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Tuesday, April 10, 2018

This Is Getting Sick

I've tried to believe that there was some measure of balance to the probe by the Special Prosecutor, but the last 24 hours have made that impossible.  Sure, in the past year we've heard how Mueller hired only stridently anti-Trump attorneys for his staff.  We also heard about how the chief investigator for Mueller was an anti-Trump FBI agent who texted back and forth with his mistress (a lawyer at the FBI also involved with the probe) spinning schemes of how to oust Trump from the presidency.  That was pretty bad, although Mueller did fire the agent once his anti-Trump ramblings were discovered and made public.  Then there's news that the plea deal worked out with General Flynn for lying to the FBI came only after the FBI agent who conducted that interview reported back that Flynn had told the truth in the interview.  Mueller never revealed to Flynn that the FBI thought he told the truth.  It seemed as if getting a scalp from Flynn was more important than either the truth or the law.  Then we learned that the heart of the Trump-Russia collusion story, the so called Trump Dossier, was a phony document put together on behalf of (and at the multi-million dollar cost of) the Clinton campaign and the DNC.  This phony document was presented to the FISA court without telling that court of the true nature of the document so as to get a warrant allowing surveillance of an associate of the Trump campaign and, thereby, of the Trump campaign itself.  That makes everything obtained as a result of that surveillance of questionable legal value.  Finally, we heard that the investigation has uncovered no evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign but that it is continuing on as if there is no end to its mission.  Let me say that it has not been easy trying to ascribe some measure of balance to Mueller and his anti-Trump crusade as this all unfolded.

Then came the last 24 hours.  Two things of moment occurred.  First, in an unprecedented move, Mueller had FBI agents raid the offices and residences of Trump's long time personal lawyer Michael Cohen.  Among thousands of documents taken were oodles of attorney client communications including those between Cohen and Trump.  These are documents that the FBI cannot validly seize.  In a normal criminal investigation, it is something that almost never happens.  When the client in the attorney-client relationship is the president of the United States, this has never happened in the past.  There is no way the FBI can conceal the confidential communications between Trump and his lawyer from the media.  We all know that there will be leaks from sources within the investigation, and even if there are no leaks, the media will invent them.  More important than the leaks, however, this raid is an assault on the US justice system under the Constitution.  Mueller is ignoring Constitutional strictures in his zeal to uncover something, anything that he can use against the President.  It is unacceptable.

The second item is the justification leaked for the raid from the Mueller team.  We are told that the FBI is looking for documents about a contribution of $150,000 to the Trump Foundation made by a Ukrainian in September 2015.  Donald Trump (then the leading candidate for the Republican nomination) gave a speech via satellite to some event in Ukraine and rather than being paid for the speech had the payment given as a contribution to his charitable foundation.  The arrangement for the payment to the foundation was made by Michael Cohen.  Think about this.  Bill Clinton gave speeches for $750,000 paid directly to him from people who had business pending in front of the State Department when Hillary was Secretary of State.  While at State, Hillary also ruled on the purchase of a huge portion of America's uranium reserves by Russia that just happened to coincide with tens of millions of dollars in contributions to the Clinton Foundation.  These were not even investigated by the FBI in any serious way.  There were no raids on Clinton's lawyers offices.  There was no grand jury even.  A speech by the leading candidate for president certainly merits a payment of $150,000 much more than a speech by a former president meriting five times that amount on a repeated basis.  The Clintons used their foundation to pay their expenses; political staffers suddenly became foundation employees, millions of dollars of personal travel expenses for Bill and Hillary became foundation charges, and only 8% of the spending by the foundation went in the form of grants to recipients.  That 8% was just enough so that they could still claim to be a charity.  So the Clinton's alleged massive fraud and bribery scheme gets no investigation, but a rather normal size payment for a speech by Trump supposedly merits a raid on his attorney's office?

This all stinks, big time.  Mueller has forfeited any right to the benefit of the doubt.  Trump is truly correct; this is a witch hunt. 

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