Free Republic

**SNIP** Richard Ben-Veniste, a former Watergate prosecutor, told The Independent that any effort to keep Mr Mueller from testifying is likely to fail. And, the more it looks like Mr Trump and his team are resisting that effort – resisting the effort for Americans to hear “the truth”, as Ms Pelosi might put it – the more it will hurt the 45th president. “I think ultimately Robert Mueller will testify, and that the more the president and his attorney general seek to delay or derail Mueller’s public testimony the more of a political price it will pay in the court...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 — The prosecution in the perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. neared the end of its case Wednesday with a final dramatic flourish — putting Tim Russert of NBC News on the witness stand to deliver what could be a serious blow to Mr. Libby’s defense. Nevertheless, Mr. Russert, who is accustomed to asking tough questions of his guests on “Meet the Press,” found himself in the clearly uncomfortable role of being the subject of tough questions during a cross-examination by Mr. Libby’s defense lawyer. Mr. Russert, whose signature technique in interrogating officials on his television...

Preview and Analysis of the Weekend Talk Shows for 9/9 and 9/10/2006The fifth anniversary of 9/11 is Monday, and the drive by media wants to make sure you know what you are supposed to think.  They also really don't want you to get a chance to hear any other versions of the 9/11 narrative that might raise questions about their approved one.Meet the press has Vice President Dick Cheney ("for the first time in three years" - gee I wonder why?) for the "full hour" (not counting commercials, promos, asides, other business, etc., etc.).  The drive by media is beginning...

I told you people yesterday and the day before of a movie, a mini-series running on ABC on September 10th and 11th, called The Path to 9/11 and I told you that I have the DVDs. I also told you because I am in touch -- I am poor when I'm in New York -- I do not have a DVD player. I don't. My apartment's got an old media room in it, it's got a laser disk player in it, but it doesn't have a DVD. Well, actually it has a DVD player in it, but the TV doesn't...

The Washington lawyer is the quintessential Washington type. He has the huge house in Wesley Heights or Potomac; the million-dollar partnership bonuses; the Rolodex with everyone's private number; the squad of young associates who do the grunt work and call him Godfather; the easy intercourse with pols and corporate chieftains seeking free advice or high-priced counsel--and, of course, the ego to go with all of the above. He slips and slides in and out and around government, usually making his reputation through political work he can then sell on the open market. The Washington lawyer comes in a number of...

The 9-11 Commission: gone but not, the commissioners hope, forgotten. Not content to rest on their laurels, after the Commission "disbanded as a government entity" last year, the 10 commissioners believed so strongly in the need for continued public discussion about terrorism that it formed the 9/11 Discourse Project. So the commissioners keep on ticking, like the Energizer Bunny, although without an official charter. This week, the group started a series of eight public hearings this week called "The Unfinished Agenda" which are designed to assess government progress in implementing Commission recommendations. Why? In the words of Vice Chairman Lee...

An Army intelligence officer yesterday publicly charged that the unit in which he worked had indeed identified two al Qaeda cells — and 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta more than a year before the terrorist attacks. Properly handled, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer says, that information might have prevented the terror attacks. And Shaffer insists that his unit, code-named Able Danger, provided that information to the 9/11 commission headed by former Gov. Tom Kean — which failed to include it in its final report. Moreover, the officer's revelations come as newly declassified documents show that State Department analysts warned the Clinton administration...

In July of 1996, union boss Ron Carey, whose election as head of the Teamsters would soon be thrown out by the courts as corrupt, met with Arlen Specter and told him, according to Carey's notes for the meeting, "we remember our friends." That pat on the back from a man who would be indicted a few years later was accompanied by a $5,000 check from the Teamsters' Union PAC. Over the next 18 months, the Teamsters would send another $10,000 Specter's way. It was the least Carey could do. After all, Specter, as chairman of the appropriations subcommittee with...

Last Monday evening, the Associated Press broke the news that for-mer Clinton National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, was being in-vestigated by the Justice Department. Berger is alleged to have re-moved several highly classified documents from the National Archive. Berger had been sent there by former president Bill Clinton to review documents pursuant to Clinton’s testimony before the 9/11 Commis-sion. Democrats were quick to accuse the Republicans of deliberately leak-ing this story in an attempt to divert attention away from today’s (July 22nd) release of the Commission’s final report. However, this claim no longer makes any sense. The report is not...

The 10 members of the 9/11 Commission are releasing their big report this week. Under other circumstances, the issuance of this document could have made them the toasts of America — the wisest of the wise, the cool-headed analysts who sorted through all the data and information and made important judgments that would help make this country safe. Instead, the report will effectively be dead on arrival. The administration has no reason to take the recommendations seriously, because the commission's members did such an astonishing job discrediting themselves last spring. The supposedly bipartisan commission unexpectedly became a partisan tool, a...

Over in the alternative universe of the 9-11 Commission hearings watched only by me, Richard Ben-Veniste recently proposed an amazing new standard for investigating Arabs in this country. In the middle of haranguing Condoleezza Rice, Ben-Veniste demanded to know why the suspected 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, had not been more aggressively investigated, despite the fact that – I quote – he had "no explanation for the funds in his bank account, and no explanation for why he was in the United States." So let me get this straight: Airport security can't acknowledge that a person is an Arab, but they...

Over in the alternative universe of the 9/11 commission hearings watched only by me, Richard Ben-Veniste recently proposed an amazing new standard for investigating Arabs in this country. In the middle of haranguing Condoleezza Rice, Ben-Veniste demanded to know why the suspected 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, had not been more aggressively investigated, despite the fact that -- I quote -- he had "no explanation for the funds in his bank account, and no explanation for why he was in the United States." So let me get this straight: Airport security can't acknowledge that a person is an Arab, but they...

Over in the alternative universe of the 9-11 Commission hearings watched only by me, Richard Ben-Veniste recently proposed an amazing new standard for investigating Arabs in this country. In the middle of haranguing Condoleezza Rice, Ben-Veniste demanded to know why the suspected 20th hijacker, Zacarias Moussaoui, had not been more aggressively investigated, despite the fact that – I quote – he had "no explanation for the funds in his bank account, and no explanation for why he was in the United States." So let me get this straight: Airport security can't acknowledge that a person is an Arab, but they...

Watching Bob Kerrey, who seems to be emotionally unhinged, and Richard Ben Veniste, the lamest specimen of showboating hack, badgering Condoleeza Rice the other day, I understood more clearly why the Islamists despise the west. The 9/11 commission represents the very worst traits of American government: arthritic, retroactive, portentous, posturing, pseudo-legalistic, victimologically inclined, and utterly irrelevant to what we old-fashioned types still like to call the real world. By contrast, the Hutton inquiry in Britain was a model of intellectual focus and presentational restraint. As to “BUSH’S FAILURE TO ACT!!!!” on a feeble August memo of Islamism For Dummies generalities,...

As President Bush was appearing at a news conference on Tuesday night, the two leaders of the independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks were not behind closed doors dissecting intelligence documents. They were sitting at a CNN studio here waiting to go on "Larry King Live." One of them, Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey governor who is the commission's chairman, said he and his colleagues were so determined to be credible with Americans that they decided early on to conduct themselves in a very public manner. "We made a conscious decision, and part of it was under...

From Sam Ervin to Earl Warren to Joseph McCarthy, high-powered investigative hearings in Washington have created heroes and villains, made and broken political careers, and rewritten history and biographies in unexpected ways. The Sept. 11 commission's hearings seem certain to take their place in that gallery. In three months, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States will offer its report on the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. But the verdict is coming in on the players in this drama in a city that thrives on anointing winners and losers, and on spotting the political implications behind even...

The Washington lawyer is the quintessential Washington type. He has the huge house in Wesley Heights or Potomac; the million-dollar partnership bonuses; the Rolodex with everyone's private number; the squad of young associates who do the grunt work and call him Godfather; the easy intercourse with pols and corporate chieftains seeking free advice or high-priced counsel--and, of course, the ego to go with all of the above. He slips and slides in and out and around government, usually making his reputation through political work he can then sell on the open market. The Washington lawyer comes in a number of shapes and...

The curious case of Richard Ben-Veniste.THE WASHINGTON LAWYER is the quintessential Washington type. He has the huge house in Wesley Heights or Potomac; the million-dollar partnership bonuses; the Rolodex with everyone's private number; the squad of young associates who do the grunt work and call him Godfather; the easy intercourse with pols and corporate chieftains seeking free advice or high-priced counsel--and, of course, the ego to go with all of the above. He slips and slides in and out and around government, usually making his reputation through political work he can then sell on the open market.The Washington lawyer comes...

RICHARD BEN VENISTE threw a knife at John Ashcroft and hit Jamie Gorelick between the shoulders. Thus did the most irresponsible member of an increasingly irresponsible commission finally draw some blood, even though his victim was unintended. Ben Veniste's conduct has grown wilder as the Nielsen ratings attached to the proceedings have increased. Democrats thought they were getting a skilled prosecutor with Watergate and other fine show trial credentials, but the sun is setting on BV's career, and that does funny things to a man in D.C. The same syndrome of packaged outrage and bad hair cuts has affected Bob...

No, I don't feel any better after George W. Bush's shaky press-conference appearance, either. But I also don't feel any better as the 9/11 Commission veers into absurd degrees of eagle-eyed hindsight. Increasingly, Commission interrogations boil down to: Why didn't you know the future! Once an outcome is known, it's easy to draw lines backward that seemed to foretell the event--skipping that there were multiple lines that seemed to foretell events that did not happen. Nobody knew September 11 was coming: no Republican, no Democrat, no intelligence agency of any nation, no newspaper, no television network. Please end this carnival...