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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
Can we hope that Republicans are learning something from this and will scream out to stop it from happening again? I doubt it.
Darn!! I was so sure. :-) Please don’t say it was Bill Clinton? For one thing, that exhausts my knowledge of Arkansas politics.
Trust them to do what, Susan? I think you can trust most of them to vote their party line most of the time. What else do you trust them to do? Some of them certainly understand that if they make a backroom deal, it benefits them to have a reputation for keeping their word. That’s what I mean by “an honest politician is one who stays bought.” But is that what we generally mean by “trust”? As Robert Heinlein put it:
I don’t know how it can be called a blank check when Trump still has the power to fire Mueller.
My only basis for thinking Mueller is probably finding other crimes is that I dislike Trump?
Um, no.
My basis for that is Donald Trump’s long, long, Long history of unethical business practices.
LOL did you apply that to the President?
;-)
I looked at the statute cited in the letter Rosentein issued upon Mueller’s appointment and can’t find where the appointment of a special counsel requires an underlying crime – can you point me to it?
Can you detail those crimes for us please?
“Which brings us (yet again) to the regulation governing a special counsel’s jurisdiction, 28 CFR 600.4. It states that the Justice Department will provide the special counsel “with a specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated.” We know from the above-quoted reg (Sec. 600.1) that controls special-counsel appointments that this “matter to be investigated” must involve a suspected crime.”
From a McCarthy NRO column 08/07/17, here is the entire column:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/08/rod-rosenstein-mueller-investigation-special-counsel-fishing-expedition/
According to Andrew McCarthy, this is the relevant statute:
That is, a criminal investigation must be warranted AND there must be conflict of interest or other extraordinary circumstances AND it must be in the public interest to appoint a Special Counsel.
Note also 28 CFR 45.2 regarding Sessions’ recusal:
The Sessions recusal begat Mueller. The Sessions recusal required a criminal investigation or prosecution. This was a counterespionage investigation that was not a criminal investigation.
The horse has unfortunately left the barn on that one, but it’s certainly fair game to question the basis for Mueller when the apparently never-ending investigation began on a questionable basis and produces nothing but small fry.
LOL! Nope! No relation at all that I’m aware of.
Unethical business practices or crimes for which he was prosecuted and convicted? Find me a billionaire that has had zero involvement in lawsuits. You’re talking about actual crimes, of which there have been zero convictions.
Secondly, we all know Trump can’t actually fire Mueller without a total crapstorm. That is the bait here. It is a blank check so that they can
A. keep the investigation going forever while constantly teasing actual crimes or handing off “outside the scope” litigation to keep the constant badgering and media pressure going.
B. hopefully get Trump to fire Mueller, so everyone and their dog can use that as “evidence” that there Was in fact criminal activity…which will spawn another investigation.
The question you have to ask is when do you think these investigations will end? Later this year? Next year? 2024?
In fact I did Jamie. One of the main reasons I refused to support him in the election. When he talks about gun control and trade wars I still see the Democrat I suspected all along.
Funny this is the same question I’ve repeatedly asked Fred.
Maybe! ;) But! I’m 110% sure he didn’t donate to the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Okay, J.D., you really got me going. So I looked it up. You have four Representatives. All Republican. So I’ll take a wild stab at it: Steve Womack.
That’s a nice switcharoo you pulled there so you could change the standard.
Everybody caught that, right?
Sorry, J.D. Not the last one, to be sure. But, in the past, Trump had donated heavily to Hillary Clinton.
No.
No, just the Clinton Foundation.
Let me correct that: Trump’s crooked foundation donated to Clinton’s crooked foundation.
So 28 CFR § 600.1 wasn’t cited in the original letter appointing Mueller. Can you link to the McCarthy piece that illustrates why it applies here? Perhaps the DOJ isn’t relying on that statute for this investigation.
Sure, like 10 years ago, and even got a refund on his 2007-2009 contributions. Also, most of the money in the Trump Foundation from 2001-2014 did not originally come from Donald Trump. Between 2001 and 2008, the president donated a total of $2.8 million, or 0.08% of his $3.7 billion fortune, to his own foundation. From 2009-2014, Trump gave $0 to the group. He remained its president but financed its activities with money from outsiders, including Comedy Central and NBCUniversal. Source
I, for one, don’t like holding mistakes against people when those mistakes happened at least a decade ago. What a horrible world filled with horrible people we would live in if we did that for everyone. I know I certainly don’t want mistakes I made a decade ago to be held against me!
I went and looked it up, George. Yes, he did donate to Democrat causes in the past, but since at least 2012, he has donated exclusively to Republican interests.
So the statute of limitations on Rubios Gang of 13 participation is almost over and we can call him a conservative again. 😋
D; I never stopped calling him a conservative in the first place, Jamie! I would have happily voted for him for President if he’d stuck around. But then again, immigration is not my biggest voting issue as it is for some people.
I don’t see the logic here.
The idea is that Sessions’ perceived conflict of interest precluded him (i.e., the Justice Dept.) from investigating Trump, thereby necessitating the appointment of a Special Prosecutor. However, that conflict of interest is only relevant in the investigation of crimes (see the regulation quoted in my previous post).
2012 is only six years ago. Donald Trump, having been born in 1946, would have been 66 at that time. Using myself as a yardstick, my beliefs are pretty well fixed. And I am only 64. If God grants me at least another two years, I suspect they will even more fixed. What I am saying that is that, I believe, Trump has been a liberal Democrat all of his life. Not a very committed one, maybe, but one nevertheless. I believe the reason he has acted more conservative of late is because this is how he had gotten and held power.
All I know is I’ll keep voting for him as long as he keeps enacting conservative policies and appointing conservative judges. I don’t like what he says all the time, especially when it comes to 2A stuff, but so far, what he’s actually done is good stuff and I’m far more of an “Actions speak louder than words” kind of person.