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Rod Rosenstein – A Young Man in a Hurry?
W
hat happened the other day? What could have possessed Deputy AG Rosenstein to sic a special prosecutor on President Trump? This was an act of betrayal. Why is no one characterizing it as such? Like thunder it struck us all. What just happened?
Would anyone working for Eric Holder or Obama have done something like this?
Comey was clearly a nut job of the first rank. He had to be dealt with and Trump had every right to fire him.
If Rosenstein used the information that Comey supplied about his notes and the pretense of obstruction as the reason that he just had to go right out and appoint a special prosecutor then this is highly irregular for two reasons: 1) It’s not obstruction of justice for Trump to fire Comey and 2) it’s common sense to know not to trust the revenge motivated prattlings of a man who has just been fired and has illegally leaked government documents.
If Rosenstein had any judgment at all he should have waited for a while and confirmed things before doing something so drastic as appointing a special prosecutor. He’s been on TV lately and I’m sure he’s enjoying the popularity he’s gained from the left and perhaps he wants to negotiate a book deal with them.
@ctlaw tells us: “Rosenstein wrote Mueller’s charge so as to be a fishing license for perjury trap prosecution against Republicans while maximally protecting Democrats.”
Here’s the question: why was Rosenstein in such a hurry to appoint a special prosecutor? I smell a rat.
Published in Politics
Perhaps Trump likes rats? Since Trump appointed him. One of the big jobs of a political leader is to represents ideals and a movement that can generate loyalty among a larger group of people. Personal loyalty won’t cut it because the job is too big for that. You need loyal lieutenants that believe in the cause you represent even though they don’t really know you. W. Bush could do that so could Reagan. It can be be done. Trump does not seem very good at that and coming from outside the party his personal connections are too thin and too few to cover all the bases he needs to cover. I suspect that Trump will have loyalty problems through out his administration.
Why do you think it took Trump so long to realize that Comey was a nutjob of the first rank?
You know that the Obama administration was corrupt, and abused their power and we know that all the Obama appointees covered for him and protected his abuses and corruption. Is that the norm we want to follow? Is that kind of loyalty, loyalty to a man not the nation, the kind of loyalty we want in government officials?
I suspect that in the end we are all going to be grateful to the Muellar investigation while the Democrats curse it. It gives us some tense moments right now but it also frees up the Republicans in the House and Senate to get some important work done. When the investigation is done I suspect there will be nothing that seriously tags Trump that we don’t already know about. Then the Democrats will be holding an empty bag and the Republicans will be free of months of distraction.
Only time will tell I suppose.
Because Republicans (who should know better) are idiots. They praised Comey as a fine fellow. I’m surprised Trump ever figured out there was good reason to fire Comey. After reading his laundry list of Obstruction charges, the guy is the nastiest and most virulent form of swamp creature and I’m appalled at how much Republicans were supporting the man.
Civility is as civility does – in this case, civility allowed a man to trample on the rights of others without censure or punishment.
More to this point –
WHY exactly is it that conservative publications couldn’t do their due diligence years ago when Comey was appointed director? Why is it that it took Trump firing the guy for the average lay person to know what this man had done?
Why is it that during all of the Hillary stuff, we weren’t regaled with a history lesson on Comey? Why is it that it was only available in some of the fringiest conservative media?
Why is it that people who DID know about that information continued to defend Comey and consider him a fine and upstanding individual?
Do you have any idea stuff like this makes me want to shake the whole damn tree to get rid of every last dirty Republican in office? I don’t care if we replace them with Democrats at this point. They are the same exact thing.
If Comey would have decided to “let go” of the Flynn investigation, I believe he would still have his job.
You have no evidence of this.
Firing Comey was not illegal. Putting in a good word for Flynn was not illegal. Trying to suspend entry by a particular class of aliens is not illegal.
Every single thing Trump does is challenged, not on its merits or legality, but on the basis of whether, though he did the right thing , he MAY have done it for the wrong reason.
It is crystal clear “special counsel”( Surprise! Comey’s best bud!) is investigating why Comey was fired. So natch, Rosenstein, who strongly recommended Comey be fired, has to recuse.
there has never been an executive who has had to put up with these machinations.
Maybe. Here is my concern. Rosenstein has now set this up where Mueller and his staff of ‘I can’t come up with a word I can use here’ can create bogus criminal charges against Trump’s family members, friends, business associates, and administration appointees even while they cannot really get to Trump except through impeachment which is not likely to happen. Scooter Libby/Valerie Plane redux.
We are seeing absolute proof that the system is un-reformable.
It’s of the bureaucracy, by the bureaucracy and for the bureaucracy.
Yes, I’m sure Trump likes rats. Good point.
A couple things: the traditional 10 year appointment thing and Trump obviously thought that the AG would make those decisions. When Sessions recused himself that was the first mistake in this sorry chain of events.
Yes, this is the kind of loyalty that the Republicans need. Not because of corruption but because things can’t function without loyalty up and down. The leftists keep their eyes on the prize and never snitch. The mafia calls this omerta and it’s needed for crime families like the Dems. For most well functioning administrations it’s needed, too and it’s a judgment call as to when this level of loyalty turns evil.
No, we can tell already — no one is going to be grateful.
Also, regarding loyalty: Trump should fire Rosenstein just on this action alone. A man has the right to expect that his appointments to not work against him. Rosenstein seems to be working for someone else or some other cause.
Mr. President, fire Rosenstein now. Get this out of the way.
Louie Gohmert says that Mueller is a very bad egotistic guy and known to have vendettas against any who cross him. I really think that the Republicans and conservatives who said nice things about him were trying to get him to just do his job and close up shop. This will work with people of integrity. We will find out how much integrity he has soon. His choice of aides is indicative that Gohmert is right and we are in for trouble.
I think so, too. But, as we now know more about his personality, it seems that eventually he would have to go. That whole charade last July is evidence that Comey is a deeply flawed man who is out of his depth and lacks integrity. He damaged the FBI’s reputation very badly. Trump tried to honor the 10 year commitment thing and thought that Comey could do normal FBI business. I personally think that Comey started relishing his time in the limelight and as king-maker. I just bet he was appalled that his machinations (lies) last July still ended up with Hillary losing.
Isn’t it interesting how these special prosecutors expend great effort in minutiae like Scooter Libby’s mistakes leading to perjury and that the original intention of finding out what happened is given short shrift. As soon as he knew who leaked he should have published that and sat down.
These people are a law unto themselves and the law they follow is the siren call of government uber alles.
One good thing here is that there is more and more clarity about just what faction is the problem in our country and the voters can now better see what’s going on and what’s really wrong.
This was one of the arguments I gave in favor of Trump vs. Clinton: accountability. I said he would be hemmed in on all sides so he couldn’t get too out of control. She would have continued the executive overreach and lack of accountability of the Obama years. Some NT’s actually pushed back against this argument. They were ridiculously wrong. FWIW, now we have true checks and balances in Washington. Enjoy.
Uh Rosenstein was appointed by Trump and wrote the memo that rationalized the Comey firing. He was praised to high heaven by the right for that. Then Trjmp threw him under the bus.
This may be true, but only if there are any voters paying attention.
So true. One can hope, though.
True enough, but FWIW, Andrew McCarthy agrees with Larry that appointing a special counsel was a mistake:
This is what worries me. The minute I heard of the special prosecutor appointment, my heart sunk to my stomach. But, unlike some, I actually want Trump to succeed because I really believe he can help this country get back on track. We need to have pride in our western civilization. We need to get this country growing financially again. We need to stop kowtowing to those who actually mean us harm. Trump could do these things. But he needs support at least from his own party, and that has been sorely lacking.
So now we have Comey’s BFF about to spend the rest of Trump’s first term giving everyone who ever put Russian dressing on a Rueben a colonoscopy…everyone who works for Trump. that is.
Perhaps this was already answered but I read a lot of stuff on NRO and other places about how Comey mishandled the Clinton investigation, how he bungled the re-opened investigation. I thought he was a CYA bureaucrat since June of last year and that was from reading mainstream Conservative publications. It also seems that earlier in his career Comey did some fine upstanding work, so people gave him some credit for that. But like a lot of people of integrity he did not survive the corruption of the Obama years. It seems Trump only wanted to fire him after he didn’t play ball with Trump’s communication strategy. Which is a ok reason, by me, to fire him but he should have known better.
Totally disagree. Nation always before a man, always. Law over a man, always.
Not true Lefty snitch for their own advantage all the time. When they don’t snitch it is because they believe in the greater cause. Their leader makes them believe he or she is about a greater cause. The Bush administration was very loyal to Bush, Reagan inspired an entire generation of Conservative leaders in loyalty to the cause. Trump does not give the vibe that he wants to take one for the cause but that he is the cause. This is the core of his problem. Trump has to give a sense that he is asking for loyalty to something greater than himself. People that don’t really know him will never be personally loyal to him. That have to believe Trump is after something greater than personal success.
It is even more interesting right now that there seem to be no underlying crime for Trump to cover up. So there is an obstruction of justice charge being investigating about a crime that didn’t take place. That is just insane but that is the way are current legal system works. Reforming that system would really be draining the swamp!
Certainly special prosecutors must be given limited and strict mandates. Martha Stewart and Scooter Libby prosecutions, being caught misremembering, or having done something totally tangential to the original focus of the investigation, have to be eliminated and ,btw, if Rosenstein had any hair, he could still do that right now. Call Mr Mueller into the office and issue him more focused instructions. This is what you are to investigate, nothing more.
Excellent point.
I know of the Clinton thing.
It is the assumption of goodness from past performance that rankles me.
I saw an recent article that outlined at least 3 cases where Comey couldn’t provide evidence to the original investigative purpose and ended up using flimsy evidence to get them on obstruction of justice – Martha stewart and Scooter Libby were two of them.
How does prosecutorial misconduct get painted as “good” in washington?
No – that is how ABUSE of our system works. Removing the abusers from office is what needs fixing.