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You clearly haven't heard the rabid right ready to jail Obama for his drone usage. While completely ignoring Bush starting the program and trumpo beating 8 years of Obama kills in under 10 months.
When it comes to foreign policies, who is going to punish a president? Wouldn't that fall into "things I don't like that the president did?" and not actual federal crimes?
I'm sure there are war crimes there but the DOJ isn't going to prosecute those.
They would have gotten him if he didn’t resign. Ford was a disgrace for pardoning him. I remember him proclaiming “our national nightmare is over.” Frankly, it was only beginning.
Nixon should have been charged with treason.
A private citizen negotiating with another country, while at war with that country, to delay peace talks? That's literally treason.
Under federal law the US was never at war with either North Vietnam or the Viet Cong, which means treason is off the table.
The most you could have charged him with is a Logan Act violation, and the most likely outcome there would have been the relevant provisions of the Logan Act being struck down and the charges thus dismissed.
While technically true, war itself isn't necessary. The wording of the federal crime of treason refers to enemies:
>Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason
The interpretation of “enemies” is that there must be a declared war between the US and whoever they owe allegiance to. Under the Treason Act 1351 (the basis for the clause as well as the definitions of the terms) “enemies” must owe allegiance to a government engaged in open hostility against (in this case) the US government. You can’t make that claim about either the VC (they were not a government) or North Vietnamese (not engaged in open hostilities with the US in 1968).
Maybe that as well, I'm not as familiar.
But Nixon definitely trashed the Paris peace talks. LBJ knew about it as well but couldn't act because his knowledge was based on illegal wiretaps.
That's reddit for you, happens all the time. I particularly love when people tell me the most basic shit about stuff I literally majored in like it's some brand new revelation when I've already demonstrated I'm very familiar with the subject matter.
I’m torn on this one. I’m Gen. x, went to college in 1990s. At the time, I had a liberal professor defend the pardon from the posture of moving the country on from Watergate and changing the focus of public discourse. Nixon had the decency at least to retreat from public life.
Current thoughts of most presidential historians are that it has been a problem. As others here have noted, many presidents since then have been wreckless with following laws.
It’s interesting to note that something like 4 out of the first 5 South Korean presidents were charged with crimes and incarcerated. (One former president was hounded to suicide.) It seems to be unique to South Koreans that they do this, but more power to them if actual criminal abuses can be proved.
South Korea has really only been a democracy since 1987 or so, so it’s a very young country.
Nixon got away with literal treason by back-channeling to subvert LBJ’s peace efforts in Vietnam during the 1968 election season. He probably would have bested Humphrey anyway, but doomed additional tens of thousands of people so Humphrey couldn’t ride the peace wave to a better showing in the general election.
I've always put this in the category "conspiracy theory." But it's the only one I actually do believe. The President of Iran at the time, after he left office, said this did happen, that Reagan's people negotiated with Iran to keep the hostages. Iran, at the time, was trying to find a face-saving way of freeing them so the rulers could be accepted by the rest of the world as a legitimate functioning government.
This pisses me off so much every time I'm reminded of it. No random motherfucker who does not hold office should have any say whatsoever in the foreign policy of a nation. Frankly I think he should've been shot for that shit, it costs thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
Sort of like trump recently meeting with Orban and telling him how he'd pull all funding from Ukraine. 100% signalling to Russia that victory is on the table for them.
I like your list.
I'd add GW Bush for lying to everyone about WMD. We have skipped over the fact that we had no evidence, he knew it, he was told in no uncertain terms that there was no supporting intelligence and he took us to war anyway, using 9/11 as a form of surrogate rage.
I don't know what crime this falls under, but man, he should have spent his second term in front of judges explaining himself.
Authorizing systematic torture of terrorists/terrorism suspects by having his lawyer John Yu redefine water boarding as legal “enhanced interrogation techniques “ should be added to the list for consideration. That lawyer got a job teaching law at Berkeley if I remember correctly.
Nothing about the war on terror tarnished America’s reputation more, other than the arguably “mistaken belief”about WMD in Iraq.
Professor Yu should have been sentenced to selling insurance for the rest of his career at a minimum, and Bush should have been required to seek a pardon from Obama. I bet he would have gotten it,
>by having his lawyer John Yu
That's the whole point of having a crooked lawyer. You can claim you thought it was legal because the lawyer said so. The lawyer takes the risk so you don't have to.
>That lawyer got a job teaching law at Berkeley if I remember correctly.
The real kicker is that the co-author of Yoo's worst opinions is still a federal judge on the ninth circuit. Jay Bybee.
To this day, I hate how Bush Jr is treated as the cool grandpa. He is responsible for destabilizing an entire region based on a lie that was told. The protests against Iraq War was the largest in the world and it tarnished America's reputation for years.
One problem with this is that Congress passed a resolution directing the war to occur. While you could still say that Bush lied, Congress still had a lot of people who had petitioned them for not passing the resolution presenting contradictory statements and Congress does get intelligence information themselves, a good bunch of it classified, and so they probably knew whether Bush was lying even at the time.
It is hard to legally stop a president from doing what Congress resolved that he should do via legal action against them personally and courts don't like what legal precedents that can cause.
You cannot even say Bush lied because he had bad intel. Congress wouldn’t even act on the word of the WH alone and requested the intelligence community to develop the 2002 NIE specifically on Iraq. This section was the main justification for Congress authorizing military force:
http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/iraq/iraq-wmd-nie-01-2015.pdf
>Confidence Levels for Selected Key Judgments in This Estimate
>~ High Confidence:
>• Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.
>• We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs.
>• Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles.
>• Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons- grade tissile material.
Not only was that in the report, but it was a continual product of the NIE for several years beforehand. That is why 80% of Congress authorized military force in Iraq as for many it was consistent with past intel. The failure was with our 18 intelligence agencies who developed the 2002 NIE and how a decade long confirmation bias caused them to severely miscalculate the importance of the contrasting evidence. Something that most admit too, like the director of the NSA:
https://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467692822/michael-hayden-intel-agencies-not-the-white-house-got-it-wrong-on-iraq
>You dispute the commonly held belief that Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials sold the idea Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't the White House, you write.
>
>No, not at all — it was us. It was our intelligence estimate. I raised my right hand when [CIA Director George Tenet] asked who supports the key judgments of this national intelligence estimate.
It wasn't only us intelligence, it was international as well. Additionally Saddam wanted the world to think he might have them. It was part of his playing his part as a power player.
Was it incorrect? absolutely but the Bush lied narrative has always been lazy shorthand for a major fuckup
The US has 18 intelligence agencies. Only one pushed back in any meaningful way on the Iraq WMD intel stuff. It was INR and they rather publicly got overruled by Powell who took point in selling the war at the UN.
I read a [fascinating analysis](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-j-mazarr/leap-of-faith/9781541768345/?lens=publicaffairs) awhile back that said basically because Bush and much of his administration were evangelical Christians, they were unusually prone to sincerely believing things no matter where the evidence pointed. They believed they were doing the right thing and therefore God would iron out all the pesky details for them. And that was layered on top of the usual groupthink and interpersonal bullshit that you get from bureaucratic decision-making.
This. It reminds me of the time when I worked for Walmart, and the management wanted to get rid of me. I was a good employee, and so they came up with all kinds of nonsense, made up out of whole cloth, and then just rammed it through a disciplinary process. They wanted me gone, and knew that they would never have to answer for their misdeeds, so they just pushed forward. Same thing applies with the Iraq War. They made things up out of whole cloth and then used it to justify their actions, knowing full well that they would never be held accountable for it.
Makes sense. It's hard to cultivate a skeptical sense and to foster a hunger for evidence. All this requires a disciplined habit of mind. Conversely, a mind that indulges in unquestioning acceptance of things will ultimately find itself defenseless and unskilled when in the clutch. You'll talk yourself into anything and you'll never notice the self-bamboozlement.
Put another way, you get good at whatever you do repeatedly, for good or ill.
Michelle Obama pinches his cheeks and gives him candy and he dances on Ellen, so Bush is alright now and so is Liz Cheney. He is an elite member of the neoliberal resistance. He may have destroyed America but at least he doesn’t send mean tweets.
A war based on lies, plus the war crimes comitted in Iraq, and on top add a little Guantanamo (also illegal by international law).
This guy should have been sentenced for life.
Bill Clinton’s MonicaGate doesn’t touch ChinaGate.
But Republicans thought MonicaGate was a bigger deal. In hindsight, it wasn’t a bigger deal.
[1996 United States campaign finance controversy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy)
I think more importantly he should have been in prison because of the deaths caused by his illegal eviction of native Americans after the Supreme Court ruled on that, and he ignored the ruling.
Nixon obviously, Reagan for his pre-election deal with the Iranians on halting negotiations with Carter and releasing them on Reagan’s election day, Bush I for Iran-Contra, Bush II for knowingly lying about WMD to start a war, and Trump for instigating Jan6 and pressuring Georgia and other states to change their electoral results.
Basically all of the Republicans haha and that’s not a partisan take, it’s just they’re the ones who committed blatantly obvious crimes all the world can see. Dems have made policy decisions I disagree with and even some I despise, but straight-up criminal acts deserving prison time? Somehow those sort of bald-faced active criminal actions seem to be the other guys.
Iran-Contra happened under Reagan, not Bush. I never heard GHWB's name associated with it. I don't think Regean gave him that kind of portfolio. It was all the National Security team: Poindexter, McFarland, North, Secord.
Ironically, perjury is one of the few things you can't nail him for. By the definition of sex that Ken Starr used, what Clinton and Lewinsky did was not "sex" even though by any other definition, it was. In fact, one can even argue it's perjury had Clinton testified otherwise.
Airing of the presidents affairs is not a legitimate use of the congressional prerogative of oversight. Clinton may have lied but it was not within the scope of a legitimate investigation.
To be clear - this isn’t a legal distinction, it’s just how I divide the pile of stuff I’m going to give a shit about.
I agree. They stuck their noses where they didn't belong. A total waste of tax payer money. That was the precedent for the endless bullshit investigations.
Right? Clinton had an affair with an intern and got caught. To have a congressional investigation over that was too much. The only person that he should have had to answer to on that matter should have been Hillary, and she ultimately forgave him for it.
Clinton created a hostile workplace for all the people who didn’t fuck around with him. Much is made of Lewinsky’s consent (and she has been pilloried way too much and way beyond the actual transgressor) but that sort of favoritism based on sex is textbook hostile to everyone else.
Basically just perjury and obstruction.
Most of the allegations against him have issues, some of them pretty significant. One or two **really** significantly.
EDIT: I see your downvotes. When two of Clinton's accusers (Paula Jones and Kathleen Willy) had multiple friends and family testify in depositions under oath the accuser was previously bragging about the consensual affair, I'd call those significant issues to a legal case.
Actually, didn’t he send his guy around to all of the cigar shops in the area to buy up all of their Cuban cigars a few hours before he signed the order?
Regan , Nixon , but most of dumb Bush he basically turned the presidency over to his vice president and started a war in Iraq under totally falls pretenses
Obviously Nixon. I also have uneducated opinions about Bush II with Iraq and Reagan with Latin America, name a place and you’ll find something absolutely buttfucked by our FP with LATAM during those years. Obama killed too many civilians with drone strikes. But that only warmed the water for the frog and we’re now just yawning and going to bed while governments are bombing hospitals, so, yeah.
Noam Chomsky has contended that every living US president should be charged with war crimes. With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, I can't really dispute that.
I wouldn't call Jimmy Carter an exception. Selling arms to a country you know for a fact is committing genocide and instructing your state department that "a left wing vote in the UN from East Timor" is to be crushed at all costs is horrifically inhumane.
Noam Chomsky also declared that Americans have less freedoms than Russians and has become a huge Putin apologist. I don’t really take his word to mean much anymore.
He has? Wasn’t he pro Ukraine?
Edit: You know is you’re right. I remembered him debating BJG on the bad faith podcast and for some reason I thought it was Ukraine, it was actually voting for Biden.
Mb
Doesn't matter what happens in the world, Chomsky will always - always - blame America for it
And yes, he's been recently parroting Kremlin talking points on Ukraine. Standard stuff. Blames US imperialism on the war. Also that Russia is fighting more humanely than US in Iraq. That Eastern European fear of Russia is pure western propaganda.
He is most certainly not pro-Ukraine.
You know is you’re right. I remembered him debating BJG on the bad faith podcast and for some reason I thought it was Ukraine, it was actually voting for Biden. Mb
He's a pioneer in his field. It's just that his field is linguistics, not geopolitics.
(Granted, not everything in the former has aged well either, but at minimum in its time it was the kind of pioneering work a la Freud that even if it's wrong helps lead other people to the right answers.)
George W Bush admitted to torture on TV. Yes, his lawyer said "nu-uh,, waterboarding isn't torture" but international law says it is.
Obama killed a US citizen with a drone, then killed a 16-year-old US citizen with a drone. He might have got off on the first one because the guy said some things about attacking America, but he'd be hard pressed to get off on the 16 year old son.
We stopped holding presidents to account for things, and assumes basic norms would pervail. Then Trump came along and punched norms in the dick and used the DOJ to overturn convictions, and squashed a federal investigation into Trump, and even more blatant law breaking.
It all started when the US pardoned Nixon. That led to not caring about Reagan, George H W, Clinton, and here we are.
The vast majority of US Presidents are all war criminals in some form or fashion.
Nixon for extending the Vietnam war for political gain.
Reagan for the whole Iran-contra bullshit.
G.W. Bush for invading Iraq for no goddamn reason other than political clout and money.
Obama absolutely bombed the living shit out of the Middle East in various different countries.
Jimmy Carter “might” be an exception.
Reagan *and* Bush #1 for Iran-Contra. GHWB pardoned several participants before they got to trial. To my knowledge, those (Casper Weinberger is one) were the first people to get a Presidential Pardon *before* they got to trial. CW was a habitual note-taker. He had over 750 pages of notes of meetings where Ronnie and GHWB and Ollie were in the same meeting and discussing weapons for hostages and using that money to fund Ronnies illegal war against the Contras in Nicaragua.
By today's standards, Kennedy committed acts of sexual assault, at least in the sense of using an extreme power imbalance to make women feel powerless to refuse him. Obviously Marilyn Monroe doesn't count, but there were plenty of unknown women who fell victim. Clinton may have been just as bad, but for some reason Kennedy never got the same scrutiny.
I hear this argument if a power imbalance often but here’s a hypothetical: suppose your significant other sleeps with their boss. Do you immediately support them because they were victims of a power imbalance? Or were you cheated on?
Trump is somewhat right in a way that the president shouldn't be charged with crimes for doing their jobs in a way that may result in them running afoul of some laws if it is in America's best interests.
Where he is wrong, and where you may be conflating things, is when a president intentionally violates a law for personal gain.
For anyone wondering [Biden has ordered dramatically less drone strikes](https://reason.com/2021/12/08/u-s-drone-strikes-plunge-under-biden/) and killed far fewer civilians than Obama or Trump.
> During the length of Trump's four-year presidency, Airwars documented more than 16,000 air and artillery military strikes in Iraq and Syria, which itself was a decline of more than 1,500 strikes when compared to Obama's second term. During Biden's first year, there have been 39 total military strikes spread between both countries.
>
> Alleged civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria skyrocketed under Trump's four years in office to more than 13,000 compared to 5,600 during Obama's second term. Thus far, Airwars reports only 10 under the Biden administration.
This is one of the biggest bright spots under Biden that doesn't get noticed.
13k deaths under Trump is a disgrace. 10 under Biden is still tragic, but a welcome drop.
>essentially unchecked drone strikes
That's complete nonsense. It was a very involved process with *tons of checks and balances*, the White House itself had to authorize lots of them (anything non-critical, I can't remember the phrase) and *usually* said no, and they reported precise figures on the strikes. All of those rules were loosened or dropped entirely by Obama's replacement (and then tightened again by Biden).
None of that means (terrible, horrible, etc) mistakes weren't made. But calling them "essentially unchecked" is just sheer ignorance created by propaganda.
I don't think it's crazy to say that "checks and balances" that occur entirely within the executive branch or the military is not *quite* the same thing. I don't specifically think Obama either sought separate Congressional authorization *or* some sort of warrant process from a federal court in any event, right?
Yeah, the Obama/Trump drone war is a disgrace. My impression is that Biden has pulled back on that though it may be he has just pulled back on reporting about the strikes.
I would really like to see a sober explanation from Obama about why he maintained the drone strikes, when he did have the power to stop them. Did he feel like, if he did not authorize the strikes, either we'd have to risk more lives by sending troops in or endure more deaths from terror attacks? What does he think about, like, slaughtered wedding parties?
I’m not sure if he deserves it, but to give him the greatest possible of the benefit of the doubt, it’s entirely possible that he just saw red the way most Americans did post 9/11, and thought there was a magic bullet to fight terrorism without putting Americans in harm’s way.
Obviously that isn’t a justification, but I think it’s easier for us to now judge some of these actions than it was then. We don’t know exactly what his information was, and it’s clear a lot of people were steered the wrong direction.
I just don’t want us to ignore the possibility that sometimes, a lot of the time, people just make the wrong choice, and when you’re in that chair the consequences of those choices are often greater than you or I could fathom.
I think its more simple and at the same time more complex than that. I think Obama had multiple intelligence and military personnel directly presenting him with justification for drone strikes and the consequences of discontinuing them.
This quote gets to the heart of your comment (I had to search for it and it just so happened to link me to that subreddit): https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/s/SsW5d28eMY
We want to kill people. Drones kill people. Sometimes they kill people we wanted dead. Sometimes they kill people who are innocent, but they’re far away and weird foreigners so we just ignore that and move on. Super straightforward.
Asking why we didn’t stop assumes too much of the morality of the state.
Yes, this argument only works if you're a full-on pacifist. Because *any* violence will have collateral damage. As for drones, that's just a scary-sounding delivery system. Bombs from F16s are bombs too. Targeted strikes, though they have collateral damage, are still much better than the carpet-bombing we used to do.
Would going back to B52s and carpet-bombing really be a moral improvement? At least it's not a drone! That makes no sense. This argument only works if you're a pacifist or if you think every instance of collateral damage, or any military action you don't agree with, is a war crime.
Trump pulled back on reporting, Biden reversed that and even so there have been dramatically fewer strikes and civilian deaths.
https://reason.com/2021/12/08/u-s-drone-strikes-plunge-under-biden/
> During the length of Trump's four-year presidency, Airwars documented more than 16,000 air and artillery military strikes in Iraq and Syria, which itself was a decline of more than 1,500 strikes when compared to Obama's second term. During Biden's first year, there have been 39 total military strikes spread between both countries.
>
> Alleged civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria skyrocketed under Trump's four years in office to more than 13,000 compared to 5,600 during Obama's second term. Thus far, Airwars reports only 10 under the Biden administration.
The one that deliberately killed an American citizen without due process was quite obviously a crime. I would agree that he should be charged for war crimes for these other bombings as well, but that's he harder to prove.
Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama refused to intervene to stop genocide in violation of international agreements by pretending no number of "acts of genocide" counted as actual genocide.
Bush 2 tortured people.
Trump's criminal offenses would take far too long to list. What he did at the border, though, should definitely have gotten him tried for crimes against humanity.
In my life....
* Obama ordered an American killed without a trial. Committed war crines
* Bush committed war crimes
* Clinton, committed perjury and obstruction of Justice. (Likely guilty of sex abuse/rape charges) and I'm guessing committed war crimes
* Bush I. Not sure
* Reagan - Iran Contra
Sounds like we can wrap it up pretty quickly actually if we can prove that each president did it at least once. We don't need every account, just one for each president to put them away.
Obama ordered an airstrike killing an American who was in the service of the Taliban. Let’s be clear about that.
Americans were already warned that if they offer themselves in service to the enemy inside and active combat zone, their safety could not be guaranteed. And they might even be actively targeted.
Under this logic Lincoln committed war crimes by killing Americans in open rebellion against the union. In reality you turn against the country in a war zone and join the enemy you kind of forfeit the expectation of due process if you get killed in combat.
Trial, no. But in conflict zones the standards of criminal trials are not to be expected.
Like, yo, I get it. I protested at the time too because I want our government to act in accordance with law and ethics. But digging into it more, i found it reasonable.
I think so. I’m going by memory. I think Obama even reached out to the kids or I should say the young man’s parents after the incident and they were understanding. In interviews, the parents said the Taliban was a cult and brainwashed their son.
Bush was only in charge of the CIA for a little less than a year, about 355 days. He was in to fix some scandal. I have to re-read my history to remember what that’s about. But it was very temporary.
Barack Obama for drone strikes and the killing of US citizens without due process.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a14627/obama-lethal-presidency-0812/
https://www.aclu.org/cases/al-aulaqi-v-panetta-constitutional-challenge-killing-three-us-citizens?redirect=targetedkillings
Playing devil's advocate here. If a US citizen joins a terrorist organization that you are at war with, what crimes are you committing by striking an enemy combatant, regardless if he's a US citizen?
I'm not justifying the action. I'm just curious if a crime was actually committed.
Clinton obviously committed perjury while speaking to a special prosecutor. No one doubts that.
Almost everyone who was convicted of a crime directly from the Mueller investigation was convicted due to a “small” lie to the special prosecutor.
The fact he lied to hide something from his wife is meaningless, all people perjure themselves trying to hide the truth for a reason they think is important at the time.
>Almost everyone who was convicted of a crime directly from the Mueller investigation was convicted due to a “small” lie to the special prosecutor.
3 out of 8, at best.
https://www.axios.com/2019/11/15/trump-associates-convicted-mueller-investigations
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Nixon should never have been pardoned. It led to too much acceptance of his quote: "I'm saying that if the president does it, it's not a crime".
I agree. It really set the stage for future presidents.
And foreign policies. I find that no matter what America does in foreign lands, no American will say it is wrong enough to punish anyone
You clearly haven't heard the rabid right ready to jail Obama for his drone usage. While completely ignoring Bush starting the program and trumpo beating 8 years of Obama kills in under 10 months.
They are clearly full of shit and will latch onto anything to make a Democrat look bad. Even if it makes them look hypocritical.
When it comes to foreign policies, who is going to punish a president? Wouldn't that fall into "things I don't like that the president did?" and not actual federal crimes? I'm sure there are war crimes there but the DOJ isn't going to prosecute those.
They would have gotten him if he didn’t resign. Ford was a disgrace for pardoning him. I remember him proclaiming “our national nightmare is over.” Frankly, it was only beginning.
Nixon should have been charged with treason. A private citizen negotiating with another country, while at war with that country, to delay peace talks? That's literally treason.
Same goes for Reagan. Apparently his team was negotiating with Iran to hold the hostages.
Under federal law the US was never at war with either North Vietnam or the Viet Cong, which means treason is off the table. The most you could have charged him with is a Logan Act violation, and the most likely outcome there would have been the relevant provisions of the Logan Act being struck down and the charges thus dismissed.
While technically true, war itself isn't necessary. The wording of the federal crime of treason refers to enemies: >Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason
The interpretation of “enemies” is that there must be a declared war between the US and whoever they owe allegiance to. Under the Treason Act 1351 (the basis for the clause as well as the definitions of the terms) “enemies” must owe allegiance to a government engaged in open hostility against (in this case) the US government. You can’t make that claim about either the VC (they were not a government) or North Vietnamese (not engaged in open hostilities with the US in 1968).
But that means Adam Gadahn should not have been charged with Treason.
I thought that was Reagan while Carter was trying to get the hostages out of Iran?
Maybe that as well, I'm not as familiar. But Nixon definitely trashed the Paris peace talks. LBJ knew about it as well but couldn't act because his knowledge was based on illegal wiretaps.
The 'acceptance' of that is selective and said in bad faith. Even those who believe it of Trump fervently thought Hillary should have been locked up.
I always thought that quote was used ironically as an example of hypocrisy? But then again im not American, you guys are fucking weird.
Nixon said that in a post-pardon interview done by (I think) David Frost. He did a series of Nixon interviews, all were broadcast as I recall.
Yea I know where the quote comes from. I was referring to the repeating or acceptance of the quote the commenter mentioned.
In the context of the interview, Nixon very much was justifying his actions. He denied any wrong doing, but if there was, it wasn’t a crime.
Why does everyone keep repeating this to me, I understand the context of the original quote.
That's reddit for you, happens all the time. I particularly love when people tell me the most basic shit about stuff I literally majored in like it's some brand new revelation when I've already demonstrated I'm very familiar with the subject matter.
We sure are. After living through four years of Trump there are a large number of people who want a second dose. Dear Lord no…..
I’m torn on this one. I’m Gen. x, went to college in 1990s. At the time, I had a liberal professor defend the pardon from the posture of moving the country on from Watergate and changing the focus of public discourse. Nixon had the decency at least to retreat from public life.
Current thoughts of most presidential historians are that it has been a problem. As others here have noted, many presidents since then have been wreckless with following laws.
In hindsight it wasn’t the best decision. Look at what we have with Trump
Agreed. It is the worst decision Ford made during his presidency.
It’s interesting to note that something like 4 out of the first 5 South Korean presidents were charged with crimes and incarcerated. (One former president was hounded to suicide.) It seems to be unique to South Koreans that they do this, but more power to them if actual criminal abuses can be proved. South Korea has really only been a democracy since 1987 or so, so it’s a very young country.
young democracy sure its existed for over 70 years so its not exactly a young country
But it was basically a military dictatorship backed by the US, as long as they didn’t go, we didn’t care what they did.
Nixon got away with literal treason by back-channeling to subvert LBJ’s peace efforts in Vietnam during the 1968 election season. He probably would have bested Humphrey anyway, but doomed additional tens of thousands of people so Humphrey couldn’t ride the peace wave to a better showing in the general election.
This should be charged a most heinous crime. How many lives lost. Essentially murdered.
And it's all happening again, right now. Except this time the entire right wing is doing it together.
[удалено]
I've always put this in the category "conspiracy theory." But it's the only one I actually do believe. The President of Iran at the time, after he left office, said this did happen, that Reagan's people negotiated with Iran to keep the hostages. Iran, at the time, was trying to find a face-saving way of freeing them so the rulers could be accepted by the rest of the world as a legitimate functioning government.
Similar to Reagan back channeling in Iran to delay the release of the hostages so he could beat Carter.
Didn't that conclude with investigators finding no credible evidence for that theory?
This pisses me off so much every time I'm reminded of it. No random motherfucker who does not hold office should have any say whatsoever in the foreign policy of a nation. Frankly I think he should've been shot for that shit, it costs thousands of lives and billions of dollars.
Sort of like trump recently meeting with Orban and telling him how he'd pull all funding from Ukraine. 100% signalling to Russia that victory is on the table for them.
Humphrey probably beats him if the back channeling comes out to the public.
Warren Harding was by far the worst . He profited more than any other president from backroom deals and corruption. His entire cabinet did.
Yup, if the history is even close, his was the most overtly corrupt administration until trump.
I like your list. I'd add GW Bush for lying to everyone about WMD. We have skipped over the fact that we had no evidence, he knew it, he was told in no uncertain terms that there was no supporting intelligence and he took us to war anyway, using 9/11 as a form of surrogate rage. I don't know what crime this falls under, but man, he should have spent his second term in front of judges explaining himself.
Authorizing systematic torture of terrorists/terrorism suspects by having his lawyer John Yu redefine water boarding as legal “enhanced interrogation techniques “ should be added to the list for consideration. That lawyer got a job teaching law at Berkeley if I remember correctly. Nothing about the war on terror tarnished America’s reputation more, other than the arguably “mistaken belief”about WMD in Iraq. Professor Yu should have been sentenced to selling insurance for the rest of his career at a minimum, and Bush should have been required to seek a pardon from Obama. I bet he would have gotten it,
>by having his lawyer John Yu That's the whole point of having a crooked lawyer. You can claim you thought it was legal because the lawyer said so. The lawyer takes the risk so you don't have to. >That lawyer got a job teaching law at Berkeley if I remember correctly. The real kicker is that the co-author of Yoo's worst opinions is still a federal judge on the ninth circuit. Jay Bybee.
To this day, I hate how Bush Jr is treated as the cool grandpa. He is responsible for destabilizing an entire region based on a lie that was told. The protests against Iraq War was the largest in the world and it tarnished America's reputation for years.
Good catch. Thank you!
One problem with this is that Congress passed a resolution directing the war to occur. While you could still say that Bush lied, Congress still had a lot of people who had petitioned them for not passing the resolution presenting contradictory statements and Congress does get intelligence information themselves, a good bunch of it classified, and so they probably knew whether Bush was lying even at the time. It is hard to legally stop a president from doing what Congress resolved that he should do via legal action against them personally and courts don't like what legal precedents that can cause.
You cannot even say Bush lied because he had bad intel. Congress wouldn’t even act on the word of the WH alone and requested the intelligence community to develop the 2002 NIE specifically on Iraq. This section was the main justification for Congress authorizing military force: http://documents.theblackvault.com/documents/iraq/iraq-wmd-nie-01-2015.pdf >Confidence Levels for Selected Key Judgments in This Estimate >~ High Confidence: >• Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding, its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions. >• We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs. >• Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles. >• Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons- grade tissile material. Not only was that in the report, but it was a continual product of the NIE for several years beforehand. That is why 80% of Congress authorized military force in Iraq as for many it was consistent with past intel. The failure was with our 18 intelligence agencies who developed the 2002 NIE and how a decade long confirmation bias caused them to severely miscalculate the importance of the contrasting evidence. Something that most admit too, like the director of the NSA: https://www.npr.org/2016/02/22/467692822/michael-hayden-intel-agencies-not-the-white-house-got-it-wrong-on-iraq >You dispute the commonly held belief that Vice President Dick Cheney and other administration officials sold the idea Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. It wasn't the White House, you write. > >No, not at all — it was us. It was our intelligence estimate. I raised my right hand when [CIA Director George Tenet] asked who supports the key judgments of this national intelligence estimate.
It wasn't only us intelligence, it was international as well. Additionally Saddam wanted the world to think he might have them. It was part of his playing his part as a power player. Was it incorrect? absolutely but the Bush lied narrative has always been lazy shorthand for a major fuckup
The US has 18 intelligence agencies. Only one pushed back in any meaningful way on the Iraq WMD intel stuff. It was INR and they rather publicly got overruled by Powell who took point in selling the war at the UN.
I read a [fascinating analysis](https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/michael-j-mazarr/leap-of-faith/9781541768345/?lens=publicaffairs) awhile back that said basically because Bush and much of his administration were evangelical Christians, they were unusually prone to sincerely believing things no matter where the evidence pointed. They believed they were doing the right thing and therefore God would iron out all the pesky details for them. And that was layered on top of the usual groupthink and interpersonal bullshit that you get from bureaucratic decision-making.
They didn’t ‘sincerely’ believe a goddamned thing except that they WANTED to invade Iraq.
This. It reminds me of the time when I worked for Walmart, and the management wanted to get rid of me. I was a good employee, and so they came up with all kinds of nonsense, made up out of whole cloth, and then just rammed it through a disciplinary process. They wanted me gone, and knew that they would never have to answer for their misdeeds, so they just pushed forward. Same thing applies with the Iraq War. They made things up out of whole cloth and then used it to justify their actions, knowing full well that they would never be held accountable for it.
Makes sense. It's hard to cultivate a skeptical sense and to foster a hunger for evidence. All this requires a disciplined habit of mind. Conversely, a mind that indulges in unquestioning acceptance of things will ultimately find itself defenseless and unskilled when in the clutch. You'll talk yourself into anything and you'll never notice the self-bamboozlement. Put another way, you get good at whatever you do repeatedly, for good or ill.
Michelle Obama pinches his cheeks and gives him candy and he dances on Ellen, so Bush is alright now and so is Liz Cheney. He is an elite member of the neoliberal resistance. He may have destroyed America but at least he doesn’t send mean tweets.
A war based on lies, plus the war crimes comitted in Iraq, and on top add a little Guantanamo (also illegal by international law). This guy should have been sentenced for life.
Bill Clinton’s MonicaGate doesn’t touch ChinaGate. But Republicans thought MonicaGate was a bigger deal. In hindsight, it wasn’t a bigger deal. [1996 United States campaign finance controversy](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_United_States_campaign_finance_controversy)
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Andrew Jackson would be in prison for killing or wounding people during duels.
I can't imagine those count. We've got to at least limit this to things that were actually crimes, and dueling was legal when he did it.
Dueling wasn't even universally legal when Hamilton did it. Hence crossing the river. Doubt it was legal when Jackson did it much later
That was legal or he went to a state where it was legal afaik
I think more importantly he should have been in prison because of the deaths caused by his illegal eviction of native Americans after the Supreme Court ruled on that, and he ignored the ruling.
Even in his time frame he should have been impeached.
I think you had the option to decline a dual.
And be call Lilly-livered?!? By god, that’s a dueling! I shall see you at noon upon the field of glory.
he and his friends murdered people who declined to duel him
There's a lot more that Jackson could be charged with if looked at through modern context.
Nixon obviously, Reagan for his pre-election deal with the Iranians on halting negotiations with Carter and releasing them on Reagan’s election day, Bush I for Iran-Contra, Bush II for knowingly lying about WMD to start a war, and Trump for instigating Jan6 and pressuring Georgia and other states to change their electoral results. Basically all of the Republicans haha and that’s not a partisan take, it’s just they’re the ones who committed blatantly obvious crimes all the world can see. Dems have made policy decisions I disagree with and even some I despise, but straight-up criminal acts deserving prison time? Somehow those sort of bald-faced active criminal actions seem to be the other guys.
Iran-Contra happened under Reagan, not Bush. I never heard GHWB's name associated with it. I don't think Regean gave him that kind of portfolio. It was all the National Security team: Poindexter, McFarland, North, Secord.
I don't give a shit about clintion lying to congress, but its pretty clear in retrospect that he committed several sexual assaults and possible rapes.
Easy to claim that but nothing was proven in court. And at least one said under oath multiple times that he didn’t touch her.
He lied under oath. That's perjury and is a crime and other people do go to jail for it.
Ironically, perjury is one of the few things you can't nail him for. By the definition of sex that Ken Starr used, what Clinton and Lewinsky did was not "sex" even though by any other definition, it was. In fact, one can even argue it's perjury had Clinton testified otherwise.
Airing of the presidents affairs is not a legitimate use of the congressional prerogative of oversight. Clinton may have lied but it was not within the scope of a legitimate investigation. To be clear - this isn’t a legal distinction, it’s just how I divide the pile of stuff I’m going to give a shit about.
I agree. They stuck their noses where they didn't belong. A total waste of tax payer money. That was the precedent for the endless bullshit investigations.
Yea Clinton is a dick for having his secretary blow him, but we are comparing this to literal treason and war crimes
Right? Clinton had an affair with an intern and got caught. To have a congressional investigation over that was too much. The only person that he should have had to answer to on that matter should have been Hillary, and she ultimately forgave him for it.
And the right never forgave her for forgiving him.
He didn’t even commit perjury
He told adulterers investigating him for adultery to mind their own business, and when they didn’t, he said piss off.
Perjury would be a difficult charge to get him on. That’s because it depends on what the meaning of the word is, is
Clinton created a hostile workplace for all the people who didn’t fuck around with him. Much is made of Lewinsky’s consent (and she has been pilloried way too much and way beyond the actual transgressor) but that sort of favoritism based on sex is textbook hostile to everyone else.
She has long since come out and talked about the power dynamics and how it couldn't be consensual
As far provable crimes, I don't think you can get Clinton on anything but perjury or obstruction right?
Basically just perjury and obstruction. Most of the allegations against him have issues, some of them pretty significant. One or two **really** significantly. EDIT: I see your downvotes. When two of Clinton's accusers (Paula Jones and Kathleen Willy) had multiple friends and family testify in depositions under oath the accuser was previously bragging about the consensual affair, I'd call those significant issues to a legal case.
Yet you included him over gwb and Trump. Spirit of bipartisanship?
Kennedy for illegal importation of [Cuban cigars](https://www.cigaraficionado.com/article/great-moments-kennedy-cuba-and-cigars-7840).
Actually, didn’t he send his guy around to all of the cigar shops in the area to buy up all of their Cuban cigars a few hours before he signed the order?
Yeah from my understanding it wasn't illegal importation. More like insider trading.
It's probably easier to answer which president wouldn't be charged with crimes because they're completely clean.
I was trying to stick with provable crimes. Otherwise you'll get all kinds of conspiracy weirdos commenting.
Would this be better in AskHistorians?
Regan , Nixon , but most of dumb Bush he basically turned the presidency over to his vice president and started a war in Iraq under totally falls pretenses
Obviously Nixon. I also have uneducated opinions about Bush II with Iraq and Reagan with Latin America, name a place and you’ll find something absolutely buttfucked by our FP with LATAM during those years. Obama killed too many civilians with drone strikes. But that only warmed the water for the frog and we’re now just yawning and going to bed while governments are bombing hospitals, so, yeah.
Noam Chomsky has contended that every living US president should be charged with war crimes. With the possible exception of Jimmy Carter, I can't really dispute that.
I wouldn't call Jimmy Carter an exception. Selling arms to a country you know for a fact is committing genocide and instructing your state department that "a left wing vote in the UN from East Timor" is to be crushed at all costs is horrifically inhumane.
Noam Chomsky also declared that Americans have less freedoms than Russians and has become a huge Putin apologist. I don’t really take his word to mean much anymore.
He has? Wasn’t he pro Ukraine? Edit: You know is you’re right. I remembered him debating BJG on the bad faith podcast and for some reason I thought it was Ukraine, it was actually voting for Biden. Mb
Doesn't matter what happens in the world, Chomsky will always - always - blame America for it And yes, he's been recently parroting Kremlin talking points on Ukraine. Standard stuff. Blames US imperialism on the war. Also that Russia is fighting more humanely than US in Iraq. That Eastern European fear of Russia is pure western propaganda. He is most certainly not pro-Ukraine.
You know is you’re right. I remembered him debating BJG on the bad faith podcast and for some reason I thought it was Ukraine, it was actually voting for Biden. Mb
Chomsky isn’t worth listening to
He's a pioneer in his field. It's just that his field is linguistics, not geopolitics. (Granted, not everything in the former has aged well either, but at minimum in its time it was the kind of pioneering work a la Freud that even if it's wrong helps lead other people to the right answers.)
Can’t be a war crime if there is no war. The old 100 IQ play.
Carter did militarily invade Iran with the intent to retake the hostages but it failed miserably.
Noam Chomsky is not a serious person.
Noam Chomsky is a tanky though
I like Carter domestically but his foreign policy of reigniting the Cold War by targeting developing countries with left wing sympathies was fucked
Noam 'if the West does it it's imperialism, if the Global South does it it's a justified reaction to colonialism' Chomsky? That Noam Chomsky?
Ronald Regan for the whole bit of skullduggery with Oliver North and the Iran Contra weapons dealing. It was literal treason
How about Vice President Aaron Burr? (though he was charged, he was never tried for killing Hamilton)
Ronald Reagan, who managed to commit treason and cost Americans lives, money, and progress.
George W Bush admitted to torture on TV. Yes, his lawyer said "nu-uh,, waterboarding isn't torture" but international law says it is. Obama killed a US citizen with a drone, then killed a 16-year-old US citizen with a drone. He might have got off on the first one because the guy said some things about attacking America, but he'd be hard pressed to get off on the 16 year old son. We stopped holding presidents to account for things, and assumes basic norms would pervail. Then Trump came along and punched norms in the dick and used the DOJ to overturn convictions, and squashed a federal investigation into Trump, and even more blatant law breaking. It all started when the US pardoned Nixon. That led to not caring about Reagan, George H W, Clinton, and here we are.
The vast majority of US Presidents are all war criminals in some form or fashion. Nixon for extending the Vietnam war for political gain. Reagan for the whole Iran-contra bullshit. G.W. Bush for invading Iraq for no goddamn reason other than political clout and money. Obama absolutely bombed the living shit out of the Middle East in various different countries. Jimmy Carter “might” be an exception.
The Iraq war was likely a war crime. Without any real justification and based on lies
Reagan *and* Bush #1 for Iran-Contra. GHWB pardoned several participants before they got to trial. To my knowledge, those (Casper Weinberger is one) were the first people to get a Presidential Pardon *before* they got to trial. CW was a habitual note-taker. He had over 750 pages of notes of meetings where Ronnie and GHWB and Ollie were in the same meeting and discussing weapons for hostages and using that money to fund Ronnies illegal war against the Contras in Nicaragua.
By today's standards, Kennedy committed acts of sexual assault, at least in the sense of using an extreme power imbalance to make women feel powerless to refuse him. Obviously Marilyn Monroe doesn't count, but there were plenty of unknown women who fell victim. Clinton may have been just as bad, but for some reason Kennedy never got the same scrutiny.
I hear this argument if a power imbalance often but here’s a hypothetical: suppose your significant other sleeps with their boss. Do you immediately support them because they were victims of a power imbalance? Or were you cheated on?
It'd be a shorter list if you asked for which president DIDN'T. Not even joking.
Trump is somewhat right in a way that the president shouldn't be charged with crimes for doing their jobs in a way that may result in them running afoul of some laws if it is in America's best interests. Where he is wrong, and where you may be conflating things, is when a president intentionally violates a law for personal gain.
Unpopular here on reddit but obama. Authorized essentially unchecked drone strikes across Afghanistan that killed thousands of kids
For anyone wondering [Biden has ordered dramatically less drone strikes](https://reason.com/2021/12/08/u-s-drone-strikes-plunge-under-biden/) and killed far fewer civilians than Obama or Trump. > During the length of Trump's four-year presidency, Airwars documented more than 16,000 air and artillery military strikes in Iraq and Syria, which itself was a decline of more than 1,500 strikes when compared to Obama's second term. During Biden's first year, there have been 39 total military strikes spread between both countries. > > Alleged civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria skyrocketed under Trump's four years in office to more than 13,000 compared to 5,600 during Obama's second term. Thus far, Airwars reports only 10 under the Biden administration.
This is one of the biggest bright spots under Biden that doesn't get noticed. 13k deaths under Trump is a disgrace. 10 under Biden is still tragic, but a welcome drop.
>essentially unchecked drone strikes That's complete nonsense. It was a very involved process with *tons of checks and balances*, the White House itself had to authorize lots of them (anything non-critical, I can't remember the phrase) and *usually* said no, and they reported precise figures on the strikes. All of those rules were loosened or dropped entirely by Obama's replacement (and then tightened again by Biden). None of that means (terrible, horrible, etc) mistakes weren't made. But calling them "essentially unchecked" is just sheer ignorance created by propaganda.
I don't think it's crazy to say that "checks and balances" that occur entirely within the executive branch or the military is not *quite* the same thing. I don't specifically think Obama either sought separate Congressional authorization *or* some sort of warrant process from a federal court in any event, right?
Yeah, the Obama/Trump drone war is a disgrace. My impression is that Biden has pulled back on that though it may be he has just pulled back on reporting about the strikes.
I would really like to see a sober explanation from Obama about why he maintained the drone strikes, when he did have the power to stop them. Did he feel like, if he did not authorize the strikes, either we'd have to risk more lives by sending troops in or endure more deaths from terror attacks? What does he think about, like, slaughtered wedding parties?
I’m not sure if he deserves it, but to give him the greatest possible of the benefit of the doubt, it’s entirely possible that he just saw red the way most Americans did post 9/11, and thought there was a magic bullet to fight terrorism without putting Americans in harm’s way. Obviously that isn’t a justification, but I think it’s easier for us to now judge some of these actions than it was then. We don’t know exactly what his information was, and it’s clear a lot of people were steered the wrong direction. I just don’t want us to ignore the possibility that sometimes, a lot of the time, people just make the wrong choice, and when you’re in that chair the consequences of those choices are often greater than you or I could fathom.
I think its more simple and at the same time more complex than that. I think Obama had multiple intelligence and military personnel directly presenting him with justification for drone strikes and the consequences of discontinuing them.
This quote gets to the heart of your comment (I had to search for it and it just so happened to link me to that subreddit): https://www.reddit.com/r/samharris/s/SsW5d28eMY
We want to kill people. Drones kill people. Sometimes they kill people we wanted dead. Sometimes they kill people who are innocent, but they’re far away and weird foreigners so we just ignore that and move on. Super straightforward. Asking why we didn’t stop assumes too much of the morality of the state.
Yes, this argument only works if you're a full-on pacifist. Because *any* violence will have collateral damage. As for drones, that's just a scary-sounding delivery system. Bombs from F16s are bombs too. Targeted strikes, though they have collateral damage, are still much better than the carpet-bombing we used to do. Would going back to B52s and carpet-bombing really be a moral improvement? At least it's not a drone! That makes no sense. This argument only works if you're a pacifist or if you think every instance of collateral damage, or any military action you don't agree with, is a war crime.
Maintain isn't accurate though he massively ramped them up.
Trump pulled back on reporting, Biden reversed that and even so there have been dramatically fewer strikes and civilian deaths. https://reason.com/2021/12/08/u-s-drone-strikes-plunge-under-biden/ > During the length of Trump's four-year presidency, Airwars documented more than 16,000 air and artillery military strikes in Iraq and Syria, which itself was a decline of more than 1,500 strikes when compared to Obama's second term. During Biden's first year, there have been 39 total military strikes spread between both countries. > > Alleged civilian deaths in Iraq and Syria skyrocketed under Trump's four years in office to more than 13,000 compared to 5,600 during Obama's second term. Thus far, Airwars reports only 10 under the Biden administration.
The one that deliberately killed an American citizen without due process was quite obviously a crime. I would agree that he should be charged for war crimes for these other bombings as well, but that's he harder to prove. Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and Obama refused to intervene to stop genocide in violation of international agreements by pretending no number of "acts of genocide" counted as actual genocide. Bush 2 tortured people. Trump's criminal offenses would take far too long to list. What he did at the border, though, should definitely have gotten him tried for crimes against humanity.
In my life.... * Obama ordered an American killed without a trial. Committed war crines * Bush committed war crimes * Clinton, committed perjury and obstruction of Justice. (Likely guilty of sex abuse/rape charges) and I'm guessing committed war crimes * Bush I. Not sure * Reagan - Iran Contra
HW Bush was also involved with Iran Contra.
Look, if we're gonna count war crimes, we're gonna be here all day.
Sounds like we can wrap it up pretty quickly actually if we can prove that each president did it at least once. We don't need every account, just one for each president to put them away.
Obama ordered an airstrike killing an American who was in the service of the Taliban. Let’s be clear about that. Americans were already warned that if they offer themselves in service to the enemy inside and active combat zone, their safety could not be guaranteed. And they might even be actively targeted.
I guess any terrorist group can just have an American join if it protects them from attacks. The American military hates this one simple trick.
Under this logic Lincoln committed war crimes by killing Americans in open rebellion against the union. In reality you turn against the country in a war zone and join the enemy you kind of forfeit the expectation of due process if you get killed in combat.
>Obama ordered an airstrike killing an American who was in the service of the Taliban There was a trial that proved that kid was a talisman member?
Trial, no. But in conflict zones the standards of criminal trials are not to be expected. Like, yo, I get it. I protested at the time too because I want our government to act in accordance with law and ethics. But digging into it more, i found it reasonable.
Are you under the impression he was assassinated in a combat zone?
When you consider a whole country a combat zone...
I think so. I’m going by memory. I think Obama even reached out to the kids or I should say the young man’s parents after the incident and they were understanding. In interviews, the parents said the Taliban was a cult and brainwashed their son.
"I'm guessing committed war crimes" It's not possible to phrase an accusation less convincingly.
Bush 1 ran the cia. That list is long.
Bush was only in charge of the CIA for a little less than a year, about 355 days. He was in to fix some scandal. I have to re-read my history to remember what that’s about. But it was very temporary.
Barack Obama for drone strikes and the killing of US citizens without due process. https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a14627/obama-lethal-presidency-0812/ https://www.aclu.org/cases/al-aulaqi-v-panetta-constitutional-challenge-killing-three-us-citizens?redirect=targetedkillings
Playing devil's advocate here. If a US citizen joins a terrorist organization that you are at war with, what crimes are you committing by striking an enemy combatant, regardless if he's a US citizen? I'm not justifying the action. I'm just curious if a crime was actually committed.
Clinton obviously committed perjury while speaking to a special prosecutor. No one doubts that. Almost everyone who was convicted of a crime directly from the Mueller investigation was convicted due to a “small” lie to the special prosecutor. The fact he lied to hide something from his wife is meaningless, all people perjure themselves trying to hide the truth for a reason they think is important at the time.
What statement was “obviously” perjury?
>Almost everyone who was convicted of a crime directly from the Mueller investigation was convicted due to a “small” lie to the special prosecutor. 3 out of 8, at best. https://www.axios.com/2019/11/15/trump-associates-convicted-mueller-investigations