Each of you is going to deal with the [currently redacted] Mueller Report in your own way. Akin to dealing with the death of a loved one, the Mueller Report reveals an exceptional window into the current soul of America's political leadership. It is very dark. It touches upon darkness only displayed in characters within movies, like Darth Vader or Emperor Palpatine, and approaching how real-life personalities like Richard Heydrich or Adolf Eichmann emerged. This is not political hyperbole or literary exaggeration for effect; categorially this government document asserts with evidence that Donald Trump is morally and ethically unfit for office. Thrust into my own seminal lifetime political decision now going back two years ago to December 2016, his unfitness is what we were projecting to be the case, now it is firmly established by evidence.
The report can be summarized like an Amazon review: Trump was found to be not chargeable lawfully [now] but exceptionally awful. The Special Counsel did not have enough of the legal basis to press charges because of constitutional and legal reasons. Therefore, Trump has NOT been exonerated of wrongdoing where now, the power shifts to the Congress, through Article I where even though there is the cliche of co-equal branches of government, only the Congress, meaning through the people, possesses the power to remove officeholders from office.
Essential to remove is the criteria of breaching the trust with the people, therefore our democracy and being deemed to being unfit to hold office. This now leads the process and the nation away from the legalistic matters contained by the Justice Department to a political one--namely impeachment proceedings. Constitutionally speaking, if you hold that impeachment must be based on only legal, criminal matters, you are making an inaccurate assessment as it is both superficial and a flawed understanding of what impeachment actually is. At its fundamental level, impeachment represents the charge of being removed because of the political breach of trust with, we the people. Why as the process unfolds removal by conviction or resignation is the only objective.
Congress can impeach any office holder for anything but it only becomes reality when a breach of trust has been established, [see Johnson or Clinton], as impeaching doesn't mean a conviction. It is the political institution of an indictment to remove the office holder from office, period. Impeachment then leads to a Senate trial where the Senate is both judge and jury. Our history has recorded three presidents who were impeached; Andrew Johnson, the successor of Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, none were actually convicted or removed from office, though one resigned in disgrace fulfilling the objective. This American chapter called Trump is now inevitably headed to impeachment proceedings.
Essential to remove is the criteria of breaching the trust with the people, therefore our democracy and being deemed to being unfit to hold office. This now leads the process and the nation away from the legalistic matters contained by the Justice Department to a political one--namely impeachment proceedings. Constitutionally speaking, if you hold that impeachment must be based on only legal, criminal matters, you are making an inaccurate assessment as it is both superficial and a flawed understanding of what impeachment actually is. At its fundamental level, impeachment represents the charge of being removed because of the political breach of trust with, we the people. Why as the process unfolds removal by conviction or resignation is the only objective.
Congress can impeach any office holder for anything but it only becomes reality when a breach of trust has been established, [see Johnson or Clinton], as impeaching doesn't mean a conviction. It is the political institution of an indictment to remove the office holder from office, period. Impeachment then leads to a Senate trial where the Senate is both judge and jury. Our history has recorded three presidents who were impeached; Andrew Johnson, the successor of Abraham Lincoln, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton, none were actually convicted or removed from office, though one resigned in disgrace fulfilling the objective. This American chapter called Trump is now inevitably headed to impeachment proceedings.
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| Prof of Corp & Sec Law GMU Scalia Law, n. |
The report has two Volumes. I and II., I will post today about Volume II since that is what is leading the nation to impeachment. Volume I appears to be leading us to a long period of building international conflicts and continued counterintelligence investigations and prosecutions. Illustrated here is a tweet from a DC elite that I found revealing, very important as he represents a loss of an establishment Republican and quite influential, but it is not going to be the determining factor. As impeachment is a political institution and therefore invoking all levels of political calculations the most important one is going to be the public's view. The week prior to the report the consensus poll numbers were ranging around 40% down from the President's high this year from a high of 43% following AG Barr's now debunked four-page summary in March to Friday's number of 37%, Reuters/Ipsos. On Friday, Senator Mitt Romney, R-UT, was quoted:
"Romney said that he was happy that "the business of government can move on" but added that he was "sickened at the extent and pervasiveness of dishonesty and misdirection by individuals in the highest office of the land, including the President...Reading the report is a sobering revelation of how far we have strayed from the aspirations and principles of the founders."As it appears that the Democratic House of Representatives is heading toward impeachment hearings with public testimony underscoring and broadcasting the findings watch as to how the poll numbers go. Falling to plus/minus 30% represents a loss of the public trust. If they fall below 33% and keep cratering inch by inch the political reality in the Senate will align with what happened with Nixon. If the poll numbers hold or grow as they did with Clinton, the Senate will most likely not convict, again representing the public trust. That is the conventional wisdom, but of course the last four years nothing seems to have followed the conventional political wisdom expressed throughout cable news outlets. Here is a bullet point summary of what Volume II found.
- Eleven (11) established findings alleging Obstruction of Justice committed by Trump
- Thirty (30) instances when his written testimony stated he "did not recall"
- Five (5) occasions when Trump directed subordinates to lie to the Special Counsel
- 67 subchapters of factual findings regarding Obstruction of Justice
- Let Flynn Go: Trump told the FBI to The President stated, “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." Comey testified under oath that he took the President’s statement “as a direction” because of the President’s position and the circumstances of the one-on-one meeting." Vol II page 40
- Sessions must unrecuse: According to Sessions, the President asked him to reverse his recusal so that Sessions could direct the Department of Justice to investigate and prosecute Hillary Clinton, and the “gist” of the conversation was that the President wanted Sessions to unrecuse from “all of it,” including the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation." Vol II pg 51
- The firing of FBI Director James Comey: "Obstructive act. The act of firing Comey removed the individual overseeing the FBI’s Russia investigation. The President knew that Comey was personally involved in the investigation based on Comey’s briefing of the Gang of Eight, Comey’s March 20, 2017, public testimony about the investigation, and the President’s one-on-one conversations with Comey." Substantial evidence indicates that the catalyst for the President’s decision to fire Comey was Comey’s unwillingness to publicly state that the President was not personally under investigation, despite the President’s repeated requests that Comey make such an announcement." Vol II pg 74-75
- Trump order Administration Officials to fire the Special Council: "...the President called McGahn and directed him to have the Special Counsel removed because of asserted conflicts of interest. McGahn did not carry out the instruction for fear of being seen as triggering another Saturday Night Massacre and instead prepared to resign. McGahn ultimately did not quit and the President did not follow up with McGahn on his request to have the Special Counsel removed." Vol II pg 84
- Trump ordered members of his Administration to impose limits on the Special Counsel's investigation: "Two days after the President directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one with Corey Lewandowski in the Oval Office and dictated a message to be delivered to Attorney General Sessions that would have had the effect of limiting the Russia investigation to future election interference only. One month later, the President met again with Lewandowski and followed up on the request to have Sessions limit the scope of the Russia investigation. Lewandowski told the President the message would be delivered soon. Hours later, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an unplanned press interview, raising questions about Sessions’s job security." Two days after the President directed McGahn to have the Special Counsel removed, the President made another attempt to affect the course of the Russia investigation. On June 19, 2017, the President met one-on-one with Corey Lewandowski in the Oval Office and dictated a message to be delivered to Attorney General Sessions that would have had the effect of limiting the Russia investigation to future election interference only. One month later, the President met again with Lewandowski and followed up on the request to have Sessions limit the scope of the Russia investigation. Lewandowski told the President the message would be delivered soon. Hours later, the President publicly criticized Sessions in an unplanned press interview, raising questions about Sessions’s job security. Vol II pg 90
- Trump instructed his family and members of his Administration not to acknowledge the secret meeting(s) between his campaign officials and members of the Russian government: "Communications advisors Hope Hicks and Josh Raffel recalled discussing with Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump that the emails were damaging and would inevitably be leaked...The President said he did not want to know about it and they should not go to the press. Hicks warned the President that the emails were “really bad” and the story would be “massive” when it broke, but the President was insistent that he did not want to talk about it and said he did not want details...Obstructive act.On at least three occasions between June 29, 2017, and July 9, 2017, the President directed Hicks and others not to publicly disclose information about the June9, 2016 meeting between senior campaign officials and a Russian attorney. On June 29, Hicks warned the President that the emails setting up the June 9 meeting were “really bad” and the story would be “massive” when it broke, but the President told her and Kushner to “leave it alone.”
- The President’s Further Efforts to Have the Attorney General Take Over the Investigation: From summer 2017 through 2018, the President attempted to have Attorney General Sessions reverse his recusal, take control of the Special Counsel’s investigation, and order an investigation of Hillary Clinton. That was the second time that the President asked Sessions to reverse his recusal from campaign-related investigations. Vol II pg 107
- Additional Efforts to Have Sessions Unrecuse or Direct Investigations Covered by his Recusal: Later in 2017, the President continued to urge Sessions to reverse his recusal from campaign-related investigation. According to contemporaneous notes taken by Porter, who was at the meeting, the President mentioned Clinton’s emails and said, “Don’t have to tell us, just take [a] look.” Sessions did not offer any assurances or promises to the President that the Department of Justice would comply with that request.ns and considered replacing Sessions with an Attorney General who would not be recused.
On December 6, 2017, five days after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with the Russian government, the President asked to speak with Sessions in the Oval Office at the end of a cabinet meeting. During that Oval Office meeting, which Porter attended, the President again suggested that Sessions could “unrecuse,” which Porter linked to taking back supervision of the Russia investigation and directing an investigation of Hillary Clinton. Vol II pg 111
Porter looking onto Trump - The President Orders McGahn to Deny that the President Tried to Fire the Special Counsel: In late January 2018, the media reported that in June 2017 the President had ordered McGahn to have the Special Counsel fired based on purported conflicts of interest but McGahn had refused, saying he would quit instead. After the story broke, the President, through his personal counsel and two aides, sought to have McGahn deny that he had been directed to remove the Special Counsel. Each time he was approached, McGahn responded that he would not refute the press accounts because they were accurate in reporting on the President’s effort to have the Special Counsel removed. The President later personally met with McGahn in the Oval Office with only the Chief of Staff present and tried to get McGahn to say that the President never ordered him to fire the Special Counsel. McGahn refused and insisted his memory of the President’s direction to remove the Special Counsel was accurate. In that same meeting, the President challenged McGahn for taking notes of his discussions with the President and asked why he had told Special Counsel investigators that he had been directed to have the Special Counsel removed. Vol II pg 113
- The President’s Conduct Towards Flynn, Manafort,■■■■■■■■■: In addition to the interactions with McGahn described above, the President has taken other actions directed at possible witnesses in the Special Counsel’s investigation, including Flynn, Manafort, ■■■■■■■■■ and as described in the next section, Cohen. When Flynn withdrew from a joint defense agreement with the President, the President’s personal counsel stated that Flynn’s actions would be viewed as reflecting “hostility” towards the President. During Manafort’s prosecution and while the jury was deliberating, the President repeatedly stated that Manafort was being treated unfairly and made it known that Manafort could receive a pardon.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Vol II pg 120
- The President’s Conduct Involving Michael Cohen: The President’s conduct involving Michael Cohen spans the full period of our investigation. During the campaign, Cohen pursued the Trump Tower Moscow project on behalf of the Trump Organization. Cohen briefed candidate Trump on the project numerous times... While working on the congressional statement, Cohen had extensive discussions with the President’s personal counsel, who, according to Cohen, said that Cohen should not contradict the President and should keep the statement short and “tight.”After the FBI searched Cohen’s home and office in April 2018, the President publicly asserted that Cohen would not “flip” and privately passed messages of support to him. Cohen also discussed pardons with the President’s personal counsel and believed that if he stayed on message, he would get a pardon or the President would do “something else” to make the investigation end. But after Cohen began cooperating with the government in July 2018, the President publicly criticized him, called him a “rat,” and suggested his family members had committed crimes.
Front Two is what is partially revealed in Volume I that is next week. Oh and by the way don't take my word for this, read it for yourself.
