Mediaite reports: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) claimed during a Capitol Hill press conference on Wednesday that Special Counsel Robert Hur found that President Joe Biden “broke the law, but he’s not going to be charged.” “We conclude that no criminal charges are warranted in this matter,” begins the report, which goes on to detail …
I mean, in fairness, the report did find that he broke the law, but the investigator declined to prosecute based on his findings. Decline to prosecute =/= found no laws were broken.
Edit for the butthurt: page 1, paragraph 2 of the report:
“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”
As others have said, whether they could establish mens rea in a court of law is another question. But they found evidence of willfulness.
Lol, I love how you quote one sentence that’s contradicted the very next paragraph where they explicitly state that they didn’t have the evidence to prove it.
You’re literally just quoting propaganda that isn’t even supported by the rest of the document.
Also, I love the idea that the person who immediately turned over what they had and cooperated fully with investigators is being accused of ‘willful retention’ as if it wasn’t just a lazy attempt at both sidesing this.
they said they didn’t think they had enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
Its not the same thing, and if you read the report there are hundreds of pages of evidence, its not like they were short on evidence.
It seems to me the biggest factor in not charging him was actually his senility.
they said they didn’t think they had enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
Yeah, because there isn’t much ‘evidence’ there. It’s all just circumstantial conspiracy theory baking. It really feels like they’re just grasping at straws, especially when they paint a grand conspiracy and then immediately point out the completely innocent possibilities that are more likely.
It seems to me the biggest factor in not charging him was actually his senility.
Or, maybe, because he willfully turned all the documents over and didn’t attempt to retain them?
From the report page 65 Biden says:
“They didn’t even know I have this” In reference to notes he knows he shouldn’t have still
Then on page 77 biden says: “I didn’t want to turn them in” again reference to notes he should not have retained.
These are both from audio recordings, so there is actually plenty of evidence to suggest he willfully retained classified docs he knew he shouldn’t have.
If intent is an element of a crime and there isn’t reliable evidence of intent, then the elements of the crime are not met.
(Compare with, say, Trump who was hiding his documents, asking his lawyers and staff to lie, and demonstrating left and right he intended to break the law.)
Juries and judges are the ones who should be making those decisions though. Not a political rival.
The report found that there was insufficient evidence and therefore it wasn’t worth a jury or judge’s time to review the case (which is what decline to prosecute means in this situation)
There is sufficient evidence to say he broke the law, but there is insufficient evidence to say he did it with malicious intent. I think it’s fair to say “he broke the law”, you just can’t say “he willfully broke the law”
That makes no sense. The laws in question require willfulness. So if you can’t say there was willfulness, you can’t say the laws were broken.
For instance, assault with a deadly requires willfulness, so if a baseball bat slips out of a baseball player’s hands and clobbers someone in the stands you wouldn’t say the player broke the law but lacked willfulness, you’d just say they didn’t break the law.
And who’s to decide if the baseball bat was willfully thrown? The jury! You could still be charged with assault because 1000 people saw your bat hit someone in the face, so its 100% plausible to say you broke the law.
If the law says don’t cross the line, and you accidentally cross the line, you broke the law, regardless of willfulness. Its up to a jury to decide if youre guilty
Its not like the police have an “accident detector” they roll up to the scene to determine if a law was broken.
The law includes willfulness as part of “the line to cross”, so again, no. Without the willfulness included, then there was not a broken law. This really isn’t hard to understand.
If they can’t establish Mens Rea then they didn’t find that he broke the law.
Some of the evidence they uncovered is like this: Years ago, Biden mentioned document A. We found document B somewhere else years later. If we can establish A and B were the same document, then we could establish willfullness, because it means Biden moved it instead of returning it, but we are unable to prove A and B are the same.
So they had evidence of something that they thought might be a crime, but even they don’t know.
From the report page 65 Biden says:
“They didn’t even know I have this” In reference to notes he knows he shouldn’t have still
Then on page 77 biden says: “I didn’t want to turn them in” again reference to notes he should not have retained.
These are both from audio recordings, so there is actually plenty of evidence to suggest hewillfully retained classified docs he knew he shouldn’t have.
I’m assuming you didn’t read the report before making this comment.
“That Mr. Biden was mistaken in his legal judgment is not enough to prove he acted willfully, which requires intent to do something the law forbids”
Everyone thought that diaries were personal and not part of the records (which were carefully stored) because that was the convention adopted by previous presidents.
Positive defense, like in the case of homicide (killing someone) in self defense? Where the defendant admits to the homicide and then must prove it was justified according to lethal force laws in the jurisdiction.
I mean, in fairness, the report did find that he broke the law, but the investigator declined to prosecute based on his findings. Decline to prosecute =/= found no laws were broken.
Edit for the butthurt: page 1, paragraph 2 of the report:
“Our investigation uncovered evidence that President Biden willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen.”
As others have said, whether they could establish mens rea in a court of law is another question. But they found evidence of willfulness.
Lol, I love how you quote one sentence that’s contradicted the very next paragraph where they explicitly state that they didn’t have the evidence to prove it.
You’re literally just quoting propaganda that isn’t even supported by the rest of the document.
Also, I love the idea that the person who immediately turned over what they had and cooperated fully with investigators is being accused of ‘willful retention’ as if it wasn’t just a lazy attempt at both sidesing this.
they said they didn’t think they had enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.
Its not the same thing, and if you read the report there are hundreds of pages of evidence, its not like they were short on evidence.
It seems to me the biggest factor in not charging him was actually his senility.
Yeah, because there isn’t much ‘evidence’ there. It’s all just circumstantial conspiracy theory baking. It really feels like they’re just grasping at straws, especially when they paint a grand conspiracy and then immediately point out the completely innocent possibilities that are more likely.
Or, maybe, because he willfully turned all the documents over and didn’t attempt to retain them?
Did you read the report?
From the report page 65 Biden says: “They didn’t even know I have this” In reference to notes he knows he shouldn’t have still
Then on page 77 biden says: “I didn’t want to turn them in” again reference to notes he should not have retained.
These are both from audio recordings, so there is actually plenty of evidence to suggest he willfully retained classified docs he knew he shouldn’t have.
If intent is an element of a crime and there isn’t reliable evidence of intent, then the elements of the crime are not met.
(Compare with, say, Trump who was hiding his documents, asking his lawyers and staff to lie, and demonstrating left and right he intended to break the law.)
Juries and judges are the ones who should be making those decisions though. Not a political rival.
The report found that there was insufficient evidence and therefore it wasn’t worth a jury or judge’s time to review the case (which is what decline to prosecute means in this situation)
There is sufficient evidence to say he broke the law, but there is insufficient evidence to say he did it with malicious intent. I think it’s fair to say “he broke the law”, you just can’t say “he willfully broke the law”
That makes no sense. The laws in question require willfulness. So if you can’t say there was willfulness, you can’t say the laws were broken.
For instance, assault with a deadly requires willfulness, so if a baseball bat slips out of a baseball player’s hands and clobbers someone in the stands you wouldn’t say the player broke the law but lacked willfulness, you’d just say they didn’t break the law.
And who’s to decide if the baseball bat was willfully thrown? The jury! You could still be charged with assault because 1000 people saw your bat hit someone in the face, so its 100% plausible to say you broke the law.
If the law says don’t cross the line, and you accidentally cross the line, you broke the law, regardless of willfulness. Its up to a jury to decide if youre guilty
Its not like the police have an “accident detector” they roll up to the scene to determine if a law was broken.
The law includes willfulness as part of “the line to cross”, so again, no. Without the willfulness included, then there was not a broken law. This really isn’t hard to understand.
You realize that neither a judge nor a jury were involved with the decision to not prosecute right?
Ohhhh… Now do the Mueller report
If they can’t establish Mens Rea then they didn’t find that he broke the law.
Some of the evidence they uncovered is like this: Years ago, Biden mentioned document A. We found document B somewhere else years later. If we can establish A and B were the same document, then we could establish willfullness, because it means Biden moved it instead of returning it, but we are unable to prove A and B are the same.
So they had evidence of something that they thought might be a crime, but even they don’t know.
The report assumed that it was wilful - they didn’t find anything to back up that assumption.
There was no assuming…
From the report page 65 Biden says: “They didn’t even know I have this” In reference to notes he knows he shouldn’t have still
Then on page 77 biden says: “I didn’t want to turn them in” again reference to notes he should not have retained.
These are both from audio recordings, so there is actually plenty of evidence to suggest hewillfully retained classified docs he knew he shouldn’t have.
I’m assuming you didn’t read the report before making this comment.
“That Mr. Biden was mistaken in his legal judgment is not enough to prove he acted willfully, which requires intent to do something the law forbids”
Everyone thought that diaries were personal and not part of the records (which were carefully stored) because that was the convention adopted by previous presidents.
Funny, aren’t we innocent until proven guilty?
In specific situations, yes. I’m others, we’re guilty until proven innocent. Funny how that works.
That’s not at all how that works, champ.
I’m not going to give you law school, but specific motions and procedural shit logically require presumption of guilt.
Positive defense, like in the case of homicide (killing someone) in self defense? Where the defendant admits to the homicide and then must prove it was justified according to lethal force laws in the jurisdiction.
so if i watch someone rob a 7-11 I cannot say “they broke the law” until they’ve been proven guilty?
Yes
Unless you want to get sued then yes exactly.