Tag Archives: DOJ

national news

Trump politicizing probe … except that he’s mistaken

Donald J. Trump’s latest rampage on Twitter is making yet another ridiculous assertion.

The president accuses special counsel Robert Mueller of stacking his legal team with Democrats who were loyal to whom he has referred to as “Crooked Hillary” Clinton.

It’s part of Trump’s effort to discredit, disparage and disrespect the team Mueller has assembled to examine some serious issues relating to the president’s campaign team’s alleged relationship with Russians who sought to meddle in our 2016 presidential election.

It is true that most of the lawyers working for Mueller are registered Democrats, as if that by itself is going to taint the investigation — which cannot be stated with any degree of certainty on its face.

Oh, but wait! What about Mueller? And what about the guy who appointed him special counsel, Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein?

This is where I can say that Mueller, a former FBI director, is a registered Republican. Rosenstein, who was appointed to his deputy AG post by Donald Trump himself, also is a registered Republican.

The two top dogs in the Russia investigation are Republicans, man! Does that matter? Does that tilt the investigation toward the Top Republican, Trump?

No. I am going to put my faith that Mueller will do his job in accordance with what the law and the U.S. Constitution allow. The special counsel knows a lot more about both than the man — Donald Trump — who keeps hectoring him.

national news

Trump protests too much

Does it make sense to you that someone who denies wrongdoing should keep firing broadsides at those who are investigating allegations of misbehavior? Donald Trump is at virtual war with Robert Mueller.

Trump is the president of the United States. Mueller is a special counsel assigned to look into whether the president did something wrong.

The president denies in one breath that he did anything wrong. In the next breath he rakes Mueller over the coals, calling his probe a “witch hunt” and assorted other pejoratives.

Mueller is examining the president on several fronts. He was selected by the Department of Justice to look into allegations that Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russians who interfered in our 2016 presidential election. He is trying to determine whether there is any obstruction of justice efforts aimed at blocking the investigation. Mueller also is now looking at the Trump Organization’s business dealings with Russian interests.

Trump is howling. He is bellowing. He is tweeting his rage at Mueller.

Why is the president so angry? Why is he so enraged that Mueller — a former FBI director and by most people’s estimation a stand-up, first-class, meticulous lawyer — is doing the job he was charged to do?

Mueller is keeping his mouth shut. He is not talking publicly about his investigation. He is acting professionally. He has assigned his team of legal eagles to pore over the mountains of data they have collected.

Trump is doing quite the opposite. He is yapping, yammering and yowling daily — if not damn near hourly — via Twitter about Mueller’s probe. Is that a logical response of someone who is in the clear? I don’t believe it is.

It would seem more appropriate for the president to do two things: Keep his trap shut and then give the special counsel every bit of information he seeks.

Instead, every Trump tweet or public statement about Mueller only heightens the suspicion that he well might have something to hide. He might say he is innocent of wrongdoing. The president’s actions, though, suggest something quite different.

national news

Mueller’s allies outnumber Trump’s

Donald Trump is finding out a fundamental truth about Washington, D.C. It is that he doesn’t have as many friends in high places as he thinks — or says — he does.

The president went on another Twitter tirade this morning, flinging thinly veiled threats against special counsel Robert Mueller. His lawyer, John Dowd, said he is “praying” that Mueller shuts down his Russia investigation in the wake Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s firing of Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe.

Mueller is a lot of trails to explore before he can wrap his investigation up. Law enforcement officials say it. Now, too, do Republicans in Congress who are rallying behind Mueller.

They are dismayed at Trump’s tweets and the threats he is delivering against Mueller, whose task is to determine whether the president is trying to obstruct justice, whether his campaign “colluded” with Russian election-meddling efforts and whether his business dealings are somehow interfering with the president’s duties as head of state.

GOP lawmakers fanned out on Sunday morning talk shows this morning to offer words of warning if Trump tries to dismiss Mueller. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said firing Mueller would signal the “beginning of the end” of Trump’s presidency. Rep. Trey Gowdy, another South Carolina Republican, wants Mueller’s probe to run its course. “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you should want the investigation to be as fulsome and thorough as possible,” Gowdy said.

I get that Trump has his friends and political allies, too. I just get the sense that they are outnumbered by those who are standing behind the special counsel who, you should recall, was hailed universally by politicians of all stripes when the Justice Department appointed him to do the job.

I feel the need to remind readers of this blog that Donald Trump had zero political connections when he ran for president. He spent his entire professional life making zillions of dollars in private business, stepping on toes and trampling foes in the process.

That experience does not lend itself to cultivating political alliances in an altogether different world.

legal news

Trump lawyer pours gas on the flame

John Dowd is not serving his client well.

Dowd, a lawyer, represents Donald John Trump. Dowd now is calling for an end to an investigation led by another lawyer, special counsel Robert Mueller, who’s looking deeply into issues involving Trump, his campaign, his transition to the presidency and the presidency itself.

Now that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has fired deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, a key player in Mueller’s probe, Dowd says it’s time for Mueller to wrap up this investigation.

If I were to put myself in Mueller’s shoes I might be asking: What in the world is Dowd trying to hide? Why does he want me to end an investigation that is growing more complicated by the day, if not the hour?

Thus, in my view Dowd has done his client a disservice. Oh, but then there is this: Donald Trump wants the investigation to end as well. He’s called it a “witch hunt,” which it isn’t. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who selected Mueller after Sessions recused himself, said Mueller has done nothing wrong and that his probe should continue.

At issue, of course, is the “Russia thing,” and whether the Trump campaign “colluded” with Russians seeking to meddle in our 2016 presidential election.

The U.S. House Intelligence Committee’s Republican leadership has said there is “no collusion,” which prompted Trump to declare that “Congress” has found nothing wrong. Oops! He didn’t say that the GOP leaders on the committee have drawn that conclusion.

Oh, but the Mueller probe has many more trails to explore, many more leads to follow.

He’s a long way from finishing his work.

John Dowd needs to pipe down and let the special counsel do his job, get to the finish line and if he finds nothing there — as Trump keeps insisting — he needs to tell us all himself.

national news

Trump is a ‘serious threat to … national security’?

Reluctantly I have concluded that President Trump is a serious threat to US national security. He is refusing to protect vital US interests from active Russian attacks. It is apparent that he is for some unknown reason under the sway of Mr Putin.

So says a retired U.S. Army four-star general, a combat veteran and one who has held top-tier commands in time of war. That would be Barry McCaffrey, via Twitter.

Sadly — and I say this with great sadness — I happen to concur with what Gen. McCaffrey has concluded.

The actions of the past several days have accelerated my concerns across the land. There now appears to be evidence building that Donald John Trump is seeking a way to bring special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation to a halt. Mueller, appointed by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, to examine the Russia meddling matter in our 2016 presidential election, has indicted several senior Trump campaign officials. He is looking at Trump financial matters. He is seeking to tie it all together to determine if there was anything illegal being done on behalf of the Trump campaign.

Oh, and then the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, fired former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe just hours before McCabe as set to retire from the agency he served for two decades. Do you think Sessions did so at the behest of the president, who has been openly critical of McCabe and who well might have threatened the AG with some punishment?

This, I submit, was a disgraceful display of classlessness.

I won’t diagnose the president with any medical disorder. I won’t suggest he has flipped. I do believe — at some unknown level — that he has placed Russian interests above our own national interests.

The Russians have attacked the United States electoral system. Intelligence agencies have confirmed it. Independent analysts have concurred. Donald Trump refuses to direct intelligence officials to launch cyber countermeasures to protect this nation.

It is fair to wonder: Is the president derelict in his duty?

Gen. McCaffrey believes that is the case.

legal news

McCabe gets canned and AG shows his heartlessness

I totally understand that this analogy might be a stretch, but I’ll toss it out there anyway. Andrew McCabe’s firing today by Attorney General Jeff Sessions — just two days before he was to retire from the FBI — reminds me a vaguely of the convict who gets a stay of execution as he is being led into the death chamber.

Sessions canned McCabe on the recommendation of an inspector general report that said he should be terminated because of alleged lack of candor while allowing FBI officials to talk to the media.

The firing now deprives McCabe of the retirement he had earned through two decades working for the FBI.

Think of this for a moment. The former deputy FBI director likely deserved some punishment for his indiscretion. Did he deserve to fired at the 11th hour just prior to his pending retirement? Let me think. I don’t believe he did.

Donald Trump wanted McCabe fired. McCabe has been a key player in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Russian meddling in our 2016 presidential election. McCabe now says his firing is meant to undermine Mueller’s probe. He is understandably furious with the attorney general.

“Here is the reality: I am being singled out and treated this way because of the role I played, the actions I took, and the events I witnessed in the aftermath of the firing of James Comey,” McCabe wrote in a lengthy statement commenting on his firing.

I had hoped Sessions would let McCabe retire. I also had hoped Sessions would demonstrate his desire to depart the Trump administration by bucking the president’s desire to see McCabe get the boot.

I was wrong all around. I also am having difficulty trying to understand why he would be canned and, thus, denied the pension he had earned while serving the public.

And the timing of the firing … well, it speaks loudly and so very clearly about the character of the people at the top of this presidential administration.

national news

AG cans deputy FBI director … damn!

This blog post has been updated

Well, silly me. I thought Jeff Sessions might have a shred of decency and courage to do the right thing.

It’s being reported just now that the attorney general has fired deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, which deprives him of the pension to which he had been entitled as a career public servant.

I guess the AG is more afraid of the president than I thought.

Shameful.

***

Andrew McCabe is just a couple days away from retirement from the FBI. Or … he might get fired because he was less than fully truthful in dealing with federal investigators.

Firing this career public servant would deprive him of his retirement and possibly his health care. The ball is now in the lap of Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

I hope the AG doesn’t fire McCabe, who has been a frequent critic of none other than Donald John Trump Sr., the president of the United States and the man with the thinnest skin of any world leader in history.

Here’s why I have this feeling in my gut that Sessions will let McCabe retire.

Sessions might want to p** the president off so much that he gets fired by Trump, thus relieving him of the turmoil, tempest and constant disabuse that the president himself levels at the attorney general.

Trump wants McCabe to be canned. It’s up to Sessions to do the president’s bidding, or to do what I consider the right thing by merely letting the deputy FBI boss retire and ride off into the sunset.

Firing him now, with so little time before he retires, would be the epitome of heartlessness. That is Trump’s style. I have no clue if that is Sessions’s style as well. McCabe has made some mistakes and perhaps he deserves some punishment. He also happens to have immense support within the FBI and his firing could result in an eruption among the field agents and administrators who work inside the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington.

My trick knee tells me that the attorney general just might have had his fill of working within the chaos and confusion that continues to define the Donald Trump administration — which might portend a decision to defy the president.

legal news, national news

AG defends his decision to recuse himself

Hell has this habit of freezing over, enabling me to say something positive about one of Donald Trump’s key Cabinet officers.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions fielded a direct question the other day that required him to provide a direct answer. He answered it correctly, to his great credit.

The questioner asked him whether he regretted recusing himself from the investigation into whether the Trump 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russians who meddled in our electoral  process.

Sessions was unequivocal in his answer. Sessions had to pull out of the investigation, he said, because of his key role in the Trump presidential campaign and then the transition into the Trump presidency.

There could be no way for the AG to conduct an impartial investigation into alleged collusion with the Russians, Sessions said, because he was far too close to the situation. He would be investigating potentially himself.

So, he withdrew from the Russia probe. He handed the matter over to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who then selected Robert Mueller to serve as special counsel in this ongoing probe.

I have praised Sessions’s decision from the get-go. It demonstrated an understanding of the ethics of the law and the AG’s appreciation of the appearance of conflict of interest.

The AG’s decision, not surprisingly, has angered the president, who has said that had he known Sessions would back out of the “Russia thing,” he would have nominated someone else to the post. Trump and Sessions, by many accounts, have at best a frosty relationship to this day.

The way I see it, it’s because Sessions made the correct decision to back away from an investigation that is being handled by one of the most meticulous lawyers anyone can find.

As much as I disapprove of Sessions as attorney general in the first place, I merely think it’s appropriate to offer a good word when he makes the right decision and then stands foursquare behind it.

national news

AG Jeff Sessions deserves some support

So help me, I cannot quite explain why I am about to write these next few words. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions has become a sympathetic character in a presidential administration that appears to be unraveling before our eyes.

Donald J. Trump is getting pinched by a special counsel who was appointed by the Justice Department because the AG did the right thing by recusing himself from what Trump has called the “Russia thing.” Why did he do that? Because the attorney general was a key Trump campaign adviser and then moved directly into the Trump presidential transition team that has been ensnared by allegations of “collusion” with Russians seeking to interfere in our 2016 presidential election.

Sessions’s recusal has enraged the president, who’s now taking to disparaging him publicly via Twitter. The men have a frosty relationship, even though Sessions was among Trump’s earliest supporters in the U.S. Senate, where Sessions served before being picked to run the Justice Department.

What can the president do? Does he fire Sessions? Yeah, good luck with that — and with finding someone the Senate can confirm. The word is out about the president: No one worth a damn wants to work for this guy. He’s making a mess of everything he touches. He cannot govern. He cannot administer a political organization such as the White House.

That shouldn’t surprise a single American. Trump had no government experience. He had no political credibility. He cannot keep key White House advisers. I mean, he has just received the resignation from the fourth White House communications director in a little more than a year.

Sessions now stands as a man with a semblance of ethical conduct — and for that he is being punished by the president of the United States, who calls a decision to hire inspector general lawyers to conduct a probe “disgraceful.”

Trump also has said that had he known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia probe he would have nominated someone with more “loyalty” to the president. Hey, that’s not why these people serve. They serve to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution, just like the president.

From my vantage point, the president is doing a pi**-poor job of fulfilling the oath he took.

As for Sessions, as much as I opposed his appointment in the first place, I am fearful of the bloodbath that will occur if he calls it quits and the president tries to pick someone to do his bidding.

Good luck with that, Mr. President.

national news, political news

POTUS has yet another bad week; see ‘Jared Kushner’

How can we count the ways that the president of the United States can experience truly bad weeks?

This one has been a serious downer.

His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, gets his security clearance downgraded because he doesn’t have the top-secret designation he needed to handle sensitive documents; Kushner is a high-end senior adviser in the Donald Trump administration.

There’s more.

White House communications director Hope Hicks resigned this week after telling U.S. senators that part of her job was to tell “little white lies” on behalf of her boss, the president. She said her testimony had nothing to do with her resignation. Sure thing, young lady. The president backed her up. But, hey, the timing looks so suspicious.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions got taken down by the president because the AG is using lawyers from outside his department to examine alleged bias in granting security clearances. Trump tweeted that Sessions’s actions are “disgraceful.”

Then, as a capper, Trump tweeted some gnarly remarks about actor/comedian Alec Baldwin’s impersonation of him on “Saturday Night Live.” So very “presidential,” yes, Mr. President?

All the while, it looks as though special counsel Robert Mueller is zeroing in on Trump’s potential collusion with Russian agents seeking to interfere in our election process, which Trump keeps denying.

Analyses keep suggesting that Trump has yet to get a handle on the mechanics of governing, the task of administering the executive branch of government, let alone hiring competent staff who can withstand the intense public scrutiny that goes with the job in Washington, D.C.

Has the president lost control of the “fine-tuned machine” he boasted about a month after his inauguration? It looks like it to me.

Chaos and confusion, folks? It’s all there. On full display. For all the world to see.

This is how you “make America great again”? Umm. I don’t think so.