Tag Archives: 2016 election

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Mueller holds the key to Trump impeachment

It’s not yet clear whether the former special counsel, Robert Mueller, will talk openly and publicly to Congress about that investigation he conducted into The Russia Thing.

I surely want him to take an oath to tell the truth and then answer questions from House and Senate committees about how he arrived at his findings. He determined that Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign did not conspire to collude with Russians who attacked our electoral system. To borrow a quote from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: Case closed.

The other question involves obstruction of justice.

Here’s where I believe Mueller’s testimony could be the Mother of Game Changers as it regards Donald Trump.

Someone on a pertinent committee is going to ask Mueller — a top-notch lawyer and a former FBI director — this question: Did the president of the United States break the law by obstructing justice in the investigation into the Russian interference?

Mueller has said he could not file a formal complaint against the president of the United States, following Department of Justice guidelines. He did not “clear” Trump of any crime. Mueller merely said he couldn’t indict Trump because he is the president.

But the question is out there: Did the POTUS break the law?

There well could be a game of rhetorical gymnastics as Mueller tries to dodge the question. It might take an equally nimble senator or House member to flush the answer out of Mueller.

However, he if says “yes, the president broke the law,” then I believe we well might have grounds to impeach POTUS.

However, and this remains a huge caveat: Would such an admission by Robert Mueller actually shake Senate Republicans loose from Trump’s political vise grip to put the president in jeopardy if an indictment finds its way to the Senate, where the president would stand trial?

My hope would be that it would. My fear is that GOP cowardice would remain too strong to toss aside.

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Sen. Burr becomes latest GOP ‘villain’

Richard Burr has become the latest villain du jour among his fellow Republican Party politicians.

How did the Senate Intelligence Committee chairman attract this label? All he did was subpoena Donald J. Trump Jr. to testify before his committee to talk about matters involving that nasty ol’ Russia matter involving Don Jr.’s father, the president of the United States.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared the Russia story is “closed.” He wants to move on. He wants the Senate to stop talking about it. He has declared that Donald Sr. has been cleared of collusion with Russians who attacked our election in 2016 as well as with obstruction of justice allegations that, well, are still out there.

Other GOP pols have declared their disgust, anger, outrage at Burr’s decision to summon Don Jr. to the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Let me remind everyone of this fact: Sen. Burr is not running for re-election in 2022.

Burr was re-elected to a third Senate term in 2016, but that’s it. He’s now no longer looking for votes, nor is he tied to blind fealty of the Trump “base” of supporters that gets all riled at any mention by politicians who want to find out the whole truth about the way Trump campaigned for the presidency.

Yes, indeed. Lame-duck status does have this liberating effect on politicians.

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Just keep saying it, Mr. POTUS; it’s still a lie

Donald Trump must believe in the theory that if you say something often enough — regardless of its fallacy — that people will eventually believe it to be true.

I refer to “no collusion, no obstruction,” the mantra of the moment for the president of the United States.

I am running out of ways to say this, but I’ll try it yet again.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s 22-month-long investigation into alleged “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russians who hacked into our electoral system came up empty. Mueller didn’t find sufficient evidence of conspiracy to collude with the Russians. That particular case is closed.

I do get that. Honestly. I really do.

The obstruction matter is wide open. Mueller has said so. He said in his 448-page report, which Attorney General William Barr has let the world see, declares that Mueller’s team could not conclude that Trump and his campaign team did not obstruct justice; if they could have done so, they would have, Mueller said.

So, the obstruction issue remains an open — and quite inviting target — for Congress to pursue.

I’ve got some social media contacts who keep yapping at me because I won’t acknowledge that Mueller found no evidence of “obstruction.” One of those contacts actually is a friend of mine . . . who happens to be a Trumpkin. Hey, I still love my good buddy.

I regret, though, that he has bought into the Trump mantra of “no obstruction.”

To my dear friend and to others who happen to read these musings from me, I just need to reiterate for the umpteenth time: The case for obstruction of justice is far from being settled. Those 500 or so former federal prosecutors — who worked for Democratic and Republican administrations — all signed that letter that declared that had Trump not been president, he would have been indicted for obstruction of justice.

Let’s allow this matter to run its course.

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Why block Mueller if there’s nothing to hide?

I admit readily at times to being a little slow on the uptake.

That said, I am left to wonder: If the president of the United States has been “totally exonerated” of any criminal activity, if he is as pure as fresh snow, if he has been the victim of the worst “witch hunt” since the Salem Witch Trials, why is he suggesting that Robert Mueller “should not testify” before congressional committees?

Robert Mueller is the special counsel who filed that 448-page report that cleared Donald Trump of conspiracy to collude with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016. However, he took a pass on whether the president obstructed justice. Mueller did not clear Trump of obstructing, but lacked sufficient evidence, he said, to file a criminal complaint.

Is that “exoneration”? Nope. It isn’t. Mueller said so in his report.

But the president keeps saying he’s in the clear. He keeps yapping about the witch hunt. He now endorses the notion that his term should be extended two years to make up for the time “stolen” by Mueller’s probe into The Russia Thing.

Why not let the former FBI director and a man of impeccable integrity tell Congress what he knows? Hey, the president says he’s in the clear. Let’s allow Mueller to affirm what the president has said.

Oh, wait! Except that he won’t do anything of the sort.

OK, that’s why Trump is digging in against Mueller talking to Congress. I get it.

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Stop the ‘what about-ism’ with election interference

I totally understand that the Russian attack on our electoral system during the 2016 presidential election occurred during President Obama’s administration.

I’ve noted as much in this blog.

That all said, I am growing weary of Donald Trump’s team reminding us of that while suggesting that the current president is taking steps to ensure that it won’t happen again.

Fiddlesticks!

It’s not happening. FBI director Christopher Wray has reminded us that the Russians conducted a comprehensive attack on our system in 2016; they doubled down in 2018; and they are now preparing to engage in what Wray called “the big show,” which is the 2020 presidential election.

The Trump administration needs to demonstrate graphically that it is in fact taking measures to ensure that the Russians will not do once again what they have done in our nation’s most two most recent election cycles.

White House press secretary — and serial liar — Sarah Huckabee Sanders told us yet again that the Obama administration is the real villain here.

No! She’s got it wrong! Donald Trump’s refusal to acknowledge that Vladimir Putin is the No. 1 bad guy betrays the president’s lack of commitment to protecting the nation’s election system against a foreign hostile power.

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Mueller breaks with his ‘friend’ Barr

It might be that William Barr and Robert Mueller aren’t as close as they once were thought to be.

The attorney general reportedly received a letter from the special counsel that challenges the AG’s public interpretation of the report that the special counsel filed regarding the conduct of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

What do you know about that?

I had thought initially that we needed to hear from Mueller about what he thought of Barr’s four-page summary of the report Mueller filed with the Justice Department. Now we have. His reaction is a doozy.

Mueller wrote Barr a letter that suggests that Barr’s summary injects “confusion” into what Mueller’s team concluded about Trump’s alleged “collusion” with Russians who attacked our electoral system. Mueller’s reaction came immediately after Barr released his summary of what he said was Mueller’s conclusion.

Mueller seems to suggest that Barr sought to give the president cover from what Mueller found out.

I won’t go so far as to suggest that Barr should be resign or be impeached, as some have said should happen. I mean, he did release a redacted report to the public and it has exposed a number of questions about what Mueller determined happened during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Politico reports that Mueller’s letter has revealed a “widening rift” between the men who have been friends for decades. Politico also reports that the letter suggests that Mueller’s team is “angry” over the way Barr characterized its findings about Trump’s behavior.

I kind of expected this reaction from Mueller once Barr’s summary was released. I am surprised it took so many weeks to make it known to the public.

Mueller wrote, in part, to his (possibly soon-to-be former) friend Barr: “This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

The nation needs some answers from the attorney general. He is supposed to testify Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee.

My sincere hope is that he shows up, takes the oath, and answers this question truthfully: Mr. Attorney General, did you write your summary intending to cover up for the president of the United States?

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One cannot overestimate voters’ gullibility

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The proverbial light bulb flashed on in my skull the other evening as I was listening to a young Sirius XM reporter offer her view on how Donald J. Trump got elected president of the United States.

She noted that voters elected an “entertainer,” someone they knew via his reality-TV exposure. He brought that personality with him to the presidential campaign and . . . presto! He won!

Then it occurred to me. Voters are susceptible to this kind of nonsense. Indeed, I witnessed a case of unfold up close in Potter County, Texas, in 2000. That was the year voters in the Texas Panhandle county elected a profoundly unqualified — and as it turned out, profoundly corrupt — individual as their sheriff.

Mike Shumate won that year’s Republican Party primary for sheriff, defeating a man who had served with distinction as the chief deputy under Sheriff Jimmy Don Boydston. Art Tupin, though, did not have Shumate’s cult following developed over the years he ran the Amarillo Police Department’s Crime Stoppers program.

Shumate was a media star in the Texas Panhandle. That stardom translated to votes in that year’s GOP primary. He would sound off on radio stations talking about how APD would arrest criminal suspects, how the courts would convict them and how a fictional prison character named “Bubba” would receive the criminal once he got sentenced.

Man, the guy was a laugh a minute.

Except that he had no business running a sheriff’s department in a county comprising a population of around 125,000 residents. Shumate’s tenure as sheriff didn’t end well. He lost his job after being convicted of embezzling funds and serving time in a Texas Panhandle jail.

The point here is that voters too often become suckers for a personality. They glom onto an individual’s “star status,” ignoring his or her actual qualifications. Donald Trump benefited from the form of “cult of personality” that surrounded him as he campaigned for the presidency; meanwhile, more qualified GOP opponents never got the traction they deserved while this carnival barker kept piling up victories in state after state.

Let us hope voters won’t be fooled in 2020.

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Take your MAGA … and shove it!

You have to hand it to Donald J. Trump. He has produced a slogan that has morphed into an all-purpose acronym that one can use in more than one fashion.

I refer to “Make America Great Again,” which has become MAGA to those of us who comment frequently about the president’s campaign mantra.

Donald Trump won the presidency in 2016 while vowing to MAGA.

He uses it all the time to remind his adoring throngs that he is MAGA — or “making America great again.”

I have found the acronym to be a rather creative item to toss around.

I prefer using MAGA as a verb. You know, kind of like this: Hey, let’s MAGA, you and me. We can do this!

MAGA as a noun is a bit more problematic, but it’s not without its uses. Try this on: I am proud to be a MAGA.

Or, how about as an adjective? We MAGA supporters are going to keep the White House when the president is re-elected. Surely, too, you’ve seen the “MAGA hats” sitting atop people’s heads or the “MAGA shirts” that cover their torsos.

I must acknowledge something about MAGA: Trump isn’t the first recent presidential candidate to make such a vow. Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton declared during their 1980 and 1992 campaigns to win the White House to “make America great again.” The slogan didn’t morph into acronym form, though, when they said it.

OK, that all said, the president’s re-election slogan presumes he already has MAGA. So now he’s going to run on his vow to “Keep America Great.”

KAG, though, just doesn’t have the same ring.

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Yes, the blame for Russia hacking crosses party lines

It pains to me state this, but the release of Robert Mueller’s report on The Russia Thing and other matters has revealed a serious stain on the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.

I am not for a single instant going to give Donald Trump a pass on his campaign’s involvement in the Russian hacking of our electoral system in 2016. You won’t see me offer up a “What about this?” excuse for what happened during the course of that campaign.

However, I am going to concede that all of the hacking, the interference, the blatant attack on our electoral system occurred during the final full year of President Obama’s administration.

The president and the Justice Department under his watch should have taken stern, immediate and decisive measures to stop it. They didn’t.

A CNN analysis notes that Obama was too wrapped up in the Iran nuclear arms deal he and Secretary of State John Kerry were brokering to risk angering Russian President Vladimir Putin. They wanted the Russians on our side. Yet they knew of the hacking, according to Mueller, while it was occurring in real time.

Yes, so did the Trump team. They, too, should have acted. The Trump campaign should have blown the whistle loudly on what was occurring in the moment. Donald Trump’s invitation to the Russians to look for Hillary Clinton’s “missing e-mails” tempted the Russians to the point of launching their attack on our system that very day.

But as they say, we only have one president on the job at a time. The president we had in 2016 failed to do what he should have — and could have — done to stop this attack on our sacred electoral system.

President Obama said he told Putin to “knock it off” at the time. It wasn’t nearly enough.

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Mueller delivered the goods, just not enough of them

I believe it is clear: Special counsel Robert Mueller did not “clear” Donald Trump of obstruction of justice. There is no “total victory” for the president.

The long-awaited report from the special counsel came before us today. Yes, Mueller concluded that Trump did not “collude” with Russians who attacked our electoral system. I accept those findings, given that I believe Mueller is a man of high integrity.

But what about this obstruction matter?

Mueller’s 448-page report tells us that Trump gasped when the special counsel was picked, declaring that his presidency is doomed. “I’m fu****,” Trump said, according to Mueller’s report.

Why would the president say such a thing if he had done not a single thing wrong?

Well, Mueller said he would have cleared Trump of obstruction had the president deserved to be cleared. He didn’t. He said Congress has the authority to take measures to ensure that a president’s “corrupt” won’t be allowed.

I agree with those who contend that the redacted report is more damaging than Attorney General William Barr let on. Indeed, there appears to be a growing gap between Mueller and Barr over whether there was at minimum an attempt at obstructing justice.

Mueller cites the refusal by several key Trump aides to carry out presidential orders to fire the special counsel, saving the president from his own impulses. Barr disagrees, saying there is no obstruction. Who do you believe? I’ll go with Mueller.

I likely won’t read the entire report. I intend to read enough of it to try to draw some more cogent conclusions.

I’m going to stand with congressional Democrats on this point, too: Robert Mueller needs to talk to Congress openly and candidly about what he found and how he arrived at his conclusions.

More to come.