If Trump deliberately hid classified documents.

[Robert]

The House Oversight Committee can do many things that no bipartisan commission or court of law would ever allow, and that the FBI cannot do in court, and who has authority to reign them in?

There are Democrats seated and chosen by the Minority leader, unlike the J6 Committee that was completely seated by the house majority leader without minority leader approval.

All Congressional meetings are run with both sides being able to grandstand and make false claims. How can the House Oversight Committee be so wrong yet the J6 Committee be so right? This does not sound consistent. Maybe I am misunderstanding your comments. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Hawley is a Senator. His comments are from the Senate, not House Oversight Committee. I do not see and issue with the questions and challenges he is making to the FBI. I think they should have been asked a long time ago. The FBI has been doing illegal things. It needs oversight.

[Bootstrap]

But how is the House Oversight Committee accountable?

They are elected representatives, voted for or against by the people. That is the ultimate accountability.

I am rather tired of hearing how in a "democracy", being voted by the electorate somehow doesn't count as "accountability", and rather unelected bureaucrats should actually be the ones in charge of everything.

Joseph McCarthy was also elected. So was the Russian-linked leader Yanukovich, who refused to step down when removed by democratic means - the guy that Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort helped get elected, working with Russian intelligence agents to do so.

Trump was elected. Biden was elected.

That's why both Trump and Biden should be investigated when there are allegations. In this case, Jack Smith has found things he is bringing to trial. If they find something worth impeaching on Biden, they should create a serious process for doing so.

Are you saying that elected officials need no accountability mechanisms? Are you saying that angry populism cannot fuel political witch hunts like they did under the McCarthy era? Are you saying this kind of committee cannot be weaponized?

If so, I disagree.

Now imagine Mr. "I am your retribution" and "I am the President, I can do whatever I want" gets reelected and is allowed to fulfill his promise to gain control over the FBI and DOJ. Imagine he is backed by this kind of House committee, chaired by someone who was under investigation for his involvement in January 6th. I think that is a real threat to democracy.

If there is something this serious to be investigated, it needs to be done so in an accountable way. So far, it's pretty clear that the Democrats and the Republicans don't seem to be reading the same document when they read the FD-1023:

https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/ne ... ed-fbi-tip

“But here are the facts: the FD-1023 form, which we reviewed first-hand today, records what a Confidential Human Source told the FBI about conversations he had with individuals in Ukraine. The source, who has been described as highly credible by the FBI, told the FBI he could not provide any opinion on the underlying veracity of the information provided by these Ukrainian individuals.

“However, Trump’s own Department of Justice was able to reach a conclusion about this information. In January 2020, Attorney General Barr handpicked Scott Brady, the U.S. Attorney in Pittsburgh, to review allegations by Rudy Giuliani that President Biden and Hunter Biden were involved in a Ukrainian corruption scheme. As part of this assessment, U.S. Attorney Brady, together with a team of experienced prosecutors and FBI agents, assessed relevant information, including interviewing this Confidential Human Source—an interview that was recorded in the subpoenaed FD-1023 form. Much of the information provided by the source was information Mr. Giuliani had already provided the FBI. In August 2020, Attorney General Barr and his hand-picked U.S. Attorney signed off on closing the assessment, having found no evidence to corroborate Mr. Giuliani’s allegations.

I don't know who is right, but I know that this process doesn't have a way to let both sides be heard, and the direct linkage of the process to election fundraising and protecting its own leaders from January 6th investigations produces a direct conflict of interest. The process stinks.

And the press releases from the oversight committee sure sound more like ego-gratifying self-praise than what you see in a real investigation:

Comer Forces the FBI to Cooperate and Allow All Oversight Committee Members to Review Biden Bribery Record

You don't see Jack Smith releasing that kind of press release, praising himself and throwing adjectives at his political opponents.

[Bootstrap]

The House Oversight Committee can do many things that no bipartisan commission or court of law would ever allow, and that the FBI cannot do in court, and who has authority to reign them in?

There are Democrats seated and chosen by the Minority leader, unlike the J6 Committee that was completely seated by the house majority leader without minority leader approval.

Precisely because the minority leader insisted on choosing people who were under investigation, and refused to seat anyone else.

Again, this is a kind of political extremism, playing chicken with the democratic process.

All Congressional meetings are run with both sides being able to grandstand and make false claims. How can the House Oversight Committee be so wrong yet the J6 Committee be so right? This does not sound consistent. Maybe I am misunderstanding your comments. Please correct me if I am wrong.

This is the kind of thing that seems outrageous to me: dismissing witnesses without allowing Democrats to cross-examine them to let the other side be heard. Both sides really do need to be able to weigh in, with access to the witnesses.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... democrats/

Democratic lawmakers didn’t hold back their anger Thursday at a House hearing about social media and censorship when a pair of Republican witnesses delivered testimony and left without being questioned.

The shouting began after Sen. Eric Schmitt (R), the former attorney general of Missouri, and Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry (R) testified before the House Judiciary select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government about what they claimed was the Biden administration’s effort to censor conservative voices online. After the two spoke, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the subcommittee chairman, dismissed them.

“We’ll let you move on to your other responsibilities and we’ll get to our next witnesses,” Jordan said. Democrats immediately interrupted, asking why he wouldn’t allow them to ask questions as Schmitt and Landry stood up and left the room. Democrats then tried to have the two witnesses’ testimony struck from the record.

“We aren’t able to probe the veracity of their statements, the truthfulness of their statements,” Rep. Stephen F. Lynch (D-Mass.) said. When Jordan told him, “You will be given your five minutes here,” Lynch replied, “They’re not here,” referring to the witnesses. “They’re absent,” he said, and they “scurried away, with your complicity.”

[Bootstrap]

Hawley is a Senator. His comments are from the Senate, not House Oversight Committee. I do not see and issue with the questions and challenges he is making to the FBI.

I had falsely assumed that this was the House Oversight Committee. In the Senate, I think both sides are being allowed to cross-examine witnesses and grandstand.

[Bootstrap]

The FBI has been doing illegal things. It needs oversight.

I agree with that. But it is getting LOTS of oversight. And it is not the only part of government that needs oversight - we need them to investigate wrongdoing by others in government.

And so far, I see no FBI wrongdoing at all in Jack Smith's indictment of Donald Trump.

[Josh]

Boot,

Do you think we should have a democracy, or do you think if the people vote for the “wrong” person that some how the government should be allowed to put the “wrong” candidates “under investigation”?

Part of the issue here is that the FBI and CIA now have zero credible with me (or with lots of other people). Witness, for example, the attempts of the FBI this month to extradite Julian Assange for …

… violating the Espionage Act …

… and exposing the U.S. government engaging in war crimes (which still have not been prosecuted or seen any accountability). It is exactly like what happened with Nixon and the Pentagon Papers.

Do you really think this is how government should work?

[Grace]

Now imagine Mr. "I am your retribution" and "I am the President, I can do whatever I want" gets reelected and is allowed to fulfill his promise to gain control over the FBI and DOJ. Imagine he is backed by this kind of House committee, chaired by someone who was under investigation for his involvement in January 6th. I think that is a real threat to democracy.

As usual Trump's words are bloviating and braggy. However I see his "words" no more a threat to democracy than Biden's "actions". Like being paid alleged bribery money in the millions from foreign nationals in exchange for policy decisions. Having classified documents at places that his corrupt son had access to.

Then there is the taking unlawful executive actions, including student loan amnesty, that represents the real threat to the constitutional order and the rule of law. Repeating lies like Republicans are bent on taking away people’s right to vote. The rewriting of Title IX on the fly to include gender identity and to impose new nationwide rules on schools regarding males in women’s sports; and the distortion of the rules to make illegal immigrants covered under DACA.

Then what about Ukraine? Biden emboldened Putin when he removed sanctions on NS 2. He gave Putin the green light for a "minor incursion". (Biden’s own words). Ukrainian and Polish allies sternly warned that doing so would enable and embolden Russian aggression. They were right.

The worst is Biden’s attack on the democracy of America’s parents with his mantra “There is no such thing as someone else's child. Our nation's children are ALL our children." In the last two years we have seen a sharp rise in the promotion of sexualizing and grooming young children through education, condoned by Biden.

Do we want this man, promoting the concept that our nation’s children are ALL our children?

[Szdfan]

Hunter Biden is pleading guilty to tax evasion charges and is also being charged for illegal gun pocession.

https://www.npr.org/2023/06/20/10871738 ... QlFGWdHz_0

The younger Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor offenses related to his filing of federal income taxes. Federal authorities also charged him with a felony firearm offense, for which he agreed to enter a pretrial diversion agreement that allows him to avoid prosecution.

According to David Weiss, the Delaware U.S. attorney, Biden did not pay federal income taxes for either 2017 or 2018, despite owing more than $100,000 in taxes each year.

Additionally, in October 2018 Biden possessed a firearm despite knowing he was an unlawful user of and addicted to a controlled substance, Weiss' office said.

[temporal1]

boot:
.. we need them to ..

famous last words.

A true thing: God provides for our needs in all circumstances.

[Jazman]

I've never seen the film "Dumb & Dumber"... but this feels like some version of it, playing out in real life...
Every Lawyer's Nightmare Client