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Trump and a “Man For All Seasons”
To my never-Trump friends: This National Review piece by Bradley Smith is important. He outlines the reasons why there is no campaign finance violation to which Cohen is, nonetheless, pleading guilty. It is an instructive read in toto, but please also focus on this cautionary summary:
In short, Michael Cohen is pleading guilty to something that isn’t a crime. Of course, people will do that when a zealous prosecutor is threatening them with decades in prison. But his admissions are not binding on President Trump, and Trump should fight these charges ferociously.
Many Americans have convinced themselves that Trump is a uniquely dangerous and bad man, such that any available tool should be used to expel him from office. But in that way lies the bigger threat to our democracy and rule of law.
In A Man for All Seasons, Sir Thomas More’s future son-in-law, Roper, states that he would “cut down every law in England” if it would enable him to catch the devil. To which More responds,
And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!
We do ourselves no service by distorting and misapplying our campaign-finance laws in the hope of bagging Donald Trump.
When those of us who are railing against the Mueller investigation post it is too often regarded as “Trump lovers” protecting “their guy”. That is not true of me. I want to protect the constitutional system that, it appears, too many are willing to jettison just to get Trump.
Published in General
Lying about leaking was why McCabe was fired. The leaking was a crime and that is why he lied. He had plenty of weaponizing to go with it along with Comey. Comey’s clearest and publicly known weaponizing was related to Clinton but there is plenty more that has yet to be investigated by the Executive Branch where it counts. Comey’s role in the Clinton case has been labeled insubordination where he usurped authority reserved for the Attorney General. Do you think these people abusing authority that way should have been left in charge of the FBI?
Also, is it your opinion that the things uncovered regarding the production of the Steele Dossier and its use in the FISA warrant process, coupled with the fact that the submission was labeled ‘verified’ when that was not a fact, are not sufficient evidence to initiate a DoJ Special Counsel criminal investigation?
I didn’t say they were untelated. I said that there is no “because” in there. The clauses are related in exactly the way I already described.
Leaking is a crime and McCabe was properly fired for it, asserting he also “weaponized” the agency does not suport the claim he was fired for doing so.
Are you claiming Comey was firing his “weapon” indiscriminately or at both sides?
Comey’s role in the Clinton case was definitely improper but he was put in the position he was by his boss, the Attorney General.
Why would it require a special prosecutor? Is the Justice Dept under Trump appointees incapable of investigating the Obama administration?
The because is clearly implied, the sentence is gibberish otherwise. Nothing in the interview suggests the statement is other than an explanation of his reasoning. It must make you dizzy spinning for this guy so much.
Forget what my claims mean in terms of my perception of Comey, we don’t need agreement on the specifics of each felonious act. I’d be pleased with a straight forward DoJ criminal investigation but some may be troubled about an entity investigating itself and more acceptable of an appointment of someone from outside. The way that Mueller structured his team creates a lot of skepticism though.
I’m not spinning. That’s how I understood it then and it makes even more sense to me now. I think your interpretation requires a longer stretch than my interpretation.
Yes, and initiating such an investigation in the midst of the Russia investigation would be taken by many as a much clearer obstruction of justice (retaliation against the investigators) than that quote mentioned earlier.
Obstruction by whom?
Either by the White House (Trump) or by Acting AG Whitaker. When Bill Barr is in place this should conclude since nothing significant has been revealed. Watch the confirmation. Democrats will try to get unequivocal promises from Barr not to curtail the SC so he can stay in place until 2020. That’s my guess.
President Trump. People have been bleating about obstruction for a very long time now. Perhaps retaliation is not obstruction, though in this case I think people would have claimed that an investigation of the investigators might have been both.
Besides, even if your inference is reasonable, how is an infwrence/implication sufficient basis for a special counsel?
I have difficulty understanding why, if Mueller’s primary charge is to look into Russian interference in the election process and the House Intelligence Committee, among others, has exposed the processes involved in developing the Steele Dossier as closely connected with the Clinton campaign dealing with Russian sources, the SC is apparently not investigating those matters. Do you have an opinion on that?
Then the decision as to whether an investigation is warranted should be left to career prosecutors and not political appointees.
What is a career prosecutor? Please give an example so we know what you are indicating.
I’m not sure that the prosecutor generally enters the process until evidence of a crime is gathered by investigators (FBI agents) to the point where prosecution is indicated. This is where Comey went off the rails in the Clinton E-mail investigation by usurping the prosecutorial decision.
The implication is of a conflict of interest, the standard for the appointment of special counsel.
I thought part of the standard is evidence of a violation of federal law, a crime, having been committed.
Comey testified that at the time he reopened the Clinton investigation he assumed Clinton would win and wanted to make sure she started her term without anything hanging over her from the email investigation. He may have helped Trump, but not because he intended to.
The “professional prosecutors” at DOJ are predominately career Democrats. They will not make a move unless forced to and, even then, cannot be trusted. The one investigation started by Sessions that we know of had to be outsourced to a US Attorney in Utah, I suspect precisely because he knew he could not entrust it to the DOJ lawyers at HQ – even Rosenstein didn’t know that one of the senior DOJ “professional prosecutors” was working with Fusion GPS. Rosenstein should never have been involved in the selection of Mueller and in overseeing the investigation – he is a fact witness in any obstruction of justice investigation. Mueller should have been conflicted out because he is a long time associate of Comey’s.
The truth is that at the time of Mueller’s appointment, those involved knew there are no criminal collusion. Mueller reached out to hire Strozk, who’d been spearheading both the Clinton email and Trump Russia investigation, from the FBI in May 2017 and we have Strozk’s text to his lover about whether he should take the job since “there’s no big there there”. He knew because the FBI and DOJ had been wiretapping Page, and through him the Trump campaign and administration since the prior fall and found nothing. From the start, the Russia collusion story was just a pretext to trigger a never-ending investigation into whatever Mueller and his Democratic campaign team decided to investigate about Trump and his associates.
Any federal prosecutor hired as a civil servant rather than as a political appointee. If you need a specific example, I cannot help you.
I agree with your definition. The real world problem is who does the hiring. For instance, during the Obama administration the DOJ Inspector General issued a report (ignored, of course, by most of the media) criticizing AG Eric Holder for his hiring process to fill almost 100 civil service positions in the Civil Rights Division. According to the IG, Holder hired ideologically almost exclusively from four civil rights organizations, ignoring many well-qualified applicants from law firms and elsewhere. The commonality of the hires from the civil rights groups is that they adhere to an interpretation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that is directly contrary to the actual language of that act which outlawed discrimination against anyone based on race; in contrast Holder’s appointees believe whites are not covered by the Act and have a radical view of what does constitute discrimination. Many of these lawyers are still embedded at Justice and cannot be removed because of civil service protections.
You know how to say ‘deep state’?
This whole discussion suddenly snapped into focus for me this morning.
It occurred to me that my assumption is that there is likely nothing to Russia Collusion. At least nothing which isn’t apparently ok based on lack of pursuit of other collusion (HRC) with more evidence and concrete knowledge.
How to interpret President Trump’s quote in that light? Probably the way I described earlier. What if one assumes that collusion is at least as likely as not? Well then we have Klaatu’s interpretation.
Let’s assume for argument’s sake that there is something to collusion. Is it really a reasonable inference from those quoted words that the guilty party is openly admitting to abuse of power to obstruct justice against him?
Unlikely. Unless, of course, one has the deeper assumption that Trump is an idiot and/or an authoritarian. I do not share either of those assumptions. I’m not sure we can get anywhere on this conversation with those basic assumptions in place.
I think I get what you are saying, but I’m not sure. I have thought collusion possible but I don’t know that it is getting a proper look in terms of who is getting looked at and who is doing the looking.
Look at this guy Comey. Has he adopted the exhibited personality traits lately or have they been with him throughout his career but only flourished when he was positioned and had incentives to use them. I’m certainly glad he is just a loose cannon out in the media where his thought processes appear commonplace and no longer has any responsibility within the justice system. Now, my sense is that Comey was very bad as it developed but I also think he was not even close to being the lead in what has gone on. He was only a tool, I think, for Brennan. He is who should be investigated. Where is Admiral Rodgers when you need him?
Comey is a bureaucratic infighter and pulled the same trick with the last GOP president. Remember Joe Wilson? The “14 words”? Valerie Plame? When that story broke, Comey thought he saw Dick Cheney behind the divulging of Plame’s CIA status. Comey and Cheney hated each other. Like a fool, George W Bush agreed to turn his administration upside down to find the culprit. Fortunately for Comey his boss Ashcroft recused himself, and Comey got to select a Special Counsel. He chose an old friend, Patrick Fitzgerald, who was godfather to Comey’s daughter. Within a couple of weeks Fitzgerald discovered the leaker was Richard Armitage, who worked for Powell, not Cheney. Did Armitage get indicted? Of course not, he was the wrong guy. Did that end the investigation? Of course not, they hadn’t yet nailed the right guy. So Fitzgerald continued on for months on end until he was able to indict Scooter Libby, Cheney’s right hand man, on a very murky false statement allegation (sound familiar?). Mission accomplished!
Isn’t Mueller part of that same cadre?
Mueller was not involved in the Plame investigation; however after he was appointed head of the FBI in 2001 he and Comey worked closely together in both the War on Terror and the War on Cheney. That’s why it is a scandal that he is leading an investigation in which his friend is a key potential witness.
Rosenstein knows all these connections and I believe is even party to some. He should have appointed someone unconnected. Must be a reason why he didn’t.
Sure, the collusion thing was a pretext. Rosenstein and others wanted a unrestricted hunting permit for Mueller and his gang to do their thing, and Mueller would be reliable in protecting the interests of DOJ and the FBI, while some unknown unconflicted party might not be as vigilant in doing so; none of the senior people at DOJ were comfortable with Trump. Moreover, given some of Trump’s remarks and unpopularity inside the Beltway, if he wanted to preserve his career opportunities outside DOJ he needed to get with the program, or he’d never get hired. But there were also wheels within wheels; it appears Rosenstein didn’t even know at that point that one of his chief deputies, Bruce Ohr, was in cahoots with Fusion GPS! Overall, I see Rosenstein as more of a dupe or chump than anything else.