Notes on the Trump Investigation

safe_image (2)I was thrilled to see that an old friend of mine, an extremely astute political observer who’s just recovered from a traumatic accident, is back online.  Though he dislikes Trump, he views the presidency with a yawn, which I find strange.  He’s often expressed that he thinks that I’m extreme in my desperation to see Trump removed.  Here’s a quick conversation that, as usual, has me scratching my head.

Craig:  I wouldn’t have cared too much who won in 2016 had it not been Trump. Give me some vapid Republican jackass like Jeb Bush; I would have been OK with that. And I was never patriotic; I’ve always considered myself a citizen of the world. But even to me, it’s a tragedy what’s happened to this country.

Friend: No doubt Trump has done many illegal things, but Mueller will find nothing. “Russia” was a stupid direction. It was a Democrat invention. They might have nailed him on financial chicanery. Too late now. The probe is winding down, and he’s gotten too much electoral power. Let’s move on.

“Let’s move on,” of course, means “I’m through with this conversation, if you please.” So I honored his request.

But really?

Mueller will find nothing?  Why does he think that?  What does he surmise has been the substance of Mueller’s conversations with Gates, Manafort, Papadoupolos and Cohen?  What did they give up in exchange for sentence reduction?

“Russia” was a stupid direction of the Democrats?  Is there any evidence the Democrats are directing (lifelong Republican) Mueller’s investigation? And it’s not as if Mueller has to pick one direction; that much we know from the direction he’s receiving from his boss, Rod Rosenstein.

Too late now to nail him on financial chicanery?  Why the euphemism, and why does he think that?

The probe is winding down?  Did Mueller’s team leak something to that effect?  I sure didn’t see it.

He’s gotten too much electoral power?  I presume that means too much support from the congress and the Supreme Court which is 2/9ths Trump appointees, and a few other conservatives who clearly adore Trump’s far right-wing agenda.  Maybe he’s right about this.  There really does seem to be no limit to the vileness of Trump’s words and actions that push the GOP past some line in the sand.  We keep hoping there’ll be such a line, but it appears not to exist.

Obviously nobody knows what’s about to come down the pike after the midterms.  Maybe this thing really is going to fizzle.

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One comment on “Notes on the Trump Investigation
  1. marcopolo says:

    Craig,

    Could it be you’re beginning to realize the folly and absurdity of your fanatical stance on President Trump ?

    Could it be that even you are wearying of the endless barrage of left wing abuse toward the President based on emotive rhetoric and very little substance ?

    The “Never Trumpers” in the GOP have largely left, changed their opinion, or been silenced by the President’s massive GOP rank and file support ?

    How hard is it for you to understand President Trump’s support does not come from “right wing” ultra conservatives or even the rich, (mostly they donate to the democrats) his real support base is the disappointed, disadvantaged working class. These are the voters abandoned by the Democrats in favour of trendy middle class, coastal, urban beneficiaries of globalization.

    President Trump is a self declared ‘American Nationalist’ ! He has no political adherence to any intellectually conceived ideological agenda or party doctrine. His social contract with his voters is much simpler and more in tune with frontier America.

    The Presidents rallying cry of “American Greatness” and more importantly, “America First” has proven irresistible for millions of Americans who don’t kid themselves as being “Citizens of the World” ! These voters realize such statements are made by Americans who have a self-loathing for the US and are delighted when the US weakness and complacency is shamelessly exploited by rival powers.

    So far, his policies are proving correct and effective. His methods and personality traits may be a little (well, may a lot) bizarre, but he’s producing results for his nation with astute and relatively restrained conduct.

    Your friend is indeed astute enough to realize the public have grown weary of CNN, NYT, and WP, and a myriad of irrelevant or invented scandals, More importantly, the whole “progressive left” who have revealed by their own conduct to be hysterical hypocrites.

    Your friend is also right with Mueller, everyone has grown bored with the Mueller Inquiry, it wasn’t created as a never ending “war of persecution” against Donald Trump, his Presidency or his family and the administration. It was created for the purpose of investigating the accusation of “collusion” involving Russia in the 2016 presidential election.

    The longer the Inquiry continues, it looks increasingly like politically motivated and orchestrated persecution for political advantage by the President’s foes and opponents.

    Last week the DOJ filed in court a newly revised set of pleadings. Basically, the DOJ abandoned the previous its argument that allowing President Trump to declassify information regarding FISA warrants used to spy on his campaign aide Carter Page, would threaten national security.

    In the new pleadings the DOJ is arguing declassifying the information would interfere with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation !

    This is the first time the DOJ has explicitly made this argument implying personal peril for the President, since interference could open Trump to charges of obstruction of justice.

    In a 178-page court pleading, DOJ officials claimed they had “Determined that disclosure of redacted information in the Carter Page FISA documents could reasonably be expected to interfere with the pending investigation into Russian election interference.”

    This latest legal tactic has heightened suspicions among congressional investigators that the special counsel is being used to prevent the disclosure of possible FBI abuses and crimes committed during the Russia probe, which was commenced by the FBI in July 2016, and later merged into Mueller Inquiry in 2017.

    Essentially, the DOJ is pleading, the terms of the Mueller Investigation protects it from any scrutiny, including the President’s. If the DOJ is correct, Mueller and Meuller alone is the sole judge of whether he or his people have broken the law, and no one has the power to scrutinize his activities.

    “DOJ is just playing to delay,” said one of the lawyers ating against the DOJ. “They’re banking on Democrats taking the House back in November, at which time the congressional investigations go away allowing the Democrats to shut down many of the investigations into the DOJ and FBI. That explains why the DOJ keeps raising roadblocks to transparency .”

    If this occurs, or the President just decides to unilaterally defy the DOJ and declassify the documents, a democrat house could move to impeach the President for obstruction.

    Personally, I think this would be a disaster for the Democrats, since the President would win any Senate trial and the voters would exact a heavy toll on those house members who voted for impeachment by using such a dishonest method of vengeance.

    In two years time, the voters will decide the President’s fate. If the public perceive him as the victim of a dishonest and long running viscous campaign by a collusion of Washington insiders, crooked FBI and DOJ officials, allied with Democrat legislators, his re-election would be assured and the Democrats tarnished for a generation.

    If it were me, I’d declassify the documents today, and damn the consequences ! But Trump is right, he will wait for the court’s decision.

    In other news, revelations that NBC News and sleazeball porn lawyer Micheal Avenatti, conspired to publish uncorroborated smears against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, then engaged in a deliberate cover up of a legitimate story that backed up Kavanaugh’s claim of his innocence and his claim that there was a coordinated campaign at work to personally destroy him.

    NBC has more or less shut down, refusing to deny or confirm the story, on legal advice! Micheal Avenatti is also refusing to speak.

    Even more damaging, to Micheal Avenatti and his client Stormy Daniel’s has emerged from the Porn star’s losing lawsuit against the President.

    In the “he said, she said” story of what occurred between the pair, one night nearly fourteen years ago, a small lie has emerged that Daniels insists was an invention of her lawyer, Avenatti.

    Investigators working for Trump’s Attorneys may have uncovered independent evidence supporting the President’s version and further proving Avenatti’s propensity to conspire and urge his clients to construct falsehoods.

    It may well be over the next two years President Trump will continue his rough way and oddball approach to political office. But hey, then again, no one expected Trump to occupy the high moral ground.

    However, over the next two years as scandal after scandal proves to be petty, vindictive or mischievous, his Democrat opponents will discover the electorate has grown weary of their for worse behavior, and no one likes a hypocite for long….