In Defense of the President<\/p>\n
Congressman Devin Nunes claims to know there was an FBI conspiracy to stop the Trump Presidency. His evidence: a four page report he \u201cresearched\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
This is the same Nunes who was given inaccurate information about FISA warrant \u201cunmasking\u201d 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 \u201cfound\u201d this new evidence. For that escapade, Nunes recused himself from the Intelligence Committee investigation of the Russia matter for several months, but now he\u2019s cleared and he\u2019s back to work again.<\/p>\n
The report fits perfectly into the Trump narrative: a \u201cdeepstate\u201d 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. <\/em>\u00a0High 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.)<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n It also lends ammunition to Trump\u2019s 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 \u201cretiring\u201d at forty-nine years of age.<\/p>\n Why this attack? Both McCabe and Baker are witnesses to Comey\u2019s statements after meetings with Trump. It is important to make them \u201cdisgruntled former employees\u201d 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 \u201cestablishment\u201d Justice Department officials: Just like Robert Mueller.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cdoubt\u201d for the President. Unlike other members of the administration and the President\u2019s 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 \u201cdeepstate\u201d conspiracy and the intelligence surveillance of the Trump transition team; and Trump goes from \u201cobstructing justice\u201d to defending his administration. Impeachment, a political rather than judicial process, is undermined by political doubt.<\/p>\n As Mueller moves to interrogate the President himself, Trump\u2019s supporters are searching for ways to avoid the confrontation. The more overt ways, claiming executive privilege and \u201ctaking the fifth,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Enter Roger Stone, old political ally of the President. Stone calls for the President to avoid the \u201cperjury trap\u201d that Mueller would set in questioning by refusing to meet. Stone called any Trump interrogation a \u201csuicide mission\u201d for the President. \u00a0This gives the Presidential supporters their out: Trump should refuse questioning, as the \u201cdeepstate\u201d Mueller isn\u2019t seeking the truth, but setting a \u201cperjury trap\u201d to do further damage. It\u2019s a matter of tricking the President.<\/p>\n Of course, the alternative of Trump not committing perjury doesn\u2019t seem a likely possibility to Stone and other Trump allies.<\/p>\n Robert Mueller continues his inexorable journey to the truth, whatever that may be. But\u00a0the 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 \u00a0seeds of doubt is more important to his supporters than the structural integrity of American government.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"