The Strange Tale of Trump’s Mueller Meltdown

by Burr Deming

It had been unseasonably mild that December day as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein got ready to testify before the House Judiciary Committee. Nobody knew at the time that his words would fit so neatly what we are seeing now. What is the procedure the Special Counsel will follow if he ever comes across evidence of a crime that is outside of his own jurisdiction?

Representative Zoe Lofgren posed the question:

So, for example, if he is looking at the Russia investigation and he finds out that the person he’s looking at committed a bank robbery, he isn’t required to ignore a bank robbery. Would that be a fair assessment of his responsibilities?

Mr. Rosenstein began to answer.

It’s a fair assessment…

He elaborated.

…it’s important to recognize, because it’s a special counsel, not an independent counsel, those issues are worked out with the department. So, in the event that he came across evidence that was not appropriate for him to prosecute, he could refer it to other components of the department.

So we wouldn’t allow something like that to slip through the cracks, but we would make sure to route it to the appropriate prosecutor.

Which seems to have been what happened the morning of Monday, April 9. At about 7:30, FBI agents raided the home, the offices, and the hotel room of President Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

My President reacted emotionally. The nation watched as he interrupted what was to have been a press event about what military operations might be considered after a horrible atrocity, an attack on civilians by the dictatorship of Syria. Instead, we saw what seemed to be an angry meltdown. Mr. Trump characterized the FBI raid as a break in.

So I just heard that they broke into the office of one of my personal attorneys. Good man. And it’s a disgraceful situation.

CNN’s Don Lemon contacted Michael Cohen, the attorney whose home had been broken into, whose calm reaction was a remarkable contrast to the outraged outburst of Donald Trump.

We have a direct quote from him saying:

“I’m not happy with my personal residence and office being raided, but I have to say the members of the FBI that conducted the search and seizure were all extremely professional, courteous, and respectful.”

And again he said he even thanked the agents after they left.

This is an emotional time for the leader of the free world.

It’s a total witch hunt I’ve been saying it for a long time.

Unless we accept the existence of actual black magic type witches, it is a hunt for serious criminal activity, with the trail being determined by evidence. So far, the evidence has touched on confessions, guilty pleas, indictments, and jail time. The list of those alleged to have cooperated with the interference of the Russian government is impressive and growing. Nick Confessore of the New York Times names some of the witches who are documented to be part of it.

Kushner, Manafort, Gates, Stone, Papadopoulos, Don Junior, Flynn, Erik Prince, Paige.

My president explains, with growing impatience, the importance of those Presidential duties that transcend the trivial concerns of the criminal investigation.

Here we are talking about Syria. We’re talking about a lot of serious things with the greatest fighting force ever. And I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now, and actually much more than that. You could say it was right after I won the nomination, it started.

And it’s a disgrace. It’s, frankly, a real disgrace.

He is not really concerned with his own fate. America itself is under attack. He is defending our nation from these out-of-control investigators.

It’s an attack on our country, in a true sense. It’s an attack on what we all stand for.

Kind of noble, if you think about it. Defending the country and all.

The President reminds us that important individual rights are at stake.

Attorney–client privilege is dead!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 10, 2018

Attorney-client privilege is among the most important rights Americans have. Without it, other rights vanish. That is why it is and should be, standard practice to protect that right. It is true that attorneys are not allowed to conspire with clients to commit crimes. In those cases, the attorney-client privilege does not apply.

So how can we protect that right and still prevent criminal abuse of that right?

If an investigator believes an attorney and client have gone beyond their legally protected relationship, if a Criminal-Fraud Exception is suspected, an investigator must be required to get special approval before conducting a raid on an attorney. After getting approval, a judge must be convinced to issue a warrant. Even then, a client’s rights ought to be protected, just in case the investigator, and supervisors, and the judge are all wrong.

A separate team of agents should be assigned to conduct a raid, then review the evidence. Anything that is not itself directly criminal, and that involves legal advice, should be kept away from the investigator who requested the raid. The team conducting the raid and the review ought to be hermetically sealed from the team conducting the investigation.

Now, I confess that I am not a lawyer. “Confess” might be the wrong word. My amateur understanding is that this is the exact procedure that was followed.

Special Counsel Mueller took whatever evidence of whatever crime he discovered to the Justice Department. Deputy Director Rosenstein decided to take that part of the evidence away from Mr. Mueller. He assigned it to a US Attorney in New York. A special “dirty” team of FBI agents conducted the raid. They are reviewing the evidence that has been gathered. Anything that is truly covered by an Attorney/Client privilege will be segregated from the “clean” FBI team assigned to the US Attorney’s investigation.

They not only can’t be allowed to see it, they can’t even know about it.

Substantial barriers had to be overcome to conduct the April 9 raid. Whatever crime is involved mad to be major. Yuge! Whatever evidence provoked the raid, must have been direct and overwhelming. Massive!. Everyone in the chain of approval, investigators, agents, legal teams, supervisors, and the judge, had to have agreed.

We can guess, but only guess, what crime was involved. The public speculation at the moment is that it involved the once secret, now very public, payments to keep a porn star quiet about a sexual relationship. There are allegations of threats, possibly violent. There are allegations of campaign law violations and subsequent cover-up.

Did the FBI find a trail of illegal funds used for one payoff? One coincidence is enticing. Lawyer and twitter personality Susan Simpson discovered an interesting juxtaposition of money transactions.

A series of payments from the Trump campaign to branches of Trump International at about the same time as the $130,000 payoff totaled … let’s see … (8 + 4, carry the 1) $129,999.72! That’s 3 pennies and 1 quarter less than the cover-up payment. Close enough to be suspicious.

View image on Twitter

Something I'd love to see a reporter ask Trump Org about:

1) Cohen formed EC LLC on Oct 17 2016
2) The contract provided for EC LLC to pay Stormy $130K by Oct 27 2016
3) Between Oct 17 & Oct 25, the Trump campaign made payments to Trump Org properties that add up to $129,999.72. pic.twitter.com/CMAxgl3Vn4

— Susan Simpson (@TheViewFromLL2) March 8, 2018

Political writer Kevin Drum of Mother Jones suggests that some coincidences are only coincidence. Others, with a more conspiratorial mindset, are skeptical. They’ve heard of cosmic coincidence, of course. They have never actually seen it themselves.

I am inclined to go with Mr. Drum unless other evidence surfaces. The suspected money laundering that would be involved seems to me too little to justify the enormous effort required for the raid to have taken place. On the other hand, a generation ago, I thought President Nixon was innocent until the tapes were released.

If the $129,999.72 is at the bottom of this, I expect I will join an outraged public in demanding to know where the other 28 cents came from.

One of my heroes for life is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. It is true that his public persona has become a crude caricature of coarse bigotry. But he once was a courageous prosecutor who attacked and destroyed organized crime as it existed in New York.

One of the tools he employed in his crusade against the Five Families was the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. RICO allowed him to go way past the proceeds of crime. He was able to attach all the assets, legal or not, of an enterprise that engages in certain types of widespread criminal conspiracy. RICO has since been used against a host of groups and individuals that would have escaped. The Hells Angels, Michael Milken, a few dishonest health care providers, as well as organized crime families in New York and Chicago.

A good prosecutor can go after all the tentacles of an organization, not just those branches directly engaged in criminality.

Only a few years ago, conservatives were attacking President Obama for such scandals as disrespecting his office by wearing a tan suit and for putting his feet up on his desk. Those were the days.

Now we do not need to search for some whiff of corruption. It seems to exist everywhere there is an office of a department of the executive. If you could lob a tennis ball down any hall of Congress, a corrupt official will catch it for you. If you pay him enough. You can see it in every direction, anywhere the sky turns blue on a cloudless summer day.

Ideological conservatives are missing a bet when they do not support Special Counsel Robert Mueller. If he ever carried his mandate to its logical conclusion, libertarians would see their every anti-state dream come true. With the cooperation of Mr. Rosenstein, he could use the RICO Act to shut down, and put into prison, the entire criminal enterprise that, under Mr. Trump, has come to be known as the federal government.

Via FairandUnbalanced.

Happy

0 0 %

Sad

0 0 %

Excited

0 0 %

Sleepy

0 0 %

Angry

0 0 %

Surprise

0 0 %