Yes, oh best beloveds, it’s time to learn yet another SAT word we never thought we’d ever use in a a sentence. Collusion seems so nebulous. What does it mean? Is it even illegal? Fuck if I know.
But misprision definitely is illegal and it’s a remarkably low standard to meet. Let’s take a look at the Wikipedia entry, shall we?
Misprision (from Old French: mesprendre, modern French: se méprendre, “to misunderstand”) is a term of Englishlaw used to describe certain kinds of offence. Writers on criminal law usually divide misprision into two kinds: negative and positive.
It survives in the law of England and Wales and Northern Ireland only in the term misprision of treason.
Ok, from this paragraph we learn that it is a legal term that in the UK refers only to treason these days. That means there are still ordinary non-treasonous varieties of misprision that the law doesn’t use but the original meaning that is still maintained refers specifically to treason. It doesn’t say that misprision is treason. It’s more like knowing that treason or a traitorous act is going on. For example, Donald Trump didn’t have to be the traitor. He only had to know that Paul Manafort, Don Jr. or <one of the other indicted campaign officials or administration members of Mueller’s investigation> were.
Let’s take a deeper dive into misprision. There are two types of misprision:
Negative misprision is the concealment of treason or felony. By the common law of England it was the duty of every liege subject to inform the king’s justices and other officers of the law of all treasons and felonies of which the informant had knowledge, and to bring the offender to justice by arrest (see Sheriffs Act 1887, s. 8). The duty fell primarily on the grand jurors of each county borough or franchise (until the abolition of grand juries in 1933[1]), and is performed by indictment or presentment, but it also falls in theory on all other inhabitants.[2] Failure by the latter to discharge this public duty constitutes what is known as misprision of treason or felony.[3]
Misprision of treason, in the words of Blackstone, “[consists] in the bare knowledge and concealment of treason, without any degree of assent thereto: for any assent makes the party a principal traitor”.[4]
…
In the United States, misprision of treason (18 U.S.C. § 2382) is defined to be the crime committed by a person owing allegiance to the United States, and having knowledge of the commission of any treasonous crime against them, who conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the president or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor, or to some judge or justice of a particular state. The punishment is imprisonment for not more than seven years and a fine of not more than one thousand dollars.
The United States Code also includes misprision of felony (18 U.S.C. § 4).[5]
So, negative misprision would be like knowing a hostile foreign power was trying to interfere with your government with the help of other Americans and not informing the FBI. Or something like that.
What about positive misprision?
Positive misprision is the doing of something which ought not to be done; or the commission of a serious offence falling short of treason or felony, in other words of a misdemeanour of a public character (e.g. maladministration of high officials, contempt of the sovereign or magistrates). To endeavour to dissuade a witness from giving evidence, to disclose an examination before the privy council, or to advise a prisoner to stand mute, used to be described as misprisions (Hawk. P. C. bk. I. c. 20).
Did you notice the inclusion of the word “misdemeanor”?
Now, I am not a lawyer but here’s what I think is going on here with respect to Russiagate and the fate of this president. The Constitution allows the citizens of the United States to remove their president in the case that he or she has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors”
High crimes are obvious. It would be like Trump opening the front door to the Russians to let them do what they wanted or helping its army hit targets with the intention of overthrowing the government. Or human right violations. Mass murder. Incarceration of political opponents as an act of suppression. Shutting down the media. A coup using the military. Something like that might be considered a high crime.
A misdemeanor would be like misprision. That would be knowing that the hostile foreign power is doing something against the country with the aid of American traitors but looking the other way instead of reporting it. It should be noted that English law makes a big deal of forfeiture of land or fortune as a punishment of this kind of misprision which suggests that the guilty party may have benefitted materially from the act of betrayal even if he didn’t directly participate in it.
Positive misprision is like witness tampering or interfering with an official investigation or prosecution.
So, misprision is a misdemeanor, a very serious one, and I don’t think there is any doubt whatsoever that Trump has and is currently engaging in it.
The Republicans know this and in a very real sense are also guilty of misprision because they continue to look away and allow it.
The recourse is impeachment. The acts meet the threshhold of the misdemeanor of misprision beyond a reasonable doubt. But impeachment is a political act and relies on the will of the people. The majority of us do not want Trump as our president. We were full of trepidation when he won his party’s nomination and horrified when he won the office. He couldn’t be worse for our standing in the world. In spite of the economy, it won’t be long before we start feeling the effects of his stupidity and most of us will find ourselves robbed when we are ready to retire. He needs to be impeached and removed.
I’m not interested in hearing from the Trump voters who think this old, fat, soft, stupid man is some kind of strong leader. He’s not. He’s just a petulant child and bully. But more importantly, winning the electoral college is not like a cloak of invisibility or some other super power for a president. He can and *should* be removed from office if he is found to have committed high crimes and misdemeanors. The fact that he is unfit for office is irrelevant here. Elections can be overturned when a bad, corrupt man of low character wins the White House, especially if his win subverts the will of the majority of voters and is accomplished with the help of a foreign power. There are few instances wherei it would be more appropriate to impeach a president.
Yes, we are trying to get him out of office. We have a right to abort his presidency if he has committed impeachable offenses and if the current Congress won’t do it, the next one most definitely will.
And now a recap from John Oliver on where we are with respect to the Mueller investigation. What I think Oliver leaves out is the reason Trump’s PR campaign appears to be effective is that the other candidate’s voters have been made invisible over the last two years by people like Oliver himself who never misses an opportunity to take a gratuitous swipe at Hillary and by extension all of the rest of us who voted for her. If Oliver is alarmed by Giuliani’s attacks, he might want to stop muting and insulting the majority of us who didn’t vote for Mr. Softy and outnumbered his supporters by over 3 million votes.
If you’re listening, John Oliver, fix your own damn attitude first.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
That last paragraph is dead on. If the media/TV and all these other outlets want to start talking about the reality of having trump as president, we would be far along in bringing accountability to him. They are dragging their feet. They don’t have too take sides but to accurately capture reality (such as giving voice to what the majority feels like you wrote) or not gratuitously throwing stuff trump’s way that enables him and his minority supporters. If they could make Al Gore’s sigh make him unelectable, they can make trump’s numerous real crimes matter. They just don’t want to do it. I wonder if it is because they are not smart, or they don’t care, what is it?
What about those retiring Repubs? Why can’t they join the Dems to stop this guy from burning down their country?
How is this OK in America?
Man, don’t we administer literacy tests in American government before handing out visas? You have to go back.
You fucking asshole, people like you are turning this country into a third world corrupt and autocratic country and at this rate I would voluntarily go back to where I came from (which is still a democracy) because I don’t want to see the demise of this once beautiful country for which I gave up my other citizenship.
Blizz, Don’t make me send you to the moderation queue. It’s dark and ugly and no one can hear you scream. Personal insults will not be tolerated. And PM317 will not bring you burfi.
Cap’n RD: You know my opinion already.
Madoka-damned WordPress won’t let me fix my own mistakes. 😡
ROTF!!!
It is an alien life form but is harmless on this ship. He takes the form of little black pixels on the screen. He cannot hurt us.
Lower the deflector shields. Engage in counter troll dialogue.
Make it so, number 1.
I will apologize to RD for using ‘French’ on her blog but not to that troll. A whole country is at stake and I particularly, having seen corruption and looting first hand, recognize what is happening here more than that troll.
“Dear” Blizzy:
It’s not just Blizzy and his fellow Mediocre White Dudes, though.
Trump and his minions, and the ordinary Rethuglicans, and even the alleged Masters of the Universe, the Koch Brothers, the Mercers, Sheldon Adelson, and all the other McDucks, are all willing (metaphorically) to don knee pads and give intimate services to Tsar Vladimir, rather than live in a social democracy where they have to pay taxes worthy of the name, and don’t get to lord it over the rest of us.
Will the low IQ trump voters read “misprision” as “misprison” and think he is doing the right thing by ‘fighting’?
I would use conspiracy against the US. It’s what Mueller is using.
Yes, it was conspiracy against the US. I think we can make that conclusion with Manafort, Flynn, papadopolous and Stone. Even Don Jr. But trump made sure he wasn’t at those meetings. Was he aware of what was going on? Is a bear catholic? Does it matter if he wasn’t in the group of active conspirators? Not if you’re aiming for misprision. He can sing “Noka Lujon, Noka Lujon” till he’s hoarse, it wouldn’t spare him from misprision.
Cuteness break.
Between the end of net neutrality and the Supreme Court endorsing Ohio’s efforts to steal voting rights from the poor and people of color, this Monday is turning out to be a Blue Monday indeed. Our democracy is dying in front of our eyes. And John Oliver and all the other boys who were and are disdainful of Hillary Clinton can shove it up their privileged asses.
I thought that when President Obama did not do everything he could to get Garland installed as a Justice, this might mark the end of democracy. It was unparalleled, unless one wants to count the immediate aftermath of the Civil War and Andrew Johnson, installed because of assassination. Obama should have appointed Garland during recess, and let the courts decide whether avowed refusal to hold a hearing fulfills the “advise and consent” requirement for the Senate. But he did not; neither did he go to the nation over and over and let people know what was going on; nor did he punish McConnell and his state by redlining projects. He essentially just sat there. And we also recall that McCain and Burr among others vowed never to let Hillary appoint anyone to the Supreme Court. This should have been a cause celebre for the nation, but neither Obama nor the media made it one. And democracies do not function in that way, which is why we are basically not one any longer.
There is one possible way out of this: if the millions of Democrats who did not vote in the last election, make sure they are registered, make sure they vote, the Democrats would win the midterms. Then we somehow have to hope that no Justice retires in the next two years; and then we have to vote immensely and win the Presidency, and then appoint all liberal Justices, and these decisions can be overturned. If this does not happen; if disinterested or vacuous people stay home, we lose the democracy forever. Maybe Obama would go around pointing that out, since he gave up the opportunity to do something about it the first time. Meaning well, and being gracious, do not stop evil and rapacious bullies, which was the lesson of the 1930’s in Europe.
Omg, don’t get me started on Obama. He paid his donors back many times over.
Ughhg
Apparently he is having secrete meetings with 2020 potentials including that fucker Sanders. If we are not vigilant, 2020 will be a repeat of 2016. See SCOTUS decision today.
LOL “misprison” – RD, what level of conspiracy theory are you on? How long until you start ordering antique editions of Blackstone’s and spend late nights poring over the volumes for that one weird old loophole that’s finally gonna take down Blonald Blumph.
Hey, have you asked Mr. Softy when he’s going to grow a pair and go talk to the FBI like Hillary did? This could all be over in no time if he just tells the truth. He says he has nothing to hide. Why not just rip the bandage off now? Surely he’s not afraid of Robert Mueller. Why look like a guilty coward when all he has to do is answer a few hours worth of questions? What’s all the sturm und drang about?
I think that this is an accurately nuanced perspective. Of course, as we know, it ultimately comes down to power politics, since no court will try Trump while he is in office. And impeachment ultimately becomes what the Congress says it is. A right-wing Congress decided that lying about an affair was a high crime and misdemeanor, but does not think that an explicit or implicit quid pro quo wherein a foreign adversary pays huge sums, and uses all of its technology in service of helping a candidate win, in exchange for having that person, once elected, try to carry out the adversary’s foreign policy of destroying Europe, and making this country a satellite of the adversary, is.
There are so many Russians and Russian assets who were part of the Trump campaign, and who were even appointed to very important government positions in his administration, that it would defy logic to think that there wasn’t active coordination between them. It would be like thinking that the number of gangsters in Al Capone’s organization was some strange coincidence, “no collusion here!” So collusion, coordination, misprision, treason, are all obviously involved. The only conceivable argument these people would have, is that in their excitement about getting help in defeating Hillary, they were too abysmally stupid to understand what they were getting into. But that is a ridiculous defense; plus the continuing statements by Trump about Russia deserving to go back into the G-7, etc, belie it.
Just one thing to add, off the main topic, but obviously salient. I am certain that this summit will look like a big win for Trump. That is because the result has already been cooked by the Chinese, the deal is already in place. All that sabre-rattling was just for show. All this “I don’t need to prepare, I will use my intuition,” is a “tell,” of someone who already has the deal in his back pocket. So we will have to go through days and weeks of hearing the media tell us that this is a gigantic victory for Trump; which of course was the purpose of all of this; the Chinese are getting paid back handsomely with ZTE being infiltrated into this country, and other benefits. Does anyone really think that the North Korean dictator suddenly decided that he would make a nuclear deal because of the force of Trump’s personality, or keen perceptions about international matters?
Frankly is anybody going to believe that Kim is going to give up his nuclear weapons even if he says he is?
I tend to doubt it. But as we know, in Trump’s world, it is all about what makes him look good, even if he has to make it up. So he’ll get some kind of deal about something, puff it up to being one of the greatest things ever done by an American president. He’s got Fox to push it every hour, he’s got the NYT to write sententiously about how maybe Trump’s kind of diplomacy is better than any of the other past presidents. He’s got the Van Joneses to proclaim that today he showed that he should be on Mt. Rushmore. And then even if in a year or two, we find that it was all a sham; well, Trump has profited from shams all his life, including the sham of the recent election. Take the money and run, is his motto. This is his big chance to get the Republicans to win the primaries and thus ensure him absolute power. It would be really something if the media figured out that everything he does and says is only to help him; he does not care about the country or the world except in regard to getting what he craves. He has no principles, he has no policies, he has no long view. He is only about his instant gratification; and this summit can be spun to provide it for him, which is why he is doing it. Conversely, the G-7 was not going to give him any of it, which is why he wanted to skip it.
The G7 was nothing short of a disaster for Trump. There is also a reason why Trump’s minions are blaming Trudeau for the failure in this Summit with Kim. He’ll attempt to spin it but like everything else he touches it will turn to garbage in short order.
A historical parallel to what is happening here in America today maybe the 1970s Emergency Rule that Indira Gandhi instituted in India, a large democracy comparable in spirit to this country. Public protests and other intervention made her relent and she called for elections after a few years where she overwhelmingly lost. People have to do the same here. It is not going to be easy. VOTE THEM ALL OUT! I have no faith in American media/TV at this time which is far worse than Indian print/TV media has even been and in the 70s emergency rule, journalists were a big part of mobilizing people by telling them the truth. Don’t see that happening here.
A variant on the above:
But then, both of those systems were more similar than different in their actual behaviors, as distinct from their ideologies.
trump has sold the country to the highest bidder. This is crazy how corrupt all this is in dismantling America for his personal enrichment and that too, at the behest of foreign adversaries.
This is insane!!
I noticed that the DNC just made a “new” rule! That the DNC will allow only a Democrat to run in its primary! WTF! In other words, Obama who was head of DNC since he had it moved to Chicago after his election, must have tacitly approved of Sanders and his bros being allowed to Fucx Hillary, and, in turn us. Obama enabled Trump! There is no other way to read the past election! And if anyone believes the Russians influenced the 2016 election, I have to believe it was not their first rodeo. The same blueprint was used in the 2008 primary. The more you look at it, the more obvious it is! Obama did nothing. Which allowed Trump to get elected! The element that gave us Obama did not want someone to actually do something! It is really scary and depressing!
I’m onboard with only letting Democrats run in the primaries. Obama did some damage to the party that it’s going to take awhile to rebuild.
If Bernie or whoever wants to run in a Democratic primary where the party pays for the election, he should join the party. Period. Sorry. Bernie and Obama are separate bad actors.
I think Alibe50 is saying/asking why Obama didn’t institute that rule in 2016 and why he allowed Bernie Sanders to run on a Dem bench. Fair question and it is as if Obama was ok with Hillary not winning.
Obama might have been that petty to be fine with Hillary losing. However look what is happening to everything he did for 8 years. It’s all going down the drain. So he’s suffering the consequences of being so small minded if that is the case.
There wasn’t anything stopping any previous independent candidates from running. Sanders has always caucused with Democrats. Maybe they expected him to take the vow at some point. I don’t think they took the threat seriously. But it wasn’t just Obama that let it happen.
I blame him for letting the DNC go broke while his consultants bled it dry. He didn’t care how the party’s candidates were going to do in 2016. Hillary funded the DNC with her own money and cleaned the place up. She made a deal with it about future fund raising. For some weird reason, the Democratic nominee was supposed to be guilty of *something*. No good feel goes unpunished. But Obama comes out smelling like a rose once again while leaving the place in a stare of disrepair. I’m not at all surprised. But I don’t blame him for Sanders sinking his suckers into the DNC like a leech.
I do blame Obama! Big time. Funny, how he was never able to do anything! Trump and Bush did what they wanted! Obama did what he wanted….which was nothing! except put himself in position to enrich himself upon leaving office! And he is trying to position himself to influence the 2020 Election….just like he influenced the 2016 to keep Hillary from winning!
Obama was the Origami President; he couldn’t stop folding. 😈
So when will the Republican mfers start purging voter rolls? Are they allowed to do it the night before the early voting starts? What are the parameters they will use to do the purge? Will we know what they are? Do we have to check our voter registration everyday?
The more important question is that why Obama didn’t do more when SCOTUS gutted voting rights act in 2014.
How does that compare with previous years’ earnings?
“High crimes are obvious. It would be like Trump opening the front door to the Russians to let them do what they wanted or helping its army hit targets with the intention of overthrowing the government. ”
I believe “high crimes” is a legal term of art which is somewhat more inclusive than that. In support of this, I’d like to quote the (tl;dr) opinion of noted Trump sycophant Ann Coulter, writing in the New York Times in 1998 to justify the impeachment of Bill Clinton (https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/first/c/coulter-crimes.html?mcubz=1). Sauce for the goose, as the saying goes:
—
” The general categories of impeachable conduct that developed in the four hundred years of use in Great Britain were these:
* corruption
* betrayal of trust
* abuse of official power
* neglect of duty
* encroachment on Parliament’s prerogatives
* misapplication of funds
Examples of impeachable conduct by officeholders included appointing “unfit persons to office” (often relatives and retainers). These were offices they had the strictly legal right to fill, so at worst this was mere neglect of duty. But appointing “unfit persons” denied the king’s subjects the benefits of just and efficient administration. Similarly, Justice Joseph Story included as an impeachable offense “habitual disregard of the public interests, in the discharge of the duties of political office.”
English courtiers were impeached for persuading the king to give them excessive gifts. These favors from the crown were not in themselves illegal, but it was held that using their access to the king for personal benefit was an abuse of power.
Obviously, the categories tend to bleed into one another and specific incidents might fall into more than one category. For example, compromising the country’s national security interests by leasing ports to the Chinese government or granting waivers for the transfer of sensitive technology could constitute corruption, betrayal of trust, or neglect of duty. Using the FBI and the IRS to harass a civil servant whose pink slip was sought by the president’s friend and contributor might qualify as corruption, abuse of power, or neglect of duty (if the president was simply unaware of his subordinate’s machinations). Granting perks and government jobs to people whose silence is sought constitutes corruption, abuse of power, and betrayal of trust–perhaps even misapplication of funds.
Despite the high-sounding nature of these categories from the old country, oral sex from the interns in the Oval Office will do. Even in England impeachable conduct included personal vices. Men of weak character would place the government in disrepute. As was remarked in one English case, officers of the crown should not act so as to bring “scandal on the public justice of the Kingdom.”
…
Lying to the American people is a clear betrayal of trust. There is no question that this is an impeachable offense, assuming the “lie” does not fall under the president’s duties, such as protecting the military as commander in chief. That may sound odd, given how thoroughly politicians are associated in the public eye with lying. But throughout American history, acknowledged instances of presidents lying to the nation are both rare and notorious. ”
—
If the mere act of lying about non-official matters qualifies as a “high crime” (as more than one conservative asserted 20 years ago when the shoe was on the other foot), then Mr. Trump has certainly committed more “high crimes” than any of his predecessors.
One more thing: I really object to the way people (Left and Right, starting with Coulter) throw the term “treason” around. Treason has a really narrow, strict definition in the Constitution with a very high standard of proof. I think it would be very difficult to sustain a treason charge against someone for colluding with a foreign power in the absence of actual war with that power.
We went to war with Iraq just because they looked at us funny. It hadn’t attacked us and they weren’t in violation of their weapons agreement.
Russia has been much more aggressive, hostile and malevolent. But it’s carrying out its warfare psychologically and via technology. Just because we don’t have casualties in the street doesn’t mean we aren’t harmed.
I consider what it did in 2016 to be an act of aggression. Paul Manafort May have promised the presidency would be cooperative if Trump won. Mike Flynn said as much to the Russian ambassador. They were happy to be in possession of stolen emails via Wikileaks. If that’s not some kind of traitorous behavior, I don’t know what is. Trump himself didn’t have to get his dirty grease soaked fingers on any of it. All he had to do was let it happen and turn his back.
Yes, but we’re not actually at war with them (something we’ve studiously avoided even during the height of the Cold War). This is probably a good thing, since nobody knows whether a conventional conflict between nuclear superpowers would escalate.
“Treason” is a very precisely defined term (specifically because “high treason” under English law was so vague that pretty much anyone who irritated the monarch could be charged with it – in fact, under current English law, committing adultery with the spouse of the Prince of Wales constitutes high treason – look it up). Throwing that term around casually is McCarthyism at its worst. I blame Coulter and her execrable little book for starting that trend.
In any event, the definition of “high crimes” is pretty broad and a lot of misconduct could quite conceivably fall under it (although I think Coulter’s 1998 claim that lying about sex would be included is beyond the pale).
Of course, if (as Coulter contended in 1998) lying about sex *is* an impeachable offense, then Stormy Daniels would suffice ;-).
I really am enjoying seeing conservatives eat dirt on everything Trump has done. They are twisting themselves into pretzels.
In fact, appointing Jared and Ivanka might well qualify, now that I think of it.
Do you think Allies can drop some damning intel on the WH squatter? especially after what happened at G7 and after?
4corners is an Aussie current affairs show, apparently.
😈
https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/1006371572578422784