Tag Archives: Robert Mueller

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

Still wondering: Why the constant griping about Mueller?

You’ve heard it said of folks who likely are complicit in wrong doing that they “protest too much.”

Donald Trump continues to protest the existence of a special counsel, Robert Mueller. He keeps calling Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion with Russians during the 2016 election a “witch hunt,” which he’s elevated to a “rigged witch hunt.”

Is the president protesting too much? Is he seeking to discredit the investigator as a diversion from the evidence that well might be piling against him?

A politician who is as clean as Trump says he is might just want to keep his trap shut and let the investigation reach a favorable conclusion under its own power.

But that is not happening with this president. He keeps firing off Twitter message, he keeps ad-libbing at press events with statements that — at least to my ear — sound more like a guilty man than an innocent one.

national news

No, Sarah, probe is no ‘hoax’ or a ‘waste of time’

Sarah Huckabee Sanders needs a serious reality check.

The White House press secretary this week called special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged collusion between 2016 Trump presidential campaign and Russian election attack squad members a “hoax” and a “waste of time.”

Hmm. Let me think about that.

OK, it’s not a waste of time. Nor do I believe that multiple criminal indictments and a smattering of guilty pleas constitute a hoax.

The Hill reports that the number of aides caught up in this mess now stands at 32. More are likely to be in the mill.

A federal grand jury has indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers on conspiracy charges. Key campaign aides have been indicted as well, along with a former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who’s been cooling his jets in jail waiting for the start of his trial on charges of money laundering and assorted other felonies.

Hoax? Waste of time? Not even close.

Proceed, Mr. Special Counsel.

national news

Or … what if Mueller comes up empty?

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My previous blog post wondered what Donald J. Trump’s reaction would be if Robert Mueller delivers the goods on collusion, obstruction of justice and anything else he might find wrong with the president and his 2016 campaign.

My conclusion: Trump will go bonkers, nuts, ’round the bend.

In fairness, what might the president do and/or say if the special counsel comes up empty?

My thoughts? I believe Trump is fully capable of climbing onto the White House roof, bullhorn in hand and bellowing “I told you so!” until his voice no longer functions.

OK, I’m kidding.

Sort of …

Trump is incapable, in my humble view, of accepting victory like a gentleman. He doesn’t have the gene that allows him to congratulate Mueller for a job well done, and thank him sincerely for the service he has performed for the country.

No sir. He won’t do that.

If Mueller ends up with nothing, Trump will find a way to make something out of it. Why, he might never shut his mouth for as long as serves in the highest office in the land.

As we’ve learned already, 18 or so months into his presidency, Donald Trump cannot stop boasting about the Electoral College victory he scored over Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Imagine, now, how the president well might react if Mueller and his team come up empty on The Russia Thing.

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

GOP launches impeachment against deputy AG?

What am I missing?

Congressional Republicans have accused their Democratic colleagues of being fixated on impeaching Donald J. Trump. They say Democrats would obstruct Congress’s business with their fixation.

So, what do GOP members do to, um, counteract that phony claim? Why, they draft articles of impeachment against Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Robert Mueller to be the special counsel to lead the investigation into the “Russia thing.”

This, folks, is a thinly disguised effort to derail the Mueller probe of the president’s alleged ties to Russians who attacked our 2016 presidential election. They are calling it a “witch hunt.”

So, their target of choice is Rosenstein, a fellow Republican appointed to his post by, um, Donald Trump.

The articles were drafted by Reps. Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, co-founders of the right-wing Freedom Caucus.

According to CNN.com: In a statement, Meadows said Rosenstein should be impeached because of the Justice Department’s stonewalling of congressional subpoenas and hiding information from Congress, and for signing one of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant renewals for Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page.

This impeachment effort won’t go anywhere. Support in the House is sketchy at best; in the Senate, it’s virtually non-existent.

What, then, is the point? Meadows and Jordan are pi**** off that Mueller’s probe appears to be closing in on the president. What it produces at the end is anyone’s guess.

It just goes to demonstrate once again that members of Congress insist on throwing stones at the other side without acknowledging their own shortcomings.

Get a grip, congressional Republicans. Let the Mueller investigation end on its own power.

International news

Trump-Putin II postponed, to what end?

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin are going to meet a second time — but not until after the first of the year.

The announcement came from national security adviser John Bolton, who — borrowing the president’s favorite epithet describing the examination of the “Russia thing” — said the meeting would occur after the “witch hunt” has concluded.

C’mon, Mr. National Security Adviser. There ain’t a “witch hunt” taking place.

Robert Mueller is proceeding with his probe into whether the Trump campaign colluded in 2016 with the Russians operatives who attacked our electoral system. The special counsel is not the partisan hack he has been accused of being by, um, actual partisan hacks.

The next summit between the U.S. and Russian presidents should proceed. I support the idea of the two leaders talking to each other. They should face each other and they should talk openly and candidly about the issues they have in common and those that separate them. They also should do so publicly to the extent they can.

The problem, though, still rests with that first summit in Helsinki. They went into a closed-door meeting and the world doesn’t yet know what they discussed, where they agreed and what they decided. Then the two leaders had that press conference in which Trump rolled over in front of Putin in that ghastly show of weakness by the so-called “leader of the free world.”

As for the juxtaposition with special counsel Mueller’s investigation, let’s just wait to see what conclusions are drawn once the probe is finished.

We have an extremely fluid situation in front of us. The Mueller probe can end in any number of ways, some of which might bode poorly for the president.

And, oh yes, we have that midterm election coming up.

If at least one congressional chamber flips from Republican to Democratic control, well … let’s just wait to see how that plays out.

national news

What if Robert Mueller … ?

The special counsel examining whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral process has many finish lines ahead of him.

I want to focus on just two of them.

What if he finds collusion and obstruction of justice? What if he determines that the president is right, that there was no wrongdoing?

Either way, it won’t satisfy at least half the nation.

If Robert Mueller’s legal team finds evidence of collusion and obstruction of justice — and maybe more — you can bet the farm, the ranch and your first-born child that Trumpkins across the land are going to howl loudly. Mueller might recommend bringing criminal charges. He simply might say that the president did something wrong and leave it at that. Rest assured, it will ignite a firestorm.

If, though, he comes up with nothing, you can make the same wager that those on the other side will howl just as loudly as the Trumpkins. Their angst will come from a deeply held belief that Trump is an agent of the Russians, that Vladimir Putin has the goods on him, that the president simply is unfit for the office to which he was elected.

Whatever the conclusion, Mueller’s final report will not end the intense national quarreling.

My reaction? I would hope to be more, um, magnanimous. Even if it goes against what I believe.

I have many thoughts about what Trump did. Or what he allowed to be done. I have said all along that I believe he is unfit for the presidency. But I haven’t seen the evidence. I haven’t studied the nitty-gritty of it. I haven’t talked to lawyers, national security experts or political operatives close to the situation.

I’m sitting here in the cheap seats, the peanut gallery, where opinions get all the respect they deserve.

I would therefore be forced to accept whatever Mueller decides, even if it rubs me raw, or inflames my political passion, or fills me with anger.

Back in 1995 when the jury acquitted O.J. Simpson of murdering his former wife and her friend, I shared the anger of millions of Americans who believed Simpson got away with a heinous crime. I couldn’t fathom how the jury could make the decision in four hours after sitting through months of testimony, theatrics and fire-breathing testimony.

But the jurors did. The judicial system worked, even if it didn’t satisfy all of us. I didn’t agree with the jurors, but I accepted it. Why? Because they heard all the evidence. I didn’t.

Thus, I believe I am capable of moving on even if Robert Mueller’s investigative journey staggers to a conclusion I won’t like.

national news, political news

It wasn’t mere ‘meddling,’ it was an attack

I have just made a command decision as the publisher of High Plains Blogger.

No longer will I refer to the Russian attack on our electoral system, on our democratic process merely as an act of “meddling.”

It was a full-frontal assault on our electoral process. It was an attack on our way of life.

I got the idea from a letter to the editor I saw this morning on Twitter. I think the letter was from the New York Times. The writer compared “meddling” to the butting in by nosy relatives on the business of family members.

I thought, “Wow! I get that.” Not the nosy relatives thing, but the notion that “meddling” is far too mild a term to describe what the Russians did during our 2016 presidential election.

Thus, I made the decision to henceforth refer to that act using terminology that more aptly describes its impact.

Am I going to assert that the Russian attack actually produced a Donald Trump victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton? I won’t go there. At least not just yet. I will await the results from Robert Mueller’s exhaustive probe into potential “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russian goons ordered by Vladimir Putin to launch their attack on our system.

In the future, though, do not look for the word “meddling” from this blog to describe what I consider to be damn near an act of war on our democratic process by a hostile nation.

national news

Spicer: Mueller probe is no ‘witch hunt’

Well, there you have it.

One of Donald John Trump’s staunchest defenders has gone on the record: Robert Mueller’s probe into possible “collusion” with Russians is “no witch hunt.”

So says former White House press secretary Sean Spicer, who became famous — or infamous, depending on your point of view — during his initial press briefing in January 2017 by arguing with the media over their reporting of the size of Trump’s inaugural crowd.

That was then. Spicer said on “Today” that the special counsel investigation is serious. However, Spicer did hedge a bit.

“As of now, I see no evidence that it is,” he said on “Today.” Do you get it? As of now? He sees no evidence? He also said he sees “no evidence” of collusion with the Russians. “I think it’s very important to be clear that Russia meddled in our election and there’s no evidence of collusion,” Spicer said.

Whoa! We don’t know what Mueller has hidden from view. There well might be something to reveal eventually.

Yet, Spicer’s rather tepid defense of Mueller does strike me as a bit refreshing coming as it does from someone who made a name for himself during his time as press secretary as someone who’d run through a brick wall for the president of the United States.

I’ll take Spicer at his word that he doesn’t believe we are witnessing a witch hunt. If only he would stop pulling his punches.

Check out the interview here.