(01-10-2019 07:45 AM)OldOwlNewHeel2 Wrote:  Yeah, and the original mandate here was *solely* "any links and or coordination between the Russian Government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump" and "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation." *After* it was revealed that possible crimes had been committed by numerous campaign associates of the President (i.e. perjury, obstruction of justice, money laundering, etc.), it was clear that investigating these items fell under the second item of Mueller's investigatory authority, without need of any "expansion" of Mueller's authority. It is also clear that if Mueller had not assumed the investigation of these items, a separate prosecuting entity (the U.S. Attorney, perhaps) would have done so, as has happened with a number of items already. Irrespective of your whining about it.
Let me know when you find the document "expanding" Starr's investigation to cover the travel office and FBI file stuff. Oh, and Vince Foster and the Rose Law Firm.
Look, it may very well be that Mueller ends all this by saying, "Yeah, there's nothing here vis-a-vis Trump himself. Some of his campaign people made really dumb choices and may have engaged in some individualized coordination with Russians for their own personal gain, but the campaign itself didn't do anything." If so, that's totally fine.

I think that's looking more and more like a very likely outcome. I'm glad you're fine with that. I don't think many on the left will be.

Quote:But I'm hard-pressed to see how anything Mueller has done so far outstrips the relatively broad mandate he was given by "[Trump's] own Justice Department," to use your phrasing.

The mandate was basically, "Orange man bad. Go figure out how." I don't think that sort of broad mandate is appropriate. Watergate did not drag on because there was clearly a crime and it was investigating that crime. Monicagate turned into an investigation in search of a crime. This is more of that. I think some republicans saw Monicagate as payback for Watergate, and I think many democrats see this as payback for Monicagate.

I would take some issue with the characterization of "[Trump's] own Justice Department." The people calling the shots are carer bureaucrats. They owe their allegiance to the bureaucracy, not to Trump. To be clear, that's the bureaucracy, not the Constitution. Probably more correctly, they think the bureaucracy IS the Constitution.