James Comey, the fired FBI director, has for the past 2 years since his firing been making the rounds as a sage while hawking his book, “A Higher Loyalty”. Should he be accorded unquestioned esteem? Rod Rosenstein thinks otherwise. Take a look.
Rosenstein has been muzzled by his official and professional responsibilities as Deputy Attorney General while Comey makes the rubber chicken circuit. A few days ago in a CNN townhall, the dispatched FBI Director, wrapping himself in a messianic aura, smeared the retired Deputy AG as a person lacking in “strong character”. Well, Rosenstein is no longer manacled by his job and can fight back. The self-anointed prophet of God, Comey, may turn out to be a three-card-monte scammer.
Rosenstein presents a Comey who got out in front of his skis, probably due to Comey’s inflated self-regard. With Comey, investigators are prosecutors. He did this twice in the heat of the 2016 presidential election when he announced the non-prosecution of Hillary and then publicly resuscitated the investigation of her. The word “Investigation” after “Federal”, “Bureau”, and “of” will have to be replaced by “Prosecution”. But admittedly FBP doesn’t have the same ring as FBI.
A higher loyalty? Comey’s higher loyalty may not ascend much above the person looking back at him in the mirror. Somehow the ancient Greek story of Narcissus keeps coming to mind.
The Democrats in charge of the House side of Congress, and their long media retinue, are in high dudgeon over the Mueller Report and the whole Russia mirage. Their epileptic seizures could be calmed by the application of a little history.
A huge part of the problem is their hatred of Trump which has deluded them into going whole hog on the Trump Manchurian candidate story. It was always an illusion, but illusions must be kept alive in the quest for power. Remember John C. Calhoun’s twisted logic in defense of slavery to keep the slavocracy in power in the South?
Remember the 1934 persecution-by-prosecution of William Insull – the man, more than any other, responsible for the creation of the nation’s electrical grid in the 1920’s – by FDR’s Justice Department as the scapegoat for the Depression and to further FDR’s grand scheme to place the economy, and much of life, under bureaucratic control? If you’re interested, after a 7-week trial, it took a jury only 2 hours to acquit Insull and his 16 co-defendants of all charges.
Examples abound.
Insidious illusions will be always, like the poor, with us, especially if power is at stake. For the Resistance true believers, Trump has to be guilty for him to be dethroned. Belief cometh before proof. So, Nadler and company are issuing subpoenas and contempt charges like a mad counterfeiter, as the media ballyhoo the latest round as Fort Sumter.
But what of Eric Holder?
AG Eric Holder held in contempt of Congress, June 2012.
Obama’s AG refused almost any information and documentation on the DOJ’s still-murky 2010 Fast and Furious operation. 17-21 Democrats in 2012 joined Republicans in approving civil and criminal contempt charges against Holder. The story barely lasted one news cycle in the mainstream media. That’s because contempt of Congress claims are essentially censure votes. These aren’t “contempt of court”. If anything, the targets are holding in contempt the excitable and riled partisan majority in the House.
And there are differences in the Barr and Holder cases. Barr released the whole report with the exception of parts falling under long-established rules and laws, like Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure (FRCP) 6(e) regarding the secrecy of grand jury proceedings. The law’s secrecy mandates were recently confirmed by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit (McKeever v. Barr).
The Dems are trying to hang their hat on the exceptions to non-disclosure, but that would stretch “intelligence” and “counter-intelligence” officials to include power-hungry politicos and their staffs as they distort jury deliberations for political ends. How long would it take for the pipeline to the WaPo and NYT to be turned on and the mud to flow?
By the way, the full unredacted Mueller Report is available to selected House members at the DOJ’s skiff, if they want. But they don’t want. They want power and that means Trump’s scalp. This isn’t about the truth. It’s about naked, raw power.
In contrast, Holder ignored and dissed Issa’s House Oversight Committed request for information. Barr gave to Congress and the public almost the whole thing. Holder is free to go on the lecture circuit and bash anyone with a “R” after their name. Barr is daily pilloried on CNN, MSNBC, and the rest of the brooding media big sisters. Go figure.
In some cases, we may have to wait for the afterlife to get justice. Humanity’s “crooked timber” holds sway in this life. In the meantime, a little bit of history may help us get beyond the worst that lies within.
Attorney General Barr at press conference annoucing the release of the Mueller Report, April 18, 2019.
The Mueller Report is out. Does it really matter? No. Partisans with no “reasonable cause” will still invent cause to pursue their political opponent. They’ll grasp at any straw to continue the inquisition. Burden of proof be damned. The entire course of western civilization is to be turned upside down to get Trump. That’s it in a nutshell.
There’s a reason for those with the power to take your life or freedom to meet the decency of a burden of proof when they make claims against a person. Yet, political and media partisans hang their hat on minor and loosely related evidence and even the absence of evidence.
That’s right, the absence of evidence. The “We cannot reach conclusions” or “We cannot charge” is morphed into “cause” by political partisans to pursue the accused that can’t be accused. Read the last bit of that sentence again. This is ludicrous.
In other words, “innocent till proven guilty” means something … or is supposed to. If you can’t prove a charge, then the actions at the root of the accusation are treated as if they didn’t happen. It’s up to the authorities to prove their case, not the accused to prove they didn’t do it.
The citizen’s right to silence is related. The target of the charge doesn’t have to say anything. He or she can just sit there quiet as the people doing the accusing are expected to make the case. If they can’t, then nothing happened regarding the accused.
That’s our law, and keeps us from exercising Stalin’s show-trial style of justice. It’s how we avoid the last moments of Bukharin, Kamanev, and Zinoviev beginning with a long walk down a lonely basement corridor and ending with a bullet to the back of the head.
I know. I know. The title engages a noun that has entered cliché territory. Still, it applies to Mueller’s tome after an expedition of the likes of Alexander the Great’s invasion of Persia to the ends of the world. In the end, after $40 million and almost 2 years, all Mueller got was indictments of a bunch of foreigners who’ll never face an American judge and questionable actions against bit players for after-the-fact infractions/crimes. The whole rectal exam was about “collusion” – even the “obstruction” barking – and, in the end, there’s no there, there.
The brouhaha proved an old axiom that if you intensely look long enough, you’ll find something – even if that something amounts to … nothing. Turn a building inspector loose on my property for 2 years and he’ll find “something”. How many violations of law did you commit after waking up (maybe before), knowingly or unknowingly? We live in a world of a straightjacket of laws and regulations.
Bottom line: no collusion, and the charge of “obstruction” is silly – so says both Barr AND Rosenstein. The point raised by Barr before his elevation to AG is dispositive. If there’s no crime, for what reason could Trump be obstructing? Key to obstruction is evil intent, something deep within a person’s mind. If there’s no outward sign of it, and if there’s no reason for doing it, why put credence in it?
The reason for the Dem death grip on “obstruction” is politics. The Dems want Trump’s scalp at any price. They’ll pour over the encyclopedia-length full report to stitch together an impeachment indictment. They’ll hang onto any language in the report to keep the issue alive. “Do not exonerate” (in the Mueller summary) is an example. “Exonerate” is a measly word when an investigator does not exonerate. Either they recommend charges or they don’t. To pass the buck to Barr as if there’s a hint of a case, in spite of the lack of evidence and sound Constitutional reasons to reject it, will stoke the Dems’ impeachment fire.
Adam Schiff and Andy Kaufman. Any similarities?
In the end, we went to the Mueller café and got … nothing. It’s the equivalent of an air-burger on an empty plate.
Elections have consequences. Yep, they do. So, thanks go to the suburban voters in suburban districts (and a few elsewhere) for handing the House majority to a party intent on raining totalitarian environmentalism (the Green New Deal), various versions of socialism (#1 and #2 are synonymous), and impeachment on the country for the next 2 years. Regardless of what D-candidates said while campaigning, the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Maxine Waters, and Jerry Nadler were swept into power. Again, thanks for the next couple of years of social/political/economic poison. Assisted suicide appears to be in vogue.
The doctors ready to administer the poison pill: Maxine Waters (D. Ca.) and Jerry Nadler (D, MY).
A public, said to be deeply concerned about “dysfunction” in DC, curiously voted for more of it. The slide into governing incontinence could be accelerated by a much-heralded romp through impeachment land, in addition to the profusion of “investigations” into matters as worrisome as the president’s dental care habits.
I’ve refrained from commenting on Mueller, choosing to wait for his report. Right now, of greater concern is the public’s perceptions about impeachment. There’s a good chance that no matter what Mueller writes it will be culled for articles of impeachment. The Mueller report and their own inquisitions will be the vehicle to hang Trump for his style and policies. Since its coming down, it would be nice to know what the public and even our own politicos know of the subject.
I don’t think that I would be too far off when I say, Not much. It’s a product of poor schooling and pop media. First, impeachment – the indictment phase of the process for removal – is a political act and the grounds for it hinge on “high crimes and misdemeanors” (HCM). What does HCM mean? It doesn’t for the most part refer to statutory crimes, even though they might be included if serious enough. It centers on what Andrew C. McCarthy (and Cass Sunstein) calls “truly egregious instances of maladministration”.
The unease about maladministration goes back to British and colonial experience. Legislatures wanted to control their royally appointed governors and judges. It’s not likely that Trump’s habit of name-calling qualifies (“low IQ Maxine Waters”, even though “foolish” would be more accurate). It’s more probable that the Dems will hang their hat on business/financial dealings and the Trump’s campaign efforts to do what Hillary’s succeeded at doing: namely, get the Russians to give them dirt on their opponent. The Steele dossier anyone?
All the bellowing about “they stole our elections in collusion with Trump” is simply carnival barking. The Dems will use whatever they and Mueller dig up to essentially go after Trump for his coarse style, a tactic which they patented years back – remember, “Bush lied, people died”.
Also, he’s a miscreant for not being politically correct. The Dems would like to censor all immigration policy options outside open borders.
Whether any charges are merited is beside the point. The sole goal is to get Trump. For the Dem caucus, “maladministration” really means to disagree with them.
So, suburban voters who voted to flip actually chose “maladministration” in order to maladministrate – i.e., we’ll be embroiled in impeachment wars for about 700 days. And be prepared for Ocasio-Cortez to be a euphemism for the Dems’ policy preferences coming out of the House.
