687

With yesterday’s revelation -see chapter A-that Mueller asserts Manafort lied multiple times and so the plea deal is void-and so Manafort is going to jail now for if not the rest of his now 69 year old life-for most of it-a common hypothesis is that Manafort-like Jerome Corsi who it was reported yesterday also rejected a plea deal and, no doubt, Roger Stone-is that all these Trump co-conspirators are playing for a Trump pardon.

UPDATE: Manafort actually got a pretty friendly judge in Virginia and even Amy Jackson Berman proved to be relatively gentle but he was still sentenced to 7 and a half years pending possible state charges-the case is proceeding.

The New Republic asks  a good question-what happened to Alan Dershowtiz-who has become a notorious Trump apologist?

Dershowitz’s defense of the president has bewildered some of his friends and colleagues. In March, Jeffrey Toobin, a New Yorker staff writer and CNN senior legal analyst, confronted Dershowitz on TV about “carrying water” for Trump. “This is not who you used to be,” Toobin told him. “And you are doing this over and over again in situations that are just obviously ripe with conflict of interest. And it’s just, like, what’s happened with you?”

Actually think I know the answer: he cares more about achieving his agenda for Israel than who the President is or even if this ‘President’ is legitimate or not.

“I don’t believe collusion is a crime,” he told me, noting that collusion doesn’t exist as such in the federal criminal statutes. (Other legal experts have concluded it would violate campaign-finance laws.) He also rejected the idea that Trump’s pardoning of top officials would be an impeachable offense. “The best evidence is George H. W. Bush, who pardoned Caspar Weinberger to stop the investigation into Iran-Contra,” he said, for which President Bush faced no consequences.

FN: Note, however, that conduct doesn’t have to be a crime to be an impeachable offense-indeed one way to look at impeachment is it’s for conduct that should be a crime but isn’t

“Weinberger, who served as President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of defense during the Iran-Contra scandal, was one of six officials who received pardons from Bush in 1991 that short-circuited an independent-counsel probe. Many now fear that Trump could use the pardon power to aid Cohen, Michael Flynn, or Paul Manafort, and thereby prevent Mueller from using plea deals to obtain damaging evidence and testimony. Trump’s pardon of Scooter Libby last week only intensified those fears.”

Actually I’ve noticed that those who disagree with Dershowitz have scrambled to explain how what Bush did was different than if Trump does pardon Manafort-Stone-Corsi-or maybe even Assange as suggested in (Chapter B) not to mention his son and son in law. And, of course, this is a problem for them as there really is no difference.

What they should say was that while Bush faced no consequences that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t have. But as I do document in Chapter C Reagan-Iran collusion is the cautionary tale-as the Reaganites really did get off scot free. But for the New Republic to be quoting Dershowitz on Bush’s pardon of the six is itself awkward as the supposedly liberal NR did more than anyone to make sure that the story of Reagan-Iran collusion was forever buried in an unmarked grave-ironically even Bill Clinton was complicit along with the 1993 Democratic Congress in this burial. The GOP ‘thanked him’ by starting up Whitewater the very next year.

Indeed, Dershowitz only refers to Iran-Contra ignoring that the real concern for Bush Sr. was Iran collusion of which Iran-Contra was just one episode. But the right answer to him is yes Bush Sr. did pardon six criminal witnesses to protect himself and Reagan and so Irangate remains one of America’s great, unheralded crimes. 

Yet James Comey spent years investigating the Marc Rich pardon and not one day on the Weinberger pardon where a President pardoned six witnesses who could have incriminated himself. As is said those who forget history are condemned to repeat it so let’s remember it:

“President Bush yesterday pardoned former defense secretary Caspar W. Weinberger and five other former government officials involved in the Iran-contra affair because “it was time for the country to move on.”

Independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh, who had prosecuted all six of those Bush pardoned, angrily declared that Bush’s action meant that “the Iran-contra coverup, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.” But Walsh gave notice that he was still not finished with his investigation, indicating that he is now focusing on Bush himself.

The coverup was almost completed. In a few weeks Bill Clinton and the Democratic Congress would complete it-in 2009, Obama and the Democratic Congress would do the same thing for  the criminals from the George Bush 2.0 WH.

This is why I argued in (Chapter A) that a President Kamala Harris-or Cory Booker or Elizabeth Warren-must not do the same thing in 2021-either for the co-conspirators or for Trump himself a la Gerald Ford pardoning Nixon.

FN: It was very good to see Kamala Harris vow this but, then a MSM false equivalence furor developed and she backed off.

As I read it it wasn’t that she was herself directly calling for him to be locked up just that she wouldn’t commit to a pardon and whitewash like Gerald Ford in 1974, Clinton in 1993, and Obama in 2009 all did.

For Democratic consultant types who worry only about the politics of it rather than the principle it ought to be remembered that Clinton lost the House for the first time in 40 years in 1994 and Obama got ‘shellacked’ in 2010 and Gerald Ford quite possibly wins in 1976 if not for pardoning Nixon so there’s no evidence of ‘putting the past behind us so the country can move on’ is smart, winning politics.

Now when Bush Sr. declared it was time for the country to move on this was mighty white of him, galling for how self serving it was to equate what’s best for the country with him pardoning himself. As for Clinton it was just really foolish when you look at what happened with Whitewater-where a nothingburger scandal about a nothinburger land deal from the 1970s essentially dominated 5 years of Washington DC. Bush Sr-and Clinton-had said it was time to move on yet, Whitewater even on a historical basis was a step even further in the past as the allegations were from the 1970s-at least the Iran-Reagan allegations happened in 1980.

And the Democrats had the power to insist that the truth will out and that justice be done and yet they listened to these clueless ‘sensible centrists’-of the same nature who are now trying to take down Pelosi-failing grandly it’s true-who not only were they wrong on the principle and the substance were proven totally wrong on the politics besides. They are wrong to only consider politics but they aren’t even good at considering politics…

Walter Pincus, who wrote the original WaPo report on Bush’s shamelessly self-serving pardons had a followup on 2007″

“It’s amazing what nuggets of information you can unearth deep within a book as jampacked as “The Reagan Diaries” — a 745-page doorstop, edited by historian Douglas Brinkley, that sheds light on how the former president grappled with some of the same executive dilemmas garnering headlines today.”

Some of the same executive dilemmas garnering headlines today.

Note that Pincus wrote this in 2007 not 2017-2018 when the similarities are even greater and more strikingly uncanny.

In his diary entry for Dec. 6, 1988, President Ronald Reagan wrote, “I lean very much toward a pardon” for Robert “Bud” McFarlane, his former national security adviser who had pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts for misleading Congress about the Iran-contra affair.

“He awaits sentence. . . . I don’t think he deliberately lied,” Reagan recorded, adding that McFarlane’s wife had written him “on her own asking for a pardon for Bud.”

Didn’t deliberately lie. This is the same stance Jerome Corsi is taking now to explain his initial denials of writing Roger Stone an email urging him to meet with Julian Assange (Chapter B).

“The issue had come up that morning, according to the diary, when Reagan’s White House counsel, A.B. Culvahouse, began a 10 a.m. meeting talking about pardons — not only for McFarlane but also for Oliver North and John Poindexter, the two main actors in the arms-for-hostages dealings.”

“The matter reemerged on Dec. 22, less than a month before Reagan would leave office. The president wrote that he had sent Culvahouse “letters from Ollie North’s lawyers asking me to pardon Ollie.” Next, he wrote that at 10:30 a.m. on the same day, Attorney General Richard Thornburgh “came in with a well reasoned argument against pardons for North & Poindexter,” who at that point were awaiting trial.

On Jan. 10, 1989, Reagan noted, “The matter of a pardon for North is now being looked at as — the judge should drop the charges.” Part of Reagan’s interest in the North trial is reflected in the next day’s entry: “[T]he Justice Dept. will file a motion today to quash the subpoenas for Geo. [Secretary of State George P.Shultz] & me in the North case.”

On Jan. 16, Reagan recorded that he had “a 20 min. session on things hanging fire — like pardons for several people.” The only name Reagan mentioned was that of Michael K. Deaver, his former deputy chief of staff who had been convicted of not telling the truth to a congressional committee. Reagan noted that a Deaver relative had called a Justice Department official “about a pardon for Mike,” but “Mike has passed the word he wouldn’t accept a pardon.”

On Reagan’s last full day in office, Jan. 19, he wrote that Thornburgh came “to see me about pardons.” Reagan went on: “He doesn’t believe I should pardon . . . North, Poindexter or McFarlane. I’m afraid he’s right.”

Of course, Bush would do the dirty work for him.

In his autobiography, “An American Life,” Reagan disclosed that “despite appeals from their supporters and despite my own sympathies,” he had decided against pardoning the three. “I still felt the law had to be allowed to take its course,” he wrote. It was Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, who would pardon McFarlane on Dec. 24, 1992. North’s and Poindexter’s convictions had been previously reversed.

Now, after President George W. Bush has commuted the sentence of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, it would be interesting to know what roles Bush’s attorney general and White House counsel played in the decision.

UPDATE: Note I wrote this chapter in November before Trump hired Bush Sr’s AG who executed the pardons of the Reagan-Bush co-conspirators making the analogy even more on the nose.

Are we about to repeat history or have we learned anything? Certainly the Democrats have no excuse for repeating the errors of Clinton-Obama as the public couldn’t be clearer in its mandate for them.

https://twitter.com/KFILE/status/1067240416804831232

The Democrats also have the negative examples of Clinton 1993, Obama 2009, and Ford losing in 1976 because contrary to the country’s wishes he pardoned Nixon in the self serving claptrap that ‘it’s time for the nation to move on’ so they have no excuse for listening to the sensible centrists again who just want to hang out with ‘President Trump’ over cocktails and pass all these great bills on infrastructure, immigration reform and dug prices.

By all means take a deal if it’s on offer-though there’s great reason to doubt it-but not in exchange for letting anyone off the hook who compromised the integrity of the People’s elections.

The only way to ‘turn the page’ is to have accountability-both getting to the truth of what happened and all those guilty must be punished. The notion that you can ‘move on’ without closure and accountability condemns us to continually repeat history. 

UPDATE: Note I wrote this chapter in November before Trump hired Bush Sr’s AG who executed the pardons of the Reagan-Bush co-conspirators making the analogy even more on the nose.

Barr has done a great deal to obstruct justice both in the Muller investigation-his fake exoneration letter is still the basis of the current MSM narrative that “Mueller is over and we’ve turned the page on Russian collusion-nobody cares. Now let’s talk about 2020′-and in many other cases.

Indeed, while the House Dem leadership dither on even getting Trump’s tax returns much less impeachment Barr’s DOJ-remember he’s the the man and AG who pardoned Bush Sr’s co-conspirators and has done so much to protect Trump; will he also be the one to execute pardons for Manafort and Flynn?-is running all these fake investigations of the investigators themselves.

In the latest IG report Michael Horowtiz-who has so much to answer for in the fake Emailgate investigation-did it again coming up with a new standard that it would have been better if Comey let the house of democracy burn than use an unauthorized fire extinguisher.

Trump should have been allowed to obstruct justice in peace.

EmptyWheel says warns Horowitz’s credibility is at risk. 

I’m generally a fan of Michael Horowitz, DOJ’s Inspector General.

For example, unlike many people, I think the Inspector General report on Andrew McCabe makes a credible casethat the Deputy Director got caught being less than fully forthcoming with the IG — though I also think McCabe’s lawsuit has merit and expect his claim that the report itself was not completed in proper fashion may prove key to that inquiry.

But yesterday’s Comey report — and the office’s continued failure to release a report on the non-Comey leaking that hurt Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election — threatens to do grave damage to his credibility.

My only difference with Marcy Wheeler is that I was never a fan of Horowitz and unlike her I don’t see how anything can explain his behavior but politics. In chapter A I made the case that the Emailgate investigation was never properly predicated in the first place-but for the fact that it did proceed despite a lack of probable cause Horowitz and the bad headlines he was feeding the NYTimes deserves a good amount of the blame.

Wether you believe that McCabe was fully forthcoming or not his punishment was cruel and unusual-fired 26 hours before he was eligible for his pension-and the bigger  question begs wether he would have been sanctioned if he wasn’t a potential witness against ‘the President’ in the Mueller investigation and who had refused to roll back the investigation or vow ‘loyalty’ to this very same faux ‘President’ while he was interim Director.

Wheeler does also mention the scandalous, outrageous fact that a full 32 months after the IG investigation into Comeygate was first opened he still has not released the report he had last promised in June 2018 on the rogue anti Clinton pro Trump agents who forced Comey’s hand on that damnable letter on October 28, 2016-a day that will live in infamy.

But that increases the sense that Horowitz has behaved politically the whole way through. While he still hasn’t released a report on the non-Comey leaking he has had time to release reports on Andy McCabe and now a quite shabby report on Comey-that, yes, as Wheeler notes, does the same thing to the former FBI Director that he did to Hillary Clinton-declined to prosecute him but dirty him up politically.

In the Comey part of the Emailgate report he released in June, 2018 he actually led off with talk of Peter Strozk and Lisa Page. Clearly he can move quickly when he wants to-he just doesn’t want to regarding the rogue FBI agents and why is clear-it shows that the election was stolen from Clinton by rogue agents who hated her.

Indeed, such an honest and full accounting would also beyond once again calling Trump’s ‘legitimacy’ into question-which Horowtiz’s knows is the last thing Trump wants-show collusion with the Trump campaign and the FBI-the focus has been on Russia but that was only one of the many collusive acts and episodes that treasonous campaign engaged in.

As noted in Chapter A-I think it’s fair to call it my exclusive!-Roger Stone and Jerome Corsi had a role in how the Huma Abedin’s emails magically ended up on her husband’s laptop-Stone truly did his mentor Tricky Dick proud when you remember the kind of games Trump 1.0 played with J Edgar Hoover and Friends in framing Hiss with their magic typewriter.  

So unlike Wheeler-as good a legal analyst on all things Mueller you will find-I see pretty consistent pattern of Horowtiz’s anti Democrat pro GOP politics throughout-in every case. Even if you believe McCabe was ‘less than forthcoming’ the question begs if the punishment fit the crime-precedent shows it was excessive and even more importantly if this was nevertheless selective sanction of behavior that may well be quite common. It’s clear that the real sin of McCabe for which he couldn’t be forgiven was not that he leaked yet more information to hurt Hillary Clinton three days after Comey’s own damnable letter but that he was part of the Russia investigation and a witness against Trump-who had been a convenient foil during the campaign because his wife was running as a Democrat.

But with my hypothesis you see a pretty clear pattern throughout Horowtiz’s conduct over the last four years.

Meanwhile the Democrats are-what? Concerned that being too tough on Trump will alienate voters who want more messaging bills can never have enough messaging bills. The Dem ‘centrists’ who say this insist that what people really care about is bills that ‘improve their lives’ missing the fact that not one single messaging bill they and Pelosi have passed has helped anyone’s life.

Democrats history is watching-will you fire your consultants and pick up the call?

As usual the MSM has it’s narrative which remains decidedly anti impeachment-quite different from the tone in the Clinton-Lewinsky era.

License

October 28, 2016: a Day That Will Live in Infamy Copyright © by . All Rights Reserved.

Share This Book