William Barr joins Robert Mueller on the Democrat’s Wall of Shame

Attorney General William Barr testified recently before the House Appropriations Committee’s Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee. The purpose of the hearing was to discuss the Department of Justice budgetary request, but he was asked question after question after question about Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on the Russian collusion investigation, and the conclusions from  that report Barr released.

For doing his job as AG, Barr suddenly became the new Democrat target, as his conclusions from the Mueller report failed to satisfy the intense hunger of Democrats for evidence of impropriety, even criminality, by then-candidate Donald Trump and his team.

The sudden, virtually automatic and universal distrust of Barr by Congressional Democrats and the MSM for doing his duty in accepting the Mueller report and releasing the conclusions is more than just curious. 

Years ago, a Democrat-controlled Senate confirmed Barr by voice vote for attorney general under President George H.W. Bush. He was highly praised, both by Republicans and Democrats, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to recommend his confirmation, and then-Senate Judiciary Chairman, former Vice President, and now potential presidential candidate Joe Biden, and Democrat Sen. Patrick Leahy both enthusiastically endorsed him for the position.

But now that political considerations have replaced obligations to duty, that support has vanished in a flash of desperate partisanship.

This same response occurred when Robert Mueller was named special counsel. Praise came abundantly from both sides of the political aisle, and Democrats could hardly contain their eagerness at the expected results of the investigation by this giant of a man, imagining a handcuffed Donald Trump being perp-walked out of the White House to the hoosegow along with Don, Jr., Eric, Ivanka, and yes, Melania and Barron, too.

But that was not what happened, and suddenly Mueller’s reputation lay in shambles in the gutters of Pennsylvania Avenue. Now there are two once-widely respected people associated with the Department of Justice who, by doing their jobs, lost the confidence and respect of Congressional Democrats.

When Barr’s appearance before the Subcommittee began, New York’s Rep. Nita Lowey, Chair of the House Appropriations Committee, got things off to a creaky start: “Before getting into your budget request I want to discuss a serious oversight matter, your unacceptable handling of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report.” 

“It’s been reported that the report is 300 to 400 pages, and I use the term ‘reported’ because we have no idea how long it actually is,” she continued. “All we have is your four-page summary, which seems to cherry pick from the report to draw the most favorable conclusion possible for the president.” 

And how would she know whether he is cherry picking or not, since she complained about having no knowledge of what is in the report?

Her deep ignorance of the situation shone forth again when she said, “I must say it is extraordinary to evaluate hundreds of pages of evidence, legal documents, and findings based on a 22-month-long inquiry, and make definitive legal conclusions in less than 48 hours.” 

Again, she makes assumptions without having seen the document, which might have contained conclusions. And she also didn’t know that Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, to whom Mueller reported during the investigation, helped Barr produce the document that contained the findings.

And then there was this brilliant question from Michigan Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence: “Who do you report to, the President of the United States or to the people of America?” 

After such great mischaracterizations of the Barr “summary,” the DOJ offered some perspective on it: "Given the extraordinary public interest in the matter, the Attorney General decided to release the report's bottom-line findings and his conclusions immediately — without attempting to summarize the report — with the understanding that the report itself would be released after the redaction process.”

Barr also aroused the ire of Committee Democrats, and others, when he said he believed there was “spying” during the presidential campaign.  By using the term “spying,” rather than their much-preferred and less-severe term, “surveillance,” he upset a lot of people.

Spying by any other name, like “surveillance,” is still spying. Which term is the correct one for listening to (intercepting) private conversations, and other such activities: Spying, eavesdropping, or the Democrats’ preferred term, surveillance?

Do you refer to your cousin as a relative, as family, or as kinfolk? Does it really matter? Isn’t this really just playing rhetorical games?

Whatever term one carefully chooses for describing the deed, spying is spying. AG Barr said the difference between legal spying and illegal spying occurs when there is a legitimate predicate for the deed. If there is one, fine; the spying is legal. If not, the spying is a crime.

After being questioned about believing spying occurred, Barr said that he wants to know whether the spying was done appropriately, or not, and plans to look into the matter to find if a suitable predicate existed to justify it.

No doubt this has not eased the Democrats’ disgust over Barr’s findings, and likely has caused a spike on their nervous meter, as the possibility of subversive shenanigans in the Obama FBI, DOJ and elsewhere being exposed looms large.

Bureaucratic malfeasance in high places puts the nation in jeopardy

Now that President Donald Trump has declared the situation on the southern border a National Emergency his opponents have predictably offered criticisms. It is unconstitutional, or illegal, or unnecessary, or whatever negative arguments they can come up with.

However, while the Constitution does not grant presidents this authority, the Congress gave them the authority to declare national emergencies with the National Emergencies Act of 1975, requiring that the president outline the specific emergency powers he is using under existing statutes.

Declaring a National Emergency is not the rare bird that Trump’s critics would have you believe. There have been nearly 60 declarations since the law passed, including these by the following presidents: Jimmy Carter – twice; Ronald Reagan – six times; George H.W. Bush – five times; Bill Clinton – 17 times; George W. Bush – 13 times; Barack Obama – 12 times; and three previously by Trump.

Even though the statute has been used often since it became law, Trump has received criticism from both sides of the aisle for this one. 

Andrew McCarthy is a former Chief Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and legal authority. He wrote the following about Trump’s considering using the National Emergency declaration: “The presumption in our law, whether we agree with it or not, is that this power to declare emergencies and, in effect, legislate measures to deal with them has been delegated to the president by Congress in numerous statutes,” and he may “invoke any powers Congress has delegated by statute for such emergencies.”

Of course this does not mean that a court challenge will not be made to the declaration, which Trump has already predicted will happen. The argument made by Congressional Democrats – who seem to defend open borders and illegal aliens, etc. – will be that there is no crisis justifying a National Emergency declaration that will allow the president to build barriers on sections of the border to stifle illegal entry into the country.

We do know that millions of illegal aliens are in the country. We know that thousands of people are coming to the border in caravans desiring to enter illegally. We know that some of them are violent, are drug traffickers, gang members and other unseemly characters. But we don’t know how many of them will commit crimes if they get in. We know how many of those who got in illegally were captured and how many of those committed crimes. We don’t know how many that committed crimes were not caught.

But we do know that FBI data show that there were 115,717 murders from 2003 through 2009. The General Accounting Office documents that criminal immigrants committed 25,064 of these murders. That averages out to 3,580 Americans that were murdered by illegal aliens in each of those seven years.

We also know that many Congressional Democrats say that these figures do not constitute a crisis, only a problem. And such insignificant problems do not justify the erection of additional barriers along the southern border to help keep illegals out.

If this is such a serious problem, they ask, why didn’t Trump take care of it before now?

Fair question. Perhaps it is because the most effective and acceptable way to address border security is through legislation, and with a Republican majority in both houses of Congress when he took office, he expected Congress to do that job. It failed to do so.

One might expect the numbers related to illegal aliens in America, from dollars to deaths, to catch the attention of Republicans in Congress. Unfortunately, like Democrats, many Republicans do not consider these numbers a crisis, either. How many Americans have to die at the hands of illegal aliens before these elected public servants consider it a crisis?

Some of this failure to recognize the seriousness of inadequate border control no doubt results from the personal dislike of Donald Trump. So strong is this hatred that it compels people to abandon their sworn duties to the American people and obstruct Trump’s efforts to guide the country.

Others go farther: they work in the DOJ and FBI and plotted to remove him from office. Their motto might go something like this: “We don’t like Trump, and we are going to look until we find a crime to take him out. Or create one.”

Removing a duly elected president is way above the pay grade of these arrogant, self-important bureaucrats. It is not part of the job description of the hired hands in the Justice Department and FBI to plot the overthrow of the President of the United States. Their job is to serve their bosses, the American people. Yet, we find that such plotting did occur.

Whether this behavior meets the legal definition of treason is open to question, but it definitely resides in the neighborhood of that high crime. Certainly, this behavior warrants some degree of serious punishment. Yet today, the worst that any of them has received is being fired.

The Justice Department has sat peacefully on its hands while this subversion of the president was occurring and has done nothing since then.

Perhaps the newly confirmed attorney general will fix that.

Manafort trial gets underway; the special counsel circus continues

The trial of Paul Manafort for long-ago allegations of criminal behavior is now underway. Manafort served a weeks-long stint in the presidential campaign of Donald Trump. He may as well have drawn a target on his back, his front, and all around his head. And because of his choosing to join the campaign, he is facing a 32-count indictment alleging he moved more than $30 million in overseas income to his U.S. accounts.

“These are serious charges,” anti-Trumpsters say, hoping against hope that something – anything – will lead to President Trump’s being exiled to a tiny island hundreds of miles from shore. However, the comment that the charges are serious is correct. More on that later. 

But it’s more than just mildly relevant to note that the charges are unrelated to the Trump campaign, the principle members of which Special Counsel Robert Mueller has been trying to connect to law breaking for well more than a year, without success.

This pitifully inadequate result has not dampened the enthusiasm for the much hoped-for proof of criminal misconduct by the campaign among all those who still suffer from Mz. Hillary’s stunning, and prediction-defying defeat.

Here is a dose of reality for these champions of the highly flawed special counsel situation: “There really is no Mueller investigation without Manafort…take away Manafort and everything kind of flitters away,” explains Judicial Watch’s Tom Fitton.

As stated here before, anyone who takes on a high profile special counsel assignment like this one is either crazy, has a large ego, is very talented, or will resort to the gutter. The jury is still out on Mueller, as so far all he has are a bunch of indictments against foreigners who will never stand trial on them, and years-old accusations against Manafort and his associate, Rick Gates.

“Oh, that’s not correct,” you say. “Mueller’s managed to find out about Manafort’s crimes from years ago. That takes a real pro.”

Not so fast. Everything Mueller has on Manafort was known by the FBI way back when, so why wasn’t Manafort tried for those crimes then? Because the FBI lacked sufficient evidence to go to trial.

Here is the analysis of former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano: “Paul Manafort was investigated by the federal government by a team of federal prosecutors and FBI agents for all this stuff eight years ago and they exonerated him.”

Napolitano went on to identify the prosecutor going after Manafort back then as none other than the current Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is in charge of this operation for the DOJ, due to the recusal of AG Jeff Sessions. And Napolitano also added this interesting possibility: “Well, now [Rosenstein] runs the Justice Department. And [defense attorneys] have threatened to call Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein as their first witness and have him give to the jury all the reasons why he declined the prosecution of these charges eight years ago.”

We also must not forget that it was Rosenstein who appointed Mueller as special counsel, and gave him a blank slate for what he was supposed to investigate, a blank check to pay for it, and no termination date. Rosenstein literally handed Manafort to Mueller on a silver platter, insufficient evidence and all.

Helping to illustrate just how open to abuse the special counsel mechanism really is, here is Harvard Law professor emeritus, life-long liberal Democrat, but objective legal expert, Alan Dershowitz: "They aren't interested in Manafort, they're interested in Manafort testifying against Trump or providing information," he told Fox News' "America's Newsroom."

"You have to worry not only about squeezed witnesses singing, but about them making up stories, elaborating on stories. The better the story, the better the deal they'll get."

U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis, who is the judge on this case, agrees. “The vernacular is to 'sing,' is what prosecutors use. What you’ve got to be careful of is they may not only sing, they may compose,” Ellis said.

Former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova believes that Manafort cannot get a fair trial in D.C. on these charges because of the highly political nature of this case and the pervasive bias against President Trump.

“Paul Manafort cannot get a fair trial in the District of Columbia,” diGenova told host Laura Ingraham on “The Laura Ingraham Show” recently. “We now know from the Scooter Libby case and the interviews with jurors after that case that two-thirds of the jurors in the Scooter Libby case hated the president of the United States, hated Dick Cheney, wanted to know why Cheney wasn’t in the docket along with Scooter Libby.”

Is this the slime that “justice” in America has been dragged down into? 

Manafort could spend the rest of his life in jail for alleged crimes the FBI knew it couldn’t prove way back when the charges were first brought, but with the actions of the special counsel, he might yet be convicted, despite the lack of evidence.

This is the nature of special counsels: Do what you must to convict your target. If that’s not possible find someone guilty of something, otherwise you will look bad.

This is politics at its worst.