Day 847 Friday May 3, 2019
549 Days to the 2020 election and 627 Days to Inauguration Day
More elephants, more deniers of swamp gas.
Washington was built on a swamp. Therefore, analogies to swamps are in abundance. But I came up with a clever new one (OMG, Donald Trump self congratulatory speech is infecting me! And there is no vaccine!!! Help me! Help Me! )
It seems the swamp gas is wafting through the halls of government and infecting many, if not all, Republicans. Certainly, anyone the president has contact for any period of time becomes infected. It’s kind of like “Day of the Dead” where people fall asleep and plants invade their brains. Oh, wait, that was “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”
William Barr’s testimony in front of the Senate committee is still being analyzed. What comes out of it is that he’s a liar and that he uses finally parsed legal statements to say he didn’t lie, that’s not what he meant, that isn’t what it means, etc. etc. etc.
The Republicans on that committee have been sucking in and exhausting the same old stale gas with some added smells. It goes like this: Mueller found no collusion, no obstruction, no nothing and therefore everything said about Trump in the press and the report is a lie. Trump is therefore within his rights to stop investigations, fire people and do anything else to stop these unfounded silly investigations. If you want to look at collusion, look no further than Hillary Clinton. She hired Russians. She has hidden emails. You should be looking at here.
Barr of course is playing along, and or leading. He believes there was spying – on the Trump campaign. By whom is not really clear, but he’s going to be investigating. Then there’s the really weird legal argument about Trump and his not being a criminal. Mueller wrote in his report that he didn’t think he had the authority to charge a sitting president so he didn’t. Because he couldn’t charge it would be unfair to make a charge because the whole point of our justice system is to give a person “their day in court.” If they can’t go to court to clear their name then the charge would be hanging out there and that would, as I just wrote, be unfair. therefore, Mueller did not make a conclusion as to whether Trump was guilty of any crime. Mueller also said that he could not exonerate the president. Not because of the same logic but because the evidence did not support that conclusion. Mueller went on to lay out for 178 pages things that were obstruction of justice. He didn’t call them that because to so do would be analogous to charging someone. He wrote that he was preserving this evidence for Congress to act on if they wished, or for a prosecutor to so do once the man who was president was no longer president.
Mr. Barr and Senator Graham both indicated that they had not read the full Mueller Report nor looked at the underlying evidence. Mr. Barr also said that it was Mueller’s job to charge the president if he felt it warranted it, and because Mueller did not the decision fell to him the AG to so do. But he wouldn’t do it because Mueller hadn’t done so. If this seems like circular reasoning that’s because it is. ( Do not try to put into an Excel spreadsheet! “Circular Reference!!!” )
Amy Kloboshar asked Barr if Mueller had looked at Trump’s tax returns. He said he didn’t know and suggest she ask Mueller. She has now done that via a letter. She added in both the letter to Mueller and her comments to Barr that if Mueller had looked at such documents she would need to see them “as underlying evidence.”
The other fascinating thing that I see is that Barr has said it was Mueller’s job to charge the president. As far as I know Mueller is still an employee of the Justice Department and he’s still Special Counsel. So as I see it; Mueller could still charge Trump. And I being the legal beagle that I am think he should so do.
I also hope and pray that Jerry Nadler will have the Attorney General arrested and thrown in the House jail.
Oh and speaking of Barr and his performance recently, which has led to calls for his impeachment, do you know the last time there were calls for the impeachment of an Attorney General? And do you know who it was?
Let’s jump in the “not so wayback machine” boop boop boop … why it was one William Barr. Back with the Bushes. Yeah. Same guy. Same playbook. Same reasons. Why should anyone be surprised of how he’s acting now?
You don’t have to be a lawyer to understand that Trump and the people around him were deeply involved with the Russians. It was blatant. It was ham handed. It was.
Some have said that for Trump and for some around him, they think the laws don’t apply. I think it’s a slightly different outlook. Laws are for other people, yes, to constrain those people and if you can convince someone to not do something that you don’t want them to do because of a law that’s great. As far as you and the law? Hey, if you can’t get caught, go for it, and if you do get caught? Deny, deny, deny. But if you consider that Trump is a sociopath then this analysis makes sense because sociopaths don’t really understand emotion, reason, or law. Like Nixon said – he would say things not because they were true, but to watch for the reaction. Much like a billiard player watching how the balls moved about the table (his analogy – not mine.) I guess that’s why he lied to LBJ about his illegal activities with the Vietnamese government before he, Nixon, took office.
549 Days to the 2020 election and 627 Days to Inauguration Day
PS Boropudur, The largest Buddhist Temple in Indonesia. The kid is going there soon!
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