Tag Archives: Russia probe

Donald Trump

Is the president going to slit his own (political) throat?

How can Donald J. Trump make things worse than they are already?

Here’s a scenario to ponder: He can fire U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions after the midterm elections, nominate a new person to lead the Justice Department, then he can fire special counsel Robert Mueller and hope the Senate confirms a new AG who’ll shut down the investigation that Mueller has been conducting for more than a year.

Can you say “impeachment”?

Read The Hill report here.

The president clearly has no trust in the current AG because of Sessions’s decision to recuse himself from anything to do with the Russia investigation. The special counsel is trying to determine whether there was any conspiracy by the Trump presidential campaign to collude with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 election outcome.

Does he fire the AG? Does he then nominate someone who’ll do the president’s bidding? Does the AG nominee pledge some sort of fealty to the president even if it means he doesn’t follow the law?

Trump, to no one’s surprise, has concocted a phony excuse for his displeasure with Sessions. “Never took control of the Justice Department,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”  “And it’s sort of a regrettable thing.”

What utter crap! Sessions’s “mistake” was to recuse himself from the Russia matter. Why? Because the AG couldn’t possibly lead an investigation into a presidential campaign in which he was a major player. So he did the only thing he could do under DOJ rules of conduct.

Is the president capable of turning a bad situation into something so very much worse? You’re damn straight he can.

Donald Trump, legal news, national news, political news

Sessions’s days as AG are counting down?

Donald J. Trump has just made the case for why U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions had no choice but to recuse himself from the investigation into “The Russia Thing.”

Of course, he doesn’t see it that way, because he has no understanding of government ethics or, for that matter, government decency.

Sessions has fired back at another round of criticism from the president. He said, “While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations. I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action.” He added in a Fox News interview: “However, no nation has a more talented, more dedicated group of law enforcement investigators and prosecutors than the United States.”

Trump went yet another tear against Sessions, criticizing him for his recusal. What is his rationale? Get a load of this, as reported by The Hill: “Even my enemies say that, ‘Jeff Sessions should have told you he was going to recuse himself, and then you wouldn’t have put him in,’” Trump said in an interview that aired Thursday.

Trump also said that he only selected Sessions, previously a senator from Alabama, to be his top law enforcement officer because of his “loyalty” during the campaign.

“He was on the campaign. You know, the only reason I gave him the job was because I felt loyalty,” Trump said. “He was an original supporter.”

Jeff Sessions could not be called upon to lead an investigation into a campaign in which he was an integral part. The Department of Justice has deeply rooted codes of conduct that preclude the AG from leading such a probe. Sessions — a man for whom I have little actual regard, mind you — recognized the blatant conflict of interest and pulled himself out of the investigation into whether there was “collusion” between Russian government agents and the Trump campaign.

For the president, moreover, to continue to malign the integrity of the professional team assembled at DOJ is reprehensible on its face.

The attorney general is right to praise the quality of the men and women who do the grunt work for the Department of Justice. The president is dead wrong to disrespect and disparage them.

Uncategorized

Father and Son Goodlatte: miles apart

It’s often said about children and their parents that “The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.”

Not so with Bob and Bobby Goodlatte, father and son.

Dad Goodlatte chairs the U.S. House Judiciary Committee; the Republican lawmaker serves the Roanoke Valley area of western Virginia. Son Goodlatte is a venture capitalist who lives in San Francisco.

Bobby doesn’t like the way the chairman treated former FBI agent Peter Strzok, who got fired today from the agency that employed him for many years.

Bobby Goodlatte is so angry with his dad that he has given money to the Democrat who’s running for the seat that Chairman Goodlatte is vacating at the end of the year.

Bobby wrote this via Twitter, according to Vox.com: “I’m deeply embarrassed that Peter Strzok’s career was ruined by my father’s political grandstanding. That committee hearing was a low point for Congress,” Bobby Goodlatte tweeted. “Thank you for your service sir. You are a patriot.”

Read the Vox story here.

You know, this isn’t all that uncommon. Many children of notable Americans veer far from where Mom and Dad earn their stripes.

Hey, I have a son who disagrees with me politically. I don’t hold it against him. To the best of my knowledge, he doesn’t hold my political leanings against me, either. I love him and he loves me … at least that’s what he says.

But I’m just a chump blogger.

However, that’s different from what is happening within the Family Goodlatte. Dad has been a key player in trying to get to the bottom of the “Russia thing.” The younger Goodlatte is angry over the way his father treated a career FBI agent, Stzrok.

This kind of thing happens on occasion.

As for whether the fruit has fallen far from the Goodlatte tree, it looks as though the wind carried it across our vast nation.

Donald Trump, national news

No way should Mueller cut off the Russia probe

My ears are about to burst into flames. Or … maybe my head is about to explode, blowing my noggin into smithereens.

Donald Trump’s legal team — led by the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Jay Sekulow — keep yapping that special counsel Robert Mueller needs to call his examination of “The Russia Thing” to a halt. He needs to end it now, they say.

Giuliani suggests Mueller has done something potentially illegal. He ain’t spilling the beans, as if he has any beans to spill.

Look, Mueller is a former FBI director who served under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama. He took office right after 9/11. He is a pro. He is a dedicated public servant. He is a decorated Marine who saw combat during the Vietnam War.

He also is a meticulous lawyer who has been tasked by the Department of Justice to find out whether the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral system.

Mueller’s appointment by DOJ also was hailed universally by Republicans and Democrats. Don’t you remember that? I damn sure do. He deserved the high praise he got from both sides of the aisle.

What’s changed? Only this, as far as I can tell: Mueller is tightening the rope around the White House and well might have discovered something hinky within the Trump campaign, even though the president keeps declaring there was “no collusion.”

I don’t want to take Donald Trump’s word for it. The president’s penchant for prevarication precludes anyone from taking anything he says seriously.

I prefer to hear the final verdict from Robert Mueller.

That is, if my ears don’t catch fire and my skull doesn’t explode listening to the rants from Donald Trump’s loudmouth legal eagles.

Donald Trump, national news

Trump doing the impossible: gaining sympathy for AG

Donald John Trump is trying to execute an impossible stunt.

He is seeking to turn Attorney General Jeff Sessions into a sympathetic character in the drama that’s unfolding in Washington, D.C.

Trump fired off a tweet that said, among other things, that “Our A.G. is scared stiff and Missing in Action. It is all starting to be revealed – not pretty.”

Trump wants Sessions to be quicker to defend him against critics who suggest there’s something to the “Russia thing” that special counsel is investigating.

Now he says Sessions is MIA and a scaredy-cat to boot?

Let’s review for a brief moment.

Sessions had to recuse himself from the Russia collusion probe because of his ties to the Trump presidential campaign. That meant that the AG couldn’t investigate himself. So, he recused himself — as he should have done. It was the proper course to take.

Then he squandered much of that good will be revealing that hideous immigration policy that takes children away from their illegal immigrant parents.

Now the president has decided to hang the AG out to dry for at least the third or fourth time by declaring he is scared to act.

Good grief, Mr. President. Shut … up!

Donald Trump

Avoid ‘perjury trap’? Sure, just tell the truth!

The president of the United States is highly unlikely to appear voluntarily before the special counsel who is examining whether the president’s 2016 campaign colluded with Russian hackers who interfered in our election.

I say that wishing Donald Trump would agree to meet with Robert Mueller.

Trump said last year that he was “100 percent” in favor of meeting with Mueller. Silly us, particularly those of us who took the president at his word in the moment. He lied to us then. He likely would lie to Mueller and his legal team.

Therein is the reason why the president won’t agree to meet voluntarily with Mueller. Trump’s legal team fears what they call a “perjury trap.” That is as phony a dodge as anything they have said regarding Trump and this investigation.

The most sure-fire way to avoid committing perjury is for the president to tell the truth. If the special counsel or one of his deputies were to ask him a direct question, he should answer it with equal directness — and with the “whole truth.”

If the president were wired to tell the truth instead of lie constantly, this “perjury trap” nonsense would be irrelevant. Except that this president is wired to prevaricate, to fabricate and to lie through is teeth.

That’s why he won’t meet with Robert Mueller. At least not of his own volition.

national news

Nixon’s resignation now seems oddly relevant

The 44th anniversary of President Richard Nixon’s resignation from office carries an odd poignancy when you consider what is happening in real time — today!

On Aug. 9, 1974, President Nixon handed over his letter of resignation to the secretary of state, walked out of the White House and flew away aboard Marine One. His covering up of the Watergate scandal did him in.

Gerald R. Ford took the presidential oath of office and declared that “our long national nightmare is over.”

I fear we’ve entered into another tempest of nightmarish proportions.

No one knows how the investigation into Donald J. Trump’s difficulty is going to turn out. Special counsel Robert Mueller is deep into his probe of “the Russia thing” and whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

The president is acting like a man in trouble. He keeps declaring Mueller’s probe to be a “rigged witch hunt.” Mueller, though, is keeping his head down, his shoulder to the wheel and has clamped down on his legal team to protect against any leaks.

His 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is on trial for money laundering. Mueller has indicted several other key aides to the president. He has obtained guilty pleas from some of them.

What we have on our hands, dear reader, is a monumental mess. The president refuses to keep his mouth shut while Mueller does his job, sounding for all the world as if he has something he doesn’t want revealed … whatever it is.

So it is with a certain sense of dread that we look back 44 years to when another president, Richard Nixon, was given the grim news from his fellow Republicans. It was that he didn’t have enough Senate support to acquit him if an impeachment went to trial. Then it fell to GOP Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona to tell the president he had to quit.

The president followed Sen. Goldwater’s advice. President Ford reminded us that “our Constitution works.” Yes, it did then.

It will work again, no matter what happens with this president.

Donald Trump, national news

Waiting for many more ‘other shoes’ to drop

As I watch the Donald Trump administration continue to writhe and twist itself into something unrecognizable, I keep thinking about all the things we don’t know about the president’s campaign and some of the baggage it is lugging around.

We have those Trump tax returns, which the then-candidate refused to release in 2016, flouting four decades of political tradition.

Nor do we know whether there’s been any violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, the provision that prohibits presidents from taking gifts from foreign governments.

We have all those questions about possible campaign violations regarding the payments to (a) a porn star who alleges a one-night stand with the future president and (b) a Playboy centerfold model who alleges she had a nearly yearlong affair with the same future president. Trump paid these women big money to keep quiet — about relationships that Trump said never occurred. Go figure.

Is “collusion” with the Russians against the law or not? If not, then what about conspiracy, obstruction of justice?

I will continue to have faith that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, will be able to figure all this out in due course.

If he’s allowed to do the job he has been appointed to do.

Proceed, Mr. Mueller.

2016 election, national news

Are we entering Watergate 2.0?

Maybe it’s just me, but I’m beginning to sense a certain frenzy developing around the White House that — if memory serves — resembles the climate that fell over the place during the Watergate scandal.

Yes, Watergate happened a long time ago. President Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974 just as he was about to be impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives. As Carl Bernstein — one of the Washington Post reporters who covered the story — noted the other day, the “real heroes” of the Watergate saga turned out to be congressional Republicans — led by Sen. Barry Goldwater — who told the president he had no Senate support were the impeachment to go to trial.

That kind of “heroism” is missing at the moment.

Still, my sense is that there is a growing tension beginning to develop in Washington, on Capitol Hill and the White House as special counsel Robert Mueller continues his work to determine if there was any “collusion” between the Trump campaign team and Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

I am in no position to know how this case will conclude. It well might end with Mueller saying, “I got nothin’, folks” — which I doubt will happen. He might recommend criminal proceedings against key White House aides, maybe even the president himself.

Or … he could scold the president and his team and leave all the political consequences up to the House of Representatives and the Senate.

However, those of us of a certain age — such as Americans, like me, who came of age politically during the Watergate era — might be feeling a bit of deja vu as we watch the current White House writhe and squirm as the special counsel goes about his complicated task.

I know I am.

Donald Trump, media news, national news, political news

Trump tweets making our heads spin

I fear that I am going to lapse into a Linda Blair impersonation, the one in the film “The Exorcist” where her head spins round and round.

Donald J. Trump’s head-spinning reversal of previous lies about a meeting with Russians who reportedly were offering dirt on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign has my head about to spin right off my shoulders.

The president denied the meeting was called to talk about his campaign against Hillary. He then reportedly dictated a statement that came out under Don Trump Jr.’s name; the statement said the meeting dealt with the adoption of children. That was a lie!

Now the president say, yep, the meeting was called to talk about the Clinton campaign.

He lied. Now he’s telling some version of the truth?

The question now centers on what special counsel Robert Mueller is going to do with this information.

Is the noose tightening? Is the special counsel headed into a blind alley? Have we caught the president in the lie to end all lies? Might there be a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Emolument Clause, which prohibits presidents from accepting gifts from foreign governments?

I’ll circle back to something I was taught when I was a youngster: Tell the truth all the time and you won’t have to worry about the lies catching up with you.