Tag Archives: Robert Mueller

national news, political news

Mueller: still trustworthy

Robert Mueller must have grown a second head.

He must also have been seized by demons, or brainwashed by enemy terrorists.

The special counsel whose appointment by the Department of Justice drew bipartisan praise has become the bogeyman that congressional Republicans have feared.

Thankfully, not all GOP congressional members have bought into the fear being fanned by those on the far right wing of their party. U.S. Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, says Mueller should be trusted to do the right thing as he continues his probe into allegations that Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 election outcome.

This paranoia among some in the GOP suggests that Mueller isn’t the “friendly” party they envisioned when the DOJ appointed him.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the Russia probe, given his role in the Trump campaign and its transition into the presidency. The task of finding a special counsel fell to Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, who selected Mueller, a former FBI director with impeccable credentials.

Don’t you remember the high praise that poured forth from both sides of the political divide? I damn sure remember it. I joined in that praise, given Mueller’s reputation for meticulous preparation and deliberate purpose.

Even the subject of his probe — Donald J. Trump — is alternately combative and cooperative as it regards Mueller. At this moment, allegedly, the president is willing to talk “under oath” to the special counsel if he gets asked to be questioned. I hope the president doesn’t turn combative again.

As for Mueller’s reputation, I believe it should remain intact. He’s still the same man that Justice Department officials selected for this important and complex job.

So … let the man do his job.

Uncategorized

POTUS now pledges to talk … under oath!

I cannot keep up with Donald John Trump’s change of heart and mind.

He said this past summer that he’d be willing “100 percent” to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller about the “Russia thing” that has consumed the president’s attention.

Then he called Mueller’s probe a “witch hunt,” a hoax, a product of “fake news” and of Democrats who were upset at losing the 2016 presidential election.

Furthermore, he said he didn’t see a need to talk to the special counsel, given that there was “absolutely no collusion” with Russian hackers who sought to influence the 2016 election outcome.

Now … he is singing another tune. Today, the president said he would testify “under oath” if need be to Mueller and his team of legal eagles. He told reporters he would cooperate fully with Mueller’s team.

My head is spinning.

I certainly welcome the president’s latest declaration. If he is as innocent of wrongdoing as he says he is, then he would have no worried talking to Mueller, who clearly has a lot of questions to ask Trump.

Why did he fire FBI director James Comey? Did he pressure him to go easy on other close White House aides and advisers? Why didn’t he order his campaign team to tell the FBI that the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton they wanted to share with his campaign?

Those are just for starters?

If the president is going to maintain his pledge to talk to Mueller, my guess is that he’ll need to carve out a lot of time. The special counsel has a mountain of evidence to pore through and an equally high mountain of questions to get resolved.

But if the president is clean, there should be no problem.

I just can’t stop wondering if he is going to change his mind yet again and deliver a stiff-arm to the special counsel. Hey, the president is known to do such a thing.

national news

Oh, and about the special counsel …

Robert Mueller is back in the news.

While our attention was yanked away while we watched Congress and the president writhe and wriggle over immigration and funding the government, the special counsel’s office was busy interviewing players in Donald John Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

We now have learned that Mueller interviewed fired FBI director James Comey sometime this past year. Mueller’s legal team has talked to Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

What’s on the special counsel’s mind? He is looking for answers to the Big Question: Did the Trump campaign collude with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election outcome?

Sessions was a key campaign adviser while serving in the U.S. Senate. Comey — as you no doubt recall — led the FBI while it looked into the e-mail use matter involving Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton; then he turned his sights on the “Russia thing,” before he was fired in May 2017 by the president.

Mueller is trying to ascertain, reportedly, whether Comey’s firing, along with the dismissal of former national security adviser Michael Flynn, was meant to obstruct justice, impede the Russia meddling probe.

Gosh, who could be next on Mueller’s call list? Oh, I know! How about the president himself?

Trump says the investigation into collusion is a big fat nothing. He calls it a witch hunt. He blames it all on Democrats, the “fake media” and other critics of him and his administration.

Here’s a thought: If the president’s phone rings and it’s Robert Mueller on the other end of the call, the president ought to agree on the spot to meet with him — if what he says about the veracity of the probe is true.

If not, well … then we have a problem. Isn’t that right, Mr. President?

national news

Year No. 1 is coming to an end … now for the next chapter

I am not going to spend a lot of time looking back on the first year of Donald J. Trump’s time in the White House.

High Plains Blogger has devoted a seemingly infinite amount of space to this subject all year long — and then some!

Readers of this blog know how I feel about the president. I have no need to recap it here.

I will offer this bit of advice, though, if anyone is interested in looking back. Just click on the “Search” tab on the blog’s home page and type in “Trump.” You’ll see it all.

Take a look here

There has been a bit of positive commentary on this blog about the president. I pledged to offer it when such matters presented themselves. I think I’ve been faithful to that pledge. The problem has been that Trump hasn’t done enough to merit more positive comments from this corner.

***

Looking ahead briefly to Year No. 2, to be candid I don’t expect much to change with regard to this blog’s posture relating to the president.

We still have that “Russia thing” to resolve. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, remains hard at work trying to determine whether the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russian hackers who sought to influence the 2016 election outcome.

Along the way, I expect the president will keep denigrating Mueller’s integrity, even though he was universally praised when the Justice Department appointed him. And … I’ll have plenty to say about that.

I’ll also comment on the lies he’ll continue to tell and the insults he’ll keep hurling at his political foes as well as the media.

I guess my hope for the second year of Trump’s term as president is that he is able to hone the White House into the “fine-tuned machine” he called it. He isn’t there yet.

My other hope would be for the president to keep tweeting.

He gives me — and other commentators — plenty of grist when he unleashes his Twitter thumbs.

legal news, national news

Here’s yet another flip-flop from POTUS

Donald J. Trump Sr. is the king of flip-flops.

He once supported Hillary Clinton; now he’s her arch-enemy. He once said states should determine pot use legality; now he’s all for the feds’ ruling the matter. Trump once said he’d cooperate “100 percent” with special counsel Robert Mueller …

Now he’s saying some quite different.

The president who in June 2017 said he would submit to interviews over the “Russia thing” now believes there’s no need for such an interview and implies he won’t agree to a request from Mueller for a sit-down visit.

Mueller, though, does have subpoena power. He can order the president to talk to him. The president then can determine whether he wants to disobey a lawful order. If he does, then he becomes a lawbreaker — kind of like the time President Clinton lied to a federal grand jury about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; that lie handed congressional Republicans the pretext they were looking for, so they impeached the president.

Trump kept repeating himself this week about there being “no collusion” with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election outcome. He said it’s been “proven” there’s no collusion.

Actually, Mr. President, nothing has been proven. There’s no proof that the Trump campaign did work in cahoots with the Russians, or it didn’t. That is what Mueller and his legal team are trying to ascertain.

So … talk to the special counsel, Mr. President. You’ve got nothing to hide? Say it directly to Robert Mueller.

national news

A new AG is on his/her way?

Donald John Trump Sr.’ s “fine-tuned machine” has hit another pot hole.

It has opened up in the Department of Justice. The attorney general, Jeff Sessions, is now getting skewered by foes on both sides of the political divide.

Democrats detest Sessions mostly for partisan reasons; now even some Republicans are turning on him. Some of them dislike his recusal from the Russian 2016 election meddling investigation, which led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller; others dislike him because he rescinded an Obama administration memo that allowed states to determine how to enforce laws governing the use of marijuana.

As The Hill reports: “When you have Republicans calling for you to step down and you’re in a Republican administration just entering your second year, that’s trouble. He’s really on borrowed time,” said Brian Darling, a Republican strategist and former Senate aide.

Donald Trump himself is angry at Sessions. Why? The recusal, that’s why. The president once said that if he’d known Sessions would have recused himself from the Russia probe he would have selected someone else.

Now we hear from the media that Trump sent White House counsel Don McGahn to the DOJ to try to talk Sessions out of recusing himself from the Russia investigation.

All of this is highly unusual. It borders on bizarre. It also speaks — yet again — the disarray that has become the hallmark of Donald Trump’s administration.

He called it a “fine-tuned machine.” It is nothing of the sort. It is a jalopy in need of a top-to-bottom overhaul.

national news, political news

Muddy probe may be getting a lot muddier

Robert Mueller is up to his armpits in issues to peel away as he seeks to learn the truth about allegations that the Donald Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 election.

Now comes a book, “Fire and Fury,” by journalist Michael Wolff, in which a former key Trump aide — Stephen Bannon — has tossed out words like “unpatriotic” and “treasonous” to describe a meeting between Don Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer.

And, oh yes, it’s getting a lot muddier than it already has gotten.

Mueller, the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department, is now getting an even fuller plate. He might be buried up to his eyebrows in these issues relating to the allegations of collusion.

The president has issued a “cease and desist” order to Bannon; no more talking about the book, he has ordered. He’s also trying — in a stunning example of prior restraint — to keep “Fire and Fury” from being published.

And the media are continuing to report even more astonishing developments. Such as White House counsel Don McGahn being ordered to talk Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of recusing himself from looking into the Russia meddling matter. Um, who issued the order? Might it have been, ohhh, the president himself?

Trump has torched Bannon for speaking to Wolff. That, too, is fascinating in the extreme, considering that Wolff had been given astonishing access to White House sources.

Bannon’s view of the president? He continues to “support” Trump’s agenda and says there’s no daylight between them on the key issues of the day.

My head is spinning like Linda Blair’s noggin in “The Exorcist.”

I am believing that someone has poured sand into the president’s “fine-tuned machine.”

Moreover, the special counsel’s investigation well might have been given more fuel.

I cannot keep up with it. I need a good night’s sleep.

national news, political news

Imagine top aides for Obama, ‘W’ turning on the boss

Stephen Bannon’s assertion in a new book that Donald Trump Jr. might have committed an act of “treason” by meeting with a Russian lawyer in June 2016 brings to mind a fascinating observation.

It didn’t come from me originally. I heard it from Jeffrey Toobin, a legal analyst for CNN. Toobin said it would be unconscionable for David Axelrod to turn on Barack Obama or Karl Rove to do the same thing to George W. Bush.

Those two former White House strategists and key political aides were loyal to the boss and remain so to this day. Bannon presents another situation altogether.

He has said that Trump Jr.’s meeting with the Russian legal eagle constituted potentially “unpatriotic” and “treasonous” activity. They met, according to a book, “Fire and Fury,” written by David Wolff, to discuss dirt on Hillary Rodham Clinton. The inference is that Don Jr. might have colluded with Russians seeking to influence the 2016 presidential election outcome.

The revelation made public has enraged the president. He says Bannon “lost his mind” when he was fired from his job as chief strategist for Donald Trump. He argues that Bannon had little influence or impact on the White House.

We might be witnessing an unprecedented unraveling of a presidential administration. It does appear to be unusual in the extreme that someone who once had the president’s ear to turn on him in the manner that has occurred.

What’s more, the reaction from the president does have the appearance of near-panic within the White House.

Toobin does pose a fascinating query. Can you imagine Presidents Obama and Bush being torpedoed in this fashion?

I cannot.

national news

Trump torches Bannon

I guess Donald Trump and Stephen Bannon won’t be exchanging Christmas cards any longer.

Bannon, the former chief strategist in the Trump White House, has decided to turn on his former boss-friend by writing in a new book that Don Trump Jr.’s meeting with a Russian lawyer during the 2016 presidential campaign was “unpatriotic” and “treasonous.” Oh, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former campaign chief Paul Manafort were there, too.

The president’s response may go down in political annals as a classic. He fired off a statement that declared that Bannon has “lost his mind,” that he had little to do with the victory that Trump scored in the 2016 election and that Bannon was the primary reason Republican U.S. Senate candidate Roy Moore lost an Alabama election he was supposed to win.

As one CNN analyst said, Trump in effect turned a flamethrower on his former top White House aide.

According to CNN: “Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my Presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job, he lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates, often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican party,” Trump said in the statement. 

Well … I guess this means Trump no longer has any relationship with Bannon. To think that Bannon declared after he was let go from his White House job that he would be the president’s best friend and most loyal political ally. Bannon pledged to carry Trump’s message forward.

What does Bannon’s published statement mean to the investigation that special counsel Robert Mueller is conducting? Hmm. I suppose it might mean that it piques the curiosity of Mueller’s legal team enough to question Bannon extensively on what he means by “unpatriotic” and “treasonous.”

Oh, the hits just keep coming.

national news

Hoping for best … expecting a whole lot less

I won’t say I’m expecting the worst in 2018, because the worst — as I perceive it — is too hideous to ponder.

But the presidency of Donald J. Trump didn’t get off to an auspicious start at the beginning of 2017, no matter what he has said to the contrary.

  • Trump promised to build a “big beautiful wall” across our southern border. He hasn’t — thank goodness!
  • The president vowed to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act. Not done. Thanks for that, too.
  • Trump vowed to unify the nation after winning what he called a “historic” victory in 2016. Do you feel unified? Aw, me neither.
  • The president has turned the Republican Party from the Party of Lincoln to the Party of Trump. How does that sound?
  • The president vowed to “make America great again.” He hasn’t.

He will continue to use his Twitter account as an instrument for insults. He is going to bluster and prod North Korea’s nutty dictator, which likely could produce a bloody armed conflict with a nuclear-armed nation.

And throughout all of this the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department to examine allegations of collusion with Russian government agents will continue. The counsel, Robert Mueller, is working to piece together a many-faceted jigsaw puzzle to determine whether the Trump presidential campaign worked in cahoots with Russians to influence the 2016 election. Trump keeps saying there’s nothing to it, yet he continues to impugn the integrity of Mueller and his team.

The year that’s about to pass has produced a maddening, mind-blowing and stunning array of missteps, mistakes and misdeeds. Many of the president’s top advisers have left, willingly or otherwise.

The 2016 election installed a man in the White House with no prior government experience at any level. His ignorance of government certainly has shown itself. He hasn’t yet filled many top executive branch offices. Federal judgeships have gone unfilled. The government has run in a sort of stop-and-go fashion.

Yet, the president touts the “fine-tuned machine” he has assembled. Really?

All this happened in just a little less than a year. That year is soon to be history.

I truly want the best for the country. To be candid, I don’t care about Trump’s personal success, as I fear that what the president considers an achievement will be bad for the rest of us.

Moreover, I also want the new year to bring some semblance of optimism. I fear that we’re going to be sorely disappointed.