Tag Archives: Robert Mueller

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Must-see TV on tap: Mueller negotiating a deal to talk

Now we might get to hear from The Big Man Himself.

Robert S. Mueller III reportedly is working out arrangements what will enable him to testify before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Mueller? Oh, he’s just the special counsel whose work has been in all the papers.

He crafted a 448-page report after completing a 22-month investigation into whether Donald Trump’s campaign for president colluded with Russians who hacked into our electoral system.

Mueller didn’t find any conspiracy to collude. Oh, but he did leave the door wide open for Congress to look into whether the president obstructed justice in the hunt for the truth.

Attorney General William Barr spoke for hours this week to the Senate Judiciary Committee but then stiffed the House Judiciary panel by being a no-show. Let’s recall, too, that he disparaged a letter that Mueller wrote that complained about the four-page summary that Barr issued in advance of the full (albeit redacted) report.

So, what’s on tap?

I am guessing that we’re going to hear from Mueller himself why he reached the conclusions he reached. This is the stuff that Barr said he hadn’t even read prior to issuing his own summary of Mueller’s full report.

I also am guessing that the date and time of Mueller’s testimony, once it is released, will be etched on scratch paper, logged into cellphone calendars across the nation. I’ll bet real money that the TV ratings will be sky-high . . . which, of course, is something that always gets Donald Trump’s attention.

And I hardly can wait to hear Trump’s response to what Mueller will tell the nation.

I do hope the special counsel can work this out with the House Judiciary Committee. A nation is waiting with bated breath to get closer to the bottom of the mess that Donald Trump has created.

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Let the power struggle commence … and play out

A power struggle between the legislative and the executive branches of the federal government is now in full swing.

I am going to side — no surprise here — with the legislative branch in its fight with the other guys.

Attorney General William Barr — quite likely with the full blessing of the president of the United States — has decided to be a no-show at today’s House Judiciary Committee hearing. The committee, controlled by Democrats, wants to know more about Barr’s receipt of the report filed in March by special counsel Robert Mueller III on the matter involving “collusion” and “obstruction of justice” with regard to the Trump campaign’s involvement with Russians.

Barr has the answers. He is not giving the House committee any of them.

The struggle involves whether the House controls the parameters of these hearings or whether the White House gets to choose which rules it will follow and which of them it will ignore.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler says the House is in charge. He says the White House cannot dictate how Congress does its job. He points out correctly that Article I of the U.S. Constitution lays out Congress’s exclusive power and declares that the legislative and executive branches are “co-equal,” meaning that neither branch is more powerful than the other.

Barr stayed away because he didn’t want to be quizzed by committee lawyers. Cry me a river, Mr. Attorney General.

The way I see it, that’s just too damn bad.

The House gets to call the shots here. Not the AG. Not the POTUS.

Barr’s appearance Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary panel raised many questions that House members want to flesh out, as if they didn’t have a full plate of questions already. One of those questions might be why Barr didn’t read the supporting evidence that Mueller provided in his full report before issuing his four-page summary of its findings.

We won’t hear from the AG, at least not yet. Nadler says he is considering whether to file a contempt of Congress citation against the attorney general.

He is allowed to do that, too. The Constitution gives the chairman that power.

The struggle is on.

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Trump flies off the rails … over Biden endorsement

I have tried for the past couple of years to avoid saying things such as Donald Trump has gone “unhinged,” or that he has “lost his mind.”

However, when former Vice President Joe Biden secured a key union endorsement in his bid for the presidency in 2020, the president . . . well . . . went ballistic!

Vanity Fair reports that Trump set some sort of personal record with a 60-tweet tirade that erupted after the International Union of Firefighters endorsed Biden’s presidential bid.

He ripped into what he called the firefighters’ “dues-sucking” union leadership. Trump said he expected the leaders to endorse Biden, but added that the rank-and-file firefighters will vote for the president.

Really? He knows that?

The president’s Twitter tirades are nothing new, of course. What is amazing is that he spends so much of his supposedly valuable time firing these messages into cyberspace. Oh, I forgot: We’ve got that “executive time” that Trump sets aside for doing whatever he does when he’s not making America great again. 

I am having difficulty understanding how the president can function like this. I guess is he doesn’t function in his capacity as head of state/head of government/commander in chief/leader of the free world/chief executive of the world’s most indispensable nation.

He’s too preoccupied with fomenting lies about his foes and hurling insults at those who want to know the truth about whether this individual sought to obstruct justice while special counsel Robert Mueller looked for answers into whether there was “collusion” with Russians.

Vanity Fair suggests, too, that Trump is “panicked” at the prospect of facing the former VP in a fall 2020 campaign. Thus, he is launching a pre-emptive Twitter strike against Biden with the hope of torpedoing the ex-veep’s reported surge in public opinion polling.

I’ll continue to steer away from words such as “unhinged” when talking about Trump. My sense is that he knows what he is doing when he ignites these Twitter tirades.

I hope this strategy explodes in his face.

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Barr squanders the benefit of the doubt

I’ll be honest. I was willing to give Attorney General William Barr the benefit of the doubt when he released the redacted report compiled by special counsel Robert Mueller into whether Donald Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians and/or obstructed justice in the search for the truth.

No longer.

Today’s hearing before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee told me something I was reluctant to accept: that Barr is seeking to provide cover for Donald Trump and shield him from those in Congress who want to impeach the president of the United States of America.

I fear the worst may be unfolding before our eyes.

Barr’s dodge-ball game with Senate inquisitors today tells me that his harshest critics are correct. He cannot be an impartial referee in this ongoing investigation into whether Donald Trump — at the very least — attempted to obstruct efforts to derail Mueller’s exhaustive investigation.

This wasn’t a good day for William Barr, who I should add has declared that he will not appear Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee. The committee chairman, Jerrold Nadler, said he believes Barr is “afraid” to be questioned. He has accused Barr of attempting to “blackmail” the House panel.

I’ve said all this, however, while standing behind a desire to avoid impeaching the president until this congressional probe is completed.

Impeachment plays into Donald Trump’s strengths. He will use such an effort to rally his base. There remain some more traps to run before we to get to that drastic point. There damn sure needs to be some signal that Senate Republicans would be willing to convict the president in a trial should an impeachment resolution clear the House of Representatives.

However, the AG did not help his political benefactor — the president — with his lame obfuscations.

The drama continues.

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Mueller breaks with his ‘friend’ Barr

It might be that William Barr and Robert Mueller aren’t as close as they once were thought to be.

The attorney general reportedly received a letter from the special counsel that challenges the AG’s public interpretation of the report that the special counsel filed regarding the conduct of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

What do you know about that?

I had thought initially that we needed to hear from Mueller about what he thought of Barr’s four-page summary of the report Mueller filed with the Justice Department. Now we have. His reaction is a doozy.

Mueller wrote Barr a letter that suggests that Barr’s summary injects “confusion” into what Mueller’s team concluded about Trump’s alleged “collusion” with Russians who attacked our electoral system. Mueller’s reaction came immediately after Barr released his summary of what he said was Mueller’s conclusion.

Mueller seems to suggest that Barr sought to give the president cover from what Mueller found out.

I won’t go so far as to suggest that Barr should be resign or be impeached, as some have said should happen. I mean, he did release a redacted report to the public and it has exposed a number of questions about what Mueller determined happened during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Politico reports that Mueller’s letter has revealed a “widening rift” between the men who have been friends for decades. Politico also reports that the letter suggests that Mueller’s team is “angry” over the way Barr characterized its findings about Trump’s behavior.

I kind of expected this reaction from Mueller once Barr’s summary was released. I am surprised it took so many weeks to make it known to the public.

Mueller wrote, in part, to his (possibly soon-to-be former) friend Barr: “This threatens to undermine a central purpose for which the Department appointed the Special Counsel: to assure full confidence in the outcome of the investigations.”

The nation needs some answers from the attorney general. He is supposed to testify Thursday before the House Judiciary Committee.

My sincere hope is that he shows up, takes the oath, and answers this question truthfully: Mr. Attorney General, did you write your summary intending to cover up for the president of the United States?

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AG walking dangerous line if he refuses to talk

I want to offer Attorney General William Barr a slice of unsolicited advice.

Do not, Mr. AG, follow through on your threat to be a no-show before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee later this week. If you do so, sir, you open the door a bit wider leading to a possible impeachment of the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

Barr is considering staying away from the House committee, which wants to question him regarding his handling of Robert Mueller’s report into alleged collusion and obstruction by Trump’s campaign in 2016.

The AG apparently doesn’t like what he senses will be a tough grilling by the panel, which is controlled by Democrats. There are some provisions being built in to questioning, forcing Barr to possibly stay away.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler says he’ll have a hearing anyway, with or without the attorney general.

Look, I don’t want the House to impeach the president at least until it has completed its own investigation into some of the questions that Mueller left unanswered when he released his findings.

The impeachment train might become a runaway vehicle, though, if Barr stonewalls the House.

Don’t do it, Mr. Attorney General. Sit before the panel and answer the questions to the best of your substantial ability.

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No. 2 at DOJ calls it quits

Rod Rosenstein had me. Then he lost me.

He submitted his resignation today from the U.S. Justice Department. Rosenstein’s last day will be May 11.

The deputy U.S. attorney general made what many millions of Americans thought was a stellar choice in naming Robert Mueller the special counsel in determining whether Donald Trump’s campaign “colluded” with Russians during the 2016 presidential election.

Rosenstein was called into action after then-AG Jeff Sessions recused himself from anything having to do with Russia.

So, he answered the call. He acted wisely.

But then . . .

Most recently it was revealed that he fought for his job near the end of Mueller’s exhaustive probe and told Trump that he — the president — was not a target of the special counsel.

Huh? What’s up with that? Deputy attorneys general aren’t supposed to spill the beans about ongoing investigations. Are they?

He had me at first. Then he lost me at the end.

Still, I want to give him high marks for selecting Mueller to do a thorough job looking into these terrible questions regarding the president’s campaign and its alleged relationship with Russians who dug up dirt on Hillary Clinton and sought to pass it on to the Trump political team.

Rosenstein’s conduct near the end of his time at DOJ doesn’t negate completely the good he accomplished by picking Mueller.

However, it does give me pause.

I trust that congressional investigators will have plenty to ask him once he clears out his desk at Justice.

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Trump tosses ‘coup’ around too loosely

Donald Trump stood before the National Rifle Association and declared that Robert Mueller was part of a so-called “coup” attempt to overthrow the president.

Hmm. Interesting. This is the same guy, Trump, who also complimented Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee as a “great general.”

Hold on a second.

Mueller was conducting a legitimate investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russians who attacked our electoral system in 2016. There was no “coup” being led by the former FBI director and the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who appointed him to be special counsel.

As for Robert E. Lee, he led an army of men who actually sought to overthrow the government of the United States of America. His armed forces killed hundreds of thousands of men in pursuit of that traitorous act, which he committed in order to allow states to keep human beings in bondage as slaves.

Isn’t that an act of treason? I guess Trump doesn’t see it that way.

Yet he considers Robert Mueller’s investigation into a legitimate attack on our system of government to be an attempted “coup”?

I’ll say it again and I’ll keep saying it until this man walks out of the Oval Office for the final time: Donald Trump is a disgrace to the office he is utterly unfit at any level you can imagine to occupy.

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Jared Kushner is 100 percent wrong! Imagine that!

Jared Kushner married well when he joined with Ivanka Trump all those years ago. Now the two of them are “senior advisers” to the president of the United States, Ivanka’s father, Donald J. Trump.

None of that, though, makes Jared Kushner an expert on anything to do with the federal government or with the tedious work of a special counsel.

Thus, when he says that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged “collusion” with Russians who hacked into our electoral system did more damage to the country than the Russian attack itself, he is pi**ing into the wind.

The young man doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

Then again, maybe he does. Perhaps he is trying to avoid incurring the wrath of his father-in-law, who has this propensity for inflicting extreme hurt on those he feels are “disloyal” to him.

Kushner made the preposterous claim today, saying that all the Russians did was take a “couple of Facebook ads” in their effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Oh, no, Jared. They did a whole lot more than that.

They launched a systematic, calculated attack on our electoral system seeking to sow discord and to put Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, into the worst light possible.

Mueller concluded his investigation by saying that the Trump campaign did not conspire to collude with Russian goons. He also left the door wide open to further congressional inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice. Mueller climbed atop mountains of evidence and reached what I believe was a carefully considered conclusion.

Mueller’s narrative has been scathing in its characterization of the amorality, ineptness, deception and corruption of the Trump campaign.

To suggest, though, that the investigation has done more harm than the Russian attack on a fundamental element of our system of government is beyond absurd. Jared Kushner’s assertion is disgusting and reprehensible on its face.

I’ll stick with the description of Robert Mueller from Ty Cobb, one of the president’s former lawyers, who calls Mueller — a decorated combat Marine and former FBI director — an “American hero.”

Jared Kushner? He is nothing of the sort.

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What about all those other important matters, Mr. POTUS?

I accepted long ago that Donald J. Trump prefers to communicate with Americans via Twitter. He does so frequently and too often inarticulately. His syntax is mangled. He can’t spell his way out of a wet paper bag.

But I get why he prefers that medium to talk to us. It’s unfiltered. Boy, howdy, is it ever unfiltered.

Here’s the question of the day. This individual is the president of the United States, someone with a heaping plate of issues, crises, challenges and opportunities to confront. Why in the name of good government does he spend so much Twitter energy commenting on the media, Robert Mueller, a phony “witch hunt,” or anything having to do with issues from which he claims to be “totally exonerated”?

He launches these tweet storms, attacking everyone under the big, bright sun. Where are the policy pronouncements about, let’s see — Earth Day, Social Security, national security, medical research, international terrorism, gun violence, church burnings in Louisiana (allegedly started by racists)?

You know, these issues are worth the president’s Twitter time. They’re more worth his time, energy and attention than the media and the bogus claims of “fake news,” not to mention Robert Mueller. I mean, c’mon, Trump says Mueller declared there was “no collusion, no obstruction.”

Yeah, I know. Those are highly debatable, but a president who declares extreme comfort in the moment shouldn’t be acting like someone who’s under extreme distress.

Donald Trump won’t stop using Twitter, so I won’t urge him to do so.

However, for the sake of being taken seriously, POTUS needs to redirect his social media attention to issues that matter.