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Mueller’s Muddle

05 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by pnoetx in Trump Administration

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Christopher Steele, DOJ, Donald Trump, Impeachment, Inspector General, James Comey, Jonathan Turley, Mueller Report, Nancy Pelosi, Obstruction of Justice, Office of Legal Council, Robert Mueller, Rod Rosenstein, Russian Collusion, Steele Dossier, William Barr

The Mueller Report effectively put to rest allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 election, despite lingering wails from crestfallen Trump haters. But Trump lovers and haters alike might agree that the report should have settled much more, including whether there was evidence on which a charge of obstruction of justice could be brought against Trump. Robert Mueller demurred from that responsibility as a prosecutor, but he left a few tempting but ultimately dangerous crumbs for those still obsessed with toppling Trump.

Mueller’s statement last Wednesday wavered around the suggestion that Trump might be guilty of obstruction, a connotation colored more by politics than evidence. My conclusions, gleaned from both the report and a few other sources, are the following:

  • There was no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.
  • The original allegations were an attempted set-up of Trump. The scheme relied in part on the fraudulent Christopher Steele dossier, which was financed by the Clinton campaign, as well as a series of misrepresentations and suspicious contacts arranged by high-level officials at the Department of Justice and the FBI. That the entire investigation might have been compromised by such a conspiracy was not addressed by Mueller in the report, but we will learn more very soon when the DOJ’s Inspector General issues his findings. The IG will be interviewing Steele himself in the UK before long.
  • Mueller probably knew there was no collusion early in the investigation, but he persisted in “investigating” for two years. In my view, that created the appearance of an effort to entrap an angry Trump on obstruction charges.
  • Trump reacted to the collusion charges with a kind of raving petulance. Of course, it’s hard to blame him for his anger, and Mueller more-or-less acknowledged that. Trump did and said things that surely sounded intemperate, though some were within his prerogative (e.g., firing James Comey). Certain impulsive statements and actions might have risen to the level of obstruction had he not “changed his mind”, or had he bothered to follow-up on execution by aides. And Trump made statements (not under oath) that we’re intended to influence public opinion and possibly the willingness of certain witnesses to cooperate with investigators, but that sort of intent is hard to prove.
  • Of the ten instances of possible obstruction listed by Mueller in his report, two came dangerously close to qualifying as obstruction, two others were more of a stretch, and the rest were readily explained by motives other than an intent to obstruct, as Mueller sometimes indicated in the report.
  • Several of the possible obstruction issues were mitigated by Trump’s apparent willingness to cooperate with the investigation, including the provision to Mueller’s office of a huge volume of emails and documents, and by allowing members of the administration to be interviewed, some at great length.
  • Jonathan Turley has expressed his dismay at three underhanded actions taken by Mueller, one in the report itself and two in the wake of its delivery to his superiors at the DOJ (Attorney General William Barr and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein). The first was an omission: Mueller chose not to identify grand jury material that had to be redacted before release to the public. This was contrary to instructions and with knowledge that the omission would delay the report’s release to the public and reflect badly on Barr.
  • The second action noted by Turley was a letter sent by Mueller to Barr complaining about the “impression” created by Barr’s summary of the report, despite the fact that Barr had invited Mueller to review the summary in advance. The letter also asked Barr to “release uncleared portions of the report”, which Mueller knew was prohibited. This also seems to have been intended to reflect badly on Barr.
  • Turley’s third point is Mueller’s legally incoherent statement that “he would have cleared Trump if he could have” but chose not to draw a conclusion. Mueller invoked an opinion from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Council (OLC), which he claimed prohibited the indictment of a sitting president. But over a period of two years, he failed to seek further guidance on the question from the OLC, his superiors, or the Inspector General.
  • A more obvious explanation for Mueller’s failure to seek an indictment is that he knew that no grand jury would indict on the evidence as described in the ten instances of possible obstruction he listed in the report.
  • Essentially Mueller left the ball in Barr’s court to decide whether to seek an indictment of Trump on obstruction changes, and Barr decided that the evidence did not support it.
  • However, the very idea of obstruction is moot, or should be, given the first three points above. And apparently Mueller never intended to seek an indictment on collusion, as he stated again last Wednesday.
  • Mueller strayed outside the role of a prosecutor and potentially subverted the cause of justice in stating that he could not exonerate the president of obstruction. There is no such thing as “exoneration” of an accused in U.S. criminal law. Mueller’s role as a prosecutor was to make a determination as to whether he should recommend an indictment against Trump. It was not his role to determine Trump’s guilt and certainly not his innocence, and innocence must always be the presumption.
  • The Mueller report could provide Congress with a “roadmap” for impeachment of Trump on charges of obstruction. If House Democrats decide to take that road, it would very likely be a prescription for their electoral suicide.

No matter how aggravating and uncouth you find Trump, and no matter how unwise his policies might prove to be, he was elected fair and square. Nevertheless, his opponents in Congress and on the campaign trail can’t easily give up the impeachment rhetoric without angering their leftist base. But not all congressional Democrats are voicing support for impeachment proceedings, and House Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi is doing her best to manage the division without making a commitment either way. The Senate will never go along with impeachment, of course. Now, a House vote to merely censure Donald Trump is mentioned as a possible “exit-ramp” to compromise that would let the hard-line impeachers down easy. Whatever they do, however, some Democrats might hope to drag out the process in an attempt to inflict maximal damage to Trump’s reelection prospects. And that, too, is probably ill-advised, because people are getting tired of all this.

Clinton Corruption Remedy: Keep Her Out

07 Monday Nov 2016

Posted by pnoetx in Corruption, statism

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Broomstick One, Clinton Foundation, Constitutional Remedy, Cronyism, Department of Justice, Department of State, Deroy Murdock, DOJ, Donald Trump, FBI, Gary Johnson, Government Corruption, Hillary Clinton, Impeachent, Independent Women's Forum, Influence Buying, Jason Chaffetz, Jeffrey Epstein, Lisa Schiffren, Loretta Lynch, Money Laudering, Pay to Play, statism, Trey Gowdy, Wikileaks

clinton-family-corruption

Would I ever vote for Donald Trump? I’ve been critical of Trump’s positions on foreign trade, immigration policy and eminent domain. I think he’s an extremely risky candidate for any supporter of small government. But I’ve been much more critical of Hillary Clinton: she is a statist through and through, and she so often finds herself in close proximity to corruption and some other highly suspicious circumstances. I consider myself a libertarian, and I like Gary Johnson. Unfortunately, Johnson has disappointed me with his selection of Bill Weld as a running mate, his goofs on foreign policy and his often poor presentation of libertarian principles.

FBI Director James Comey has again concluded that there was no intent on Clinton’s part to violate national security with her private email server, but he also concluded that she was reckless in conducting sensitive government business, including the transmission of classified information, on that server. Unfortunately, Comey limited his investigation to the period during which she was Secretary of State. The server, however, was put in place before she was confirmed by Congress. The question of intent makes that time period relevant, but Comey ignored it. She broke the law concerning the handling of classified documents, there is no question about that. No less than five of Clinton’s aides took the Fifth Amendment to avoid prosecution. Evidently, Mr. Comey has been under pressure from a highly-politicized Justice Department. There are other investigations underway at the FBI and by Congress involving the Clintons, however.

The deluge of information via Wikileaks over the past month reflects horribly on the Clintons. I don’t care whether the leaks came from government sources, the Russians, or from other foreign actors. No one has challenged the authenticity of these leaks. Again, Hillary Clinton compromised national security by conducting her duties as Secretary of State on a private computer server. That’s what got her into the email mess. Now, we’ve learned that she gave her housekeeper access to her computer to print documents! At least five foreign intelligence services hacked into that server. Clinton also obstructed justice on the matter by destroying evidence and perjuring herself before Congress.

Wikileaks has shed additional light on the Clinton Foundation as well. The foundation functions as a money laundering scheme intended to disguise influence-buying as charitable giving, with the Clinton’s and their cronies as the real beneficiaries. Foreign governments, including several middle eastern powers, funneled money to the foundation while Hillary served as Secretary of State. Here’s Deroy Murdock on the Foundation:

“… its 2014 IRS filings show that it spent a whopping 5.76 percent of its funds on actual charitable activities — far below the 65 percent that the Better Business Bureau calls kosher. That paltry figure also mocks Hillary’s Las Vegas lie, uttered at the final presidential debate on October 19: ‘We at the Clinton Foundation spend 90 percent — 90 percent of all the money that is donated on behalf of programs of people around the world and in our own country.’ The Clinton Slush Fund . . . uh . . . Foundation seems to be mainly a travel and full-employment program for Hillary’s government in waiting. It’s also a bribe pump that sucks in money and spews out favors.“

The Clintons also have had strong ties to individuals with criminal histories, such as the notorious child predator Jeffrey Epstein. And Hillary Clinton’s reputation for contemptuous behavior toward others was so strong that State Department security personnel requested reassignment. It’s been reported that members of her Secret Service detail called her plane “Broomstick One“.

A Hillary Clinton victory in the president election will not end the investigations. Congressional leaders such as Jason Chaffetz and Trey Gowdy have vowed to press on aggressively, given that Clinton lied before their committees and to the American people about the existence of classified emails on her server. Impeachment by the House might occur, though Clinton’s offenses have occurred prior to her term in office, and the Senate would never attain the two-thirds majority necessary to convict.

It is possible that the FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation will be damaging, but it is unlikely to bring an indictment. The DOJ under Clinton would be headed by Loretta Lynch or some other Hillary/Obama sycophant. There will be no DOJ indictment or special prosecutor as long as the Attorney General reports to the criminal herself. (The FBI cannot indict; it can only recommend indictment.) There would hardly be a real opportunity to render justice to Hillary at the federal level.

A local jurisdiction could bring an indictment for criminal activity. The Anthony Weiner laptop investigation by the NYPD could be troublesome for Clinton, depending on the extent to which any Clinton dealings with Jeffrey Epstein were recorded there.

There remains only one sure constitutional remedy for Hillary Clinton’s corruption: Tuesday’s election. Preventing her from taking office must be priority one. Hillary Clinton’s days of insider dealing would then be over, as would the politicized government created by Barack Obama, who was just recorded encouraging illegal aliens to vote! But Gary Johnson obviously won’t beat Clinton… the only real option is Donald Trump.

Yes, Trump is risky, and I’ll have plenty to criticize on my blog if he takes office. He is plainspoken but sometimes crude and offensive. Naturally, that “style” is especially offensive to the tender snowflakes who cling to identity politics, but I do not believe Trump is a racist. It’s true, I don’t know exactly what we’d get with Trump. I suspect he has some statist tendencies of his own, but I prefer that risk to the corruption and certain statism of Hillary Clinton.

So I must vote for Donald Trump. Putting Hillary Clinton in the White House would compromise our system of government. She is an accomplished grafter and cronyist, expert at leveraging her position of power for personal enrichment, and she is prone to taking retribution against enemies. The IRS, the DOJ and other agencies have already become partisan organizations under Obama. And as I mentioned earlier, Clinton is a statist who desires centralized power. That is always dangerous.

Read this excellent essay: “The Case Against Hillary Clinton“, by Lisa Schiffren of the Independent Women’s Forum.

Here is a page with a number of past posts about Hillary Clinton on Sacred Cow Chips.

IRS Parlance: “Difficult To Retrieve” = “Destroyed”

26 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by pnoetx in Uncategorized

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DOJ, IRS, IRS Targeting, Judicial Watch, Lois Lerner, Obstruction of Justice, Political Targeting

 IRS Records

DOJ attorneys told Judicial Watch on Friday that the federal government backs up all emails “in case of a government-wide catastrophe.” According to these attorneys, the real reason that the IRS has not provided Lois Lerner’s emails is that retrieval from back-up tapes would be “onerous.” Here is Judicial Watch’s statement on the discovery, which includes this quote from Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton: “You can bet we are going to ask the court for immediate assistance in cutting through this massive obstruction of justice.”

The latest revelations are related to the ongoing Judicial Watch v. IRS lawsuit over IRS abuses being heard by U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan. In July 10 ruling, Judge Sullivan gave the IRS 30 days to provide details regarding the missing emails. Following the agency’s response, which seemed less than forthcoming, “Judge Sullivan authorized Judicial Watch to submit a request for limited discovery into the missing IRS records after September 10.”

Obama’s Fog Machine Politics

12 Tuesday Aug 2014

Posted by pnoetx in Uncategorized

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Benghazi, DOJ, Fake Scandal, Fast and Furious, Gaslighting, Glenn Reynolds, Government Failure, Inspectors General, IRS Targeting, John Fund, Obama, Obstruction, Separation of Powers, Sharyl Attkisson

Corruption

President Obama and his aides have raised the ire of his own inspectors general, who are charged with oversight duties within each federal agency. A letter signed by 47 IGs to the Congressional Oversight and Homeland Security Committees claims that the administration has obstructed efforts to perform their investigative tasks. The “most transparent administration in history” has generated a series of controversies (Fast and Furious, Benghazi, IRS Targeting, and the Healthcare.gov rollout are just the most prominent) and has managed to shield them from effective investigation using delay tactics, apparent destruction of evidence and pure obstinance.

Sharyl Attkisson weighs in on the subject with “Six Serious Questions Regarding Elusive Federal Documents.” In “Stonewaller-in-Chief,” John Fund documents the blatant hypocrisy displayed by Obama last week when he told African leaders of “the positive role inspectors general can play in fighting corruption in government agencies.” More from Fund:

President Obama appointed most of the IGs in office today, and all those who were appointed by him have been confirmed by a Democratic Senate. 

That makes the complaints raised in the IGs’ letter all the more serious. More and more agencies are setting documents off-limits by declaring them “privileged.” The Peace Corps is said to have refused to provide documents for a probe into whether its administrators were properly handling charges of sexual abuse. The Environmental Protection Agency withheld documents by claiming they might fall under an attorney-client privilege, though the IGs’ letter makes clear that such privilege shouldn’t prevent another executive-branch official from reviewing them. Eric Holder’s Department of Justice withheld FBI records that had been previously produced to investigators in past administrations. FBI Director James Comey told Congress in June that the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel was still reviewing what “was a difference of view as to what the law permitted here.”

As Glenn Reynolds has mentioned in the past (though I can’t find a link), the administration seems to be engaged in an unending campaign to “gaslight” the public, rather than any effort at transparency.

Big Brother Is Choking You!

27 Tuesday May 2014

Posted by pnoetx in Uncategorized

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

DOJ, Glenn Reynolds, Operation Choke Point, Tyranny

Image

The Obama/Holder DOJ is targeting legal businesses it regards as undesirable by pressuring banks to cut off their accounts under “Operation Choke Point,” as described by Glenn Reynolds at the link. Denying these businesses their sources of funds is of questionable legality to say the least. “It seems almost like some sort of conspiracy to deprive people of their civil rights.” Um, yes!

The DOJ’s criteria for targeting appear to be rather arbitrary. Reynolds quotes from the WaPo law blog: “The ability to destroy legal industries through secret actions to deprive them of banking services has obvious political consequences. . . . In principle, of course, the logic of Operation Choke Point could be extended to groups not currently targeted.” If you’re okay with seeing this sort of abuse targeted at porn performers, ammo dealers and payday loans, just wait until another party takes office. See how you like their list.

At the DOJ, We’ll Prohibit Anything We Want

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by pnoetx in Uncategorized

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Choke Point, DOJ, Tyranny

Image

This seems just a bit out-of-line with the Constitution: the DOJ’s Operation “Choke Point”. “… the DOJ and its allies are going after legal but subjectively undesirable business ventures by pressuring banks to terminate their bank accounts or refuse their business. The very premise is clearly chilling—the DOJ is coercing private businesses in an attempt to centrally engineer the American marketplace based on it’s own politically biased moral judgements.”

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