EVA BRAUN BLOWJOBS posted:

Extraordinary legal hurdles had to be crossed for the warrant to be issued. The ACLU agrees, and sees it as a sign that law is working. It's difficult to make a different case.

Dead Reckoning posted:

I don't buy it. If it was anyone but Trump, let's say Obama's lawyer got his office tossed, do you really think the ACLU's position would be, "well, we can't say for sure that this public figure *hasn't* been conspiring with his lawyer to do crimes, and we trust the government when it says that there was exceptional scrutiny and oversight when this decision was made."?

I'm on their mailing list because I donated, but this is pretty much the last straw for me. I originally joined up in '04 because they were a relatively apolitical organization that lobbied and litigated for privacy and individual civil rights, but since 2017 it's become increasingly apparent that the national organization cares more about what is bad for Trump and the right wing than good for civil rights. They've also been increasingly throwing their weight behind other cultural issues that are only tangential to civil rights. Getting Trump out of office would almost certainly be tactically good for civil rights, but deciding to be selective about their principles rather than endorsing an alternative candidate isn't the way they should be going about it.

quote:

Hark! I hear a call in the distance!

I must save Dead Reckoning from his dumbass arguments!
gently caress, he shat all over himself
Goddammit, Dead Reckoning what the gently caress did you eat?

CommieGIR posted:

And that's before we even get into that there is a reason almost no actual worthwhile lawyers want to touch Trump.

M_Gargantua posted:

Except its clearly dumb this time instead of simply wrong due to DR's bad assumptions.

Nephzinho posted:

The ACLU illustrates it pretty clearly and it is pretty cut and dry legal precedent. You can talk to your lawyer about bribes you made, you can't have your lawyer deliver them. And the AG is going after stuff that isn't even privileged. They are doing this by the book knowing the slightest impropriety will cast doubt on the entire investigation.

Mr. Nice! posted:

This is multiple warrants spanning months of times with mountains of corroborating evidence and multiple levels of independent judicial review.

Godholio posted:

It's been a while since I clarified this point, but I don't have a problem with people disagreeing with him. It's the dogpiling that occurs whenever his name shows up that bugs me, particularly when there are plenty of driveby shitposters in here.

joat mon posted:

Ah yes, the ACLU, whose entire raison d'etre is going along with "pretty cut and dry legal precedent."

Cite?

Hot Karl Marx posted:

Poland is getting uhhhh (more in the twitter thread)

https://twitter.com/mycielski/status/985452608356745216

You would think Poland of all countries would hate nazism

Mr. Nice! posted:

There were a few articles saying that cohen had been the subject to search warrants looking at his communications and emails for months in the lead up to the raid. Each one of those warrants followed the statutory requirements. This was part of the justification for the full raid because basically none of his communications indicated he was performing any legal services for anyone, let alone the president with whom he had zero email contact in the three months of monitoring.

holocaust bloopers posted:

I am happy to see the ACLU weigh in on an incredible event such as the president’s personal lawyer being subject to an FBI raid.

Mr. Nice! posted:

Now we need godholio to come in and tell us we’re being too rough on out deontologist friend.

Bored As gently caress posted:

Watch Einsatzgruppen on Netflix.

CommieGIR posted:

All the legal scholars say no....so....no, probably not. Or don't hire a dirtbag as a lawyer who is working in the same building as Russian mobsters and has a long and sordid history with fraud and crime.

It's actually kind of hilarious that you think raiding Cohen is going to damage Attorney/Client privilege. He's not a good lawyer.

vains posted:

im genuinely curious. a link to what a legal scholar actually said is interesting, saying that legal scholars said something isn't.

Dead Reckoning posted:

They could have simply chosen not to comment if they felt there wasn't any civil rights issue, but the fact that they chose to endorse it is what shocks me.

It feels like everyone has lost their goddamn minds since Trump got elected, and everyone is about winning and crushing the opposition now, norms and institutions be damned. The ACLU giving a full-throated endorsement to the FBI hoovering up a bunch of attorney-client communications on the assurance that the warrant was sworn out legally and a different set of agents and prosecutors would separate out the relevant ones is not something I could imagine happening ten years ago.
I guess I can type out, "I think we should adhere to our established rules and codes, rather than bending or breaking them when we think it would yield a better outcome" every time if using the multi-syllable word that means the same thing is too distracting for you. Which is kind of relevant since that's exactly what is happening here. Do you think that granting this extensive of a warrant because "well obviously Cohen is a dirtbag" isn't going to have a chilling effect on attorney-client communications and isn't going to encourage U.S. Attorneys to see how much they can push on attorney-client privilege in the future? Hell, maybe this warrant really was the right and necessary thing, but everyone seems to be blowing by the concerning aspects of this because it's fun to watch the President's lawyer get the "suddenly, Federal Agents" treatment on TV and we're all pretty sure he's dirty.

Bored As gently caress posted:

Reminder that out of 3,000 members of the Einsatzgruppen made up of Germans, only 24 or so were ever prosecuted. And essentially none of the tens of thousands of Polish, Latvian, Estonian, Ukranian, etc police officers or volunteers who directly committed the extermination of hundreds of thousands of Jews (ans facilitated the extermination of tons of others) during WWII were ever prosecuted by their countries.

Watch Einsatzgruppen on Netflix. It is a depressing as gently caress documentary series but it ends with basically saying all these countries white washed their country's role in the Holocaust, and how some of these countries have resurgent white nationalist anti Semite groups gaining a lot of members.

joat mon posted:

Fair enough. Don't see the multiple levels of judicial review yet, though.

just the basic rear end article first reporting the raid posted:

The searches are a significant intrusion by prosecutors into the dealings of one of Mr. Trump’s closest confidants, and they pose a dilemma for Mr. Trump. He has dismissed Mr. Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt,” but these warrants were obtained by an unrelated group of prosecutors. The searches required prior consultation with senior members of Mr. Trump’s own Justice Department.

UP THE BUM NO BABY posted:

Blind Rasputin posted:

Post this in the GIP current events thread I want to see what happens.

Fister Roboto posted:

orange juche posted:

Since this is tyool 2018 and tweeting is a manner of national discourse, I present you, a sick burn

https://twitter.com/infinite_scream/status/985733552070213632

boop the snoot posted:

i'm sure trump is right and the DoJ has a vast conspiracy against him and that's how they were actually able to secure a warrant.

Dead Reckoning posted:

I don't buy it. If it was anyone but Trump, let's say Obama's lawyer got his office tossed, do you really think the ACLU's position would be, "well, we can't say for sure that this public figure *hasn't* been conspiring with his lawyer to do crimes, and we trust the government when it says that there was exceptional scrutiny and oversight when this decision was made."?

I'm on their mailing list because I donated, but this is pretty much the last straw for me. I originally joined up in '04 because they were a relatively apolitical organization that lobbied and litigated for privacy and individual civil rights, but since 2017 it's become increasingly apparent that the national organization cares more about what is bad for Trump and the right wing than good for civil rights. They've also been increasingly throwing their weight behind other cultural issues that are only tangential to civil rights. Getting Trump out of office would almost certainly be tactically good for civil rights, but deciding to be selective about their principles rather than endorsing an alternative candidate isn't the way they should be going about it.

quote:

On Tuesday morning, President Trump reacted to the news that the FBI searched the office of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, by tweeting “Attorney–client privilege is dead!” On Monday night, he called the search “an attack on our country.” Nothing could be further from the truth. While all the facts are not yet known publicly, all indications thus far are that the search was conducted pursuant to the rule of law, and with sign-offs from Trump appointees.

We don’t say this lightly. The ACLU is the nation’s premier defender of privacy, and we’ve long maintained that the right of every American to speak freely to his or her attorney is essential to the legal system. These rights are protected by the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments, and we are second to none in defending them — often for people with whom we fundamentally disagree.

But we also believe in the rule of law as an essential foundation for civil liberties and civil rights. And perhaps the first principle of the rule of law is that no one — not even the president, let alone his lawyer — is above the law. And no one, not even the president, can exploit the attorney-client privilege to engage in crime or fraud.

The attorney-client privilege has always included a “crime-fraud exception,” which provides that if you are using the attorney-client relationship to perpetrate a crime, there is no privilege. You have a right to talk in confidence with your attorney about criminal activity, but you can’t use your attorney to accomplish a crime. A mobster suspected of engaging in bribery can consult his attorney about the facts of his alleged bribery without fear that the attorney will disclose those communications. But he has no right to have the lawyer deliver the bribe for him.

The ACLU has long recognized this exception. In fact, the ACLU cited the crime-fraud exception in our efforts to stop the government from concealing evidence of illegal torture by citing the attorney-client privilege.

While the crime-fraud exception is well-established, it is also narrow. And searches of lawyers’ offices should be tightly restricted. The Justice Department’s own guidelines recognize that searching an attorney’s office is not to be done lightly. Unlike ordinary searches, searches of attorney offices require extraordinary approvals from high-level officials — in this instance, from Trump appointees in the Justice Department.

According to the Justice Department’s guidelines on searching the office of an attorney, a “search warrant should be drawn as specifically as possible, consistent with the requirements of the investigation, to minimize the need to search and review privileged material to which no exception applies.” The guidelines go on to say that to protect the attorney-client privilege, “a ‘privilege team’ should be designated, consisting of agents and lawyers not involved in the underlying investigation,” in order to “minimize the intrusion into privileged material.” The burden of proof is on prosecutors to show that they made no use of privileged material and their investigation was not influenced by it. These protections may or may not be sufficient in particular circumstances, but they show that the Justice Department recognizes, and seeks to safeguard, the attorney-client privilege even in those rare circumstances where it seeks to search an attorney’s office.

The New York Times reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee, signed off on the search. Indeed, all of the top officials involved in the decision to go forward with the search are Republican: Robert Mueller, Rosenstein, and FBI Director Christopher Wray. The interim U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey Berman, is also a Republican, although he reportedly recused himself. That all of these Republican officials approved the search refutes any suggestion that it is a partisan “attack.” And most significantly, the search was conducted pursuant to a warrant issued by a nonpartisan federal magistrate judge.

We don’t know all the reasons and circumstances for the FBI search of Cohen’s office and home. News reports suggest that the focus is on Cohen’s payments to two women, adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal to suppress their stories of affairs with Donald Trump, and that these payments may have been illegal. But what is clear is that prosecutors had to overcome high hurdles to obtain the search warrant. That the warrant was issued is not a sign that the attorney-client privilege is dead. It is, on the contrary, a sign that the rule of law is alive.

quote:

The poll finds that the gap between support for Democratic vs. Republican House candidates dropped by more than half since the beginning of the year. At the same time, there has been a slight increase in President Trump’s approval rating, although it remains low. Measures of partisan enthusiasm paint a more mixed picture of the electorate in comparison to signs of Democratic intensity displayed in many recent special elections.

orange juche posted:

Since this is tyool 2018 and tweeting is a manner of national discourse, I present you, a sick burn