Posted on 03/11/2018 4:30:21 PM PDT by EyesOfTX
The Evening Campaign Update (Because The Campaign Never Ends)
There isn’t much worth reading in the #NeverTrump enclave that is The National Review anymore, but there are exceptions to this rule. Anything written by the great Victor Davis Hanson is one such exception. Anything written by Andrew C. McCarthy is the other.
McCarthy, who is himself a former federal prosecutor, published a very interesting piece at National Review on Saturday. It’s long, but well worth the read, as he provides an excellent synopsis of alleged FBI and DOJ abuses in both the Clinton email scandal and the whole Trump-Russia “collusion” fantasy play, and concludes with a strong and interesting recommendation on how Attorney General Jeff Sessions should proceed to have both matters investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted.
In brief, McCarthy is no fan of the special counsel law in general or of the specific and growing calls from an array of congressional Republicans for the appointment of a second special counsel to “investigate the investigators”. He believes the special counsel law is structured in a way that pretty much ensures out-of-control investigations with no investigative sidebars or budgetary restrictions, ones that inevitably end up causing an amazing amount of political and societal disruption, ruin lives, and whose end results tend to be a handful of convictions of minor functionaries for process violations that may or may not have any relation to the supposed reason why the investigation began in the first place. See the results of the Robert Mueller investigation thus far as a primary example.
Rather than repeat this prosecutorial circus with the appointment of another special counsel, McCarthy proposes the following approach:
Here is what should be done. Attorney General Sessions should assign a U.S. attorney from outside Washington to conduct a probe of how the Clinton-emails and Trump-Russia investigations were handled by the Justice Department and FBI…
…the designated U.S. attorney would handle this investigation along with the rest of the work of his or her office — this would not be a prosecutor whose only assignment is to pursue a single target or set of targets, and who thus faces great pressure to file charges, no matter how far afield from the original focus of the investigation, in order to justify the appointment. Unlike the inspector general, the U.S. attorney would have full jurisdiction to convene a grand jury; investigate any crimes attendant to the Clinton-emails and Trump-Russia probes; issue subpoenas and seek other court process (such as search warrants) to secure evidence; and prosecute any violations of law by persons inside or outside of government.
I find this specific recommendation, coming on this specific weekend to be fascinating, because McCarthy’s recommendation for investigating DOJ/FBI conduct in these two scandals/non-scandals essentially amounts to an endorsement to the approach Sessions himself told Fox News’s Shannon Bream on Wednesday that he is already pursuing in looking into alleged DOJ/FBI abuses of the FISA process (Jeff Sessions Dropped a Bomb – Hardly Anyone Noticed).
To quote Sessions:
“I have appointed a person outside of Washington, many years in the Department of Justice (DOJ), to look at all the allegations that the House Judiciary Committee members sent to us; and we’re conducting that investigation.”
And, as I pointed out in that piece on Thursday:
Unlike [DOJ Inspector General Michael] Horowitz, this unidentified special prosecutor would have the power to convene a grand jury – and may have already done so – and quickly begin issuing subpoenas based on the recommendations contain in the Horowitz report.
Let’s also remember that, over the course of three weeks in December and January, Sessions let it be known that he has taken a similar approach to forming DOJ investigations into the following Clinton/Obama era scandals:
Uranium One; The Clinton Foundation; Felony leaks coming out of DOJ and the FBI; The Obama/Hezbollah “Project Cassandra” scandal. Combine all of those investigations with the OIG Inspector General investigation, along with multiple other likely ongoing investigations we don’t even know about yet, and you have a very busy Justice Department indeed.
What’s so interesting is the way in which Sessions has gone about letting all of this be known, always casually mentioning the existence of this investigation or that in the middle of interviews, almost as an afterthought in response to a question. He’s done it in a way that has prevented the media from engaging in feeding frenzies around any of them, and has also prevented any leaking to the press around any of them.
He’s done it so quietly that it has led many to accuse him of being a do-nothing, lazy or even compromised in some way by people who are simply unaware of everything that is going on. I was one of those people up until last November, in fact. Even as astute an observer as Andrew McCarthy appeared, in his piece from yesterday, unaware that the method he was suggesting for investigating one scandal was in fact the method Sessions has been employing all along related to other investigations.
Boiling the frog. That’s what they call it in the DC Swamp when one side is inexorably turning up the heat on the opposition so slowly that the opposition doesn’t notice until the time has passed to take any effective defensive action.
If that really has been the strategy, it’s been amazingly effective. Hopefully, the IG report will finally drop soon, and we’ll begin to find out.
That is all.
Follow me on Twitter at @GDBlackmon
Today’s news moves at a faster pace than ever. Whatfinger.com is my go-to source for keeping up with all the latest events in real time.
What was the nickname for Sessions when he was in AL ... ‘The Silent Executioner’?
Foghorn Leghorn - “Ah say, That’s no way to cook a frog boy!”
You guys ain’t gonna be able to buy enough rounds of beers after you find out how wrong you’ve been.
This
And that
Again squared
There are just too many sound reasons for Sessions to keep a low profile while the counterattack against Deep State corruption gradually takes shape.
I am watching and waiting. Until I know more, I can’t in good conscience join the anti-Sessions sentiment prevalent here on FR.
My attitude is “successful prosecutions don’t just happen without extensive preparation ... and there are a lot of things that are only now coming to light.”
Screwing the pooch...
If Sessions is indeed boiling the frog, then everyone owes the Sessions-bashers a big debt of gratitude for helping to maintain the ruse.
Is the frog dead?
No?
The it does not seem that way.
I think Sessions will get this done without the headline seeking that Comey loved. I can’t wait for Horowitz’s report. If Sessions doesn’t start delivering shortly afterwards I am moving to a cabin in Montana. Just kidding.
If anybody knows maybe you could educate me but when Sessions talks about Prosecutors outside of Washington would that also mean grand juries outside of Washington. Kinda fits Mr. McCarthy’s theory. I read somewhere where there is one in Little Rock.
Good line!
Screw us?
Sessions has been the biggest bust of all of Trump’s appointments - including Scaramucci - when you consider what he’s done versus the expectations of him and the cascade of crap caused by his boneheaded decision to recuse himself from an imaginary charge against the president that the left created as an excuse for losing the election. I derive no pleasure from saying that, but it is eminently true.
Innocent people are getting their lives ruined by Mueller, charging them with process crimes that are totally unrelated to the phony reason for the special counsel and often pre-dating Trump’s candidacy as the result of Sessions’ actions. General Flynn is selling his home to pay for legal bills incurred by the left’s time honored tradition of lawfare, all because Mr. Magoo couldn’t see one step ahead of what they were trying to do. It’s not like lawfare is a new tactic of the left’s.
And here we are 1 1/2 years later and this is still ongoing. All Mueller has to do is make up the flimsiest charge about anything against Trump since it’ll never go to court, and his presidency is seriously damaged, perhaps mortally.
Let’s also not forget that a Democrat now sits in his Senate seat. That’s not his fault, but it makes it impossible to say we wouldn’t be better off if he stayed in the Senate.
Sessions has been a total disaster.
I’ve said from the beginning that I was going to take a wait and see attitude on Sessions. My belief has been that no good AG shows his cards. Sessions doesn’t appear to me, to be a man who needs to advertise what he’s doing, just because he wants a pat on the back, or be recognized by the public. Silent, but deadly is what I would hope is going on in the background. Everything in good time. I’m willing to give the AG the time he needs to get it done, and get it done right.
He recused himself from being involved in the Russian meddling investigation. He didn’t recuse himself from investigating the illegal actions of the Obama FBI/Justice Department.
People sure are scared of Mr Sessions and I love it, Mr Sessions will still he sitting at the table when all others are gone....you can’t rattle a Southern Gentlemen...
Im waiting for the IG report for the big BOOM!!!! and waiting....waiting....still waiting....maybe October..thats it ! a October surprise!
He recused himself from being involved in the Russian meddling investigation. He didn’t recuse himself from investigating the illegal actions of the Obama FBI/Justice Department.
Correct. He is not recused from investigating any wrong-doing within the DOJ and FBI, or from investigating:
Uranium One
Project Cassandra
Clinton Emails
Clinton Foundation
FISA Abuse
etc.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.