Here are my observations and opinions on selected news of the day.
(Cartoon courtesy twitter.com)
FROM THE LOONEY BIN of the left-leaning Arizona Republic comes still another anti-Trump editorial by its Editorial Director Phil Boas, “God help us if Trump solved N. Korea.”
After stating his dissatisfaction with Democrats, who he allowed had “tried to muster the outrage to denounce President Trump, but their protests were half-hearted,” he acknowledged his preference for “The past half-century of Democrat foreign policy (that) has favored dialogue over saber-rattling, even with dictators.”
Yes, Trump did some saber rattling initially, but in the end, there was dialogue and it continues today, not only with North Korea, but South Korea, Japan and China.
Boas is concerned that “the foreign policy establishment will have to come to terms with the fact that a man (Trump) they believe to be a perfect imbecile with a thimble full of knowledge of our world may know better than they how to solve intractable problems.”
“But what if it works?” Boas laments. “Kim may have caught the vision, and if he has, he could make Trump look like a genius. God help us.”
WAITING FOR THE MUELLER SEQUEL to the DOJ IG Report, I can’t help but wonder where Robert Mueller’s investigation will take us.
The IG Report cited the anti-Trump bias of a half-dozen or so FBI agents, two of which were once on Mueller’s team. Mueller’s hand-picked investigators, about a dozen in number, are all Democrats. We have learned that they contributed $35,000 to Hillary’s campaign.
You may recall that Andrew Weissman, known as “Mueller’s pit-bull,” praised former Obama acting Attorney General Sally Yates when she refused to support President Trump’s travel ban order. “I am so proud … and in awe,” he wrote, “Thank you so much. All my deepest respects.”
And you may have heard that Weissman attended Hillary’s “victory” party on election night in New York. He must have been the life of the party.
MUELLER’S INVESTIGATION – Will his investigation support that of IG Michael Horowitz? – That there was rampant bias against Donald Trump, but it didn’t affect the outcome of the Hillary investigation?
While I see no path for the president to come out of the investigation unscathed, we have no idea where Mueller’s investigation is going. I have to believe – to save face – he will have to find “something” to pin on the president
Mueller began with a charge of collusion with Russians and obstruction of justice with the firing of the disgraced FBI Director James Comey, both of which have yielded nothing.
He has ruined the life of Michael Flynn on a trumped-up indictment of lying to the FBI and that of Carter Paige, who was guilty of taking a speaking engagement in Russia.
Mueller had the home of Paul Manafort his wife taken over by FBI agents in the wee morning hours, as records were boxed and removed. Manafort, who was Trump’s campaign manager for just 49 days, is now being held in jail for 12-year-old accounting actions not pertaining to President Trump.
WHAT MUELLER WON’T TELL US – He knows that Hillary Clinton was more than just careless when she mishandled classified documents. Former President Obama made sure she would not be indicted.
Appearing on CBS’s 60 Minutes on October 11, 2015, Obama referred to Hillary’s use of a private e-mail server as “a mistake,” and was not “a situation in which America’s national security was endangered,” adding it was “not a big deal.”
On April 10, 2016, Obama offered that “She (Hillary) would never intentionally put America in any kind of jeopardy.” He conceded, however, that she used poor judgement in choosing to conduct official business through a private account rather than a State.gov address.
During her campaign for president, Hillary repeatedly said that she would not be indicted. “That is not going to happen,” she told NBC News, “there is not even the remotest chance that it’s going to happen.”
You may recall that Obama claimed that he first learned of the e-mail scandal by watching the news. It since became known that he exchanged some 20 e-mails with Hillary using a pseudonym, including one from her when she was in Russia. Without an indictment, Obama knew those exchanges would never surface.
Everyone suspected that there would be no indictment of Hillary, because Obama would be brought into the charge. To be safe he had his communications with Hillary sealed invoking presidential records privilege.
Obama dismissed that criticism and promised, in no uncertain terms, that the FBI probe would be free from all political interference. “I guarantee there is no political influence in any investigation by the Justice Department for of the FBI, not in this case but in any case,” Obama said, “full stop, period, guaranteed. Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department because nobody is above the law.”
It’s easy to see how Hillary could be so confident that she wouldn’t be indicted. She had the president where she wanted him. “A cynic might say that Obama had clearly signaled to the FBI and Justice Department that he did not want Mrs. Clinton to be charged with a crime, “said former prosecutor Andrew McCarthy, “and that, with this not-so-subtle pressure in the air, the president’s subordinates dropped the case.”
With the DOJ and FBI politicization, and all of that scheming to save Hillary from punishment for serious misjudgment, Trump’s simple request of Comey at the behest of Michael Flynn – “I hope you can see your way to let this go. He didn’t do anything.” – almost becomes amusing.
May God bless the United States of America
