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The good news is the Dems are coming to take over Congress in just six weeks the bad news is you have to wonder sometimes if we can make it that far. Trump has his ringer at AG now, Matthew Whittaker who was chosen to throw sand into the gears of the Mueller probe. Meanwhile, every day new evidence of Trump’s abuse of power and authoritarian streak comes to light. What we learned yesterday is the most shocking and unnerving revelation yet-he demanded that the Department of Justice prosecute Comey and Clinton. Firing Comey and threatening or considering firing Mueller is bad enough. But this takes it to a whole other level: prosecuting a material witness against him in the Russia investigation and his political rival:
FN: In retrospect it is Bill Barr who turned out to be Trump’s ringer. While Whittaker was seen as objectionable by many institutionalist types-the Ben Wittteses and Chuck Rosenbergs of the world-largely because of his evident lack of qualification for the job, Bill Barr who clearly had the paper qualifications in abundance turned out to be the real threat which perhaps shouldn’t have been so surprising; it’s arguable that Whittaker’s incompetence took away from his ability to effectively obstruct.
What was clear is that Barr like Whittaker was on the record as being a total Trump shill who had taken shots at the Mueller investigation. Unlike Whittaker, Barr knew how to obstruct for Trump in a more effective way which is what makes him the most dangerous man in America.
End of FN.
:President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.”
“The lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. Mr. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, Mr. McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Mr. Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.”
FN: But then McGahn hadn’t spoken to Nancy Pelosi who has proven to be as see no evil hear no evil on Trump’s obstruction, authoritarianism, and fundamental illegitimacy as Paul Ryan.
Ok point granted it’s not true to say the Democrats are doing nothing but they haven’t done nearly enough. And the Speaker’s tepid dismissal of the story that Trump has been accused yet again of sexual assault-raping a journalist in 2013-makes you wonder what kind of country we have become. The reason it’s so vital to impeach ‘the President’ is for precedent and Rule of Law and this story alone shows you how far we’ve already fallen in what we will accept.
As the Rawstory link argues the Dems should at least demand Trump’s resignation-no he won’t do it-but that’s not the point. Even Kirsten Gillibrand didn’t discuss Jean Carroll’s accusation the other night. But the Dem leader response that said it all is Steve Israel’s-‘Sure but 40% of the country doesn’t care how many rape allegations are made against Trump.’
Well there you go-if a top leader is accused of rape it doesn’t matter so long as a sizable political constituency supports him. Good to know we’ve now totally normalized rape. Israel’s attitude is everything wrong with the Dem leadership-everything is seen through a political consultant’s lens-rather than what’s the right thing. Notice that those who support impeachment discuss principle not-dubious-political calculus.
End of FN.
“The encounter was one of the most blatant examples yet of how Mr. Trump views the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. It took on additional significance in recent weeks when Mr. McGahn left the White House and Mr. Trump appointed a relatively inexperienced political loyalist, Matthew G. Whitaker, as the acting attorney general.”
“It is unclear whether Mr. Trump read Mr. McGahn’s memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further. But the president has continued to privately discuss the matter, including the possible appointment of a second special counsel to investigate both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Comey, according to two people who have spoken to Mr. Trump about the issue. He has also repeatedly expressed disappointment in the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, for failing to more aggressively investigate Mrs. Clinton, calling him weak, one of the people said.”
So is he going to fire two FBI Directors for not serving his political interests. While some argue it’s a good thing that McGahn was there to talk him out of it, I think it’s long past the time we can afford to presume that the ‘adults in the room’ will protect us. This was the fallacy in DeepStateThroat’s NYT piece: that the good people around Trump-ie, the Establishment GOPers will protect us from him. This has all the logic of someone telling you not to fear the baby alligator the ybought your kid for Christmas as they will always be around to make sure it behaves itself.
FN: Regarding Wray his role remains ambiguous. It’s clear that in many ways Trump isn’t happy with him-he’s not running his agency like the FBI’s Bill Barr. On the other hand since he started at the FBI the agency’s briefings to House Intel about the Trump-Russia investigation stopped and it’s still not clear why that is-Adam Schiff has been pushing but still hasn’t gotten clear answers-or much of any.
End of FN.
As John Dean notes this is a level even Nixon never went to.
Speaking about Trump's desire to use the DOJ to prosecute political foes like Comey & Clinton, former Nixon White House counsel @JohnWDean says: "This is the sort of stuff of a banana republic. This is what an autocrat does. … This is a level Richard Nixon never went to." pic.twitter.com/CJ2SVF2dpA
— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) November 21, 2018
It’s tough to disagree with Charles Pierce’s take on these absolutely chilling demands by this so-called ‘President.’
Here’s the thing. If we’re still following the Constitution, as soon as the president* finished asking the question, he was guilty of a high crime and liable to impeachment and removal from office. It doesn’t matter that it never happened, or that McGahn talked him out of it. Given his position, the very suggestion by the president* that the Justice Department behave as his personal Praetorian Guard is an obstruction of justice and an abuse of power. McGahn should’ve walked that conversation over to Robert Mueller’s place as soon as he left the Oval Office. However, he didn’t, and the Times leaves us with this little land mine deep in the story.”
Kudos to Pierce for the asterisk.
Look I do agree with the Dem leadership to this extent anyway: we need to get Mueller’s report and do our own House Dem investigating before bantering around the ‘I’ word too much. And I’m saying this as the Impeachment Train guy in the NY2 primary….
Yep that’s me to Hillary’s exact left. I was just jazzed to be in the picture with her while wearing the t shirts…
Having said that, it’s a fact that other Presidents have been impeached for far less-both Clinton as well as probably Andrew Johnson-though I’m not wholly unsympathetic to the political agenda of the radical Republicans.
FN: There’s actually been some important work on the Johnson impeachment recently-a book etc-and it’s clear that impeaching Johnson was the correct call-the rationale for why the radical GOPers impeached Johnson is very similar to why the Democrats should impeach Trump-maladministration, abuse of power, a threatening of the Democratic order itself-Johnson had threatened to turn back the clock on the changes achieved after the Civil War.
End of FN.
But clearly what Trump did in simply asking for this-wether he got it or not in no way mitigates it-just like Donald Jr’s defense-I went to the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians hoping for cool Hilary dirt but wasn’t impressed with what they offered- doesn’t help him that much as it shows his intent.
CF: Mueller Report’s 11 instances of possible obstruction.
But then Pierce makes a very good point:
It is unclear whether Mr. Trump read Mr. McGahn’s memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further.
“It is? We’re “unclear” whether the president* actually acted on this notion, compounding his felonies, and we’re “unclear” whether investigations of Clinton and Comey might be underway right now. That’s one fcklord of a cliffhanger right there, NYT.”
Yes the tone of the coverage tends to assume that the threat has passed and some have expressed relief that at least the prosecutions didin’t happen. But as this quote in the NYT piece makes clear-we don’t know that they didn’t happen or that they aren’t in fact still proceeding. now.
FN: Indeed we now know that under Barr there are multiple investigations of the investigators from Trump-Russia.
And in fact it does appear that there have been at least a few investigations into the Clinton Foundation by Donald Trump.
Law enforcement officials have not been totally unwilling to investigate Trump’s opponents. Utah's top prosecutor was tasked w/investigating alleged FBI corruption under Obama & Uranium One. The FBI in Arkansas has also investigated the Clinton Foundation. https://t.co/IJbESXkt4K
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) November 21, 2018
Not surprising-they are both GOP states.
So with all the talk the focus on how terrible it would be if Trump’s requests were followed through on, as Pierce points out, even if they weren’t it’s still outrageous and there’s a very good case that this is High Crimes and Misdemeanors if anything can be said to be so-much worse than lying about an extramarital affair or any of the trumped up stuff on Andrew Johnson-that he was ornery or something…
FN: As noted above I’ve since revised my position on Johnson and agree his impeachment was legitimate.
Though again I feel the GOP of the late 1860s actually had a righteous beef as Johnson was trying to rollback Reconstruction.
“If everybody does his or her job the right way, they’re going to have to bring the copies of the indictments up the Potomac by barge.”
“Meanwhile, the White House continues to insist that the Mueller investigation should be put into the grasping hands of Matt Whitaker who, as an old cop reporter once put it to me, apparently wears rubber pockets so he can steal soup. He’s already been tied to a scam that cheated veterans, and to a sham company that promised to patent time travel, as well as toilets for men with big dicks. Now, the Washington Post tells us that Whitaker’s rise to legal prominence was fueled by dark money that he didn’t even have to con out of people.”
(An aside: remember the whole IRS nothingburger? The performance outrage by conservative activists who claimed that the jackbooted IRS was treading heavily on their First Amendment right to lie people out of their money? This is what it all was about—a protection racket for phony “charity” and “public service” organizations that really engage in dark-money political activism.)
“Whitaker was a natural for this kind of thing.”
Indeed. Speaking of Whittaker, after Comey-very belatedly-acquitted Clinton-in an investigation that never had probable cause in the first place-he declared that she should have been prosecuted and that if Trump won the election he could prosecute her.
Matt Whitaker suggested the Trump administration should prosecute Hillary Clinton https://t.co/V6pnrAWD5U via @MotherJones
— Matt Murphy (@MattMurph24) November 21, 2018
“Did Trump know this when he picked him to replace Jeff Sessions as attorney general?”
Did he know? Why do you think Whittaker was picked?
“In July 2016, after Comey announced he would recommend no criminal charges be filed against Clinton for using a private email server as secretary of state, Whitaker—a former US attorney, now self-branded as a conservative legal watchdog—noted during a radio interview that Clinton ought to have been prosecuted. And he raised the prospect of Clinton being charged by a next administration, assuming it was not hers: “The statute of limitations lasts beyond the election. So if there’s a different administration, they may look at these set of facts differently and pursue charges.” In another interview at that time, Whitaker said Clinton should have been prosecuted under the Espionage Act, and that it was necessary to charge her in order to preserve the rule of law.
“Two months later, appearing on the Fox Business Channel as a pundit, Whitaker indicated he believed that if Trump won, his administration should reboot the Clinton email case. Asked if there were any legal options left for prosecuting Clinton, Whitaker answered, “Unless you have a Trump administration that appoints a new attorney general and reopens this case, because there is a statute of limitations that is ticking but is not past. And I could imagine, in this world that we live in, that a Trump administration could open this case and re-look at these charges, however petty that might seem to some.”
The host then asked, “Would it seem petty to you, though?” Whitaker replied: “No.” He continued: “But it would be highly partisan and much of this, as a former member of the law enforcement community, for me has been you follow the law and you see what the facts do and you investigate the entire crime, and not just pieces and portions like it appears [the FBI] did in this instance. And I don’t think it would be petty. But I think there would be partisan charges on both sides if justice was ultimately done in this case.”
“It’s not hard to mistake Whitaker’s take here: A Trump administration ought to prosecute Clinton to ensure justice was served.”
That take didn’t fade after the election. In a May 2017 radio appearance, Whitaker essentially called for a special counsel to investigate Clinton: “Well, you know, it is pretty interesting that we don’t have a special counsel appointed for the whole former secretary of state having an illegal email server in her house, and we appoint a special counsel with zero evidence of any ties between Russia and Russian nationals and the Trump campaign…Black is white, and white is black.”
“Four months later, Whitaker became chief of staff for Sessions.”
Some defend Whittaker that he somehow can be presumed not to have meant what he said when he was a pundit on Right wing talk radio and cable news. He can just turn a switch in his head from Sean Hannity 2.0 to a wholly nonpartisan AG of the top law enforcement agency in the country.
FN: The same weird presumption was made for Barr even though his record in the Bush Sr Administration clearly led you to the opposite conclusion.
But if this doesn’t create the appearance of conflict then nothing does. Indeed, according to the Times Trump voiced his desire to investigate Hilary and Trump when talking to both Sessions and Whittaker at the DOJ.
Just 5 weeks America. If we can make it. Happy Thanksgiving.
UPDATE: So this was written eight months ago. Since then Whittaker was replaced by the much more effective obstructor in Bill Barr-note that he expressed many of the same partisan opinions about both the Russian and Emailgate investigations. Meanwhile we’re still waiting on the House Democrats to rise to the moment. We do now have 85 Democrats supporting impeachment and with Mueller set to testify in July-hopefully we’re finally going to see the kind public hearings Pelosi herself has said we need.