Tag Archives: DOJ

national news, political news

Earth to POTUS: Russians did the damage, not Mueller

Donald J. Trump is in dire need of a reality check.

Yep, he fired off another Twitter message. It reads: ..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!

Hey, “Robert” Mueller isn’t “Bob,” especially to the president of the United States. But … I digress.

Jeff Sessions has recused himself from the “Russia thing,” which pi*** off the president to no end.

It’s not a “Rigged Witch Hunt.” It has produced numerous indictments. Oh, yes, and the president’s former 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is now standing trial for money laundering.

The “17 Angry Democrats”? Who are they? I keep hearing that Mueller is a Republican. The guy who selected him as special counsel, Rod Rosenstein, is also a Republican. Oh, and Rosenstein was picked to be deputy AG by — drum roll! — Donald J. Trump.

Conflict of interest? Many millions of us are waiting for some evidence of it.

And the “disgrace” and the “stain” on our country are the direct result of the Russian attack on our electoral system. Robert Mueller is trying to clean up the mess.

Outrageous.

national news

Trump unleashes new fusillade against Mueller

Put yourself in the shoes of the man investigating whether the president of the United States and his team “colluded” with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

The object of that probe, Donald J. Trump, continues to fire off Twitter messages accusing Robert Mueller of conducting a “rigged witch hunt.” He says the probe needs to look at Democrats. He questions whether Mueller has a “conflict of interest” because of his friendship with a fired FBI director.

The president accuses Mueller, himself a former FBI director, of being corrupt and biased.

CNN reports: The attacks are not simply a window into his own rage, they also represent a coherent hardball strategy to unite his ever loyal political base and other Republicans behind him. With 100 days to go until midterm elections, that could be tough for the GOP.

How might you react to all of this?

Me? I would be incensed. I would be outraged. I would be damn angry at the president. Here’s the good news: It’s not about me. It’s all about a man who was praised universally when he got the special counsel job.

Mueller is on task. He and his legal team have kept their mouths shut. They have said nothing publicly about the shaming the president keeps heaping on them. They are acting professionally and with decorum and dignity.

Trump is acting, um, like an ass.

The president’s continuing harangue reveals a serious in this individual’s state of mind. No, I am not suggesting some mental disorder. I am suggesting that Trump possesses a personality trait that suggests a certain emotional instability.

Does that disturb you? If not, it should. It damn sure bothers me.

I have declared repeatedly on this blog that Donald Trump is unfit for the office he holds. His constant barrage in the face of a serious — and so far productive — investigation simply reaffirms what many of us have been saying since Day One of this individual’s presence on the political stage.

national news

What if Mueller delivers the goods on POTUS?

I cannot stop pondering what might happen if the special counsel looking to The Russia Thing comes up with the goods on the president of the United States of America.

If you’re honest with yourself, you cannot stop thinking about it, either.

I believe I’ll share my thoughts here, in the public, for you to see. Maybe you’ll agree. Maybe you won’t.

Robert Mueller has been hard at work for a little more than a year trying to fulfill the task given to him by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. That would be: whether the Donald Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our democratic process in 2016; they interfered in our election. There also might be an obstruction of justice matter to decide. Oh, and how about that Emoluments Clause in the U.S. Constitution, that says presidents cannot use their office to obtain income from foreign governments?

There’s a lot to uncover. To peel away. To examine closely.

What if Mueller delivers the goods on the president? Trump already has expended a tremendous amount of emotional capital calling the Mueller probe a “rigged witch hunt,” a “hoax” and a phony circumstances concocted by Democrats who are angry at losing the 2016 presidential election to a first-time candidate for any public office.

I fear that the president might come completely, totally, categorically unhinged from reality. I cannot prove it, of course. Given his hysterical responses to matters relating to an investigation of matters that the president says he didn’t do, I wonder how he’ll react if the final Mueller report says Trump’s campaign colluded after all, that he obstructed justice by bullying law enforcement officials into backing off and fattened his wallet with income derived by, oh let’s see, Russian oligarchs.

There’s no way to know what Mueller has collected so far. He’s been quiet. He has been conducting himself like the mature professional he is known to be. Meanwhile, the president is acting quite differently.

To think: We don’t know anything … yet.

national news

U.S. attorney general: disgusting partisan hack

I’ll just get this off my chest up front: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is a sorry excuse for a high-level federal law enforcement official.

The AG stood this week before a crowd of conservative high school students who began chanting “Lock her up!”, referencing the idiotic e-mail controversy that centers on former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Rather than do the right thing, which would have been to silence the crowd and remind them of the “rule of law” and “due process,” the AG chuckled nervously and repeated the chant from the podium. He then said something about “hearing that chant” during the 2016 presidential campaign.

I once was willing to give Sessions the benefit of the doubt, given his decision to recuse himself from the “Russia thing” probe at the Justice Department. No longer.

Sessions had the chance to show some statesmanship, to demonstrate that he lives by the rule of law. Instead, when the students began chanting “Lock her up!” he gravitated back to his partisan roots. He once was a Republican U.S. senator from Alabama who, before he was elected to that body, was rejected by the Senate for a federal judgeship because of racially tinged statements he had made.

Now the nation’s chief law enforcement officer has seen fit to continue the idiocy associated with a failed — and quite lengthy — investigation into a controversy that’s been decided.

The AG has joined the president of the United States in disgracing his high office.

Shameful.

national news

AG joins the crazy chant? Are you kidding?

To think I actually once said something positive about U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. What in the world was I thinking?

He recused himself from the Russia investigation because of his key role as a Donald Trump presidential campaign adviser. He handed it over to his deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein, who selected Robert Mueller as special counsel. I applauded the AG for demonstrating an awareness of conflict of interest.

Then the attorney general does this: He stands before a group of teenagers and laughs at the “Lock her up!” chant that came from the audience. Oh, and then he repeats it along with them.

Rule of law, Mr. Attorney General? Due process, sir? Executive decorum? What in the world is going on here?

As CNN reported: “Lock her up,” Sessions said, chuckling at the brief interruption from the audience as the chant then grew louder.

“I heard that a long time over the last campaign,” he said before continuing with his prepared speech.

The chant became a part of the GOP mantra in 2016 as controversy swirled over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s e-mail controversy. Clinton, of course, ran for president as the Democratic Party nominee. The “Lock her up!” chant became the theme of the Republican National Convention.

For the attorney general to laugh it off now is both disgusting and disgraceful.

Therefore, I hereby take back my positive comments about the attorney general.

International news, national news, political news

Dear Mr. POTUS: Show Vlad the indictment

Dear Mr. President:

I know for a fact that you won’t listen to a blogger from way out here in Flyover Country, although I have moved closer to Dallas in recent weeks.

But that meeting you’ve got planned Monday with Vladimir Putin shouldn’t take place. The Justice Department — run by your appointees — has delivered a 29-page indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officers; I like calling them “goons,” because that’s what they are … allegedly.

But if you’re going to go proceed with that Putin meeting, you need to take a copy of the indictment, slip it into a manila folder and then hand it to him. Then you need to tell him to answer for the contents of the folder.

Take my word for this, Mr. President: Putin will know what the indictment says. He’ll have read it many times. He’ll know it inside and out.

But you need to hold this killer accountable for the actions of his military brass. It appears clear that if they are guilty of what’s been alleged in the criminal complaint that they acted on Putin’s orders. He’s the top military man in Russia, just as you are the commander in chief in this country.

Are you going to do what you swore to do when you became president, which is protect the United States of America against its adversaries? Or are you going to continue to roll over and accept Putin’s denials that he attacked our electoral system?

You once accused the system of being “rigged” when the media were reporting that your Democratic foe was likely to win the 2016 election. Well, the election (allegedly) might have been “rigged” after all.

But not in the way you thought it would.

national news

To what end will this investigation lead?

I’ve spent a good part of my day sitting in my study. My TV has been tuned to a cable news channel, which has been broadcasting a congressional hearing with a single witness: FBI agent Peter Strzok.

My question is this: For what purpose are they conducting this all-day marathon?

Strzok used to serve on Robert Mueller’s team that is looking at Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Then he and another agent, Lisa Page, were fired. Mueller canned them when it became known that they had exchanged anti-Trump messages via e-mail. Congressional Republicans allege a deep bias against the president. They are contending that the alleged bias taints the Mueller probe. They are seeking to undermine Mueller’s probe.

So, where is this investigation going? The U.S. House Oversight Committee is going to issue some kind of report. Then what? Suppose the report determines Mueller’s team has been biased and has conducted a corrupt investigation into whether the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russians who meddled in our 2016 election. Are they going to recommend an end to the probe?

Strzok has defended himself fiercely. He said he and the FBI did everything “by the book.”

I keep circling back to the man at the top of the investigation, Robert Mueller.

I remain quite convinced that Mueller’s integrity is intact. He is a former FBI director. He is known to be a meticulous lawyer. Mueller has assembled a top-tier legal team to probe deeply into the myriad issues surrounding the Trump campaign.

As for the president’s assertion — backed up by his GOP allies in Congress — that the Russia probe is being dominated by “13 Democrats,” this flies in the face of the fact that Mueller is a life-long Republican; so is the man who appointed him, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; and … so is the man Trump fired as FBI director, James Comey.

Trump accuses Mueller of launching a “witch hunt” against him. I strongly suspect another type of “witch hunt” is under way. It ‘s occurring in Congress and the target is Mueller, who the GOP is targeting because he is inching closer to the White House in his probe into what happened during the 2016 presidential campaign.

House Oversight Committee Republicans have one of Mueller’s former team members — Peter Strzok — in their sights.

Where in the world is this congressional probe heading? I think it will end up in the ditch, right along with the Benghazi probe.

national news

Senate panel takes command of the obvious

The U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee has weighed in with what the rest of the country — except for perhaps one man — already knows.

The Russians meddled in our 2016 presidential election and worked to elect Donald J. Trump as president of the United States.

Senators have concurred with what every intelligence expert in this country — and some around the world — have concluded. The Russians attacked our electoral process.

According to The Hill: “The Committee has spent the last 16 months reviewing the sources, tradecraft and analytic work underpinning the Intelligence Community Assessment and sees no reason to dispute the conclusions,” said Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) said in a statement.

Did you note that Burr is a Republican? That he’s the chairman of the panel? That he has done what his GOP colleagues on the House Intelligence Committee failed to do, which is issued a bipartisan conclusion?

Trump, meanwhile, continues to give the Russians a pass. He won’t condemn their actions as a virtual act of war on our electoral system. He won’t scorch Russian President Vladimir Putin the way he has, say, the U.S. intelligence and law enforcement communities. Justice Department and FBI leaders have been vilified by the president, who cannot bring himself to say publicly what intelligence experts have said for months, that the Russians meddled in our election.

The Hill reports: All in all, the Senate panel’s report was a unflinching contradiction of many of the core claims made by Trump allies in the House. 

Read The Hill story here.

Will the president take this latest confirmation any more seriously than he has the previous reports? Absolutely not!

Indeed, he’s getting ready to meet with Putin in a few days in Helsinki, Finland. Don’t expect the president to criticize the Russian strongman over his attack on our election.

national news

Now you’re lying, Mr. AG

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions can’t yet shake the malady that afflicts the president of the United States.

He is now lying through clenched teeth, just as Donald J. Trump does with such ease.

Sessions told the Christian Broadcast Network that the administration “never intended” to separate children from their parents as part of the government’s “zero tolerance” policy regarding illegal immigration.

Yep. That’s what he told CBN’s David Brody.

Oh, but wait.

Just the other day he stood before the nation and cited Romans 13 — from the New Testament — as justification for doing the very thing he said he and his colleagues “never intended” to do. Romans 13 tells us how the Apostle Paul admonished others to obey the government; follow the law to the letter. Therein lies the justification, as Sessions cited it, for the policy that results in the arrest of illegal immigrants and the separation of children from their custody.

If you enter the nation illegally, he said, you will be arrested. If you smuggle children illegally with you, the government may take them away

How can the nation’s chief law enforcement officer lie so recklessly?

Hold on a second! I almost forgot. Donald J. Trump — the nation’s Liar in Chief — selected him for the job.

International news

Late-night wisdom on child-parent separation

Stephen Colbert is a comedian with a political point of view he delivers nightly from the Ed Sullivan Theater stage in New York City.

He was spot on in a diatribe against Donald J. Trump’s immigration policy that instructs border security agents to wrest children from their parents who enter this country illegally.

Perhaps the most poignant point that Colbert made is that the United States is the only country on Earth that has invoked such a heartless policy.

Yet the president contends that it’s a “Democrat bill” that congressional Democrats need to fix. One problem. There is no law on the books. This policy came from an executive branch instruction.

Listen to Colbert’s take on it. Yes, he’s a comic. He’s also a well-educated man who happens to be a husband and father who feels deeply about this issue.