Monday, March 25, 2019

I'm Not Connected To Power And I've Got Lots Of Unanswered Questions

Ari Mulbers interview with Ken Starr's successor in the prosecution of Bill Clinton, Robert Ray, expressed hope that the American People would come to trust the results of the Mueller investigation, that they would trust the integrity of it, which is odd because I doubt there are many honest people who thought the Starr-Ray investigation met the most basic of requirements of trust and integrity.  Ray's antics on Mulber's special coverage of the Muller Report were sheer hackery. 

Today we don't know much more about Robert Mueller's report, we know what William Barr, a political hack whose previous statements about the investigation should have required him to recuse himself from having anything to do with the investigation, whose holding the position of Attorney General was a product of Trump shopping for his "Roy Cohn" is claiming about the results.  

While I don't fully trust any Republican in 2019, we don't have any basis of judging Robert Mueller's investigation and report unless the full report is made public and all of the evidence that he developed his conclusions on are made available to the Congressional committees who should have been the ones conducting an honest investigation worthy trust due to its integrity from the start. 

If there's one thing I don't trust it is the tendency of long time members of the legal establishment, the members of both parties who are what gets called "institutionalists" who all went to the same kinds of schools and who have a relationship to power that is too willing to give each other and those who are powerful a level of courtesy they don't give to the powerless.  

If I were on a congressional committee that had, say, Robert Mueller answering questions on his investigation, I would ask him if he had ever sought an indictment and prosecuted some relatively or totally powerless person on the same level of evidence or less evidence than there is that Trump was asking Russia to interfer with our elections to his benefit - who made that request before an audience of millions - whose children and son-in-law and those running his campaign met with Russian government agents who were offering to interfer in our election - who, after he fired the head of the FBI (hardly someone who had clean hands in rigging the election FOR Trump) because he wouldn't stop an investigation into his campaign and at least one person, Mike Flynn, who was known to be compromised, etc. etc. etc.  I would like to know if he had ever chosen to not prosecute someone who had given people so much obvious reason to believe he was guilty of criminal activities.  And I would want to know what the basis of him deciding whether or not to prosecute the powerless was made on. 

The rich and powerful are allowed to get away with things that those without money or power would never get away with.  That's not news.  It's also not news that Republicans get a far different treatment and similarly deferential treatment in the media and in politics, and sometimes by the law.  I remind you that I began with Ken Starr's successor.   William Barr participated in a particularly infamous incidence of that when he wrote up the Bush I pardons that shielded George H. W. Bush from his likely criminality.  I'd like to know if Robert Mueller gave Trump that kind of deferential treatment or if he can show that he deserves our trust due to his past and current practice of equal treatment before the law.  

I don't trust any of it without full enough transparency, without knowing enough to know if its worthy of trust. 

3 comments:

  1. There is a line of argument emerging already, and I think it's valid, that Mueller didn't see his role as being a prosecuting attorney (probably why he sent so many cases to the SDNY, among others), especially with regard to the POTUS. His final report (who knows, right?) seems to have set up all the evidence for and against obstruction charges not, as Dershowitz complained on FoxNews, as a "law school exam," but as a way of presenting the evidence to Congress. Congress decides on impeachment and removal, and does so on a finding of "high crimes and misdemeanors," and so Mueller was following that rule.

    All of this would be clearer if we could at least see Mueller's executive summary (there's bound to be one) and as much of the report as is not either classified information or grand jury testimony.

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    1. We keep finding that the regulations written after Watergate and after the scandalous job that Ken Starr did have gaping holes in them that Republicans walk right through. Is it that hard to write things they can't do that with because if that's the case then we've got to stop relying on the regulatory process for things this important.

      Robert Mueller has an obligation to testify to Congress about this, both in closed sessions and in public. The report has to be seen. As I said, I don't necessarily trust him and I want to now if he's ever indicted and prosecuted someone on the level of evidence he's got of Trump campaign acting with Putin - including Trump asking them to interfere. I can't believe he didn't give Trump the royal treatment that he'd not give to people without power.

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    2. Well, the system favors the powerful. Remember how Bush I exonerated himself (the special prosecutor had his papers) by pardoning everyone in Iran-Contra on the way out the door, insuring that investigation crashed to a halt?

      William Barr told Poppy what to do, and how to do it. It's deja vu all over again. Good thing the GOP Senate confirmed Barr, huh?

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