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Gestapo in America? “It Couldn’t Happen Here!”
But it did.
I really do need help here as, for the life of me, I simply cannot see the difference between the early morning raid of Mueller’s enforcers in which the picked the lock (let that sink in for a moment) at Paul Manafort’s home, then stood over the “suspect” and his wife holding guns on them (am I overstating the similarity of scenes straight out of the late ’30s?) in bed, as more fuily described in an excellent piece by Andrew C. McCarthy in the National Review this morning:
It was not enough to get a search warrant to ransack the Virginia home of Paul Manafort, even as the former Trump campaign chairman was cooperating with congressional investigators. Mueller’s bad-asses persuaded a judge to give them permission to pick the door lock. That way, they could break into the premises in the wee hours, while Manafort and his wife were in bed sleeping. They proceeded to secure the premises — of a man they are reportedly investigating for tax and financial crimes, not gang murders and Mafia hits — by drawing their guns on the stunned couple, apparently to check their pajamas for weapons.
While I do not profess to have a scintilla of expertise or experience in Federal Criminal Law, McCarthy certainly does, and I have found his writings to be very measured, especially about James Comey, who he considered to be a personal friend from their days in the US Attorney’s office in New York City. And, drawing upon that experience, he details the legal reasons this kind of raid was so outrageous, aside from the very troubling, to put it most euphemistically, image it presents of goons in black uniforms going about the gory business of frightening people into telling them what they want to hear–anything will do:
Mueller’s probe more resembles an empire, with 17 prosecutors retained on the public dime. So . . . what exactly is the crime of the century that requires five times the number of lawyers the Justice Department customarily assigns to crimes of the century? No one can say. The growing firm is clearly scorching the earth, scrutinizing over a decade of Manafort’s shady business dealings, determined to pluck out some white-collar felony or another that they can use to squeeze him.
You are forgiven if you can recall only vaguely that supposition about Trump-campaign collusion in Russian espionage against the 2016 election was the actual explanation for Mueller’s appointment as special counsel. To the extent there was any explanation, that is. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee, did not comply with the regulations requiring a description of the crimes Trump’s Justice Department is too conflicted to investigate, purportedly necessitating a quasi-independent special counsel.
The way it’s supposed to work, the Justice Department learns of a crime, so it assigns a prosecutor. To the contrary, this Justice Department assigned a prosecutor — make that: 17 hyper-aggressive prosecutors — and unleashed them to hunt for whatever crime they could find.
If you sense that this cuts against the presumption of innocence, you’re onto something. Because of that presumption, coupled with such other constitutional rights as the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable police searches, prosecutors are supposed to be measured in the use of their awesome powers, to employ only as much compulsion as seems appropriate under the circumstances. You don’t get a search warrant when a subpoena will do; if you have to get a warrant, you don’t do a covert pre-dawn entry when ringing the bell in the daytime will easily get you in the door.
In various places, our law reflects this common sense. For example, in applying for a wiretap authorization, besides describing the precise crime it suspects, the Justice Department must satisfy the judge that less intrusive techniques for obtaining evidence of similar quality have been attempted, or would be certain to fail if tried. (See section 2518(b) and (c) of the federal penal code.) The point is to instruct investigators that they must exercise restraint. The prosecutorial privilege to act “under color of law” comes with the duty to respect the rights the law guarantees.
Law enforcement is hard and sometimes dangerous work. Thus, there is leeway for officials to make errors in judgment. Without that leeway, they would be too paralyzed to do their jobs, and there would be no rule of law. But when prosecutors and investigators go way overboard just because they can, it is not law enforcement. It is abuse of law-enforcement power in order to intimidate.
There is no other way to interpret the brass-knuckles treatment of Manafort, a subject in a non-violent-crime investigation who is represented by counsel and was cooperating with Congress at the time Mueller’s Gang of 17 chose to break into his home. Did they really think they couldn’t have gotten the stuff they carted out of Manafort’s residence by calling up his well-regarded lawyers and asking for it? After he had already surrendered 300 pages of documents to investigative committees?
So, tell me, other than the fact that Mueller’s goons did not simply fire bullets into the brains of Mr. and Mrs. Manafort, what, exactly is the difference between what happened in that home in the pre-dawn quiet hours in a residential neighborhood in Virginia, and what was happening all over Germany during the horrible times of Krystallnacht and other atrocities?
This is so dangerous and alarming to the future of our freedoms and liberties that I intend to send the McCarthy piece to my Senators and Congressman, although the most I can hope for from my Senators, one in particular, he of Graham-Cassidy fame, is a form letter about rice acreage allotments for the coming year.
Is it just me, being an alarmist, and seeing this entire “Special” Counsel development as an in-your-face charade masking an actual coup of our Government?
Published in General
As least they didn’t shoot the dog as seems to SOP. Maybe Manafort didn’t have one. Often these kinds of raids are videoed. I wonder if one was made that will be eventually released.
I do not think that you are an alarmist at all, and I agree with your assessment of the special council. It is part of a slow-moving, cold civil war.
The fact that no one in government seems even a little upset by the Mueller witch hunt is most damning. A no-knock, early morning raid on a sixty-eight year old lobbyist is absolutely ridiculous on the face of it. Suppose Mr. Manafort had had a body guard or two at his place. Are the walls of Trump Tower thick enough to protect bystanders in a shootout?
Why isn’t any one in government complaining about these infringements on Mr. Manafort’s civil rights?
Aren’t you being a little harsh? They were just following orders…..
Sad to say, but videos of family dogs being shot during these raids might be the only check on federal power we can hope for.
I’d wager that if the Manafort’s dog had been shot, that could have provided Trump the opportunity to dismiss Mueller with the least blowback.
We are a very silly people politically.
Trump may be smart enough (I suspect Sessions is not) to realize that his best move is to permit Mueller to overreach politically and tactically and then can him.
It wasn’t long ago that McCarthy was writing about the professionalism of Mueller and taking the no-droids-here attitude towards his high-priced Democratic hires.
A few weeks later, and it’s the “Gang of 17”. McCarthy’s a very straight shooter when he takes a closer look.
Too many lawyers have come out of $1000/hr. corner offices to play subordinate roles in this one.
It really stinks.
You could park Marco Rubio’s “yacht” in front of Ted Steven’s estate (the subject of much prosecutorial zeal) to get a pretty laughable portrait of GOP financial corruption. (And a pretty decent set for season two of Ozark, I’d say.)
Wait until we hold the House next year. Then, fire the lawless power abusers: Mueller and Rosenstein.
It is beginning to appear that there are no Americans of the type we need in that highest tier of civil service executive management of the bureaucracy, especially law enforcement and intelligence agencies, to recognize and act against it. We truly need someone with the inside scoop on what is actually going on at the next level below the political appointment positions, many of which seem to be vacant. I don’t know for a fact but this seems like what could have been going on in Germany in the 30’s that resulted in an ascendance of the Nazi’s to total power.
President Trump needs the equivalent of a seal team to go into agencies and ferret out persons in high level civil service policy positions who are political placements from the Obama Administration. Any of Obama’s political appointees should be out. When identified, if they cannot be quickly dismissed because of their civil service status, make them into regular civil service dummies requiring no actual performance, like those Obama had at the VA. Do this at FBI, ATF, IRS and CIA and leave a Trump watchdog in there permanently to see that the organization is not working against his policies.