BREAKING: 🇺🇸Many of my “Round Table” 🛡⚔️ colleagues & I joined more than 1,900 @TheJusticeDept alumni who signed this statement condemning 👎🏻 Barr’s continuing unethical conduct and urging further Congressional investigation. I’m proud to stand with my colleagues against the politicization 🏴‍☠️ of the DOJ and for the rule of law!

https://medium.com/@dojalumni/doj-alumni-statement-on-flynn-case-7c38a9a945b9

DOJ Alumni Statement on Flynn Case

DOJ Alumni Statement
May 11 · 4 min read

We, the undersigned, are alumni of the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) who have collectively served both Republican and Democratic administrations. Each of us proudly took an oath to defend the Constitution and pursue the evenhanded administration of justice free from partisan consideration.

Many of us have spoken out previously to condemn President Trump’s and Attorney General Barr’s political interference in the Department’s law enforcement decisions, as we did when Attorney General Barr overruled the sentencing recommendation of career prosecutors to seek favorable treatment for President Trump’s close associate, Roger Stone. The Attorney General’s intervention in the Stone case to seek political favor for a personal ally of the President flouted the core principle that politics must never enter into the Department’s law enforcement decisions and undermined its mission to ensure equal justice under the law. As we said then, “Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics; they are autocracies.”

Now, Attorney General Barr has once again assaulted the rule of law, this time in the case of President Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. In December 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador to the United States. Subsequent events strongly suggest political interference in Flynn’s prosecution. Despite previously acknowledging that he “had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI,” President Trump has repeatedly and publicly complained that Flynn has been mistreated and subjected to a “witch hunt.” The President has also said that Flynn was “essentially exonerated” and that he was “strongly considering a [f]ull [p]ardon.” The Department has now moved to dismiss the charges against Flynn, in a filing signed by a single political appointee and no career prosecutors. The Department’s purported justification for doing so does not hold up to scrutiny, given the ample evidence that the investigation was well-founded and — more importantly — the fact that Flynn admitted under oath and in open court that he told material lies to the FBI in violation of longstanding federal law.

Make no mistake: The Department’s action is extraordinarily rare, if not unprecedented. If any of us, or anyone reading this statement who is not a friend of the President, were to lie to federal investigators in the course of a properly predicated counterintelligence investigation, and admit we did so under oath, we would be prosecuted for it.

We thus unequivocally support the decision of the career prosecutor who withdrew from the Flynn case, just as we supported the prosecutors who withdrew from the Stone case. They are upholding the oath that we all took, and we call on their colleagues to continue to follow their example. President Trump accused the career investigators and prosecutors involved in the Flynn case of “treason” and threatened that they should pay “a big price.” It is incumbent upon the other branches of government to protect from retaliation these public servants and any others who are targeted for seeking to uphold their oaths of office and pursue justice.

It is now up to the district court to consider the government’s motion to dismiss the Flynn indictment. We urge Judge Sullivan to closely examine the Department’s stated rationale for dismissing the charges — including holding an evidentiary hearing with witnesses — and to deny the motion and proceed with sentencing if appropriate. While it is rare for a court to deny the Department’s request to dismiss an indictment, if ever there were a case where the public interest counseled the court to take a long, hard look at the government’s explanation and the evidence, it is this one. Attorney General Barr’s repeated actions to use the Department as a tool to further President Trump’s personal and political interests have undermined any claim to the deference that courts usually apply to the Department’s decisions about whether or not to prosecute a case.

Finally, in our previous statement, we called on Attorney General Barr to resign, although we recognized then that there was little chance that he would do so. We continue to believe that it would be best for the integrity of the Justice Department and for our democracy for Attorney General Barr to step aside. In the meantime, we call on Congress to hold the Attorney General accountable. In the midst of the greatest public health crisis our nation has faced in over a century, we would all prefer it if Congress could focus on the health and prosperity of Americans, not threats to the health of our democracy. Yet Attorney General Barr has left Congress with no choice. Attorney General Barr was previously set to give testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on March 31, but the hearing was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We urge the Committee to reschedule Attorney General Barr’s testimony as soon as safely possible and demand that he answer for his abuses of power. We also call upon Congress to formally censure Attorney General Barr for his repeated assaults on the rule of law in doing the President’s personal bidding rather than acting in the public interest. Our democracy depends on a Department of Justice that acts as an independent arbiter of equal justice, not as an arm of the president’s political apparatus.

(If you are a former DOJ employee and would like to add your name to this statement, please complete this form. Protect Democracy will update this list daily with new signatories until May 25th.)

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In the area of immigration and particularly the Immigration Courts, this kind of unethical demeaning of our Constitution and intentionally politicizing and undermining our system of justice has been going on at the DOJ since “Day 1” of the Trump Administration under both Sessions and Barr.

It now inevitably reaches and threatens all parts of the U.S. justice system, just as many of us on the Round Table of Former Immigration Judges have been predicting!

Knightess
Knightess of the Round Table

Fellow DOJ Alums who would like to sign on to this letter can do so May 25 at the link above.

Due Process Forever. Billy Barr, Never!

PWS

05-11-20

 

ERIC HOLDER, JR. @ WASHPOST: Former AG Blasts Chief Toady Billy Barr As Unfit For Office!

Eric Holder, Jr.
Eric Holder, Jr.
Former U.S. Attorney General

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/eric-holder-william-barr-is-unfit-to-be-attorney-general/2019/12/11/99882092-1c55-11ea-87f7-f2e91143c60d_story.html

Opinions

Eric Holder: William Barr is unfit to be attorney general

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Attorney General William P. Barr in Washington on Tuesday. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

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By Eric H. Holder Jr.

Dec. 11, 2019 at 9:13 p.m. EST

Eric H. Holder Jr., a Democrat, was U.S. attorney general from 2009 to 2015.

As a former U.S. attorney general, I am reluctant to publicly criticize my successors. I respect the office and understand just how tough the job can be.

But recently, Attorney General William P. Barr has made a series of public statements and taken actions that are so plainly ideological, so nakedly partisan and so deeply inappropriate for America’s chief law enforcement official that they demand a response from someone who held the same office.

Last month, at a Federalist Society event, the attorney general delivered an ode to essentially unbridled executive power, dismissing the authority of the legislative and judicial branches — and the checks and balances at the heart of America’s constitutional order. As others have pointed out, Barr’s argument rests on a flawed view of U.S. history. To me, his attempts to vilify the president’s critics sounded more like the tactics of an unscrupulous criminal defense lawyer than a U.S. attorney general.

When, in the same speech, Barr accused “the other side” of “the systematic shredding of norms and the undermining of the rule of law,” he exposed himself as a partisan actor, not an impartial law enforcement official. Even more troubling — and telling — was a later (and little-noticed) section of his remarks, in which Barr made the outlandish suggestion that Congress cannot entrust anyone but the president himself to execute the law.

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In Barr’s view, sharing executive power with anyone “beyond the control of the president” (emphasis mine), presumably including a semi-independent Cabinet member, “contravenes the Framers’ clear intent to vest that power in a single person.” This is a stunning declaration not merely of ideology but of loyalty: to the president and his interests. It is also revealing of Barr’s own intent: to serve not at a careful remove from politics, as his office demands, but as an instrument of politics — under the direct “control” of President Trump.

Not long after Barr made that speech, he issued what seemed to be a bizarre threat to anyone who expresses insufficient respect for law enforcement, suggesting that “if communities don’t give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection they need.” No one who understands — let alone truly respects — the impartial administration of justice or the role of law enforcement could ever say such a thing. It is antithetical to the most basic tenets of equality and justice, and it undermines the need for understanding between law enforcement and certain communities and flies in the face of everything the Justice Department stands for.

It’s also particularly ironic in light of the attorney general’s comments this week, in which he attacked the FBI and the Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General — two vital components of his own department. Having spent the majority of my career in public service, I found it extraordinary to watch the nation’s chief law enforcement official claim — without offering any evidence — that the FBI acted in “bad faith” when it opened an inquiry into then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign. As a former line prosecutor, U.S. attorney and judge, I found it alarming to hear Barr comment on an ongoing investigation, led by John Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut, into the origins of the Russia probe. And as someone who spent six years in the office Barr now occupies, it was infuriating to watch him publicly undermine an independent inspector general report — based on an exhaustive review of the FBI’s conduct — using partisan talking points bearing no resemblance to the facts his own department has uncovered.

When appropriate and justified, it is the attorney general’s duty to support Justice Department components, ensure their integrity and insulate them from political pressures. His or her ultimate loyalty is not to the president personally, nor even to the executive branch, but to the people — and the Constitution — of the United States.

Career public servants at every level of the Justice Department understand this — as do leaders such as FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and Inspector General Michael Horowitz. Their fidelity to the law and their conduct under pressure are a credit to them and the institutions they serve.

Others, like Durham, are being tested by this moment. I’ve been proud to know John for at least a decade, but I was troubled by his unusual statement disputing the inspector general’s findings. Good reputations are hard-won in the legal profession, but they are fragile; anyone in Durham’s shoes would do well to remember that, in dealing with this administration, many reputations have been irrevocably lost.

This is certainly true of Barr, who was until recently a widely respected lawyer. I and many other Justice veterans were hopeful that he would serve as a responsible steward of the department and a protector of the rule of law.

Virtually since the moment he took office, though, Barr’s words and actions have been fundamentally inconsistent with his duty to the Constitution. Which is why I now fear that his conduct — running political interference for an increasingly lawless president — will wreak lasting damage.

The American people deserve an attorney general who serves their interests, leads the Justice Department with integrity and can be entrusted to pursue the facts and the law, even — and especially — when they are politically inconvenient and inconsistent with the personal interests of the president who appointed him. William Barr has proved he is incapable of serving as such an attorney general. He is unfit to lead the Justice Department.

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Predictably, there were were a few right wing apologias for Billy. That included a remarkable fictional piece by reliable rightest toady and stout defender of autocracy Hugh Hewitt, also in the Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/12/11/barrs-focus-abuses-by-fbi-is-entirely-warranted/

Since there is neither legal nor intellectual defense for the vicious attack on our institutions by Trump & Barr, in a misguided effort to “present both sides” of an “argument” where the facts all point one way, the Post has been reduced to giving space to disingenuous right wing hacks like Hewitt.

One the flip side, keeping track of all of the cogent criticisms of Toady Billy’s attacks on America and his own Department would be a full time job. One of the best of this huge field was by a group of former GOP DOJ leadership “alums” who ripped into Barr’s total lack of integrity. https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/2019/12/10/former-justice-dept-leaders-slam-barrs-commentary-on-inspector-generals-report/

Here’s an excerpt from that article:

Jonathan Rose, who served under the Reagan administration as the assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, said the inspector general’s report “rebuts in detail the AG’s charge that the FBI’s investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign was unjustified, overly intrusive, or systematically suppressed exculpatory evidence.”

“This is the first attorney general in the history of presidential impeachment proceedings to enlist as a partisan warrior on behalf of a President. It is a sad day for those of us who revere the historic commitment of the FBI and the Department of Justice to even-handed law enforcement based on truth and verifiable facts,” said Rose, who had previously served under the Nixon administration as the deputy associate attorney general.

Donald Ayer, who served as deputy attorney general under the George H.W. Bush administration, said Barr’s reaction to the inspector general’s report was reminiscent of his handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russia investigation. Ahead of the Mueller report’s release, Barr came under criticism for mischaracterizing the report’s findings.

Ayer, a former Jones Day partner who now teaches at Georgetown Law, said the inspector general’s exhaustive investigation showed that the Russia investigation was “properly initiated based on a sound factual basis, and that the allegations of ‘witch hunt’ and bias on the part of those overseeing it are without foundation.”

“Rather than focus on those critical findings which should reassure all Americans, Barr dwells entirely on the report’s further findings that some agents (who he describes as a ‘small group of now-former’ FBI employees) were guilty of misconduct in the manner in which they put forward evidence in some submissions to the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court,” Ayer said, referring to the secretive court tasked with weighing warrant applications filed under the surveillance law.

I personally knew and worked with both Jon Rose and Don Ayer. We were all partners at Jones Day’s D.C. Office in the 1990’s. 

We also all served in Senior Executive positions in the DOJ during the Reagan Administration. I knew Don better than Jon. I believe he adjudicated a grievance case that I was handling for the “Legacy INS” during my tenure as Deputy General Counsel. My recollection is that case was one of those stemming from the massive “Attorney Reorganization” that Mike Inman and I implemented to unite all INS Attorneys under the General Counsel’s supervision as part of the “Litigation and Legal Advice Offices,” the actual forerunners of today’s Offices of Chief Counsel at DHS!

Another of those cases actually reached a U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh where I was the Government’s “star witness.”  I was found “credible” by the District Judge in his ruling in favor of INS Management. 

However, admittedly, about 20 minutes into my answer to the Assistant U.S. Attorney’s first question, the Judge interrupted and said something like: “Counsel, could you instruct your witness to stop the history lesson and just answer the question asked?” Ah, the hazards of witnesses who “know too much.”

Of course, I also served at the DOJ under Eric Holder twice: once when he was the Deputy Attorney General during the Clinton Administration and again during his tenure as Attorney General under Obama.

PWS

12-12-19

HOW JUSTICE DIED: Trump Relies On Smug, Complicit Functionaries Like Rod Rosenstein To Undermine The Rule Of Law: “It is the Rosensteins who translate the president’s lizard-brain impulses into practical directives and create a patina of normalcy around them.”

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/rod-rosenstein-comey-barr-mueller-trump-russia-department-justice.html

Jonathan Chait in New York Maggie:

President Trump’s progress in corrupting the Department of Justice — and, to some extent, the entire federal government — into a weapon of his autocratic aspirations relies on the acquiescence of figures like Rod Rosenstein. It is the Rosensteins who translate the president’s lizard-brain impulses into practical directives and create a patina of normalcy around them. (Or, in some increasingly rare cases, refuse to do so.) And so Rosenstein’s spate of valedictory remarks attempting to cleanse and justify his service to Trump give us real insight into the worldview of the compliant bureaucratic functionary.

In a speech last night, Rosenstein delivered a sharp attack on former FBI Director James Comey. Rosenstein, of course, supplied Trump with a letter justifying Comey’s removal. Rosenstein justified his cooperation by claiming ignorance of any obstruction of justice motive. “Nobody said that the removal was intended to influence the course of my Russia investigation.”

It is perhaps remotely possible that Rosenstein actually did not realize what was going on with Trump, Comey, and the Russia investigation. It is not possible that Rosenstein believed, as he wrote, that Donald “Lock her up!” Trump fired Comey for treating Hillary Clinton unfairly, which is the reason Rosenstein elucidated in his letter.

Rosenstein also gushed about the rule of law, assuring his audience that it is safe, and implictly crediting Trump with upholding it. “We use the term ‘rule of law’ to describe our obligation to follow neutral principles,” he lectured. “As President Trump pointed out, ‘we govern ourselves in accordance with the rule of law rather [than] … the whims of an elite few or the dictates of collective will.’”

More revealingly, Rosenstein lashed out at Comey, who has made some cutting remarks about Rosenstein’s character, as a “partisan pundit.” Rosenstein’s conceit here is that Comey, a lifelong Republican, has become “partisan” by attacking Trump’s character. Meanwhile, Rosenstein, also a Republican, has maintained his neutrality and therefore his credibility.

But Rosenstein’s idea of nonpartisan neutrality does not require abstaining from political commentary. It merely requires abstaining from criticism of his boss. In another recent speech, Rosenstein attacked the Obama administration for failing “to publicize the full story about Russian computer hackers and social media trolls, and how they relate to a broader strategy to undermine America.” (Blaming Obama for doing too little to stop the Russian operation, when Trump was abetting it and Republican leader Mitch McConnell threatened to publicly attack any administration statement against it, is one of Trump’s Orwellian talking points.)

It might seem hypocritical for Rosenstein to parrot Trump’s talking points and then lash out as Comey as a partisan pundit. But from Rosenstein’s standpoint, it probably feels perfectly consistent. Opinions that extol and burnish the powers that be are qualitatively different than opinions tearing them down. Rosenstein’s opinions are not opinions at all. They are merely the lubricant in the proper functioning of the machinery of government.

And so Rosenstein joined with William Barr to spin the Mueller report — in a fashion so misleading that Mueller himself memorialized his objections in a memo — and declare all of Trump’s efforts to obstruct the probe to be non-crimes. Barr is meanwhile authorizing the fourth counter-investigation of the Russia probe. This will probably fail to yield any charges, but will succeed in making anybody in the Department of Justice think very carefully before looking into any crimes by Trump or his friends, with the full understanding that Republicans will harass them for years if they try.

Trump continues to mock even the pretense that his attorney general should make investigative decisions independent of politics. “I’m proud of our attorney general that he is looking into it,” he told reporters today. Somehow, Rosenstein is able to look upon the situation he has left with pride. Mueller was never fired. More importantly, neither was Rosenstein himself. It is easy for the inside man to confuse a system that is intact with a system that is working.

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Here is my assessment of Rosenstein’s legacy from a recent post:

Rosenstein is on his way out the door at the DOJ.  He’ll leave behind a mixed legacy. He’ll deserve great credit for protecting the Mueller investigation from Trump’s various attempts to interfere and compromise it. On the other hand, he drafted the infamous “pretext memo” which was part of the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to cover up Trump’s real real reason for firing FBI Director Jim Comey.

His failure to stand up for judicial independence, fairness, and due process for vulnerable individuals coming before our U.S. Immigration Courts and his continuing defense of the Administration’s indefensible and harmful White Nationalist immigration agenda will go down as one of his lesser moments.

America needs an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court where judges act fairly and impartially and owe allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, not the Attorney General or any other political official.

https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/03/18/dag-rosenstein-inadvertently-makes-compelling-argument-for-independent-article-i-u-s-immigration-court-in-speech-to-new-judges-places-emphasis-on-executive-fealty-to-attorney-general-no/

Rosenstein is a good illustration of why 1) we need an independent U.S. Immigration Court, and 2) the U.S. Department of Justice is a failed organization whose mission and functions need thoughtful reexamination once Trump and his GOP toadies have been removed from power.

Interestingly, Rosenstein once was considered a “straight up guy” — a public servant who had served honorably in Administrations of both parties. Whatever else one might say about Trump, he does have a talent for bringing out and exploiting the underlying sliminess and weakness in folks once thought to be decent human beings and good public servants: John Kelly, Lindsay Graham, Kirstjen Nielsen, Rosenstein, Nikki Haley, Bill Barr, Rachel Brand, etc.

Somewhere out there are pockets of the “anti-Rosensteins” — civil servants who continue to uphold their oaths of office, do the right thing, and put Due Process, human lives, and the public welfare above job security or sucking up to power. Hopefully, we will reach a point in time where their stories can be told and where “sell-outs” like Rosenstein are held accountable for aiding and abetting the abuse of power.

PWS

05-15-19

BILL BARR – Unqualified For Office – Unfit To Act In A Quasi-Judicial Capacity

BILL BARR – Unqualified For Office – Unfit To Act In A Quasi-Judicial Capacity

There have been many articles pointing out that Bill Barr unethically has acted as Trump’s defense counsel rather than fulfilled his oath to uphold the Constitution and be the Attorney General of all of the American people. There have also been some absurdist “apologias” for Barr some written by once-respected lawyers who should know better, and others written by the normal Trump hacks.

Here are my choices for four of the best articles explaining why Barr should not be the Attorney General. It goes without saying that he shouldn’t by any stretch of the imagination be running the Immigration Court system. His intervention into individual cases in a quasi-judicial capacity is a clear violation of judicial ethics requiring avoidance of even the “appearance” of a conflict of interest. There is no “appearance” here. Barr has a clear conflict in any matter dealing with immigration.

 

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/04/impeach-attorney-general-william-barr.html

Congress Should Impeach William Barr

Attorney General William Barr. Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

House Democrats are going to face a difficult decision about launching an impeachment inquiry into President Trump. Balanced against the president’s impressive array of misconduct is the fact that several more criminal investigations that may add to the indictment are already underway, and that impeaching the president might jeopardize the reelection of red-state Democratic members. But in the meantime, Attorney General William Barr presents them with a much easier decision. Barr has so thoroughly betrayed the values of his office that voting to impeach and remove him is almost obvious.

On March 24, Barr released a short letter summarizing the main findings of the Mueller investigation, as he saw them. News accounts treated Barr’s interpretation as definitive, and the media — even outlets that had spent two years uncovering a wide swath of suspicious and compromising links between the Trump campaign and Russia — dutifully engaged in self-flagellation for having had the temerity to raise questions about the whole affair.

Barr had done very little to that point to earn such a broad benefit of the doubt. In the same role in 1992, he had supported mass pardons of senior officials that enabled a cover-up of the Iran–Contra scandal. Less famously, in 1989 he issued a redacted version of a highly controversial administration legal opinion that, as Ryan Goodman explained, “omitted some of the most consequential and incendiary conclusions from the actual opinion” for “no justifiable reason.”

And while many members of the old Republican political Establishment had recoiled against Trump’s contempt for the rule of law, Barr has shown no signs of having joined them. He met with Trump to discuss serving as his defense lawyer, publicly attacked the Mueller investigation (which risked “taking on the look of an entirely political operation to overthrow the president”), called for more investigations of Hillary Clinton, and circulated a lengthy memo strongly defending Trump against obstruction charges.

The events since Barr’s letter have incinerated whatever remains of his credibility. The famously tight-lipped Mueller team told several news outlets the letter had minimized Trump’s culpability; Barr gave congressional testimony hyping up Trump’s charges of “spying,” even prejudging the outcome of an investigation (“I think there was a failure among a group of leaders [at the FBI] at the upper echelon”); evaded questions as to whether he had shared the Mueller report with the White House; and, it turns out, he’s “had numerous conversations with White House lawyers which aided the president’s legal team,” the New York Times reports. Then he broke precedent by scheduling a press conference to spin the report in advance of its redacted publication.

It is not much of a mystery to determine which officials have offered their full loyalty to the president. Trump has reportedly “praised Barr privately for his handling of the report and compared him favorably to former Attorney General Jeff Sessions” —whose sole offense in Trump’s eyes was following Department of Justice ethical protocol. Trump urged his Twitter followers to tune in to Barr’s conference, promotional treatment he normally reserves for his Fox News sycophants.

The press conference was the final disqualifying performance. Barr acted like Trump’s defense lawyer, the job he had initially sought, rather than as an attorney general. His aggressive spin seemed designed to work in the maximal number of repetitions of the “no collusion” mantra, in accordance with his boss’s talking points, at the expense of any faithful transmission of the special counsel’s report.

Barr’s letter had made it sound as though Trump’s campaign spurned Russia’s offers of help: “The Special Counsel did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in these efforts, despite multiple offers from Russian-affiliated individuals to assist the Trump campaign,” he wrote. In fact, Mueller’s report concluded, “In some instances, the Campaign was receptive to the offer,” but that the cooperation fell short of criminal conduct.

Where Mueller intended to leave the job of judging Trump’s obstructive conduct to Congress, Barr interposed his own judgment. Barr offered this incredible statement for why Trump’s behavior was excusable: “[T]here is substantial evidence to show that the President was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks,” Barr said. “Nonetheless, the White House fully cooperated with the Special Counsel’s investigation,” and credited him further with taking “no act that in fact deprived the Special Counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete his investigation.”

Sincere? How can Barr use that word to describe the mentality of a man whose own staffers routinely describe him in the media as a pathological liar? Trump repeatedly lied about Russia’s involvement in the campaign, and his own dealings with Russia. And he also, contra Barr, repeatedly denied the special counsel access to witnesses by dangling pardons to persuade them to withhold cooperation.

It is true that many of Trump’s attempts to obstruct justice failed. As Mueller wrote, the president’s “efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the President declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests.”

This is a rather different gloss on the facts than the happy story Barr offered the press. What’s more, it is a pressing argument for Barr’s own removal. Next to the president himself, the attorney general is the most crucial actor in the safeguarding of the rule of law. The Justice Department is an awesome force that holds the power to enable the ruling party to commit crimes with impunity, or to intimidate and smear the opposing party with the taint of criminality.

There is no other department in government in which mere norms, not laws, are all that stand between democracy as we know it and a banana republic. Barr has revealed his complete unfitness for this awesome task. Nearly two more years of this Trumpian henchman wielding power over federal law enforcement is more weight than the rickety Constitution can bear.

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Dvid Leonhardt of the NY Times writes:

In the years after Watergate, Justice Department officials — from both parties — worked hard to banish partisan cronyism from the department. Their goal was to make it the least political, most independent part of the executive branch.

“Our law is not an instrument of partisan purpose,” Edward Levi, Gerald Ford’s attorney general, said at the time. Griffin Bell, later appointed to the same job by Jimmy Carter, described the department as “a neutral zone in the government, because the law has to be neutral.”

Attorney General William Barr clearly rejects this principle. He’s repeatedly put a higher priority on protecting his boss, President Trump, than on upholding the law in a neutral way. He did so in his letter last month summarizing Robert Mueller’s investigation and then again in a bizarre prebuttal news conference yesterday. As The Times editorial board wrote, Barr yesterday “behaved more like the president’s defense attorney than the nation’s top law-enforcement officer.”

Throughout his tenure, Barr has downplayed or ignored the voluminous evidence of Trump’s wrongdoing — his lies to the American people, his willingness to work with a hostile foreign country during a presidenial campaign, his tolerance of extensive criminal behavior among his staff and his repeated efforts to obstruct an investigation. Barr even claimed that Trump “fully cooperated” with that investigation, which Vox’s Ezra Klein notes is “an outright lie.”

Since he took office, Trump has made clear that he wants an attorney general who acts as first an enforcer of raw power and only second as an enforcer of federal law. In Barr, Trump has found his man. Together, they have cast aside more than four decades worth of Justice Department ideals and instead adopted the approach of Richard Nixon.

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/william-barr-misled-public-mueller-report_n_5cb8b2b0e4b032e7ceb60d05

The Ways William Barr Misled The Public About The Mueller Report

Instead of just releasing the special counsel’s findings, the U.S. attorney general spun the report to the benefit of President Trump.
Letting this farce of a “judicial system” continue unfairly endangering individual lives and deferring to officials who are neither subject matter experts nor fair and impartial quasi-judicial decision makers is unconstitutional. By letting it continue, life-tenured Federal Judges both tarnish their reputations and fail to fulfill their oaths of office.
As a young attorney in the Department of Justice during the Watergate Era, I, along with many others, were indelibly impressed and inspired when then Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his Deputy William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than carry out Nixon’s illegal order to fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor (a/k/a/ “The Saturday Night Massacre”). Obviously, Barr has dragged the Department and its reputation down to new depths — back to the days of Nixon and disgraced (and convicted) Attorney General “John the Con” Mitchell, who actually planned criminal conspiracies in his fifth floor office at the DOJ.
Obviously, there are systemic problems that have allowed unqualified individuals like Barr and Sessions to serve in and co-opt the system of justice, and denigrate the Department of Justice. (I spoke to some recently retired DOJ officials who characterized the morale among career professionals at the DOJ as “below the floor”). Some of those can be traced to the lack of backbone and integrity in the “Trump GOP” which controls the Senate and refuses to enforce even minimal standards of professionalism, meaningful oversight, and independent decision making in Trump appointees. That’s what a “kakistocracy” is. It’s up to the rest of us to do what is necessary under the law to replace the kakistocracy with a functioning democracy.
PWS
04-20-19

DAG ROSENSTEIN INADVERTENTLY MAKES COMPELLING ARGUMENT FOR INDEPENDENT ARTICLE I U.S. IMMIGRATION COURT IN SPEECH TO NEW JUDGES — Places Emphasis On Executive, Fealty To Attorney General, Not Independence. Impartiality, & Insuring Due Process! — REAL “Courts” Don’t Answer to Prosecutors!

https://links.govdelivery.com/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbXNpZD0mYXVpZD0mbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTkwMzE1LjMyNjAxNDEmbWVzc2FnZWlkPU1EQi1QUkQtQlVMLTIwMTkwMzE1LjMyNjAxNDEmZGF0YWJhc2VpZD0xMDAxJnNlcmlhbD0xODQ4OTEzNiZlbWFpbGlkPWRrb3dhbHNraUBkYXZpZC13YXJlLmNvbSZ1c2VyaWQ9ZGtvd2Fsc2tpQGRhdmlkLXdhcmUuY29tJnRhcmdldGlkPSZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&101&&&https://www.justice.gov/opa/speech/deputy-attorney-general-rod-j-rosenstein-delivers-opening-remarks-investiture-31-newly

Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein Delivers Opening Remarks at Investiture of 31 Newly Appointed Immigration Judges
Washington, DC

~

Friday, March 15, 2019

Thank you, James, for that kind introduction. I appreciate your devoted service to the Department of Justice.

I also want to thank Deputy Chief Judges Santoro and Cheng, and Assistant Chief Judges Doolittle, Owen, Mart, and Weiss.

I am grateful to Marcia Lee-Sullivan and Karen Manna for helping to plan this event.

Above all, I want to congratulate our 31 new immigration judges for joining the Executive Office for Immigration Review, and welcome the family members and friends who are with us today.

I took my first oath as a Department of Justice employee in 1990. I hope it is as meaningful to you as it is to me. They have sworn me in several more times over the past three decades. But they never swear you out.

The oath obligates you to support and defend the Constitution. Our nation was not united by race, ethnicity, religion, or even national origin. The founders’ goal of bringing peoples of the world together in a single nation is reflected in the motto adopted at the founding of our Republic: e pluribus unum: from the many, one. Our one nation is unified by our shared commitment to the principles of the United States Constitution.  The preamble sets forth, among its primary goals, to “establish Justice.” Justice – or the fair application of the rule of law – is the essence of America.

The right to live and work in America is a tremendous privilege. It is a valuable privilege. It is a privilege that has meaning only if we exercise our right and duty to protect it by setting rules for people who seek to acquire the privilege.

It is right and proper for us to insist that people who desire to join our nation – people who want themselves and their children to join the privileged group who define ourselves as “we, the people” – start by following the rules governing admission and citizenship.

The duties imposed by your oath of office include faithfully enforcing those rules.

America’s immigration laws are generous and welcoming, but they are intended to protect the rights and advance the interests of current and future citizens.

More than a century ago, Theodore Roosevelt remarked that “[t]he average citizen must be a good citizen if our republics are to succeed. The stream will not permanently rise higher than the main source; and the main source of national power and national greatness is found in the average citizenship of the nation.” Roosevelt did not limit his remarks to birthright citizens. He said, “We must in every way possible encourage the immigrant to rise …. We must in turn insist upon his showing the same standard of fealty to this country and to join with us in raising the level of our common American citizenship.”

Obeying the law when seeking entry to the United States is an essential component of “fealty to this country.”

Estimates suggest that there are more than 44 million people in our country who were not American citizens at birth. That is almost 14 percent of our population, the largest share in more than a century.  America’s foreign-born population exceeds the total population of California, our most populous state, and it is larger than the entire population of Argentina.

Those numbers continue to grow. Every year, we generously extend lawful permanent resident status to more than one million people, and we allot hundreds of thousands of student visas and temporary work visas.

It is no surprise that so many people want to join us. According to the World Bank, nearly half of the world lives on less than $5.50 per day. According to a recent Gallup poll, 150 million people around the world want to immigrate to the United States. We cannot take them all.

For our system to be fair, it must be carried out faithfully and equitably. It must be fair to all who desire to come here — whether they live south of our border or an ocean away.

Immigration judges appointed by the Attorney General and supervised by the Executive Office for Immigration Review are not only judges. First, you are not only judges because you are also employees of the United States Department of Justice. It is a great honor to serve in this Department. In the courtyard just outside the entrance to this Great Hall, high up on the interior wall of the Main Justice building, there is a depiction of the scales of justice and an inscription that reads, “Privilegium Obligatio.” It means that when you accept a privilege, you incur an obligation. In this Department, our duty is in our name. We are the only cabinet agency with a name that articulates a moral value.

Justice is not measured by statistics. Our employees learn from day one that their duty is to gather the facts, seek the truth, apply the law, and respect the policies and principles of the Department of Justice.

The second reason that you are not only judges is that in addition to your adjudicative function – finding facts and applying laws – you are a member of the executive branch. You follow lawful instructions from the Attorney General, and you share a duty to enforce the law.

You take office at a critical time. The number of immigration cases filed each year is rapidly increasing. In February, the Department of Homeland Security apprehended 66,000 aliens who unlawfully entered our country between ports of entry along the southwest border. On average, our colleagues at the Department of Homeland Security encounter about 3,000 aliens every day along the southern border.

Most of them cross the border unlawfully, between points of entry. They chose not to follow the law. Because they do not follow the law, many of them expose themselves and their children to exploitation and abuse. Many pay criminal smugglers because they know that they might not be allowed to enter lawfully. Nonetheless, our legal system protects them.

The massive influx of aliens who arrive in America illegally and invoke due process rights under our law creates a staggering volume of immigration cases that require resolution.

The primary factor driving the increasing backlog is the significant increase in asylum applications. Asylum applications have more than tripled in less than five years.

Our asylum system was established in the aftermath of World War II. America seemed to have limitless space at that time, and the goal was to protect minority groups from persecution by foreign states, the kind of persecution that the world witnessed during World War II and which was prevalent at that time in the purges conducted by our erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union.

The law authorizes asylum only for victims who suffered persecution or have a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or because of their political opinion.

Other reasons for seeking to immigrate may be rational and even laudable. We certainly understand why foreigners wish to come to America in search of better opportunities for themselves and their children. America is a great nation that does not need walls to keep its citizens from leaving, like the Soviet Union. We build walls only to protect ourselves and enforce our rules.

The duty of our immigration judges is to honestly find the facts and faithfully apply the laws, so that people obtain asylum only if they qualify for it under the statute.

We are taking steps to address the massive influx of cases. We are hiring more judges; we are holding more hearings; and we are completing more cases, more quickly.

Since President Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Justice has hired more immigration judges than in the previous seven years combined. We now employ the largest number of immigration judges in history. There are 48 percent more immigration judges than three years ago, and 71 percent more than five years ago.

And we are finding innovative ways to become more efficient. For example, the Department has had great success using video teleconference technology, which enables judges to share the case burden with one another across the country.

We will look for other ways to become more efficient and more effective. But ultimately we are depending upon you, both to perform your duties expeditiously, and to let us know when you identify opportunities for improvement.

One of my favorite management parables is about a child who watches her mother prepare a roast beef.  The mother cuts the ends off the roast before she puts it in the oven.  The child asks why. The mother says that she learned it from her mother. So the child asks her grandmother. The grandmother explains, “When your mother was a child, I cut the ends off because my pan was too small to fit the whole roast beef.”

The moral is that the solutions of the past are not necessarily the right solutions today.  Circumstances change.  Sometimes we need to reconsider assumptions and realign our practices to achieve our goals.  The movie “Moneyball,” based on a book by Michael Lewis, summarizes the lesson in three words borrowed from Charles Darwin: “Adapt or die.” Some of the best ideas to enhance efficiency come from relatively new employees who are not accustomed to existing bureaucratic rules. If you think you know a better way to accomplish our mission, please speak up and let us know.

Our challenges are daunting.  But you can be part of the solution.

Whether the immigration backlog continues to grow depends in large part on how immigration judges discharge their duties.

We chose you because of your qualifications, your legal skills, and your personal integrity. We believe that you are ready for this challenge.

Thank you for your willingness to serve, and welcome to the Department of Justice.

*********************************************

There were a few good things about Rosenstein’s presentation:

  • As I had predicted would happen under Barr, he improved the tone by ditching the overt appeals to White Nationalism, racist dog whistles, and misogyny present in most of Sessions’s rhetoric:
  • He also dropped the vicious, disingenuous attacks on the private bar that were a staple of Sessions’s anti-immigrant screeds;
  • He at least acknowledges that immigrants are a large permanent part of our society, although downplaying the truth that, contrary to Stephen Miller and other Trump restrictionists, we are, in fact, a “nation of immigrants;”
  • He acknowledges the obligation to be “fair to all who desire to come here — whether they live south of our border or an ocean away;”
  • He at least grudgingly recognizes that all who come here are entitled to certain protections under our legal system regardless of the circumstances of entry (something that the DOJ and the Administration actually have failed to respect in practice);
  • He also recognizes another truth that his Department often chooses to ignore — “Justice is not measured by statistics.” — Indeed, it is not — so why have mindless “quotas” that nobody working in or familiar with the system would have recommended? Why cite largely meaningless statistics about the number of individuals who would like to come here but never will?

But, there was also lots NOT to like:

  • Rosenstein mangles the oath of office; federal employees like Immigration Judges swear to uphold the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic — they DON’T swear to uphold or carry out the policies of the Attorney General (many of which have actually been found in violation of the law);
  • He creates a bogus “test” of “legal entry” as a demonstration of “fealty to our country;” there is no such equivalency or “second class citizenship.” — Although our system understandably often favors those who enter legally, there are a number of provisions that allow individuals who did not do so to eventually be granted citizenship, including those who are granted asylum; I am aware of no information that shows that manner of entry into the U.S. has any effect on one’s “fealty” or performance as a citizen; indeed, as a “native born U.S. citizen,” Rosenstein, like many of us, did nothing whatsoever personally to show his “fealty” or “earn” his citizenship — he was just lucky like we were;
  • Rosenstein keeps referring to “enforcement;” but Immigration Judges are NOT “law enforcement officers;” they are supposed to be fair and impartial quasi-judicial adjudicators; “enforcement” is the job of DHS and other parts of the DOJ (a glaring conflict of interest);
  • DHS officials are not the Immigration Judges’ “colleagues” to any greater extent than are lawyers in private practice or the individuals coming before the Immigration Courts; DHS is a “party” before the court and should be treated as such;
  • Rosenstein mis-states the history of our refugee laws. While the 1951 Convention was a response to World War II, the U.S. never became a party. We did sign the 1967 Protocol which was intended to update and expand the Convention and refugee law and move it beyond the immediate post-WWII aftermath. Our first codification of refugee and asylum law, the Refugee Act of 1980, was specifically intended to eliminate the types of ideological and geographical biases that had previously been a facet of our law; Rosenstein wrongfully implies that judges should interpret  refugee law with a focus on a bygone era rather than considering refugee law, in the dynamic, protection-oriented manner it was intended, in the contexts of today’s world, where persecution based on gender is one of the major refugee producing factors;
  • Rosenstein cites televideo as a helpful “innovation;” televideo is hardly new; but the often inept way in which it has been implemented and used by EOIR means that it often has actually fueled, rather than solved, “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” as shown in this very recent report from Beth Fertig at WNYC: https://immigrationcourtside.com/2019/03/15/beth-fertig-the-gothamist-mismanaged-immigration-courts-failed-technology-results-in-cancelled-hearings-more-aimless-docket-reshuffling-that-needlessly-impedes-due-process-ad/ Most of us who have actually worked in the system would say that while better televideo and a corps of “senior” and “reserve” judges might prove useful in many circumstances, they are least suitable and helpful for contested merits asylum cases;
  • Rosenstein neglects to mention the glaring failure of DOJ/EOIR to deliver on an even more important piece of technology for both the judges and the parties: e-filing which has been under development for nearly two decades without producing a functional product — a stunning piece of administrative incompetence by any standard and one that has helped contribute to the “Aimless Docket Reshuffling” that plagues this dysfunctional system;
  • Rosenstein use of the term “generous” to describe legal immigration policy under Trump is outrageous; in a time of a growing worldwide refugee crisis, this Administration has cruelly and irrationally reduced refugee admissions to the lowest rate since the enactment of the Refugee Act of 1980, while discouraging and placing bureaucratic roadblocks to discourage other forms of legal immigration, and intentionally misconstruing and perverting the law to make it more difficult for abused women from Central America to qualify;
  • Rosenstein fails to acknowledge that “forced migrants” are just that; they often enter illegally because they have little other choice, particularly when the Administration intentionally “slow walks” the applications of those who apply at legal ports of entry, forces those who have shown “credible fear” to remain in dangerous conditions in Mexico, and encourages smugglers to “turn in” individuals between ports of entry to avoid the Trump Administration’s short-sighted and arguably illegal policies;
  • Walls are not a symbol of strength as posited by Rosenstein; they are symbols of fear and loathing; in the USSR’s case it was directed at their own citizens; for the Trump Administration, walls are symbols of fear of Mexico, Mexicans, other Latin Americans, immigrants generally, and inferentially the real target — Hispanic citizens and all people of color in the U.S.;
  • Rosenstein’s final piece of jaw-dropping hypocrisy is to solicit solutions from the “new judges” to problems thrust on them by his Department’s malicious incompetence. Gimme a break, Rod! This Administration, like the last several, has made a point of ignoring any solutions generated from those who actually hear the cases in favor of those imposed to meet political goals that often undermine due process and judicial efficiency. Just ask the NAIJ how “receptive” the Trump DOJ has been to constructive suggestions. Ask almost any Immigration Judge about the idiotic and demeaning “case quotas” imposed on them over their objections. Moreover, this Administration has been “outed” in FOIA requests and court cases for  ignoring well-supported fact-biased recommendations of career civil servants with expertise in various fields in favor of a preconceived racist, White Nationalist, restrictionist political agenda. Save your breath and ideas folks, for a future time after we get some much-needed “regime change” and the return of rational, unbiased, solution-oriented administration of justice instead of ideologues and their apologists like Rosenstein.

Rosenstein is on his way out the door at the DOJ.  He’ll leave behind a mixed legacy. He’ll deserve great credit for protecting the Mueller investigation from Trump’s various attempts to interfere and compromise it. On the other hand, he drafted the infamous “pretext memo” which was part of the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to cover up Trump’s real real reason for firing FBI Director Jim Comey.

His failure to stand up for judicial independence, fairness, and due process for vulnerable individuals coming before our U.S. Immigration Courts and his continuing defense of the Administration’s indefensible and harmful White Nationalist immigration agenda will go down as one of his lesser moments.

America needs an independent Article I U.S. Immigration Court where judges act fairly and impartially and owe allegiance to the U.S. Constitution, not the Attorney General or any other political official.

PWS

03-18-19

 

 

“’DUH’ ARTICLE OF DA DAY” – Former FBI Acting Director McCabe Says “then–Attorney General Sessions [was] a Trump-like idiot and racist” – Gee, Seems Like That Was What Liz, Corey, & The Black Caucus Told Us – But McConnell Silenced The Truth & He & His GOP Cronies Subjected America To Perhaps The Worst & Least Qualified Attorney General In U.S. History!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/02/andrew-mccabe-book-jeff-sessions-irishmen.html

Molly Olmstead reports for Slate:

Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s new book, which details his frustrations with President’s Trump administration, has made it clear that his “disdain for Trump is rivaled only by his contempt for [Jeff] Sessions,” according to an assessment from Washington Post reporter Greg Miller.

According to Miller’s review of the book, McCabe saw then–Attorney General Sessions as a Trump-like idiot and racist who had “trouble focusing, particularly when topics of conversation strayed from a small number of issues,” failed to read intelligence reports, and jumbled classified material with publicly reported news.

The strangest detail from the book, though, had to do with Sessions’ thoughts on the FBI’s hiring practices. According to the Post:

The FBI was better off when “you all only hired Irishmen,” Sessions said in one diatribe about the bureau’s workforce. “They were drunks but they could be trusted. Not like all those new people with nose rings and tattoos — who knows what they’re doing?”

According to a Wall Street Journal review of the book, McCabe wrote in his book that Sessions was only interested in immigration issues. He obsessed over the connection between crime and immigration, and he believed that Islam was an inherently violent religion, according to the Post. When presented with a counterterrorism case, he would first ask where the suspect was born or where the suspect’s parents were from. “He blamed immigrants for nearly every societal problem and uttered racist sentiments with shocking callousness,” Miller concluded from McCabe’s book.

McCabe’s assessment is surprising in only that it comes so bluntly from a man who once was acting head of the FBI but now seems intent on speaking out against the men who made his professional and personal life so difficult for 10 months (before he was fired just hours before his planned retirement, blocking him from receiving his full pension benefits). Sessions has a long, long history of making racist and anti-immigrant comments, while also implementing racist and anti-immigrant policies. A non-exhaustive list includes: allegedly warning a black lawyer to “be careful how you talk to white folks”; calling the NAACP “un-American”; reportedly joking that he used to think the KKK was “OK” until he discovered some smoked marijuana; praising an 1924 immigration act promoted by Nazi-style eugenics; denigrating a judge in Hawaii as “sitting on an island in the Pacific”; fondly remembered George Wallace, America’s most famous segregationist politician, as “one of the most formidable third-party candidates in this century; and lauding “the Anglo-American heritage of law enforcement.”

As for actions, in Alabama, Sessions punished black activists, defended voter suppression tactics, and kept black judges off the federal bench. He opposed sentencing reform over the crack-cocaine disparity. He has opposed hate crime protections and defended the official display of the Confederate flag. He has regularly attended events hosted by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim groups, which he maintains a close relationship with. He touted falsehoods about DACA and immigrants in general. And of course, he pushed, relentlessly, for deportations and prosecutions of undocumented immigrants and even refugees fleeing domestic and gang violence.

****************************************

Sessions is a living example of how someone can spend a lifetime “on the dole” as a so-called “public servant” without providing any meaningful positive service or contributions to the public good.

Compare this “life not so well lived” with the “real world” contributions of the many decent, hard-working, honest, and dedicated civil servants who were screwed over by Trump’s shutdown. Or, compare Sessions’s squandered, anti-social life with the significant “real life” contributions of many of the immigrants, both documented and undocumented, who came before me in Immigration Court over 13 years.

I’m not sure even the worst of the aggravated felons that I ordered deported did as much lasting damage to our nation and its future as did Sessions! He was a child abuser on a grand scale, and someone who used knowingly false narratives to send deserving refugees, particularly abused women, back to torture or even death in the countries from which they had fled. He was the architect of both family separation and the unbridled expansion of the “New American Gulag.”

He promoted hate, intellectual dishonesty, ignorance, bias, and intolerance of all kinds, and was an avowed enemy of kindness and human compassion. He even had the absolute audacity to cite the Christian Bible, the compassionate, merciful, inclusive, and forgiving teachings of one of the world’s greatest “outcasts,” in support of his own perverted, bias-driven, and totally un-Christian world view.

Oh yeah, and he had no management qualifications going into the job and proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that he couldn’t manage his way out of a paper bag. Seldom in modern times has there been a more demoralized, mission-less, and dysfunctional mess than today’s Department of Justice. Even Watergate didn’t do as much institutional damage.

Sessions’s only real contribution to justice, due process, and the public good was the day he walked out of the U.S. Department of Justice for the last time. But, it will take years, if not generations, to repair the damage he has inflicted on the rule of law, our Constitution, honest government, and humane values.

Truly, Liz was right! This was one supremely unqualified dude!

PWS

02-16-19

“TEXAS TED” HITS NEW LOW IN IDIOTIC DEFENSE OF TRUMP’S PUTIN TIES: “When you get outside the Beltway, I don’t see anyone concerned about this at all,” he said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/sen-ted-cruz-defends-trump-s-record-russia-tougher-obama-n958131

Ben Kamisar reports for NBC News:

WASHINGTON — Sen. Ted Cruz defended President Donald Trump Sunday amid reports that are raising new questions about the president’s relationship with Russia, insisting that Trump’s record shows he has been “tougher” on the U.S. adversary than past presidents.

When asked about The New York Times report that broke Friday — which says Trump’s firing of former FBI Director James Comey triggered a counterintelligence investigation into whether the president was wittingly or unwittingly working to benefit Russia — the Texas Republican said the focus on special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation is a Washington-centric fascination.

“When you get outside the Beltway, I don’t see anyone concerned about this at all,” he said.

“If you compare objectively, President Trump’s policies to Russia compared to President Obama’s policies to Russia — by any measure, President Obama was much easier, was much more gentler on Russia,” Cruz said.

News outlets reported in 2017 that Mueller was interested in the Comey firing as a possible example of obstruction of justice by the president. And Trump himself connected the firing of Comey to his frustration with the Justice Department’s investigation into Russian election interference during a 2017 interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt.

But the new Times report connects that event to the larger investigation into Russian interference in American politics and elections, asking if the president was acting effectively as a Russian agent, regardless of his intentions.

“Our collective understanding was much narrower — it was just on obstruction: Did the president break the law there?” New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt, who broke the story, said on “Meet the Press” to explain the significance of the revelation.

“Now we know it was much broader, it has national security concerns. The FBI was afraid that the firing of Comey was a way to help the Russians stop the FBI from figuring out what they did in the election.”

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who spent much of the final weeks of the 2016 presidential campaign criticizing Trump’s posture toward Russia, called the report proof that Congress must protect Mueller’s investigation from any meddling from the administration.

“They had to have a very deep level of concern about this president to take this step,” Kaine, the 2016 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said of the FBI’s decision to open the investigation.

“And that’s again why we need to protect the Mueller investigation,” he added.

Trump criticized the New York Times story in a Saturday morning tweet, and called the accusation he might be working to advance Russian interests “insulting” during a Saturday night interview on the Fox News show hosted by ally Jeanine Pirro.

The president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, also dismissed the report in a phone call with NBC News, where he argued “they obviously found nothing or else they would have reported it.”

The Times story wasn’t the only potential bombshell report to come out over the weekend about Trump and Russia.

On Saturday, The Washington Post reported that Trump personally intervened to hide readouts of meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The White House also panned that report, pointing to new sanctions on Russia as proof the administration is being tough on the adversary.

Now that Democrats control the House, it’s possible that committees may look into the details of either story. Cruz, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he’d “consider any allegations” as part of his roles on the committee.

**************************************

Yeah, Teddy, who cares if our President is a dupe of Vladimir Putin! And, the lies about the Obama Administration just keep flowing. Clearly, Putin was so worried about Hillary Clinton becoming President that he went to great lengths to divide America and hand the Presidency to Trump. The only real debate is whether his efforts actually had a determinative effect on the elections. And, there were never any allegations of connections between Obama and Putin. Trump is sleazy, incompetent, and carrying out a program that has to delight Vladimir Putin. Obama was none of these things. And, it’s certainly worth getting to the bottom of the relationship among Trump, his organization, his family, his associates, and Vladimir Putin.

PWS

 

GONZO’S WORLD: FROM PLUM TO PRUNE IN NO TIME FLAT — Once The Premier Assignment For Top Government Lawyers, The USDOJ Has Become A Legal Cesspool Where Nobody Really Wants To Work Under The Toxic Leadership Of Trump, Sessions, & Co!

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/donald-trump-jeff-sessions-justice-department-vacancies?mbid=nl_th_5b185e9a63b65d128d354892&CNDID=48297443&spMailingID=13649278&spUserID=MjMzNDQ1MzU1ODE2S0&spJobID=1420576926&spReportId=MTQyMDU3NjkyNgS2

Abigail Tracy in Vanity Fair:

One of the great under-reported stories of the Trump era is the extent to which the toxicity of the current administration has made high-level government appointments—once among the nation’s most prestigious vocations, and a stepping stone to more lucrative careers—virtually radioactive. John Kelly is said to be hard-pressed to fill out the ranks; State Department departures amount to “a hit on personnel that lasts a decade,” per one former official; and in policy areas from international trade to negotiations with North Korea, Donald Trump’sWhite House has failed to attract much-needed expertise. Perhaps nowhere is this more true than at the Justice Department, where 500 days into Trump’s term, his administration is still struggling to fill top spots. According to a Wall Street Journal report published Tuesday, the White House has failed to persuade at least three people to accept the traditionally plum position of associate attorney general, the No. 3 job at the D.O.J., prompting an official pause to the search.

Given the recusal of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the perilous position of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, whoever fills the spot could realistically find themselves overseeing Robert Mueller’s probe into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia. The possibility has already (reportedly) scared away one associate A.G.: Rachel Brand, who left the role in February for an executive position at Walmart, told officials the job was too good to pass up. But sources close to Brand told NBC News that she was “frustrated by vacancies at the department and feared she would be asked to oversee the Russia investigation.” (A Justice Department spokeswoman pushed back on the report, calling it “false and frankly ridiculous.”) Two other candidates, attorneys Helgi Walker and Kate Todd— both veterans of the George W. Bush administration and Clarence Thomas clerkships—turned down the job, sources told the Journal, though their motivations for doing so are unclear. Nor is the No. 3 spot the only D.O.J. position the White House has failed to fill: according to the Journal, at least five high-profile units at the Justice Department still don’t have permanent, politically appointed leaders, including the criminal, civil, and tax divisions.

In a few cases, the Trump administration’s picks have been stalled in the confirmation process—the heads of both the criminal and civil units were named a year ago, for instance, but still haven’t been scheduled for a Senate vote. Per the Journal, the Russia probe is at play here, too: Democrats are “pressing nominees about how they would handle the probe should they become involved in it,” and Republicans, too, have been slow to push for a vote.

The pall of the Russia probe hangs equally heavy over current D.O.J. officials, who are constantly dodging attacks from the president over their own roles. Trump has repeatedly and publicly admonished Sessions over his recusal; in his latest attack, Trump blamed the top lawyer for the probe’s indefinite timeline. “The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself . . . I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined,” Trump tweeted, adding, “Sessions knew better than most that there was No Collusion!” The Trump-Sessions relationship has reportedly deteriorated to the point that Trump refuses to say the former Alabama senator’s name out loud, a practice his stop aides have also picked up:

Trump’s fury with Sessions is so ever-present it has taken to darkening his moods even during otherwise happy moments. On Thursday, Trump was on Air Force One returning from a trip to Texas, reveling in both a successful day of fundraising and the heads-up he had received from economic adviser Larry Kudlow that the next day’s jobs report would be positive.

But when an aide mentioned Sessions, Trump abruptly ended the conversation and unmuted the television in his office broadcasting Fox News, dismissing the staffer to resume watching cable, according to a person familiar with the exchange.

Rosenstein, too, has been a frequent presidential punching bag. While Trump has targeted Sessions for his “original sin” of recusal, the deputy attorney general is the one responsible for appointing Mueller in the first place, not to mention for signing off on the F.B.I. raid of Michael Cohen. He’s battled with Trump allies over D.O.J. document requests and has come under scrutiny for the role he played in James Comey’s firing: on Tuesday, Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters that Rosenstein should be a key witness in the obstruction of justice aspect of the investigation, considering he penned a letter recommending Comey’s dismissal on the grounds that the former F.B.I. director mishandled the probe into Hillary Clinton’s e-mails. Graham also sent the D.A.G. a letter questioning Rosenstein’s oversight of the investigation late last month.

The White House’s struggle to fill out the ranks would result in an unusual situation should Rosenstein recuse himself, resign, or be fired—all possible outcomes. With Jesse Panuccio serving in an acting capacity as the associate attorney general, the responsibility of overseeing the Russia probe would likely fall to Solicitor General Noel Francisco. Typically, Francisco’s job is to argue on the government’s behalf in cases that go before the Supreme Court. And while it’s unclear how Francisco would treat the role, what’s much less ambiguous is how Trump would want him to treat it. “When you look at the I.R.S. scandal, when you look at the guns for whatever, when you look at all of the tremendous, aah, real problems they had, not made-up problems like Russian collusion, these were real problems,” Trump told The New York Times. “When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest.”

******************************************

Gee, I remember how totally excited I was the day I got my job offer to serve as a GS-11 Attorney Adviser at the BIA under the DOJ Honors Program in 1973. Short of family events, it was one of the most exciting and satisfying events of my life. Who would have thought that 45 years later the once-proud DOJ would be run by a Jim Crow wannabe working for a White Nationalist regime?

Most of the “vibes” that I get are that everyone eligible or nearly eligible for retirement at the DOJ is getting those retirement estimates updated. Better hurry, though, before Trump & the GOP Know Nothings put the finishing touches on their plan to destroy the retirement system, the merit Civil Service, and return to the “good old days” of the spoils system where jobs could be handed out to political cronies and sycophants who could be hired and fired at will. And, of course, anyone with the integrity to stand up to these political hacks could be unceremoniously fired on the spot to make way for the kakistocracy.

Just like destroying the Constitution disingenuously is called “restoring the rule of law” in the Trump Administration, replacing the merit-based career Civil Service with a sycophantic kakistocracy is what disingenuously is termed “promoting accountability.”

PWS

06-11-18

HEEEEEEEEEEE’S BACK! – Pundits & Satirists Revel In Rudy’s Return!

Legendary Legal Mind Rudy Giuliani Comes Out of Semi-Retirement to Save Donald Trump

The soon-to-be bachelor says he’s going to “negotiate an end” to the Mueller probe.

Over the past month, Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible collusion between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and mother Russia has kicked into high gear. Also over the past month, Donald Trump’s legal team, which wasn’t comprised of the country’s most brilliant legal minds to begin with, has completely fallen apart. John Dowd, the president’s personal lawyer, decided he’d had enough and quit. Ty Cobb, who famously claimed the Russia probe would be over by Thanksgiving 2017, is basically persona non grata. Joseph diGenova, who peddled a conspiracy theory that the F.B.I. and D.O.J. were in cahoots to frame Trump, decided at the last minute he didn’t want to be associated with such an epic s–t show. As former Obama general counsel Bob Bauer told my colleague Abigail Tracy, “Like so much else around Trump, [the shake-up] is marked by confusion, a lack of consistency, and an apparent reflection of the president’s uncontrolled impulses.”

At one point, it looked like the ex-Miss Universe owner was going to have to represent himself. But on Thursday, blessing of blessings, the president’s fairy godmother intervened:

Former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, a combative former prosecutor and longtime ally of President Trump, told The Washington Post on Thursday that he has joined the president’s legal team dealing with the ongoing special counsel probe.

Giuliani, like Trump, is Central Park Five truther, told the Post, “I’m doing it because I hope we can negotiate an end to this for the good of the country and because I have high regard for the president and for Bob Mueller.” The president, naturally, is thrilled by the turn of events, which reunites him with this favorite cross-dressing enthusiast. “Rudy is great,” Trump said a statement issued by counsel Jay Sekulow. “He has been my friend for a long time and wants to get this matter quickly resolved for the good of the country.”

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Get this and much more lively political commentary from Bess in the “Levin Report” here:

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/04/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-legal-team?mbid=nl_th_5ad9274ea342ec2552ce871b&CNDID=48297443&spMailingID=13349962&spUserID=MjMzNDQ1MzU1ODE2S0&spJobID=1381734284&spReportId=MTM4MTczNDI4NAS2

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Naturally, Andy Borowitz at The New Yorker couldn’t allow Rudy’s resuscitation to go unnoticed:

WARNING: THIS IS “FAKE NEWS” BUT COMES WITH MY ABSOLUTE, UNCONDITIONAL, MONEY BACK GUARANTEE THAT IT CONTAINS MORE TRUTH THAN THE AVERAGE TRUMP TWEET OR SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS NEWS BRIEFING, AND ALSO MORE FACTUAL ACCURACY THAN ANY REPORT PREPARED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF “AGENT DEVON!”

SATIRE FROM THE BOROWITZ REPORT

TRUMP HIRES ONLY LAWYER IN U.S. WITH FEWER CLIENTS THAN MICHAEL COHEN

Photograph by Ralph Freso / Getty

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The White House announced on Thursday that Donald Trump had successfully secured the services of Rudolph Giuliani, after an exhaustive search for an attorney with fewer clients than Michael D. Cohen.

“President Trump had become concerned in recent days that Mr. Cohen might be too distracted to pay full attention to his case, what with him having two other clients and all,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, said. “So the search was on for a lawyer with zero clients, and with the hiring of Mayor Giuliani, the President believes he has hit the jackpot.”

Speaking to reporters, Giuliani agreed that, by virtue of having three fewer clients than Cohen, he was uniquely qualified to give Trump his full attention. “There is absolutely no chance of my ever putting him on hold,” Giuliani said.

While the former New York mayor’s hiring got high marks from Trump’s inner circle, it drew a bitter reaction from Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, who angrily pointed out that he had not been considered for the job despite having as few clients as Giuliani. “Not only do I have absolutely no clients, I have even less going on, career-wise, than Rudy Giuliani,” Christie said. “Once again, I’ve been screwed.”

 

Mueller Says That Until Yesterday He Had Almost Forgotten to Investigate Giuliani

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—The independent counsel, Robert Mueller, told reporters that, prior to news reports on Thursday, he had “almost forgotten” to investigate the former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani.

“Like most Americans, I had totally forgotten about Rudy Giuliani’s existence,” he said. “But then when he popped up on the news I was, like, ‘Hold on—shouldn’t we be investigating him?’ ”

Mueller was at a loss to explain why he had failed to investigate Giuliani earlier. “I have no idea how it could have slipped my mind,” he said. “His role in Trump’s campaign was as fishy as all get-out.”

He said that other members of his team were “poking fun” at him for not deciding to investigate Giuliani before Thursday. “I mean, think about it: how do you do a criminal investigation of the Trump campaign and leave Rudy out of it?” he said. “I’ve got to say, I’m pretty darn embarrassed about the whole thing.”

When asked for an estimate of when the Russia inquiry might wrap up, Mueller responded, “I honestly can’t say. I was hoping to bring it to a close in the next month or two, but now that we’re also investigating Rudy Giuliani, God only knows how long it’ll take.”

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My career path crossed over Rudy’s several times. From 1981-83, he was the Associate Attorney General, in charge of the “INS Portfolio” at the DOJ. He left to become the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of NY, where INS had two full-time “Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys” working for him, assigned and paid by INS General Counsel, who represented INS in the voluminous litigation in the Second Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the S.D.N.Y.

I was the INS Deputy General Counsel during those years, working for General Counsel Maurice C. “Iron Mike” Inman, Jr. Even the biggest space in the DOJ, the “Great Hall” wasn’t big enough to hold Rudy and Iron Mike, two of the most “robust” egos I ran across in my four decade legal career in immigration law.

I think Rudy was always happy enough when I showed up for one of his meetings rather than Mike. Even the late Mike would have conceded that I knew more immigration law, and from Rudy’s standpoint, I was certainly far enough down the bureaucratic food chain in the DOJ not to impinge on his “air space.” My recollection is that Rudy and his assistants always treated me with courtesy and respect.

PWS

04-21-18

 

 

GONZO’S WORLD: McCABE’S ATTORNEYS WONDER WHY HE WASN’T TREATED WITH THE SAME LENIENCY AS GONZO

Click on this picture for the NYT link:

Adam Goldman, Katie Benner, Matt Apuzzo report for the NYT:

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. investigated Attorney General Jeff Sessions for possible perjury last year over congressional testimony in which he said he had no contacts with Russians, according to three people familiar with the case.
In fact, Mr. Sessions later acknowledged, he had personally met the Russian ambassador to the United States during the campaign and was aware that George Papadopoulos, a campaign adviser, had developed Russian ties, too. F.B.I. agents were aware of both inaccuracies in real time. And last March, when Congress asked the F.B.I. to investigate the attorney general, agents began doing so, two of the people said.
Andrew G. McCabe, the F.B.I.’s deputy director at the time, authorized the investigation, the two people said. Mr. McCabe himself was recently fired for showing “lack of candor” in an internal investigation. Mr. Sessions rejected Mr. McCabe’s appeal and fired him hours before his retirement was to take effect, jeopardizing his pension.
The investigation into Mr. Sessions began before Robert S. Mueller III was appointed special counsel to investigate Russia-related matters. Mr. Sessions’s lawyer, Chuck Cooper, said no investigation is being conducted now.
“The special counsel’s office has informed me that after interviewing the attorney general and conducting additional investigation, the attorney general is not under investigation for false statements or perjury in his confirmation hearing testimony and related written submissions to Congress,” Mr. Cooper said in a statement.
The investigation was first reported by ABC News.
Perjury investigations based on congressional referrals are common, and the F.B.I. frequently investigates but seldom charges. But the fact that the attorney general himself was a focus of the Russia investigation, even if only peripherally and temporarily, shows how entangled the Trump administration has become in the case. Mr. Sessions is recused from any aspect of the investigation.
The investigation also adds a new layer to Mr. McCabe’s firing. Mr. McCabe’s lawyers have said that he did not lie and acted quickly to fix any inaccuracies or misunderstandings. Mr. Sessions has offered a similar defense, saying he never intended to mislead Congress.

. . . .

Mr. McCabe’s allies have pointed in recent days to these clarifications and asked why Mr. McCabe did not receive the same benefit of the doubt as the attorney general. But it is impossible to compare the cases because the Justice Department’s inspector general has not released his report explaining his concerns about Mr. McCabe’s candor.

. . . .

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Go to the above link to read the complete article in the NYT.

Double standards are the norm in the Trump Administration and the DOJ. Ethics laws, civil rights laws, environmental laws, asylum laws, conflict of interest laws, civil service protections all are applied selectively to favor “friends of the Administration” and punish “enemies.” Just like in any good Banana Republic like the “B.A.R.!”

PWS

03-23-18

 

 

GONZO’S WORLD: DEEP IRONY – He Might Have Fired McCabe Over Alleged “Lack Of Candor,” But Apocalyoto’s Own Lies, Misrepresentations, And Unlikely “Memory Lapses” Might Finally Catch Up With Him!

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/03/sessions-firing-of-mccabe-violated-his-promise-to-recuse.html

Ryan Goodman reports for Slate:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ decision to fire former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe appears to directly violate the promise Sessions made, under oath, to recuse himself from such matters.

Some might contend that Sessions’ recusal covered only the Clinton and Trump campaigns, and that McCabe’s firing involved the Clinton Foundation investigation as a separate matter. But Sessions unequivocally assured senators of his intentions during his January 2017 confirmation hearings in response to a clear and specific question from the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Chuck Grassley. Sen. Grassley asked a follow-up question that went right to the point. In response, Sessions very clearly said his recusal would cover any matters involving the Clinton Foundation.

Here is the full exchange:

Grassley: During the course of the presidential campaign, you made a number of statements about the investigation of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, relating to her handling of sensitive emails and regarding certain actions of the Clinton Foundation. You weren’t alone in that criticism. I was certainly critical in the same way as were millions of Americans on those matters, but now, you’ve been nominated to serve as attorney general. In light of those comments that you made, some have expressed concerns about whether you can approach the Clinton matter impartially in both fact and appearance. How do you plan to address those concerns?

Sessions: Mr. Chairman, it was a highly contentious campaign. I, like a lot of people, made comments about the issues in that campaign. With regard to Secretary Clinton and some of the comments I made, I do believe that that could place my objectivity in question. I’ve given that thought.

I believe the proper thing for me to do, would be to recuse myself from any questions involving those kind of investigations that involve Secretary Clinton and that were raised during the campaign or to be otherwise connected to it.

Grassley: OK. I think, that’s—let me emphasize then with a follow-up question. To be very clear, you intend to recuse yourself from both the Clinton email investigation and any matters involving the Clinton Foundation, if there are any?

Sessions: Yes.

This exchange has two implications for how one understands the scope of Sessions’ recusal. First, it goes to defining the scope of the recusal that Sessions made on March 2, 2017. If it is a close call whether the Clinton Foundation matter is sufficiently connected to the Clinton campaign for the purpose of understanding Sessions’ recusal, it should be deemed to be sufficiently connected. After all, that’s essentially what Sessions told Sen. Grassley. Second, if the Clinton Foundation matter is deemed outside the scope of the recusal statement that Sessions made back in March last year, then his decision to fire McCabe shows that he failed to honor the promise for a broader recusal which he clearly made to the Senate in its decision to confirm him as attorney general. The same goes for Hillary Clinton’s emails. Sen. Grassley’s questions and Sessions’ answers specifically covered any matters involving that investigation as well.”

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Meanwhile, over at Reuters, Karen Freifeld, Sarah N. Lynch, Mark Hosenball have uncovered some evidence that contradicts Gonzo’s “revised account” of his meeting at which George Papadopoulos’s proposed “Russia contacts” were discussed with Trump campaign officials including Gonzo. It now appears that Gonzo’s story that he immediately and strongly denounced them could be a fabrication. Or just another “memory lapse.”

“WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ testimony that he opposed a proposal for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team to meet with Russians has been contradicted by three people who told Reuters they have spoken about the matter to investigators with Special Counsel Robert Mueller or congressional committees.

Sessions testified before Congress in November 2017 that he “pushed back” against the proposal made by former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos at a March 31, 2016 campaign meeting. Then a senator from Alabama, Sessions chaired the meeting as head of the Trump campaign’s foreign policy team.

“Yes, I pushed back,” Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee on Nov. 14, when asked whether he shut down Papadopoulos’ proposed outreach to Russia.

Sessions has since also been interviewed by Mueller.

Three people who attended the March campaign meeting told Reuters they gave their version of events to FBI agents or congressional investigators probing Russian interference in the 2016 election. Although the accounts they provided to Reuters differed in certain respects, all three, who declined to be identified, said Sessions had expressed no objections to Papadopoulos’ idea.

One person said Sessions was courteous to Papadopoulos and said something to the effect of “okay, interesting.”

The other two recalled a similar response.

“It was almost like, ‘Well, thank you and let’s move on to the next person,’” one said.

However, another meeting attendee, J.D. Gordon, who was the Trump campaign’s director of national security, told media outlets including Reuters in November that Sessions strongly opposed Papadopoulos’ proposal and said no one should speak of it again. In response to a request for comment, Gordon said on Saturday that he stood by his statement.

Sessions, through Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores, declined to comment beyond his prior testimony. The special counsel’s office also declined to comment. Spokeswomen for the Democrats and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee did not comment.

Reuters was unable to determine whether Mueller is probing discrepancies in accounts of the March 2016 meeting.

The three accounts, which have not been reported, raise new questions about Sessions’ testimony regarding contacts with Russia during the campaign.

Sessions previously failed to disclose to Congress meetings he had with former Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and testified in October that he was not aware of any campaign representatives communicating with Russians.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions testifies before a House Judiciary Committee hearing on oversight of the Justice Department on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November 14, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

Some Democrats have seized on discrepancies in Sessions’ testimony to suggest the attorney general may have committed perjury. A criminal charge would require showing Sessions intended to deceive. Sessions told the House Judiciary Committee that he had always told the truth and testified to the best of his recollection.

Legal experts expressed mixed views about the significance of the contradictions cited by the three sources.

Sessions could argue he misremembered events or perceived his response in a different way, making any contradictions unintentional, some experts said.

Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, said Sessions’ words might be too vague to form the basis of a perjury case because there could be different interpretations of what he meant.

United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions visits families of opioid overdose victims at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, U.S. March 15, 2018. REUTERS/John Sommers II

“If you’re talking about false statements, prosecutors look for something that is concrete and clear,” he said.

Other legal experts said, however, that repeated misstatements by Sessions could enable prosecutors to build a perjury case against him.

“Proving there was intent to lie is a heavy burden for the prosecution. But now you have multiple places where Sessions has arguably made false statements,” said Bennett Gershman, a Pace University law professor.

The March 2016 campaign meeting in Washington was memorialized in a photo Trump posted on Instagram of roughly a dozen men sitting around a table, including Trump, Sessions and Papadopoulos.

Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty in October to lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his Russia contacts, is now cooperating with Mueller.

According to court documents released after his guilty plea, Papadopoulos said at the campaign meeting that he had connections who could help arrange a meeting between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Papadopoulos continued to pursue Russian contacts after the March 2016 meeting and communicated with some campaign officials about his efforts, according to the court documents.

Trump has said that he does not remember much of what happened at the “very unimportant” campaign meeting. Trump has said he did not meet Putin before becoming president.

Moscow has denied meddling in the election and Trump has denied his campaign colluded with Russia.

Reporting by Karen Freifeld, Sarah N. Lynch and Mark Hosenball; Additional reporting by Jonathan Landay in Washington and Jan Wolfe in New York; Editing by Anthony Lin, Noeleen Walder and Jeffrey Benkoe”

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Like Trump, Gonzo is a congenital liar who has been pushing his “White Nationalist alternate world view” for so long that he wouldn’t recognize truth if it hit him in the face. I don’t know if he will ever be held accountable for all of his biased disingenuous deeds. But, at some future point, someone will “unpack” all of Gonzo’s disastrous abuses — immigration, civil rights, criminal justice, prisons — of justice at the Department of Justice and preserve them for history.

ANOTHER DAY IN THE B.R.A. — Trump Mimics Third World Tyrants In Attacks On McCabe, FBI, Mueller Investigation, & Our Justice System!

B.R.A. = “Banana Republic of America”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/were-not-sure-why-mccabe-was-fired-but-trumps-tweet-suggests-the-worst/2018/03/17/0687c78a-2a07-11e8-874b-d517e912f125_story.html

The Washington Post Editorial Board writes:

“MORE THAN the details of the case, President Trump’s tweet early Saturday celebrating the firing of former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe is what stands out: a marquee of bullying and unseemly behavior by a president. Mr. Trump acts like a nasty, small-minded despot, not the leader of a democracy more than two centuries old in which rule of law is a sturdy pillar. If there is doubt that the timing of Mr. McCabe’s dismissal was driven by political vengeance, Mr. Trump does everything he can to prove the worst with his own sordid words.

This is the language of a banana republic. In nations without a strong democratic foundation, tyrants cling to power by belittling perceived enemies and insulting and coopting other institutions, such as a free press, law enforcement and the military, coercing them into subservience. Just look around the world at practices today in Azerbaijan, Cambodia and Turkey, to name a few. The banana republic playbook has no place in the United States, not in a town hall, not in a statehouse, least of all in the Oval Office.

Mr. McCabe is a 21-year-veteran of the FBI and served as deputy director under James B. Comey, whom Mr. Trump fired earlier. A Justice Department inspector general’s report, not yet public, reportedly found that he authorized the disclosure of sensitive information to the media about an investigation involving Hillary Clinton and then misled investigators. He disputes the allegations, noting that he had authority to share the information and corrected what he told investigators. He previously stepped down from the deputy director’s job and was preparing to retire from the FBI on Sunday, which would have assured him of a full federal pension. The rushed timing of the firing on Friday night by Attorney General Jeff Sessions — whose own job security is perpetually threatened by Mr. Trump — robs Mr. McCabe of that full pension.

As Mr. Trump knows, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has been reported to be looking into possible obstruction of justice in the firing of Mr. Comey. Mr. McCabe could be a vital witness in such a prosecution. Now the president has attempted to discredit, and lauded the punishment of, a potential witness against him, an affront to the integrity and independence of law enforcement.

Mr. McCabe’s actions as deputy FBI director are hard to evaluate without release of the inspector general’s report, due out this spring. There will be time to judge him then. What is clear today is that the president jumped on Mr. McCabe with unseemly ferocity, tweeting: “Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI — A great day for Democracy.”

In fact, the hardworking men and women of the FBI, the Justice Department, the intelligence agencies and elsewhere in government come to work every day to uphold the values of a democratic system based on rule of law — a system that is distinguished by the simple principle that everyone is judged fairly, not by grudge or whim, and that no one is above the law, not even the president.”

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Lest there were any doubt about it, by canning McCabe less than 48 hours before his retirement, Jeff “Gonzo Apocalypto” Sessions cemented his position as a person just as small in heart, soul, character, and integrity as he is in stature.

The irony here is rich: What about Gonzo’s own frequent intentional and rather incredibly claimed “lapses” in candor, whether under oath or not?

PWS

03-19-18

ETHICS HOT SEAT: TRUMP LAWYERS’ DILEMMA: How Do You Prepare A Congenital Liar To Testify Under Oath?

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/donald-trump-robert-mueller-interview

Abagail Tracy reports for Vanity Fair:

“The most difficult decision a lawyer has to make is whether to allow his client to speak to the prosecutor—or in this case, the special counsel,” Robert Bennett told me, referring to the unfolding chess match between Donald Trump and Robert Mueller. Bennett, the Brooklyn-born Washington superlawyer, would know, having represented President Bill Clinton in the Kenneth Starr investigation. For a fabulist like Trump, however, the danger is tenfold: Mueller has already charged four former members of the Trump campaign with making false or misleading statements to the F.B.I. “I think there are tremendous risks in this case, because the easiest case for the government to prove would be a false statement given to the F.B.I. or the independent counsel,” Bennett added. “That’s a very easy one to prove.”

While the president initially said he is “100 percent” willing to meet with Mueller under oath, his legal team has cautioned that any interview could be a perjury trap. “He’ll be guided by the advice of his personal counsel,” Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer on the Russia inquiry, told The New York Times. For months, Trump’s lawyers have been engaged in discussions with Mueller’s team, weighing options that could mitigate the president’s legal risk. Though the format of the potential interview remains an open question, Mueller, wielding the power of subpoena, has the upper hand in shaping the negotiations. “What matters is how much leverage you have on either side,” said Renato Mariotti, a former Chicago prosecutor. “Mueller has most of the leverage . . . in the end, Mueller is going to get most, if not the vast majority, of what he wants.”

The challenge for Trump’s legal team, led by Cobb and John Dowd, is to protect the president from himself under conditions acceptable to Mueller. “It’s a very bad sign for the president that his own lawyers are so worried about whether he’s going to tell the truth that they’re trying to negotiate all of these conditions ahead of time,” Neal Katyal, a former acting solicitor general under President Barack Obama, told me. “Ordinarily, when you’re representing a high-ranking government official, you’re not worried about your client being forthcoming because that goes with the nature of government service. But here, I think the lawyers are wise to worry, just given Donald Trump’s track record of him confabulating in any number of ways.”

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Read the rest of Tracy’s article at the above link.

I don’t have much doubt that Trump will perjure himself. I don’t think he could tell the truth if his life depended on it. And, it’s likely that Mueller will be able to build a convincing case for obstruction against the Liar-In-Chief.

But, Trump relies heavily on the complicity of  the sleazy GOP he has come to dominate and the indifference of his voters to moral values or honest government. Trump is used to at least figuratively “getting away with murder” (remember his all too true boast that he could shoot someone in broad daylight in Times Square and his voters wouldn’t care). So, the chances of Trump being held accountable are probably minimal until 2024.

PWS

02-28-18

GONZO’S WORLD: DOJ #3 RACHEL BRAND FLEES SINKING SHIP TO SAVE CAREER – FINDS REFUGE AT WALMART – No, It’s Not Normal For The Associate AG To Leave After 9 Months! – But, Who Ever Said The Trump/GONZO DOJ Is “Normal?”

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/02/rachel-brand-is-leaving-doj-are-we-headed-for-a-massacre.html

“In a surprise move, Rachel Brand is stepping down as the No. 3 official at the Department of Justice, the New York Timesreported on Friday. Brand was next in line to oversee the special counsel’s Russia inquiry after Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Brand’s departure could have enormous consequences for Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference and President Donald Trump.

The New York Times has reported that Trump considered firing Rosenstein and Mueller over the summer, a situation that would have been reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre and the firing of Watergate investigator Archibald Cox. Trump will now get to hand-pick a replacement for Brand, who would step in to take over the investigation should he or she be confirmed by the Senate and should Rosenstein go. It’s also been noted that Rosenstein may ultimately have to recuse himself from the investigation; in that case, he wouldn’t even have to be fired for the Trump selection to take control of the investigation into Trump.

Last March, Trump issued an executive order modifying the line of succession for an acting attorney general, the person who would be in control of Mueller’s inquiry since Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself. According to that order, under normal procedures, a potential replacement for either Brand or Rosenstein to oversee the Russia inquiry would need Senate confirmation.

Fordham Law professor and occasional Slate contributor Jed Shugerman has laid out the potential orders of succession at the current moment. According to the vacancy statutes, Solicitor General Noel Francisco would be designated by Jeff Sessions as acting attorney general if Rosenstein were to depart, and he’d be followed by the assistant attorneys general. The next in line after that would typically be the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, a position which is being vacated by Dana Boente. Since Boente is leaving that job, it would go to the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina, Robert J. Higdon Jr.

It’s worth noting that the executive order says Trump “retains discretion, to the extent permitted by law” to go around this line of succession to select an acting attorney general on his own. But doing so in an effort to squelch an investigation into himself, his allies, and his family would conceivably be such a transparent effort to subvert the rule of law as to be a political liability even within the Republican Party.

Rosenstein has been personally attacked by Trump. He has come under additional fire recentlyfrom critics of the Russia investigation, who have been using a concocted and false narrative from a recently declassified talking points memo to go after the FBI, Mueller, and Rosenstein. When Trump was asked by reporters if he still had confidence in Rosenstein last week, he responded “you figure that one out.”

Brand is reportedly leaving to become the head of global corporate governance at Walmart. The move feels possibly odd for someone who has served in three presidential administrations, cultivated a reputation as a devoted public servant, and who has only been in her current job less than one year.

Politico’s Eliana Johnson reported that someone close to Brand and the administration said she was leaving “because she is very smart, accomplished, and talented, and wants to protect her career.”

Brand worked in the George W. Bush administration and has been considered a rising conservative legal star for more than a decade. It seems very possible that staying in that DOJ position might have ultimately left her facing a very difficult situation career-wise. In a world where Rosenstein was fired and Brand was placed in charge of the Mueller probe, she might have to choose between obeying a Trump order that might upend the rule of law and being fired by Trump. As congressional and mainstream Republicans have moved closer towards Trump’s apparent anti-Mueller, anti-rule of law position, such martyrdom does not sound like it would help her future in the GOP.

Either decision might have done long-term damage to Brand’s future career prospects in any branch of government.

Brand’s move, however, preemptively abdicates that possible decision, quite possibly leaving it to a Trump-approved successor. As Elie Mystal, the executive editor at Above the Law, wrotefollowing the news, it seems as though we might be rolling towards a “slow moving Saturday Night Massacre.”

******************************************

Gee, Jeremy, I’m only a retired Immigration Judge (and 35 year vet of the DOJ), but I don’t view this a much of a “surprise.”

Brand has a reputation as as a smart lawyer, perhaps the smartest of the “Sessions crew.” As opposed to someone like the buffoonish racist White Nationalist xenophobe Stevie Miller or the often incoherently bias spewing Sessions himself, Brand was a low-key “doer.” She actually did a “bang up job” of implementing the Sessions alt right, anti-civil rights, anti-due process, anti-minority, anti-civil-liberties, anti-diversity, homophobic agenda at the DOJ.

She obviously sees “Armageddon” coming to the realm of “Gonzo Apocalypto” and wants to get out before she is left in the “lose-lose” position (that both Trump & Sessions have a penchant for creating) of having to become “Trump’s patsy” in the Russia investigation or maintaining her integrity, getting fired, and getting on Trump’s “S-list.”

This way, she can get out of the way of the “train wreck,” make some real money, and preserve her reputation in both right-wing legal circles and with Trump. That sets her up as a possible Cabinet appointee in a future, somewhat saner GOP Administration, or even to be a Trump nominee for a Federal Judgeship.

Smart, Rachel!

PWS

02-10-18

GONZO’S WORLD: NO DEFENSE! – SESSIONS MIA AS TRUMP AND GOP ATTACK INTEGRITY OF DOJ!

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/attorney-general-department-of-justice-the-new-york-times-doj/2018/02/05/id/841477/

Brian Freeman reports for Newsmax:

“Even as President Donald Trump has led the most prolonged and public attack on the Justice Department in history, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has broken a long tradition of those in his position of protecting the institution from such interference by remaining largely silent, The New York Times reported Monday.

“What is unusual is the FBI and the Justice Department being attacked, the president leading the charge and the attorney general missing in action,” said Harvard Law Prof. Jack Goldsmith, who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President Geoerge W. Bush. “Why isn’t he sticking up for the department?”

Many prosecutors say Sessions’ tepid response is deflating morale among department employees and has increased fears prosecutors cannot depend on protection from political interference.

“Attorneys general swear an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, not the president,” said Matthew Axelrod, a former Justice Department official who is a partner at Linklaters. “Institutions like the DOJ rely on their leaders to be a voice that defends them. It’s critically important to this institution that its leadership have its back.”

Although the Business Insider reported Sessions did praise his second-in-command Rod Rosenstein hours before the disputed Devin Nunes memo was released Friday by saying he represents “the kind of quality and leadership we want in the department” and he had “great confidence in the men and women of this department,” many commentators said that backing was quite meager when he added, “But no department is perfect.”

One such previous example often cited of far more courageous and strong backing is when ailing attorney general John Ashcroft from his hospital bed allowed his acting replacement, James Comey, to defy the Bush administration over a surveillance program that Justice Department lawyers had called unconstitutional.

Sessions, who has been heavily and publicly criticized by Trump in the past year, declined to comment to the Times.

“Sessions’ silence is evidence that Trump’s public neutering of anyone close to this investigation is working,” said Paul Pelletier, a Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia who was a long-time federal prosecutor. “It is deleterious to the whole criminal justice process.”

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The law enforcement community might have thought that they were getting a strong defender/advocate in the right-winger Sessions. After all, he’s out to bust those recreational legalized marijuana users and hard-working maids and janitors who have been in the U.S. without documents for decades waiting for the immigration reform that never came because he helped block it in the Senate.

But, what they actually got was a disingenuous “Gonzo Apocalypto” White Nationalist interested primarily in advancing his racially inspired agenda at the expense of the U.S. justice system and anyone who might stand in the way. Oh yeah, and a guy who is also very interested in “covering his own tail.” That’s why he didn’t hesitate to hire DC Lawyer Chuck Cooper to defend him once his continuing “memory lapses” came to light in the Russia investigation and things started “hitting the fan.”

A guy with no time for the rights of African-Americans Latinos, Immigrants, LGBTQ Americans, women, or apparently his subordinates and employees at the DOJ seems to have an excellent sense of his own rights and self-preservation. And, he isn’t so silent when it comes to an opportunity for slandering and diminishing the achievements of DACA recipients, Immigrants, sanctuary cities, asylum seekers, or people of color who are supposed to be entitled to justice and protection from his more or less “Whites only” DOJ.

PWS

02-06-18