Schiff is a deplorable
 

Disgusting how an elected official, chair of the committee, unabashedly attempts to bait and put words into the mouth of Maguire...…



I think they must not have anything

He can come off a bit slimy at times, but trying to understand if the DNI was in any way part of the cover up isn't deplorable it's his job.

yeah...just a little :rotf2:

It was great watching Nunes basically like, I give up.

Well he sure PO'd Trump! Did you hear him when he got off Air Force One? Pissssed. Hope he starts in on Pelosi and Warren finances too.

Amazing to see adults who have seen past presidents.. make excuses for the current one again and again... it very disturbing.. how about America 1st. Not Trump above country..
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Wayne, I dare you to find a post where I put any politician above country.… I called out Schiff for a horrible display and his personal attack on a man who has served this country throughout his career. (Schiff did try to back away from that personal attack in closing.) But the hearing was a waste of taxpayer dollars. If they are trying to keep powder dry for closing arguments, they could at least have a credible legislator doing the opening for them. As for Trump,... the man and his MO disgust me. His agenda however has a lot of points with merit. That is putting country first! I would welcome EITHER party to put forward a worthy candidate to consider, for the good of the country.

Pick a side

Acting DNI Maguire: “I think the whistleblower did the right thing. I think he followed the law every step of the way.”

President Trump on Whistleblower sources: “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart with spies and treason, right?"

Which is it?
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Trump knows the next step is to unmask the whistle blower, get the full IG report and start calling witnesses to testify. Remember the IG did an investigation into the allegations.

Then watch for Republicans to start flipping.

Yes. Let’s watch.
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Trump seems like a very happy old man looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!
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I watched a lot of it and didn't see Schiff making personal attacks. He pushed him at times but what did he say that was personal?

Schiff should resign in shame after that performance

Seemed pretty decent performance wise. His only big gaff was referring to a line in his opening statement as parody.

it was shameful and he's shameless

You mean it’s similar (but in my mind far less disrespectful) than the way Trump treated McCain? But you defend a Trump as your party demands it.
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apples and oranges

Guys, keep this up and Pete's going to start posting endless video of House Republican douchbaggery during Obama. And there's a lot of footage.

“I called out Schiff for a horrible display and his personal attack on a man who has served this country throughout his career.”

What Ross found objectionable and he commented on above, pales in comparison to how Trump treated McCain, who also served his country throughout his career. To that complaint Trump is far worse in so many ways, cross him or speak ill of him during or after service and he could care less about military service or political service.
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Want to talk about deplorable, Trump suggests the people who spoke to and the whistle blower should be treated as spies and further wished it could be as severe a sentence as was the norm in the past. Speak out and he will not only go on a campaign to smear you, he has no elevated it to threatening lives.
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Funny how a thread about a person's behavior contains no mention of said behavior.

Maybe he likes what Bill Weld said about punishment for treason.

Scott pointed out that Schiff's behavior was shameless. And you said it's a bit slimy.

In response to Got Stripers above
In or out of context. Your choice...

Threatening and ruining people's lives, or worse, is just another chapter in the playbook for those doing business in NY as well as much of the one percenter class. No way you can get there without stepping on and squashing some people along the way....


Furthermore, Trump was quoted saying "what we used to do with spies and traitors", when he wasn't even remotely a part of the "we"...

Incorrect, I said he can come off a bit slimey at times. I didn’t say he was slimey today.
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Your original statement inferred that you agreed. Now you want to quantify your statement?

No. Can you quantify your initial accusation?
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Just saying its not what you say its whats not said what shiff did deserves a thread .. but Trumps current behavior not so much see all other threads thread responses
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TDS
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Poster Child
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You clearly suffer from
TRUMPS DONE NOTHING WRONG SYNDROM.. but your not alone.
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nope...it's like making sure there is plenty of wood on the fire:)

From the Bulwark https://thebulwark.com/dni-maguire-t...orney-general/

In congressional testimony on Thursday, Acting Director of National Intelligence Joseph Maguire testified that he relied on the advice of both the White House and the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel in deciding not to transmit the Ukraine whistleblower’s report to congressional intelligence committees, as he was required to do by the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act.

Maguire was parachuted into an unholy mess when, practically on his first day of work, he was presented with a whistleblower report implicating the president of the United States in a scheme to pressure Ukraine into providing him with dirt on his likely 2020 presidential opponent in exchange for releasing military aid to Ukraine.

There was not only a whistleblower report, but also a finding by the Intelligence Committee Inspector General that the report was both credible and involved a matter of urgent concern. Under the plain language of the Whistleblower Protection Act, Maguire was required to transmit the report to the intelligence committees of congress within seven days.

But Maguire didn’t do that.

Instead, he reached out first to the White House counsel, and then to the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel for advice.

Seeking advice and direction from Donald Trump and William Barr about how to handle a whistleblower report that alleged misconduct by them (Attorney General Barr, while not the primary subject of the whistleblower’s report, was clearly implicated as being central to the scheme) was a shocking display of poor judgment and a complete failure to understand what the whistleblower process is all about.

The whole purpose of a whistleblower process is to provide the whistleblower with a safe, independent platform to report illegal conduct by a government official.

By seeking direction on how to handle the whistleblower’s allegations from the very government officials who had allegedly committed the misdeeds—the White House and the Department of Justice—Maguire turned the whistleblower process on its head. Instead of an independent official deciding what to do with a whistleblower’s allegations of misconduct by government officials, the government officials under scrutiny got to decide how to handle their own cases. Trump and Bartr became, in effect, their own judges.

And aside from being tainted by conflicts of interest, the advice Maguire sought, obtained and followed was questionable, at best.

The OLC opinion, also released on Thursday, concluded that there was no statutory obligation for Maguire to transmit the whistleblower’s report to Congress because it didn’t meet the Whistleblower Act’s definition of “urgent concern.”

This decision is not as subjective as you might think. Under the Intelligence Whistleblower Act, “urgent concern” is a defined term referring to a problem or abuse “relating to the funding, administration, or operation of an intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority of the Director of National Intelligence involving classified information.”

Does an alleged scheme by a president of the United States to pressure a foreign power to interfere with an American presidential election “relate to” the “operation of an intelligence activity” within the responsibility and authority of the Director of National Intelligence?

Of course it does.

As the OLC opinion admits, “the intelligence community, under the DNI’s direction, protects against intelligence activities directed against the United States, including foreign efforts to interfere in our elections.”

So how could the OLC conclude that this wasn’t a matter of “urgent concern” under the applicable decision?

Easy: They applied a phony, non-existent standard.

According to the OLC, the urgent-concern provision permits allegations of abuses “arising from within the U.S. intelligence community.” Because in this case the alleged offender is the president of the United States the OLC contends that he is “not a member of the intelligence community.” Even though the president is in charge of the intelligence community. Therefore, OLC determined that the matter could not qualify as an “urgent concern” under the statute.

But nothing in the Act requires that the alleged abuse must have occurred “within the U.S. intelligence community”—or says that it must involve a “member” of the intelligence community. Rather the Act says that the conduct in question must “relate to” intelligence activity within the responsibility and authority of the DNI. And the conduct in question here manifestly relates to intelligence activity within the DNI’s responsibility—namely foreign efforts to interfere with U.S. elections.

The OLC was trying to torture the meaning of the law by reading something into it that wasn’t there.

Maguire probably can’t be faulted for following bad legal advice. He’s not a lawyer himself and it’s understandable that he would reach out for legal advice to guide him through an admittedly thorny situation.

But he can and should be faulted for seeking that advice from the very people whose conduct was called into question by the whistleblower. Their conflict of interest could not have been more blatantly obvious.

Once Maguire decided to let the inmates run the asylum, the outcome was all but predetermined.

Maguire isn’t a bad guy. In fact, by every indication, he’s a good guy, trying his best to do a difficult job that he never asked for.

But we can fairly question Maguire’s judgment without questioning his integrity.

And in this case, his judgment was terrible.

Yup.

Remember that you said this.

Every single investigation since the election, was to you, the one that was going to bring him down. Cohen, Stormy Daniels, tax returns, Russian collusion, obstruction of justice. Every rumor, the first nanosecond it's reported, is to you the smoking gun. How many times do you allow yourself to be 100% wrong, before you do something different?

Maybe he goes down on this one if something new comes to light. No meaningful number of republicans will flip based on what we have now.

Did it occur to you as you were writing this post how much wrongdoing this president has on his shoulders. As a patriot why do you want Trump to weather the storm? He's sold you out for his own gain.

Republicans stood by Nixon until just before the end. Just wait until the hearings.

snowflake, i know exactly how
much wrongdoing he has on his shoulders. i have nothing but contempt for him as a person, but unlike you, my contempt for him is genuine, not political. yours is
entirely political, based
on the obvious fact that you can’t admit the hypocrisy when your side didn’t care when obama
and senate democrats also asked for politically beneficial help, and to investigate a political rival. you want there to be one set of standards for democrats, and another for republicans. it doesn’t work that way.

i also see nothing in trumps long list of transgressions which comes
close to the standard for
impeachable offense. but if it torpedos biden and has
zero chance of resulting trump
being removed and a 100% chance of firing up his base, proceed if you wish. unless there’s more to this story, it increases the chances he gets re elected. how long will you exile yourself this time, if
that happens?
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oh and i want him to weather the storm
because (1) i don’t see an impeachable offense, especially in light of what you defended obama
and senate democrats doing, and (2) according to my values, he’s better than just about any democrat, certainly better than any of the current candidates.
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You're really full of a lot of hate Jim, take a break.