Nunes memo

What comes next?

by Dave

Trump’s Feb 3 tweet is a piece of science fiction:

“This memo totally vindicates “Trump” in probe the Russian Witch Hunt goes on and on. Their was no Collusion and there was no Obstruction (the word now used because, after one year of looking endlessly and finding NOTHING, collusion is dead). This is an American disgrace!”

The Nunes memo really says nothing about the Russian investigation headed by Robert Mueller.  The Republican party has continued to insist that Carter Page was a minor volunteer in the campaign, something like the guy in the back of the room and totally unimportant. But the wiretap FISA warrant was generating results, or it would not have been renewed 3 times.  Each renewal was presented in front of a different FISA judge.  Different FBI and DOJ officials signed off on these applications.   Trump knows this.  The House Intelligence Committee knows this.  And this is likely what is in the Democrat’s response.  And the Democrat response likely concludes that nothing improper was done.  In contrast to Trump’s tweet, the real parties that should be vindicated are the leaders of the FBI and DOJ.

The contents of the Trump dossier were never revealed by the media during the campaign.  The bottom line is the media showed great restraint by not publishing this story.  It was given to the media a couple months before the election and there was no way to collaborate the statements made in the dossier.  So, the “liberal media” should also be vindicated.

But the great disrupter  Trump has his dirt.   The fact that Nunes memo is based on inaccurate, misleading and omitted  information doesn’t bother him one iota.  Everything about his career, says honesty isn’t part of the winning hand.   It’s poker and bluffing your way through is just as good when things get hot.  Honest and gently – No.  Dishonest and loud wins.

Next steps.  He doesn’t care about  Democrat’s rebuttal so he wants Nunes  to bury that memo.  He would like Rosenstein to resign, but that won’t work because he has Session’s support.  So,  Trump sits there with this dirt, that has been publicly discredited  by just about everyone who has experience with FISA warrants, and the FBI, and thinks maybe I can get away with firing Rosenstein and ending the Mueller investigation.

He would like to see more of the “dump Rosenstein” ads on TV.  The Tea Party Patriots has a limited budgets to the Washington, DC area.   Fox News is doing their part in attacking the Mueller investigation.

This ultimately comes down to how apathetic and poorly informed are the American people.  Nunes memo  is a dangerous pretext, but more over, it is a dangerous president with a pretext to politicize the FBI and DOJ.

Stay tuned,

Dave

Dear Mr. President, We are not that stupid!

by Dave

Building a pretext to fire Christopher Wray, Jeff Sessions and Rod Rosenstein, to stop the Mueller Investigation, Trump tweeted this at 3:33 am today:

The top leadership and investigators of the FBI and the Justice Department have politicized the sacred investigative process in favor of the Democrats and against Republicans – something which should have been unthinkable just a short time ago,.   Rank and file are great people!

Mueller’s team were getting too close to an obstruction of justice charge against Donald Trump.  Bottom Line.

Christopher Wray:    Director of the FBI. Nominated by President Trump.  Assumed office August 2, 2017.  Trump did not go to the swearing in ceremony.   Registered Republican. Graduate of Yale University.  Confirmation was easy, the Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to recommend Wray, and the Senate voted 92 to 5 to confirm.

Since Andrew McCabe resigned,  a new Deputy Directed may be appointed by Director Wray,

Jeff Sessions: Attorney General of the US.    Nominated by President Trump.  An early supporter of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Sessions was nominated by Trump for the post of U.S. Attorney General. He was confirmed on February 8, 2017, with a 52–47 vote in the Senate, and was sworn in on February 9, 2017. From 1981 to 1993, he served as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Alabama. Sessions was nominated in 1986 to be a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama, but was not confirmed. Sessions was elected Attorney General of Alabama in 1994, and to the U.S. Senate in 1996, being re-elected in 2002, 2008, and 2014. During his time in Congress, Sessions was considered one of the most conservative members of the U.S. Senate. (Wikipedia)

Rod Rosenstein: Deputy AG.  He graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.S. in economics, summa cum laude in 1986. He earned his J.D. degree cum laude in 1989 from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He then served as a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School in 1997-98.

In 2007, President George W. Bush nominated Rosenstein to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Rosenstein was a Maryland resident at the time. Barbara Mikulski and new Democratic Maryland senator, Ben Cardin, blocked Rosenstein’s confirmation, stating that he did not have strong enough Maryland legal ties, and due to this Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy did not schedule a hearing on Rosenstein during the 110th Congress and the nomination lapsed. Andre M. Davis later was renominated to the same seat and confirmed by the Senate in 2009. Rob Rosenstein is  registered as a Republican.  He has served under both Republican and Democrat administrations.

Stephen Colbert:

Friends of Trump say the president sees the memo as a way to discredit Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. “Yes, it’s like when you’re losing at basketball, so you shoot the ref,” he said, slipping into Trump voice. “I guess I win — there’s nobody to tell me I didn’t. Now, who wants to be the new referee?”

James Comey:

Recent tweets:

All should appreciate the FBI speaking up. I wish more of our leaders would. But take heart: American history shows that, in the long run, weasels and liars never hold the field, so long as good people stand up. Not a lot of schools or streets named for Joe McCarthy.

Special Agent Andrew McCabe stood tall over the last 8 months, when small people were trying to tear down an institution we all depend on. He served with distinction for two decades. I wish Andy well. I also wish continued strength for the rest of the FBI. America needs you.

I believe Donald Trump has underestimated the intelligence of the United States and its people, in his recent tweets.   This is not the way to make America greater, just Donald Trump greater.

Stay tuned,

Dave

PS.  I have not included the usual links.  The profiles of James Comey, Devin Nunes, Christopher Wray, Jeff Sessions and Rob Rosenstein are easily found on Wikipedia.   I did not include anything on Devin Nunes, but a summary can be found on Wikipedia.   He is a graduate of CalPoly with a masters in agriculture.  The news on the Nunes memo can be found by doing a Google search on “Nunes Memo.”

Finally, I note that James Comey’s book, A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership will begin shipment on May 1, 2018.  Amazon is accepting pre-orders now.