Tag Archives: Russia probe

legal news, national news

Crisis might be approaching more quickly

The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to believe that we might be closer to a constitutional crisis than I thought originally.

Matthew Whitaker has been named acting U.S. attorney general in the wake of Donald Trump’s firing of former AG Jeff Sessions. Whittaker leap-frogged over the Justice Department’s No. 2 guy, Rod Rosenstein, who is managing the special counsel’s investigation of alleged collusion between the Donald Trump presidential campaign and Russian agents who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

Whitaker is a known critic of the Robert Mueller probe into alleged collusion and other matters relating to the 2016 campaign. He has spoken out against it. Rosenstein, meanwhile, has said that Mueller must be allowed to proceed unimpeded. Whitaker isn’t so, um, open-minded about that. He seems to want Mueller to call a halt to it.

So does the president.

Whitaker is under pressure now to recuse himself from the Russia probe, given his prejudicial statements against it. Whitaker says he has no intention of recusing himself, which of course is just fine with the president.

So, what will happen if Whitaker turns off the fiscal spigot that pays for Mueller’s investigation? He has stated already that the next AG could do such a thing, rather than fire Mueller outright. He is now the “next AG,” meaning that he is in a position to do what he speculated could happen if Sessions were given the boot.

Meanwhile, the president no doubt is bristling at the notion of Mueller getting closer to a conclusion that well might implicate him or members of his family in possible wrongdoing.

Matthew Whitaker should not be running the Justice Department. The president has put someone in that post who will do his bidding, which is precisely why he fired Jeff Sessions.

As distasteful as Sessions’s appointment was in the first place, he acted correctly in recusing himself. Has it dawned on anyone else that the absolute crux of Trump’s criticism of Sessions had everything to do with his recusal and nothing to do with the way DOJ was functioning?

So now the president installs a lap dog at the top of the DOJ chain of command.

Yep, I believe a constitutional crisis might be just around the corner.

legal news, national news, political news

Is there a constitutional crisis on the horizon?

Jeff Sessions is gone. The Department of Justice has a new acting boss, a guy who happens to be a Donald Trump sycophant, someone who has been openly critical of an investigation into the 2016 Trump campaign’s alleged “collusion” with Russian agents.

So, what’s in store? Acting AG Matthew Whittaker could fire special counsel Robert Mueller. Donald Trump could order him to do so. What would a firing engender? It would, in my view and in the view of many observers much closer to the situation, ignite a constitutional crisis of the first order.

Trump pushed Sessions out the door because the former AG thought enough of the law to recuse himself from the Russia investigation. He did so because of his own involvement in the Trump campaign and his own relationship with Russians. He could not possibly investigate himself. The law and an appreciation of ethics and conflict of interests forced him to back away, forced him to hand the matter over to his No. 2 man at DOJ, Rod Rosenstein.

It was Rosenstein who hired Mueller to examine the complex matter.

Trump once asked “what kind of man?” would recuse himself from this probe. I can answer that one for you, Mr. President. That man would be someone who understands and appreciates ethical propriety. That’s why he recused himself.

Don’t misunderstand me on this point: I am not a fan overall of Jeff Sessions. On this matter, though, he did the right thing. He did the only thing he could do. Trump castigated Sessions for accepting a job and then recusing himself from a key part of that job. He never once questioned his own decision to appoint Sessions in the first place. Had he given any substantive thought to what might play out down the road upon his being elected president, he wouldn’t have appointed Sessions to become attorney general.

So now we’re facing the real prospect of a constitutional crisis if the acting AG — and his pal the president — commit the mother of foolish acts.

Robert Mueller needs to stay on the job. He needs to finish what he started. He needs to let this probe play out completely without interference from the president of the United States.

national news

Sessions is gone; let the battle commence

There goes compromise, collegiality, comity, courtesy.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been shown the door. The day after the midterm election, Donald Trump made good on his threat. He asked for Sessions to submit his resignation; the AG did and now he’s out.

What’s next? Let’s see, the president will nominate a new attorney general who more than likely won’t recuse himself from the “Russia thing” probe, which Sessions had to do. More on that in a minute.

This appointment might put special counsel Robert Mueller’s expansive and extensive investigation into alleged “collusion” between Russian agents and the Trump presidential campaign into jeopardy.

Trump, though, says he has “no interest” in ending Mueller’s probe. You believe the president, right? Me, neither.

I am no fan of Jeff Sessions, but he did the only thing he could do by recusing himself from the Russia investigation. He served on Trump’s foreign policy team during the campaign. He played a role in whatever happened between the Russians and the campaign. He couldn’t possibly investigate himself, so he backed away, handing the Russia probe over to his No. 2 man at DOJ, Rod Rosenstein.

Sessions’s recusal infuriated the president, who wanted Sessions to act with total loyalty and fealty to the man who nominated him. That, of course, is utter nonsense. Sessions did the right thing and he incurred the president’s wrath for doing it.

One more time, with emphasis: Be sure to let Mueller complete his investigation, Mr. President. If there’s nothing there, then Mueller should be allowed to say so himself. But if there is something … well, then we all have a problem.

national news

Don’t keep the findings secret, Mr. Special Counsel

There’s some chatter developing about the conclusions that special counsel Robert Mueller might reach at the end of his investigation into what Donald Trump referred to as “the Russia thing.”

It goes something like this: There might not be an explosive finding that spells the end of Donald Trump’s administration; moreover, Mueller might not allow the findings to be made public.

None of us can control the first part. The second part, about secrecy, we can. I want to urge the special counsel to make damn sure the public gets to see the conclusions he draws.

My goodness! The Department of Justice charged Mueller with determining whether there was any “collusion” between Trump’s presidential campaign and Russian operatives who hacked into our electoral system and sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election. The DOJ is our agency. It runs on our tax money. We are the bosses. We have a right — if not a need — to know the investigation’s outcome and how Mueller and his legal team reached it.

As Politico reports: “That’s just the way this works,” said John Q. Barrett, a former associate counsel who worked under independent counsel Lawrence Walsh during the Reagan-era investigation into secret U.S. arms sales to Iran. “Mueller is a criminal investigator. He’s not government oversight and he’s not a historian.”

But he is operating on the public’s time and on its dime.

To my way of thinking, that entitles the public to know the outcome and how Mueller’s team reached its conclusion.

national news

Chaos continues at White House

Donald J. Trump keeps saying all is well at the White House.

Well, it isn’t. Not by a long shot.

The president was going to meet this past week with Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who reportedly said some things about the president’s fitness for his job as commander in chief.

Then the meeting was postponed. The Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee got in the way.

Now we hear that Trump might postpone the Rosenstein meeting yet again, waiting for the Kavanaugh matter to run its course.

Trump and Rosenstein have reportedly spoken by phone. That’s good. At least they’re talking to each other, although none of us knows what they might have said to each other.

I am just amazed one more time with the chaos that continues to grip the White House, the West Wing, the Oval Office, staffing at many levels. Even more amazing is the president’s continuing denials that chaos rules within the Trump administration.

I happen to hope that Trump leaves Rosenstein alone, keeps him on the job, allows him to supervise the investigation into the “Russia Thing” being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller.

You may choose to believe or disbelieve this, but I actually want this investigation to conclude.

national news

Will the president heed the advice, or act … impulsively?

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein might have just wiggled his way into the proverbial doghouse occupied by his boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Many of us out here are wondering whether the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is going to fire Rosenstein because he allegedly threatened to wear a “wire” to record conversations with Trump — and then recommend that the Cabinet invoke the 25th Amendment to the Constitution to remove Trump from his office.

Rosenstein has sort of denied The New York Times report that the deputy AG had said all that. However, his denial seems to fall short of a categorical, unequivocal denial.

Still, reports now are surfacing that Trump’s inner circle is telling him: Don’t fire Rosenstein!

Trump facing new dilemma

Indeed, such an impulsive act could turn out to be the Republicans’ worst nightmare, just as would a presidential dismissal of AG Jeff Sessions, who has gotten himself into trouble with Trump because of his decision to recuse himself from the investigation into the Russian attack on our electoral system.

I keep circling back to a question that I cannot yet answer: Has there ever been such an out-front discussion about whether a president was “fit” to serve in the office to which he was elected?

Weird, man. Simply weird.

national news

Trump keeps savaging DOJ, law enforcement

I don’t know why this continues to nag me, annoy me, bother me to no end. It just does and I have to vent a bit.

Donald J. Trump went off on another Twitter tirade against one of his favorite targets: the federal law enforcement network headed by the Department of Justice.

He said in Nevada that he has gotten rid of some of the people he believes needed to go: FBI Director James Comey, deputy FBI boss Andrew McCabe, FBI agent Peter Strzok.

Then the president refers to a “stench” in the Justice Department that needs to go. By association, he disparages and denigrates — yet again! — the many fine career prosecutors, agents and mid-level staffers who do the job they took an oath to do. Which is protect Americans against those who would do us harm.

The president just can’t bring himself to say out loud that he is proud of those individuals, that they are doing great work on behalf of the nation they serve.

Oh, no. Instead, he concentrates his remarks exclusively on those at the top of the chain of command who he thinks are doing the country a disservice. How are they doing that? By continuing to look carefully, meticulously and with tremendous detail the many questions that continue to swirl around the Trump administration.

The president keeps tossing the word “disgrace” around. The real disgrace, as I see it, occurs with the conduct of the president.

He is trying to bully the head of the Justice Department, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the head of the FBI, Christopher Wray, and all the intelligence pros who do their jobs with diligence and dedication.

Right there is the disgraceful behavior of a president who doesn’t know what the hell he is doing.

national news

GOP ‘heroes’ nowhere to be seen or heard

Carl Bernstein, the legendary journalist who helped uncover the Watergate scandal, recently said the real “heroes” who brought about the end of the Richard Nixon presidency were Republicans who told the president that his impeachment in the House of Representatives was a certainty.

And so was his conviction in a Senate trial.

Sen. Barry Goldwater led a GOP team of lawmakers to the White House to tell the president his Senate support had all but vanished and that Goldwater was not among those who would vote to acquit him.

Nixon resigned on Aug. 9. 1974.

I mention this because there appears to be no sign of any Republican “heroism” developing as the walls close in around Donald J. Trump, the current Republican who happens to be president of the United States. The GOP is holding firm in both the House and the Senate — with a few exception — in its support of Trump against the special counsel’s examination into what I like calling “The Russia Thing.”

Might there be some heroes emerge if the counsel, Robert Mueller, produces incontrovertible proof of, say, obstruction of justice, or of conspiracy to collude with Russians who attacked our electoral system, or of violations of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution that bans presidents from accepting gifts from foreign kings and potentates?

I cannot predict the future any more than meteorologists can predict with absolute clarity what the weather will do the next day.

Why the absence of any GOP heroes? President Nixon never grabbed the party by the throat in the early 1970s. Sure, he won re-election in 1972 in a historic landslide. However, the party didn’t exactly belong to him. Fast-forward to the present day and we find that Donald Trump has managed — through an astonishing display of intimidation and innuendo — to capture the heart and soul of a party with which he had only a passing acquaintance prior to becoming a politician, which was when he announced his presidential candidacy.

Because I don’t predict these matters any longer, I am left just to wonder whether there might be a hero or three out there among the Republicans who serve in Congress. What might it take to shake them loose from the death grip that Donald Trump has on them?

Donald Trump, national news

‘Sad’ to watch POTUS trash the AG

Donald J. Trump continues to concoct reasons for why he believes Attorney General Jeff Sessions was a bad choice from the beginning.

He interviewed badly with the U.S. Senate; he couldn’t answer easy questions; he was “mixed up and confused.”

What absolute crap! The reason the president is miffed at the AG can be summed up in a single word: recusal.

Sessions recognized what Trump didn’t see coming: The AG’s role in Trump’s presidential campaign precluded him from being able to investigate matters involving the Russian government’s effort to influence the 2016 election outcome. He did what Justice Department policy and rules require: he recused himself from all things dealing with Russia.

And the president didn’t see that coming? He didn’t anticipate any kind of conflict of interest?

Because of his own ignorance of government ethics, Trump is now tell media outlets that he now doesn’t “have an attorney general.” He calls it “so sad.”

Go ahead, Mr. President. Fire the attorney general. Understand, though, that the AG — whether it’s Sessions or someone else — doesn’t work for the president. He works for the rest of us out here. He works also for those of us who didn’t support Trump’s effort to become president.

The attorney general shouldn’t do the president’s bidding because of some effort to protect the president’s political future.

If you’re looking for a “sad” circumstance regarding Donald Trump and Jeff Sessions, it is because the AG did something correct and proper and that action — all by itself — has aroused Donald Trump’s rage.

2016 election

Manafort holds one of the keys to Trump survival

Let’s concede Norm Eisen’s partisan leaning: He served as ethics chief for President Barack H. Obama.

So, when he predicts that Donald J. Trump “won’t survive” whatever his former campaign chairman tells special counsel Robert Mueller, it is good to take it with a bit of a grain of salt.

However … the man might know something the rest of us don’t know.

Will the president survive?

Manafort has agreed to cooperate with Mueller after pleading guilty to two felony counts; he’s already been convicted of eight felony charges and faces a lengthy prison term.

Manafort is near the top of the Trump campaign’s chain of command. There ain’t much room between him and the very top 00 which would be Donald Trump.

Manafort is reportedly planning to talk — if he hasn’t already — to Mueller’s legal eagles who are trying to determine whether the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

Mueller’s probe is a wide-ranging — but totally legal and appropriate — examination of this troublesome issue.

He’s already reeled in some big fish. He’s gotten guilty pleas and has persuaded some big campaign hitters to cooperate with his probe.

Manafort clearly is the biggest fish to date.

Sure, the White House says it has “nothing to fear” from a Manafort guilty plea. You expect that kind of thing from the White House and from those associated with the president. They, too, are partisans.

Given my own bias, though, I’m going to go with Norm Eisen’s view that Trump might not “survive” whatever Manafort spills to Robert Mueller.