Forums

[sebastian_dangerfield]

So now a federal judge is not "supposed" to discuss the facts of a trial in her courtroom? That's a novel legal principle. Did you just pull it out of your ass, or is that something that anyone has every said about another judge in a similar circumstance, ever?

If she does not want to incur a claim of bias, it is prudent for her to avoid opining beyond the scope of her case. Particularly where her use of the term "cover up," in the context of a case involving a confidante of a President recently investigated for a suspected cover up, is both unnecessary and counterproductive.

But is she free to say whatever she likes? Of course. Just as Stone was free to say whatever he liked to Congress. Caveat emptor.

To the contrary, she just presided over a trial where there was extensive evidence about Stone's lying to Congress, so she is quite familiar with the evidence about his lying.

Point me to the part of the trial where it was disclosed that Trump had engaged in something illegal or unethical which required a cover-up by Stone. Point me to where we learned in the trial that which Mueller did not learn.

And how do you know what she knows? What have you done to familiarize yourself with the evidence in the trial?

If Berman learned what Mueller could not, we'd know it.

To the contrary, whether the President acted unethically or illegally was outside the scope of Mueller's report, since DOJ guidance held that he could not indict the President.

Wrong. It was within his report. He suggested Trump may have engaged in obstruction, which is illegal, but stated that deciding whether it should be prosecuted was both beyond his scope and contrary to DOJ policy. He left it up to Barr, who decided not to do anything.

You would know this if you had been paying attention or were otherwise temperamentally inclined to take the view that Trump should not have to obey the law.

See above.

You keep using that word, but you don't understand what it means. If you are to perform an interpretive dance for me, and I announce before you start that you are going to suck, it could well be bias, for I have not seen you dance. But if I watch you dance and then tell you that you suck, that's my judgment, not bias.

If you watch me dance and say, "You suck, and it's probably genetic because I've heard your mom was a lousy dancer, too, even though I've never danced with her, but based on what others have told me," you're opening up the question of whether your judgment is based on what you saw or assumptions based on things outside what you saw.

Your comments about the judge make sense if you completely ignore that she is a judge and that she just spent many months presiding over a case, culminating in a full trial, in which Stone was convicted for lying, something that put her in the position to judge his lying.

She has every right to rule that he lied, which he did. He's guilty, bias or no bias of any judge hearing the case. She's also free to opine why Stone lied. She can opine about why Stone dresses as he does, and whether he has hair plugs, if she likes. She can recite poetry from the bench during the sentencing, or to use your analogy above, she could deliver the sentencing via interpretive dance.

But when she opines that Trump was involved in illegal or unethical conduct which required Stone's covering-up, she's ruling on assumptions about behavior of a party not in the room and facts not before her. And we both know, if Stone coughed up a stitch of conclusive proof that he was covering up illegal or unethical acts of Trump, if those suspected acts were even partially divulged, we'd have read about it in WaPo ten minutes later. But he didn't. He said, his words, that he was "Protecting the President." Berman replied, "No, you were covering up for the President." That's her opinion. That's your opinion. That's my opinion. And that suggests possible bias. If you don't see how this kicks the door open to an argument that she made conclusions about Stone and Trump beyond what were reasonable based on the facts before her, I can only conclude you're fucking with me. Or you're just refusing to concede because it bugs you.

Berman fucked up here. You know it, I know it... It's obvious. She should have played it safer, more vanilla, more conservative.