Tag: obstruction

Mueller acted before Labor Day, but no one cared

It didn’t make headlines, but apparently Mueller did make a move before Labor Day.  Many media outlets waited breathlessly for something like an indictment of one of Trump’s sons, or a report calling for action on Trump himself.  Instead, the Special Counsel’s office sent a letter to Trump’s attorneys with requests for written responses regarding Russia and the election.  According to the unnamed sources, the questions steered away from obstruction.  This is the best case scenario for Trump since written answers will help him avoid the “perjury trap” that his attorneys had feared.  Trump shoots from the hip when he shoots his mouth off and is notorious for conflicting and changing statements.  Written answers will allow him and his lawyers to get their story straight and on the record.

Mueller passes on interview with Trump, requests written answers instead

Massachusetts is on track to make history.  For their state, that is.  The extreme liberal state will likely have their first African American Congresswoman after Ayanna Pressley beat out incumbent Michael Capuano in the Tuesday primary.  Pressley and Capuano saw eye to eye on many things, but Pressley was definitely more anti-cop.  She also is a Democratic Socialist, calling for Medicare for all and the 100% tax hike that goes with it, and the abolition of ICE.  Although, it’s not clear if she actually means that or like Ocasio-Cortez thinks abolition of ICE just means stopping the agents from raping women and razing villages in a manner like Ghengis Khan.  I think I might be mixing up quotes there.

Capuano responded to the loss saying “America is going to be OK”.  I suppose we will be, as long as we can keep Pressley’s anti-cop, open borders, extreme tax hikes and Medicare for all policies from becoming mainstream.  Although we do need to congratulate the extremely liberal northern state of Massachusetts for finally joining Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Alabama and some of the other backwards redneck states in finally electing an African American woman to Congress.  You’re a little late in the game, but I guess better late than never.

Another Democratic Socialist upsets long-time Democrat politician

The Florida race for governor is too close to call according to a new Quinnipiac poll.  Quinnipiac, which typically leans a couple points to the left, has the race at 50-47 with Andrew Gillum in the lead.  Gillum played the race card on Ron DeSantis within 24 hours of his primary victory, and he has struggled with questions of how to pay for his socialist agenda.  Gillum has also called for a “confederacy of states” to pass Medicare for all, and admitted that he intends to make Florida the highest tax state in the south.  Gillum has also called for relaxed borders and the abolition of ICE, whatever that means.

DeSantis is running on conservative libertarian values and has promised to continue the success of Governor Scott in Florida.  The Cato institute has ranked Florida as the #1 state when it comes to freedom.  The state also has a below average unemployment rate and has continued to see sustained economic growth since Scott was elected.  DeSantis made this point when he asked why Florida would want to harm it’s great economy with socialism.  Unfortunately, leftists only heard the word “monkey” in his phrase “monkey it up”.  Leftists and some in the media ignored the entire comment and assumed DeSantis was secretly calling Gillum a monkey to elicit support from white supremacists.

Sorry, it’s so ridiculous I had a hard time even writing that.  I guess Harry Reid was right.  Democrats will say whatever it takes to win elections as long as it furthers their agenda.

Gillum, DeSantis in dead heat

 

 

 

But CNN Persisted

CNN isn’t backing off their claim that Michael Cohen can prove Trump complicity with the Trump Tower meeting.  This is despite the fact that Lanny Davis has recanted and backed off of the claim.  We reported earlier after Davis’s under-reported interview with Anderson Cooper that he basically went back on every claim he had previously made.

Davis reiterated to the Washington Post that his own claims were bogus.  But CNN is persisting in reporting that Cohen is ready to dish dirt on Trump.  CNN seems to be going the Dan Rather route of “It’s not proven, but we believe it in our hearts”. Possible things Cohen might know about?  There’s the Trump Tower meeting and potential interference through the DNC server hack, although Lanny Davis has now denied both.  There’s also an old report from the UK Daily Mail back in May that Cohen demanded money from Qatar for Trump.  But so far this seems to be tabloid gossip.

Lanny Davis says Cohen dirt oversold.  CNN still buying it.

Democrats know impeachment is out of grasp and have stopped running on it.  The economy is too good, and their evidence is too bad to actually think they could get 75 Senators to vote for impeachment.  But Democrats are promising endless probes and investigations if they take control of the House.  According to Bloomberg, Democrats have a long laundry list of taxpayer funded probes to hit Trump with in order to obstruct his agenda.  Still, Trump has weathered investigations through the first two years of his Presidency while still accomplishing major agenda items.  Voters will need to decide in November whether they want massive obstruction in the House or continued progress on the economy.

Democrats abandon impeachment, go for obstruction instead

Speaking of Trump accomplishments, stocks are through the roof again as the US and Mexico get closer to closing a new NAFTA deal.  Trump blew up the old NAFTA deal in an effort to secure something better for the United States.  He has accomplished this and North American trade is back on.  The Mexico NAFTA agreement should also bring Canada back into the mix.  This is a big victory for Trump’s foreign trade policy.

NAFTA 2.0 with Mexico coming back online

Need to Know 7/27/18

It’s all about the GDP.  Markets are anxiously awaiting this morning’s GDP report, hoping for 4.2% quarterly growth.  If it happens, it’ll be a good indicator that the economy continues to rise at a rapid rate, even after the rapid growth from last year. It would also make the argument against Trump’s tax reform even weaker.

Wall Street awaits GDP report

Speaking of tax reform, Elizabeth Warren bumbled through an interview when she was asked what tax rate is too high.  The poor CNBC journalist tried to help her out.  “Do you feel…that it’s wrong for more than half of somebody’s marginal income to be taken?” “Is 50 percent obviously too high?” Finally, as Warren continued to indicate that 50 percent may actually be too low, John Harwood went for the moon. “…obviously ‘no, 90 percent, that’s ridiculous'”.  Warren finally capitulated.

Warren has the blessing of many Democrats to be the top 2020 DNC Presidential contender.  But they will have to figure out how to deal with her ignorance about what taxes do to families and how the economy works.  When Ocasio-Cortez ignorantly claimed that unemployment was low because people were working two jobs, Warren doubled down on the erroneous claim by saying it was actually because people were working as many as four jobs.  Hopefully she can get some help on the economic front.  When it comes to the economy, Trump is definitely winning.

Warren suggests hypothetical 50% tax rate is too low

On the legal side for Trump, it’s a mixed bag.  While rumors from unnamed sources about the Mueller investigation have turned out to be mostly blowing smoke, there’s a new one out today saying Mueller is going to be looking at Trump’s tweets to see if he obstructed justice.  That would be a stretch.  As Guiliani pointed out, people don’t generally obstruct justice in public for millions to see.  This appears to be grasping for straws.  They would have to prove that Trump was somehow giving instructions to witnesses or intimidating people through Twitter.  That would also mean Mueller would have to take Trump’s 3am Twitter persona more seriously than Peter Strzok’s texts to his mistress.

Even if Trump did try to obstruct justice on Twitter, the Bill Clinton precedent on obstruction would make it very hard to successfully argue for consequences.  Clinton secretly intimidated witnesses, instructed them to lie, matched up stories, then committed perjury himself.  The Senate failed to reach a two thirds majority and ended up acquitting him.

Mueller looking at Trump’s tweets?

Impeachment!

Representatives Meadows and Jordan in the House of Representatives have just introduced a resolution to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for high crimes and misdemeanors. There are five articles written against Rosenstein.

Article I deals with Rosenstein’s refusal to recuse himself from the Russia investigation or appoint a second special counsel to investigate the conflict of interest and misconduct by the FBI.  Rosenstein was in charge of the FISA application to spy on Carter Page that was based in part on paid opposition research from the Clinton campaign.

Article II covers Rosenstein’s obstruction of justice in refusing to turn over subpoena’d documents and refusal to notify witnesses that Congress was seeking their testimony.  Interestingly, this article also hits Mueller for instructing material witnesses to refuse to provide testimony to Congress.  Congress has oversight over the Justice Department and refusing to comply with their requests amounts to obstruction of justice.

Article III accuses Rosenstein of obstruction of justice by using redaction to hide material evidence from Congress.  These redactions include hiding potentially embarrassing information about the cost of Andrew McCabe’s $70,000 conference table, hiding the relationship between Peter Strzok and FISC Judge Rudolph Contreras, hiding the names of high ranking FBI and Obama administration officials, and other redactions used to hide information from Congress.  Rosenstein’s decision to redact the relationship between Strzok and Contreras is especially important given Strzok’s promise to “stop Trump” and the FISC’s decision to issue a secret warrant based on Clinton’s paid opposition research.

Article IV suggests that Rosenstein used an improper basis to appoint Robert Mueller as special counsel and hid the basis through improper use of redaction.  Rosenstein still refuses to provide Congress with a less redacted version of his scope memo for Robert Mueller.

Article V deals more directly with Rosenstein’s supervisory role in the authorization of FISA searches.  Rosenstein is accused of failing to vet Christopher Steele’s phony dossier and failing to fully notify the FISC of the circumstances surrounding the creation of the dossier.  Article V also hits Rosenstein again for his refusal to appoint a second independent Special Counsel to review wrong doing by the Obama Justice Department and FBI in these matters.

A couple important things to note in the impeachment articles: Robert Mueller is mentioned for compelling witnesses not to testify to Congress.  This could be an issue for the Mueller investigation in the near future.  Strzok’s relationship with Judge Rudolph Contreras could lead to a call for an investigation into the secretive workings of the FISC itself.

You can read the articles of impeachment here.

 

Need to Know 7/23/18 Evening Edition

As first reported yesterday, Trump is likely going to pull security clearances from several former Obama administration appointees.  The appointees, including Andrew McCabe, James Clapper, John Brennan, Susan Rice, and others have been controversial figures.  Clapper and Brennan have accused the President of treason in editorial capacities.  McCabe was fired from the FBI for improper interactions with the press.  Others on the list, like James Comey, have claimed that their security privileges are already revoked.

Trump to revoke security clearance for former intel officials

Indicted Russian operative Maria Butina was part of private meetings with Obama officials in 2015.  Butina met with Federal Reserve vice chairman Stanley Fischer, Treasury Undersecretary Nathan Sheets, and Russian Central Bank deputy governor Alexander Torshin.  Butina has been indicted as a Russian spy who sought to influence US politics and elections.

Alleged Russian agent met with Obama officials

In New York they are literally letting the criminally insane out to vote for Governor Cuomo.  Cuomo has handed out pardons to thousands of former prisoners in time for the election, including 77 sexual predators who had been committed to psychiatric hospitals after serving their prison time.  The pardon gives them the right to vote, according to the New York Daily News.

Cuomo pardons sexual predators so they can vote

The deadest horse in political history, the Trump Russia collusion story, continues to be mercilessly beaten by Democrats.  But it’s over.  Trey Gowdy gave the best summation of the death of the Trump Russia investigation on Sunday, telling Fox host Bret Baier that if there was actually any evidence found against Trump in this two year investigation, Rep. Adam Schiff would have leaked it by now.  The Democrats can pray for an obstruction charge, but the Bill Clinton precedent suggests that’s not going anywhere.  Also, anyone who Trump might have tried to obstruct, such as Comey, McCabe, or Rosenstein, has already proven themselves to be extremely biased and unreliable as a witness.  Stick a fork in this one.  Yup, another fork.

If there was evidence, Schiff would have leaked it