Posted on 03/31/2018 8:52:46 AM PDT by DeweyCA
Most of the time, practicing criminal law is pretty simple. Since the vast majority of clients are guilty as charged and lack the financial resources to pay for a trial, you cut a plea deal and do the best you can at sentencing.
But if you have an innocent client who is the target of an investigation or has already been charged, things can get complicated. How to save your client from being unjustly arrested or convicted? Should you resist and fight? Or should you cooperate with the prosecution and lay your client bare in an effort to demonstrate his innocence?
The answer to those questions depends on the prosecutor’s trustworthiness and motive. Is the prosecutor after the truth or a scalp? Whether to fight or cooperate is a function of the prosecutor’s character and agenda.
In my long experience, most prosecutors have been honest, motivated to seek the truth, and lacked any interest in charging or convicting the innocent. In those cases, I have had my clients fully cooperate with the prosecution, and the results have been most gratifying.
On the other hand, in those few instances where the prosecutor appeared to be on a mission to take down my client regardless of the law or facts, I have waged all-out war. Under such abnormal circumstances, there can be no other choice.
This is why I have been dumbfounded by President Trump’s lawyers’ approach to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russian collusion investigation. To my dismay, the president’s counsel have totally cooperated with Mueller. According to media reports, they have voluntarily produced more than a million pages of documents and made administration witnesses available for interrogation. At one point, Trump’s lawyers even publicly hinted the president might voluntarily submit to an interrogation by Mueller.
There’s Very Good Reason to Be Hostile All of this appears to be premised on counsels’ stated belief that the Trump campaign did not collude with Russia and that the president did not obstruct justice by firing FBI Director James Comey. Fair enough, but given the toxic, highly partisan atmosphere in Washington, Mueller’s glaring ethical shortcomings, and the Hillary Clinton sycophants who comprise his staff, it is irrelevant whether Trump is innocent.
Based on the declassified House intelligence committee Republicans’ memo and the Senate Judiciary Committee’s referral to the Justice Department of British spy Christopher Steele for possibly lying to the FBI, it appears that the hierarchies of Comey’s FBI and President Obama’s Justice Department conspired to save Clinton’s candidacy by running a fake investigation of her unsecure private email server and conducting illegal electronic surveillance of the Trump campaign. If Trump somehow managed to win the election, their backup objective was to take him down and end his presidency.
All of this raises the question of the true purpose of Mueller’s investigation. Is it an honest search for the truth or a continuation of the anti-Trump plot hatched during the campaign?
In the Philadelphia Inquirer I have time and again warned against cooperating with Mueller. If Trump were my client, I wouldn’t give the special counsel the time of day without a court order. I would make him crawl over hot coals all the way to the Supreme Court and back before I would give up a single scrap of paper. When he wanted the next scrap, I would make him do it all over again. Under no circumstances would my client voluntarily submit to questioning.
What a Hostile Prosecutor Can Do With an Interrogation A few weeks ago, The New York Times reported that John Dowd, who recently resigned as Trump’s lawyer, had counseled the president to refuse interrogation unless it could be shown that only Trump possessed information the prosecutors didn’t already know. Under normal circumstances, this could be a reasonable legal position.
But, since these are not normal times, I can see no reason for the president to voluntarily undergo interrogation. For even if Trump answered every question truthfully, he would be still be charged with lying. Why? Consider the following.
After he was fired, Comey illegally leaked memoranda of his conversations with Trump for the express purpose of having a special counsel appointed to investigate the president. It has been reported that, shortly thereafter, the president interviewed Mueller to fill the vacant FBI director’s position. But the day after Trump decided not to name Mueller, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed him special counsel to investigate Trump.
Pause and think that one over. Through his illegal leaking, Comey laid the foundation for the appointment of a special counsel. Out of the thousands of eminently qualified and conflict-free lawyers available, Rosenstein picked Mueller, Comey’s good friend and former colleague whom Trump had just rejected, to decide whether Trump or Comey is telling the truth about their conversations. Guess who will win that contest.
Robert Mueller’s Behavior Is Super-Shady If Mueller had any ethical sense, he would have declined to serve. But not only did he take the job, he proceeded to staff his operation with lawyers who have represented Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and the IT specialist who set up Clinton’s private email server and destroyed Clinton’s Blackberrys with a hammer.
Andrew Weissmann, Mueller’s first assistant, attended Clinton’s abortive election-night victory celebration and openly praised former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates for ordering Justice Department lawyers not to defend the president’s order banning travel from certain unstable countries.
Of even greater concern, Weissmann has a checkered history of wrongfully and illegally hiding exculpatory evidence and pursuing unfounded legal theories to achieve courtroom victory at all costs. What does his selection as first assistant say about Mueller’s commitment to the ethical and fair treatment of the president and others who may be targets of the investigation?
Mueller also hired the now-discredited FBI Special Agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. After the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General unearthed their rabid anti-Trump text messages, Mueller quietly sent them back to the FBI. He must have known of their virulent hatred of Trump when he brought them on board.
As for the rest of Team Mueller, almost without exception, they have contributed to either the Clinton campaign or other Democrat causes. In short, the operation might as well be an adjunct of the Democratic National Committee.
Rod Rosenstein’s Behavior Is Also Suspect Beyond Mueller’s ethical deficiencies and his team’s appallingly unbalanced politics, the president’s chance of being treated fairly faces another hurdle in Rosenstein. Rosenstein penned the order naming Mueller special counsel without specifying the legally required predicate crime to be investigated. Instead, thanks to Rosenstein’s creativity, for the first time in history a special counsel has been appointed to conduct a counterintelligence operation instead of a criminal investigation.
For the first time in history a special counsel has been appointed to conduct a counterintelligence operation instead of a criminal investigation. This inspired legal breakthrough not only lacks any basis in law, it also affords Mueller cover—however fatuous—to investigate anything and everything about the president or anyone else who catches his eye. If he were still around, NKVD Chief Lavrentiy “Bring me the man and I’ll find you the crime” Beria would understand and heartily approve.
Moreover, it has recently come to light that Rosenstein signed one of the applications for a renewal of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant to illegally spy on Trump’s campaign and administration. This certainly raises questions about Rosenstein’s intentions and motives regarding the president and his reasons for even appointing a special counsel.
Finally, Rosenstein wrote the legal memorandum upon which Trump based his decision to fire Comey. By laying that legal banana peel at the president’s feet, Rosenstein encouraged Trump to take the action that has afforded Mueller the specious basis for investigating Trump for the legally and constitutionally impossible “crime” of a president terminating a member of the executive branch.
Considering Rosenstein’s other questionable actions, it is fair to ask whether this was an effort to set up the president for an obstruction of justice charge or to box him into a swearing contest with Comey, the good friend of Mueller Rosenstein picked to be special counsel.
A Mueller Interrogation Is Only an Ambush All of the foregoing reinforces my belief that the president has no chance of emerging unscathed and uncharged from an interrogation by Team Mueller. It would be an ambush, pure and simple. The president should absolutely refuse to voluntarily submit to interrogation.
With every passing day, as ever more disclosures of the corruption in Comey’s FBI and Obama’s Justice Department emerge, the time and tide are running out on Mueller. Soon to be released will be the inspector general’s findings, which reportedly will expose the FBI’s fake investigation of Clinton’s email server and the backup plan to sabotage Trump’s presidency should he win. With that, Mueller’s position will become even more beleaguered, and the pressure to end his safari will mount.
If Trump declined to voluntarily submit to questioning, Mueller would have to issue a subpoena to compel him to appear before the grand jury. That would afford Trump’s lawyers the perfect opportunity to move to quash the subpoena based on, among other things: Rosenstein’s illegal appointment of Mueller to conduct a counterintelligence operation with no jurisdictional limits, Team Mueller’s glaring conflicts of interest, Trump’s overwhelmingly justified firing of Comey, the legal impossibility of a president facing criminal charges for discharging a member of the executive branch, and, as appears increasingly likely, the special counsel’s furtherance of the plot hatched during the presidential campaign to destroy Trump by any means necessary.
If that happens, you should buy popcorn futures and sit back for one terrific show.
George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor who practices law in Philadelphia. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net and may be reached at kignet1@gmail.com.
In my opinion, if Trump called Putin and requested the KGB file on Clinton and Putin sent a copy to Trump by truck, no violation of law could have occurred.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press”
The Trump campaign probably had the second largest print reach in the USA, exceeded only by the better funded Hillary Clinton campaign.
Special counsel is not a law passed by Congress. It’s strictly internal DOJ rules that could be changed immediately within the DOJ or even by presidential executive order.
Congress needs to man up and authorize their own special counsel. They’ve done it before.
Mueller and his meanderings without conclusions could have been reined in by Rosenstein, as Acting Attorney General.
Apparently, Sessions and Rosenstein are going make any accountability for Mueller fall on the head of Trump.
Together, Mutt and Jeff, are hearing the demands from Congress for a Second Counsel and brazenly given their Oversight lords the brush off.
Sessions own testimony last year pooh poohed any evidence that called for a Second SC. It was laughable to listen to.
Sessions simply sat there and parroted the identical testimony as Rosenstein, who testified a few days prior.
They prefer to protect and defend their little kingdom, rather than loyalty to this president. They both need to be impeached by Congress, or fired by the president.
Yes.
A Special Council in the executive branch investigating the president is inappropriate. It prevents the Chief Executive from controlling his DOJ.
Trump needs to tell Congress that they have 60 days to pass such a law so that they can continue Mueller's BS investigation if they want the investigation to continue. Then Trumps needs to warn Congress that he will fire Mueller in 60 days, whether they pass their own SC law or not.
The Deep State WAS out to get Trump - - and Mueller should not become part of that crime.
There was a special counsel law, but it has expired.
The regulation appears to be 28 CFR 600.
From the NBC link:
“Rosenstein’s letter directs ‘an investigation into any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump” and also ‘any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.’”
Attorneys bill by the hour, and lawyers who write opinion pieces must get paid by the word. You can therefore skip down to the last three paragraphs, where the writer finally gets to the point.
What seems obvious to me is that President Trump allows Mueller and his “investigation” to nowhere to persist so as to distract the “Resistance,” providing a shiny object on which to pin their false hopes while ignoring the REAL CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION that proceeds apace.
When that bomb detonates, observers in Moscow, Beijing, Pyongyang, Teheran, and on all the ships at sea will be able to see the mushroom cloud and feel the shock wave. Once the smoke and ash dissipate, the vast crater that was once the corrupt and lawless Clinton/Obama/Demoncrat Shadow Government will be visible from space.
“With every passing day, as ever more disclosures of the corruption in Comey’s FBI and Obama’s Justice Department emerge, the time and tide are running out on Mueller. Soon to be released will be the inspector general’s findings, which reportedly will expose the FBI’s fake investigation of Clinton’s email server and the backup plan to sabotage Trump’s presidency should he win. With that, Mueller’s position will become even more beleaguered, and the pressure to end his safari will mount.
“If Trump declined to voluntarily submit to questioning, Mueller would have to issue a subpoena to compel him to appear before the grand jury. That would afford Trump’s lawyers the perfect opportunity to move to quash the subpoena based on, among other things: Rosenstein’s illegal appointment of Mueller to conduct a counterintelligence operation with no jurisdictional limits, Team Mueller’s glaring conflicts of interest, Trump’s overwhelmingly justified firing of Comey, the legal impossibility of a president facing criminal charges for discharging a member of the executive branch, and, as appears increasingly likely, the special counsel’s furtherance of the plot hatched during the presidential campaign to destroy Trump by any means necessary.
If that happens, you should buy popcorn futures and sit back for one terrific show.”
* * *
Bummed out? You are too kind :- ) More like traitorous Hillary supporters!
Bookmark
The $600,000 book just out, written by Hillary campaign honcho-—Jennifer Palmieri——is a laugher.
She says Hillary was “gracious” in defeat.
Sore loser Hillary did not even condescend to greet her supporters election night.
This is considered “gracious?”
Another belly-laugher.
Palmeiri says “Hillary always put her country first before her own needs.” (gag-a-rama)
How a publisher could actually payout all that money for this drivel is beyond me.
Will not happen until Sleepy gets a boot up his arse as he’s kicked out the door.
Not before November 6th, next election day, I am sure.
Right.
FIRE SESSIONS, FIRE HIM NOW.
Appoint a real Clinton hater as AG. like Giuliani.
Exactly right! But do you recall Sessions was very popular here before his nomination as AG? While someone like Chris Christie from NJ, was denigrated?
Or even a governor who was unafraid of media like Christie.
Sessions defends Rosenstein. I am hoping that either
1)Rosenstein realizes he made a mistaken appointing Mueller and will work to rein him in, or
2)Sessions will force Rosenstein to do so.
However, I do not count on either.
Yes! I was one of Sessions biggest cheerleaders for way too long. Embarrassing.
Peter Principle.
Jeff is a good man, but he’s crawled so far out on the “good” limb, that he has no clue. To decapitate himself on DAY 2, of his J O B, is astounding. Now he falls victim to the institutional go-to cards, named “delay” and “obstruct” to stop Trump. I don’t like it.
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