Why The Special Prosecutor Will Also Need A Select Committee

Assuming Donald Trump suffers from Alzheimer's disease (see previous post) his 'woe is me' speech at the Coast Guard Academy yesterday may well have been perfectly justified. Especially when he spoke the following words:

"No politician in history has been treated worse or more unfairly...Things are not always fair..You will find that things happen to you that you do not deserve and that are not always warranted."

And Trump is spot on if, indeed, he entered office saddled with the burden of Alzheimer's disease. Then it certainly follows he'd have been treated "unfairly" in the same way an autistic or retarded person might be treated if held to standards of thought and behavior s/he can't possibly meet.  So yeah, if one has Alzheimer's "things are not always fair" - ask Janice's cousin Desmond who watched haplessly as his mental functions deteriorated over 6-7 years from peak to babbling baby.

Enter now Robert Mueller, appointed yesterday by deputy AG Rod Rosenstein as Special Prosecutor into the Trump-Russia investigation and ancillary matters. Mueller has impeccable credentials including having led the U.S. probe into the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988, and also being FBI Director for 12 years. 

How broad are Mueller's powers?  To be succinct his powers are wide -ranging with the potential to expand in other directions. He's been given (by the deputy AG) the power to "investigate any links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump...and other matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."

Rosenstein will oversee Mueller's work and technically can relieve him of his duties and has the power to end the investigation. But most astute observers find this would be most unwise and cast further suspicion on the process, especially suspicion that Trump or Sessions might have "twisted his arm" to comply. Also, if Rosenstein were to block any of  Mueller's actions he'd have to give an explanation to congress. (The oversight power went back to the Justice Dept. in 1999, after the Ken Starr investigation of the  alleged Clinton 'Whitewater' scandal. Starr found nothing there, so rather than go away empty handed he accepted an illegal tape recording from Linda Tripp of a phone conversation with Monica Lewinsky over Clinton's behavior.  For reference, Tripp lived in Columbia, MD at the time and Maryland state law made the undisclosed taping of another person a felony. Starr used the tape as evidence anyway.)

To cut a long story short, Trump will now become the "hunted" rather than the "hunter" and the 24/7 news cycle will now change - diminishing all media Trumpy-ism and accentuating the Special Prosecutor and his investigation.  Let's note here the sprawling scope of the existing FBI investigation which spans multiple field offices across the country, and is implemented as both a criminal and counter intelligence investigation.

The question remains of where Mueller's concentration of resources should be: into collusion or obstruction of justice.  Given Mueller will not only be able to look into the latter issues - rendered ever more obvious the last four days- but can also delve into underlying connections to the Trump campaign, many will say he ought to focus on collusion. But I suspect that may not be the best choice.

The lower threshold to meet is obstruction of justice, especially after the Comey memos are released - likely next week. Also Comey is expected to testify Wednesday before the House Oversight Committee.  Therefore, the lower hanging fruit, if you will, is obstruction of justice. This is because the actual means by which the Russians carried out the collusion have not been determined or agreed upon.  Still, it is the word most bandied about, for example by Rep. Maxine Waters (CA).

Why not go after collusion? Let's first not split semantic hairs here and concede collusion implies conspiracy. In this country the c-word is verboten and anathema and immensely high standards are required to prove it. The last successful effort to do so was in connection with the Iran -Contra Conspiracy during the Reagan administration.  The facts of the Iran-Contra conspiracy were meticulously presented in The Iran –Contra Report (1994) published by Random House at the behest of Independent Counsel Lawrence E. Walsh.  Walsh's job was rendered straightforward because he had access to manifests, for example, showing shipments of Israeli Hawk and TOW missiles to Iran.

Mueller himself will have access to paper trails "following the money" - including the side investigation of the financial crimes network (FINCEN).  In this case, the money trail and FBI investigation itself began with looking into what the Russians did via numerous transactions with assorted Trump associates and how these were paid for. That is one of the largest aspects, but what gets all the media's attention is whether anyone in the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians, i.e. conspired with them to tilt the 2016 election to Trump.

The problem? As articulated last night by Ken Dilanian, member of the NBC investigative unit, more than one FBI official laments this collusion emphasis even became public. According to one official Dilanian spoke to: "It took a lot of investigative tools away from the FBI".  Dilanian also added another key point: in these types of investigations the FBI prefers to operate 'in the shadows'. As soon as it becomes public, the conspirators change their behavior, change the way they communicate. 

This almost certainly happened in the JFK conspiracy assassination cover up, after the architects of the plan realized they had to alter their priorities of action - especially after the House Select Committee on Assassinations was formed. Thus, the CIA - using a willing tool (Rep. Henry Gonzalez) staged a phony outcry against then HSCA head Richard Sprague. Recall Sprague vowed to do a "no holds barred" investigation from top to bottom. In effect, he'd become too threatening for his own good, especially in the further evidence he might commandeer - including the actual (not fake) autopsy photos. To stop him the CIA used not only Gonzalez (to disparage him) but its own media assets,  mainly via “Operation Mockingbird"

So Dilanian's points concerning conspirators changing their behavior and communications after media exposure are not without merit. More to the point, as Dilanian put it last night in his MSNBC interview:

"(Once the conspirators change their behavior)  the investigators are now looking backward and there's very little chance of catching current criminal activity. They're more looking at records and that's why we see all these records' requests and subpoenas for them."

So in many ways, though most of us are certain collusion -conspiracy is central to the modus operandi of what transpired, proving it is another matter. The "cows have escaped the barn" before the barn door was closed, to put it another way.  Rep. Maxine Waters this morning on 'Morning Joe' insisted collusion will "be a lot easier to prove than many people think" adding: "When you look at Manafort, it's going to be easy to identify emails, travel, bank records, and I think he's been involved in money laundering."

She also added that looking at Flynn's activities may yield similar results. But Sam Stein, in questioning her, wasn't convinced this was anything more than circumstantial. Waters then insisted there was a "strategy" devised by which the Russians cooperated with Trump campaign people to ensure Hillary Clinton wasn't elected.  But after more pressing by Stein, Waters agreed "there has been no actual evidence yet".

So again, I suspect this is all a step too far for the Special Prosecutor to be able to prosecute individuals based on it. This is why I think a select committee may also be needed, to at least issue a firm conclusion if not prosecutions.  Note that a select committee has as its remit the investigative aspects into a case, more than the legislative.

The House Select Committee into the Kennedy assassination may have fallen short because of political tampering (with the CIA interjecting itself to have Richard Sprague replaced by G. Robert Blakey), but it did ultimately find for conspiracy in its conclusion, e.g.



I believe that once all the combined resources are assessed under one Select Committee it will be possible to come to a similar conclusion of conspiracy ("collusion") that the HSCA arrived at in the Kennedy case.

In any case, there are more "shoes" to drop. Stay tuned.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/neal-gabler/72893/don-t-count-on-the-precedent-of-watergate-to-help-depose-trump-we-got-lucky

Bill O'Reilly's Lies In "Killing Kennedy" Show His Assassination Book Is A Sham

It doesn't take a genius to perceive that Bill O'Reilly is a consummate liar who's been exposed in so many venues and ways it boggles the mind how he could still have a job. I mean, if Brian Williams could get six months suspension over his "misrepresentation" - on how he'd been in a chopper that was fired on by RPGs while on assignment in Iraq, how is it O'Reilly hasn't gotten suspended for a year or even fired?  Apart from media lies he's also lied about his work background, claiming to once having been a "history teacher at a Florida high school."  Well, that high school was Monsignor Edward Pace High in Miami where I graduated from, and he never taught history - he taught English.   This is important because this blowhard is trying to claim experience and background inapplicable to his "Killing" books - which are made up bollocks.

The latest lie exposed (at salon.com) concerns O'Reilly's claim (in his book, 'Killing Kennedy')  of tracking George de Mohrenschildt (then Oswald handler for the CIA), who befriended the Oswalds after they'd returned from Minsk, USSR.  In his daffy book, O'Reilly writes - regarding the death of  de Mohrenschildt - which most serious researchers take to be homicide of yet another would-be witness:

"As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt’s daughter’s home, he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood.

By the way, that reporter’s name is Bill O’Reilly."

Now let's note first that the mistake of de Mohrenschildt   before being called for preliminary testimony for the HSCA Investigation, is that he'd already maintained Oswald had been a "scapegoat" and he'd been charged with "babysitting" him to ensure he hit the right marks at the right time for the frame up. Alas, three hours after he'd revealed the CIA had sanctioned his contacts with Oswald he was found shot to death in his daughter's home in Manalapan, FL.

Now, where was O'Reilly really? Well, 1200 miles away talking to one of the lead HSCA investigators, Gaeton Fonzi (author of the book, 'The Last Investigation' which I recommend to all interested readers). This is verified from a tape posted at one of the JFK assassination clearing houses JFKFacts.org,  .

To paraphrase Jefferson Morley: "No way could O'Reilly have heard a gunshot from 1200 miles away."  Besides which, IF O'Reilly was there it is a good bet he wouldn't be around now. Any CIA hit men taking out de Mohrenschildt    surely wouldn't have allowed any witnesses - no matter how proximate, optical or audible,  to live.

How vicious and vindictive were these CIA contract killers that took out de Mohrenschildt ? Clue one emerges after mobster Johnny Roselli had blabbed to journalist Jack Anderson how "Ruby was one of our boys and had been hired to kill Oswald". (Twyman, 'Bloody Treason', p. 386).  Of course any testimony on this score would have blown the cover story that Ruby shot Lee out of the goodness of his heart ("to spare Jackie a trial appearance") to kingdom come. It would also have fixated public consciousness on the conspiracy,  which of course could not be permitted. That would've exposed LBJ's Warren Commission for the fraud it was.

Thus it was that prospective HSCA witness Johnny Roselli had to also meet his cruel end, as described below by Gaeton Fonzi in 'The Last Investigation', p. 375:

"In July, 1976, Roselli had disappeared and in August, the month before the Committee (HSCA) was established, Roselli surfaced in the shallows off the Intracoastal Waterway in North Miami. He had been smothered to death and shot, then cut open from chest to navel. His legs had been hacked off and stuffed with his torso into a 55-gallon steel drum which was wrapped with heavy chain and moored to a weight in the water. The mooring broke when the gases from Roselli's decomposing body forced the drum to float to the surface."

Well,  the killers wanted to make damned sure there were no flapping gums. Like David Ferrie nine  years earlier, and George de Mohrenschildt  a year later, they wanted to ensure Roselli never talked. Murdering witnesses does wonders to keep a conspiracy under wraps - while moron media blabbermouths and their useful idiot lackeys keep babbling about "tin foil hats".

What does Gaeton Fonzi have to say about de Mohrenschildt? In the photo section on the 6th page (of  16 pages) we see this stock image of him:

And on the left side we read  the following:

"The Assassinations Committee discovered  that George de Mohrenschildt, a prominent Dallas social figure who mysteriously befriended a working class ex-Russian defector, had been asked by the CIA's resident Domestic Contact Agent to debrief Oswald. When Committee investigator Fonzi tracked down De Mohrenschildt in South Florida, the longtime CIA asset was found dead before he could be questioned. However, in the skewered world of Washington politics, De Mohrenschildt's sudden death was a factor in keeping the Assassination Committee alive"

How so? The answer emerges in a post-script addendum by Fonzi, referencing the date (March 29, 1977)  of de Mohrenschildt's killing and what else transpired, after he was notified by Fonzi that he was being sought to testify in the HSCA hearings:

"That evening in Washington,  with the Committee on the verge of losing a House vote for its reconstitution and funding Chief Counsel Sprague resigns. The next morning the news of de Mohrenschildt's death and Sprague's resignation produce a victory for the Committee's continuation."

Be assured this was no coincidence. While de Mohrenschildt was a key witness (who would have disclosed how Oswald was being manipulated or "sheep dipped" in Agency parlance) Richard Sprague - the original HSCA head - vowed to "dig deeply into the methods of the FBI and CIA" and also hold them to account. But as per its usual wont, the CIA began a smear campaign in the media against him  - and also rounded up useful collaborating 'whores' in the House (like Henry Gonzalez- who told the spooks to "ignore all Sprague's subpoenas") to ensure Sprague had to depart. That it occurred simultaneously (the same night) as de Mohrenschildt's death probably led Sprague to see what would also happen to him if he didn't leave. The CIA takes no prisoners, as we've beheld with their torture routines- and how their henchmen solved the Roselli problem.

You can read more of the details here:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/11/frequently-asked-questions-on-jfk_19.html

Take particular note in the above link of the fact that in the wake of Sprague's departure, none other than CIA "Information and Privacy Coordinator"  Jim Lawderman took control and on July 27 wrote out the terms of the CIA’s control of Blakey’s  HSCA investigation. (Mellen, J., ‘Farewell to Justice’, p. 345).  One of the terms cited was (ibid.):

“ Certain areas relating to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy should be entirely disregarded based upon our contention they are without merit or corroboration” (ibid.)

 

 

Thus, the CIA's overseers were effectively judging the threshold for acceptable evidence even before there was any.

NONE of this appeared in O'Reilly's book 'Killing Kennedy'. But we know what did appear were his false claims of where he was when de  Mohrenschildt met his Maker.

The CIA control meant the HSCA like the Warren Commission before it, was basically a sham, a posturing bit of showmanship to try to please and placate the hoi polloi. There was never any real intent to get at the truth - exposed when they actually managed the incredible Jedi mind trick of finding for conspiracy (95%) but also still claiming the shots came from the Texas School Book Depository. Square the circle anyone?

Fonzi himself minces no words on p. 402 of his penultimate chapter, 'Looking Beyond Conspiracy':

"This was the last investigation and it did not do the job the American people had asked it to do....there is not one investigator, not one, who served on the Kennedy task force who honestly felt he took part in an adequate investigation, let alone one 'full and complete'"

But again, the presence of CIA control had to hold a shadow over it, and fear played a role as Fonzi observed in his "Last Note", p. 410:

"If there was one point in the House Assassinations Committee investigation which showed without a doubt that the Committee did not want to open doors that would force it to face facts it did not want to face it was this: David Atlee Phillips perjury before the Committee".

So the HSCA Committee would rather let this rat perjure himself,


Than confront the CIA that put him up to it. Recall it was Phillips who was Mexico City station chief and who crafted the cables that helped to frame Oswald. As noted by Peter Dale Scott (‘Oswald, Mexico and Deep Politics’, 2013, p. 25) : “at least three show signs of CIA doctoring and the first, which does not, was nevertheless so misleading as to be possibly dishonest.” This was the cable from the Mexico City Station on Oct. 8 that claimed Oswald had appeared at the Soviet Embassy on Oct. 1, claiming  he had spoken with Valeriy Kostikov three days earlier.

Thus, our democratic reps were in fear and trepidation at the prospect of confronting the national security state - which they also had to know played the major role in Kennedy's killing (at Johnson's behest as would come out years later.)

Meanwhile, in Fonzi's mind there was never any issue or doubt on conspiracy (p. 408):

"Long before the Assassinations Committee received confirmation from the acoustic tests in Dealey Plaza, the evidence for a conspiracy was overwhelming.  And in the narrow perspective of my personal quest for substantiation, I've come to conclude that, for me, two pieces of evidence provide irrefutable evidence of conspiracy:  One demolishes the single bullet theory - the locations of the bullet holes in the back of Kennedy's jacket and shirt - hard, tangible, measurable evidence - that obliterate the possibility of a bullet emerging from Kennedy's throat and striking Governor Connolly. The other was.... the deliberate act of connecting Oswald to the assassination before the assassination."

It seems to me that if "Billo"  O'Reilly wanted to truly write a serious book on the assassination, he not only would have spoken to Fonzi in 1977 (as he did - from the tapes released), but also have gotten hold of his book 'The Last Investigation', published in 1993 and taken his conspiracy position seriously.  After all, Fonzi was instrumental in helping O'Reilly move ahead while at Miami Magazine, and even moving on to TV spots.  But then, the objective was never about telling the truth and "informing the folks" but interjecting himself into a historical aftermath that amounted to bare faced lies, and sticking with the usual official bollocks that "Oswald dunnit".


 See : This interview with Gaeton Fonzi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdCPBOHSGKk

And also my original take on O'Reilly's book:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/11/be-still-my-heart-oreilly-does-jfk.html