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Comment by panarky | Hacker News Reader

These look like serious charges:

Defrauding four large banks into clearing transactions with Iran in violation of international sanctions.

Conspiracy to obstruct justice by moving employees out of the United States so they could not be called as witnesses before a grand jury in Brooklyn.

Conspiracy to defraud the United States by impairing, impeding, obstructing and defeating, through deceitful and dishonest means, the lawful governmental functions of an agency of the United States.

Money laundering conspiracy.

Conspiracy to steal trade secrets about robotics from a competitor, T-Mobile.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/28/us/politics/meng-wanzhou-...

If the charges are true, I hope Ms. Meng is extradited and prosecuted, and the company barred from operating in the US.

But if this is just a bargaining chip to be exchanged for a few worthless face-saving trade deal "wins" for this administration, it will be disgrace.

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> But if this is just a bargaining chip to be exchanged for a few worthless face-saving trade deal "wins" for this administration, it will be disgrace.

The indictment spans more than a decade; this definitely predates the current administration.

From my link:

"President Trump had previously publicly toyed with the idea of granting Ms. Meng freedom if it would help secure a trade deal, much to the dismay of law enforcement officials."

President Trump has toyed with a lot of stupid ideas that are dead on arrival.

Some of his stupid ideas play out though, like becoming president.

The actual indictment: https://assets.bwbx.io/documents/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/rIz2tT7h... (PDF Warning)

Wire fraud is really serious. It looks like the government intends on going the full distance in this case.

It's notable that some of the evidence against Ms. Meng consists of "an electronic device that contained a file in unallocated space -- indicating that the file may have been deleted" (page 8 of the indictment).

Did authorities seize and image her devices at JFK?

I noticed that as well. I am super curious about how they obtained that information. I assume it will come out at trial, if it gets that far.

There’s a lot more that could be done here than barring them from operating in the US, which is an irrelevant market to them. Using it as a trade deal bargaining chip is actually the only way to get anything out of the situation without a major escalation.

The only "serious" charge is busting sanctions which again, only the US is re-imposing on Iran, and for political reasons and exactly for bargaining in things like this. Trumped up propaganda shit, as usual.

>But if this is just a bargaining chip to be exchanged for a few worthless face-saving trade deal "wins" for this administration, it will be disgrace

If letting one person off the hook can benefit all americans through better trade, how is that a disgrace?

China has apparently offered to balance the trade deficit with the US within 6 years

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-18/china-is-...

their economy is also tanking rapidly based on what their government can't cover up, the quarterly reports of US companies

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-01-28/nvidia-cu...

So by basically any measure the US is winning the trade war

>If letting one person off the hook can benefit all americans through better trade, how is that a disgrace?

it's a disgrace for the rule of law and an independent judiciary.

> it's a disgrace for the rule of law

Agreed

> an independent judiciary.

Not sure I agree, the US is pretty clear that the president has pardon power, that the executive gets to exercise prosecutorial discretion, and so on.

lol, our justice system has been a joke for a long time. James Clapper and John Brennan are walking free after violating every American's constitutional rights and then lying to congress about it. Meanwhile Edward Snowden is a wanted criminal around the world for exposing their rape of the US constitution and roger stone has his house raided by 29 FBI agents with CNN filming in the driveway for lying to congress.

There's a Navy veteran rotting in Jail right now for taking a picture of his sub on his last day because it was technically classified info. Hillary Clinton is enjoying life despite having hundreds of pieces of classified info on her server

There are two tiers of justice in our country, get used to it. At least in this case it would benefit the average american

Agreed, with a grain of salt.

> China has apparently offered to balance the trade deficit with the US within 6 years

They were promising the impossible. To fix US deficit, just stop printing money so much money, and shrink government expenses. How can China do that for US administration?

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