Stressing the Foundations<\/p>\n
The editorials scream out:\u00a0\u201cRepublicans are making the case for Trump, Democrats remain silent!!\u201d\u00a0 The \u201cinternet soothsayers\u201d claim that by the time the Mueller investigation releases its report, the Trump \u201cmachine\u201d will have made it irrelevant.\u00a0 And the \u201cbeat goes on;\u201d the very real and strategic plan to build an alternative story to the Mueller investigation, where spies were sent into the Trump campaign, and the \u201cdeepstate\u201d sought to stop his candidacy.<\/p>\n
There is a well known political strategy:\u00a0 define your opponent before they have the opportunity to define you. \u00a0Those who live in Ohio are familiar with it.\u00a0 In the Senate election of 2016, Republican Rob Portman spent millions in the summer, defining his Democratic opponent Ted Strickland as the Governor who, \u201cleft eighty-nine cents in the state\u2019s rainy day fund.\u201d \u00a0It worked, and Strickland never made a serious challenge.\u00a0 Currently, Sherrod Brown is trying to do the same to opponent Jim Ranacci, defining him as a full-time lobbyist even while serving as a Congressman.<\/p>\n
So the Trump strategy is to define the investigation against him as illegitimate.\u00a0 He is doing so without denigrating Robert Mueller himself (an impossible task, Mueller is truly beyond bulletproof.) \u00a0They are trying to invalidate the sources of the investigation.\u00a0 They state the investigation is based on the Steele Dossier, and since Democrats paid for the Dossier it is a political but not legal basis for investigation.<\/p>\n
They also claim that the FBI placed \u201cpaid informants\u201d in the campaign, with the overtone that they served as \u201cagent provocateurs\u201d who encouraged illegal actions. \u00a0That makes the any subsequent charges illegally gained, the \u201cfruit of a poisonous tree,\u201d and therefore banned.\u00a0 And they have reduced the Trump campaign members who may have violated laws as \u201cvolunteers\u201d (Carter Page) and \u201ccoffee boys\u201d (George Papadoupolos.) Even Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort wasn\u2019t very important, \u201c\u2026 and was only around for a little while.\u201d<\/p>\n
They claim that a \u201ccabal\u201d of FBI agents on the National Security team were trying to stop the Trump candidacy.\u00a0 They present as evidence the text messages between lead FBI investigator Peter Strzok and Department of Justice attorney Lisa Page.\u00a0 Strzok sent a series of messages that were anti-Trump (and anti-Clinton and anti-Bernie) that were released by the Department of Justice to the House Oversight Committee.\u00a0 The Republicans on the committee seized on this as evidence of the \u201cdeepstate conspiracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
They make a \u201cfairness\u201d argument; that the Democrats were doing things just as bad, starting with the Clinton email scandal.\u00a0 This is a continuation of the Trump campaign theme, highlighting the emails, the Comey announcements, and the hacked messages released by the Russians. And, they don\u2019t miss an opportunity to make the FBI or the other US intelligence agencies look bad.\u00a0 If they are \u201cbad\u201d and \u201cincompetent\u201d then clearly the results of their investigations will be just as bad and incompetent.<\/p>\n
They have found \u201cDemocrats\u201d to come out in support of the President and in opposition to the Mueller investigation.\u00a0 Two of the most recent, Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, and former Clinton pollster Mark Penn, have called for the investigation to end.<\/p>\n
And finally, they are using the interesting argument that whatever the President did before the election, either personally (the Stormy Daniels scandal) or in business, the election was the final adjudication, and those issues are no longer on the table.\u00a0If and when the Mueller investigation raises questions about the Trump businesses or personal actions, they can cry \u201cfoul.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mueller, on the other hand, is running a legal investigation, not a political one.\u00a0 The only information coming from the Mueller team is what is released in court documents: \u00a0he has not allowed any counter to the Trump strategy.\u00a0 Mueller remains focused on the legal process, protecting the validity of his investigation by keeping it completely in control.\u00a0 This is in marked contrast to the FBI investigation of the Clinton email server, where it became a public process with dramatic pronouncements from Director James Comey.<\/p>\n
The Mueller plan:\u00a0follow the investigation where it leads, and present the evidence found to the grand jury and courts.\u00a0 Following legal precedent, Mueller knows he cannot indict the sitting President, so he will produce a report which will serve as an \u201cindictment\u201d to the House Judiciary Committee for impeachment purposes.\u00a0He will let the evidence speak for itself.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s exactly what we would expect him to do.\u00a0 The question:\u00a0will the damage done by the Trump strategy make the impeachment process (a political one) a non-starter?\u00a0 Or will the facts developed by Mueller overwhelm all of the stories and strategies.<\/p>\n
We are facing a Constitutional crisis, where the foundations of our government will be tested.\u00a0 Our system of three co-equal branches will be drawn into conflict, with the executive pitted against the legislative and judicial.\u00a0 We will have to choose between the political messaging and the legal evidence.\u00a0 We have been there before, and our Constitutional foundations have held strong. \u00a0So has the common sense of the American people.\u00a0 \u00a0In the next several months that common sense and those foundations will be stressed again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"