.
NO! Not Alaska… please please NO!
That would be Point Barrow……so don’t worry so much….. 😉
Alas, the local natives have renamed Barrow..Utqiaġvik. Ooot-key-agg’-vik.. Sort of like the nameless symbol that was once called Prince.
I think the reality is Mac that any incriminating evidence will have long ago been destroyed by Clinton and their cronies. That game has sailed, unfortunately.
I don’t know – – – I imagine some of those cronies of the Clinton Crime Family kept copies of incriminating material, just to have a little insurance against the day when they become the next expendable objects for under-the-bus throwing.
Gov. Palin’s legal team would like to see the communications between the New York Failing Times and its attorneys. There may be evidence of a cover-up, document destruction, or other illegal behavior there.
There was a ‘pretense?’
We are told that the Bill of Rights has limitations. No amendment is absolute. They have a semblance of strength only when backed by power and authority. Anyone want to wager what “a free state” means in a world where the 4,5 and 6th just got pushed into the trash bin of history?
As I have noted before, the New York Times may need to undergo circulation, ink, paper and internet access control. In California, my not so jokingly called Bureau of Accuracy, Truth and Fact is in the works.
“Move on.”
After you.
This statement—
Anyway, one might ask, if this is all a big witch hunt and Mr. Trump has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does he care about the privilege in the first place?
—is so thoroughly childish that I can’t believe that even a Democrat had anything to do with it. I still suspect that the Times, in a fit of existential anguish at Mueller’s total failure to gain any useful traction, is trying to be … ahhh … helpful, in its endearingly juvenile way.
Of course, I may be too optimistic. It happens on rare occasions.
“I challenge any reader who is not concerned about the raid to honestly answer the following question: If the raid had been conducted on Hillary Clinton’s lawyer’s office and home, would you be as unconcerned? The truth now!”
I’d be delighted. When there is evidence that an attorney has acted with his or her client to commit fraud, or conspire in, aid or abet a crime, or even some torts, there is an OLD doctrine in the law that there is no “confidence” behind which either may hide.
That’s ALWAYS been true. It never hazards the attorney/client confidence under ANY other circumstance.
It worked well for Hillary Clinton and Cheryl Mills, so I would never say “never” about this. But, unlike some people, they are afforded the presumption of innocence.
It worked for Hellary because there was nobody to push it.
For a prosecutor, there is no presumption of innocence if there is evidence of a crime. Anyone suspect is potentially guilty.
the DeepState protects its’ own.
DJT was elected to disrupt this – which hr has done – see the number of GOPe who are not running for reelection.
I would be concerned with the attack on attorney client privilege, even for Hillary (who I loath). These Jalverts are dangerous and need to be curtailed.
We’re talking about two different things.
I’m talking about the law. Any of us can see the wisdom of the doctrine of the fraud/crime exception to the privilege. It is VERY jealously guarded by due process.
You are talking about abusive actors, who avoided due process out of zeal.
While things are possible, some are so vanishingly improbable that they approach being impossible. The idea that Cohen is being investigated solely on the Access Hollywood tapes as a predicate is farcical. There are several layers of “Nobody would do [fill in the blank]” that would have to be involved.
I think it very likely that Cohen violated campaign finance law.
As I noted the other day, it is entirely possible that this investigation is ONLY about Cohen and a possible prosecution on that predicate, and does not directly involve T-rump. Cohen’s crimes, if any, didn’t necessarily involve POTUS.
There’s a LOT we don’t know.
I have no problem with seizing an attorny’s records, where there is probable cause to believe that a crime has occurred AND there is a reasonable possibility the evidence may be destroyed, if the records are not immediately seized. However, in this case there is NO indication that the second part of that scenario exists. In Servergate, the Clinton emails were transferred from the Clinton email server to Clinton’s attorney’s custody and, even though there was not only probable cause that a criminal act had occurred, but that the evidence, the emails, may well be destroyed, the DOJ did not seize them. And, thousands of these emails, all of which were potentially evidence of a crime, were destroyed without the DOJ ever examining them. However, in this case, what we have is, at best, a very technical campaign finance law violation. And, as both Cohen and Daniels have publicly acknowledged that she was paid to refrain from further comment on her relationship with Trump, there was little or no need to seize most, if not all, of Cohen’s records.
What this illustrates is the need for really good encryption. Every business, including attorneys, as well as individuals should encrypt anything which may be in the least harmful to them, if obtained by another. If someone is going to take your property, make them work to make it useful for them.
The requirement for breaching the veil of privilege is that the attorney is a participant in the criminal activity (subject, target, etc.) and there is reason to believe the attorney will destroy the evidence or otherwise obstruct the access to the evidence sought. A Search is a last option with subpoenas having been considered and rejected for the above reason(s) and other sources of the information are not possible.
Mob attorneys whom DoJ had evidence (audio surveillance) were participants in ongoing criminal enterprises were not subjected to search warrants of their offices, etc. Yet alleged payments which might have been FEC violations, or IRS violations (which would require referral to IRS for clearance according to DoJ guidelines), are deemed so important that an Affidavit and Application for a Search Warrant was run by the Deputy AG for approval before taking to the US Magistrate for signature.
It was known to the FBI that Hillary’s private attorneys participated in reviewing and destroying classified emails at her direction. He and his staff were not authorized to view classified docs.
crickets…..
“Anyway, one might ask, if this is all a big witch hunt and Mr. Trump has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does he care about the privilege in the first place?
[…]
Would the NY Times Editorial Board be willing to give up its attorney-client privilege in litigation against the NY Times? If the NY Times has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why would it care about the privilege in the first place?”
How about Facebook/Google/Twitter? After recent testimony assuring congress that there is nothing unseemly going on; surely raiding their legal offices would be thought of as welcome confirmation of their corporate virtue?
I am outraged but where do I go for redress. Our Congress doesn’t care. Where do we go to stop them from recording or call. From trapping our emails. Where?
Politicians don’t care because the media doesn’t care and when the media doesn’t care the people don’t care. Its a vicious, self serving, self sustaining cycle of ignorance!
Mueller and Rosenstein are beyond comment. One must acknowledge that their entire careers have been about fake evidence, in charge of crooked attorneys that occasionally go after real crime, but actually are concerned about themselves and the criminal enterprise that they control. The USA.
The obvious answer is that Trump has plenty untoward or even illegal to hide, but it has nothing to do with anything currently known or suspected, and the DOJ has no probable cause to go looking for it. But if they read Cohen’s files they may find such evidence, and once they find it they can take legal action if possible, or just leak it if not. That’s the definition of the legal term “fishing expedition”.
I don’t get it. What conceivable interest could the government possibly have in that tape? Assuming the very worst, what law could possibly have been broken? At least the Daniels payoff could possibly be a de minimis but real violation the campaign finance laws. It’s sleazy to go after it when far greater violations by 0bama and Clinton were let go with fines. But what’s the legal hook here? Surely this is nothing but prurient interest, unrelated to any legal concern whatsoever. So how could they get a warrant for it?
What possible interest do they have in the ‘tapes’? Simple. It’s not the tapes but any records of illegal payments made, or payments not correctly reported that Mueller is after. His end game is to tie Cohen to any illegal activity by Trump, with the result of making Cohen a “participant” and not a lawyer. Once those dots are connected, both Trump and Cohen lose the protection of the attorney-client privilege.
Once the privilege is shattered, then all communications between them are subject to scrutiny. The only issue remaining is what communications are relevant to a crime and what ones or not. Don’t you appreciate the danger of having a tribunal review every single correspondence or communication between a lawyer and his client, deciding which is relevant and admissible and which one is not?
This is more than mildly troubling to me.
What is illegal about paying someone for her signature on a non-disclosure agreement? It isn’t a bribe, but payment for a contractual arrangement. The alleged affair was likely not even illegal depending on whether the state in which it was consummated still had a statute on the books making adultery a criminal act and the courts hadn’t ruled it dead as a statute under which to bring criminal charges (not to mention Grand and Petit Jurors laughing at the DA trying to bring a case of Adultery to court).
Wait. Didn’t the Beirut CIA contractors and former SEAL security consultants have to sign a NDA as a precondition to employment?
The “legal theory” I’ve read is that there is a Federal Elections Commission (misdemeanor?) violation in there somewhere. Likewise the hookers – er actresses payments, including the one I am given to understand took place before Trump decided to run in 2016 (that may not be correct, I can’t even recall a name to go with the performer allegedly paid).
Or maybe an IRS tax violation, I’m a bit hazy on how that could be, the “ladies” were not employees so Cohen wouldn’t have needed to withhold taxes, or I think even file a 1099 reporting the payment (IRS regs these days might require reporting such payments. Regs put in place to find possible evidence of drug transactions and usually used for other purposes).
I’d counter that argument that any payoff was intended to spare his wife embarrassment and distress….
We are living in an age of hate and schadenfreude and not one liberal, lawyer or not, cares that the institution of lawyer-client privilege is now a joke, except Alan Dershowitz. If the FBI were to raid Chuck U Schumer’s lawyer’s office do you imagine he would scream bloody murder? Would any of you be upset that his rights have been violated? Trump needs to understand this and realize that he will never get any sympathy from 50% of the country over anything that happens to him. This raid also should preclude any idea that Trump would ever sit down with Mueller. There is no way Trump could answer all the questions that Mueller could ask him with the correct answers at hand.
It would have been great if they raided Harry Reid’s personal attorney. How a life-long civil servant who never made more than $200,000 in a year could amass a fortune in the tens-of-millions can only be criminal.
“Would any of you be upset that his rights have been violated?” I would. I’m weird that way, the rule of law should apply to everyone and should be observed. And that doesn’t mean observed in the breach.
I don’t think you know the people here at all inspector.
I suspect the vast majority here would care just as deeply if this had happened to Democrats (of course the difference is we all realise a democrat would actually have carried out a criminal offence to start with…because that’s just what they do..jokes!!).
Everyone, regardless of political beliefs, should be hugely concerned by what’s going on because we have seen this play out before in countries like East Germany before unification and all those other socialist utopian countries time and time again where the rule of law only applies to the poor and politically weak!
Cardinal Richelieu is supposed to have said ‘If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him.’, sounds very fitting at this time.
I can’t disagree with any of the above comments, but surely the key issue is that under the USA Constitution EVERYTHING gathered by this assault on the rights of President Trump is now tainted. None of it can be used in any prosecution whatsoever.
Mueller & his cronies must also know this.
The sole purpose of the raid must have been to provoke PDT.
If I were him I would just let the Special Investigator drive at high speed into the brick wall of his own making.
As for the NYT – I’m speechless.
That isn’t true at all. The concept of “tainted evidence” doesn’t exist in the constitution. The exclusionary rule is something the courts invented in the 20th century, for very good reasons, but they didn’t have to, and there’s nothing in the constitution to stop them changing their minds tomorrow morning. And since it is a court-imposed rule it only applies in a courtroom, and it’s subject to the courts’ judgment on reasonable application.
The SCOTUS “found” the doctrine in the Fourth Amendment (Mapp v. Ohio). Not likely to be overturned by the current, or any future, SCOTUS.
Actually a reasonable doctrine which prohibits the government from violating the Fourth Amendment right and then using the results of a violating search, or evidence derived from that search, in court. Thus “Fruit of the Poisoned Tree” with the tree being the illegal search and evidence derived from that search the “fruit”. But you knew all that.
I think it continues precedent for a legal concept that has expanded in the last 20 years the latin term is ex screwicus Republicanis
The Court has not found it in the constitution. In case after case it points out that the rule is not constitutional but is a sanction imposed by the courts, and is therefore to be applied only when its benefits outweigh its substantial costs. Mapp does indeed imply the opposite, but subsequent decisions seem to ignore this implication.
Why hasn’t Trump team announced investigation against Mueller, Rosenstein and Clinton regarding Uranium One?
The Professor is right — Mueller has gone off the rails. What originally started (ostensibly) as an invstigation into alleged Russian “collusion” (which “collusion” has since been revealed to be nothing more than a contrivance of a crone Clinton campaign-funded dirty tricks operation)I can’t figure out what the Trump-hating, Dumb-o-crat zealots actually think is the end-game, here. Do they truly believe that an attorney’s payoff to a woman to buy her silence regarding a decade-old affair constitutes substantive and equitable grounds for impeachment of a President, even assuming that some technical violation of campaign finance laws occurred? If so, these people are insane.
What these reprobates want to ignite is a coup, first, and then, a civil war.
Again, so what? Sessions can’t control Rothenstein who won’t control Müeller. The Chuck Schumer wing of the Roll-Over Party in the Senate has already signaled that they want Müeller protected from accountability. Who is there to hold Müeller accountable? Obviously they would all prefer to see Trump out and then a return to business as usual.
Trump seems to have goaded the deep state into using nerve gas on the American people.
“..if this is all a big witch hunt and Mr. Trump has nothing illegal or untoward to hide, why does he care about the privilege in the first place?”
.
That’s like saying, if someone pleads the 5th, they are instantly proven guilty.
Pleading the 5th doesn’t make them guilty, though it raises doubt in people about their being innocent. With how easily words you say can be twisted, it can be the best way to defend against having your statements come back at you in a way that is different from intended. Just like Trump being advised to not sit down with Herr Mueller and his gestapo like tactics.
Everything else aside, this is about Trump’s tax returns. Personal lawyers always have copies of their clients’ tax returns. I bet you the prize for Mueller was to accidentally sweep up his tax returns in the process. Income tax returns, or at least parts of them, are often attached to many different transactions that people like Trump engage in.
I also seem to remember that all of Hillary’s personal assistants who just happened to be non-practicing attorneys were allowed attorney client privilege by the FBI even though they were active participants and never previously represented Clinton in an attorney client capacity.
The very next Democrat president gets a hard right wing special prosecutor upon being elected. Turn about is fair play.
The problem with that is we believe in the rule of law. Mueller and his Merry Band are engaged in a lawless enterprise with the objective of overturning the election. I don’t think they want Trump gone (some obviously do), but so damaged that he can’t get anything done. Unless they believe they can roll Mike Pence, the won’t find anything like assignations with porn stars to use against him.
The rule of law requires the same rules to apply to all players, so turnabout is indeed fair play, but I’ve got a different question: who exactly do you imagine is going to appoint this person? The career DOJ won’t, and the D political appointees certainly won’t, so your proposal is moot.
Where else, I ask, can you find such thoughtful comments being made as here in this Legal Insurrection website offered to the public by William Jacobson. My prayer, of late, has been for its increased influence with our governmental leaders who can also read the stories and comments and gain fresh, less-biased view of the nature of peril that our country has drifted into with so many years of Obama’s rule and the continued presence of his cronie appointees still holding bureaucratic high-level jobs. My suggestion is to remove all those brain-washed, control freaks and replace them with NEW TALENT: for instance, take the recent graduates of HILLSDALE COLLEGE and just drop them into the Washington positions and let the benefits of the Constitution integrate and work (themselves) out where tone of leadership means so much. God help us!
Nice to see the insights and commentary but at the end of the day it’s all talk. The law can’t prevent what amounts to a coup and the Constitution is a relic. If this doesn’t insinuate coup, what does?:
“This is an all-out assault on Trump and the election result.
It’s no longer about Russian collusion, if it ever was.”
“election result” being the operative words.
We should have listened to Dick The Butcher’s advice.
Um, Dick the Butcher was the bad guy, the would-be tyrant. Today’s Dicks have found a new trick: instead of killing the lawyers they’ve suborned them.
Um, I can’t believe you find it necessary to explain Shakespeare to others, lol. Look up ‘concrete thinking’.
Dick never met a psychologist. 😉
Retired in 2015, but had fleeting thoughts of returning to work last fall. It scared me and I let my credentials lapse before that could happen.
Hey legal insurrection-ites, don’t forget the “big picture” – Tom Donohue of the “US chamber of commerce” is ACTIVELY working AGAINST President Trump and the USA: trillions are at stake.
Donohue’s latest speech calls for “hemispheric cooperation”. His buddies are ANTI Trump and ANTI USA!
https://www.uschamber.com/speech/hemispheric-cooperation-greater-growth-competitiveness-and-prosperity-across-the-americas
Sundance at CTH discusses…
Anti Trump group (led by figure head Mueller doing whatever they say) will try ANYTHING to get to Trump.
We all need to support the president – he has USA’s best interests… the Chamber of commerce NOT SO MUCH… they only care about their POCKETS.
We need a good old-fashioned revolution … it’s been too long since the last. The Tree of Liberty is dying of thirst.