“Unfettered power”
Remember the Paul Manafort case? The judge there (T. S. Ellis, a Reagan appointee) is not pleased with the Mueller crew:
“You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III told Mueller’s team. “You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever.”…
The Reagan-appointed judge asked Mueller’s team where they got the authority to indict Manafort on alleged crimes dating as far back as 2005…
“We don’t want anyone with unfettered power,” he said.
Mueller’s team says its authorities are laid out in documents including the August 2017 scope memo ”“ and that some powers are actually secret because they involve ongoing investigations and national security matters that cannot be publicly disclosed.
[Judge] Ellis seemed amused and not persuaded.
He summed up the argument of the Special Counsel’s Office as, “We said this was what [the] investigation was about, but we are not bound by it and we were lying.”
He referenced the common exclamation from NFL announcers, saying: “C’mon man!”
The judge also gave the government two weeks to hand over the unredacted “scope memo” or provide an explanation why not — after prosecutors were reluctant to do so, claiming it has material that doesn’t pertain to Manafort.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Ellis said.
That last sentence indicates that Judge Ellis seems to have a considerable amount of wit.
The WaPo is covering the story as well.
I became curious about Judge Ellis himself. All that the article mentioned about him was that he was a Reagan appointee. Looking him up in Wiki (the only profile I could find), I see that he has a very Ivy-League-ish resume:
Born on May 15, 1940, in Bogoté¡, Colombia, Ellis graduated from Princeton University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in 1961. Ellis served in the United States Navy as a Naval aviator from 1961 to 1966. Ellis earned a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School in 1969. Harvard awarded Ellis a Knox Fellowship for study in England. He then received a Diploma in Law in 1970 from Magdalen College, Oxford University. Ellis then entered private practice with the law firm of Hunton & Williams (now Hunton & Williams LLP), located in Richmond, Virginia, where he remained until 1987.
Ellis was appointed by Reagan in 1987, and is now 77 years old. He also appears to be African American [see NOTE* below]. I would imagine he has an interesting life story, but I can’t seem to find much about it. For example, is his name—T. S. Ellis—some sort of reference to T. S. Eliot, or is that a coincidence? And what’s the Bogota angle?
[NOTE*: I was busy all day and evening yesterday, so it took me a while to get to the point of being able to check on that race question. But it turns out that the photo I saw earlier—the photo that was with Ellis’s profile, was captioned “T. S. Ellis”, and looked like a black man—was actually of former Louisiana Rep. William Jefferson, whose trial Ellis presided over.
For example, if you use Firefox and Google “T. S. Ellis,” as I did yesterday and did just now, look to the right of the page. You’ll see the beginnings of a profile of Ellis, but the photo is of Jefferson. Strange.]
I have appeared before Judge Ellis many times in that courthouse. He is sharp as a razor, and, like most carrier pilots I’ve known, very direct in language and style. Also like many federal judges from a certain era, he is not particularly enamored with the representations from federal agencies or the Department of Justice about their motivations or actions in these types of cases.
Listening now to the livestream of Trump speaking at the NRA convention.
He just referenced this story.
Now he’s fisking the story on CNN.
He also appears to be African American. WTF?
really? then you dont know the populations of columbia and especially brazile.. (Afro-Brazilians)
Preto and pardo are among five color categories used by the Brazilian Census, along with branco (“white”), amarelo (“yellow”, East Asian) and indégena (Amerindian).
and
Colombia is considered to have the third largest Black African population in the western hemisphere, following Brazil and the United States.
they are called Afro-Colombians…
From 1851, the Colombian State promoted the ideology of mestizaje, or miscegenation. So in order to maintain their cultural traditions, many Africans and indigenous peoples went deep into the isolated jungles. Afro-Colombians and indigenous people were, and continue to be, the targets of the armed actors who want to displace them in order to take their lands for sugar cane plantations, for coffee and banana plantations, for mining and wood exploitation.
In 1945 the department of El Chocé³ was created; it was the first predominantly African political-administrative division. El Chocé³ gave African people the possibility of building an African territorial identity and some autonomous decision-making power.
The Conservative Treehouse claims that Mueller and gang are using a FISA warrant that predates his investigation, one that is probably illegal, not that that would stop Mueller.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/05/04/federal-judge-catches-robert-mueller-using-preexisting-fisa-title-1-warrant-against-paul-manafort-instead-of-title-3-authority/#more-148832
Artfl, your erudition is interesting but wasted, the judge is a white guy with blue eyes. See the photo in the link
We, the American People, do NOT want anybody with unfettered power. Not President, not FBI director, not Special Prosecutor.
Unfettered Twitter Tweets? not nearly so bad. As I’ve been reading them much more lately, I’m NOT finding any that are particularly bad, and many that are gracious, full of gratitude, and usually saying nice things about others.
On the Fake News witch hunt, Trump’s calling out the cowardly, unnamed “sources” (fakes?) which the News folks are constantly using to say things which aren’t true.
Mostly, “sources say this bad thing is going to happen because of Trump”, but the bad thing doesn’t happen. Why is this news? Because the Fake Dem news folk want people to feel bad about Trump, whether the bad thing happens or not.
Witch Hunt is what they’re doing, and I’m getting more pleased that Trump is honest and unfettered against the dishonest Fake News.
I believe that most folk who say, as I used to say, that “I don’t like Trump’s tweets”; such folk are mostly NOT following his tweets.
I now do, and think all Americans should — and be glad that the President has a good way to speak directly to people w/o Fake news misinterpretation & dishonest analysis.
Very ivy league except for that Naval aviator bit. Don’t mess with those boys and girls. Once, when helping my masters thesis student over a sticky part of his project, I made the mistake of telling him not to panic. He took great umbrage and explained to me that a Naval aviator would never panic over something so minor.
So the Mueller team has secret powers, because of national security matters? This appears to be the intersectionalism between a normal investigative seal and CIA/NSA license. Sounds like something Lavrentiy Beria would have come up with. BTW, I’m looking forward to seeing the film “The Death of Stalin,” a very black satire of the roughly true events, based on a French graphic novel.
lets go to the mattresses…
the democrats and rinos (And those republicans that seem to make wrong choices)…
not to hard to see.. the question is whether the prosecutor like others are trapped and have to do this and pay for it themselves beacuse they are trapped (see man committing suicide to save his family in the Accountant as a kind of example of mechanics), or is this the fourth category? we will never know unless we know what went on – many people think that McCain is in these categories..
[and as i said, they cant have anyone who doesnt have these things that give control the whole point of the dossier was that Trump was supposed to roll over and become one of those in the category. its why it was leaked to him, it was to take control of him by threatening not just the presidency, but the future assets an bsiness and ability of his family and children!!!
but when he didnt roll over and fought, well now he is the biggest badded enemyt hey can ahve… they have nothing on him, no manner of control, no leveraage, and they are paranoid.. always paranoid becasue when you are that way, you think others are like you.. the worse you are the more paranoid you are of the others as bad as you you cant tell!!!!!!!!!!!!
i would be MORE concerned with the missiles china has on the islands now, and the war that will have to come if japan wants their land back and its treaty deal.. this stuff wont go anywhere with manafort as there is no there there.
And this is over immigration.. because immigration provides this:
the immigrants are being USED for two reasons, to replace the women that didnt have babies and so are losing power fast and cant fix this… (So they are engratiating themselves to the next demographic as they tried inthe past with the prior demographic, except THIS TIME, this demographic is happy with the kind of normal genocide that still goes on back home)…
and the women being raped?
The sixth category is especially important: women. They can be divided into three main groups. First, those frivolous, thoughtless, and vapid women, whom we shall use…
[nice the ladies who are victims are following people who want them to be so that they can set up the social thing… remember, if you think this is bad, this is nothing compared to their prior history of what they do when they actually have more power]
—-
The revolutionary despises all doctrines and refuses to accept the mundane sciences, leaving them for future generations.
He knows only one science: the science of destruction.
For this reason, but only for this reason, he will study mechanics, physics, chemistry, and perhaps medicine. But all day and all night he studies the vital science of human beings, their characteristics and circumstances, and all the phenomena of the present social order. The object is perpetually the same: the surest and quickest way of destroying the whole filthy order.
“The object [of the revolutionary] is perpetually the same: the surest and quickest way of destroying the whole filthy order.”
Art, given your obsessive focus with the evils of Marxism, it’s clear that what you fail to grasp is that any point of view hostile to reality is doomed to failure.
It’s true that much harm has and is being done by those who cling to the idea that a capitalist democratic/republic is a “filthy order”.
But as the truth is just the opposite, destroying America (should it actually happen) will only plunge the world into a modern dark age from which in time a new enlightenment will emerge and one in which the lessons of collectivism’s utter failure are thereafter undeniable.
Marxist/collectivist ideologies are unsustainable as they deny both key aspects of human nature and fundamental operative principles of the external reality within which we all exist.
Our personal experience and biases are, at best a problematic calculus for societal analysis and prognostications.
“We don’t want anyone with unfettered power,”
I don’t need to know about Ellis’ background to know that I like him!
I hope what he was getting at was demanding the Mueller team to confirm whether or not they were using the preexisting FISA Title-1 warrant against Paul Manafort instead of Title 3 Authority (more here https://preview.tinyurl.com/y9lfdlb9)
Lizzy and Paul apparently also follow Sundance at theconservativetreehouse. I’d recommend clicking their links to see a photo of Judge Ellis. A “flinty” visage and a Navy pilot! Sundance is one tenacious investigative reporter. When the dust clears and the enemies of truth lay prostrate at our feet, we may have him/her to thank.
It’s also satisfying to see that Mueller might have made a very careless mistake.
Sundance over at https://theconservativetreehouse.com seems to flying blind on the photo of the judge — now they’ve got a different photo, this one of an African American man, but he seems to actually be a Louisiana politician named William J. Jefferson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Jefferson).
I found yet another photo of the judge at the National Law Journal site (https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/almID/1202746598012/Court-Rejects-SECs-Expansive-Whistleblower-Definition/?slreturn=20180404180807). There’s also a photo (http://arlingtoncemetery.net/judge-offers-lesson-in-citizenship.htm) of what looks like the same man at a ceremony at Arlington Cemetery in 2008.
Ha — now Sundance has the photo of the guy with a “flinty” visage back up again!
Who, by the way, I think is actually the deceased Edward Roy Becker (https://openjurist.org/judge/edward-roy-becker).
And so it is that we have the People, a Bill of Rights, a Constitution, and three co-equal branches of government, subservient to each that comes before it. Those that seek to undermine or corrupt these things, regardless of their goals and intentions, are evil.
I saw a picture on-line of a very white man.
The timing is right, I wonder if I flew with him when I was Instructing? Must check my logs.
There was time when Naval Aviation had many Ivy League graduates, along with college drop-outs, and kids from Jr Colleges. My own primary Instructor was a Marine Yale graduate. My last Instructor was a Marine with no degree. Degrees were not so important during early stages, and if the Navy accepted you as a career Officer with potential to advance, they sent you to get it. Thanks tax payers. All changed now. Must have the degree to qualify, although the pendulum is swinging back (in both the USN and USAF) because there are not enough young people who are qualified and willing.
Love the idea of a Judge with healthy skepticism toward government functionaries. I think that was one of our basic principles before folks decided that the government had the answer to every problem.
The black Louisianian, Wm Jefferson, was a Congressman who may still be serving time in a Federal Pen for taking bribes. Kept $500K cash in his freezer, remember?
Besides, what does melanin matter when Ellis’ mind is sharp, incisive, and not on automatic pro-government pilot?
He’s what we need 1000-fold in the judiciary.
I was surprised to find that in 1857, there were already stories of Fabians and others setting up communities in the US that would be run on the “communist” model. That was even the word used back then.
Given his wiki article: Karl Marx (German: [ˈkaÉ̯l ˈmaÉ̯ks]; 5 May 1818 — 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, political theorist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist.
That would mean that even before he died, people were creating interesting social experiments (that failed). Humans love money and treasures.
The only time a moneyless society ever worked for long probably was Enoch’s Zion, the Essenes, private monk like seclusion, and Pilgrim like communities that tried to use Biblically ancient ways of economy. It is hard to sustain a community that way because humans often need a way to rank value and without an internet “credit” system that assigns value to a market place, there really isn’t a an easy way to determine what your goods are worth on the open market without a stable fiat or gold backed currency. Bartering works, but in terms of scale it is difficult for mass economies to work entirely by bartering as the physical weight of the products are not easy to move.
Today the internet has cryptocurrencies that weigh next to nothing. We also have various online currencies that have a fixed rate independent of what the real world currency is fixed at, but they can be “traded” for real money still.
The YHVH model was based on all wealth coming from a god. The god hands out food and victories in war, much the same way people look towards the central government for welfare and protection. Without intense unity in the community and self sacrifice that plans in the hundreds of years, a moneyless community can’t work. The problem is usually the more unified a community is, the more totalitarian its doctrines and policies become later on. It becomes unsustainable as a totalitarian culture and society does not produce self sacrificial ideals. A person can sacrifice their life in war for their nation, hoping their nation will provide for their relatives and family, but that doesn’t always work. Especially for a nation that consolidates wealth and power in the hands of an elite few. That nation can also lose the war.
The reason why the ancients found it more stable to give resources to their gods is that because the gods were supposed to be immortal, different from mortal humans that would end up dying or becoming corrupt in less than 100 years.
If the various messiahs of the mainline religions came next year and told people to give up their fiat currency system, I don’t think most people would go along with that command.
The Navy and Marines had enlisted pilots in WWII and I hear the Army may do the same. They already have lots of WO helicopter pilots.
I’ve been busy all day and evening till now, and at the moment I’m still away, so I’m doing this from my phone rather than a computer. But it turns out that the photo I saw earlier that was with Ellis’s profile, the one that looked African-American and was captioned “T. S. Ellis”, was actually of former Loiusiana Rep. William Jefferson, whose trial Ellis presided over.
Ellis—not African-American.
This is a big, big deal. If Mueller has no jurisdiction, then he’s finished.
Cornhead:
Finished period, or finished with Manafort?
Cornhead, Neo, wouldn’t it be a hoot if over reaching on Manafort led to other cases being thrown out; and the whole house of cards coming down?
One can fantasize. It is like the lottery. Anything is possible until you look at the drawing and check your numbers.
neo-neocon Says:
May 4th, 2018 at 11:40 pm
Cornhead:
Finished period, or finished with Manafort?
* * *
Very possibly finished with Manafort, or at least greatly curtailed.
Maybe not finished “period” legally, but possibly politically, which is kind of the obverse of what they are doing with Trump: maybe not guilty legally of anything (cf. Andy McCarthy), but “guilty” of political “crimes” worthy of impeachment.
With the already existing weight of Mueller’s clear partisanship and “reaching” past his mandate, this could be a tipping point for his credibility with the general public (as opposed to the conservatives already suspicious of his integrity, and not counting the leftists who count partisanship as a plus).
That is a rather impressive resume. Naval Aviators are a select bunch. Then he adds a Summa cum Laude JD on top of that. A Force of Nature, it would appear!
Paul In Boston Says:
May 4th, 2018 at 4:04 pm
The Conservative Treehouse claims that Mueller and gang are using a FISA warrant that predates his investigation, one that is probably illegal, not that that would stop Mueller.
* * *
Thanks for reminding us that the CTH has been on this case like ducks on a Junebug from the beginning.
Lots of interesting comments there, including these especially, on the side-by-side redacted / unredacted reports, sealed cases, and resignations of Page and Baker.
(screencaps or otherwise copies of tweets from Sean Davis showing report comparisons).
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/05/04/federal-judge-catches-robert-mueller-using-preexisting-fisa-title-1-warrant-against-paul-manafort-instead-of-title-3-authority/comment-page-5/#comment-5336038
(resignations of Page and Baker)
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/05/04/federal-judge-catches-robert-mueller-using-preexisting-fisa-title-1-warrant-against-paul-manafort-instead-of-title-3-authority/comment-page-5/#comment-5336434
(information on sealed cases and DOJ chaperones for the FBI)
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/05/04/federal-judge-catches-robert-mueller-using-preexisting-fisa-title-1-warrant-against-paul-manafort-instead-of-title-3-authority/comment-page-5/#comment-5335830
* *
other interesting ideas, besides the need to have 24/7 security for Judge Ellis to protect him from assault pillows:
Sharpshorts says:
May 4, 2018 at 9:17 pm
Any thoughts on whether the SC inadvertently made a mistake by shopping for, then getting, a wrong Judge Ellis? (similar to the mistake they made accusing the wrong Cohen within the Steel documents?)…No, probably not a mistake this time…
I suspect the SC is up to something that’s has not yet been discussed.
Don’t call me Shirley but surely everyone on Mueller’s team would know they would get nowhere with any judge who was not a fellow traveler. I can’t buy in to the idea that this current spectacle is just another delay tactic.
H.R. says:
May 4, 2018 at 11:22 pm
It is not an out. The Judge throws out the case because the Prosecution produced no evidence of authority to bring the case to court.
The Mueller team said they have the proper authority, but it’s secret. The Judge wasn’t buying “double secret probation” and demanded they show their authority.
The charges against Manafort don’t align with the authority the Judge was shown. The case is getting tossed if they don’t show proper authority. And if Mueller’s team wants to continue, by giving a reason why their authority should remain a secret, that reason better come down from Mt. Sinai on gold-plated stone tablet and delivered by an Archangel of The Lord directly (no rest stops no coffee breaks and chained to the Archangels wrist) to Judge Ellis’ courtroom, or the case will be tossed.
Judge Ellis will NOT accept
“Please allow Bobby Mueller to prosecute because he really, really needs to keep this a secret.”
Signed,
By my Mom… really… this is not my handwriting… I wrote it left-handed so you can’t tell
It’s a 99.9997% chance that this case is getting tossed.
pyromancer76 says:
May 4, 2018 at 9:28 pm
…
Yeah. I know the material below is from TruePundit, from CTH comments above. I (almost) never go there, but I had to for this. https://truepundit.com/trump-considers-disbanding-or-gutting-fbi-wrays-fbi-might-be-a-lost-ship/
“One White House insider said chatter among decision makers emerged in recent weeks plotting the future for the FBI. The official said Wray could end up functioning more like a CEO downsizing a parent company, splintering FBI resources to other subsidiaries (agencies).”
…
Ever since the FBI morphed into an ever more top-bureaucratic-controlled organization after 9/11, even after the investigations showed clearly that local FBI agents knew stuff was going down and they knew where to look – they almost screamed their evidence and insights – the response was as if they were invisible. I felt so grateful to them and always wondered what happened to them. I hope they found good careers elsewhere.
Maybe it’s— give them enough rope…. I don’t think Americans, from most backgrounds, can stand this level of arrogance and grandiosity. Maybe we are seeing the beginning of the end of the FBI.
I didn’t cite some of the more outre of the CTH comments, aren’t you going to thank me?
However, I did pick up a good cartoon.
“Trump drains the swamp”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DYgqpc7WsAEr1Wy.jpg
Artfldgr Says:
May 4th, 2018 at 4:30 pm
lets go to the mattresses…
* * *
One of the Democrat’s “problems” with Mr. Trump is that he should fit into one of the Revolution’s categories, but he keeps slipping away; most of all, he won’t stay blackmailed.
From Neo’s first link to FOX:
Trump himself drew attention to the judge’s comments later Friday afternoon, during an NRA convention in Texas.
“It’s a witch hunt,” he said. “I love fighting these battles.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/05/04/breaking-former-fbi-chief-legal-counsel-james-baker-resigns-from-fbi-granular-detail-indicates-no-immunity/
Some commenters indicate these were firings of Page and Baker, not resignations.
Feels more like Watergate every day. Ellis is a long way from being able to do what Sirica did to Nixon’s little friends. Still, I would love to see Ellis, or someone like him, hand out maximum sentences to Comey. McCabe and Mueller, and then start in on Clapper and Brennan. And, oh yes, lets not forget our Plumbers..er… Insurance Salespersons Stirzoc and Page.
On election night 2012 when it became clear Obama was going to be re-elected, I got up from the couch and told my wife that it was going to be the end of the Republic. She laughed at me. I was being a bit hyperbolic but who could imagine how bad it really was and that it would get worse?
I think Mueller and gang are only the tip of the iceberg and that there must now be equal or worse corruption buried in many Federal agencies and departments. What kind of filth is buried in the State Department after four years of HRC and another four of the buffoon John Kerry?
As much as the American public fears being SWATed and investigated by the FBI/IRS, to the Deep State, these disposable pawn agencies are not the core strength of the DS elites.
What kind of filth is buried in the State Department after four years of HRC and another four of the buffoon John Kerry?
The State Department during OIF sabotaged the Pentagon’s plan to occupy and nation build Iraq.
Even in Vietnam, they got Diem assassinated on a whim.
I was being a bit hyperbolic but who could imagine how bad it really was and that it would get worse?
I imagined current events quite well back in 2007. It is all proceeding according to plan .Also, sometimes our human instincts and fears are correct. After all, they were useful against animals.
Lorenz Gude Says:
The people that Lorenz Gude calls Nixon’s plumbers are actually related to the FBI and CIA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._Gordon_Liddy
I don’t know how many times I have to repeat this before people get it. Maybe just like with Civil War 2, it’ll be another 10 years before it gets mainstream popular.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Howard_Hunt
These methods that people have believed attributed to Nixon’s administration, were standard CIA and FBI tactics used by many Presidential administrations before. Nixon’s problem is that he fell for Felt’s trap and didn’t know as much of the details as the President should have to understand just how problematic they were. Just like Reagan when he said he didn’t know anything about Iran Contra…
Neo, and others:
It is essential to stop using “African American” as an identifier.
We are either Americans, or we are not.
Paul In Boston Says:
May 5th, 2018 at 9:38 am
On election night 2012 when it became clear Obama was going to be re-elected, I got up from the couch and told my wife that it was going to be the end of the Republic.
…
What kind of filth is buried in the State Department after four years of HRC and another four of the buffoon John Kerry?
* * *
(1) “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Winston Churchill (via BrainyQuotes)
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/john-mccain-obama-thanked-obamacare-vote/
By JACK CROWE
May 4, 2018 11:51 AM
“President Barack Obama called Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.) last year to thank him for casting the decisive vote against legislation that would have effectively repealed Obamacare, according to an excerpt of McCain’s forthcoming memoir obtained by NBC.
In McCain’s memoir, The Restless Wave: Good Times, Just Causes, Great Fights, and Other Appreciations, which he coauthored with longtime aide Mark Salter, he describes receiving a call from Obama in July after crushing Republican hopes of dismantling the former president’s signature domestic achievement.
…
Obama called to say thank you and added that he was “counting on me to be an outspoken and independent voice for the causes I believed in as I had been during his presidency,” McCain wrote of the call.
…
McCain described in the memoir being unmoved by a call from President Trump before casting his dramatic against the legislation.”
(2) https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2018/05/04/kerry-quietly-seeking-salvage-iran-deal-helped-craft/2fTkGON7xvaNbO0YbHECUL/story.html
By Matt Viser GLOBE STAFF MAY 04, 2018
WASHINGTON –
“John Kerry’s bid to save one of his most significant accomplishments as secretary of state took him to New York on a Sunday afternoon two weeks ago, where, more than a year after he left office, he engaged in some unusual shadow diplomacy with a top-ranking Iranian official.
He sat down at the United Nations with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to discuss ways of preserving the pact limiting Iran’s nuclear weapons program. It was the second time in about two months that the two had met to strategize over salvaging a deal they spent years negotiating during the Obama administration, according to a person briefed on the meetings.”
Not holding my breath waiting for the Democrats to bring charges under the Logan Act; that obviously only applies to sitting Senators at social functions, and incoming transition staff.
Frog:
“It is essential to stop using “African American” as an identifier.”
YES! Calling people hyphenated Americans is an insult to those people and the nation.
“Feels more like Watergate every day…”
Far worse than Watergate.
Doesn’t even compare.
Obama via Lynch and no doubt others (Brennan and Clapper come to mind) has been able to suborn entire government agencies.
With the Media providing enfilading cover—from every direction(!), as needed…
This is unprecedented.
And then there’s the cover-up.
And the cover-up of the cover-up.
The question must now be (if it wasn’t clear before), who is behind Mueller?
AesopFan,
Shouldn’t it be AG Sessions bringing charges against Kerry under the Logan Act? Democrats have no legal leverage affecting that outcome. I can only guess that Sessions being AWOL is due to his assessment that it would be politically counter-productive to actually do his job…
What a disappointment he has turned out to be.
J.J. & Frog,
I suspect the percentage of blacks who self-label as “African-American” closely matches the percentage who vote democrat. Psychologically, it’s highly revealing… they place racial identity before all else and in doing so reveal their racism. The irony is literally biblical.
Kanye West recently placed his finger firmly upon the point: it is their mental chains that enslave them.
As has been pointed out, with Muller’s supposed “Investigation,” “the process is the punishment.”
The government has unlimited resources, while citizens, even well to do citizens, can very easily be bankrupted by the legal fees they have to pay to hire a lawyer, appear to be interrogated in Washington, and to defend themselves–see Gen. Flynn.
Trump can pay those hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars in legal bills, almost nobody else can.
Thus, you don’t even have to establish that someone actually did anything illegal.
Just accuse them, and let the workings of the legal system bankrupt and crush them.
Moreover, from what I’ve heard commentators say, a citizen who is unjustly accused and maliciously prosecuted has no way to use the courts to recoup the money he has spent, much less regain his reputation, and whatever position he might have had.
It’s an easy way to punish you enemies.
Snow on Pine Says:
May 5th, 2018 at 6:16 pm
…
It’s an easy way to punish you enemies.
* * *
They don’t even have to take the victim to trial, because all of the damage is done before anyone speaks to the jury. So, if the DA’s motives are corrupt and the evidence is lacking, they can just dismiss the charges after the victim is ruined, and never have to face the backlash from a verdict of innocent.
Which is the main reason corruption of judges and prosecutors needs to be rooted out and punished severely.
Unfortunately, the people one needs to do that task are …judges and prosecutors.
New developments via PLB and assorted other sources.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/judge-hands-small-defeat-to-mueller-team-in-russian-troll-farm-case
“Special counsel Robert Mueller’s team was handed a defeat Saturday when a judge rejected their request to postpone the first court hearing regarding charges against several Russian companies and Russian citizens that they charge with attempting to use social media to meddle in the 2016 election.
An arraignment was scheduled for Wednesday for Concord Management and Consulting, one of the three Russian companies Mueller accused of contributing to a Russian troll farm operation to spread discord online during the presidential contest.
…
Mueller’s prosecutors on Friday revealed that two of Concord’s attorneys made multiple discovery requests seeking nonpublic details related to the Russia investigation, an effort which had been included in the request to put the arraignment on hold.”
As a PLB commenter opined, spooks don’t like to give out their sources to their victims, especially foreign ones; they’ll drop a case before revealing their evidence.
Bill Shipley (in the thread at muellers-got-a-secret-2):
“They are going to have to dismiss that case. No way they can provide the discovery behind that indictment to the defense, and watch it head off to Russia. …
And when that case is dismissed, Trump will have all the justification he needs to fire Rosenstein for incompetence. Rosenstein approved that indictment, and apparently did not think through the possibilities of what might happen if one of the Russian defendants actually appeared in court to contest the charges.
Well, that’s about to happen. Russia will pour millions into the defense of that case just to fook with the press and the SC.”
There’s been a lot about the redacted v. unredacted documents being released, but I haven’t seen much on this speculation, accusing Mueller of trying to have his cake and eat it too:
http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/03/manafort-lawyers-claim-leaky-mueller-probe-has-provided-no-evidence-of-contacts-with-russian-officials/
“In a new filing demanding a full hearing on what Paul Manafort’s lawyers say is a series of illegal governmental leaks about his case, his legal team also reveals the government has provided no evidence of any contact between Manafort and Russian officials.
The special counsel’s office says it has no evidence in its possession responsive to Manafort’s request for transcripts, notes, or tapes of any and all conversation or contacts between Russian intelligence or government officials and Manafort, according to the filing.
This revelation, and the series of potentially false and illegal leaks from myriad government officials claiming they had such evidence, call into question the legal basis of Mueller’s probe of Manafort, which was ostensibly launched to ferret out illegal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and foreign officials, Manafort’s attorneys say.”
Hard to escape the conclusion that they were lying then or are lying now, because both claims can’t be true.
Also from PLB/Mueller part 2, a bit of good news.
David Hall
For those who are curious, Michael Caputo’s legal fund has topped $265K
We seem to be voting with our pocketbooks in terms of which team gets supported: Trump’s surrogates or the Deep State’s (eg, McCabe).
Caputo is the guy who had to sell his house to pay legal fees, and he isn’t even part of the alleged Russian collusion branch of the Witch Hunt — we can call it now, can’t we?
If you haven’t read it yet, here is his cri de coeur, and a bit of background on the collusion among the investigators.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/05/caputos-complaint.php
More here on Caputo’s charges in his speech, but not much on his background as a campaign aide who formerly lived in Russia.
One can see that he is a person the investigators want to interview, but he hasn’t been charged with anything, and with the FBI under Comey/Mueller on the loose, I certainly don’t blame him for lawyering up just for a witness appearance.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5682739/God-damn-hell-Former-Trump-campaign-aide-explodes-Senate-aides.html
“Caputo lived in Russia for two decades but says he has no knowledge of any connections or contacts between the Trump campaign and agents of Moscow. He has launched a legal defense fund, collecting more than $10,000 from the public so far.
…
In a report published Friday, the House Intelligence Committee quietly revealed
The Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign paid Fusion GPS, an opposition research firm, to compile the dossier. But its eventual dissemination to reporters and the FBI failed to derail Trump’s White House aspirations.
Now another Washington firm, the Penn Quarter Group, has collected $50 million from a handful of funders to keep the ball rolling.
It has hired Steele and Fusion GPS to take part, and promises to share its findings with the FBI and the media.
The Penn Quarter Group’s founding principal, Daniel Jones, is a former senior staffer to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, and worked for her on the Senate Intelligence Committee.
…
Jones’s $50 million effort is operating under the name ‘Democracy Integrity Project.’ He incorporated it in late January 2017, just 11 days after Trump took office.
Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson refused to answer a Senate hearing question last year about whether he was still being paid for work related to the Steele dossier.
Steele’s links to Jones were outed in February with the leak of a series of text messages between Jones and Virginia Democratic Sen. Mark Warner.
In the March 2017 texts, Jones suggested that he was the point of contact for Steele.”
Since the Democrats are pushing this investigation to take down a political rival, should the DIP (don’t you love the loonies who never check their acronymns?) be treated as an electioneering PAC subject to FEC rules?
https://www.lifezette.com/polizette/40-questions-that-special-counsel-robert-mueller-needs-to-answer-now/
They are better ones than the list attributed to Mueller.
I see today’s news that Chairman Nunez is going to urge a contempt citation for Attorney General Sessions, because the DOJ will not release supposedly “classified” information on the Russia investigation he first requested, then subpeoned.
The DOJ’s excuse?
“Disclosure of responsive information to such requests can risk severe consequences, including potential loss of human lives, damage to relationships with valued international partners, compromise of ongoing criminal investigations, and interference with intelligence activities.”
Well, this response might have flown, might have been taken at face value and believed a few years ago.
But, now?
Given what we’ve seen and discovered over the last few years, can anything coming out of the DOJ’s highest levels really be believed?
Can we just assume that all involved are honest, and performing their jobs to the best of their abilities, for the good of the U.S., and in accordance with the Constitution and the law? Duty, Honor, Country and all that?
Can we just assume that they wouldn’t wrap themselves in the flag, wouldn’t shade the truth, wouldn’t try to make us hesitate to press for information with a barrage of phony excuses, wouldn’t flat out lie to us, if they thought it was in their best institutional and ideological interests to do so?
I’m pretty sure that the answer, today, is NO, and that our default position must be that we’re dealing with a pack of lying, snarling hyenas, all too eager to cover for each other, to mislead us, to stonewall us, and to point us in exactly the wrong direction, if doing that has any chance of harming Trump and/or of keeping them out of the slammer.
Then, of course, even if Sessions is held in Contempt of Congress, the question then becomes, what the hell good is a citation for Contempt of Congress today?
Former AG Holder was cited for Contempt. Do you see any effect on him?
Has Holder been hauled into court, tried, slapped with an enormous financial penalty? Is Holder in jail? Is Holder hiding in a corner somewhere, curled up in a ball, crying his eyes out in shame?
NO, he’s still very much out and about, active and working behind the scenes to hamper and destroy Trump and his Administration.
Contempt of Congress may have worked in “olden days,” in a far different society and moral climate, when one’s “reputation” was perhaps all you really had, was a precious thing, to be guarded and protected at all times.
Now, in our degenerate age of low life reality shows and celebrity porn stars, who really gives a crap?
It’s good that people are finally able to wrap their minds around the power of an alliance. An alliance is unlike a political party, an ideological movement, or a temporary cooperation.
An alliance has real power. And that power rests in pooling the members of the alliance into an undefeatable power bloc. It’s not about winning elections. It’s not about some ideological crusade.
This is pure pragmatic power balance. When the goal is to annihilate or enslave your enemies, pragmatic power is needed, not ideological clap trap.
Geoffrey Britain Says:
May 5th, 2018 at 1:54 pm
AesopFan,
Shouldn’t it be AG Sessions bringing charges against Kerry under the Logan Act?
* * *
I’m assuming you have noticed the Democrat party line in the Media: what Kerry is doing is, you know, different from what the nasty Republicans did.
I guess it’s not treason-treason.
When people said that Jeb Bush was responsible for funding the Dossier on Trum, how is their character assassination any better than the Leftists they fight.
These days people don’t have principles, they just pretend they do. They want the power and are falling into the megalomaniac greed. These people are going to destroy each other, they will not be saved.