Tag Archives: DOJ

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.

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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.

national news

IG report steers clear of ‘collusion’ probe

Donald John Trump’s fantasy land journey has taken him down yet another curious, bizarre path.

The U.S. Department of Justice inspector general issued a report this week that blasts the daylights out of former FBI director James Comey’s handling of the Hillary Rodham Clinton e-mail controversy. The IG calls Comey “insubordinate” in flouting DOJ protocol in his probe of Clinton’s use of a personal e-mail server while she was secretary of state.

The president’s response? It was weird in the extreme. He walked onto the White House driveway after the report became known and said the 500-page report absolves him of any “collusion” with Russians who meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

Except for this little detail: The IG report didn’t say a single word about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into collusion, obstruction of justice and whatever else might be connected in any way to that bizarre political episode.

What’s more, the Liar in Chief tossed out the “liar” epithet against Comey, whom Trump fired in May 2017 over “the Russia thing.” The inspector general’s report doesn’t challenge Comey’s credibility, only his judgment and his failure to follow DOJ policy.

Will the president’s diatribe do any damage to his standing among the Republican Party “base” that continues to hang on his every lie, prevarication and misstatement of fact?

Umm. Nope.

International news

Clergyman is right: Policy is ‘immoral’

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions should put his Bible away and open it again on Sunday when he’s in church.

The Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents at the border is not in keeping with biblical principles. It is, as Cardinal Daniel DiNardo called it, an “immoral” policy.

The administration has invoked this policy as a deterrent against illegal immigrants. Donald Trump doesn’t want illegal immigrants to enter this country. I join him in that regard. I want strict border enforcement as much as he does and as much as the attorney general wants it.

Do we really need to separate babies from their mothers and fathers? Do we really need to torture these parents by keeping their children away from them while immigration officials sort out how to handle these individuals’ undocumented entry into the United States?

Sessions invoked the Bible when he said Romans 13 compels governments to enforce the law apparently by whatever means they deem necessary. Sessions said in Fort Wayne, Ind., according to The Associated Press: “I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Romans 13, to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order,” he said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”

Did the Almighty compel the separation of children — some of them infants — from their parents? I think that’s open to serious discussion.

The administration has other responsibilities, too, according to Cardinal DiNardo, who said: “Our government has the discretion in our laws to ensure that young children are not separated from their parents and exposed to irreparable harm and trauma,” DiNardo said in a statement.

Reprehensible.

national news

Is Trump issuing pardons on a whim?

My delight at the commutation of a life sentence for a non-violent drug crime is tempered somewhat by what I sense is the manner in which Donald J. Trump made his decision.

Alice Marie Johnson had served 21 years of a life sentence. Then the president intervened. He commuted her sentence. Johnson was able to go home to her family. She learned that “everyone has a phone” these days and plans to purchase a cellphone.

But … how did the president reach this decision?

He listened, apparently, to the pleas of a reality TV star, Kim Kardashian West. I guess she was appealing to Trump — reality TV celebrity to reality TV celebrity.

Did the president seek a legal analysis of the case from the Justice Department? Did he consult with legal counsel? Did he base his decision on a careful study of the merits of the case?

It doesn’t appear to be the case regarding any of it. That’s particularly true as it regards the DOJ, given that he has spent a lot of energy and Twitter rage of late savaging the “leadership” of the Justice Department and the attorney general, Jeff Sessions.

He is said to be considering pardons for two “Celebrity Apprentice” contestants who appeared on the TV show Trump hosted before running for president: businesswoman Martha Stewart and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

Is this a perk he is deploying for his pals? His political allies? Those who speak well of him — and about him?

I understand the presidential power inherent in this pardoning process. However, I get this nagging sense that Trump is cheapening it by the seemingly capricious nature of the pardons he has issued to date.

My “favorite” pardon involved former Maricopa County (Ariz.) Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who had been sentenced to a prison term for disobeying a court order to stop profiling Hispanics he suspected of being illegal immigrants. That was nothing more than a disgraceful payback for the political support Arpaio threw at Trump when he was running for president.

Trump looks to be abusing the authority the Constitution grants him.

The president decided correctly regarding Alice Johnson. My concern is that he reached that decision out of favoritism rather than the law.