Tag Archives: collusion

national news

Is the AG lengthening the list of redacted items?

U.S. Attorney General William Barr is going to release the Robert Mueller Report in a couple of weeks.

Mueller’s findings into the Russian collusion/conspiracy/obstruction matter are going to be made public. Good deal, yes? I hope so. Although I am feeling a bit of alarm.

Barr is going to redact much of it. He will keep secret national security matters and grand jury testimony and evidence. I get that.

But wait. There’s more. He also intends to withhold informatin that deals with ongoing investigations. Huh?

Also, we now we hear that Barr has decided to keep secret information that might have a negative impact on the reputations of  “peripheral” figures. Eh? What does that mean? Who decides who is “peripheral”? Is that Barr’s call? Should it be Barr’s call?

Congressional Democrats want the nearly 400-page report to be made public. As in all of it. Without redactions.

I can live without knowing the classified information and grand jury testimony evidence. The national security information is sensitive for a damn good reason. Grand jurors are sworn to secrecy and the testimony they hear should be kept secret too, per the oath they take.

However, the attorney general seems to be spreading his net over more of the Mueller report than he initially intended.

I’ll implore the AG once again: Make the report public. We paid for it. We need to see what our money purchased and whether it was worth the public investment.

national news

‘Collusion delusion’ becomes new Trump mantra

Donald Trump has produced what sounds like a 2020 campaign slogan, referring to the “collusion delusion” as he continues his touchdown dance after Robert Mueller concluded his investigation into The Russia Thing.

It’s a knee-slapper! Don’t you think? Well, me neither. The president is reciting it and getting lots of laughs, cheers, whoops and hollers from the adoring crowds.

It is good to put a couple of issues into perspective.

First of all, special counsel Mueller did not say that there was “no collusion.” He said, according to Attorney General William Barr, that he found insufficient evidence to produce a complaint of collusion with the Russians against the president and his 2016 campaign team.

We haven’t yet seen Mueller’s report. William Barr today said he intends to release the report, with redactions, in a couple of weeks. We don’t yet know what precisely Barr is going to black out from public view. He has talked openly about grand jury testimony, issues related to national security and statements that mention individuals who aren’t formally charged with wrongdoing.

My sincere and fervent hope is that the AG releases as much as of the report as possible. He has pledged transparency. I want to believe him.

Absent any knowledge of what Mueller has concluded, it is impossible — even for the president — to say categorically that he has been “exonerated” at any level regarding any allegation that has been leveled against him.

Trump is incapable of being magnanimous in victory. He vows revenge against those who he says have done him wrong. That includes damn near everyone who didn’t vote for him, or so it sounds to me. He continues to label the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt” that failed. He continues to refer to the media as the “enemy of the people.” Trump hurls despicable personal insults at congressional Democrats; House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has become his latest target.

One more point: We haven’t seen anything yet about obstruction of justice. Barr said that Mueller did not “exonerate” the president, even though he did not find sufficient evidence to conclude that he did obstruct justice. Once again, we need to see precisely what evidence Mueller collected and we need to be able to assess how he reached his conclusion.

Yet the president of the United States, as he is prone to do, is getting way out in front of this still-developing story.

Hey, he still has his campaign slogan that he thinks will serve him well. “Collusion delusion” it is. My sense is that Donald Trump is wallowing in his own delusion as well.

national news

Chairman Schiff lays it on the line

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I have watched this soliloquy a couple of times. I consider it quite compelling.

The speaker is House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat who Donald Trump has ridiculed with a tasteless nickname. He also has bastardized his name.

Schiff responds in this video to his nine Republican committee colleagues who have signed a letter demanding his resignation from the committee chairmanship.

Schiff responded with a controlled sense of seething at the gall of his GOP colleagues, one of whom happens to be Devin Nunes, who chaired the committee until this year.

Schiff stands by his belief that there was “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russians who interfered with our electoral system. He recites chapter and verse the events of that campaign that has caused so much angst.

Hey, it’s only a little more than 5 minutes long. I found it fascinating. You might, too.

national news

Congressional toxicity is flaring to dangerous level

So . . . just how toxic is the atmosphere in Congress, if not in all of Washington, D.C.?

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff provided a critical example.

Committee Republicans today demanded that Schiff resign as chairman of the committee. Donald Trump has called on Schiff to quit Congress altogether. GOP Intelligence Committee member Mike Conaway of Midland said Schiff no longer has the standing to lead the committee and said he should resign immediately.

Schiff has been a stern critic of Donald Trump. He maintains that the president’s campaign did collude with Russians despite special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings to the contrary.

Schiff then took the microphone after Conaway’s lecture and gave it right back to his GOP colleagues. He held firm on his assertion that there was collusion. “You might say that’s all OK,” Schiff said. “You might say that’s just what you need to do to win. But I don’t think it’s OK. I think it is immoral, I think it is unethical, I think it’s unpatriotic and, yes, I think it’s corrupt.”

Yes, it is highly toxic on Capitol Hill. The mood between Congress and the White House is equally toxic.

Why mention it? Because it seems different now than any era I can recall. President Bush 43 managed to maintain working relationships with the likes of Sen. Ted Kennedy; President Reagan famously befriended House Speaker Tip O’Neill, his after-hours drinking buddy; President Bush 41 also maintained strong friendships with House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski; President Clinton managed to work with House Speaker Newt Gingrich to craft a balanced federal budget.

These days we hear Donald Trump calling Adam Schiff “pencil neck.” He is throwing out “traitorous” and “treasonous” terms to describe Democrats behavior during the special counsel’s probe into alleged collusion; and, yes, Democrats have tossed those terms at the White House, too.

Good government requires leaders of both political parties to find common ground. Dear reader, there ain’t a bit of commonality to be found these days. Anywhere!

It is going to get more divisive, more toxic the deeper we plow into the 2020 election season. After that remains anyone’s guess.

It is no fun — none at all — watching these men and women tear each others’ lungs out. Too many important matters are going unresolved because of the outright hatred one senses among politicians across the aisle that divides them.

national news

Barr pores over a huge report and then summarizes it . . . so quickly?

Special counsel Robert Mueller handed Attorney General William Barr a 300-page report that chronicles a 22-month investigation into whether Donald Trump’s campaign “colluded” with Russian officials who invaded our electoral system.

Two days later, Barr produces a four-page summary of the report.

We know what Barr says about what Mueller reported. We do not yet grasp with our own eyes what Mueller has determined.

Is the AG corrupt? Is he hiding something? I do not subscribe to the first notion. The second one, well . . . is a debatable point.

That is why I want to join others in demanding that we see Robert Mueller’s report in full. A heavily redacted report with pages upon pages of text blacked out won’t suffice.

The attorney general is hearing from a lot of voices these days to release the report (more or less) in its entirety. National security secrets should be kept away from public view.

According to Barr, Mueller has determined that Trump’s campaign did not collude with Russian goons. He said Mueller drew no conclusion about the obstruction of justice matter.

Americans are left to wonder how Mueller reached those conclusions. Aren’t we entitled to see the evidence that Mueller gathered? Aren’t Americans entitled to see how our millions of dollars were spent?

National Public Radio reported Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s reaction to Barr’s summary: “Mr. Attorney General, we do not need your interpretation,” Pelosi said Thursday. “Show us the report and we’ll come to our own conclusions.” She mocked the administration and Republicans as “scaredy-cats.”

I do not want to believe William Barr is doing the president’s bidding. The burden is on the attorney general to keep his promise to operate transparently. He said he would release the report in “weeks, not months.”

Let us see the full report, Mr. Attorney General. Let us decide for ourselves about the veracity of the special counsel’s findings.

Many of us have said we accept Mueller’s conclusion. I am one of them. However, my acceptance is wavering just a bit. The AG’s quick-hit summary isn’t enough to persuade me fully about what Robert Mueller has determined.

national news

Hoping the end of probe would . . . be the end!

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Silly me.

I had this naïve thought that Robert Mueller’s report to the attorney general into whether Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians would be the end of the story.

The special counsel would wrap up his findings, hand them to AG William Barr, who then would tell the public what Mueller had found out. We’d all know — for better or for worse — what went down during the 2016 presidential election.

Then this happened: Mueller essentially cleared Trump and his team of conspiring to collude with Russians who interfered with our election; but then he remained silent on whether Trump obstructed justice by seeking to block any further examination into top aides.

What’s more, Barr issued a four-page “summary” of Mueller’s findings. Not everyone believes Barr’s assessment of what Mueller determined. They contend that Barr is a Trump toadie, handpicked by the president to run interference for him.

Now we’re waiting on the full report from Barr, who promises “transparency.” I am forced to ask: How much of it is he going to show us?

I tend to trust William Barr. I also tend to believe him when he says he will let Americans see as much of Mueller’s findings as he can under the law. I do not need to know the deepest national secrets. All any of us ought to see is the body of evidence that Mueller had collected and from which he drew his conclusions.

Of course, I do have questions now about why Mueller would remain silent on the obstruction of justice matter. Barr said Mueller determined that even though he lacked credible evidence of obstruction, he didn’t “exonerate” the president; Trump, quite expectedly, calls it all a “total exoneration,” which is yet another Trump lie.

I’m going to pose another question: If we presume the worst, that Barr withholds parts of Mueller’s report that might be damaging to the president, would the special counsel be willing to blow the whistle on what the AG is hiding from public view?

Oh, how I want to know the whole truth. My hope of knowing it upon the end of Robert Mueller’s probe has been quashed.

national news

No, Sen. Paul . . . it is not time to investigate former president

I want to direct this brief post to U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

Sen. Paul, please give up this notion of dragging former President Obama into the Russia matter involving Donald J. Trump.

The special counsel has concluded that the president’s campaign team did not collude with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016. That part of the probe is over.

Now, though, you say it’s time for Congress to examine what role Obama allegedly played in prompting the investigation. Good grief, man! Obama is out of office. What do you think you’re going to gain from examining it now?

Obama got word in 2016 of the FBI looking at potential Russian interference, but was advised to keep it quiet because of potential blowback as it being an effort to help Hillary Clinton. Who advised him to keep quiet? Sen. Mitch McConnell, your fellow Kentuckian.

Oh, and I chuckle at your citing some Twitter post from Kimberly Guilfoyle, the former Fox News personality, who has said it is time to examine the circumstances that pre-date Trump taking the presidential oath.

Why chuckle? Guilfoyle is dating Don Trump Jr., the president’s loudmouth eldest son. She is hardly an impartial bystander.

I am left to shake my head and mutter, “big . . . deal.”

national news

Senate majority leader obstructs yet again

U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who famously obstructed President Obama’s nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court from getting a hearing, is at it again.

He now has obstructed a resolution calling for the release of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings into “collusion” with the Russians to the public. He doesn’t want us — you and me — to see how Mueller concluded that Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign didn’t collude with Russian election attackers.

McConnell earned his obstructionist stripes when in 2016 he blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court after the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scalia. He played hardball politics. Yes, that gamble paid off with Trump’s election as president later that year. Trump then nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill Scalia’s seat and, by golly, Justice Gorsuch got confirmed by the Senate.

What is going on here? Might it be that there’s something in the findings that McConnell doesn’t want us to see? Is the public going to draw a different conclusion than the one Mueller reportedly reached?

The House of Representatives voted 420-0 to release the findings. The president has said he has no objection to the public getting a full look at what Mueller concluded and how he reached his conclusion. Attorney General William Barr said he intends to release the results in a matter of “weeks, not months.”

But the Senate GOP boss says no can do?

Knock it off, Mitch. Get with the program. The public wants to see the results. It is demanding it of you and your Republican cohorts. You may stop obstructing at any moment.

legal news, national news, political news

Release the findings sooner, not later

The reports out of Washington now tell us that Attorney General William Barr is going to release special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings on collusion in “weeks, not months.”

That is a good thing. Although I would prefer the reports would have said “days, not weeks or months.”

I won’t join the chorus that sings the tune that Barr might be running interference for the guy who appointed him, Donald Trump. I still believe the attorney general is enough of a stand-up guy to do the right thing.

Mueller’s 22-month investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians ended with a determination that the campaign did not collude. It has sparked shouts of joy among Republicans and groans of dismay among Democrats.

We don’t yet know for ourselves what Mueller has determined. All we’ve seen and heard so far is Barr’s interpretation of what Mueller found. I want to see the real thing, as much of it as possible, with own eyes. I want to digest those findings for myself.

I want AG Barr to disprove fears of many critics that he’s a Trump toadie who is doing the president’s bidding. He did take an oath to defend the Constitution and did not swear any particular loyalty to the president of the United States.

As for any possible GOP resistance to releasing the findings to the public, I only can ask: If those findings shore up what we’ve been told already, that Donald Trump is in the clear, isn’t it in everyone’s best interest to see those findings as quickly as possible?

national news, political news

Is POTUS launching a re-election effort based on revenge?

Is Donald J. Trump crafting a re-election strategy based on exacting revenge against those who insisted that he colluded with Russians or that he obstructed justice?

What are we to discern from the president’s response to special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings that (a) the president didn’t collude with Russians and (b) the obstruction of justice allegation remains an open question?

Trump has won a significant victory with Mueller’s conclusion that his campaign team did not conspire to collude with Russians who had invaded our electoral system in 2016. He should be grateful for Mueller’s service, dust himself off and get back to governing . . . isn’t that right?

I guess not! He is enraged at his foes. Of course he includes the media among those he intends to inflict retribution.

The media reported the special counsel’s arduous trek through the morass that lay before him. The media did their job. The so-called “fake news” constituted all the information that Trump and his team saw as negative. So . . . fu***** what? That goes with the territory. It goes with the job of becoming leader of the world’s most powerful and influential nation.

So now the president, who should be crafting a message of what he intends to do in a second term as president, appears to be spending an inordinate amount of effort looking for ways to stick it to his foes.

He’s already in full re-election campaign mode. That’s been obvious for some time. Yes, he deserves to have his message heard. I just am becoming more baffled by what the message is going to tell us.

In the immediate aftermath of the special counsel concluding his investigation into The Russia Thing, I am believing the president is much more intent on revenge than on governance.