Federal Prosecutors: No crime committed in Ukraine call/no violation of Emoluments Clause

[Claudette]

We'll see by the number of "funny" ratings and non-sequitur responses whether any of the board leftists will actually read (and process) this--but in an effort to best facilitate that, here's a CliffsNotes summary and links. Spoiler alert: Barr was not involved in the investigation or conclusion by the Justice Department Criminal Division. Also note: these sources are not from Fox News, Brietbart, Gateway Pundit, et al:

That said, getting to the point, the initial argument when this story first hit (before the transcript was released) was that the impeachable crime committed by Trump involved quid pro quo. After the transcript came out, and it was shown that there was no quid pro quo, the position shifted, and our board liberals, when pressed to identify the "crime" that was allegedly committed during the call, have taken the position that the call violated campaign finance law under the Emoluments Clause, contending that the following statement by Trump constituted a request for a "thing of value" under the Clause:

The other thing, there's a lot of talk about Biden's son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it...It sounds horrible to me.

See transcript at page 4.

By way of example, when pressed to cite the law that was allegedly violated by Trump during the call, our resident self-described "Democratic Socialist" Billy000 posted as follows:

Cite the law?

What Is the Emoluments Clause?

Lol I love how you dumbasses expect sources but never even try to provide your own.

As I pointed out in that thread, if any of our board's leftists were to have researched an actual legal database such a Westlaw or Lexis Nexis (as opposed to op-eds by "journalists"), they would have quickly come to the realization that a request to investigate a crime is not a "thing of value" in violation of campaign finance laws.

And consistent therewith, the following determinations were recently made by the Justice Department, as reported by PBS:

• The question that was presented by the whistle-blower's complaint was, is the president seeking "a thing of value" from a foreign entity, which would be a violation under campaign finance law?

• The prosecutors in the Justice Department Criminal Division and Public Integrity Section thus interpreted whether an investigation by a foreign government can be characterized as "a thing of value" under campaign finance laws.

• Although Barr was aware "roughly" that the Justice Department was reviewing the legal question, he wasn't involved "once the question became a criminal question" and "didn't participate in those discussions and he wasn't a part of that."

• The Justice Department has concluded, upon review of the transcript, that there was no criminal issue involved here for them to resolve.

ABC news also reported that the Justice Department's Criminal Division made the following conclusions:

• The call "did not amount to a criminal violation of campaign finance law because nothing 'of value' was clearly promised or exchanged as a result of the call."

Notably:

• "[T]here was no disagreement among the prosecutors in the criminal division, even among career prosecutors, that the call did not amount to a potential campaign finance violation."

• "[T]he DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion that a sitting president could not be indicted did not play a role in the DOJ's review"

In sum, this was a unanimous decision by prosecutors in the Justice Department, including those that were hired during Democrat administrations--and consisted of an investigation and conclusion that did not involve Barr or the OLC opinion regarding whether a sitting president can be indicted.

Would any of the board's leftists like to identify the next alleged crime in the Democrats' Rolodex, now that this one has been wholly refuted just as I stated it would?

Okay first of all, this is about the phone call only. Obviously it still matters if Trump tried to withhold funding for Ukraine in exchange for dirt on Biden. What’s retarded is thinking that this phone call is somehow all that matters and there’s no other communication to examine. It warrants further investigation. My god, if Obama had a phone call exactly like this about Romney, your dumbass would be singing a very different tune.

Second of all, even if this miraculously doesn’t end up with any illegal wrong-doing which it will, a president doesn’t have to break a law to be impeached l.

You really are a knucklehead. Trump didn't threaten to withhold funding. That was your boy Biden.

Geeze what a moron you are.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Oh well I guess Trump has nothing to fear from an impeachment inquiry, care to explain why he is shitting his pants on Twitter?

I cant believe you're falling for this shit.....Again!!!
You dipshits never learn.