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First Principles: Why Are You Okay with This?
It seems that many historically Republican and conservative commentators, thought leaders and pundits take the same side as those in the Democrat party on certain issues that involve President Trump. One of those is Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation and the related controversy over the FBI and DOJ, and in particular the secret Memo. They insist that Trump is wrong-headed in his attacks on the FBI and DOJ.
One glimpse of this perspective is voiced by Senator Marco Rubio:
From his reputation and everything I know about him, I remain convinced that when this is all said and done, Mueller is going to only pursue things that are true, and he will do it in a fair and balanced way.”
My question is what about all of the new revelations coming out about the nefarious activities within the FBI? The 50,000 (seriously?!) texts between Strzok and Page were the earliest signs. But now on the eve of the Memo being released, more details are leaking out about serious criminal activity, at the highest levels of management.
Today, there is an article at PJ Media which provides much more detail about the truly nefarious activities of the now fired and shamed former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
It seems that the Deputy Director intentionally sat on and prohibited further investigation into Anthony Weiner’s laptop. At the exact same time, his wife “was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Clinton’s close allies.” Only after the WSJ published an October 24 story about the donation to his wife’s campaign from Clinton sources did the Deputy Director get pressured to move forward. Evidently, there was also internal FBI grumbling and pressure to do something from the investigative team on the Weiner matter.
People within the FBI weren’t just asking about Weiner’s laptop — they were also asking about McCabe’s role in the Clinton email scandal. If McCabe was indeed stalling on the emails, it seemed he could do so no longer.
Something is very rotten in the state of our Federal Law Enforcement. Possibly treasonous behavior.
Why are you okay with such a politicized and criminal DOJ/FBI?
Published in General
This is not badgering in any way! I agree that conjecture is the order of the day with this. With this postponement, you could speculate, as you do, that maybe Flynn and Mueller are cooperating. I tend to believe that this is the entire backdrop of the whole charade of this house of cards Special Counsel falling apart. As at conservative treehouse:
With this as the backdrop, I find it implausible that this is anything but bad for the Special Counsel.
I think that is a fair interpretation. Though I’ll rephrase it. The investigation is not beginning to fall apart, it is beginning to exonerate President Trump. There is value to the President in having an investigation take a hard look and come up with nothing.
Having spent years in federal offices, federal workers, even under a cloud, are allowed to reach full pension. Leaving so closely to his March date means he was forced out. Even if he had suddenly entered a coma or were otherwise unable to appear at work, the generosity of federal benefits would certainly have carried him to his March date.
The only other explanation, a resignation in protest, would have included an actual protest.
Fox reported that he was “removed”. Some reports indicated that Wray offered him a demotion but he refused and decided to take a leave. There are disturbing reports surfacing that he authorized changing 302 reports. We may (or may not) know more tomorrow when the memo is released, suffice to say that he may be in some legal jeopardy and may not get the pension package he was hoping for…or if he gets it, he may have to spend a good portion of it on legal representation. I would think that standard procedure be that he surrender his laptop computer, smartphone and any other devices before he walked out the door…as in most companies.
The idea of his family going broke while playing lawyer bills gives me the Jake leg.
The Left controls…
They also largely control the government establishment, including the military. Remember this quote? “As horrific as (the 2009 Fort Hood shooting murdering 13 and injuring over 30) was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.” — General George W. Casey Jr., Chief of Staff of the United States Army (I’m sure the victims families find that comforting.)
Besides there’s supposed to be an actual crime involved to get an independent counsel. Would you feel this way if Robert Mueller had been investigating Mitt Romney or Marco Rubio over some matter for a year with no evidence?
When Democrats have no power, their only option is to delay and try to run out the clock until they gain more power.
Now that is a very good and thought-provoking question. Hmmmmm.
Don’t look now, but … Frank Luntz states “I owe Donald Trump an Apology”. This could grow into an epidemic?
Would you be OK with a Democratic President publicly attacking the FBI as it was investigating his administration?
It depends. It likely wouldn’t register for me unless there was something substantial to the investigation. If it were an obvious witch hunt then I would support it.
It wouldn’t register because it would be natural. Whether the criticism is public or private I already assume it.
Last, I don’t view it as an attack. Just criticism. The question instead is whether the criticism is warranted and true, or not.
We don’t know now if the criticism is warranted and true.
As Scott Adams keeps telling us, there is no objective truth. The past is simply a mental state and therefore there is literally nothing to “fact check.”
The problem with applying the maxim “follow the money” to the Clinton organization is that their money is everywhere. The Clintons, and their dedicated donors, have pursued the belief that political power is for sale so doggedly, for so many decades, that it looks like the entire Democratic Party is in thrall to them. Which, of course, was their goal all along.
But now, you might say, the thrall is gone. Obama weaponized the DOJ and the FBI, just as he weaponized every lever of government, and the Obama subordinates who carried out his policies counted on a President Hillary to make sure that their misconduct remained swept under the rug. Now, I think, they are just scurrying around trying to save their own butts.
If you were falsely accused of a crime and a massive public investigation ensued, then as time went on public revelations in the press came to light which suggested serious political bias/corruption by Obama Justice/FBI/Intel community against you and favoring our political opponent.
How much self restraint would you have?
It certainly appears as if political bias/corruption in the Obama Justice/FBI/Intel Community by using as the primary piece of evidence the FusionGPS/Steele dossier for permission in the FISA court for the surveillance of the Trump campaign and transition and the subsequent creation of the Special Council.
Would it be better that Trump shut up …. always.
In this instance can you blame him for being furious?
I have a lot of self-restraint. I always ask a simple question, how would I react if the political parties were reversed and I respond in a manner that I’m confident I would react even if the parties were flipped.
If the FBI is corrupt, they should be radically reformed. I’m willing to wait until all the evidence is in. So far, we’ve only heard the Republican’s side. And if the FBI were corruptly investigating a Democratic President, I would roundly condemn it, but I wouldn’t reach that conclusion based on a Democratic president saying the FBI was corrupt.
I think the president knows. Besides, it also depends on the specific criticism and the context surrounding it. In my view, the FBI/DOJ/intelligence community deserve criticism and skepticism at this point.
Overall, I don’t think a blanket yes or no a reasonable approach. Especially when it’s framed as criticism instead of an attack.
I don’t.
It seems you’ve started with the conclusion that the President is correct and reasoned backwards.
I’m not ruling out the idea that he is correct, but he has a long history of brutally attacking anyone that barely criticizes him. If anything, his actions indicate to me that he might be worried about what the FBI might find.
Thank you: “wait until all the evidence is in”.
That is the game: stall, slow walk all evidence gathering, lose texts, wipe out e-mails, claim anything and everything is a national secret. Stall it out until the next election cycle, bore everyone to death, make the story complicated and difficult to explain. Eventually we will all get bored and tired of the whole mess to where even egregious scandals such as the ObamaIRS/LoisLerner/KoskinenStall are gone and forgotten …. and they get away with it as we patiently “wait until all the evidence is in”
In this era if you don’t push back at the MSM narrative you’re [expletive].
That’s fine, but that strategy doesn’t guarantee you have the facts on your side.
But, since every election is the “Flight 93” election, facts and principles can be thrown out the window, which means there are no first principles to begin with, and the title of this thread is wrong in its basic premise.
Thank you: “the facts on your side”
Ostensibly the FBI has the “facts” and refuses hand over many of the “facts” to the constitutionally(ie: first principles) created Congressional oversight. The FBI is not revealing all the facts because in my estimation many in top management know they are in serious trouble on all levels(ie; legally, ethically, institutionally) and it is only human nature to want to circumvent or at least delay highly unpleasant consequences(ie: getting fired, career loss, pension loss, legal fees … prison?)
That seems plausible to me. Also plausible is that the FBI went to the FISA court with unfounded information at the instruction of Loretta Lynch, which will throw doubt on the FBI’s credibility and make it more difficult for the FBI to get FISA warrants in future cases. Under those circumstances, I can see how FBI personnel could rationalize that what they are really concerned about is damage to the institution and its mission.
I do agree that all this foot-dragging is not acceptable, and Congress should do something about it.
The only conclusion (speculation) I start with is that the president knows if he colluded or engaged in conspiracy to…. commit whatever specific crime no one can actually name by helping or hiring the Russians to …. do whatever crime they’ve done in order to….. not sure what the goal was supposed to have been. My own assessment of whether criticism of the FBI/DOJ/intelligence is warranted is quite independent of what Trump has said.
I also start with the conclusion (speculation) that the Obama admin was politicized and I think that has manifested in how HRC’s scandals were resolved and in how the intelligence community handled FISA matters and this Russia investigation so far.
I disagree with your assessment that Trump has a long history of brutally attacking anyone that barely criticizes him. 1) We differ on what counts as barely criticizing 2) we differ on what counts as brutally attacking – glib tweets and negative nicknames don’t count. I know we will never agree on that, but it’s a key to bridging our gap.
A2, why are you halting conversation with real individuals in order to inveigh against this notional other you have in mind? Who said that every election is a Flight 93 election? When did we establish that Edison or me or whoever you’re referring to has thrown facts and principles out the window?
That all reasonably follows from that scenario which you are correct is plausible. What else though? That actually implicates HRC and president Obama – probably directly since this is high level stuff. That could permanently ruin the Democrats – and operatives just can’t have that. Protecting the ideals indirectly by protecting the party from those racist, homophobe, transphobe, mysoginist, xenophobic, theocratic, science denying Republicans could be a motivator too.
Could be. I am postulating, though, that the weaponization of the agency came from above. Probably from Loretta Lynch, giving Obama himself plausible deniability. I don’t know that all of the agents and attorneys involved are political extremists of the type you describe, but they do say that an agency rots from the head down. Or is that a fish? Either way, I think we do need to find out how far the rot has spread.
Unfortunately, I don’t think any possible outcome will “permanently ruin the Democrats.”
You’re correct. I didn’t mean to imply certainty – this is all speculation (though plausible instead of rank speculation). If anything I say turns out to be correct then I agree that Lynch is likely the firewall. As for ruining the democrats permanently – you are correct again; even Watergate only ruined the Republicans for what – six years?
Yep. Well, that and Jimmy Carter.
I thought we were discussing if Trump knew the FBI was corrupt, since that is the topic of this thread.
Trump may know what he personally did, but he doesn’t know what everyone in his campaign did. That is the issue the FBI is investigating.
The question on the table is, should we let that investigation run its course or should we determine in advance of completion that the investigation is inherently corrupt and we dismiss the results of the investigation before we even know what they are.
What is your preference?
Can you articulate what will prevent the next election from being a flight 93 election?
Will there not be a Democrat running in the next election, the defeat of whom is absolutely essential to the future of America?
I don’t know what the future holds. I also don’t know that I fully agree with the Flight 93 argument; mostly because it’s just an analogy and it goes only so far. But, what makes the next flight something other than a Flight 93 crisis? No terrorists? That is a pretty good indicator I suppose. A flight impervious to terrorists? Even better. A flight which is in the process of changing course? Yeah, that probably qualifies. What about an economy that is humming along? Humming so harmoniously that the deficit is significantly reduced? it’s a good start.
I’m not sure what you’re getting at. Is it possible that the Democrats will turn in a less progressive/socialist direction? Could be. If so, then we’re not quite in crisis mode. Is it possible that Donald Trump will have such a successful first term that he will have enough political capital to address the big entitlements? Unlikely, but that would be a good indicator too. If Trump gets one or two more Supreme Court picks – we’re probably on solid footing.
IF we’re in crisis mode now, how likely is it that turns around quickly? Unlikely. Could take awhile. Does that mean that every election is a Flight 93 election? No.
The question isn’t whether the next (or the last) election is actually a “flight 93” election, the question is whether people will argue that this election is so important that we have to abandon some core principle and vote for the horrible Republican candidate (because the next one will be worse) to prevent [generic Democrat candidate] from getting the office.
You’ve already seen it on these pages during the Roy Moore election. Sure, the Republican picks up teenage girls at the courthouse, but if we don’t elect the pedophile, someone really horrible will get that seat, a Democrat.
I don’t agree that people are arguing we have to abandon some core principle because winning is more important. For instance I don’t agree that picking up legal aged girls makes Moore a pedophile. And obviously he would characterize it differently.
More broadly, when you say someone “someone really horrible” it sounds to me like you’re not talking principle as much as personality. And yes, I can deal with personality in order to defeat modern day Democrats.