“Most of the public fascination surrounding the legal ordeal of President Trump has attached itself to whether (or, more accurately, how successfully) his campaign colluded with Russia. Much less attention has fixated on the question of Trump committing obstruction of justice in office.
This isn’t because obstruction is less serious an offense. Quite the opposite: It’s the very crime that drove President Nixon from office. Rather, it’s paradoxically because the obstruction is so public and naked that it’s been robbed of its mystery. The collusion question has enough hidden tangents to create some compelling drama about the outcome, even if the basic contours are clear. Collusion is more interesting than obstruction for the same reason that the romantic travails of Ross and Rachel are more compelling than those of two people in a porno.
But obstruction is still sitting right there. The latest reminder comes in the form of an analysis in the legal blog Lawfare co-authored by James Baker, who until late 2017 served as general counsel of the FBI. The putative subject of the piece is the Watergate “road map,” which detailed Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski’s grounds for impeaching Nixon. But the real subject of the analysis is Trump, whose offenses appear strikingly similar….
Obviously, those of us on the outside can’t know what Trump may have done in secret. But we do know that he is rather fond of obstructing justice. Trump fired James Comey after, according to Comey, telling him to go easy on the first target in the Russia investigation and attempting to secure Comey’s personal loyalty. He then casually confessed on television that he did this over the Russia investigation. He then repeatedly demanded his Attorney General stop the investigation (again, in public!).
Then Trump replaced Sessions with Matt Whitaker, a hack who had proclaimed Trump’s innocence. Despite reports showing Trump had met with Whitaker more than a dozen times (and discussed the Russia investigation with him), Trump rather suspiciously told reporters that he does not know Whitaker. Even more suspiciously, he claimed to have knowledge of the “inner workings” of the Mueller investigation.
In the context of all of the above, it’s fairly striking that somebody who worked at the FBI during some of this period is writing historical essays about a president who used his contacts with a Department of Justice staffer to interfere in an investigation into his own conduct. It is also striking that this person highlights the role of the president dangling a possible promotion to the official he was working, given that Trump has given a huge promotion to Whitaker. At minimum, the sorts of crimes committed by Nixon and described by Jaworski in his memo seem like the kind of thing Trump would do.
For all the obstruction that’s lying around in plain sight, there may be more to be revealed by Robert Mueller.”
“Navy SEAL Who Led the Bin Laden Raid? Bad. Saudis Who Murdered a U.S.-Resident Journalist? A-OK!
30 percent of the country is OK with this—and with Donald Trump, American president*.
I see the latest issue of Highlights For Morons is out from the White House press office. The main feature in this issue concerns the murder and butchering of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This is the official statement from the Office of the President* of the United States. It says so right at the top, so you won’t confuse it with your fourth grader’s history homework. We quote it in full……
This is positively a Bat Signal to repressive regimes all over the world that it’s open season on Americans, or on American residents, whom those regimes find troublesome. This especially includes journalists, which hits it a little close to home.
President Donald Trump
Getty ImagesThe Washington Post
The CIA came as close as the CIA ever comes to anything to pinning this atrocity on Mohammad bin Salman and yet, because the CIA couldn’t find that worthy’s fingerprints on the bone saw, El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago decided that the case against the Saudi crown prince was still as amorphous as ever. (For me, until MBS is hauled into a federal court in this country to reckon with his alleged butchery, Saudi Arabia doesn’t get another dime of American money, and we’re freezing every dime of their assets in this country. This is why I do not work for the State Department.) That’s not even to mention that the president* very likely is in violation of his oath of office (again) by doing private business with these oligarchical hyenas while still living in government housing.
In the last week, he has attacked a heroic U.S. admiral who commanded the raid that rid the world of Osama bin Laden, and he did so while William McRaven is fighting leukemia. He did so because McRaven was mean to him. Now, he’s letting MBS off the hook, and putting American lives at risk all over the globe, because the Saudis kiss his ass and throw some business his way. And 30 percent of our fellow citizens are fine with this. Elijah Cummings can’t get that subpoena power soon enough.”
“I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer, and when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence. I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I’m looking to punish them. If the punishment is strong, the attacks on innocent people will stop…I no longer want to understand their anger. I want them to understand our anger. I want them to be afraid.”
Trump also said this;
“King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”
As you know, Trump did not say the first comment about the murdering and butchering of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Even after the CIA reported what it believed occurred and who ordered it. But then MbS is not the Central Park 5.
“To people whose main reference point for politics is the late Obama years, the 2016 presidential campaign, and the post-Bernie Sanders blossoming of left-wing politics in the United States, Nancy Pelosi seems — and, indeed, is — an establishment figure.
But for those whose political horizons go back a bit longer, she stands out as the exemplary progressive among powerful Democrats.
She had a role in stiffening President Obama’s spine after Scott Brown threw the future of the Affordable Care Act into doubt, and her opposition to the Iraq War came at a time when the party’s other legislative leaders (Reps. Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, Sen. Harry Reid) and presidential aspirants (John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton) were backing it.
But more fundamentally, her reputation as a shrewd and effective leader dates back to the huge fight over privatizing Social Security in the mid-aughts. At the time, the Democratic Party’s fundamental political position looked more precarious — and Pelosi successfully held her party together against chipping away at one of the greatest party achievements in American history.
All this helps explain why the anti-Pelosi sentiment is among a fairly marginal group of centrist Democrats who are completely detached from the anti-establishment movement on the left……
Pressure mounted on Democrats — including from inside their own caucus — to propose a Social Security fix of their own to counter Bush’s proposal. Pelosi’s insight was that any Democratic proposal would necessarily prompt intraparty infighting and muddy the waters, while Republicans simply had no way of resolving the internal contradictions of their own position. If Democrats simply stayed united and critical of privatization, the GOP plan would collapse under its own weight.
What they had to do was do nothing:
As the spring of 2005 wore on, some pestered her every week, asking when they were going to release a rival plan.
“Never. Is never good enough for you?” Pelosi defiantly said to one member.
It worked. While Democrats refused to engage in the details of the debate, infighting consumed Republicans. And the fact that the whole idea was unpopular loomed larger and larger in the minds of GOP elected officials who had no particular stake in the details.”
“Most of the public fascination surrounding the legal ordeal of President Trump has attached itself to whether (or, more accurately, how successfully) his campaign colluded with Russia. Much less attention has fixated on the question of Trump committing obstruction of justice in office.
This isn’t because obstruction is less serious an offense. Quite the opposite: It’s the very crime that drove President Nixon from office. Rather, it’s paradoxically because the obstruction is so public and naked that it’s been robbed of its mystery. The collusion question has enough hidden tangents to create some compelling drama about the outcome, even if the basic contours are clear. Collusion is more interesting than obstruction for the same reason that the romantic travails of Ross and Rachel are more compelling than those of two people in a porno.
But obstruction is still sitting right there. The latest reminder comes in the form of an analysis in the legal blog Lawfare co-authored by James Baker, who until late 2017 served as general counsel of the FBI. The putative subject of the piece is the Watergate “road map,” which detailed Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski’s grounds for impeaching Nixon. But the real subject of the analysis is Trump, whose offenses appear strikingly similar….
Obviously, those of us on the outside can’t know what Trump may have done in secret. But we do know that he is rather fond of obstructing justice. Trump fired James Comey after, according to Comey, telling him to go easy on the first target in the Russia investigation and attempting to secure Comey’s personal loyalty. He then casually confessed on television that he did this over the Russia investigation. He then repeatedly demanded his Attorney General stop the investigation (again, in public!).
Then Trump replaced Sessions with Matt Whitaker, a hack who had proclaimed Trump’s innocence. Despite reports showing Trump had met with Whitaker more than a dozen times (and discussed the Russia investigation with him), Trump rather suspiciously told reporters that he does not know Whitaker. Even more suspiciously, he claimed to have knowledge of the “inner workings” of the Mueller investigation.
In the context of all of the above, it’s fairly striking that somebody who worked at the FBI during some of this period is writing historical essays about a president who used his contacts with a Department of Justice staffer to interfere in an investigation into his own conduct. It is also striking that this person highlights the role of the president dangling a possible promotion to the official he was working, given that Trump has given a huge promotion to Whitaker. At minimum, the sorts of crimes committed by Nixon and described by Jaworski in his memo seem like the kind of thing Trump would do.
For all the obstruction that’s lying around in plain sight, there may be more to be revealed by Robert Mueller.”
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/trump-obstruction-justice-russia-mueller-ex-fbi-counsel-james-baker.html
This is simply mind boggling.
“Navy SEAL Who Led the Bin Laden Raid? Bad. Saudis Who Murdered a U.S.-Resident Journalist? A-OK!
30 percent of the country is OK with this—and with Donald Trump, American president*.
I see the latest issue of Highlights For Morons is out from the White House press office. The main feature in this issue concerns the murder and butchering of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. This is the official statement from the Office of the President* of the United States. It says so right at the top, so you won’t confuse it with your fourth grader’s history homework. We quote it in full……
This is positively a Bat Signal to repressive regimes all over the world that it’s open season on Americans, or on American residents, whom those regimes find troublesome. This especially includes journalists, which hits it a little close to home.
President Donald Trump
Getty ImagesThe Washington Post
The CIA came as close as the CIA ever comes to anything to pinning this atrocity on Mohammad bin Salman and yet, because the CIA couldn’t find that worthy’s fingerprints on the bone saw, El Caudillo del Mar-A-Lago decided that the case against the Saudi crown prince was still as amorphous as ever. (For me, until MBS is hauled into a federal court in this country to reckon with his alleged butchery, Saudi Arabia doesn’t get another dime of American money, and we’re freezing every dime of their assets in this country. This is why I do not work for the State Department.) That’s not even to mention that the president* very likely is in violation of his oath of office (again) by doing private business with these oligarchical hyenas while still living in government housing.
In the last week, he has attacked a heroic U.S. admiral who commanded the raid that rid the world of Osama bin Laden, and he did so while William McRaven is fighting leukemia. He did so because McRaven was mean to him. Now, he’s letting MBS off the hook, and putting American lives at risk all over the globe, because the Saudis kiss his ass and throw some business his way. And 30 percent of our fellow citizens are fine with this. Elijah Cummings can’t get that subpoena power soon enough.”
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a25241949/president-trump-saudi-arabia-statement-jamal-khashoggi/
But those 30 percent are nice people. Sigh.
Trump’s comments:
“I want to hate these muggers and murderers. They should be forced to suffer, and when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes. They must serve as examples so that others will think long and hard before committing a crime or an act of violence. I want to hate these murderers and I always will. I am not looking to psychoanalyze or understand them, I’m looking to punish them. If the punishment is strong, the attacks on innocent people will stop…I no longer want to understand their anger. I want them to understand our anger. I want them to be afraid.”
Trump also said this;
“King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman vigorously deny any knowledge of the planning or execution of the murder of Mr. Khashoggi. Our intelligence agencies continue to assess all information, but it could very well be that the Crown Prince had knowledge of this tragic event — maybe he did and maybe he didn’t!”
As you know, Trump did not say the first comment about the murdering and butchering of Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi embassy in Turkey. Even after the CIA reported what it believed occurred and who ordered it. But then MbS is not the Central Park 5.
“To people whose main reference point for politics is the late Obama years, the 2016 presidential campaign, and the post-Bernie Sanders blossoming of left-wing politics in the United States, Nancy Pelosi seems — and, indeed, is — an establishment figure.
But for those whose political horizons go back a bit longer, she stands out as the exemplary progressive among powerful Democrats.
She had a role in stiffening President Obama’s spine after Scott Brown threw the future of the Affordable Care Act into doubt, and her opposition to the Iraq War came at a time when the party’s other legislative leaders (Reps. Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt, Sen. Harry Reid) and presidential aspirants (John Kerry, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton) were backing it.
But more fundamentally, her reputation as a shrewd and effective leader dates back to the huge fight over privatizing Social Security in the mid-aughts. At the time, the Democratic Party’s fundamental political position looked more precarious — and Pelosi successfully held her party together against chipping away at one of the greatest party achievements in American history.
All this helps explain why the anti-Pelosi sentiment is among a fairly marginal group of centrist Democrats who are completely detached from the anti-establishment movement on the left……
Pressure mounted on Democrats — including from inside their own caucus — to propose a Social Security fix of their own to counter Bush’s proposal. Pelosi’s insight was that any Democratic proposal would necessarily prompt intraparty infighting and muddy the waters, while Republicans simply had no way of resolving the internal contradictions of their own position. If Democrats simply stayed united and critical of privatization, the GOP plan would collapse under its own weight.
What they had to do was do nothing:
As the spring of 2005 wore on, some pestered her every week, asking when they were going to release a rival plan.
“Never. Is never good enough for you?” Pelosi defiantly said to one member.
It worked. While Democrats refused to engage in the details of the debate, infighting consumed Republicans. And the fact that the whole idea was unpopular loomed larger and larger in the minds of GOP elected officials who had no particular stake in the details.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/11/21/18103325/nancy-pelosi-social-security-privatization-bush-plan