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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
Agreed Susan. Too much speculation being compounded there. It’s ok to speculate some, but it’s dangerous to use it as an assumption on which to base other reasoning which needs to be more solid.
I agree with most of this, but you have to draw the line somewhere. There has to be a point where, “He hasn’t found anything yet,” becomes, “He hasn’t found anything.” There will always be Democrats clinging desperately to that “yet.” You know perfectly well that I am not, by any means, a Trump apologist, but even I’m growing frustrated with the Catch-22 he’s currently in.
Which is why he referred the Cohen case to SDNY.
^This.
Though, as an additional addendum, a more-than-acceptable conclusion to all this for me would be “The president is completely innocent of the allegations made constantly in the press and by the Left that he’s a Russian stooge or that the election was ‘stolen.’ That said, some of the people in his orbit were entangled with Putin’s government, committed crimes related to that, and we’re not going soft on them.”
Trey Gowdy spent 2 years investigating Benghazi and it turned up Clinton’s homebrew email server. Unrelated to the investigation at hand and yet important for us to know.
Predictable indeed.
People assume Mueller is hell bent on “getting Trump”. Me I assume he’s just being thorough. To me the best possible outcome is that Mueller stands before the public and clears Trump of any wrongdoing. It completely cuts the legs out from the lefts narrative.
This seems perfectly fair to me. We just should let the process go forward. There are good people involved, including Trey Gowdy. And speculating why he, or an others, want to leave Congress, is not helping matters. Why can’t we just take them out at their word? It seems to me that there are two extreme groups involved in all this: People who want to find Donald Trump guilty of anything, regardless of the facts. And people who want to find him innocent of everything, regardless of the facts. How about trying to get to the truth, which is believe Susan has tried to do?
No. Mueller’s job is to act lawfully. According to Andrew McCarthy, there was no predicate crime as required by the independent counsel statute.
That would mean that Mueller’s investigation may be staffed by lawyers, and may ultimately produce evidence that Trump committed even more than three felonies a day, but the investigation is itself lawless.
@fredcole, you may loathe Trump to the extent that that doesn’t bother you, but it should.
What “system” did Russia break into? There’s been no evidence whatsoever, or even an allegation that Russia “broke into” any voting system in any State or locality. And there has certainly been offered no evidence that Donald Trump’s campaign, businesses, or associates caused any voting machines, registrars, or precinct judges to change someone’s legally cast ballot. The special counsel act requires evidence of a crime in order to even appoint one, and none has ever been presented. Facebook posts/memes and the like do not constitute breaking into anything.
I mostly agree with this, but one point: No one leaked the Cohen raid before it happened. It seems like the DOJ can keep things locked up if they want.
I sincerely doubt that Gowdy went through two years of nothing and then suddenly tripped over Clinton’s server with no forewarning.
Well that’s rather vague. And also not responsive to what I actually said. We didn’t have sufficient evidence of collusion in order to launch an investigation; now more than a year later we still don’t have evidence of collusion or coordination to do something to our election, various other matter notwithstanding. For those other matters discovered: we have a DOJ and FBI for that – it’s far outside of Mueller’s already broad and politicized scope.
Great. Now wrap it up, because Mueller’s purpose is not to seed the justice department with fresh cases.
Great. Now wrap it up because Mueller’s job is not to seed the DOJ with fresh cases to investigate. They can handle that on their own.
From Andrew McCarthy at National Review:
The New York spin-off investigation can continue without Mueller’s illegitimate farce. Whether or not the method of discovery against Cohen affects his case, I leave to lawyers. But Mueller’s investigation has always been in breach of authority.
If I recall that’s exactly what happened. They were going through the emails about the event and someone noticed she wasn’t sending from a .gov email address.
Talk about wild speculation.
That would be ideal, but as I stated before, I don’t think it will ever happen unless he is forced, because all sides have accepted the narrative that doing so would be an admission of defeat on his part.
Links! There are links! Fellow commie travelers! Running dogs of capitalist imperialism!
And the fact that it was referred to SDNY means it has nothing to do with Russian collusion. Just another “oooh, look what we found!”
Trey Gowdy job wasn’t to seed the DOJ with an investigation into Clinton’s email server. Did you have a problem with that?
It would be important, perhaps, if anything came of it. But nothing has and probably won’t ever. All available resources are too busy chasing peeing whores.
Plus, I was never one to support too much investigation into Benghazi. Maybe the aspect where some filmmaker was arrested, maybe the aspect where the explanatory statements turned out to be false, but otherwise, to me, the Obama administration made a series of decisions which turned out badly, but it was their prerogative to make those decisions and I’m not for too much second guessing on specific operations (though the lying and deflection should definitely be pointed out). To me this should have stayed a political stick with which to beat Obama and Clinton repeatedly. I think it went too far, though, making that stick less effective.
Very fair point.
Given Mueller and Comey’s relationship, someone else should have been appointed. It doesn’t necessarily mean Muller is compromised on this front, but there’s a conflict of interest in leading an investigation that was precipitated by the firing of your long-time friend and successor.
Whereas I think the best possible outcome is that if there is nothing there then the people who likely knowingly and willfully put it forward anyway using the resources of the government as political weapons are brought to justice, and the swamp level lowers just a centimeter or two.
Moderator Note:
Unnecessary[redacted]
Unless I’m deeply mistaken, Mueller doesn’t have those files.
Mueller went out of his way to follow procedure and referred that case to a completely different office.
And so he handed it off. What’s the problem?
Crimes shouldn’t be investigated unless they are discovered in an appropriate way. What is the appropriate way you ask? A way that doesn’t damage my tribe in any way.