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Who’s Running This Country Anyway?
Judging from the actions (or lack thereof) of the Department of Justice and its stepchild, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they think that they are running the country. And I see no one—not the President, not the Congress, getting in their way. Forget about the three co-equal branches of government; they don’t exist in that manner today.
I am appalled at the behavior and actions of Asst. AG Rod Rosenstein at the DOJ, for one. He appears to be the one in charge, since almost everything I’ve seen from AG Jeff Sessions indicates he is feckless and unengaged. And saying that about Sessions disturbs me greatly, since I thought he could make a difference when Trump selected him.
Rod Rosenstein might as well be our chief executive. He speaks derisively about anyone who criticizes him, thinks he has the last say about which documents can be released, and how they can be released, and has chosen to slow-walk almost every document requested. When questioned about the potential impeachment draft being developed by the House Freedom Caucus, he commented on May 1:
‘As you think about the importance of separation of powers on Law Day here, any reaction to news that certain members of the House Freedom Caucus have talked about drafting Articles of Impeachment despite your best efforts to comply with their document requests?’
Rosenstein had to pause to laugh before he could move on to answering the question.
‘They can’t even resist leaking their own drafts,’ he said, then paused again as the entire audience joined his continued guffawing at Congress.’
His public disdain for members of Congress is shocking.
It also appears that in spite of Rosenstein’s denying many months ago that the Mueller investigation wasn’t a fishing expedition, critics of Mueller say that he has far exceeded the original scope. As a result, Rosenstein authorized Mueller to investigate Paul Manafort. To date, no crime regarding the Trump campaign has been identified, yet the case continues. Judge T.S. Ellis III was appointed to preside over the special counsel’s criminal case against Paul Manafort:
Ellis said that he believes the special counsel is only interested in Manafort to squeeze him for information ‘that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his impeachment.’
The judge said prosecutors wanted the former Trump campaign official to ‘sing,’ but he worried that Manafort might also ‘compose.’
Ellis then opined that the American people do not want a special counsel with unfettered power and even went so far as to ask when the investigation would conclude.
In fact, Judge Ellis, a Reagan-appointee, asked for a copy of the scope of Mueller’s investigation.
Meanwhile, Devin Nunes sent a memo to AG Jeff Sessions threatening a contempt of Congress charge. Sessions responded with the following remarks:
Congress has made inquiries concerning an issue of great importance for the country and concerns have been raised about the Department’s performance. I have great confidence in the men and women of this Department. But no Department is perfect.
Really.
So I will now take a deep breath in order to ask all my questions, in no particular order, of those of you out there who understand more about the operations of the federal government than I do:
Why doesn’t President Trump simply declassify all the relevant documents as determined by a trusted outside expert with previous experience with the FBI?
How can Sessions allow Rosenstein to take full control, essentially, of the Department of Justice?
Why doesn’t Jeff Sessions fire Rod Rosenstein?
Why doesn’t the President fire Rosenstein?
Why didn’t Judge Ellis rule that the scope of the Mueller investigation be released?
Why bother citing Sessions with contempt of Congress, since it will make no difference in his role?
Why aren’t Rosenstein and/or Sessions impeached?
Can’t anyone compel Rosenstein to respond to Congressional oversight?
The answer to almost all of these questions is that no one has the courage to stand up for what’s right or to hold people accountable. No one is really interested in serving the American people. No one is concerned that laws have been broken. No one cares that the DOJ is running roughshod over everyone else. No one is prepared to expose the duplicity, fraud, and disrespect that has been shown for anyone who isn’t in the DOJ or FBI.
So who is running this country, anyway?
Published in Politics
@garyrobbins, I must, with all due respect, disagree most vehemently from this statement and agree to the same degree with the response of @ontheleftcoast; one of the many problems I have with your statement, while noting I do not question in any way your right to say nor your motivations in same, is that in order to make that statement you must clearly have much more knowledge of the fact that Sessions is actually doing SOMEthing. In the interest of trying to form a fuller understanding of what it is he is actually doing, could you please share that information with the rest of us. I cannot speak for all who have expressed greater and greater reservations about Sessions, such as @susanquinn in this post, but I think that Sessions has been, to this date, one of the most ineffective, incompetent, absent, invisible Attorneys General this country has ever had. I note I have the same difficulty in coming to that conclusion as Susan did, and I am sure many of us feel the same way. I look forward to receiving all that information from you about all these things Sessions must be doing, especially in giving Rosenstein, who I have said time and time again I consider the most dangerous snake in the Swamp, what seems to be, at least to the less-informed, a free hand in running the entire Department of [in]Justice.
I have never advocated firing Mr. Rosenberg; as far as I know, he has had a sterling career at the Bar, which, at one time, included being the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, based in New Orleans.
However, after some period of time of giving the benefit of the doubt to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, I have come to the conclusion, finally triggered by his show of utter contempt for Congress and disdain and condescension for anyone and everyone who has the temerity to criticize him, that the President should fire him immediately. I’ll go further than that and give voice to my astonishment that he has not done that already, but then I try to understand that it is easy for me to say, sitting down here near the real Swamp, as I’m not burdened by the political considerations at play in this witch hunt, being conducted by a Special Counsel team which apparently has seen too many Gestapo movies for their own, and other perhaps innocent citizens’, good.
I find it inexcusable that Rosenstein, the actual Attorney General, has to be served with a Court Order to get him to disclose items which he should readily produce. Experience teaches great caution with lawyers like that.
He knows the FBI planted a Special Agent in the Trump campaign looking for THE RUSSIANS (spying on Trump because HILLARY WAS INEVITABLE) and he’s dragging out the ending for dramatic effect. The Republic will be saved!
My response is Nixon’s 1974 State of the Union Speech, that one year of watergate is enough. He resigned 8 months later.
While I primarily practice family law, from time to time I will subpoena police reports. If the investigation is ongoing, for some reason the police will not supply me with the reports of their investigation so far. This is standard operating procedure, they don’t want for me to tip of a suspect of what they are up to. But the same token, it is clear that Mueller knew about Michael Cohen’s operation months ago, and didn’t breathe a word of it.
What we are now seeing is the the Grifter/Grafter Presidency of Donald Trump coming undone.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/trumps-white-house-can-be-divided-into-grifters-and-grafters.html
We shall see what happens next. And, yes, I would strongly oppose any effort to fire Rosenstein or Sessions.
Our party survived Nixon. I hope we survive Trump.
I’m not going to get into a long argument with you, @garyrobbins, but it saddens me that you blame Trump for the deception, misbehavior, fraud and disdain that comes from the DoJ. As I said earlier, I had hopes for Sessions. You haven’t told us about all the wonderful things he’s done. And Rosenstein has only created roadblocks and chaos. I don’t think Trump is to blame for their inaction. I would also ask you not to hijack this OP to make it your personal vehicle to trash Trump. I can honestly say, it’s not about him.
This is our system. Everyone does this on every level. You are stupid if you don’t.
Hear ye! Hear ye!
Here is Nixon’s One Year of Watergate is enough.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nixon+one+year+of+watergate+is+enough
.
@garyrobbins, shall I just wait awhile for your answer to my specific questions, or am I to be content with a Nixon speech 44 years ago and a citation to, of all things, an article from Slate? I should also advise you that I did open that article, surely the only time that site has ever soiled my computer, and it did not seem to have much to say about all the wonderful accomplishments of the Sessions-Rosenstein-Mueller-Ohr-Comey-Strozk-Page-Baker-Rybicki-Weissmann-Dreeben Department of [in]Justice. In the interest of full and honest disclosure, or to use a phrase I love to use around my liberal friends, assuredly not a real crowd, “fair and balanced”, I only scanned the Slate article and did not review it thoroughly– should I take another look?
Still waiting, Jim.
PS: My Lady and I met, and had a nice chat with, Richard Nixon in New York City some years ago. It was a very pleasant conversation, and he was every inch the Gentleman. We came away not feeling the white-hot hatred against him which had been generated then, and continues to this day. I believe, and I am not alone in this, that he will go down in history as one of the great Foreign Policy Presidents in American History. Sincerely, Jim.
I have stayed out of this OP until late in the game just to put in my two cents that I support Rosenstein and Sessions. Only when I was attacked, did I expand on that issue. Rosenstein has authorized Mueller to follow the money and the evidence, and that has lead to Trump’s grifting and grafting, that’s all.
At least I didn’t post “Open Borders!” like someone did not a completely unrelated issue.
I really don’t want to be immersed with this issue. I am slammed at work. I wanted to simply point out that in those few cases where I try to subpoena police reports, the police department firmly points out to me that the investigation is ongoing.
Benghazi went on for a couple of years with no indictments. Mueller has a bunch of indictments and several guilty pleas. I think that he has earned the right to keep going.
Let’s agree to disagree. Okay?
Your party is dead. It is never coming Back Mr. Robbins.
Removal of Trump by these means will not restore a party of followers to a corrupt elite of GOP “me too”.
No doubt, but on the other hand, Congress has a tad more say on the DOJ’s budget than you do on the police departments.
Six years after Nixon resigned, the Greatest President of the Twentieth Century was elected and he served two terms and had his Vice President elected to what was essentially his third term.
Nixon resigned when the public realized that he had betrayed us. If, the country comes to the conclusion that Trump has betrayed us and has profited from his office, the party will survive, while the Trumpists will be swept away.
What is this about?
Please note that I started my comment with an “if”. One thing that outraged people about Nixon is that the Secret Service paid for a free wall for him.
The smoking gun has not been proven yet (and thus may never be proven.) However consider the attached article by Slate.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/05/trumps-white-house-can-be-divided-into-grifters-and-grafters.html
Also, we shall see what comes of the Emoluments lawsuit.
Not going to happen. But you go right on beleiving that 40% of Americans are going to suddenly see the light if it make you feel better
I thought it was Carter Page as I think Conservative Treehouse showed some documents listing Page as an SGE to route out some Russians some years ago.
For the record, who attacked you?
The WSJ Opinion section stated today that they think the FBI had a plant or a source inside the Trump campaign.
Judging by his disdain for Ted Cruz, its apparently a large, outright majority of Republicans who are not true Reaganites.
@garyrobbins, I think you have highlighted the issue: Whose party is it? If party ownership is not decided by the voters who vote (R) candidates into office, then it is a separate thing that is always simply marketing itself to voters — either truthfully or falsely. It seems to me that you are arguing for the latter. In that case, there is a winning majority of voters who do not care whether the Republican Party survives. Recall that Reagan was not a favorite of the GOPe either.
Trump only won due to the stupid “plurality wins all delegates” rules and a huge field, and Reince Priebus preventing consideration of the “Freedom of Conscience” rule at the Convention.
In 2020, there will be hopefully only one Reagan Republican taking on Trump. Sasse? Flake? Kasich? I don’t care who it is, I just care that someone steps up and takes on Trump. (ABT or “Anybody But Trump”.)
This is not over. Hopefully the Democrats will not nominate Bernie or Warren, so there will be an alternative if Trump is nominated. Hopefully, there will be a viable third party candidate on the ballot, should Trump get the nomination.
We shall see what happens next.
I hope this question doesn’t put you on the spot, @rodin, but are you suggesting due to the nature of choosing Trump, a different group of people elected him, and second, what are your thoughts about that fact?
@gary robbins, I want to thank you for your response to @rodin, and explain why. We have Trump as our president for a total of at least four years. I can understand, for whatever reasons, that people want someone else in office; that’s up to you. I appreciate your not directly criticizing Trump, since he is the man we have to work with, even if we don’t like him. And I have no problem if a person wants to see if someone else emerges who can be elected. I hope that you see the difference between commiserating on the current politics, and choosing to look forward. Our current situation is what it is, as I often like to say. If you are making plans for the future, you have a right to do that. (I so hope this makes sense.) I’m a big believer in not dwelling on a situation that can’t be changed, and looking at what is actually happening. But you can also choose to look ahead.
Gosh is that attempted comparison wrong.
It’s becoming clear to me that there are people who are prepared to do just about anything to be in power; they don’t care how much damage they do. I suspect that even the most honorable people are/were corrupted by those already in office. It’s a sort of Stockholm syndrome–you start to identify with your “captors.” Personally I wish that attacking the government had not been necessary; I think there are honorable people who didn’t think it was required. But the analogy with the swamp seems apt, more and more. I am a person who appreciates honor and politeness and tradition; it seems, at least for now, that someone with those attributes would not have been able to do the job. And I deep regret that.
Darn, I didn’t get the comment posted. Okay, so I wanted to say that I deeply regret that we’ve come to this place; many people don’t express those regrets. But I’m becoming convinced that the most recent people who have come into government, as well as those who have been there a while, have been corrupted with power. I’ve tried to look at the current facts as dispassionately as possible and that’s what I see. I personally value the attributes of courtesy, tradition, truth, and cooperation, but I see that those attributes are not valued by others in government; thus, we have Donald Trump. I don’t know if anyone else would have been able to break through the corrupt power barriers that have been built over years. Although I try to hold on to my values, I realize that our country could be severely debilitated if I don’t support a breakthrough. I resent, even despise, having to be in this position, but I want this country to survive. And with all his limitations, I think that Trump may be able to make that happen.
I have never heard anyone complain abut this. I know wiping out the electoral college is the end of the Republican Party. 25 urban areas would colonize the rest of the country.
What should be done? The GOPe will be ready next time, I guarantee it.
I’d love to know how are you would explain this to the electorate. Seriously.
Kasich is in no way a Reagan Republican. He has all of the bad Trump dimensions and none of the good.
Trump is a symptom of a bad system. Keynesianism and cultural marxism is ruining everything, and people are sick of it, or they want their cut of this stupidity. So far, so good.