Miscarriages of Justice

Dissing Mueller:  Trump has weighed in again on Special Counsel Mueller testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. He’s been all over the place on this one, first saying it was Attorney General Barr’s decision, then tweeting that he was opposed to Mueller testifying and now back to saying that the decision as to whether or not Mueller will be “allowed” to testify rests with Barr. For the record, while Mueller is still a Justice Department employee, he is expected to return to private life very soon at which point the very principled Mueller will get to decide for himself so odds are he’ll testify regardless of what Barr decides.  That’s probably why Trump is back to dissing Mueller.  Yesterday he went on a mini rampage about Mueller, insisting that because of his many “conflicts,” including: their previous very minor, and not disqualifying disagreement over some Trump golf club dues; that Trump considered him as former FBI Director Comey’s replacement for a nanosecond; and because of his long time “friendship” with former FBI Director Comey, a friendship that Trump implies was a bromance but that Comey describes as a professional relationship, he never should have been appointed in the first place to serve as the “judge,” Trump’s word for his role, presiding over the Russian affair. Trump also went on to attack all of the investigators and attorneys that Mueller hired, once again referring to them as the “18 Angry Democrats” who he insists had all donated to Hillary’s campaign and who had all planned to attend Hillary’s victory party only to see their dreams of Hillary’s victory disappear into smoke by his record breaking come from behind victory.  That brief period of time when Mueller was the American hero who had found no COLLUSION and NO OBSTRUCTION, such old news! As to OBSTRUCTION, Trump who asserts that he was totally vindicated has changed his tune a little, yesterday he said that there was “essentially” no obstruction.  Trump also weighed in on Don Jr’s subpoena to appear in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He asserted that he was surprised about it, even though he probably knew it was coming because the Committee had been having negotiations with Don Jr’s lawyers for months and the subpoena was actually issued more than a week ago, days before Senate Majority Leader McConnell gave his speech calling for the end of any further efforts to investigate anything Russian.  Senator Richard Burr, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is getting a lot of criticism and pushback from his Senate cronies, especially those up for reelection in 2020, for having the nerve to issue the Don Jr subpoena.  To that end he met with a number of them in a closed door meeting yesterday to argue his case for the subpoena and continuing the investigation as important for maintaining future election integrity.  At least for now Burr, who won reelection in 2016, and who has already stated that he has no plans to run again at the end of his term appears to be impervious to pressure from Trump’s Senate buddies.  One interesting piece of trivia, Burr’s twelfth cousin is Aaron Burr, the guy who shot Alexander Hamilton.     

People, Places, Pregnancies: Yesterday Trump announced plans to nominate Patrick Shanahan as Secretary of Defense, the position previously held by General Mattis, the one guy who managed to escape the Trump administration with his reputation largely intact.  Shanahan a prior Boeing executive with no military experience has been serving as Acting Secretary ever since Mattis resigned.  Given Shanahan’s Boeing connections  and his skimpy resume, it’s expected that his confirmation hearing will be contentious but it’s highly likely that he’ll be confirmed because the lack of suitable experience and corporate entanglements are generally not disqualifying characteristics for a Trump nominee and because the Senate really wants Trump to have confirmed, rather than temporary cabinet members. For the record, the crack White House press office reports that Shanahan is a graduate of the Massachusetts InstitutION of Technology, which either means he went to MIT or that he spent four years in a nearby mental health care facility.  That press release followed their earlier one announcing a visit by the Boston Red SOCKS who traveled to the White House to celebrate their World Series CUP victory, or at least the white Red SOCKS players traveled to the White House for one of those hamberder celebrations, the black guys stayed home.  Trump’s lawyer/fixer Rudy Giuliani is off on another key mission for his exalted leader. The New York Times reports that he plans to travel to Ukraine to “encourage” the country’s president-elect  Volodymyr Zelensky, the former comedian/TV star who just won his election, to authorize an investigation into the Clinton team’s involvement in the origins of Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, particularly the part that led to the uncovering of all of Paul Manafort’s crimes, the ones that resulted in the former Trump campaign manager, who Trump really would like to pardon, ending up in jail.  He also wants them to look into the involvement of Joe Biden’s son Hunter in a gas company owned by a Ukraine oligarch, part of an effort to “prove” that the former VP “inappropriately” pushed for the firing of a former Ukrainian prosecutor to help his son.  Giuliani believes that any dirt that he manages to turn up, with the help of the Ukrainians, will prove useful to Trump in the 2020 election.  Giuliani who is on record defending all of the Trump teams efforts to get the Russian’s help finding Hillary’s emails as totally above board wants to make it clear that he’s not “meddling in an election,” he’s just “meddling in an investigation.”  On the domestic front, at least for now, the State of George seems to be winning the “most” restrictive abortion law competition, that’s the race to see which state gets the most restrictive new law up to the Supreme Court first.  Georgia’s new  “fetal heartbeat” bill would outlaw abortion after about six weeks, before many women even know that they are pregnant. The law would be the most extreme abortion ban in the country because in addition to imposing severe limitations on women’s reproductive rights, it would subject women who get illegal abortions to life imprisonment and the death penalty.  In response, three film production companies have already announced plans to boycott Georgia, a popular filming location due mostly to favorable tax incentives provided by the state to the industry. No comments yet from Senator Susan Collins who may or may not remain confident that her “beer buddy” Justice Kavanaugh would never do anything that resulted in the overturning of the Roe v Wade precedent.