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Gowdy on Mueller: Let the Man Do His Job!
Trey Gowdy is one Congressman whom I greatly admire. He was the 7th Circuit Solicitor and led an office of 25 attorneys and 65 employees before joining Congress. He has been at the forefront of the Congressional investigations and doesn’t mince words when he gives his opinion.
So when people have repeatedly attacked Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his work, Trey Gowdy supports him and suggests we let him do his job. As a result, I ask, why there is so much turmoil around the situation, so much gnashing of teeth? So, I investigated, and I think I know why people are so upset. And frankly, I think Trey Gowdy has the right idea.
Let’s look at the actual facts and some of the assumptions about the investigation:
Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation of Russia. And Rod Rosenstein didn’t think the Justice Department should handle the investigation. We can debate Sessions’ recusal and Rosenstein’s delegation another time. But if you’re going to be angry, be angry at those two men.
Assumption #1: We didn’t need a Special Counsel. That may be true, but Robert Mueller didn’t ask for the job, as far as I know.
Assumption #2: Almost all of Mueller’s law team were Hillary partisans and donors. That’s not true. After that news came out, that information was corrected. There were three consequential donors. Of the remainder of the team, some were Democrats, or Republicans, or even donated to both parties.
Assumption #3: Trey Gowdy was ripping apart Mueller’s team. He did — once:
The only conversation I’ve had with Robert Mueller, it was stressing to him, the importance of cutting out the leaks with respect to serious investigations.
So, it is kind of ironic that the people charged with investigating the law and executing the law would violate the law. And make no mistake, disclosing grand jury material is a violation of the law. So, as a former prosecutor, I’m disappointed that you and I are having the conversation, but that somebody violated their oath of secrecy. . .
Mueller’s team leaked the first indictment and Trey Gowdy reprimanded him and cautioned him to stop the leaks. And he also continued to support Mueller.
Assumption #4: The investigation is taking too long. My question is, how long is too long? What is the right amount of time? Don’t you want people who have violated rules or committed crimes to be held accountable?
Assumption#5: There must be no collusion or Mueller would have released that information. This assumption requires some dissecting of the facts. First, the original letter from Deputy AG Rosenstein said nothing about collusion (which is not illegal, by the way). The pertinent section authorized the Special Counsel to investigate—
. . . any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump . . .
That authorization says nothing about collusion or crimes on the part of Trump campaign. One could assume that might have been what was intended, but if the facts don’t support that assumption, there’s no issue. Clearly there was evidence regarding Paul Manafort but not in regard to the Trump campaign. Worse yet, Gowdy thinks that Trump’s own attorneys have inflamed the situation by harping on the collusion scenario with him. And finally, why does anyone think they must not have found collusion or they would have announced it, while the investigation is still in progress? Why not accept that we simply do not know?
Assumption #6: The Special Counsel was given too broad an agenda and because this investigation has gone so long, it must be a fishing expedition. First of all, there was never a deadline set because it would have been impossible to set one. Second, would you really want Mueller to stop his investigation without interviewing everyone connected to this issue? Besides the reports of people who’ve been interviewed, isn’t it possible that other relevant people have been identified and are being interviewed, and these interviews haven’t been publicized?
I’m sure I could come up with many more assumptions that have been made by people who want to defend Trump and the Republican Party and find people to attack and blame, but I hope I’ve made my point: it serves no useful purpose. And let me say that I am as frustrated as many of you by the fact that a Special Counsel was set up, that it will have gone on for nearly a year, that misinformation has been sent out but corrections were not well promoted. And it’s also possible that the misinformation has been spread by the Left and the Right. But this is where we find ourselves: with a tedious investigation that has weighed down the Trump administration, given Trump ample opportunity to rage at several of the related parties, and a chance for the Left to rub its hands gleefully at our anger and discomfort. Isn’t it time that we take a deep breath and follow Trey Gowdy’s advice regarding Robert Mueller:
I would encourage my Republican friends — give the guy a chance to do his job. The result will be known by the facts, by what he uncovers. The personalities involved are much less important to me than the underlying facts. So, I would — I would say give the guy a chance to do his job.
How about it?
Published in Politics
Sarcasm is a sign of intelligence.
Low or high?
A one-night stand is not an affair.
Seriously?
You gotta understand, Jamie: This is Trump. Many Ricochetti make allowances.
So Jamie and George insist it was an affair?
I can’t believe I have to do this…
love af·fair
ˈləv əˌfe(ə)r/
noun
noun: love affair; plural noun: love affairs
I was making a joke, trying to add some levity …
If you have to ask…
It wasn’t necessarily an affair, the way we think of affairs. I was just amused that someone would take the time to respond to this. hence I wrote what I wrote. And I stand by it. Many people on this website excuse President Trump from things they would never excuse Bill Clinton from, to name an example.
Again, I was making a joke … it obviously didn’t land.
In the spirit of moving this thread even farther from it’s original topic–always IMO a noble endeavor–who, at dictionary central, decided that ” ˈləv əˌfe(ə)r/ ” was helpful?
And I’m not convinced that the definition settles the question–“relationship” being the key word. Yes, we are heading into CoC territory.
I beg your pardon?
I like to call it a wide-ranging inquiry into truth. Hijack is so . . . judgmental.
I don’t know how many of you have seen my post that was promoted about an hour ago, but I sang your praises for making this a great post. Not all of you may agree with my assessment so feel free to comment otherwise, if you so wish.
Nice word-crafting there, @hoyacon. Or covering your you-know-what . . .
I appreciate that thought. It shows that decades of experience in same have paid off.
The day after Trump the election my Democrat friends started talking about getting Trump impeached. Since then I have seen what seems to be an impeachment effort with Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigating anything possible to further an impeachment or unseat the President. That is his purpose there. It is why he was given the position. Since I don’t really care for Trump much this effort only bothers me down where I used to believe our country was something special built on laws. But once I shake off that childish fantasy and come to my senses that this country is really just a banana republic. where laws are things used by the powerful and corrupt to get their way and I find this whole thing amusing.
Drew, you are a great writer. But the snark detracts from your otherwise well-written points.
Well, not in my case.
Mueller is avoiding Brennan because (1) he may tell Mueller something he does not want to hear and/or (2) he realizes Brennan’s public statements already create a problem in using him as a potential witness.
Mueller’s avoidance of Brennan is also a great illustration of how this is not an investigation into possible Russian attempts to influence the election. It is instead an investigation of targets selected by Mueller in an attempt to pin crimes on them. If this really was an investigation about covert Russian influence Brennan would have been one of the first interviewed.
It was apparently a vote for a guy who’s decided he doesn’t have to pay his campaign staff
While trying to raise money to fight against Trump’s “policy of ‘[conceding] to Vladimir Putin.’”
What about a vote for McMullen? He sounds like a swindler.
Ccompared to Trump’bankruptcies and Trump University, McMullin is small potatoes.
I’ll just note that tu quoque is categorized as a logical fallacy.
Well if King David can do it…
This thread is nearly dead, but . . . let’s have Mollie weigh in on Mueller.
Well…I guess. ALthough I wouldn’t have said she had been cleared of wrongdoing, even by the craven Comey.
Hillary seems to have been a bit of a special case, in multiple and confusing directions. First, she was publicly outed…and then let off—- for things that anyone else would’ve been nailed for (e.g. the extremely careless handling of classified information). Comey didn’t want to skew the election…. which he already assumed she had in the bag. Or something like that. And now, it seems, she’s being investigated again, if the investigation indeed ever ceased. Not exactly a slam-dunker, there, or worth much in the way of comfort to the subjects of the latest investigatory extravaganza.
The Ken Starr investigation went on for ages…ended in an impeachment tho’ not a conviction.
Watergate… Iran-Contra… ?
Or, for that matter, the two separate investigations into Darren Wilson’s shooting of Michael Brown. Both found that he acted in accordance with his training and duty, but the president didn’t exactly come out and say “He did nothing wrong.”
So… is there actually any reason to believe that after all this time and fuss, Mueller is going to stand before the people and say “Nope. Trump’s clean.”
Wow. I knew some of this.
OK, now do all of you think we should trust the man?
The FBI appears to be corrupted to its core. I’d resign if I worked there.
Right. But, again, in 2016 we were going to get a horny dawg/terrible person living in the White House no matter which way the election went.
Might I just point out that Stormy Daniels was hardly a 20 year old intern… Trump wasn’t in the Oval Office at the time…and it seems extremely unlikely to me, given the MSM’s thirst for damaging info on Trump that he is a serial sexual predator. So while they’re peas in a pod, really, I still count Bill as the worse of the two.
Let’s hope we get Pence next. (Pence-Haley!)