UPDATE: CNN Hid Images and Video of Roger Stone’s 72-Year-Old Wife Being Dragged Out of Home Barefoo

[240B]

"On Friday the Mueller Special Counsel sent 20-29 armed FBI operatives..."to Stone's house.

Yep. You're right. I mistyped. But when you are dealing with that many armed agents, what's another dozen here or there? I wonder if CNN was armed. Or if they had armed security with them?

That Roger Stone guy is a dangerous dude! He might have killed them all!

[catfish1957]

So which is it? 20, 25, 27 3/4 or 29? Seems like this is something you would have a definitive number on.

It's the government.  They have problems counting to "5".

[Smokin Joe]

It's the government.  They have problems counting to "5".

Unless it's YOUR money at tax time.

[Wingnut]

"On Friday the Mueller Special Counsel sent 20-29 armed FBI operatives..."to Stone's house.

"What difference – at this point, what difference does it make?"

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

@edpc

No one, from Mueller to media legal experts, has given a coherent legal justification for starting this investigation. There are no statutes that cover “collusion.” It appears to be a term of political art, rather than of law.

Wrong. It was retroactively justified in September, with this statement: “...the ability of persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States to interfere in or undermine public confidence in United States elections, including through the unauthorized accessing of election and campaign infrastructure or the covert distribution of propaganda and disinformation, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

Care to guess who issued it? Hint: it was part of an emergency declaration. Also, there are laws against collusion. You may know it better as ‘conspiracy.’

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-imposing-certain-sanctions-event-foreign-interference-united-states-election/


WHY did you bother with this artful dodge (link)?

Because you figured most folk wouldn't bother to read it?

ED: The word "collusion" does not appear in that copious pile of specificity. The word "conspiracy" does.
(I speed read it, then pasted it into a Word Doc and used Find. Nada.) Conspiracy is at 7(B).

Adding this link as verification is BS. YOU can affix Any meaning you like to a word.

And I can go look it up.

Collusion is not the legal equivalent of Conspiracy, . . . . anymore than the GD Federal Reserve is IN Article 1 of the Constitution.

Collusion remains a term of misdirecting theatrics, like calling someone a 'thespian'.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

@Cyber Liberty

Mueller has stayed silent during his investigation.  Do not believe what others say when they trash him.  Please read his life and you will believe this honorable man.  I could list some of it here, but you need to read it all to know him.  Reply to me after your reading.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mueller

Wiki can be (and is) edited by anyone who wants to at any time of day. It's only the user community that discovers inaccuracies/lies, later, and corrects them.

General Washington would have had Dear Bobby Hanged by his neck before it ever got this far out of control.

[edpc]

Collusion is not the legal equivalent of Conspiracy, . . . . anymore than the GD Federal Reserve is IN Article 1 of the Constitution

Sure it is. For instance, let's say a group of pharmaceutical companies - a favorite target of your screeds - attempts to engage in price fixing. They'd be investigated and possibly charged. How do the feds define price fixing?


An Antitrust Primer

This primer briefly describes the most common antitrust violations and outlines those conditions and events that indicate anticompetitive collusion.

Introduction

American consumers have the right to expect the benefits of free and open competition — the best goods and services at the lowest prices. Public and private organizations often rely on a competitive bidding process to achieve that end. The competitive process only works, however, when competitors set prices honestly and independently. When competitors collude, prices are inflated and the customer is cheated. Price fixing, bid rigging, and other forms of collusion are illegal and are subject to criminal prosecution by the Antitrust Division of the United States Department of Justice.

-snip-

Price fixing is an agreement among competitors to raise, fix, or otherwise maintain the price at which their goods or services are sold. It is not necessary that the competitors agree to charge exactly the same price, or that every competitor in a given industry join the conspiracy. Price fixing can take many forms, and any agreement that restricts price competition violates the law.

https://www.justice.gov/atr/price-fixing-bid-rigging-and-market-allocation-schemes

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

@edpc

That reply is not German.

The LEGAL equivalent, not a Primer for noobs.

If you're going to indict and prosecute someone for Anything you Have to have the Correct Section and exact, relevant language of the part of the law you claim they violated.

Without it you got bupkiss in Court.

The Law does not deal in Thesaurus/Simile English.

And in the future I'd appreciate it if you'd Cite the Actual Section of the Law with a link (Cornell Law will do) rather than back handed ask us to prove any more negatives.

[edpc]

The Law does not deal in Thesaurus/Simile English.

This is like saying possession of purloined goods isn't illegal, because it's just a prettier word for stolen and isn't in the statute.

Giuliani has been out there, for months, saying there was no campaign collusion and it's not a crime, even if there was. Now that Manafort was convicted and shown to have given campaign data to Kilimnik, he's changed his tune to say...

 â€œI never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign. I said the president of the United States."

Notice he completely abandoned the technical aspect and never said any potential 'collusion' on a campaign member's part is irrelevant to law. He knows that would be roundly and rightfully mocked by people on all sides.

The word 'collusion' may not appear is specific statute, but conspiracy does. In that context, they're completely interchangeable. You cannot engage in a conspiracy without colluding. Investigation of 'collusion' doesn't appear in the SC mandate, anyway. So, your attempt to split hairs on definition and synonyms is kind of senseless.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

This is like saying possession of purloined goods isn't illegal, because it's just a prettier word for stolen and isn't in the statute.

Giuliani has been out there, for months, saying there was no campaign collusion and it's not a crime, even if there was. Now that Manafort was convicted and shown to have given campaign data to Kilimnik, he's changed his tune to say...

 â€œI never said there was no collusion between the campaign, or people in the campaign. I said the president of the United States."

Notice he completely abandoned the technical aspect and never said any potential 'collusion' on a campaign member's part is irrelevant to law. He knows that would be roundly and rightfully mocked by people on all sides.

The word 'collusion' may not appear is specific statute, but conspiracy does. In that context, they're completely interchangeable. You cannot engage in a conspiracy without colluding. Investigation of 'collusion' doesn't appear in the SC mandate, anyway. So, your attempt to split hairs on definition and synonyms is kind of senseless.

Look Ed, I will give you that you are usually very good at backing your positions. You bring data to the topic.

Just not this time.

I don't care a fig about Giuliani. He's another Red Herring.

Stop dancing and stick to the point.

If the Courts had been meant to get involved on 'collusion', Congress would have criminalized 'collusion' rather than 'conspiracy'.

So see my previous response, again.

Come up with the Statute.

[Bigun]

Anybody still think CNN is doing anything other than spewing Democrat propaganda 24/7/365?

[edpc]

Look Ed, I will give you that you are usually very good at backing your positions. You bring data to the topic.

Just not this time.

I don't care a fig about Giuliani. He's another Red Herring.

Stop dancing and stick to the point.

If the Courts had been meant to get involved on 'collusion', Congress would have criminalized 'collusion' rather than 'conspiracy'.

So see my previous response, again.

Come up with the Statute.

I've already demonstrated how collusion and conspiracy can be synonymous, in the example of the justice department excerpts. That's data. You didn't like it, because it's not a statue. Talk about dancing.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

I've already demonstrated how collusion and conspiracy can be synonymous, in the example of the justice department excerpts. That's data. You didn't like it, because it's not a statue. Talk about dancing. /???

Fine. You take your Synonym and I'll take my Statute, to Court, and we'll see who gets How far filing on which of them.

[edpc]

Fine. You take your Synonym and I'll take my Statute, to Court, and we'll see who gets How far filing on which of them.

OK. While you’re at it, get hired as an attorney for someone charged with conspiracy. Argue in open court that your client didn’t conspire, they colluded. See what happens with the verdict.

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

OK. While you’re at it, get hired as an attorney for someone charged with conspiracy. Argue in open court that your client didn’t conspire, they colluded. See what happens with the verdict.

Game, set, match.

For someone who digs as deep as you do on post after post, . . . . . and you can't come up with the actual Law.

It's not that tough, if it exists.

[edpc]

Game, set, match.

OK - if that makes you feel better.

For someone who digs as deep as you do on post after post, . . . . . and you can't come up with the actual Law.

It's not that tough, if it exists.

Show me a successful defense against a conspiracy charge, where ‘collusion is not a crime’ was used. It’s not that tough, if it exists. Besides, there has already been a ruling in the case where collusion has been directly related to a conspiracy charge. Incidentally, this judge was a Trump appointee.

This court ruling should drive another nail in the coffin of the argument that collusion is not a crime. It clearly can be, and the crime is conspiracy – even if no other independent criminal violations are identified,” wrote Randall Eliason, a former federal prosecutor and lecturer at George Washington Law School.  “Mueller’s use of that theory in his Russian social media indictment is a textbook example of a 371 conspiracy to defraud the U.S., and that theory has now been validated by the trial judge’s ruling.”

As U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich explained in her opinion last week, there are two ways to violate 18 U.S.C. 371. One can either “conspire … to commit any offense against the United States,” which is conspiracy in the traditional sense, or one can conspire “to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose[.]”

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/bad-news-for-trump-judge-in-russia-case-says-collusion-could-be-enough-for-criminal-charge/

It’s true there is no criminal statute titled “collusion.” But as I’ve noted in several places (here and here, for example) the relevant crime is conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. 371. Collusion refers to an agreement with others to achieve some improper end. In criminal law, we call that a conspiracy – a partnership in crime. And the breadth of the federal conspiracy statute makes it particularly well-suited for cases like Mueller’s probe of Russian interference with the election.

https://sidebarsblog.com/collusion-crime-mueller-judge-decision/

[To-Whose-Benefit?]

"It’s true there is no criminal statute titled “collusion.”

Ed, you have to get your paperwork Filed with the Court before you can argue anything, and the Court doesn't care about synonyms, Period.

The Court wants the actual Law and nothing but.

 

[Cyber Liberty]

"It’s true there is no criminal statute titled “collusion.”

Ed, you have to get your paperwork Filed with the Court before you can argue anything, and the Court doesn't care about synonyms, Period.

The Court wants the actual Law and nothing but.

 

Unless it's the Ninth Circus...then the law means whatever is necessary to support leftists.  Or if it's CJ Roberts wanting to fabricate an argument to keep Obastardcare legal by redefining a "penalty" as a "tax."

[edpc]

"It’s true there is no criminal statute titled “collusion.”

Ed, you have to get your paperwork Filed with the Court before you can argue anything, and the Court doesn't care about synonyms, Period.

The Court wants the actual Law and nothing but.

 

I noticed you skipped right over the next sentence that began with ‘but....’

Also, if the court wanted ‘actual law’ and nothing else, there wouldn’t be challenges, opinions, or interpretations.

[Cyber Liberty]

I noticed you skipped right over the next sentence that began with ‘but....’

Also, if the court wanted ‘actual law’ and nothing else, there wouldn’t be challenges, opinions, or interpretations.

Or ignoring the plain meanings of words of the Statutes/Constitution to mean what they want it to mean.  It's good to remember the vast majority of Judges spent years practicing this as Lawyers.

[Formerly Once-Ler]

womp womp.

[Bigun]

Or ignoring the plain meanings of words of the Statutes/Constitution to mean what they want it to mean.  It's good to remember the vast majority of Judges spent years practicing this as Lawyers.

Yeah! You can read all about that The Problem with Lawyers and the Constitution if anyone's interested!

[MajorClay]

Bastards.

[Wingnut]

As I said 18 pages ago.  FBI employing "stunt justice" recorded for posterity by the propaganda wing of the democrat party,  CNN.

Nothing to see her folks.  Move along.

[Jazzhead]

There is no way to commit conspiracy without colluding.  By the same token,  not all collusion rises to the level of criminal conspiracy.