Tag Archives: special counsel

Donald Trump, national news

Waiting for many more ‘other shoes’ to drop

As I watch the Donald Trump administration continue to writhe and twist itself into something unrecognizable, I keep thinking about all the things we don’t know about the president’s campaign and some of the baggage it is lugging around.

We have those Trump tax returns, which the then-candidate refused to release in 2016, flouting four decades of political tradition.

Nor do we know whether there’s been any violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, the provision that prohibits presidents from taking gifts from foreign governments.

We have all those questions about possible campaign violations regarding the payments to (a) a porn star who alleges a one-night stand with the future president and (b) a Playboy centerfold model who alleges she had a nearly yearlong affair with the same future president. Trump paid these women big money to keep quiet — about relationships that Trump said never occurred. Go figure.

Is “collusion” with the Russians against the law or not? If not, then what about conspiracy, obstruction of justice?

I will continue to have faith that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, will be able to figure all this out in due course.

If he’s allowed to do the job he has been appointed to do.

Proceed, Mr. Mueller.

national news

WH provides phony cover for Trump

White House senior aides are swilling the Kool-Aid that makes them lie for the president of the United States.

They keep saying that Donald J. Trump is just dying to talk to special counsel Robert Mueller’s team that is examining whether the Trump presidential campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our democratic system in 2016.

Does anyone really believe Trump wants to talk to Mueller? Does anyone believe that he can skate through an interview with a meticulous lawyer who has been working for more than a year in search of the truth behind this matter?

I do not believe it for a minute. Indeed, Trump has been getting plenty of armchair legal advice from Republicans to stay as far away from Mueller as possible.

That is far closer to the truth than the fiction being tossed out there by the White House staff and by Trump’s legal team.

Mueller appears to be closing in … on something or someone! I have no clue where he is going with this probe.

If the president were to ask me for my advice, I likely should say: Don’t do it, Mr. President. Then again, given that I detest the president, maybe I would succumb to the mischievous angels on my shoulder and tell him: Sure thing, go for it!

However, I am nowhere near the center of this tumult. I do believe that the Trump/White House legal team is lying about the president’s so-called “desire” to talk to Mueller.

national news

Collusion: still a wide open question

Donald J. Trump keeps insisting that “there was no collusion.”

He does so repeatedly. With vigor. With passion. With emphasis.

My gut tells me the president is protesting far too much. He calls special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation a “rigged witch hunt.” He says the allegations against his 2016 presidential campaign are “phony,” that they’re a “hoax” concocted by Democratic Party pols who are still sore at losing the election two years ago.

Let’s take a breather, shall we?

Mueller’s investigation is going to conclude eventually. I hope it’s soon. To that extent, I agree with the president that I want the probe to wind down sooner rather than later.

But … and this is critical: The investigation must be allowed to reach its conclusion under its own power.

Mueller is not the partisan hack that Trump and his allies accuse him of being. He is a dedicated public servant. He served as FBI director under two administrations, Republican and Democrat. He took office right after 9/11 and stayed on for a couple of years after George W. Bush left office; he served well under the Obama administration.

The president’s constant bitching about “witch hunts” and “phony” allegations ring hollow. It’s instructive that Mueller has imposed air-tight discipline on his legal team while Donald Trump’s team keeps yapping about “corrupt investigation” and threats of impeaching the deputy attorney general who appointed Mueller to the special counsel job.

I am aware that there’s nothing illegal about colluding with a foreign government. This investigation, though, won’t concern itself with whether anyone broke the law if they worked in tandem with Russian goons who attacked this country’s political system.

The public needs to focus also on whether it was right, presuming that Mueller’s team reaches that conclusion.

If the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, then we’re going to witness the unraveling of an administration. The Mueller team will deliver its findings in due course.

If it determines there was no collusion, as the president insists, then I fear the tumult won’t subside. I am inclined to accept whatever conclusion Mueller reaches.

If only Americans could rely on Donald J. Trump to accept such findings and then move on. He won’t.

This much I know already: Robert Mueller is still hard at work seeking answers to questions that have lingered since the 2016 election. Let the man and his legal team finish their task.

national news

One more time: stop blaming Barack Obama

Donald J. Trump is trying to deflect attention from the glaring light of accountability.

He’s been firing off messages via Twitter that say that the Russian meddling in the 2016 election is President Barack H. Obama’s fault. Such as this:

These Russian individuals did their work during the Obama years. Why didnā€™t Obama do something about it? Because he thought Crooked Hillary Clinton would win, thatā€™s why. Had nothing to do with the Trump Administration, but Fake News doesnā€™t want to report the truth, as usual!

He is right that it had “nothing to do with the Trump Administration.” It had everything to do with the Trump campaign.

That’s the point, Mr. President. Robert Mueller has obtained the indictments of 12 Russian military goons who conspired to influence the 2016 election outcome. Whether the previous administration did enough, if anything, to stop it is totally beside the point.

If the goons did what the indictments allege, then it’s on them.

The next big answer will determine whether the Trump campaign helped them in any way.

Right there is the total relevance of these indictments. None of this has a damn thing to do with the Obama administration.

legal news

Yes, POTUS can ‘obstruct justice’

I am not a lawyer, but you know that already.

However, I know enough about history to understand this basic truth: Presidents of the United States can “obstruct justice.” Indeed, two of them — Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon — were accused of obstructing justice. One of them got impeached partly on that accusation; the other came within a whisker of being impeached before he resigned the presidency.

Thus, I am baffled in the extreme by lawyers serving the current president who says he cannot obstruct justice because, well, he’s the president. They are saying in effect that Donald J. Trump is above the law.

I beg to differ. I offer a strenuous objection to the notion that the special counsel, Robert Mueller, cannot determine that Trump obstructed justice in the hunt for the truth behind “the Russia thing.”

I don’t quite understand the logic being offered by Trump’s legal team that suggests Mueller cannot accuse the president of obstructing justice. Trump himself has acknowledged on network television that he fired FBI Director James Comey because of “the Russia thing”; then he told Russian visitors to the Oval Office that his dismissal of Comey had relieved him of pressure from the Russia probe and whether the Russian government meddled in our 2016 presidential election.

To my way of thinking, that constitutes at the very least circumstantial evidence of obstruction, but I know that Mueller’s team doesn’t operate on circumstance; it needs hard evidence. Whether it comes up with anything actionable remains to be seen.

As the nation watches this investigation lurch toward some conclusion, many of us are conflicted about the argument being offered that the president can do anything he wants — because he is the president.

Richard Nixon famously told David Frost that very thing, that the president cannot break the law simply by virtue of his office. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee eventually saw it quite differently when it approved articles of impeachment against the president.

I am pretty sure the law hasn’t changed since the 1970s. The current president took the same oath to follow the law that all of his predecessors took. The law in my view allows for presidents to be accused of obstructing justice.

legal news, national news, political news

AG might seek a new job

If I were U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions — and I am so glad I am not — I would be looking for a new job.

As in right now. Immediately if not sooner. But I am not altogether certain a new attorney general would serve the public interest as it regards an ongoing investigation into the president’s 2016 campaign.

The president of the United States, Donald John Trump, has tweeted once again that he regrets picking the former Republican senator from Alabama to be the nation’s top law enforcement officer.

Why is that? Oh, it’s just Sessions decided to do the right thing by recusing himself from any Justice Department investigation into the Russia matter and the Russians’ meddling in our 2016 presidential election.

I am no fan of the AG, but on this matter he made precisely the correct decision. He had served on Trump’s political team; he was central to the president-elect’s transition to the presidency. Had he remained involved in the Russia matter, he would have been in charge of investigating himself. How does the attorney general do such a thing without compromisingĀ  a sensitive and complex investigation? He cannot. That’s why he bailed on the Russia probe and turned it over to his deputy AG, Rod Rosenstein.

Donald Trump, though, keeps yapping that he should have picked someone else to lead the DOJ, had he known Sessions was going to recuse himself.

Sessions might be inclined to want out. But there’s this thing involving the integrity of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Would a new AG be as faithful to the appearance of conflict of interest that Sessions was when he recused himself?

Hey, maybe Jeff Sessions ought to wait for Trump to fire him.

Then he can watch along with the rest of us as the crap hits the fan.

legal news, national news

No, Mr. VPOTUS, it’s not yet time to ‘wrap it up’

Uh, this note is for Vice President Mike Pence.

Mr. Vice President, pardon this disagreement from a blogger out here in Flyover Country, but it’s not yet time for special counsel Robert Mueller to conclude his investigation into what Donald Trump once called “the Russia thing.”

Indeed, sir, he needs to continue pursuing all the angles, leads and hunches he has in order to reach a conclusion that we all can presume is fair — and complete!

I get that it’s been a year, as you noted in your recent interview, since this investigation began. Do I need to remind you, Mr. Vice President, that the probe into Hillary Clinton’s email matter lasted far longer? Or how about the Benghazi probe that went on for two-plus years? Nothing came of either of those congressional probes, Mr. Vice President — which I’m sure you’re aware of, right?

Did you or your fellow Republicans join Democrats then in calling for an end to those fruitless investigations? Of course you didn’t! Y’all wanted it to go on forever. And ever. And then some!

The special counsel has a lot more ground to plow regarding that lawyer of the president’s, Michael Cohen. He also wants to talk directly to the president himself, who keeps changing his mind on whether he wants to submit to questioning from the special counsel.

You said the administration has provided “millions of documents.” Do you think Mueller and his team can read all that paperwork over a weekend? It takes time, Mr. Vice President, for the legal eagles to pore through all that stuff.

So, give it to them. Let them finish their work on their schedule, not yours, or the president’s or any of your supporters.

I’m not one of them. I want a thorough investigation to reach a conclusion under its own power.

With that, sir, I’ll close with this. I didn’t vote for you in 2016, but you still work for me, as well as for the 65 million-plus Americans who voted for Hillary.

Therefore, as your boss, I implore you to, um … keep your trap shut!

national news

How do we keep the lies straight?

My head is continuing to spin on a swivel as I watch and listen to the explanations, excuses and walking back of statements regarding Donald Trump, Michael Cohen, Rudy Guiliani and Stormy Daniels.

Here is what is most confusing to me: Does a lawyer who works for his or her client do anything “on the client’s behalf” without telling the client?

I refer to that hush money payment that the lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to Stormy Daniels, the porn star who alleges having a one-night tryst with Donald Trump (Cohen’s client). Trump says he didn’t have sex with Daniels … but Cohen made the payment anyway.

Enter the former New York mayor, Giuliani, who now serves on the president’s legal team.

Trump has denied any knowledge of Cohen’s payment to Daniels to keep her quiet about the (alleged) tumble she took with Trump. Then the ex-mayor says Trump knew about it after all. Giuliani adds that Cohen made the payment without telling Trump precisely why he made it.

Huh? Do I have that essentially correct?

A lawyer worth a damn — and it’s not clear to me that Cohen fits that description — doesn’t shell out a six-figure payment to someone on the client’s behalf without telling him in the moment, if not beforehand. Isn’t that what good lawyers do?

I’m not a lawyer. That’s patently obvious. Another lawyer, though, is certainly paying careful attention to all of this. He’s a good one, too. That would be special counsel Robert Mueller, who has hired a legal team that is poring over all of the bobbing, weaving, dodging and ducking.

Stay alert, Mr. Special Counsel.

legal news, national news

What? Rudy exposes another Trump lie?

The hits just keep on comin’, man.

Get a load of this latest offering from the man formerly known as America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, who’s now taken on a new gig as Donald Trump’s lawyer tasked with negotiating a “quick” end to Robert Mueller’s investigation into “the Russia thing.”

Giuliani told Fox News’s Sean Hannity this week that Trump repaid another lawyer, Michael Cohen, who had forked over $130,000 to the porn star who allegedly had that one-night sexual tryst a dozen years ago with the man who would become president of the United States.

But … wait! Trump had said he didn’t know anything about the hush money Cohen paid to Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about the fling she allegedly took with Trump in 2006 … which, of course, Trump has denied ever occurred.

So, where we do we stand?

Trump’s denial about Cohen’s payment to Stormy Daniels has been flushed away, apparently. Trump’s denial of the tryst is still on shaky ground, given that Cohen paid Daniels a substantial amount to shut her up about an event Trump said didn’t happen.

Does anyone think any of this is going to persuade Robert Mueller to end his probe quickly? Is this veteran lawyer and former FBI director going to call it quits on this probe just because Rudy Giuliani is on board with the rest of the Trump legal team?

I, um, think not.

national news

Not even POTUS is above the law

The chatter is building around the Russia probe being conducted by special counsel Robert Mueller.

It involves some aspects about whether the president of the United States can be compelled to do things the rest of us would have to do under threat of arrest and imprisonment.

We all have heard it said that “no one is above the law” and that “we are a nation of laws and not of men.”

Mueller’s probe into Donald Trump’s campaign and whether there was “collusion” with Russians who interfered in our 2016 presidential election appears headed down some new territory. There also are questions about whether the president might have obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey, who was conducting an investigation of his own.

The special counsel has reportedly prepared a few dozen questions he wants to ask the president.

Mueller reportedly has told the president’s legal team he might subpoena Trump to appear before a grand jury. There is some arguments being offered that president’s cannot be forced to testify.

There even has been some talk that presidents are shielded against indictment.

This leads me back to a premise I noted early in this blog post.

If presidents are subject to the same laws as the rest of us, then Donald Trump should be compelled to testify before a grand jury. If the special counsel finds an offense that rises to the level of an indictment, then the president should be held accountable if the criminal complaint involves an act committed — allegedly — by the nation’s head of state.

The idea that we are a nation of laws and that no one is above the law isn’t a quaint notion that has become obsolete in the 21st century.

I am not going to suggest that Donald Trump is guilty of anything. I merely want the process to conclude in a manner that examines everyone’s involvement — and that includes the president of the United States of America.