Earlier this month, the Attorney General appointed attorney Jack Smith to be the Special Counsel who will conduct the investigation of Donald Trump’s potential federal criminal liability on at least two fronts: The removal and handling of documents (some classified) from the White House, and the former President’s role in fomenting the Capitol riot on January 6.
Having crossed the Rubicon by pushing the Russia Collusion narrative through an impeachment followed by the failed Mueller investigation, someone like Smith is the logical choice. This is not politics in the ordinary sense. It is however politics that the Founders would have recognized as conformable with that of the late Roman Republic: Sulla to Caesar. The intention is, as it was from the beginning, to destroy Trump. To deny that at this point would be a rare feat of blindness. I'm not here to argue the justice of any of this as there has been little of that from the beginning. Why start now? This is about the raw exercise of power with a nod toward decorum.
Interesting back-and-forth with Greg Koster and Bill Otis. One can agree with Bill on the merits of the argument, but it seems a bit like arguing over who gets to be the dealer in poker game after one of the players has stacked the deck. Or which executioner will operate the gallows after the hanging judge has picked the frontier jury. Pick your metaphor.
I"m just waiting for Smith to hire Andrew Weissman.
Koster's reference to The Players and the onset of cynicism is the most important aspect of all this. Cynicism HAS set in for me and for many - I don't trust a damn thing the DoJ does or says anymore, and haven't since the Flynn circus. Since neither Sussman nor any of the perpetrators of the Russia Hoax (and the last Special Counsel's "investigation") have paid a price politically or criminally, the corrupt lawyers at the DoJ have been emboldened, now pursuing a former President for tiddly winks.
"Show me the man and I'll find the crime" has been the M.O. for the DoJ since the end of the Obama administration.
While Antifa's countless documented assaults and arson remain "a concept," Garland and Wray continue to tell Congress that "domestic terror"/"white supremacy" is the greatest national security threat, and they do it with a straight face, while FBI whistleblowers confess that they are incentivized to tag criminal cases "domestic terror" in order to justify the left's narrative.
The list of lies and deceptions coming out of the DoJ is too long to recount in a few minutes. With the Twitter Files commanding attention, many are just realizing that the FBI had the Biden laptop for a year before it served up the "Russia disinformation" narrative.
We live in a world of Fake News, Fake Crime and Fake Justice.
What I'd be really interseted in hearing is how the DoJ can be repaired, and how public confidence in this institution can be restored – or whether it can be. It may be incorrigible.
Good to see you commenting here. I hope to see much more.
A couple of thoughts. First, Trump had four years to clean up DOJ. He also appointed two excellent AGs, Sessions and Barr. He fired the first for following long-settled ethics rules, and made the job of the second nearly impossible by being obsessed with the 2020 election results. Trump also appointed Director Wray after having loads of time to think it over. So if there's rot at DOJ/FBI -- and there is -- Trump has himself to blame.
Second, owing probably to my career as a federal prosecutor, first as a civil servant and later as a political appointee, cynicism is not an option for me. I believed then and now that I have to do the best I can in a corrupted world. That the Antifa thugs got and get a break is dreadful, maddening, and brings disrespect to the system, but is not in my view a reason to make things even worse by giving more breaks to other thugs (but thugs with different politics). Thousands of crimes go unpunished, and thousands of criminals get undeserved leniency even when caught, but that is not a reason to give breaks to everyone. At least it isn't if one believes, as I do, that upholding decent standards unevenly applied is a better thing than accepting no standards across the board, on the theory that at least we then have (a nauseating) equality.
Equality before the law is a high virtue, but not the highest. Handing out accountability where you can, even though you know you'll never reach everyone or close to everyone who's got it coming, is a higher virtue. Cynicism is a mark of intelligence but not a standard for governance in any system that aspires to an outcome more appealing than nihilism.
You are right of course - and that is why I wish more people like yourself were running the show at DoJ. We need honest law enforcement! Not a police state, but equal application of reasonable laws. We cannot tolerate cynicism in officers of the court like yourself, but among us "non-Players," when corruption becomes so obvious, it's easy to become cynical, and if I'm feeling that way, I wonder how many people out there are on the brink of disregarding the law entirely and reverting back to "what I can get away with" as a standard.
There is so much to be done here, at times it looks impossible. But the alternative is too dystopian to contemplate. I don't want my son to have to live out his years in some Tammany Hall like regime.
Regarding Trump, I am also a Jeff Sessions fan, but in retrospect I don't think he was the right man for the job. Neither he nor Trump understood the extent to which things had deteriorated at DoJ, they both got sandbagged and Trump just made matters worse for him. I don't think anyone knew the extent to which the "deep state" have developed into a leviathan at DoJ, FBI, DHS, State, the intel agencies. Obama left behind a lot of bad seeds.
As far as Barr goes, he was an excellent pick, but Trump's expectation of having an AG be a "wing man" like Eric Holder didn't sit well with Barr's ethics, and that is one of Trump's major defects. I'm not sure that Barr realized, either, how warped the DoJ had become since his previous tenure there. Anyone, right or left, who didn't trust Trump's ethics should have been grateful to have Barr as AG, but the left's sense of ethics only applies to its opposition. I don't think any AG has been subject to the kind of attack Barr suffered since John Mitchell, and unlike Mitchell, Barr didn't deserve it.
Rudy Giuliani may be the only attorney to know how to deal with Trump, and it put him in great jeopardy. I listen to Rudy's podcast because of all the politicians I voted for, he remains the most effective vote I ever cast, and I think there ought to be a statute of the guy in Central Park just for his work in putting the heads of the five families in jail. I can't think of anyone who took on corruption at a high level so successfully in all these years, and yet today he is derided and maligned, despite his recent vindication in court.
It's a tough world, and we're going to need tough but ethical leaders to right ship of justice.
Since it is impossible to prosecute a former president and presidential candidate without politics being involved, I wish Biden would make the decision himself and take responsibility for it. There is a legal doctrine that when bias cannot be eliminated from a legal process, the law proceeds anyway. Let Biden say that he made a judgement about the appropriateness of an indictment and ordered the DOJ to proceed, and if anyone doesn't like it he or she is free to take that into account in the next election. Let the protections of the grand jury and the trial jury shield Trump from any injustice.
Given that Smith's appointment is this disturbing to you, how can you claim that appointing a special prosecutor is the right thing to do? Given that the choice of prosecutor is this problematic, doesn't that suggest that the difficulty of this choice makes a prosecution impossible? The more so because the 1/6 portion will be tried in DC's federal district court, a court that has 1o Billyboy/Obama/Slowy noiminees versus 4 Big Don nominees? Even if you add in the senior judges you have 17 Dem nominees against 10 GOP nominees, still a dreadful ratio. Before you start warbling about the independence of judges, I point you to the treatment the villain Emmet Sullivan dished out to Michael Flynn, while the DC Circuit Court blanched in terror at maybe having to rein Emmet in. Or the dismaying jury packing Judge Christopher Cooper participated in at the Sussman trial, laughing raucously at John Durham as he did so. Or the wrist tap Jebby Boasberg administered to the forger Kevin Clinesmith as a sentence. These masterminds and their packed juries are going to decide the fate of this 'special' prosecution.
Smith and this sordid gang should have been working on the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s,, not in the federal courts and prosecutors of today.
"Given that Smith's appointment is this disturbing to you, how can you claim that appointing a special prosecutor is the right thing to do?"
By considering the alternative, which is that decisions about Trump's prosecution will be made by persons directly appointed by and accountable to Joe Biden. Would you be happier with that? Do you think the chances of justice would be greater? Why?
Also, the structure of your argument is misguided. Simply because the particular selection was flawed hardly means that ANY selection would be flawed. Suppose the special counsel were someone like Mukasey. Wouldn't that be an improvement?
It's true of course that this DOJ wouldn't come anywhere close to appointing someone as good as Mukasey, true But there is a decently reasonable prospect that it could have done better than Smith -- for example, an experienced prosecutor of high level cases whose wife works for the Animal Welfare League rather than for a bunch of Lefties, and whose most prominent prior conviction had not been unanimously reversed by the Supreme Court.
The fact is that this is a Biden Justice Department with the Justice Department's powers, and we can just throw up our hands or point out how things might have been better, even if only marginally so.
"By considering the alternative, which is that decisions about Trump's prosecution will be made by persons directly appointed by and accountable to Joe Biden. Would you be happier with that? Do you think the chances of justice would be greater? Why?"
1. No the chances of justice would not be better--but the miscarriage would out in sight for all to see. By appointing Smith, the railroading can commence and Moderate Merrick can say, "Nothing to do with me, Smith is independent." half the country won't believe him, but the press would, and would promptly turn to with 'prosecution denying' being the latest 'threat' to democracy.
"Simply because the particular selection was flawed hardly means that ANY selection would be flawed."
Homes was right: 'the life of the law has not been logic [as you are holding here] but experience.' What's the experience been with special prosecutors? Dismal so far as convictions go. But the lefty special prosecutors can make the process into the punishment as Mueller showed, while the non-Lefty SPs just sink the the quicksands of DC juries and judges. You were quite careful not to mention DC juries and judges, and no wonder.
"But there is a decently reasonable prospect that it could have done better than Smith"
Name a) this magical creature who b) would have been appointed by Moderate Merrick. I don't think you can do it.
I think the difference between ;us is that you were a Player in the game of federal prosecution, whereas I and most citizens are not Players,, mostly spectators, save for a few unfortunates who are swept into the game for the amusement of the law machine. You may deny this, but the difference in treatment between the 1/6ers on the Right hand and the Portland federal courthouse firebombers or the NY lawyers who chucked a Molotov into an empty police car on the Left hand speks more persuasively than any argument you've made so far.
Mr. Koster -- A few thoughts, nothing all that systematic:
-- "No the chances of justice would not be better..." Well then, if you care about justice, that has to mean something.
-- "...but the miscarriage would out in sight for all to see. By appointing Smith, the railroading can commence and Moderate Merrick can say, "Nothing to do with me, Smith is independent.'" No he is not independent, as even the MSM sees and admits. That's why we now have Special Counsels, who are subordinate to the AG, rather than Independent Counsels, who were not. As Paul noted in an earlier entry, under existing law, Garland cannot escape responsibility.
And I do not agree that a Trump conviction would necessarily be a miscarriage of justice. How do you know that? Depends on what the charge is, what the defense is, and what all the evidence is. At present, we know none of that (unless you can see the future -- can you?). One can agree arguendo that venal political motives are behind this, yet Trump could still be guilty under the law. What counts is not the character of the prosecutor but the character of charge and of the evidence.
-- "Homes was right: 'the life of the law has not been logic [as you are holding here] but experience.' What's the experience been with special prosecutors?" Well, first, I was explicit that Mr. Smith has had some spectacular failures, so I'm not sure I see your point. And second, even assuming that other Special Counsels have been failures, that tells us very little about this case with these facts. When I was an AUSA, it was often the case that the last 100 defendants were guilty as sin, but that did not warrant my simply assuming that the next one will be, too. Each case stands on its own.
"You were quite careful not to mention DC juries and judges, and no wonder."....said the coke dealer tried in Salt Lake City rather than Miami or Brooklyn. Here's deal: The law of venue doesn't change because the defendant wants what he assumes will be a more politically agreeable jury. The Watergate defendants had the same situation, but the reason they got convicted was not jury bias; it was solid evidence of their own behavior. Want to stay out of the slammer? Tend to your own behavior first. Blaming everyone else is for bratty little children.
-- "'But there is a decently reasonable prospect that it could have done better than Smith' Name a) this magical creature who b) would have been appointed by Moderate Merrick. I don't think you can do it. "
We have the administration we have and, as you admitted, Trump would be worse off if the present group at DOJ stayed in charge of his case. I never claimed and don't believe that we're going to get an admirable Special Counsel out of this bunch. We aren't. But if the underlying concerns that lie behind the concept of a special counsel have merit (and they do, which is why the appointment provisions have persisted in administrations of both parties), then (1) it was called for here, and (2) the specific choice was poor for a number of elaborated reasons. That's all my entry says.
-- "I think the difference between ;us is that you were a Player in the game of federal prosecution, whereas I and most citizens are not Players,, mostly spectators, save for a few unfortunates who are swept into the game for the amusement of the law machine." I wasn't "playing" and it's not a game. For about a fifth of what I could have made in private practice, I was helping to put away smack dealers, rapists, thieves, fraudsters and strongarms, while you were doing......................what? And your characterization of defendants as "a few unfortunates who are swept into the game for the amusement of the law machine" is repulsive and astonishingly false, but more than anything, revealing.
You think the system stinks? Fine -- put on your buffalo horns and body paint and pretend you're a revolutionary who's going to "stop the steal," -- or, I suppose in this instance, stop federal prosecutors from bringing accountability under the law to these "few unfortunates" who, among other wonderful things, like to have sex with five year-old's on federal land.
Mr. Otis, many thanks for your civil comments. Don't see us getting any closer though:
"- "No the chances of justice would not be better..." Well then, if you care about justice, that has to mean something."
What it means is that I, along with 99.999+ percent of the citizenry are powerless to demand justice. That's for the Players, not the citizens. Example A: You would go to the gallows defending this statement:
"
The FBI is subordinate to the Prez via the Atty Genl."
Yet when Hillary Clinton was investigated, the announcement that she would not be prosecuted came from---Comey, the FBI director. In that case there was no nonsense about be 'subordinate' the corrupt Loretta Lynch as AG welcomed Comey's action because she didn't have to face the flareback for letting Clinton go free from her actions that would have been called crimes if I and all non-Players , did them.
How many such instances have to occur before cynicism sets in? The Players would solemnly intone that cynicism is bad because is causes Loss of Faith in INSTITUTIONS! Yet the Players go on their merry way, trading faith for temporary political advantage.
Having crossed the Rubicon by pushing the Russia Collusion narrative through an impeachment followed by the failed Mueller investigation, someone like Smith is the logical choice. This is not politics in the ordinary sense. It is however politics that the Founders would have recognized as conformable with that of the late Roman Republic: Sulla to Caesar. The intention is, as it was from the beginning, to destroy Trump. To deny that at this point would be a rare feat of blindness. I'm not here to argue the justice of any of this as there has been little of that from the beginning. Why start now? This is about the raw exercise of power with a nod toward decorum.
Interesting back-and-forth with Greg Koster and Bill Otis. One can agree with Bill on the merits of the argument, but it seems a bit like arguing over who gets to be the dealer in poker game after one of the players has stacked the deck. Or which executioner will operate the gallows after the hanging judge has picked the frontier jury. Pick your metaphor.
I"m just waiting for Smith to hire Andrew Weissman.
Koster's reference to The Players and the onset of cynicism is the most important aspect of all this. Cynicism HAS set in for me and for many - I don't trust a damn thing the DoJ does or says anymore, and haven't since the Flynn circus. Since neither Sussman nor any of the perpetrators of the Russia Hoax (and the last Special Counsel's "investigation") have paid a price politically or criminally, the corrupt lawyers at the DoJ have been emboldened, now pursuing a former President for tiddly winks.
"Show me the man and I'll find the crime" has been the M.O. for the DoJ since the end of the Obama administration.
While Antifa's countless documented assaults and arson remain "a concept," Garland and Wray continue to tell Congress that "domestic terror"/"white supremacy" is the greatest national security threat, and they do it with a straight face, while FBI whistleblowers confess that they are incentivized to tag criminal cases "domestic terror" in order to justify the left's narrative.
The list of lies and deceptions coming out of the DoJ is too long to recount in a few minutes. With the Twitter Files commanding attention, many are just realizing that the FBI had the Biden laptop for a year before it served up the "Russia disinformation" narrative.
We live in a world of Fake News, Fake Crime and Fake Justice.
What I'd be really interseted in hearing is how the DoJ can be repaired, and how public confidence in this institution can be restored – or whether it can be. It may be incorrigible.
Hi David --
Good to see you commenting here. I hope to see much more.
A couple of thoughts. First, Trump had four years to clean up DOJ. He also appointed two excellent AGs, Sessions and Barr. He fired the first for following long-settled ethics rules, and made the job of the second nearly impossible by being obsessed with the 2020 election results. Trump also appointed Director Wray after having loads of time to think it over. So if there's rot at DOJ/FBI -- and there is -- Trump has himself to blame.
Second, owing probably to my career as a federal prosecutor, first as a civil servant and later as a political appointee, cynicism is not an option for me. I believed then and now that I have to do the best I can in a corrupted world. That the Antifa thugs got and get a break is dreadful, maddening, and brings disrespect to the system, but is not in my view a reason to make things even worse by giving more breaks to other thugs (but thugs with different politics). Thousands of crimes go unpunished, and thousands of criminals get undeserved leniency even when caught, but that is not a reason to give breaks to everyone. At least it isn't if one believes, as I do, that upholding decent standards unevenly applied is a better thing than accepting no standards across the board, on the theory that at least we then have (a nauseating) equality.
Equality before the law is a high virtue, but not the highest. Handing out accountability where you can, even though you know you'll never reach everyone or close to everyone who's got it coming, is a higher virtue. Cynicism is a mark of intelligence but not a standard for governance in any system that aspires to an outcome more appealing than nihilism.
You are right of course - and that is why I wish more people like yourself were running the show at DoJ. We need honest law enforcement! Not a police state, but equal application of reasonable laws. We cannot tolerate cynicism in officers of the court like yourself, but among us "non-Players," when corruption becomes so obvious, it's easy to become cynical, and if I'm feeling that way, I wonder how many people out there are on the brink of disregarding the law entirely and reverting back to "what I can get away with" as a standard.
There is so much to be done here, at times it looks impossible. But the alternative is too dystopian to contemplate. I don't want my son to have to live out his years in some Tammany Hall like regime.
Regarding Trump, I am also a Jeff Sessions fan, but in retrospect I don't think he was the right man for the job. Neither he nor Trump understood the extent to which things had deteriorated at DoJ, they both got sandbagged and Trump just made matters worse for him. I don't think anyone knew the extent to which the "deep state" have developed into a leviathan at DoJ, FBI, DHS, State, the intel agencies. Obama left behind a lot of bad seeds.
As far as Barr goes, he was an excellent pick, but Trump's expectation of having an AG be a "wing man" like Eric Holder didn't sit well with Barr's ethics, and that is one of Trump's major defects. I'm not sure that Barr realized, either, how warped the DoJ had become since his previous tenure there. Anyone, right or left, who didn't trust Trump's ethics should have been grateful to have Barr as AG, but the left's sense of ethics only applies to its opposition. I don't think any AG has been subject to the kind of attack Barr suffered since John Mitchell, and unlike Mitchell, Barr didn't deserve it.
Rudy Giuliani may be the only attorney to know how to deal with Trump, and it put him in great jeopardy. I listen to Rudy's podcast because of all the politicians I voted for, he remains the most effective vote I ever cast, and I think there ought to be a statute of the guy in Central Park just for his work in putting the heads of the five families in jail. I can't think of anyone who took on corruption at a high level so successfully in all these years, and yet today he is derided and maligned, despite his recent vindication in court.
It's a tough world, and we're going to need tough but ethical leaders to right ship of justice.
Since it is impossible to prosecute a former president and presidential candidate without politics being involved, I wish Biden would make the decision himself and take responsibility for it. There is a legal doctrine that when bias cannot be eliminated from a legal process, the law proceeds anyway. Let Biden say that he made a judgement about the appropriateness of an indictment and ordered the DOJ to proceed, and if anyone doesn't like it he or she is free to take that into account in the next election. Let the protections of the grand jury and the trial jury shield Trump from any injustice.
Given that Smith's appointment is this disturbing to you, how can you claim that appointing a special prosecutor is the right thing to do? Given that the choice of prosecutor is this problematic, doesn't that suggest that the difficulty of this choice makes a prosecution impossible? The more so because the 1/6 portion will be tried in DC's federal district court, a court that has 1o Billyboy/Obama/Slowy noiminees versus 4 Big Don nominees? Even if you add in the senior judges you have 17 Dem nominees against 10 GOP nominees, still a dreadful ratio. Before you start warbling about the independence of judges, I point you to the treatment the villain Emmet Sullivan dished out to Michael Flynn, while the DC Circuit Court blanched in terror at maybe having to rein Emmet in. Or the dismaying jury packing Judge Christopher Cooper participated in at the Sussman trial, laughing raucously at John Durham as he did so. Or the wrist tap Jebby Boasberg administered to the forger Kevin Clinesmith as a sentence. These masterminds and their packed juries are going to decide the fate of this 'special' prosecution.
Smith and this sordid gang should have been working on the transcontinental railroad in the 1860s,, not in the federal courts and prosecutors of today.
"Given that Smith's appointment is this disturbing to you, how can you claim that appointing a special prosecutor is the right thing to do?"
By considering the alternative, which is that decisions about Trump's prosecution will be made by persons directly appointed by and accountable to Joe Biden. Would you be happier with that? Do you think the chances of justice would be greater? Why?
Also, the structure of your argument is misguided. Simply because the particular selection was flawed hardly means that ANY selection would be flawed. Suppose the special counsel were someone like Mukasey. Wouldn't that be an improvement?
It's true of course that this DOJ wouldn't come anywhere close to appointing someone as good as Mukasey, true But there is a decently reasonable prospect that it could have done better than Smith -- for example, an experienced prosecutor of high level cases whose wife works for the Animal Welfare League rather than for a bunch of Lefties, and whose most prominent prior conviction had not been unanimously reversed by the Supreme Court.
The fact is that this is a Biden Justice Department with the Justice Department's powers, and we can just throw up our hands or point out how things might have been better, even if only marginally so.
"By considering the alternative, which is that decisions about Trump's prosecution will be made by persons directly appointed by and accountable to Joe Biden. Would you be happier with that? Do you think the chances of justice would be greater? Why?"
1. No the chances of justice would not be better--but the miscarriage would out in sight for all to see. By appointing Smith, the railroading can commence and Moderate Merrick can say, "Nothing to do with me, Smith is independent." half the country won't believe him, but the press would, and would promptly turn to with 'prosecution denying' being the latest 'threat' to democracy.
"Simply because the particular selection was flawed hardly means that ANY selection would be flawed."
Homes was right: 'the life of the law has not been logic [as you are holding here] but experience.' What's the experience been with special prosecutors? Dismal so far as convictions go. But the lefty special prosecutors can make the process into the punishment as Mueller showed, while the non-Lefty SPs just sink the the quicksands of DC juries and judges. You were quite careful not to mention DC juries and judges, and no wonder.
"But there is a decently reasonable prospect that it could have done better than Smith"
Name a) this magical creature who b) would have been appointed by Moderate Merrick. I don't think you can do it.
I think the difference between ;us is that you were a Player in the game of federal prosecution, whereas I and most citizens are not Players,, mostly spectators, save for a few unfortunates who are swept into the game for the amusement of the law machine. You may deny this, but the difference in treatment between the 1/6ers on the Right hand and the Portland federal courthouse firebombers or the NY lawyers who chucked a Molotov into an empty police car on the Left hand speks more persuasively than any argument you've made so far.
Mr. Koster -- A few thoughts, nothing all that systematic:
-- "No the chances of justice would not be better..." Well then, if you care about justice, that has to mean something.
-- "...but the miscarriage would out in sight for all to see. By appointing Smith, the railroading can commence and Moderate Merrick can say, "Nothing to do with me, Smith is independent.'" No he is not independent, as even the MSM sees and admits. That's why we now have Special Counsels, who are subordinate to the AG, rather than Independent Counsels, who were not. As Paul noted in an earlier entry, under existing law, Garland cannot escape responsibility.
And I do not agree that a Trump conviction would necessarily be a miscarriage of justice. How do you know that? Depends on what the charge is, what the defense is, and what all the evidence is. At present, we know none of that (unless you can see the future -- can you?). One can agree arguendo that venal political motives are behind this, yet Trump could still be guilty under the law. What counts is not the character of the prosecutor but the character of charge and of the evidence.
-- "Homes was right: 'the life of the law has not been logic [as you are holding here] but experience.' What's the experience been with special prosecutors?" Well, first, I was explicit that Mr. Smith has had some spectacular failures, so I'm not sure I see your point. And second, even assuming that other Special Counsels have been failures, that tells us very little about this case with these facts. When I was an AUSA, it was often the case that the last 100 defendants were guilty as sin, but that did not warrant my simply assuming that the next one will be, too. Each case stands on its own.
"You were quite careful not to mention DC juries and judges, and no wonder."....said the coke dealer tried in Salt Lake City rather than Miami or Brooklyn. Here's deal: The law of venue doesn't change because the defendant wants what he assumes will be a more politically agreeable jury. The Watergate defendants had the same situation, but the reason they got convicted was not jury bias; it was solid evidence of their own behavior. Want to stay out of the slammer? Tend to your own behavior first. Blaming everyone else is for bratty little children.
-- "'But there is a decently reasonable prospect that it could have done better than Smith' Name a) this magical creature who b) would have been appointed by Moderate Merrick. I don't think you can do it. "
We have the administration we have and, as you admitted, Trump would be worse off if the present group at DOJ stayed in charge of his case. I never claimed and don't believe that we're going to get an admirable Special Counsel out of this bunch. We aren't. But if the underlying concerns that lie behind the concept of a special counsel have merit (and they do, which is why the appointment provisions have persisted in administrations of both parties), then (1) it was called for here, and (2) the specific choice was poor for a number of elaborated reasons. That's all my entry says.
-- "I think the difference between ;us is that you were a Player in the game of federal prosecution, whereas I and most citizens are not Players,, mostly spectators, save for a few unfortunates who are swept into the game for the amusement of the law machine." I wasn't "playing" and it's not a game. For about a fifth of what I could have made in private practice, I was helping to put away smack dealers, rapists, thieves, fraudsters and strongarms, while you were doing......................what? And your characterization of defendants as "a few unfortunates who are swept into the game for the amusement of the law machine" is repulsive and astonishingly false, but more than anything, revealing.
You think the system stinks? Fine -- put on your buffalo horns and body paint and pretend you're a revolutionary who's going to "stop the steal," -- or, I suppose in this instance, stop federal prosecutors from bringing accountability under the law to these "few unfortunates" who, among other wonderful things, like to have sex with five year-old's on federal land.
Mr. Otis, many thanks for your civil comments. Don't see us getting any closer though:
"- "No the chances of justice would not be better..." Well then, if you care about justice, that has to mean something."
What it means is that I, along with 99.999+ percent of the citizenry are powerless to demand justice. That's for the Players, not the citizens. Example A: You would go to the gallows defending this statement:
"
The FBI is subordinate to the Prez via the Atty Genl."
Yet when Hillary Clinton was investigated, the announcement that she would not be prosecuted came from---Comey, the FBI director. In that case there was no nonsense about be 'subordinate' the corrupt Loretta Lynch as AG welcomed Comey's action because she didn't have to face the flareback for letting Clinton go free from her actions that would have been called crimes if I and all non-Players , did them.
How many such instances have to occur before cynicism sets in? The Players would solemnly intone that cynicism is bad because is causes Loss of Faith in INSTITUTIONS! Yet the Players go on their merry way, trading faith for temporary political advantage.