Posted on 05/19/2017 3:34:46 PM PDT by Kaslin
"With the stroke of a pen, Rod Rosenstein redeemed his reputation," writes Dana Milbank of The Washington Post.
What had Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein done to be welcomed home by the Post like the prodigal son?
Without consulting the White House, he sandbagged President Trump, naming a special counsel to take over the investigation of the Russia connection that could prove ruinous to this presidency.
Rod has reinvigorated a tired 10-month investigation that failed to find any collusion between Trump and Russian hacking of the DNC. Not a single indictment had come out of the FBI investigation.
Yet, now a new special counsel, Robert Mueller, former director of the FBI, will slow-walk his way through this same terrain again, searching for clues leading to potentially impeachable offenses. What seemed to be winding down for Trump is now only just beginning to gear up.
Also to be investigated is whether the president tried to curtail the FBI investigation with his phone calls and Oval Office meetings with FBI Director James Comey, before abruptly firing Comey last week.
Regarded as able and honest, Mueller will be under media pressure to come up with charges. Great and famous prosecutors are measured by whom they convict and how many scalps they take.
Moreover, a burgeoning special counsel's office dredging up dirt on Trump and associates will find itself the beneficiary of an indulgent press.
Why did Rosenstein capitulate to a Democrat-media clamor for a special counsel that could prove disastrous for the president who elevated and honored him?
Surely in part, as Milbank writes, to salvage his damaged reputation.
After being approved 94-6 by a Senate that hailed him as a principled and independent U.S. attorney for both George Bush and Barack Obama, Rosenstein found himself being pilloried for preparing the document White House aides called crucial to Trump's decision to fire Comey.
Rosenstein had gone over to the dark side. He had, it was said, on Trump's orders, put the hit on Comey. Now, by siccing a special counsel on the president himself, Rosenstein is restored to the good graces of this city. Rosenstein just turned in his black hat for a white hat.
Democrats are hailing both his decision to name a special counsel and the man he chose. Yet it is difficult to exaggerate the damage he has done.
As did almost all of its predecessors, including those which led to the resignation of President Nixon and impeachment of Bill Clinton, Mueller's investigation seems certain to drag on for years.
All that time, there will be a cloud over Trump's presidency that will drain his political authority. Trump's enemies will become less fearful and more vocal. Republican Congressmen and Senators in swing states and marginal districts, looking to 2018, will have less incentive to follow Trump's lead, rather than their own instincts and interests. Party unity will fade away.
And without a united and energized Republican Party on the Hill, how do you get repeal and replacement of Obamacare, tax reform or a border wall? Trump's agenda suddenly seems comatose. And was it a coincidence that the day Mueller was appointed, the markets tanked, with the Dow falling 372 points?
Markets had soared with Trump's election on the expectation that his pro-business agenda would be enacted. If those expectations suddenly seem illusory, will the boom born of hope become a bust?
A White House staff, said to be in disarray, and a president reportedly enraged over endless press reports of his problems and falling polls, are not going to become one big happy family again with a growing office of prosecutors and FBI agents poking into issues in which they were involved.
Nor is the jurisdiction of the special counsel restricted to alleged Russia interference in the campaign. Allegations about Trump's taxes, investments, and associates, and those of his family, could be drawn into the maw of the special counsel's office by political and business enemies enthusiastic about seeing him brought down.
More folks in Trump's entourage will soon be lawyering up.
While it's absurd today to talk of impeachment, that will not deter Democrats and the media from speculating, given what happened to Nixon and Clinton when special prosecutors were put on their trail.
Another consequence of the naming of a special counsel, given what such investigations have produced, will be that Vice President Pence will soon find himself with new friends and admirers, and will begin to attract more press as the man of the future in the GOP.
A rising profile for Pence is unlikely to strengthen his relationship with a besieged president.
In the United Kingdom, the odds are growing that Trump may not finish his term.
So how does he regain the enthusiasm and energy he exhibited in previous crises, with such talk in the air?
A debilitating and potentially dangerous time for President Trump has now begun, courtesy of his deputy attorney general.
When Susan Rice and others go to jail, the RATs will learn of unintended consequenses.
The President is keeping the Rats distracted, while he pursues his agenda.
The witch is SHillary, we all know it! ...
K. Thanks. I’ll get right on it.
Yes. Pence AND HIS PAC. Thanking Donohue.
Pence and Kushner threw Christie out. Ryan and Priebus are GOPe.
This stinks. I didn’t vote Pence, NOR WILL I.
In an unscripted moment picked up by camera crews, the American president was more blunt: Let me get reelected first, he said; then I’ll have a better chance of making something happen.
“On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space,” Obama can be heard telling Medvedev, apparently referring to incoming Russian president — and outgoing prime minister — Vladimir Putin.
“Yeah, I understand,” Medvedev replies, according to an account relayed by an ABC News producer, who said she viewed a recording of the discussion made by a Russian camera crew. “I understand your message about space. Space for you . . .”
“This is my last election,” Obama interjects. “After my election, I have more flexibility.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-tells-medvedev-solution-on-missile-defense-is-unlikely-before-elections/2012/03/26/gIQASoblbS_story.html
Medvedev, who last week demanded written proof that Russia is not the intended target of U.S. missile defense efforts, responded agreeably.
“I understand,” he told the U.S. president. “I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”
Special investigator does DT a HUGE favor by taking issue off table for months (”can’t comment”) and opens doors for DNC hack indictments.
Not commenting on the sure to be daily 5:30 PM leak from the Special counsels office will not be adventagous.
Nothing good will come of this witch hunt. Trump & all his associates will get a years long waterboarding. Meanwhile, nothing the Democrats did will get investigated.
Wrong. First, we NOW are at the point when the “5:30 leak” will be from the PROSECUTOR’S office. Oh, wait. There aren’t any.
Just how many leaks were there from Starr’s office? None. If there is a leak from a prosecutor’s office, it is squashed brutally. Because they really, really value their vaunted position.
Second, this basically shuts down ALL discussion of this for months. When you get Vox and Rolling Stone saying this special investigator is a bad idea & Dems need to back off, you know that what THEY know he’s likely to find will be on them.
We have a typical abused spouse relationship around here. I get it, but there’s a new sheriff in town and he just pulled a MASSIVE one over on the Dems and the fake news media.
It’s a great day.
For example, does that FR posting restriction principle apply even to posts about stinking, rotten, treasonous journalists? Does it apply even to posts about Stephen Colbert? Does it apply to posts about Chuck Schumer, and other Dirtycraps? How about John McCain posts, or Lindsey Graham posts, or posts about similar traitorous Repugnantcons?
What forms and degrees of persuasive techniques are permissible and can be employed to convince these loathsome people to stop their lying, evil, despicable, anti-American ways? (Is waterboarding considered violence?)
(My thought is that we could have some kind of contest, with a list of journalists and others who desperately need to be straightened out, and a point value placed next to each name on that list, and whichever FReeper can find a proper and decent and allowable way to convince and straighten out a person on that list will then be rewarded somehow in accord with the point value placed next to that malodorous name.)
Reading Comey's testimony of March 20, 2017 is interesting [transcript which has a lot of discussion by Comey about whether a crime was committed when someone fabricates something. and passes it off as leaked intelligence, knowing that it is not protected intelligence.
In other words, a lot of Comey's investigation, the investigation that Mueller is to undertake, is focused on understanding where the whole notion of Russian interference came from.
Rosenstein's order appointing Mueller charges Mueller with investigating "any other matters within the scope of 28 CFR 600.4(a). This section provides:
The jurisdiction of a Special Counsel shall be established by the Attorney General. The Special Counsel will be provided with a specific factual statement of the matter to be investigated. The jurisdiction of a Special Counsel shall also include the authority to investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the Special Counsel's investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses; and to conduct appeals arising out of the matter being investigated and/or prosecuted.
As they say. there are too tragedies in life, not getting what you want and getting it.
The whining democrats got what they asked for and may life to regret it.
Pence is setting up a PAC for Congressional candidates in 2018 “who support the Trump Agenda.” (that is close to Pence’s quote)
Sorry, I don’t have the link, but I saw the exposition of this sometime this morning.
Headline was framed on Drudge as Pence sandbagging Trump and the actual article itself, IIRC, explained the situation.
I just read (considering the source) an almost astounding article in the Rolling Stone. Juxtapose their analysis of Comey and Clapper - calling Clapper’s statements into question as well as Comey’s seemingly irrational secrecy. And a nice little bonus to the article is discussing how FARA is violated on a daily basis in DC. Wrapping up with a challenge to liberals (!) that ‘secret police’ and ‘lingering under public suspicion’ are what they are supposed to be against!:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/taibbi-how-did-russiagate-start-w482262
FBI Director pick/appointment has become political, like Supreme Court Justices, other courts, etc.
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