Bob Mueller - Just James Comey All Over Again

Bob Mueller – James Comey All Over Again
The View from the Middle

Does anyone remember what an absolute disaster the Comey press conference was back in July of 2016. Let me remind you. This was the press conference where James Comey spent about 15 minutes on national TV publicly flogging and then, for all intents and purposes, indicting Hillary Clinton before suggesting that no reasonable prosecutor would every actually indict her. Afterwards he was soundly criticized by both sides of the political spectrum, and for good reason.

First, Comey demonstrated that he had no idea what his job was. His job was to investigate (he was the head of the FBI – Federal Bureau of Investigation) and then pass his findings to the Justice Department, who would then decide whether to indict Ms. Clinton or not. He was so out of line with his press conference that the Inspector General found him guilty of insubordination. Certainly, that is grounds for termination.

But what is worse is that Comey showed a complete ignorance of the law. He suggested that since Hillary Clinton didn’t “intend” to break the law then she could not be indicted. There are at least two problems with this line of thinking. First, Hillary had smashed her communications devices with sledge hammers and then destroyed, using BleachBit, over 30,000 emails that were under subpoena. Now, if that doesn’t prove an intent to conceal and or destroy evidence, I don’t know what does.

The second problem with his “intent” argument is that “intent” is not even a requirement of the statute that Hillary was accused of violating. Comey just made it up. So, what we found as a result of Comey’s now famous press conference is that James Comey didn’t understand the requirements and limitations of his own job AND he either didn’t understand the law or intentionally ignored it. No wonder everyone wanted him fired. And then along comes Robert Mueller.

It quickly becomes apparent that Comey and Mueller went to the same law school, probably an on-line degree from the University of Somalia, because neither seems to have a grasp of the law or their jobs. Yesterday, Mueller bumbled and stumbled through about an eight-minute prepared speech that made him look like he was guilty of something. In his press conference, he suggested that a memorandum written in 1973 stated that a sitting President “cannot be indicted”. That is NOT what the memorandum stated. It, in effect, suggested that a sitting President SHOULD NOT be indicted as it would interfere with the execution of his or her responsibilities. Also, this is not a law, but a legal opinion, which could be challenged.

His job was to find out if a crime had been committed, and he didn’t find one. Even if you apply the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel) opinion, that would not prohibit Mueller from finding Trump guilty of conspiracy or of obstruction of justice. Ken Starr used the word “guilty” eleven times in his report on Bill Clinton and Bill Clinton eventually pleaded guilty to misleading testimony and had his license to practice law in Arkansas suspended for five years. He also paid a $25,000 fine. Mueller could have done the same thing to Donald Trump, but he didn’t. Not because he was confined by the OLC policy, but because he couldn’t make the claim.

Mueller has another problem with his assertion that the OLC rule prevented him from indicting Trump. He denied that was the cause for his decision in front of at least two people, Attorney General Bill Barr and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, hardly a Trump fan. If he would make the same statement in front of Congress that he made today, he could very well be facing perjury charges of his own. How poetic would that be?

Finally, Bob Mueller doesn’t seem to understand the basic principle on which our entire judicial system is based. In the US, our citizens are assumed innocent until they are proven guilty of something. It’s called “the presumption of innocence”. Mueller said that he couldn’t prove that Trump was innocent. Bob, you don’t have to do that. That was not your job. While Trump is not above the law, he is not below it either. He is presumed innocent. Mueller didn‘t have to prove it.

The country is tired of the investigative rut the Democrats are stuck in. In the latest Quinnipiac poll 66% of Americans do not favor impeaching Trump, while only 29% do, and that 29% is heavily skewed towards Democrats. Interestingly, however, in a recent CNN poll almost 70% of Americans want to investigate the origins of the Russia probe. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. I predict that when Michael Horowitz, the Inspector General, is done with the likes of Comey, Brennan and Clapper, the Democrats will be focusing on damage control instead of investigations.