Hello Everyone:
It is a sunny Monday afternoon, Yours Truly is feeling better, and it is the start of a new week. Today, Blogger Candidate Forum is stepping into the blogosphere with the, as promised, look at the newly released redacted final report by the Special Counsel Office on Russian interference in the 2016 elections. If The Candidate Forum were to describe the SCO's report in a few words it would be no one is unscathed. Even former President Barack Obama is faulted for not heeding the warnings from his intelligence directors, in 2014, about possible Russian meddling in the elections. The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the unredacted version of the report, arguing that the committee has a right to see the full version. The Department of Justice responded that the subpoena was premature and unnecessary (bbc.com; Apr. 20, 2019; date accessed Apr. 22, 2019). That said, shall we have a look at the Special Counsel Office's final report and try to make some sense of it?
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| Title page from the SCO's report foxnews.com |
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| The President of the United States cnn.com |
We believe it was the DNC that did the 'hacking' as a way to distrct from the many issues facing their deeply flawed candidate and failed party leader, Too bad the DNC doesn't hack Hillary Clinton's 33,000 missing emails (cnn.com; June 15, 2016; date accessed Apr. 22, 2019)
The Democratic National Committee, the Chinese, a random 400-person, whoever or whatever else was behind election interference other than the Russians.
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| Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller cnbc.com |
However, Special Counsel Robert Mueller wrote,
[T]he investigation established that the Russian government perceived it would be benefit from a Trump presidency and worked to secure that outcome, and that the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts (nbcnews.com; Apr. 22, 2019)
The operative word in this statement is "perceived." At the time of the infamous Trump Tower meeting, Mr. Trump's victory was not a sure thing. The Russian government expected some quid pro quo arrangement. The possible arrangement being a lifting of sanctions that have crippled the Russian economy. Thus, it assumed that by providing hacked DNC and Clinton campaign emails, it would ultimately result in a Trump victory and the lifting of sanctions.
Yesterday, the president's personal lawyer, former U.S. attorney and New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd:
Todd: So it is now okay for political campaigns to work with material stolen by foreign adversaries?
Giuliani: It depends on the stolen material. If the stolen material is--first of all, was it all right for The New York Times and The Washington Post to print against the objections of the president... (Ibid)f
In his typically clumsy manner Mr. Giuliani tried to normalize foreign election interference. On WikiLeaks, Mr. Giuliani added,
They were putting out things that were true and very, very damaging to Hillary Clinton...It'd be like the Pentagon Papers. I mean, Pentagon Papers were stolen. They were stolen form the, from the, from the Department of Defense (Ibid)
One reason Mr. Giuliani is equating the Pentagon Papers with WikiLeaks is Roger Stone's trial is coming up and the WikiLeaks story is not going away. By the way, Rudy Giuliani might want to re-check his copy of state and federal privacy statues because you can be prosecuted for using hacked social media and email accounts (hg.org; date accessed Apr. 22, 2019).
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| Trump Tower New York City, New York nytimes.com |
Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA-NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING (twitter.com/@realDonaldTrump; Jan. 11, 2017; date accessed Apr. 22, 2019)
The Special Counsel Office's paints a different picture. Robert Mueller wrote,
Between 2013 and June 2016, several employees of the Trump Organization, including then-president of the organization Donald J. Trump, pursued a Moscow deal with several counterparties (nbcnews.com; Apr. 22, 2019)
One of the most explosive revelation from the Special Counsel was the president's repeated attempts to impede with the Russia investigation by tampering with witnesses.
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| Former FBI Director James B. Comey northjersey.com |
Mr. Trump and his team also said that FBI Director James Comey was dismissed because of his handling of the Clinton email investigation. The men and women in the Trump administration, including Director Comey, serve at the pleasure of the president. However, the timing and reason for Director Comey's firing was cause for suspicion. The dismissal came just before the Department of Justice issued its final determination.
During a May 10, 2017 briefing, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that the ...rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director...countless members of the FBI that say very different things (politifact.com; Apr. 19, 2019; date accessed Apr. 22, 2019). However, Ms. Sanders later told SCO investigators that she had a slip of the tongue (Ibid). Ms. Sanders told the SCO that her comment was made in the heat of the moment that was founded on anything (Ibid) Essentially, the president was angry that the FBI's investigation into the Clinton emails did not result in arrests and refused to back off the Flynn investigation. Further, the president tried to get former White Legal Counsel Douglas McGahn to misrepresent James Comey's dismissal but Mr. McGahn refused to go along with the ruse and eventually resigned.
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| Former White House Legal Cousel Douglas McGahn cbsnews.com |
Former White House Legal Counsel Douglas McGahn emerged as a sort of guardrail against the president's own worst impulses. When Robert Mueller was appointed as the Special Counsel, the president was visibly shaken. Once he regained his composure, the president initiated efforts to impede the investigation, including telling Mr. McGahn and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that Mueller had to go. Mr. McGahn spoke with the president twice and clearly understood what the directive meant. Rather than carry it out, he phoned his lawyer, typed his resignation letter, and drove to the White House to clean out his office. Ultimately, he remained on the job and the president did not follow up on his request. Mr. McGahn did finally leave his job without carrying out the president's order that would have absolutely caused a constitutional crisis.
Where does that leave us? The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee subpoenaed the full, unredacted report for review. Members of the House are using the I-word (impeachment) loudly. Allow Yours Truly to remind you that impeachment is not removal from office. Impeachment is the equivalent of indictment. Most important, it is a political process as much as it is a legal one. Further, this is not the 1990s and former President Bill Clinton is not in anyone's cross hairs. The Special Counsel Office's report lays bare ten occasions where the president tried to muddy the investigation into Russian inference in the 2016 election. It also paints a portrait of an administration that functions in a toxic environment. Leadership and good governance flows from the top; what does it say when we have a duly elected president who tried obstruction an ongoing investigation? If the House refuses to begin impeachment hearings, then they must censure the president. The point being that the president must face consequences for his actions. Allowing the president to go without rebuke is cowardness.
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