RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/05/trump-russia-investigation-partisan-politics/

This is an exquisitely planned political campaign.

Russiagate has always been a political narrative masquerading as a federal investigation. Its objective, plain and simple, has been twofold: first, to hamstring Donald Trump’s capacity to press the agenda on which he ran (immigration enforcement, conservative judicial nominees, deregulation, and a military build-up, along with skepticism about military interventions, free trade, and NATO); and ultimately, to render him unelectable come autumn 2020.

That’s it. That’s what FBI agent Peter Strzok so aptly called the “insurance policy.”

Yes, of course, if some grievous misconduct had emerged, something so egregious that Beltway Republicans could chance the wrath of the Trump base by hopping aboard the impeachment train, Democrats might take a shot at removing the president. But that, as they say in the Green New Deal biz, was just “aspirational.”

The real work in the here and now is hardball politics: Hem Trump in. Politicize the intelligence and law-enforcement apparatus. Signal to the public through intelligence leaks and suggestive official public statements that the president was suspected of conspiring with the Kremlin. Convince Trump that using the presidency’s arsenal to fight back would just bolster the obstruction case against him. Sic a special counsel on him if he lashed out anyway. Use the investigation as a rationale for slow-walking Trump nominees and for refusing to deal with him on such critical issues as border enforcement. Drive his numbers down.

It’s working.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/andrew-mccarthy-politics-is-front-and-center-for

Politics is front and center for the Russiagate probe, which has reached previously unknown heights of farce – and that’s saying something.

This week saw the spectacle of the House Judiciary Committee holding the attorney general of the United States in contempt for withholding Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report … notwithstanding that the report was actually provided to lawmakers.

Desperate to project the illusion of cover-up in the utter absence of cover-up, Democrats proceeded against the attorney general even though (a) Barr did not owe Congress a single comma in the report because federal law calls for it to be confidential (i.e., between the prosecutor investigating the case and his supervisor, the attorney general); (b) Barr nevertheless gave Congress about 95 percent of the report; (c) congressional Democrats did not avail themselves of the opportunity to read other unredacted portions to which he gave access; (d) all of the unsavory information about President Trump – i.e., the stuff in the report that Democrats truly care about – has been disclosed; and (e) Barr only withheld grand jury information which it would be illegal to disclose – meaning: Democrats put the AG to the untenable choice of violating the law or being held in contempt.

https://www.nysun.com/editorials/just-who-is-or-isnt-above-the-law/90680/

“So who is seeking to be positioned above the law? It’s hard to read the precedent as suggesting Mr. Trump is doing that. Nor is the Justice Department, which is on the side of the president; nor has the Justice Department’s special prosecutor moved against the president. No, it’s starting to look like the party seeking to maneuver itself above the law is — wait for it — the United States Congress.”

Is — or is not — the President above the law? It looks like we are going to be quarreling over that question as the Congress moves to confront President Trump for the Mueller report. We are going to be popped this poser, too, in respect of Mr. Trump’s aides, Attorney General Barr and Treasury Secretary Mnuchin, who are, among others, rebuffing subpoenas from the Representatives House.

Our sense of it — after reading up — is that both sides will want to avoid assumptions. That’s the gist, too, of an opinion just issued from the chambers of the New Yorker magazine’s constitutional maven, Jeffrey Toobin. He reckons that Mr. Trump is creating a “new constitutional norm” in which the only likely remedy for an executive defying the legislature would be the next election.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/05/10/nadlers-contempt/

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on Thursday held a press conference responding to the effort by Representative Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) to hold Attorney General William Barr in contempt of Congress for his testimony last week. McCarthy was relaxed and jovial as he approached the entrails of the self-destructing anti-Trump movement with a voracious appetite.

For too long the media and their client Democrats in Congress have operated in an environment in which the rule of law meant only one law: “Get Trump.” That “law” made everything done in service to that goal “legal” and everything in opposition to the goal “illegal.” Cries of a “constitutional crisis” are simply rehashing the received wisdom that there is a new, unwritten amendment to the Constitution called the “Get Trump” provision.

Thus, an exercise of delegated power by an elected president over the unelected subordinate branches could be called (without intended irony) an attack on democracy. The Obama era ushered in a convergence of power among the powerful federal agencies, the media, and the Democrats. In the early part of the Trump Administration, it even appeared strong enough to overcome the inconvenient election of a candidate who ran in opposition to the cabal.

But, as they say, something that cannot go on forever must eventually stop. With Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in charge of the Department of Justice and all “Get Trump” operations, there appeared to be no exception to the new law. Rosenstein dutifully used the Department of Justice against Trump’s allies while seeming to grant immunity to Trump’s enemies.