Anyway, this week we know Nunes, Jordan and the other Reeptards will be really climbing the walls as a parade of witnesses - starting this morning - offer the first hand accounts they've been demanding. (This despite the fact as I noted in a previous (Nov. 14th) post, the second hand accounts still constitute evidence.) The desperation is now at the point that William Barr feels he has no choice but to jump in and protect Trump again - like he did in issuing his whitewash ''summary" of the Mueller report back in April.
The disturbing news over the weekend that Barr, aka Trump's #1 Toady, plans to 'blow up' the impeachment inquiry and hearings using a false narrative was disturbing to say the least. E.g. from Daily Kos Sunday:
Excerpt:
"Attorney General William Barr is racing to complete a new “report” before Thanksgiving. And if Barr’s very poor summary of the Mueller report threw Trump a lifeline by distorting the real findings of the special counsel investigation, this new report looks to be more like an atom bomb, designed to incinerate Washington by putting the whole Justice Department behind a conspiracy theory that rewrites history and declares open warfare on political opponents. And Republicans are already meeting with Barr to plan a “roll out” for this supposedly classified report in order to maximize its impact."
This follows a Friday night appearance of Barr at the Federalist Society where he invoked the now discredited "unitary executive" bunkum (first propounded by John Yoo - the Bush flunkie who tried to justify CIA tortures). That is, that a president has almost absolute power and the Article I powers of congress are subjugated to the executive's Article II powers.
At the Friday night venue, Barr spouted that:
"Trump’s opponents 'essentially see themselves as engaged in a war to cripple by any means necessary a duly elected government,'.
Which is total bollocks. The truth is that Trump is unfit for office and is a stone criminal who's already committed numerous impeachable high crimes and misdemeanors - from flouting the Emoluments clause, to multiple 'pay for play' schemes, to violation of federal financing laws, to collaboration with foreign powers (Russia, Ukraine) to advance his own personal election chances. The most recent crime on full display in Friday's impeachment hearing when he openly threatened witness Marie Yovonavitch, e.g.
Tweeting at her in real time, causing her to visibly react in a new assault that added to the ones she experienced as Ambassador, from a dedicated smear campaign- led by Giuliani, two of his associates — Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman, who have since been indicted — and the right-wing news media.
The precise details of the relevant conspiracy idiocy - I won't dignify it with "theory" - are mind-numbing in themselves. They apparently involve George Papadopoulos, who served as an adviser to the Trump campaign, a London-based Maltese professor named Josef Mifsud, and assorted characters. The sum of the accusations, speculations and misinformation are enough to blow a hole into the sanity and mind of a normal person, but would do a QAnon zombie proud. To be sure they are absolutely ridiculous, almost on the level of the "Pizzagate" rubbish that pushed the hare -brained malarkey that Hillary was operating a child sex slave ring in the basement of a D.C. pizza parlor.
You laugh, but one Trumpie imbecile actually took a rifle to the suspected establishment to mete out justice and a tragedy was only averted by quick thinking - and reaction. Needless to say I am not going to waste time (or blog space) regurgitating this latest horse shit. Anyone who really wants
more information can obtain from previously published material at A block and this Vox Vox piece from September.
Why is Barr acting as the lawless protector of a lawless president? Because he basically wanted desperately to get into the spotlight of national affairs again. To that end he had prepared and published a 19- page memo eight months ago, asserting presidents can't be found guilty of obstruction of justice. Basically, he'd written a "Look, hire me as AG and I'll set you free!" job proposal (or audition) for the approval of Trump and his deranged, legal maggots.
After getting confirmed as AG, which most Dems now regret (those that voted for him) he one-upped his op-ed performance by releasing a four-page summary of the Mueller Report. This perfidy twisted the report into a 'get out jail free' card.
As one legal specialist on a CNN panel said at the time: "For law abiding Americans this result is both appalling and confusing. They will ask how could a president who acted in so disruptive a manner even giving aid and comfort to an enemy (Putin) not be found guilty by a legal standard? How does that level of disruption not rise to the level of legal culpability?"
This summary from Barr, at just four pages long, described the evidence for obstruction as “not sufficient to establish that the president committed an obstruction-of-justice offense”. Furthermore, Barr insisted in his letter the decision not to prosecute was not made based on any limitations related to the indictment of a sitting president. But in fact it certainly was: the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) opinion that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Note this is not an ironclad rule or a law, but a mere opinion. Mueller could have chosen to override it but didn't.
Thanks to Barr's whitewash, Trump - his master- was left unchained and unencumbered by any laws or even threats. Indeed, he felt "vindicated". See e.g.
Trump and his allies plan to use Barr’s summary of Mueller report as cudgel against critics
Excerpt: "Trump and his allies sought to put his adversaries on the defensive and cement the view that Mr. Mueller’s report represents complete vindication.
Hence, no surprise Trump - criminal that he is at heart - was emboldened to commit his next crime: the shakedown of the Ukraine president to get dirt on his political opponent, Joe Biden. Indeed, over the past months we've beheld the sorry spectacle of the AG Toad globe hopping to try to secure supplemental "investigative" info to dig up evidence the "deep state" was involved in outing Trump's alliance with Putin and Russia in 2016. But there was NO such deep state outing, Trump the dumbass did that to himself when he blurted back in June, 2016:
"I will tell you this, Russia if you're listening, I hope that you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. You will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens."
So Trump, in full public view, asked Russia to hack his political opponent. Did this just come out of the blue as a brain fart blurt? Not at all, given we know Russia has been funding Trump since the late 1980s. On account of that funding and other Kompromat materials (e.g. the piss video revealed in the Steele dossier), we know Donnie Dotard is Putin's puppet, with multiple strings that can be puled at will.
As per The New Republic (Aug./Sept. 2017, . p. 29):
As per The New Republic (Aug./Sept. 2017, . p. 29):
"A review of the public record reveals a clear and disturbing pattern: Trump owes much of his business success, and by extension his presidency, to a flow of highly suspicious money from Russia. Over the past three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, or even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money .....Taken together, the flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics....It's entirely possible that Trump was never more than a convenient patsy for Russian oligarchs and mobsters."
Now, according to new reports in The Washington Post we will have to anticipate an "alternative reality" Barr report that attempts to supersede and neutralize the impeachment hearings and all that we know of the depraved Trump hitherto. Despite all of Barr's complaints about a "war to cripple a duly elected government", a federal judge has already ruled the impeachment inquiry is totally legal, e.g.
Impeachment Inquiry Is Legal, Judge Rules, Giving Democrats a Victory
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/2
But since Barr values Trump's protection over any law- or the Constitution- many predict his next move will be a whitewash on steroids . According to The Post (ibid.):
"Republicans hope the report will give them ammunition to argue the FBI was corrupt in its pursuit of the president and his alleged ties to Russia, according to a person involved in the GOP discussions. Congressional Republicans have defended Trump amid the ongoing impeachment inquiry centered on his effort to convince Ukraine to investigate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Trump’s supporters have long called for officials to “investigate the investigators,” and some GOP lawmakers have predicted the inspector general’s findings will prove their accusations that a “deep state” cabal of anti-Trump bureaucrats sought to thwart his presidency."
Mathew Miller, a former Justice Department spokesman during the Obama administration clearly sees this as a test of Barr's independence from Trump, and is quoted as saying:
"The first question is whether the report shows any basis for Barr’s pretty aggressive implications that the Justice Department did something wrong in opening the [Trump] investigation, If the report finds missteps by the FBI, 'even minor ones', it will be used as a rhetorical tool for the president."
What we cannot permit, is this lot to take over our nation and government. We cannot have their cockamamey claptrap conspiracy ideations displacing the rule of constitutional law in the impeachment process. For this reason, if Barr goes through with this shameless charade he will need to be impeached just like his master Trump.
Trump insists he has exculpatory evidence - in documents, records, witnesses- that would prove he has done nothing wrong. But if that were really so he wouldn't have implemented a full tilt stonewall of all relevant documents, and direct witnesses. So again, he merely lies to distract, like his GOP enablers and defenders.
See also:
And:
And:
Trumpers Will Lie and Gaslight on Ukraine and Impeachment. Here's What I Learned Debating One on TV.
And:
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