Trump Aides, Seeking Leverage, Investigate Mueller’s Investigators

I'm an advocate of the 4th amendment.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Justice Clarence Thomas openly questioned whether “modern civil-forfeiture statutes can be squared with the Due Process Clause and our Nation’s History.” As Thomas notes, the abuses can be horrifying: This system — where police can seize property with limited judicial oversight and retain it for their own use — has led to egregious and well-chronicled abuses.

Police in the town of Tenaha, Texas, regularly seized the property of out-of-town drivers passing through and collaborated with the district attorney to coerce them into signing waivers of their property rights. In one case, local officials threatened to file unsubstantiated felony charges against a Latino driver and his girlfriend and to place their children in foster care unless they signed a waiver. In another, they seized a black plant worker’s car and all his property (including cash he planned to use for dental work), jailed him for a night, forced him to sign away his property, and then released him on the side of the road without a phone or money. He was forced to walk to a Wal-Mart, where he borrowed a stranger’s phone to call his mother, who had to rent a car to pick him up.

Thomas rightly argues that a narrow colonial-era practice based on concerns that the potentially guilty person was beyond the jurisdiction of the United States is hardly justification for a sweeping forfeiture regime that permits prosecutors to take billions of dollars in property from Americans without actually proving criminal misconduct.

Given Justice Neil Gorsuch’s well-known skepticism of expansive executive powers and respect for originalism, properly understood, it is probable that Thomas has at least one other ally on the court, possibly more.

Forfeiture expanded dramatically as part of the War on Drugs, and the Supreme Court has proven that it will undermine even the First Amendment when constitutional rights clash with drug-enforcement priorities.

If asset forfeiture is designed to punish crime, then prove a crime. Make it part of the criminal process, submit it to the same burdens of proof, and end the conflict of interest that incentivizes agencies to line their pockets with seized goods. No one objects to seizing a drug dealer’s cash, but prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he’s a dealer and those are his ill-gotten gains. Law-enforcement agencies love to showcase their most impressive forfeiture successes, and I must admit there’s a surge of glee in seeing a crime boss lose his Lamborghini. But the daily reality of forfeiture is something else altogether. A Department of Justice inspector general report found that “almost half of the Drug Enforcement Agency’s seizures in a random sample weren’t tied to any broader law-enforcement purpose.” That’s unacceptable, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s crying out for meaningful legal reform.

http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...e-law-enforcement-scam-expanded-jeff-sessions

 

FIL and Trump's BOTH had a meeting with major players involved with Russian goverment, including a man whose business of setting up THOUSANDS of shell corporations to use millions of dollars in penetrating USA interests, including another American secret (until he was caught lying) foreign Paul Manafort who was part of the Trump presidential campaign (until exposed by the press and confessed).

So Trump's son, Trump's right hand man and brother in law, Trump's campagn manager, all in bed with a Russian agent specialist in creating Russian shell corporations and a Russian counter-intelligence agent who are now a "Russia American Lobbyist" does mean there is NO REASON to probe these Trump family members by authorities, according to Molonlabe and Fox News!

Suuure thing! Sounds legit!

 

Agree to disagree on this one?

Federal law enforcement agencies use the forfeiture laws for a variety of reasons, both time-honored and new. Like the statutes the First Congress enacted in 1789, the modern laws allow the government to seize contraband -- property that is simply unlawful to possess, like illegal drugs, unregistered machine guns, pornographic materials, smuggled goods and counterfeit money.

Due Process

Whatever the reasons why civil forfeiture is essential to federal law enforcement, it goes without saying that the process must be fair. All property owners -- whether they be criminal defendants or third parties -- are entitled to due process of law. Mr. Pilon contends that due process is lacking. He says that the government can seize property "almost at will," that officials can "seize property, real or personal, without notice or hearing," and that innocent parties find the system so daunting that they abandon their property without filing a claim. On all points, he is greatly mistaken.

Seizures of property for forfeiture are governed by the same rules that govern seizure of property for evidence -- the search and seizure requirements of the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Lasanta, 978 F.2d 1300 (2d Cir. 1992). If federal agents want to seize property for forfeiture, they have to get a warrant, unless one of the recognized exceptions to the Fourth Amendment applies, like when cash is found in plain view in a vehicle that can be driven away, and there is probable cause to believe it's drug proceeds, or when property is found during a search incident to a lawful arrest. In fact, in many instances, forfeiture seizures are more limited than their evidentiary counterparts. See 18 U.S.C. §981(b)(2) (in money laundering cases, warrantless seizures are authorized during searches incident to arrest, but not in other exigent circumstances).

In real property cases, the rules are still more restrictive. In United States v. James Daniel Good Property, 114 S. Ct. 492 (1993), the Supreme Court held that real property may not be seized at all, even with a warrant based on a showing of probable cause, until the property owner has been given notice and an opportunity to be heard. In short, in real property cases, the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment requires the government to give property owners more "process" than is due under the Fourth Amendment.

Moreover, seizing the property isn't the end of the process; it's only the beginning. If someone wants to contest a forfeiture he has a right to file a claim, thereby forcing the government to file a civil or criminal forfeiture action in federal court. If the case is civil, the claimant has all the rights that attend normal civil litigation, including the right to discovery and the right to a trial by jury. Finally, the forfeiture verdict must be based on a preponderance of the admissible evidence, not the probable cause evidence that was sufficient for the seizure.

Of course, any system can be improved. The Justice Department has proposed legislation to make the government carry the burden of proof in civil forfeiture cases. We also have suggested making it easier for people to file claims in forfeiture cases by extending the filing deadlines, and we have proposed a remedy for those whose property is damaged in government custody. (The Justice Department's legislative proposal and supporting testimony are published in the record of the Hearing on the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act, H.R. 1916, House Committee on the Judiciary, 104th Congress, 2d Sess., Serial No. 94, July 22, 1996.) But it is preposterous to say that property owners are denied due process under current law.

http://www.fed-soc.org/publications/detail/forfeiture-is-reasonable-and-it-works

 

And Pecker pulls out a good one



For Donny, with Love.

 

Is Russiagate Really Hillarygate?

Mueller’s Difficult Task

While leaks from within the investigation focus on possible obstruction of justice, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s writ – to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election – requires him to consider “matters” that Dems would prefer be left alone.

Special Counsel Mueller has been given a broad charge and no deadline -- a formula for trouble. He is supposed to “investigate Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election.” Given the many accounts of Russian contacts of Trump campaign officials and hangers-on, Mueller must follow these leads, which apparently have lead nowhere over a nine month investigation as reported even by Trump unfriendly sources like CNN. Mueller, therefore, should not require much time to rule out coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia state actors. Mueller must be careful to avoid detours into loosely related issue by scalp-hunting investigators. Mueller also must shut down leaks from within his office, if he wishes his reports to be credible to the American people.

Mueller must also conduct an investigation which is perceived as fair to both sides. On the Clinton/Democratic side, there are a number of unanswered questions related to Russian electoral intervention. Among them is the question of whether the “wiped clean” Clinton e-mails are in Russian hands (as asserted by the Steele dossier), whether the tarmac meeting of Bill Clinton and the Attorney General quashed the investigation of Hillary’s e-mails, and whether the Clintons and Russian uranium interests engaged in quid pro quo and “pay to play” operations.

The most important unanswered question is whether the Clinton campaign funded the Orbis Trump smear campaign and did they understand the campaign could be conducted by Russian intelligence?

Mueller must question Steele himself on his sources and some of the sources themselves, investigate whether they could be Russian intelligence agents, and determine the role of Clinton donors and campaign officials in the funding of the anti-Trump dossier.

The Fusion-Steele matter is explosive because it suggests that Russia’s most damaging intervention in the 2016 campaign may have been its creation of the Steele Dossier, remarkably paid for by the Clinton campaign! If so, the Clinton campaign (not Trump) was the prime sponsor of Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election.

If anyone thinks Mueller is not going to investigate everything they are mistaken.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paulro...s-russiagate-really-hillarygate/#1128f0285cf6

 

Sure!

And that's Justice Thomas' concern, that statutes that fit the post colonial era, during a time of uncertain jurisdiction do not fit our society today. And they are taking a hell of lot more than property that is illegal to possess. If you are caught with illegal items, I would expect them to be confiscated.

Justice Thomas disagrees and outlined a number of ongoing abuses.

Under state and federal law, police departments can seize and keep property that is suspected of involvement in criminal activity. Unlike criminal asset forfeiture, however, with civil forfeiture, a property owner need not be found guilty of a crime—or even charged—to permanently lose her cash, car, home, or other property. And according to a new report published by the Institute for Justice, “Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture,” most state laws are written in such a way as to encourage police agents to pursue profit instead of seeking the neutral administration of justice. The report grades each state and the federal government on its forfeiture laws and other measures of abuse. The results are appalling: Six states earned an F and 29 states and the federal government received a grade of D.

https://www.cato.org/events/policing-profit-abuse-civil-asset-forfeiture

Even George Will, complete with his bow tie is appalled:

TEWKSBURY, Mass.

Russ Caswell, 68, is bewildered: “What country are we in?” He and his wife, Pat, are ensnared in a Kafkaesque nightmare unfolding in Orwellian language.

This town’s police department is conniving with the federal government to circumvent Massachusetts law — which is less permissive than federal law — to seize his livelihood and retirement asset. In the lawsuit titled United States of America v. 434 Main Street, Tewksbury, Massachusetts, the government is suing an inanimate object, the motel Caswell’s father built in 1955. The U.S. Department of Justice intends to seize it, sell it for perhaps $1.5 million and give up to 80 percent of that to the Tewksbury Police Department, whose budget is just $5.5 million. The Caswells have not been charged with, let alone convicted of, a crime. They are being persecuted by two governments eager to profit from what is antiseptically called the “equitable sharing” of the fruits of civil forfeiture, a process of government enrichment that often is indistinguishable from robbery.

Over the last 25 years, they have had 56 rooms available for daily rent, or 125,000 independent rental events. In the last 25 years, 30 motel customers have been arrested on drug-dealing charges. That works out to 0.05% of there rentals over 6,700 days. Yet the government is using this excuse for impoverishing the Caswells by seizing this property, which is their only significant source of income and all of their retirement security.

The government says the rooms were used to “facilitate” a crime. No one claims the Caswells knew or even that they were supposed to know what was going on in all their rooms all the time. The Caswells voluntarily installed security cameras, they photocopy customers’ identifications and record their license plates, and they turn the information over to the police, who have never asked the Caswells to do more.

Civil forfeiture is a proceeding in which property is said to have acted wrongly. This was useful long ago against pirates, who might be out of reach but whose ill-gotten gains could be seized. That is not the case here. Rather, they are victims of two piratical governments that are violating the U.S. Constitution twice. They are violating the Eighth Amendment, which has been construed to forbid “excessive fines” that deprive individuals of their livelihoods. And the federal “equitable sharing” program violates the 10th Amendment by impairing state law, enabling Congress to compel the states to adopt Congress’s policies.

A federal drug agent rooted around in public records in search of targets — property with at least $50,000 equity. If the motel had a big mortgage, this would not be happening.

“Equitable sharing” is nice way of describing the splitting of ill-gotten loot by the looters, incentives for perverse behavior. We have a growing sickening list of law enforcement agencies padding their budgets and financing boondoggles by, for example, smelling, or imagining to smell, or pretending to smell, marijuana in cars they covet.

James Madison warned in Federalist 48 that government power “is of an encroaching nature.” And if unresisted, it produces iniquitous sharing of other people’s property.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin.../gIQAUIKVZU_story.html?utm_term=.e4dd4f3763ba

Since Congress lacks the balls to do anything, hopefully SCOTUS will slap some badly needed boundaries around this.

 

I know the law has been abused. The Equitable Sharing Program as an end around probably needs more oversight. Rand Paul introduced a bill in 2014 but it got nowhere.

I suppose if SCOTUS does take it up, we will find out more about Gorsuch and constitutional originalism vs the fluid interpretation of the left.

http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/03/gorsuch-fourth-amendment/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...s-forfeiture-justice-department-civil/534168/

 

That sounds like a very busy girl!

 

What a relief to hear the TRUTH about the Holy Scripture from the Blessed National Enquirer about the Evils of Hilary and Her Demon Spawn Democrats' unending War of Persecution against our Holy Father, our Great President Trump!

Poor little Donny HAD to have been set up, the Hilary Witch HAD to have set these poor child against his OWN will! He's not a politician, he was sadly learning by the evils of partisan politics after a lifetime of the pure and decent life of honest and fair real estate speculations!

 

Nobody said it was between the Russian gov't and Sessions. It however was intercepted info from a Russian discussing a meeting with Sessions. And there is no reason for the Russians to lie while Sessions has already been caught another time.

 

Anyone else wonder why Trump appears terrified that Mueller is investigating his finances?

 

Again, "Officials emphasized that the information contradicting Sessions comes from US intelligence on Kislyak's communications with the Kremlin, and acknowledged that the Russian ambassador could have mischaracterized or exaggerated the nature of his interactions."

 

I agree. When it is found that Trump engaged in criminal enterprise he should forfeit his assets.

 

What criminal enterprises is he engaged in? If you know something no one else does, rat him out to the FBI. There might be a reward in it for you.Trump finds grey areas. That's not illegal. Most developers never use much of their own money for investments. They are usually highly leveraged. Most all of his hard assets are wrapped up in complex trusts that can't be touched by creditors or government.

 

Isn't refusing to recuse yourself in clear cases of conflict of interest itself obstruction of justice?

 

I dont care what you think you read nor do i cater my time and posts to your demands.

 

Seems like you can't defend your posts or positions as usual so now you deflect to dismissing. Weak and inability to debate the topic noted, as usual. Trump is having sleepless nights because of Mueller.

 

Your claims and attacks are backed up by nothing but your claims and attacks. I regularly shred your OP's perhaps that is why you feel the need for 10 a day.

 

If you shredded anything it's likely your Depends.....maybe Trump has some work for you as well in that area. Try shredding the OP, I'll wait.

 

I would say finding conflict of interest in a DNC dream team would not be hard to find...

I mean for example
Jeannie Rhee ( since you like big fonts now) defended the Clinton Foundation..

Again not very hard.. Perhaps come up with better OP's to discuss then you wont be so defensive and constantly lash out.

 

We have some very juvenile low information "members" who have no interest in any relevant discussion. Their nonsense can sometimes be amusing but know that they are only here to agitate, troll and bait you.

 

I would guess that Mueller does not believe that there is a clear case of conflict of interest here. But what would he know about that? He only has 30 years experience which includes serving as a US Attorney, along with being the Director of the FBI for 13 years. He obviously is no match for a self proclaimed genius like you who drives a Range Rover. We should immediately make changes in our justice system which will allow the real experts like you to decide cases of conflict of interest and other legal matters. Perhaps Trump can write an executive order which puts internet trolls in charge of our justice system. Thank you for your service.

 

So you can't explain. We are not surprised.

 

Guess you don't actually understand the legal profession. Hint: you do not have to believe a client or be a supporter of that client to be the client's lawyer.

 

Is Washington Post’s Sessions-Kislyak Purported Intelligence ‘Scoop’ More Fake News?