Rep. Al Green
During a town hall meeting Saturday, Congressman Al Green played recordings of threatening voicemail messages left for him after he demanded the impeachment of President Donald Trump on the House floor earlier this week.
“You’ll be hanging from a tree,” one caller said.
The calls use graphic racial slurs, some calling Green the n-word. “You ain’t going to impeach nobody. Try it and we will lynch all of you,” the caller said.
[…]
“It does not deter us,” Green said of the threats. “We are not going to be intimidated. We are not going to allow this to cause us to deviate from what we believe to be the right thing to do and that is to proceed with the impeachment of President Trump.”
See here for the background. There are embedded recordings of the voice mails at the story, if you have the stomach for them. People like this suck, and I wish they’d stay under their rocks, but this is the world we live in. I’m sure Rep. Green is unimpressed, but I hope he has some extra protection for at least the next couple of weeks. The Trib has more.
How close to crossing the legal line are these calls? Telling someone you plan to lynch them sounds like a threat of violence to me.
I hope HPD can trace them. I also think Rep. Green should cool his jets a bit. Let’s see what the FBI does.
@Fly:
Here’s Hillary supporter and lawyers Alan Dershowitz telling us even if allegations are ALL true, there is still no crime. There is no benefit to him or to the left to say this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mu7TlE-XZiQ
Personally, I’m hoping the Muller investigation confirms what many suspect, that Bernie bro Seth Rich was the leaker.
*lawyer
Also, I’d like to see those phone calls investigated and prosecuted, too. If they are real, or false flag, either way, that’s unacceptable.
You ought to be concerned about whether Trump firing Comey will blossom into obstruction of justice. It would be hilarious if there wasn’t enough to make a case for Trump himself being directly involved in inappropriate dealings with Russia, but he’s busted trying to cover it up anyway. He’s stupid enough to do that very thing,
If Trump had done something illegal, like ordering Comey to stop investigating Flynn, or the whole “muh Russia” narrative in general, then Comey has broken the law by not immediately reporting that crime. So for us to say that Trump has committed obstruction of justice, we are also saying that Comey broke the law by not immediately reporting that crime. Is Comey complicit in the alleged coverup?
Trump had an absolute right to fire Comey, and that doesn’t make him guilty of anything, except doing what most of the country wanted done at one time or another. Probably the only folks NOT mad at Comey were the Bernie bros.
And lest we forget, there is precedent for this:
http://www.cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/flashback-bill-clinton-fires-fbi-chief-ags-advice-due-lack-leadership
“…then Comey has broken the law by not immediately reporting that crime. ”
Even if reporting it immediately could compromise an ongoing investigation?
“Trump had an absolute right to fire Comey, and that doesn’t make him guilty of anything, except doing what most of the country wanted done at one time or another.”
He has the right to fire Comey for any reason that is not illegal. If he did indeed fire Comey to stop the Russian investigation, that’s obstruction of justice, and he was stupid enough to say that on TV. Also if he had fired Comey back on Jan 21st, there would have been little if any protest. Timing matters and Trump blew it bigly. Bill Clinton fired Sessions over abuse of expense accounts. If there were any additional motives like covering up, he had the brains not to blab about it.
You Trump supporters are so intellectually dishonest. Your guy done goofed, and you don’t have the integrity to acknowledge the obvious. If HRC had been elected, and she had fired Comey, no way in hell would I be defending such an action.
Ok Fly,
What did you think about her emails?
“What did you think about her emails?”
As in how Comey dealt with them back in Oct? He should have mentioned both the possible new e-mails AND the Trump campaign-Russia investigation in the letters he sent to Congress, or he should have said nothing. As in being off by a few orders of magnitude in the number of e-mails when he last was testifying before Congress? That was a WTF for me and I hope someone askes him about that when he comes back. Compared to Trump’s apparently spontaneous decision to blab intelligence details to the Russians? They’re really small potatoes now.
Fly those Trump supporters just have trouble believing that they are so bad at judging the character of people that they come up with the darnest fake stories to justify themselves.
The plot thickens even more. The latest shoes to drop are reports that Trump urged director of national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, to publicly deny the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election. So before Bill comes in with claiming that Coats and Rogers also broke the law here, remember that context matters. Trump making such requests is extremely inappropriate, period. But if it goes no further than that, there isn’t a crime and there’s not going to be any real reason to report it. But in the context of investigating whether the firing of Comey is obstruction of justice, it becomes highly relevant evidence. Remember kids, always take notes.
Fly:
He told the Russian ambassador that ISIS was trying to make laptop computers de facto bombs, to use on planes. That information was made available to the US public when it was reported, a couple of weeks before that, a ban on laptop computers was in the works for travelers from certain nations. Some state secret. And here’s the thing…..if we know about a new way the peaceful Muslims are trying to kill the kafir, we ought to share that information with as many people as we know, or are you OK with the Muslims blowing up an Aeroflot jet, because, well, screw Russian civilians? I mean, maybe the plane that gets blown up won’t have any American citizens on it, right?
As to whether Trump committed a crime and demanded Comey stop the “muh Russia” investigation? If he committed a crime right then, then that crime should have been reported as a stand alone crime. Whatever else Trump may have done, that right there would have been a prosecutable crime. So, I stand by my claim. If he did something illegal when meeting with Comey, Comey was duty bound to report that, period, no exception. The fact that he didn’t tells me anything he has to say about Trump at this point is the sour grapes of a fired employee.
Ever been fired? Had anything good to say about the guy who fired you? Especially if you got fired in such an insulting way, finding out while giving a speech, and the TV in the background is running the story of how you got BTFO?
“He told the Russian ambassador that ISIS was trying to make laptop computers de facto bombs, to use on planes……..”
That information came from another country’s intelligence operatives. Before sharing it did Trump consult with the leader of that country, did he have a long talk with his national security/intelligence people about whether disclosing information could compromise any operatives? All signs point to no, as the defense offered up is basically “I can do this if I want.” That is technically true, although it’s always be based on the assumption that the Oval Office isn’t occupied by an impulsive fool who with a tendency to speak without thinking (witness him blurting out “I never said it was Israel” while standing next to Bibi- priceless!). He also drained McMaster of some dignity points by sending him out to refute things that WaPo never even reported.
“As to whether Trump committed a crime and demanded Comey stop the “muh Russia” investigation? If he committed a crime right then, then that crime should have been reported as a stand alone crime. Whatever else Trump may have done, that right there would have been a prosecutable crime. So, I stand by my claim. If he did something illegal when meeting with Comey, Comey was duty bound to report that, period.”
Every analysis I’ve heard has called it “inappropriate” not “illegal”. I imagine that topic will come up in the Senate hearing. I also think you are 100% wrong that Comey would be required to report that immediately, no exceptions. Aldo the meaning of such actions can change depending on subsequent actions.
“Ever been fired? Had anything good to say about the guy who fired you? Especially if you got fired in such an insulting way, finding out while giving a speech, and the TV in the background is running the story of how you got BTFO?”
Sounds likes you’re saying this is all a fit of pique on Comey’s part. He has his flaws, but from what I’ve seen of him, he bends over backwards to try to keep things like politics and personal feeling out of the job. I suspect he’s held back, and has plenty more dirt to dish. And speaking of firing someone, how punk-ass was that? Trump wasn’t even man enough to tell him over the phone, much less to his face.
1) Let’s say the allegation is true, Trump told Comey to back off. OK, you yourself say that’s inappropriate, but not criminal. I’ll defer back to Hillary backer Dershowitz. Where’s the crime?
There is no crime, merely obfuscation from the Seth Rich bombshell and the domestic spying, AKA unmasking that took place during the O administration. The latest is “Kim Dotcom,” the 400 lb. hacker Trump referenced, was in contact with Seth Rich, meaning those conversations were captured by our spy agencies. Was Seth “unmasked?” Why would “Stonetear” be asking Reddit how to strip out a very VIP’s info from Hillary’s homebrew server? Hopefully Mueller can unravel some of this.
2) I agree with you….the way Comey was fired was wrong. Trump showed no class on that deal. I won’t defend that.
“1) Let’s say the allegation is true, Trump told Comey to back off. OK, you yourself say that’s inappropriate, but not criminal. I’ll defer back to Hillary backer Dershowitz. Where’s the crime?”
If it goes no further than that, then nothing comes if it. But it didn’t stop there. As for Dershowitz, he’s speculating just like the rest of us are. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg with this. Absolutely you have people in CYA mode, but that has zero bearing on whether there is fire under the smoke. Since the checks and balances aren’t running on country before party anymore, we’ll have to take what we can get.
“There is no crime, merely obfuscation from the Seth Rich bombshell and the domestic spying, AKA unmasking that took place during the O administration. ”
Haven’t you heard, Fox is backing away from that particular conspiracy theory. Good move on their part, as they’ve already paid out so much in legal fees and settlements. But just for the sake of argument, let’s say that it’s 100% true that Wiki-leaks got that info from a pissed off Bernie Bro? Then why not let Comey do his investigations and find nothing? Firing him is a boneheaded move if there’s nothing for him to find. Hell it’s a boneheaded move either way, as it sure lepta attention on the matter.
Of course there’s more to the Russian thing than just the Wiki-leaks. See Flynn, Manafort, Page, etc.
The Watergate break in had zero effect on the outcome of the 1972 election. There is no evidence that Nixon ordered it or even knew about it beforehand. Yet it destroyed him. Do you remember the lesson of Watergate? It became a catchphrase.
“2) I agree with you….the way Comey was fired was wrong. Trump showed no class on that deal. I won’t defend that.”
Good for you. That means the MAGA zombie virus has not eaten your brain.