In Defense of the President
Congressman Devin Nunes claims to know there was an FBI conspiracy to stop the Trump Presidency. His evidence: a four page report he “researched” from classified information sent over to the Intelligence Committee by the FBI (in an agreement with the Deputy Attorney General, the FBI Director and the Speaker of the House.) Nunes and four Republican committee members developed the information, and are sharing it with other Republican Congressmen. Democrats, including members of the Intelligence Committee, have not been given access.
This is the same Nunes who was given inaccurate information about FISA warrant “unmasking” by the White House in the middle of the night, then ran back to the White House the next morning to declare to them that he had “found” this new evidence. For that escapade, Nunes recused himself from the Intelligence Committee investigation of the Russia matter for several months, but now he’s cleared and he’s back to work again.
The report fits perfectly into the Trump narrative: a “deepstate” conspiracy of the intelligence agencies to prevent the Trump election, regardless of the fact that the FBI investigation into the Clinton emails cost her the election. High level intelligence officials were supposedly conspiring to stop Trump and elect Clinton, centering on Peter Strozk, who with “Forest Gump like prescience” seemed to be at every significant FBI interview involving the election (including Hillary Clinton and Michael Flynn.)
Strozk and his correspondent, Lisa Page, made the same mistake of arrogance that many of the Trump senior campaign team committed. They assumed that because of their position, no one would surveil their communication. Strozk and Page were texting on government provided phones. Flynn, Kushner, and others in the transition were talking to foreign nationals and should have known were under surveillance. All of this has provided information to both sides of the Trump investigation.
It also lends ammunition to Trump’s attack on the FBI itself. Starting with the firing of Director Jim Comey last spring, he continues with assaults against Deputy Director Andrew McCabe (a career FBI agent) and FBI chief counsel Jim Baker. Current Director Chris Wray has pushed back, threatening to resign if he is pressured to change staff, but Baker is gone, and McCabe is “retiring” at forty-nine years of age.
Why this attack? Both McCabe and Baker are witnesses to Comey’s statements after meetings with Trump. It is important to make them “disgruntled former employees” to demean their testimony. In addition Comey, Wray, McCabe, fired Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and fired US Attorney Dana Boente (now the new FBI counsel) all have one thing in common. They are all long serving “establishment” Justice Department officials: Just like Robert Mueller.
Just like Robert Mueller: if the Trump supporters can creates questions about the FBI (and the other intelligence agencies) then they can question the outcomes of the Mueller investigation. This creates “doubt” for the President. Unlike other members of the administration and the President’s family, Trump himself is immune from legal prosecution while President. The only recourse is impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate. The strategy: raise enough doubts about the investigations; the “deepstate” conspiracy and the intelligence surveillance of the Trump transition team; and Trump goes from “obstructing justice” to defending his administration. Impeachment, a political rather than judicial process, is undermined by political doubt.
As Mueller moves to interrogate the President himself, Trump’s supporters are searching for ways to avoid the confrontation. The more overt ways, claiming executive privilege and “taking the fifth,” are both perilous political choices. The executive privilege claim would delay the questioning, but the US Supreme Court ruled in Nixon v United States that the claim should eventually be overruled in a criminal matter. And while the President does have an absolute right to the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, the spectacle of a President taking the fifth would be overwhelming.
Enter Roger Stone, old political ally of the President. Stone calls for the President to avoid the “perjury trap” that Mueller would set in questioning by refusing to meet. Stone called any Trump interrogation a “suicide mission” for the President. This gives the Presidential supporters their out: Trump should refuse questioning, as the “deepstate” Mueller isn’t seeking the truth, but setting a “perjury trap” to do further damage. It’s a matter of tricking the President.
Of course, the alternative of Trump not committing perjury doesn’t seem a likely possibility to Stone and other Trump allies.
Robert Mueller continues his inexorable journey to the truth, whatever that may be. But the institutions of American Justice: the Courts, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation; all are being undermined by President Trump. These institutions have traditionally been supported by the Republican Party (and questioned by the Democrats.) But the need of Trump for seeds of doubt is more important to his supporters than the structural integrity of American government.
The most amazing thing happened yesterday. DJT volunteered to be interviewed by Mueller under oath. So that drama won’t happen. As for how Trump will handle himself in an interview, there are some interesting videos of him giving depositions in previous civil actions and he comes across pretty well, but then again most of those were 20 yrs ago.
Mueller will have plenty of evidence to work with on obstruction. The most damning are the two statements seen uttered immediately after Comey’s firing by Trump himself: the CNN interview, and the Russian Ambassador Oval Office get-together. As far as collusion w/ Russia, that depends on what the other players during the campaign and transition tell Mueller’s team. *And* whether Mueller has gotten any financials by way of tax returns, Deutch Bank, or Trump Corp info via Schneider or Bharara.
The FBI would normally be above the fray, but alas, we *are* living in Trump World. I would have considered them pretty bullet-proof but the texts in-hand are a little problematic. The missing texts (the FBI *lost* texts?!!)– well, they’re a major problem.
In the end, this is going to be handled in Congress since Trump can’t be prosecuted. As long as he can give his base a framework for plausible deniability, and gets this wrapped up before mid-terms, he might actually get through this without bring impeached, IF the only charge that sticks is obstruction.
When we get to a case of collusion, that’s the Wild West of politics. He’s backed an accused child-molester for senator and the Moral Majority stood by him; he’s paid off a porn-star paramour with God knows whose money and the nation’s two top Evangelical leaders gave him a chummy little mulligan. It really is all going to depend (And I truly hate to characterize it this way, but then again, what other choice do I have?) on how morally corrupt the Moral Majority has become.