For Fun And Profit

Will the real Tucker Carlson stand up? Better yet, go away. In his bid to defend Donald Trump and the modern, authoritative Russian state, Tucker Carlson on Monday night (beginning at 2:40 of the video below) maintained

We now know it's not really a story. There was no Russia collusion. Russia didn't "hack our democracy." The whole thing was a talking point, a ludicrous talking point invented by the Hillary Clinton campaign on or about November 9, 2016 to explain the unexpected defeat in the last presidential election.

"We lost and we shouldn't have lost." From the start that has been the only argument that underpins the Russia conspiracy theory. And now, thanks to a multi-million dollar investigation that extended over a period of years that the rest of us had to endure inclusive of everything else. This was everything , that conspiracy theory had to die; it was killed, in fact, by Robert Mueller.

This is awfully slick. Carlson states "there was no Russia collusion," though the investigation by the Special Counsel did not evaluate whether there was collusion, instead whether there was a criminal conspiracy, for which burden of proof is considerably and significantly higher. In April, lawyers and scholars posting at Lawfare explained

As the report is careful to explain, “collusion” is neither a criminal offense nor a legal term of art with a clear definition, despite its frequent use in discussions of the special counsel’s mandate. Mueller and his team instead examined the relationships between members of the Trump campaign and the Russian government through the far narrower lens of criminal conspiracy. To establish a criminal conspiracy, a prosecutor must show, among other elements, that two or more persons agreed to either violate a federal criminal law or defraud the United States.

Cagily, Carlson switched to claiming "that conspiracy theory had to die; it was killed, in fact, by Robert Mueller." Although Mueller did probe whether there was a conspiracy, Lawfare continued

This “meeting of the minds” is ultimately the piece the Mueller team felt it could not prove, leading it not to pursue any conspiracy charges against members of the Trump campaign, even as it pursued them against Russian agents.

This conclusion is far from the full vindication that chants of “no collusion” imply, a fact driven home by the detailed factual record the Mueller report puts forward. In some cases, there was indeed a meeting of the minds between Trump campaign officials and Russia, just not in pursuit of a criminal objective. In others, members of the Trump campaign acted criminally—as evidenced by the guilty pleas and indictments that the Mueller team secured—but did so on their own. At times, these efforts even worked toward the same objective as the Russian government, but on seemingly parallel tracks as opposed to in coordination. None of this amounted to a criminal conspiracy that the Mueller team believed it could prove beyond a reasonable doubt. But the dense network of interactions, missed opportunities, and shared objectives between the Trump campaign and the Russian government remains profoundly disturbing.

Mueller did not "kill" anything. Investigations are not adept at finding what they're looking for or, in the case of the one conducted by the Special Counsel's office, what they're eager to overlook. "Mueller," Elie Mystal wrote after release of the Special Counsel's report "declined to seek subpoenas to compel testimony from Donald Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, or Eric Trump," among them the individuals best situated to know of any conspiracy.

Mueller was, as Steve Bannon suggested, a Marine sent to do a hitman's job, which was in part to determine whether there was a conspiracy to install as President an individual from the same political party as the investigator. Shockingly, the ex-Marine couldn't, or wouldn't,  find the evidence sufficient to convince a jury beyond a reasonable doubt that a political campaign and a foreign nation had knowingly colluded to manipulate an American presidential election.

Tucker Carlson is not ignorant nor a useful idiot.  Naveed Jamali seems to have figured him out:

— Naveed Jamali (@NaveedAJamali) December 3, 2019

Share |

First Notes From A Failed Investigation

In June, Susan Glassman of The New Yorker noted that Donald Trump had told

George Stephanopoulos that he would welcome foreign interference in an election and probably wouldn’t bother to tell the F.B.I. about any outside governments bringing him dirt on his opponent. On Thursday, he doubled down on this position, arguing, in effect, that accepting help from Vladimir Putin would be no different from dining with the Queen of England and the “Prince of Whales,” as he put it in a tweet. Trump, instead of proclaiming “no collusion,” now seemed to be announcing that he is pro-collusion. It didn’t take long for commentators to wonder about his strategy here as much as about his poor spelling: Does the President actually want Congress to impeach him?

No, he doesn't want to run a campaign as an impeached President. But Trump's remarks that week did prepare the public and the media for a time when more information about Robert Mueller's (poor and aborted) investigation would emerge.

That time has begun to come, now that a judge has responded to a suit by CNN and Buzzfeed News by ordering release of notes, on a monthly basis for several years. from the Special Counsel's office. CNN reports

"[Rick] Gates recalled a time on the campaign aircraft when candidate Trump said, 'get the emails.' [Michael] Flynn said he could use his intelligence sources to obtain the emails," investigators wrote in a summary of Gates' April 2018 interview with Mueller's team. Flynn was a foreign policy adviser on the campaign and became Trump's first national security adviser.

"Flynn had the most Russia contacts of anyone on the campaign and was in the best position to ask for the emails if they were out there," the investigators also wrote about Gates' interview.

Gates described in an interview with Mueller investigators last year how several close advisers to Trump, Trump's family members and Trump himself considered how to get the stolen documents and pushed the effort, according to investigators' summary.

Neither Bannon nor Gates knew whether Russians were the foreign nationals who had stolen the emails. But instead of stating "alert the FBI" or at least "stay clear of these people," Donald Trump reportedly implored "get the emails."

That's not stunning news coming from a guy whose contempt for his own country is exceeded only by an incomparable narcissism. Still, far more attention is warranted than it has received since its release on Saturday.  A notable exception is the Philadelphia Inquirer's Will Bunch, who explains

Gates’ disclosure to investigators was a key insight into the state of mind of a campaign that was willing and eager to work with electronic thieves — even with powerful foreign adversaries like Russia, if need be — to win a presidential election. Yet that critical information was buried in Mueller’s 440-page report and ignored by the media in a moment that was supposed to tell the American public everything we needed to know about what the president knew and when he knew it, regarding Russia’s election hacking.

"Never send a Marine to do a hitman's job," Steve Bannon is reputed to have told author Michale Wolff, and Robert Mueller is nothing if not a Marine who pulled his punches in deference to the Attorney General and, when testifying to a Senate committee, decided mum's the word.

It was terrible dereliction of duty for a Special Counsel and veteran prosecutor, as further releases of his committee's work will reveal. Both his ultimate failure and the overdue information  will, however, be largely ignored, as the lobster fails to notice the water boiling around him in the pot.  Wisely, four months ago President Trump, while avoiding the word "collusion," began preparing the country for understanding the collusion he was engaged in.

Since then, we have learned that the President attempted to bribe Ukraine, and he won't be able to avoid impeachment. But he probably will be able to sidestep conviction in the Senate because when the faucet produces no gush of water but only a drip, drip, drip, insufficient attention is paid to the criminality of the man behind the curtain

  

Share |

Premature Assumption

The reviews of Rudy Giuliani's interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo are in. They were not kind, and included

OMG this @ChrisCuomo @CuomoPrimeTime int w Guiliani where Cuomo gets him to come clean about his efforts to get Ukraine to intervene in the 2020 election.

Good lord. Guiliani is a hot mess. How did this guy EVER lead SD NY?????

— Rachel "The Doc" Bitecofer 📈🔭🗿💪 (@RachelBitecofer) September 20, 2019

Rudy’s performance on @CNN just now was a level of pants-sh*tting panic rarely seen on national television.

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) September 20, 2019

Who failed to tell Rudy Giuliani that he doesn't have to go on television?

— David Gura (@davidgura) September 20, 2019

To paraphrase and adapt liberally a trite cliché:  Gura has forgotten more about broadcast journalism, Nichols about foreign policy, and Bitecofer about polling than you or I ever will ever know.

However, we should recall the time when the question was "will he or won't he?" Trump, it was explained, had too much of an ego to refrain from going up against the Special Counsel and coming out on top. He craved the spotlight and wouldn't pass up an opportunity to sit for an interview with Robert Mueller.

But President Trump, inaccurately derided as stupid (though he is ignorant) and crazy (though he's obviously not a healthy man), made the rational decision. Though the President had been asked to answer questions from the Office of the Special Counsel about obstruction of justice

Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said questions about obstruction of justice were a "no-go."

Giuliani's statement was the most definitive rejection yet of special counsel Robert Mueller's efforts to interview the president about any efforts to obstruct the investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and Russians. It signals the Trump's lawyers are committed to protecting the president from answering questions about actions the president took in office.

It's unclear if Giuliani's public position has been endorsed by Trump, who has said he wants to answer questions under oath. Negotiations about the scope and format of an interview are still ongoing. If the legal team holds its stance, it could force Mueller to try to subpoena the president, likely triggering a standoff that would lead to the Supreme Court.

Giuliani may have known, or at least suspected, what most of us didn't, and what still was an abdication of responsibility by Robert Mueller. The Special Counsel would not only avoid subpoenaing, but wouldn't even ask, Trump to be interviewed in person, rejection of which would have revealed that the President had something to hide. 

Trump agreed to answer questions in writing, presumably because any responses could be vetted by both his legal and political teams. He would answer in writing- without follow-up, as demanded by Giuliani- inquiries only about whether the Trump campaign had conspired with Russia. That inured politically to the President's advantage. The former New York mayor had his way on the matters of a) in what format the questions would be answered; b) whether there would be follow-up; and c) the subject area. And so we learned

Trump's legal team has argued that the president has the power to hire and fire appointees and the special counsel does not have the authority to ask him to explain those decisions. Giuliani said Thursday the team was steadfast in that position.

"That's a no-go. That is not going happen," Giuliani said. "There will be no questions at all on obstruction."

In a letter last week, Mueller's team said it would accept written responses from Trump on questions related to Russian election interference. Giuliani suggested Thursday that Trump's lawyers had agreed to those terms but wanted to prohibit investigators from asking follow-up questions.

The former New York City mayor is belligerent, emotional, and dishonest. But as of now, he also has been an extraordinary legal adviser to President Donald Trump. So don't count him out.  While no one can predict what an impulsive and corrupt President will do with, or to, his staff,  we cannot assume that Rudy Giuliani's remarks to Chris Cuomo were stupid, detrimental to the President, or reflected the ramblings of a lawyer over the hill. We made that mistake once about the guy.

Share |

Lesson Learned

Well-respected yet underrated former journalist:

The dramatic images of the massive protests in Hong Kong are a reminder that people yearn for freedom and democracy around the world. The United States should stand with them.

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) August 18, 2019

Crowds of an indeterminate size defied rain to gather in Hong Kong's Victoria Park on Sunday.

The government of the United States of America should stand with them, as Dan Rather argues. But it won't. And it won't because, though possibly the manifestation of Satan on earth, Donald Trump is not stupid. 

In autumn of 2017, PBS' Frontline televised an investigation of "the epic, inside story of (Vladimir) Putin's revenge." The following is a portion:

NARRATOR: Playing a role in Gaddafi’s downfall, the American secretary of state Hillary Clinton.

HILLARY CLINTON, Secretary of State: Gaddafi must go, and the Libyan people deserve to determine their own future.

NARRATOR: And in Russia, as massive protests broke out just outside the Kremlin walls, Putin believed America had crossed the line, and he blamed Hillary Clinton.

HILLARY CLINTON: The Russian people deserve the right to have their voices heard and their votes counted.

YEVGENIA ALBATS: Putin said it was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who provided funds and means to the Russian opposition and made them to get out of the—on the streets.

PETER BAKER: No question he’s looking at revenge at Hillary Clinton. There’s no question that he sees Hillary Clinton as an adversary. And he wanted to, like— you know, he wanted to get her back.

NARRATOR: Putin would wait for the right moment to strike back at Clinton and the United States.

We've known for a long time, but were reminded by Robert Mueller's report, of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election with the intent of electing Donald Trump President. However, it began with an effort at smearing Hillary Clinton and preventing her election, irrespective of Mr. Trump.

President Trump probably does not know all the details revealed in PBS' investigation of some 22 months ago, including the genesis and development of, and actions arising from, Vladimir Putin's long-held resentment of the USA. But it's very likely that he knows both that Putin has disliked Hillary Clinton for a great while, that he was annoyed that Clinton's State Department approved of the demonstrations against his regime, and that the Russian President worked to defeat her.

He probably knows also that the USA intelligence community has identified three threats from Russia and China, comprising

cyber attacks against critical infrastructure, online influence and misinformation campaigns on social media designed to destabilize American democratic institutions, and direct interference in U.S. elections (including the upcoming 2020 presidential election).

Donald Trump knows he already has Putin's approval, and probably his willingness to assist Trump's re-election.  If I were sufficiently well-placed and conservative to be offered, and unethical enough to accept, a position as a campaign strategist for President Trump, I would tell him two things.

He needs to be aware of the possibility that Beijing could thwart the will of the American people in the 2020 presidential election. I would tell him additionally that he could do the right thing and stand with the protesters in Hong Kong. Or he can apply to mainland China the lesson that Hillary Clinton learned of Russia the hard way- anger an authoritarian superpower at your own political peril.

Share |

Semper Fidelis, Mr. President

There are a few exchanges which took place on Wednesday before former Special Counsel Robert Mueller and two congressional committees which are emblematic of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. They include the following:

MUELLER: I was going to say, the expectation was, if we did subpoena the president, he would fight the subpoena and we would be in the midst of the investigation for a substantial period of time.

MALONEY: Right, but as we sit here, you’ve never had an opportunity to ask the president, in person, questions under oath, and so obviously that must have been a difficult decision. And you’re right, appendix C lays that out, and indeed, I believe you describe the in-person interview as vital. That’s you word.

And of course, you make clear, you had the authority and the legal justification to do it, as you point out. You waited a year, you put up with a lot of negotiations, you made numerous accommodations, which you lay out, so that he could prepare and not be surprised. I take it you were trying to be fair to the president. And, by the way, you were going to limit the questions, when you got to written question, to Russia only.

And, in fact, you did go with written questions after about nine months, sir, right? And the president responded to those and you have some hard language for what you thought of those responses. What did you think of the president’s written responses Mr. Mueller?

MUELLER: It was certainly not as useful as the interview would be.

MALONEY: In fact -- in fact, you pointed out, and by my count, there were more than 30 times when the president said he didn’t recall, he didn’t remember, no independent recollection, no current recollection and I take it by your answer that it wasn’t as helpful, that’s why you used words like incomplete, imprecise, inadequate, insufficient. Is that a fair summary of what you thought of those written answers?

MUELLER: That is a fair summary. And I presume that comes from the report.

Mueller "put up with a lot of negotiations" and made "numerous accommodations," yet did not issue a subpoena. However, it's easy to miss the red flag when Democrats spent yesterday (and the prior two years) touting the personal and professional resume of the ex-Marine. Continuing:

MALONEY: And yet, sir, and I ask this respectfully -- by the way, the president didn’t ever claim the Fifth Amendment, did he?

MUELLER: I’m not going to talk to that.

Mueller wouldn't talk about that because Mueller spent the day refusing to answer questions, over 200 times in all. Please continue, Representative Maloney:

MALONEY: Well I -- from what I can tell sir, at one point it was vital and then at another point it wasn’t vital. And my question to you is, why did it stop being vital, and I can only think of three explanations. One is, that somebody told you couldn’t do it, but nobody told you couldn’t subpoena the president, is that right?

MUELLER: No, we understood we could subpoena the president.

MALONEY: Rosenstein didn’t tell you, Whitaker didn’t tell you, Barr didn’t tell you, you couldn’t ...

MUELLER: We could serve a subpoena.

Of course, Mueller could serve a subpoena. Neither the Attorney General nor the Assistant Attorney General stood by the employee, waiting to snatch out of his hands any subpoena he might obtain. However, in the same manner, you could walk into your boss' office tomorrow, call him or her a bumbling fool and even accuse the latter of having an affair with your spouse. You could, and you'd be fired. Mueller did not have to be explicitly told. Barr did not explicitly prohibit a subpoena, thus the congressman continued:

MALONEY: So, the only other explanation -- well, there’s two others I guess, one, that you just flinched. That you had the opportunity to do it and you didn’t do it. But sir, you don’t strike me as the kind of guy who flinches.

MUELLER: I’d hope not.

If ever there were an investigation which featured flinching as its animating characteristic, this was it. Nevertheless

MALONEY: Well then the third explanation -- I hope not too sir. And the third explanation I can think of is that -- is that you didn’t think you needed it. And in fact, what caught my eye was page 13 in volume 2, where you said, in fact, you had a substantial body of evidence and you sight a bunch of cases there don’t you, about how you often have to prove intent to obstruct justice without an in-person interview, that’s the kind of nature of it, and you used terms like a substantial body of evidence, significant evidence of the president’s intent.

So, my question sir is, did you have sufficient evidence of the president’s intent to obstruct justice and is that why you didn’t do the interview.

Robert Mueller pointedly refused in his report to state that the President attempted to commit obstruction of justice or any other crime. Yet he did not interview Trump because, we are to believe, he had sufficient evidence of the President's intent to obstruct justice. This makes a great deal of sense, in some alternate universe.

MUELLER: No, there’s a balance. In other words, how much evidence you have that would satisfy the last element, against how much time are you willing to spend in the courts litigating a -- the -- interviewing the president?

MALONEY: In this case, you felt that you had enough evidence of the president’s intent?

MUELLER: We had to make a balanced decision in terms of how much evidence we had, compared to length of time it would take...

It seems from the testimony above that it would have taken too darned long for the Special Counsel's office to obtain a subpoena to ascertain the truth in the most important investigation of a President in United States history.

It would have taken a minimum of time for the Special Counsel to request a subpoena and the Office of the President to tell said lawyer to go suck an egg. Mueller then would have had additional evidence of obstruction of justice while the American people would have more clearly understood that the President was not cooperating with the investigation and had much to hide. But, "the length of time it would take."

There are several possible reasons that no subpoena for a personal interview was pursued with the guy who said "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."

Both Mueller's report and testimony elicited Wednesday established that President Trump asked White House Counsel Don McGhan to fire the Special Counsel, then asked him to create a false report to cover it up.  Moreover, there was widespread and intense speculation during most of the investigation that the President either would have fired Mueller (directly or indirectly) or replaced Assistant Attorney General Rosenstein with someone who would do so.

Given that neither the Special Counsel nor his staff was hermetically sealed, walled off from all news media and gossip surrounding the investigation, it is virtually certain that Robert Mueller understood throughout that his days might be numbered. It was widely- including, probably, by Trump's personal attorneys- that the President could not make it through an interview without telling a whopper or two or three, thereby obviously committing perjury.

Obtaining a subpoena mandating the President's appearance would have set the President off.  TheRubicon would have been crossed and Special Counsel Mueller fired.

All that work he and his staff had done, Mueller realized, would have gone for naught. Except, of course, that it wouldn't have, inasmuch as even Nancy Pelosi at that point probably would have realized that impeachment proceedings were inevitable.

Whatever would have transpired in the Senate, a President of the United States of America would have been impeached. The loyal and decorated Marine would have let his Commander-in-Chief (not constitutionally, but still) down.  And maybe that is what Robert Mueller has been trying to avoid all along.

Share |

Mueller's Choice

In the video below from the 10:00 p.m. ET hour, Lawrence O'Donnell can be seen reporting

Tonight, in a letter to Robert Mueller signed by a Deputy Attorney General, the Justice Department is telling Robert Mueller that he may not make "any comment on the facts developed and legal conclusions by the Special Counsel's Office with respect to  uncharged individuals."

Donald Trump is an uncharged individual. The letter also says that Robert Mueller should not testify about the "deliberative process," including any discussions that he and his staff had about "investigative steps or decisions made during your investigation. That means- according to the Justice Department, anyway- that Robert Mueller cannot answer the most important questions that he will face on Wednesday....





An hour earlier, on the other cable news network not serving as an arm of the Trump Administration, John Dean (coming up big as usual) said something startling:

If you look at the new regulations of the Department that came out during the Trump Administration- it's now called the "Justice Manual"- first of all, a former employee who is subpoenaed, as Mueller asked to be in this case, is considered under these regulations and those regulations restrict what he can say. So it almost looks like a set-up to me that he asked for this subpoena.

No "almost" there, Mr. Dean. After Anderson Cooper asked him to comment further, Dean continued

He asked for the subpoena, which would force him under the regulations of the Department, even though he's now a private citizen. There's no enforcement device at all with these regulations. I don't know what the Department would do with a former employee who went ahead and did something in direct violation of these but....

This is yet another example not only of the destruction of norms by the Trump Administration but of the concept of "a nation of laws, and not of men" turned upside down. Only a Trump-owned Justice Department would do this, though if successful, future GOP presidents will get the message.

There is nothing legally binding Mueller to testify only as the Justice Department wishes or which would impose a penalty upon the former Special Counsel if he spoke out of turn.

NBC legal contributor and former US Attorney Mimi Rocah tweets "for months, Barr has attacked Mueller for not stating whether he would have charged Trump with obstruction if he were not POTUS. Now DOJ is trying to silence Mueller & prevent him from giving that opinion."  However, it's Robert Mueller's decision alone to make.

Barr is trying not only to silence Mueller, but to intimidate him into silence.  And Robert Mueller, with a professional resume unmatched by few if any lawyers in the USA, is no young kid who will need a good recommendation from a grateful former employer. He is Lt. Mueller, who doesn't need to impress anyone and can afford to be informative and fully candid.  He'll go down in history as one who took seriously an oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth or as a guy who was intimidated into covering up for Bill Barr and Donald Trump. His integrity and legacy are on the line.



Share |

"Never Send A Marine To Do A Hit Man's Job"

Like any would-be fascist, Donald Trump can sense weakness.On Monday, Michael Wolff, author of "Siege- Trump Under Fire," told Lawrence O'Donnell (in the first part of a two-part interview) that President Trump

thought from the beginning he could take Robert Mueller.  He says I know this guy.  I know this kind of guy.  You know, he`s too separate as I said, he said he`s got no game.

And I think he sensed that.  He sense this had as a weakness in the special prosecutor.  He sensed that he could be – you know, by saying a witch hunt, witch hunt, witch hunt, he could be the person that Robert Mueller was essentially would say, you know, this is a crazy man and how to predict what a crazy man will do.  And that`s a scary thing.

Asked by O'Donnell about Steve Bannon, Wolff replies

And he says never send a marine to do a hit man`s job.  I think he sees this as Steve understood, you know, Robert Mueller is there as to – as an institutional guy to protect an institution.  And Donald Trump is perfectly willing to destroy an institution.

Robert Mueller played right into the President's game. The next evening, Ari Melber reported that according to "Siege," the Special Counsel's office had investigated whether the President could directly (as well as indirectly) fire the Special Counsel and whether he could dismiss the Special Counsel if the purpose were to impede an investigation. The staff concluded that the President could do either or both.

Wolff had told O'Donnell

What happens to the work product they ask if they are fired?  Well, the chances that it could be – the possibility is it could be completely destroyed.

They go through one of these one after another of these contingencies, nothing with a positive result.  And one of the things that I think happened here or one of the things that I feel might well have happened here is Robert Mueller looked at this and said, you know, this guy, Donald Trump could bring the house down,  could bring the temple down.

Describing the Special Counsel as an institutionalist concerned with the house burning down is fairly generous. The intrepid, courageous Marine was intimidated by a President who realized that was his only way to head off a report that would lead to removal from office, if not prosecution. As Elie Mystal explained to Melber

It's like the old Mike Tyson thing, where he would win the fight before he got into the ring because people were scared of him. Mueller- and I think this gets to this institutionalist aspect of Mueller's investigation- he was more concerned with the institution, with his own part of the store, than he was with the rest of the house burning down.

 Mystal noted that Mueller had forgotten the advice traditionally given to football players by their coaches: "stop worrying about what they're going to do to you and start worrying about what you're going to do to them." Instead, Robert Mueller was cowed by a President who knew only intimidation of the Special Counsel stood between him and report which would lead to his removal from office and/or prosecution. "Mueller," Melber recognized, "clearly played the game not to lose." In so doing, he made sure Donald Trump would win, and the suspicion grows that that was no accident.

Share |

Back To Helsinki

In his own passive-aggressive manner, Robert Mueller on Wednesday said he believes that President Trump committed obstruction of justice. It would be "unconstitutional," the Special Counsel contended, to charge the President while in office with a federal crime and thus charging him was "not an option we could consider." Therefore, Mueller explained, " if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime."

It was sufficiently clear that Mueller had outed a criminal that Trump was panicked that he had anything to do with the Russian effort to install him as President:

Russia, Russia, Russia! That’s all you heard at the beginning of this Witch Hunt Hoax...And now Russia has disappeared because I had nothing to do with Russia helping me to get elected. It was a crime that didn’t exist. So now the Dems and their partner, the Fake News Media,.....

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2019

Oops! Can't let that stand, so less than an hour later, Trump in an interview outside of the White House an hour later, claimed "Russia did not help get me elected. You know who got me elected? I got me elected. Russia didn’t help me at all. Russia if anything helped other side.”

Vladimir Putin begs to disagree. Famously, he was asked at the Helsinki summit last July, with Trump standing next to him, "President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?"

When the Russian President said "yes," it was widely interpreted that he wanted President Trump to win the election.

However, Putin was asked a two-part question:

a) did you want President Trump to win the election?

b) did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?

Putin did not answer "yes." Feeling particularly invulnerable, He answered "yes, I did. Yes, I did," which suggested that he directed officials to help Trump win the election.

In a bizarre twist, no one has asked the Russkie whether these officials acted independently or in concert with Trump campaign officials, though the implication was the latter.

So we know Ronna R. McDaniel is lying when she tweets, as she did Sunday, "Despite Democrats promising evidence of collusion, @realDonaldTrump was totally cleared.The American people want the collusion delusion to end.  She's lying about the American people wanting the investigation (whatever their opinion on impeachment) to end; and lying about Donald Trump being "totally cleared." He was not only totally cleared, Mueller did everything but say "guilty! guilty! guilty!"

McDaniel probably doesn't care that people realize she is making things up because President Trump barely cares, and lies promiscuously, by tweet, on the White House lawn, and elsewhere. Instead, her major concern is that Donald Trump doesn't hear people calling her by her previous name: Ronna Romney McDaniel.

Share |

Flashback

Following Robert Mueller's statement Wednesday, a few additional Democratic candidates for President have come to the wise policy and political decision.

Senator Cory Booker tweeted "This Administration has continued to stonewall Congress’s oversight. Beginning impeachment proceedings is the only path forward." Former Representative Beto O'Rourke seventeen minutes later chimed in "There must be consequences, accountability, and justice. The only way to ensure that is to begin impeachment proceedings." Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Representative Seth Moulton also came out definitively to start the process.

They have joined three other Democratic aspirants, including Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Julian "don't call me Fidel" Castro,  in advocating initiation of impeachment hearings.

If you noticed two notable names absent, you're paying attention.  Senator Sanders tweeted "Given the reality that we have a president who believes he is above the law, Congress must continue its investigations. If the House Judiciary Committee deems it necessary, I will support their decision to open an impeachment inquiry."

No Democrat, and few Independents, are arguing that Congress drop its investigations. Neither would anyone expect any Democrat, let alone one of its candidates, to oppose the House Judiciary Committee if it decides to open an impeachment inquiry.  More could have been expected of a candidate thought of as bold and candid when he challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016.

More, though, should not have been expected of Joe "fever will have broken" Biden, and he responded in character, with his National Press Secretary remarking

.@JoeBiden for President statement on Bob Mueller's comments earlier today: pic.twitter.com/dxiNl2ZmH0

— TJ Ducklo (@TDucklo) May 29, 2019

"Elect me and everything will be fine." Biden recognizes the impeachment process as viable if the Administration continues on its path, whatever he considers the path to be, and however long it would have to continue on the "path." Moreover, he does not believe it would be unavoidable, only that it may be unavoidable.

More telling, however, is Biden's fear that no one would "relish" an impeachment process- and that it would "divide" a country which everyone but Joe Biden realizes already is divided.  This is the Judiciary Committee chairperson who backed off in his responsibility to conduct a fair and impartial hearing on the Clarence Thomas nomination, instead smoothing the way for the guy who intimidated Biden by claiming "a high tech lynching of an uppity Negro."

Good ol' Joe feared being divisive. Margaret Carlson nailed it when last year she wrote

The hearings revealed a weakness in Biden that leads him astray periodically: a cloying need to be liked, more by his enemies than his own tribe. His pals Sens. Alan Simpson and Arlen Specter wanted to be done with the spectacle, by which they meant Hill and the other women with their inconvenient accusations. Biden told New York magazine that he’d given his word to then Sen. John Danforth in the gym that he’d use his gavel to make it a very quick hearing. 

In one of the upcoming Democratic presidential debates, the candidates probably will be asked whether they would agree as President not to issue a pardon to Donald Trump.  Suspense should rise as we await Joe Biden answering as most- or all- of them do, or whether he chooses to answer honestly.

Share |

A Punter, Not A Quarterback

A former candidate for the US House of Representatives from Wisconsin, David Yankovich:

Mueller said basically- I spent two years writing a report and gave you my findings, you did nothing.

So, I had to come out here and spell it out for you. I couldn’t do anything, but you can. Here’s the football.

— David Yankovich (@DavidYankovich) May 29, 2019

But he did not spell it out- and Mueller has chosen not to translate for the American people the Report On The Investigation Into Russian Interference In The 2016 Presidential Election. In his statement Wednesday, delivered live from the Department of Justice, on Wednesday, he stated

The indictment (i.e., of Russian intelligence officers) alleges that they used sophisticated cyber-techniques to hack into computers and networks used by the Clinton campaign. They stole private information and then released that information through fake online identities and through the organization WikiLeaks. The releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage a presidential candidate.

Sorry, no. Mueller could, and should, have made it clear, as in: "the releases were designed and timed to interfere with our election and to damage one presidential candidate, Mrs. Clinton, and to aid the other major candidate, Mr. Trump."

The Special Counsel remarked

And as set forth in the report, after that investigation, if we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so. We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime.

That certainly implies that the President committed a crime. However, if that were Mueller's intent, the Special Counsel could have (accurately) added "instead, we laid out the instances which suggest obstruction of evidence may have occurred."

Disingenuously, Mueller stated that Volume 2 of his report

explains that under long-standing department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. That is unconstitutional. Even if the charge is kept under seal and hidden from public view, that, too, is prohibited.

It is, presumably, the opinion of Mueller and Attorney General Barr that charging a President with a federal crime is unconstitutional. But notwithstanding Mueller's assertion, it is by no means clear, and no court has ruled on the matter. The memoranda were prepared, first in 1973 during the Nixon impeachment battle, then in 2000 on the heels of the Clinton impeachment, by the Office of Legal Counsel, all of whose deputies are politically appointed. Moreover, according to one former OLC deputy and current Circuit Court Judge, the DOJ is not "presumptively bound"by OLC opinions

And Robert Mueller made it clear Wednesday that he does not intend, even if he appears before a Congressional committee, to put any meat on the bones of a statement which does little more than summarize his report. He is the quarterback who has said "I called the play but if you want me to help you execute it, you're out of your mind."

Share |

The Peter Strzok Irony

Elizabeth "Liz" Cheney, daughter of the man whotwisted and distorted intelligence to persuade President Bush to invade Iraq, on Sunday told Martha Raddatz of ABC News

I think what is really crucially important to remember here is that you had Strzok and Paige who were in charge of launching this investigation and they were saying things like we must stop this president, we need an insurance policy against this president. That in my view when you have people that are in the highest echelons of the law enforcement of this nation saying things like that, that sounds an awful lot like a coup and it could well be treason.

I know what you're saying: the investigation was launched because in May, 2016 George Papadopoulos popped off in a London bar to an Australian diplomat about dirt which Russians had on Hillary Clinton (which turned out to be accurate); Strzok was removed early from the Mueller investigation; there is no indication Strzok ever allowed his political beliefs to interfere with his work; treason is providing "aid and comfort" to an "enemy" and Russia is not an official enemy; the investigation was conducted of a political candidate and not the President; and

They must have been pretty bad at coup-ing, since Comey & the FBI never revealed to the public that there was investigation into the Trump campaign's contacts with Russia ahead of the election. https://t.co/BfYAjn4IIo

— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) May 27, 2019

The outcry expressed by Cheney (and other Republicans) over Strzok's involvement is the most disingenuous outrage since (choose wisely) a) then-NJ governor Christine Todd Whitman compared NJTV to "Pravda;" or b) President Trump two years ago claimed he fired the FBI director because James Comey had mistreated Hillary Clinton.

New Jersey public television was fairly subservient to Whitman; and Donald Trump probably would not have been elected had James Comey not broken tradition by labeling Hillary Clinton "extremely careless" and announcing nine days before the election an examination of suspect emails which already had been examined. And if FBI agent Peter Strzok had not been overly generous to candidate Trump, it is unlikely Trump would have been elected, even with Comey's effort to bend over backwards for the Republican. The Washington Post's Philip Bump wrote twenty-twp months ago

In a written statement offered before he testified before the House Oversight Committee on Thursday, Strzok pointedly noted that there was no effort on his part to keep Trump from winning the White House — and, further, that he was one of only a few people who could have potentially leaked details from the investigation in an effort to block Trump’s victory.

“In the summer of 2016,” Strzok wrote, “I was one of a handful of people who knew the details of Russian election interference and its possible connections with members of the Trump campaign. This information had the potential to derail, and quite possibly, defeat Mr. Trump. But the thought of exposing that information never crossed my mind.”

Of course it didn't, because Peter Strzok was a professional. Republican criticism of Strzok neatly fits the classic example of "chutzpah"- a man on trial for killing his parents pleads demands lenience because he's an orphan.

Liz Cheney, who knows the investigation into the Trump campaign was not a coup and was 180 degrees from treason, is the apple that did not fall far from the venomous tree.

Share |

The Circus Cannot Be Wished Away

Former Massachusetts governor William Weld, who ran in 2016 for vice-president as Gary Johnson's running mate, is challenging Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination. And as he stated to Lawrence O'Donnell (video, below), if he were the Special Counsel- for which by dint of experience he would be qualified- he would testify in public.

So he has a lot of courage, risking arrest and prosecution as a political enemy of the President if Trump is re-elected. But he is wrong about a couple of things, including his belief that Trump is trying to bait Speaker Pelosi (which is possible) while the latter is not trying to bait the President, which she is emphatically is.

He's also off-target when he maintains (at 2:45 of the video below)

I think what's going on here is Bob is so straight that he doesn't necessarily want to say how the process has been perverted and my reading of what happened behind closed doors- Bob Mueller's report says we decided not to make a traditional prosecutorial judgement because we really couldn't. 

The process is perverted, which is glaringly obvious to the vast majority of Americans. However, among those are Trump supporters unaware of the manner in which it is obvious.  It's similar to the immigration system, which virtually everyone believes is in need of an overhaul- but in what manner is extremely contentious.

If the Special Counsel's office determined it could not make a traditional judgment on prosecution, someone intimately involved in the process must explain why- and for obvious reasons, it cannot be Bill Barr. That leaves Robert Mueller.

Weld continued

Translation: Bill Barr told me that he was going to squash any indictment I tried to bring against the President for obstruction. That's a dirty story. Bob Mueller doesn't wan to have to tell that on TV and I think that's exactly what's going on here. He's such a gentleman. 

Translation: It's not what the decision I would have made but it's hard to criticize such an upstanding man. Also: if something has to be translated, it's dollars to doughnuts that there are plenty of individuals who haven't made that translation.  Unlike Weld and many members of Congress, most people are not lawyers and do not know the language.

Further, whatever is a "dirty story" must be told on television.  It's really unnecessary to explain what's going on behind the curtain that makes something a clean story. It's as if because proceedigns are so corrupt, their details must be withheld from the public. That might make Mueller a "gentleman," but sometimes an individual is placed, by God or Rod Rosenstein, in a particular place at a particular time in history that he is called to be something more, or different, than a gentleman. This is one of those times.

Continuing to speak honestly and thoughtfully, Weld continued

I suspect, however, that he wants to avoid a circus but as I say, he's testified many times in high pressure situations with a lot of members of both parties from time-to-time being angry at the performance of the FBI and he always stood there and took it. And uh, he can do it again. 

This is not a mere "high-pressure" situation, but something far more.  When a likely victim of sexual assault, Christine Blasey Ford, appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, she was meant with fierce attacks. They were directed, moreover, against an individual GOP members claimed had merely recalled events inaccurately. At issue was the appointment to the Supreme Court of a conservative Republican who, had he gone down, would have replaced by a conservative Republican.

If, however, Robert Mueller would testify completely and in public, the fate of a GOP president would hang in the balance. This would not be a wild card matchup in the NFL playoffs. This would be the final minute of close Super Bowl, Russell Wilson throwing into the teeth of a Bill Belichick defense.

The former governor added

Believe me, he's a tough guy. I was shoulder-to-shoulder with him . He can more than hold his own there. I think it's just the picture of the politicization of the Justice Department around him and putting him down is so tawdry that he doesn't like the idea of that being in a circus atmosphere.

Robert Mueller has been (at least until recently) a tough guy. He did not create the circus atmosphere.

Nonetheless, and without Mr. Mueller's encouragement, the circus has come to town. And the circus will remain, for two, maybe six, possibly well beyond that if people who have demonstrated courage and integrity take a pass when circumstances have placed them in a position of influence, when it most matters. When the abuses of government and burden of history are at their apex, the responsibilities of of the most credible among us are at their greatest.

For Robert Mueller, those responsibilities include allowing himself to be depicted visually, live, while testifying to (or denying) high crimes and misdemeanors committed against the American people. This is not 1959, before John Kennedy was elected President over Richard Nixon's 5 o'clock shadow, before television was in every home, before posing oneself for selfies became a required ritual.

A face must be placed to the name. It may be unfair that the onus has been placed (primarily) on one man. But he took the job- and it is not finished.

Share 

"And Then He Had The Meeting After"

In a "conversation" published by Salon on May 22, Malcolm Nance suggested "it turned out that (Special Counsel Robert) Mueller was an institutionalist. He literally tuck to every guideline that was given to him in the face of all the evidence. Then Mueller pulled every punch that was thrown." (He then speculated whether Rosenstein or Barr instead was to blame.)

On that very day, President Trump held a news conference in the Rose Garden in which he famously claimed "I don't do cover-ups"- and in which he appeared to verify that he does participate in cover-ups, and confirming Nance's suspicion about Mueller.

This is not about the payoff Trump ordered shortly before the presidential election, made to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about their brief affair. It goes to the very heart of the collaboration between Russia and the Trump campaign, even Donald Trump himself. It involves the June 9, 2016 get-together at Trump Tower, about which Philip Bump recently recalled

In his written testimony for Mueller, Trump said he didn’t remember whether he knew about the meeting in advance. In attendance at the meeting were several key members of his campaign team: Trump Jr., campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

“I have no recollection of learning at the time that Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, or Jared Kushner was considering participating in a meeting in June 2016 concerning potentially negative information about Hillary Clinton,” Trump’s response to Mueller reads. “Nor do I recall learning during the campaign that the June 9, 2016 meeting had taken place, that the referenced emails existed. or that Donald J. Trump, Jr., had other communications with Emin Agalarov or Robert Goldstone between June 3, 2016 and June 9, 2016.”

The suspicion that Trump knew beforehand of the meeting had been "stoked," The New York Times snarked four months ago, by Democrats "pointing to phone calls that Donald Trump Jr. received from a blocked number around the time of the meeting." However

investigators have phone records showing that Donald Trump Jr. spoke with two family friends who used blocked numbers — Brian France, the chief executive of NASCAR, and the investor Howard Lorber — as the meeting was being set up, according to the people.

Mr. Lorber had significant investments in Russia and traveled to Moscow in 1996 with President Trump as they considered building a Trump Tower there.

For the younger Mr. Trump, the revelation that he had not called his father was seen among Trump allies as a victory over Democrats at a crucial moment in the investigation, according to people close to the White House.

In the same vein, Mueller wrote in the Special Counsel's report

According to written answers submitted by President Trump, he has no recollection of learning of the meeting at this time, and the Office found no documentary evidence showing that he was made aware of the meeting or of its Russian connection- before it occurred.

However, we now should be grateful to the President for demonstrating the worthlessness of a written interview, for on May 22 his memory appeared to clear up in the Rose Garden. Trump admitted

The bottom line is they say there's no collusion- no collusion with Russia. You heard so much talk about phone calls that my son made to me from this meeting that was set up by GPS Fusion, it looks like, which was the other side, for those who don't know.

And for a year I heard about phone calls went to a special number, unauthorized, and it would have been my son Don, who is a good young man, who's gone through hell. And they were calls that must have been made by him before and after the meetings- three calls. After massive study and work, they finally found who made the calls. One was a friend of ours, a real estate developer, great guy, most of you know him, a nice guy, loves our country. And the other one was the had of NASCAR, two of them.

So of the three calls that were so horrible, he had a meeting and he called me and then he had the meeting after and he made three calls and they were written about like this little little line, a couple of lines, no one wanted to admit it....

In this Twitter thread, MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang argues "It appears to be obstruction of justice, a lie, it’s perjury and [Trump] obstructed the Mueller investigation by lying to the Special Counsel." Others disagree, believing that Trump was stating that one call involved the real estate developer and two, the head of NASCAR.

That's interesting, but not nearly dispositive. The conventional and prevailing wisdom has been that only two calls were made. Moreover, he had a meeting and he called me and then he had the meeting after suggests that candidate Trump himself was called by his son- both before and after the infamous meeting.

Give Donald Trump credit, however, for pointing out during the news conference that the Special Counsel's investigation was expensive, though it cost only $15 million gross, not the $25 million he claimed, and with the dough ordered recouped from Paul Manafort, should be a net plus for taxpayers. It nonetheless cost millions of dollars (gross) and Robert Mueller, maintaining he found "no documentary evidence" that Trump knew about the meeting beforehand, could not find what the President now has admitted to, in full view of the nation.

Trump was surprisingly candid on another matter. "So here's the bottom line," the President began at 5:47 , "there was no collusion, no obstruction. We've been doing this since I've been President." Yes, that's right- he has been obstructing and colluding since he has been President.

Share |

Fully And In Plain View

CNN's Chris Cuomo on Tuesday evening

said Democrats need to look at the political reality of launching impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

“It’s an unknown, alright,” said the host of “Cuomo Prime Time” on Tuesday. “And there is a real risk of making the bully in this so far, this president, look like a victim if you overreach in the name of oversight, like he keeps saying.”

Cuomo also suggested special counsel Robert Mueller should testify before Congress about his report into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible Trump campaign collusion.

“If you get Mr. Mueller on the stand and he says what he found, how he found it, and why he explained it the way he did, the path forward from there will be clear,” Cuomo said.

That would be great, as would the 2020 Lexus with a red bow awaiting you in your driveway on Christmas morning. And about as likely. On Tuesday morning The Washington Post had reported

Robert S. Mueller III and House Democrats have been unable to reach an agreement on how much of the special counsel’s expected congressional testimony would be public, and how much would take place in private, according to people familiar with the matter.

The special counsel’s office, along with senior Justice Department officials, has been quietly negotiating with the House Judiciary Committee, whose chairman, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), has been eager to have Mueller testify as soon as possible.

Later that day, Glen Kirschner, who served under Robert Mueller in the US Attorney's office, told (at 3:02 of video below) MSNBC's Ari Melber

Bob Mueller could take the principled position "look, folks, it's all there, 448 pages of it. And look at the way he concluded, Ari, Volume 2. Could it be any more transparent or any more powerful and frankly if I could just read it briefly.

This is how Bob ended Volume 2, which was chock full of obstruction of justice by the President. He said "the protection of the criminal justice system from corrupt acts by any person, including the President, accords with the fundamental principle of our government that no person in this country is so high that he is above the law. Period.

I could see Mueller taking the principled position that folks, it's all there and to have regurgitate what I've put in writing or testify to hearsay about what the witnesses said that led me to this conclusion is not what you need. What you need is the witnesses.

Please regurgitate. Representative Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) has stated that he believes most members of Congress have not read the SpecialCounsel's report, and it's unlikely more than two or three percent of the American people have done so.

The Special Counsel's office wrote “If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state. We are unable to reach such a judgment.” But the President's false claim of "a complete and total exoneration" has been read by far more Americans than Mueller's strong inference(s) that Trump committed obstruction of justice.

And not only read, but more importantly, seen. The President is seen- transparently, powerfully, and completely dishonestly- maintaining that he has been cleared by the investigation. He put his face to the argument.

That is what is missing as long as Mueller does not testify completely, with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  He could do so without  repercussion. He is 74 years old and sufficiently economically secure to retire and if choosing not to do so, could write his ticket at any one of hundreds (thousands?) of law firms across the country.

This invulnerability to retaliation is not as clear in the case of Hope Hicks, Annie Donaldson, Felix Sater, or any of the other witnesses whom Glenn Kirschner presumably would like to testify.  Nor does any of them have the credibility or stature of the former US Attorney, FBI director, and decorated Marine from the Vietnam War.

Robert Mueller has one more responsibility to his country. Having put his foot into the water, he needs to put a face to the report and tell under oath, in public, all he knows. Although it now appears very unlikely, he must say, as Cuomo states, "what he found, how he found it, and why he explained it the way he did." If he does anything else, he damages the constitutional principle of checks and balance between the executive and legislative branches of government, the rule of law, and the integrity of the criminal justice system Glen Kirschner believes Mueller is dedicated to.

Share |