Posted on 05/07/2018 10:04:13 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
Cute how this works: Kick off the week with some “the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted” bombast from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, by which he rationalizes that his defiance of subpoenas and slow-walking document production to Congress — which is probing investigative irregularities related to the 2016 campaign — is required by DOJ policy and “the rule of law.” Then end the week with the Friday-night bad-news dump: the grudging removal of DOJ and FBI redactions from a House Intelligence Committee report on Russia’s election meddling.
Now that we can see what they wanted to conceal, it is clear, yet again, that the Justice Department and the FBI cannot be trusted to decide what the public gets to learn about their decision-making.
They tell us that their lack of transparency is necessary for the protection of national security, vital intelligence, and investigative operations. But what we find out is that they were concealing their own questionable judgments and conflicting explanations for their actions; their use of foreign-intelligence and criminal-investigative authorities to investigate Michael Flynn, Trump’s top campaign supporter and former national-security adviser; and their explicitly stated belief that Flynn did not lie in the FBI interview for which Special Counsel Robert Mueller has since prosecuted him on false-statements charges.
It is a fact of life that the precious commodity of a good reputation takes much less time to lose than to build.
There is no defending the redactions that have now been disclosed. Especially in light of recent history, this powerfully suggests that there is no justification for withholding much else that the Justice Department refuses to reveal.
Republican committees can carp all they like about Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. The buck stops with the president.
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
The problem lies with Sessions and the GOP Senate RINOs. If Trump fired Sessions or Rosenstein, those RINOs have already indicated they would not vote for a replacement and see that as obstruction. This will have to be ground out in the courts, and we've already seen a couple of honest judges make mincemeat of Mueller's team.
If Trump doesn’t pardon General Flynn then I hope he petitions for the courts to overturn the conviction.
Nothing should ever be redacted OR classified except for the actual names of secret agents and the precise specs of current military gear.
Trump should order sessions to release all documents unredacted. If he has a problem with that, fire him.
2. Trump likes to play the victim of Mulller's witch hunt. /Rush Limbaugh
Yet again, it has been shown that Rosenstein lies about the reason why he redacts.
One of many positive results of Trump being elected:
We now know that our government cannot be trusted. Many had suspected this — especially after the IRS targeting scandal — but they have now confirmed.
The IRS cannot be trusted
The FBI cannot be trusted
The DOJ cannot be trusted
The CIA cannot be trusted
The NSA cannot be trusted
The list is long .........
Great article.
If you liked today’s Wall Street’s Journal’s “The Mystery of Michael Flynn’s Guilty Plea,” you’ll love this one. It goes into more detail.
McCarthy knows they will get Trump ifhe does anything. McCarthy is part of the problem, even if he sometimes sees the problemswith the Russia madness.
“The list is long .........”
Just post the list of government agencies that can be trusted. It is a much shorter list.
A pardon is the right remedy. Then General Flynn needs to sue the perps, asserting that they acted so far outside the scope of their employment so as to make them personally liable. There are some deep pockets there, Comey is a multimillionaire.
The hard part will be getting past their government immunity. It can be done if their conduct is found sufficiently egregious. Just a matter of finding the right judge.
And in yet another Watergate-esque turn, "it's the secrecy" is once again the theme, only this time it isn't pointed at the President. It's the price they pay for basing legal cases on illicit military-level surveillance.
What we have here is a self-appointed cadre of Special People With Special Clearances running a Star Chamber - secret warrants, secret spying, secret testimony, secret leaks to the media, secret agreements, secret documentation, with oversight only allowed from other Special People. And this, to hear the media on the topic, is "the rule of law".
Other than in the minds of political junkies, there is no reason for this to play out in a more aggressive way. DOJ is never going to release information that is vital to ongoing investigations and that includes congressional oversight. A case where in retrospect Congress will end up agreeing it was handled correctly, albeit with the usual grandstanding.
All Congress can do is hold hearings and huff and puff. The DOJ has the power to charge people with crimes.
There is plenty that needs to be classified; however, higher OCAs shouldn’t have to play these games. When Congress or the President call for materials, no flunky should be redacting anything.
Few areas of law are as clear as classification, unless you’re a Clinton. The President has supreme authority to classify or declassify. This is sheer politics and people should be held accountable. The original classification authority cannot overrule a superior authority. This entire charade needs to end with people in jail.
One encouraging sign on that is the sentencing date date has been moved back at least two times. Now that the current issue is exposed it’s time to go after a copy of the unredacted FISA application. Also in that vain the verbal super secret delineation re scope of Mueller’s coverage and basis of investigation areas should be demurred. This is merely part and parcel of covering what has actually taken place from the witch hunts inception until now.
Because I couldn’t say it better:
“Trump acts as if he is a Nietzschean figure, assuming that anything that does not destroy him only makes him stronger. And now, slowly, his accusers are becoming the accused.”
“The buck stops with the president.”
Not really, when the GOP House and Senate leadership are threatening him with impeachment if he dares hold anyone at Justice accountable.
Except that the problem is that Jeff Sessions has turned over the Justice Department to Rosenstein, Mueller and Comey.
Because the Special Counsel supported by the DOJ has boxed in the president, this triumvirate is in effective control.
Trump has been told that anything that Mueller can portray as Trump becoming involved in the Russia/Trump, obstruction, Manafort/Ukraine, etc matters will be taken by Mueller as grist for further investigation of Trump.
So if Trump personally gets involved in directing that something on these topics must be unredacted and made public, Mueller will say that investigations must be secret to be effective and Trump is trying to obstruct him.
The scope of Sessions' recusal is breathtaking. As I understand it, he has recused himself from anything to do with Russia, anything to do with the Trump campaign or anyone connected to it, anything to with Hillary's campaign or anyone connected to it.
I heard him tell Maria Bartiromo not long ago that he is recused from a number of the leak investigations, presumably because the underlying leak may somehow touch on one of these topics.
He appears to be recused from supervising the redaction process, again presumably because the material redacted may somehow touch on one of these topics.
But he recused himself far too prematurely, before there was a specific, real, legitimately-predicated criminal investigation to evaluate for a conflict of interest with him.
This has allowed the Triumvirate to commence meritless investigations for political purposes clear of any resistance from Sessions.
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