Tag Archives: Russia probe

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POTUS can stop declaring ‘no obstruction’

Well, that was a remarkable non-event.

Former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III called a brief press event today to tell the world a few things.

He is closing up his shop and going back to becoming a private citizen. Mueller said he will not talk to Congress, as he has said all he is going to say about the 22-month investigation into whether Donald Trump’s presidential campaign colluded with the Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016.

Oh, and he said that he did not clear the president of obstruction of justice, leaving the door wide open — still! — for Congress to do whatever it deems necessary to correct whatever ills it deems need correcting.

I want to join the millions of Americans who grateful for the work turned in by the former FBI director. He is, as one of Trump’s lawyers called him, “an American hero.” He is a patriot and a man of impeccable integrity and character.

As for his decision to forgo any congressional testimony, I have ruminated a bit about that and I accept his decision to call it good. The 448-page report he filed at the end of his probe ought to serve as the defining document of what he concluded.

Mueller and his team did not find sufficient evidence that Trump and his campaign conspired to collude with the Russians. He also said that despite evidence of obstruction of justice that he would follow Department of Justice policy and decline to indict a sitting president.

I accept those findings, too.

He also did not “exonerate” the president of obstruction of justice. Do I believe Donald Trump’s hysterical claims of “no collusion, no obstruction”? Or do I accept the more studied and serious analysis from Mueller that had there been grounds for exoneration he would have said so? I’ll go with Mueller. Trump, meanwhile, can yammer, stammer and blather all he wants about there being “no obstruction.”

Mueller has left it clear that the issue of obstruction now rests in the laps of 100 U.S. senators and 435 U.S. House members.

They have more work to do.

As for Mueller’s work, it’s over.

Thank you again, Mr. Special Counsel. You have performed a marvelous public service.

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Mueller wants to talk … in private

U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler made news last night by revealing that special counsel Robert Mueller wants to talk to the committee, but in private, behind closed doors, no media, no cameras, no members of the public.

My first reaction was to say, “Hold on! You need to talk to us, Mr. Special Counsel, about how you concluded that the president of the United States didn’t conspire to collude with Russians who attacked our electoral system and how you couldn’t ‘exonerate’ him of obstruction of justice.”

Then I thought about it.

Mueller, a former FBI director and a man known to be a serious lawyer of the highest integrity, said he doesn’t want to star in a media spectacle. He wants to be able to talk candidly with the House panel, which will release a full — and I presume unredacted — transcript of his testimony.

In my version of worldly perfection, I want Mueller to sit before the nation and talk to us directly. I also know I cannot dictate how these things should be handled.

I barely can remember what Mueller’s voice sounds like, it’s been so long since he’s been heard in public. During the 22 months he probed the issue of collusion with the Russian election hackers, he remained steadfast in his silence. Meanwhile, Donald Trump was all over the place, proclaiming the investigation to be nothing but a “witch hunt” led by “18 angry Democrats.” Trump has continued to make a total ass of himself, but Mueller has kept his silence — mostly.

He did write that letter complaining about the way Attorney General William Barr described the nature of Mueller’s findings.

I want to respect Mueller’s intention to stay out of the political spotlight. Lord knows committee members from both parties would do their share of posturing and pontificating once the TV cameras clicked on. Mueller sounds as if he wants no part of that charade.

If the Judiciary chairman is correct and Mueller agrees to talk to the committee in private, then my sincere hope is that we’ll be able to see the complete transcript immediately.

That is, unless Mueller changes his mind and decides to talk openly in front of the nation that has paid a hefty price for a serious investigation into whether the president is a crook.

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It was never a ‘witch hunt,’ Mr. POTUS

Donald J. Trump appears set to ride the “witch hunt” horse all the way to his final day in the Oval Office, which I hope is sooner rather than later . . . if you get my drift.

Special counsel Robert Mueller concluded his 22-month investigation into alleged “collusion” with Russians who attacked our election in 2016. He said there was no prosecutable evidence of a conspiracy to collude. Fine . . . sorta.

Then he left the door open to a possible obstruction of justice complaint brought by someone other than the special counsel’s office. Mueller apparently decided he couldn’t under Justice Department rules file a complaint against a sitting president.

Along the way, Mueller’s team produced many indictments, a few guilty pleas, a number of convictions and some prison sentences for Trump campaign team members.

That is not a “witch hunt.” Yet the president appears intent on hammering away incessantly with the mantra that has been shown to be anything but what he calls it. Attorney General William Barr, for crying out loud, has said that Mueller did not engage in a “witch hunt” as he searched for the truth.

I had hoped against hope that Trump would accept the findings that Mueller reached and then gone on with the task of “making America great again.”

He proclaims himself to be cleared of collusion and obstruction. Yet he continues his loathsome attacks on the character of Mueller, former FBI director James Comey, former CIA director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and a whole host of second-tier officials who — by the way — have been critical of the president.

Witch hunt?

Not a chance. Nothing of the sort.

The more Donald Trump bitches and moans about a legitimate and necessary investigation — and the more the president stonewalls Congress — the more culpable he sounds.

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Mueller holds the key to Trump impeachment

It’s not yet clear whether the former special counsel, Robert Mueller, will talk openly and publicly to Congress about that investigation he conducted into The Russia Thing.

I surely want him to take an oath to tell the truth and then answer questions from House and Senate committees about how he arrived at his findings. He determined that Trump and his 2016 presidential campaign did not conspire to collude with Russians who attacked our electoral system. To borrow a quote from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell: Case closed.

The other question involves obstruction of justice.

Here’s where I believe Mueller’s testimony could be the Mother of Game Changers as it regards Donald Trump.

Someone on a pertinent committee is going to ask Mueller — a top-notch lawyer and a former FBI director — this question: Did the president of the United States break the law by obstructing justice in the investigation into the Russian interference?

Mueller has said he could not file a formal complaint against the president of the United States, following Department of Justice guidelines. He did not “clear” Trump of any crime. Mueller merely said he couldn’t indict Trump because he is the president.

But the question is out there: Did the POTUS break the law?

There well could be a game of rhetorical gymnastics as Mueller tries to dodge the question. It might take an equally nimble senator or House member to flush the answer out of Mueller.

However, he if says “yes, the president broke the law,” then I believe we well might have grounds to impeach POTUS.

However, and this remains a huge caveat: Would such an admission by Robert Mueller actually shake Senate Republicans loose from Trump’s political vise grip to put the president in jeopardy if an indictment finds its way to the Senate, where the president would stand trial?

My hope would be that it would. My fear is that GOP cowardice would remain too strong to toss aside.

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Trump’s tax returns: the gift that keeps on giving

We need to see Donald John Trump’s tax returns. There can be no doubt about that.

Is the president legally obligated to provide them? No. He certainly is not. However, political tradition dating back more than four decades has resulted in presidents and candidates for president to allow the public full access to their personal financial condition.

Trump, though, keeps changing his tune. He once said he would release them once the Internal Revenue Service completed an audit; then he backed away from that pledge; now he is resisting efforts from Congress to obtain them in accordance with the law.

Why is this important?

He campaigned for president on the basis of the fabulous wealth he said he accrued. Trump kept boasting about how he is “really rich.” Now we hear from The New York Times that the real estate mogul lost more than a billion bucks for a decade ending in 1994, which seems to belie Trump’s assertion of his business brilliance.

More to the point, though, are the questions that continue to lurk out there regarding his business dealings with Russia. He said he does not do business with Russians. Those who are close to Trump say otherwise. Who’s telling the truth?

And, yes, the Russia issue is pertinent because of all those questions about the Russian involvement/interference in our 2016 presidential election.

Trump has thumbed his nose at countless political norms since announcing his presidential candidacy. One of them has been to withhold his tax returns from public view. There must be some reasons that Trump won’t reveal them: He isn’t as rich as he says he is; he gives next to nothing to charity; he doesn’t pay his share of federal taxes; he has extensive business dealings with those nasty Russians.

And yet, the president keeps insisting that there’s nothing to see. It’s time to move on.

Well, if there’s nothing to see, why doesn’t Trump just let us make that call for ourselves?

I believe there is plenty to see. That likely explains everything about what Trump is hiding from public view.

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No, Mr. Leader, the case is not ‘over’!

Listen to me, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. I’m going to say something you’ve heard already, but you choose to ignore.

The case against Donald Trump is not “over,” as you said on the Senate floor today. There’s more to learn about that obstruction of justice matter.

I get that the collusion case is done. Finished. Special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings on that matter aren’t exactly going down well with all Americans; I’m one of them who wishes he had reached a different conclusion as to whether the president’s campaign conspired to collude with the Russians who attacked our electoral system. He didn’t. However, since I have extolled Mueller’s integrity and professionalism, I am left to accept his findings.

Mr. Majority Leader, the obstruction case is still gaping wide open. We need to get to the bottom of what the president did and how Mueller concluded that he wasn’t “exonerated” of allegations that he has obstructed the investigation into the Russia matter.

You, sir, have added to the disgrace of your own high office. I’ve already said on this blog many times already that the president has disgraced his office. Now it’s your turn, Sen. McConnell.

Step aside and let your colleagues in the Senate and down hall in the U.S. House of Representatives complete their probe into obstruction, per Mueller’s suggestion in his lengthy report.

The case isn’t over.

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370 former prosecutors all say it: Trump committed crimes

Three hundred-seventy former federal prosecutors can’t all be wrong . . . can they?

They all have declared, according to Politico, that Donald Trump would have been indicted for obstruction of justice if he were just an ordinary citizen — and not the president of the United States.

Hmm. You know what that means? It means that when special counsel appears before congressional judiciary committees — in both the House and Senate — he should be asked this set of questions:

Did the president commit a crime of obstruction of justice? If yes, why — specifically — did you decide not to file a criminal complaint? If the answer is no, then show us the evidence that led you to that conclusion?

Mueller is a cautious, careful and highly skilled professional prosecutor. He won’t fly off the handle.

However, the former prosecutors who have signed on to the notion that Trump would have been indicted had he not held the highest office in the land must not be discredited, dismissed, or disparaged.

Which is what Trump surely will do as he seeks to ridicule them.

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Why block Mueller if there’s nothing to hide?

I admit readily at times to being a little slow on the uptake.

That said, I am left to wonder: If the president of the United States has been “totally exonerated” of any criminal activity, if he is as pure as fresh snow, if he has been the victim of the worst “witch hunt” since the Salem Witch Trials, why is he suggesting that Robert Mueller “should not testify” before congressional committees?

Robert Mueller is the special counsel who filed that 448-page report that cleared Donald Trump of conspiracy to collude with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016. However, he took a pass on whether the president obstructed justice. Mueller did not clear Trump of obstructing, but lacked sufficient evidence, he said, to file a criminal complaint.

Is that “exoneration”? Nope. It isn’t. Mueller said so in his report.

But the president keeps saying he’s in the clear. He keeps yapping about the witch hunt. He now endorses the notion that his term should be extended two years to make up for the time “stolen” by Mueller’s probe into The Russia Thing.

Why not let the former FBI director and a man of impeccable integrity tell Congress what he knows? Hey, the president says he’s in the clear. Let’s allow Mueller to affirm what the president has said.

Oh, wait! Except that he won’t do anything of the sort.

OK, that’s why Trump is digging in against Mueller talking to Congress. I get it.

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Trump tempts political fate by ordering witnesses to stay silent

I just have to ask: Is Donald Trump committing an act of potential political suicide by refusing to allow witnesses from his administration to testify before congressional committees?

Another president, Richard Nixon, sought to play the same card in 1974. It cost him bigly. President Nixon told House Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino he would get nothing more from the administration regarding the Watergate matter.

Rodino wouldn’t accept that. He was able to force the president to turn over pertinent material related to the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters in June 1972. The rest, as they say, is history. The Judiciary panel approved articles of impeachment and then the president resigned.

Forty-five years later, Donald Trump is seeking to play the same hand. He is telling the current House Judiciary chairman, Jerrold Nadler, that he will withhold information from that panel as it seeks to uncover the truth into allegations of obstruction of justice into the Russia matter that’s been in all the papers of late.

Nadler doesn’t strike me as being any more likely to cave in to this president’s demands than Rodino was in 1974 when Richard Nixon tried to bully him.

I among those Americans who does not favor impeaching Trump. I want the House and the Senate to do their work. Special counsel Robert Mueller appears headed to Capitol Hill eventually to talk to both legislative chambers.

I want Mueller to state on the record whether he believes Trump committed a crime, whether he obstructed justice. If he won’t say it, well, we need to accept what we won’t get. Then again, if he says that president did commit a crime of obstruction, but that Mueller just couldn’t commit to issuing a criminal complaint, well . . . then we have a ballgame.

Richard Nixon’s stonewalling ended badly for his presidency in 1974. Donald Trump’s reprise of that strategy well could doom his own presidency.

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Barr has become a big disappointment … dang it!

William Barr came into office as U.S. attorney general bringing a glimmer of hope — even among some of the nation’s most vigorous foes of Donald Trump, the man who nominated him to be the AG.

I was one of those who had hope that Barr would be a grownup, that he would conduct himself with professional impartiality, taking seriously the oath to which he swore to be our attorney general, not be an a**-coverer for the president of the United States.

The AG has let me down.

Hard, man!

His testimony this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee was an exercise in obfuscation and evasion. Then he did something even worse: He refused to appear before the House Judiciary Committee and answer questions from that panel’s team of legal eagles.

I don’t know what I was thinking, now that I look back on what happened prior to Barr’s nomination.

Trump fired Jeff Sessions as AG because Sessions refused to act as a Trump sycophant; that’s why he recused himself from the Russia investigation. He couldn’t under Justice Department rules take part in an investigation into an activity in which he was a principal player. Sessions served on Trump’s campaign team, then on his transition team, which the DOJ was probing with regard to allegations of collusion and other potential misdeeds.

So he walked away, handed the matter over to his No. 2 at DOJ, Rod Rosenstein, who then appointed Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel. All of that enraged Trump, as we have since learned.

Now he has installed his “boy” at DOJ, William Barr.

Barr’s record as attorney general near the end of President George H.W. Bush’s term suggested to me that he would be the right man for the country, not necessarily for the president.

Silly me. It turns out he is the right man for Trump and he is wrong for the country.

I wanted to feel good about Barr. Sadly, he has let me down.

Dammit, anyway!