Tag Archives: Robert Mueller

national news

Did the POTUS lie to Mueller, too?

Oh, my! The hits just keep on comin’ with regard to Donald J. Trump.

The House of Representatives, which is up to its collective eyeballs in an impeachment inquiry into the president of the United States, is now looking into whether Trump lied in his written responses to Robert Mueller III, the former special counsel hired by the Justice Department to look into The Russia Thing.

Let me ponder this for a moment.

So, do you think the serial liar in chief, the man who cannot tell the truth under any circumstances, might have deceived Mueller, who sought answers into allegations that the Trump 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral system?

That doesn’t require much rumination, at least for me. I believe it is entirely possible that Trump lied to Mueller.

What is unclear to me, though, is whether Mueller received some sort of pledge from Trump — or made him take an oath — to be truthful when he answered questions in writing.

If he did, and then the president lied to him, well … I believe they call that “perjury.” I also recall that Republicans in Congress used perjury as their justification for indicting President Bill Clinton in 1998, who lied to a grand jury about whether he had “sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” 

We all know how the House is likely to react if it finds evidence of lying to Mueller. What we don’t know is whether the House will be equally vocal if it determines that Trump told Mueller the “truth and whole truth” when he responded to the special counsel’s questions. Fairness would require the House to declare that Trump told the truth if that’s what it learns.

But seriously … Trump’s record of lying makes it extremely difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt.

national news

Trump’s hypocrisy on full display … imagine it!

Donald Trump now is insisting that “the whistleblower” whose comments have helped trigger the move toward presidential impeachment must testify in public. He or she must sit in front of Congress and answer questions out loud.

Written testimony “is not acceptable,” according to the latest version of Trump’s doctrine.

Really? He said that?

Why do you suppose he refused to answer questions posed to him directly by former special counsel Robert Mueller III during the investigation into alleged Russian collusion during the 2016 presidential campaign? Why, the president only responded in writing to Mueller’s team of investigators.

Hypocrisy, anyone?

national news

POTUS works overtime to hide ‘nothing’

Donald J. Trump keeps insisting he has done nothing wrong. He calls the Democratic effort to impeach him the “greatest witch hunt in our history.” The president calls it a hoax. He calls the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution a “phony” proviso.

All that said, why in the name of presumed innocence does he keep acting like someone who’s trying to hide things from congressional inquisitors?

The House is getting ready to impeach the president. They have a trove of issues on which to decide. They include obstruction of justice, abuse of power, violating his oath of office, possible bribery.

However, the president says he has done nothing wrong. That July 25 phone conversation with the Ukrainian president in which he sought a “favor, though” in exchange for weapons was “perfect,” as Trump has described it.

His newly installed press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, said Trump “has nothing to hide.”

C’mon, gang! With nothing to hide, with there being no “there” there,” why does Trump keep acting like someone who’s trying to keep the goods out of Congress’s hands?

He did the same thing when special counsel Robert Mueller III was trying to ascertain “collusion” with Russians who interfered with our 2016 election. Trump is continuing the same tactic now as House Democrats proceed with their impeachment inquiry.

Hey, I am sitting in the peanut gallery. I get that I am nowhere near the center of the action. Still, from my perch out here in Trump Country, Donald Trump is acting far more like someone with plenty to hide than the victim of a “witch hunt.”

legal news

DOJ embarks on, dare I say it, a ‘witch hunt’?

The Department of Justice is now launching what has been called a criminal inquiry into — get ready for it — the investigation into whether Russia interfered in our 2016 presidential election.

What DOJ expects to find is not clear. Attorney General William Barr has appointed a seasoned prosecutor, John Durham, to lead the probe. This one puzzles and concerns me greatly.

Don’t politicize DOJ

Every leading intelligence official within the Donald Trump administration has said the same thing: Russia interfered in our election and sought to elect Donald Trump as president in 2016. Trump, of course, has debunked that notion; he also has denigrated our intelligence agencies’ ability to reach the conclusion they all reached.

When former Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe, his deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein, appointed former FBI director Robert Mueller to be special counsel and lead the investigation into the Russia matter.

Trump has hurled some harsh language at Mueller’s investigation, which concluded in May with a partial exoneration of Trump of “colluding” with Russians; he left open the question of whether Trump obstructed justice in the pursuit of truth behind that interference.

Now we have DOJ entering the scene.

To what end will this probe conclude?

I just hope that John Durham, the experienced federal prosecutor who has drawn praise from partisans on both sides of the aisle, will be able to withstand political pressure that might emanate from the top of the Justice Department.

Still, I fear how this probe will proceed. I smell a “witch hunt” in the making.

national news

Trump mounting strange defense

Donald Trump’s reaction to the looming impeachment decision in the U.S. House of Representatives reminds me of the tactic he employed when special counsel Robert Mueller was examining The Russia Thing.

The president then chose to denigrate, disparage and all but defame Mueller’s probe, all the while proclaiming he did nothing wrong during the 2016 campaign.

My thought then was: If he is innocent of wrongdoing, why not just turn everything over and let the proverbial chips fall? He didn’t. Mueller finished his work, essentially absolving Trump of colluding with Russians who attacked our electoral system, but leaving the door open for Congress to decide the obstruction matter.

Now the House is marching toward impeaching the president. He calls the House action “unconstitutional,” which of course it isn’t. He has declared he won’t cooperate in any way, then changed his mind and said he would cooperate if the House treats him “fairly,” whatever that means.

My question today is similar to what it was then: If he did nothing wrong, is he hiding something he doesn’t want anyone to see?

Just cooperate, Mr. President, and let the House do the job that the U.S. Constitution empowers it to do.

International news

Ukraine story taking on more lives

This is how controversies evolve into full-blown scandals.

Something happens that raises eyebrows. Then we hear about more matters related — perhaps only tangentially — to the original event. Then more matters are heaped on all of that. Our attention gets stretched far beyond the original “sin.”

So it is happening now with the Ukrainian matter, the July 25 phone call that Donald Trump had the Ukrainian president and who else might have heard the two men talked about in that fateful conversation.

Trump is now known to have asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zellenskiy for help in his re-election effort, including getting dirt on Joe Biden, a potential 2020 campaign opponent.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he didn’t know anything about the phone call; then we hear from a State Department official, talking to the Wall Street Journal, that Pompeo listened to the phone call in real time.

Then the president decides to throw Vice President Mike Pence’s name out there, suggesting that the VP might be involved in some manner.

Oh, and now comes news that Trump sought help from Australia’s prime minister for help in undermining former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into The Russia Thing.

What in the name of scandalous behavior is happening here?

Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, the formerly highly esteemed New York City mayor, has become unhinged. He rambles incoherently on national TV, accusing former Vice President Joe Biden of crimes that other prosecutors say are unfounded.

The House is force-marching its way toward impeaching the president on charges that he violated his oath of office by soliciting a foreign government for political assistance. Whether it results in conviction in the Senate, of course, remains a highly open question.

However, what could have been blown off as a mere “controversy” is becoming rapidly a full-blown “scandal” that will result in an impeached president running for re-election.

We are racing down heretofore untraveled roads.

Wow!

national news

Watching the name-calling … oh, my

I am having another one of those blogger’s out-of-body experiences.

I posted an item about Robert Mueller, Donald Trump and the report the former special counsel filed about his lengthy probe into alleged “collusion” with Russians who attacked our election in 2016.

Two readers of the blog responded. They are lefties. A rightie responded to one of them. One of the lefties responded to the rightie.

One of the respondents started bastardizing one of other’s names. Then came the profanities. They started using foul language in describing each others’ intelligence.

Me? I’m staying out of it. Not my fight.

The arguments stayed (more or less) on topic, although not entirely.

I guess this is my way of wishing these respondents would cease the personal attacks on each other. None of that furthers anyone’s argument. They end up talking past each other.

I might be spitting into the wind on this one.

A lot of folks take rebuttals quite personally. In the exchange that has been occurring over the past couple of days, I totally understand how either side can take offense at what the other guy is telling them.

Witnessing all of this as if I’m sitting in the peanut gallery just fills me with resolve to try like the dickens to stay civil with those who criticize my musings.

So … the beat goes on.

national news

Mueller said it … in so many words: Trump obstructed justice

Let me be crystal clear: Robert S. Mueller III told congressional questioners that Donald J. Trump, the nation’s president, obstructed justice.

No, he didn’t say the words: “Donald Trump obstructed justice.”

But he made a couple of key points that need to be reaffirmed. So I will do so.

He said in May that if there were grounds to “exonerate” the president of obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation, “we would have said so.” He didn’t.

Then this past month, in testimony before the U.S. House Judiciary and Intelligence committees, Mueller was asked whether he would indict Trump were he not president. He said “yes” both times.

So, the way I interpret the former special counsel’s findings is that he believes the president obstructed — or sought to obstruct — justice while he was looking for nearly two years into whether the Trump presidential campaign conspired to collude with Russian goons who attacked our electoral system in 2016. He couldn’t prove conspiracy. I accept that finding.

Mueller left the obstruction of justice matter up to Congress.

Therefore … he concluded that Trump obstructed justice.

Is any of this impeachable? It is likely that there are grounds for impeachment somewhere in this mess.

The bigger question facing House members, though, is whether there are sufficient grounds to move congressional Republicans — namely those in the Senate — off their stubborn resistance to doing what they must, which is to impeach the president and then convict him of those deeds in a Senate trial.

If the answer is “no,” then there is no point to impeaching this con artist/clown/carnival barker.

International news

Hoping the new DNI doesn’t reverse course on Russian attack

I will be waiting with bated breath for the new director of national intelligence to answer this critical question from U.S. senators who will debate whether to confirm him for the job of top spook in the Trump administration.

“Do you believe, as your predecessor Dan Coats believes, that Russian government goons attacked our electoral system in 2016 and are doing so now in advance of the next presidential election?”

OK, so maybe senators won’t call ’em “goons.” That’s my term, but you get the point.

Coats is “stepping down” as DNI. Donald Trump says he’ll appoint U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe to succeed Coats. Ratcliffe has been a staunch supporter of the Trump, even challenging the integrity of an American patriot, former special counsel Robert Mueller III, who examined whether Trump’s campaign was complicit in the 2016 Russian attack on our electoral system.

Coats got sideways with the president over this issue of the Russian attack. Coats says the Russians did it. So did other intelligence and counter-terrorism experts, including the FBI director, the CIA director, the head of the National Security Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, of course, DNI Dan Coats.

The president’s view? He stands with Russian despot Vladimir Putin, who denies the Russians did anything wrong.

So my question of John Ratcliffe would be: Do you stand with Trump or the experts who say the Russians are guilty as hell?

Mueller said the Russians did it. He said they are attacking this nation at this very moment. Donald Trump — the self-proclaimed “stable genius” who knows the “best words” and hires the “best people” — has been shamefully silent on this issue.

Now it’s Rep. Ratcliffe who’s about the snuggle into the hot seat.

What say you, Mr. DNI-designate?

national news

Trump projects his own ‘ineptitude’ on ex-special counsel

Donald Trump has resorted now to calling former special counsel Robert Mueller “inept.” The president is boasting about Mueller’s supposedly poor performance while testifying before two congressional committees.

What I find hilarious is that the Twitter master in chief would stoop to saying Mueller demonstrated “ineptitude” while explaining why he didn’t “exonerate” Trump of obstruction charges. Mueller also repeated his contention that the Russian hacking of our 2016 presidential election should concern “every American.”

Mueller’s performance, while it didn’t deliver the explosive moment some had hoped would occur, was far from how Trump has described it.

Indeed, for this presidential buffoon to criticize Mueller — a former FBI director, career prosecutor and decorated Vietnam War combat Marine — is laughable on its face.

Oh, well. I suppose Donald Trump can stand behind the notion that he is president, after all, and no one else holds the office.

So very sad.