Month: October 2019

The Cancer on the Presidency* Metastasizes

We already know that Trump tried to coerce the President of the Ukraine into digging dirt up on the Bidens, because of the now-public whistle-blower complaint filed by an intelligence operative.

It’s what led to the Democrats in the House officially opening an impeachment investigation.

What we have now learned that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in on the call, which makes the Secretary of State complicit, and that  Attorney General William Barr was personally involved in an investigation to discredit the Mueller report to the point of his personally going to Rome to listen to tapes of a crucial witness, which is certainly inappropriate, and almost certainly conflicted and corrupt.

So pretty much everyone in his most senior cabinet members are implicated in the coverup, but wait, there is more!

It now appears that Trump also strong-armed Australia in his efforts to discredit the Mueller report.

The impeachment investigation should be broadened, because the level of crime here makes the Nixon and Reagan investigations look like an exercise in good governance.

*It’s a quote from Nixon White House counsel John Dean. Seriously, know your history.

This is Important

Absent an injunction, we can be sure that Donald Trump and his Evil Minions will be shredding furiously.

Of particular concern is the DoJ’s arguments against this, in which they appear to say that they have the shredders and burn bags on deck:

A government watchdog group asked a federal judge on Tuesday to issue an emergency order requiring the White House to preserve records of all of President Donald Trump’s calls with foreign leaders.

At a court hearing later in the day, a Justice Department lawyer told the judge that she couldn’t immediately commit to assuring that the administration would preserve records of all of Trump’s conversations, as well as other records about how the administration had handled those documents. The judge gave the government until Wednesday afternoon to make a decision.

The case, which accuses the Trump administration of failing to meet its legal obligations to create — and properly save — records of Trump’s and other officials’ conversations with foreign leaders, was originally filed in May. But the plaintiffs are now arguing that the judge needs to take immediate action in light of recent events.

The lawsuit predates the recent flood of information about Trump’s communications with foreign officials, including a July call with the Ukrainian president — when Trump asked for help investigating Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden — which the White House sought to keep secret, a whistleblower complaint alleges. Recent reporting has also uncovered the Trump administration’s overtures to other countries to aid in an inquiry into the origins of the Mueller probe, including records of other calls with foreign leaders the White House has sought to restrict access to.

At Tuesday’s hearing, Justice Department lawyer Kathryn Wyer repeatedly pushed back when US District Judge Amy Berman Jackson asked why the administration couldn’t voluntarily give its assurance that it would maintain the “status quo” and not destroy any documents relevant to the case while the judge decided key legal issues, including whether the court has authority to hear the case at all.

Jackson, who sits in Washington, DC, has strongly and repeatedly suggested that the government should consider giving a voluntary assurance, as opposed to having her formally rule on the request filed by the challengers for an emergency order and issue a decision that she said one side “might not appreciate.”

Wyer told Jackson that the department had notified the plaintiffs that it advised administration officials of their obligation to preserve records, and she insisted there was no evidence of any risk that officials would destroy documents in the meantime. Jackson expressed puzzlement at Wyer’s resistance to go a step further and explicitly confirm that documents would remain intact. The government maintains that the assurances the plaintiffs asked for would involve giving up privileged legal advice.

“I’m not sure I understand that position at all,” Jackson said.

It’s pretty easy to understand.

Corrupt and shameless covers it all.

I Did Not Expect This

A white woman police officer was just conviccted of murdering a black man.

It is amazing that a jury convicted her, particularly in Texas.

A Dallas County jury on Tuesday convicted Amber Guyger of murdering Botham Jean in his apartment last year, in a trial that renewed international outrage over white police officers killing unarmed black men.

Jean’s mother raised her arms in exultation as cheers broke out in the hallway outside the courtroom when the verdict was announced shortly after 10:30 a.m., following five hours of deliberation by the jury.

“God is good. Trust him,” Allison Jean said as she walked out of the court and into the jubilant crowd of supporters cheering outside.

She faces 5 to 99 years.

Hopefully, she gets something toward the higher end.

As a police officer, she is trained in the judicious use of force, particularly lethal force, and as such, she should vbe hedl to a higher standard.

I am not sure that this verdict represents a sea change, as some have claimed, but it’s a start.