James Freeman at the WSJ writes: Death of the Impeachment Dream--The Mueller hearings confirm that voters will decide when Trump leaves office:
House Democrats hoped that Wednesday’s hearings would allow them to highlight their favorite portions of the Mueller report for people who haven’t read it. Democrats didn’t expect this segment of Americans to include the author.
Largely unwilling to promote, defend or elaborate on a document with which he seemed strangely unfamiliar, former Justice Department Special Counsel Robert Mueller let stand the report’s finding of no Trump-Russia collusion and, intentionally or not, ensured that his work will not be used to drive a duly-elected President from office.
Who better to explain what went wrong with a Clown Show than the Clown himself?
The impeachment dream is dead, and nobody has more explaining to do at the next meeting of the House Democratic caucus than Judiciary committee Chairman Jerry Nadler of New York. In 2017 he asked his colleagues to entrust him with one job. As this column has noted, after former Rep. John Conyers Jr. resigned amid numerous allegations of harassing women, the New York Times described the Nadler argument for replacing him:
"Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York has a bold pitch to take over the top Democratic spot on the House Judiciary Committee — that he is best positioned to lead impeachment proceedings against President Trump."
None of this should have been a surprise to those who are reality based. Now we get to see the non-reality-based party sort out who's to blame for this fiasco. One thing seems certain--that Clown Show should be more entertaining than this dud.
UPDATE: GOP Rep Michael Turner absolutely slam dunked Bob Mueller. I guess you could say he took his turn doing so, but I personally found Turner's dunk to be particularly devastating, considering who Mueller is and how he has spent his entire professional life. Here's how CTH puts it:
Representative Michael Turner, R-Ohio, questions former special counsel Robert Mueller about the location of the “DOJ Office of Exoneration”. Apparently, it is two doors away from the DOJ Office of Figment, and across the hall from the Department of Wishes.
And here's Turner's five minute go at Mueller--OUCH! It's a must watch.
UPDATE 2: Mark Hemingway
@Heminator
That was the Hindenberg of congressional testimony. Yeeesh.
9:12 AM - 24 Jul 2019
Too bad that the Dems don't know this is important lesson: Just because a book was good, doesn't mean that it will turn out to be a good movie. Think "The Amityville Horror." Not that I'm saying that the Weissmann Report was good reading.
ReplyDeleteHey, look, the Dems are desperate. They've had their foot on our necks for YEARS. Trump has come in since 2015 and beaten them on their own turf using their playbook.
They are out of shape because we sent girly-men to do a man's job for many years.
Think of the song "At the Copa Copa Cabana." The Dems are living on borrowed time (in the current environment). A
As I said yesterday, they rolled the dice double or nothing and came up snake eyes. I don't know much about martial arts but I believe in judo, you use the opponents energy and strength against himself.
Anybody wanna try it against Sensei Donald?
I'm going to say this, too. Some of these men are evil. You don't lie the way Schiff did if you're not. Schiff and his minions, fellow Dems, media, Comey, i.e. The Usual Suspects.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely.
DeleteThe video with Rep. Turner is devastating. In fairness to Mueller, he appears to have trouble hearing his interlocutor--as if the audio is set up for the television audience, but not for those in the hearing room.
ReplyDeleteActually, my impression on that one was that Mueller saw what was coming and was resigned to taking a shellacking.
DeleteStrange as it is to say, I actually felt some sympathy for Mueller today. He seemed so befuddled. I even thought he might be ill. Another possibility is that he has finally figured out what was going on. I saw him less as Dr. Evil and more as Inspector Clouseau.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me he was used by the likes of Weissman as a respectable front man. In the single spirited response from Mueller, he said that he didn't select all of his investigative team; most came over from DOJ. He claimed to have appointed only 5 (a bad five). This tells me Rosenstein has some splainin to do.
His not knowing who or what Fusion GPS was lifted off the top of my head. What? How can the Lyft driver who takes me to the airport know more about what's really in the Mueller Report than Mueller?
Who wrote that report? What role did Mueller play? I'm beginning to think he came in and read the newspaper while the zealots ran roughshod.
Mueller made a fool of himself today. And he took another big step toward destroying his reputation.
For my part, I felt no sympathy. Lou Dobbs put it well--see the TOTAL MUST WATCH post. Dobbs says that he might have felt sympathy, BUT FOR his knowledge of what Mueller has put the country through. And I think that's an essential point. He was complicit in an attack on our constitutional order, and he was also complicit in serious injustices committed against associates of Trump. General Flynn, etc.
DeleteOf course Mueller's testimony yesterday was devastating...to his Report and to him and to his reputation...and obviously it seriously, and inevitably, I think, fatally undermines the 'Russian interference' canard we have been living with.
ReplyDeleteIf there is any justice the main actors at the FBI...Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page, etc. (there are undoubtedly others) must go down for their complicity in this.
If justice is to be done, so must the Brennans and Clappers and their associates who cynically invented the lies and promoted the conspiracy that undergird this travesty also pay the price.
But this national disaster...this abject assault on and embarrassment to our national enterprise...while carried out by corrupt foot soldiers in the FBI, CIA, DOJ and Department of State...is ultimately the child of, and the responsibility of, Barack Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton. I don't know what deals Obama cut with the Clintons but the result was that Obama engaged in utterly illegal police state surveillance of his political enemies during his eight year administration at the same time he overlooked (participated in?) the absolute corruption of the Clintons and the 'collusion' between their pay to play foundation and state department. Does anyone think for a moment that Mrs Clinton's home server and email destruction and crimes against national security were not a fundamental part of this criminal conspiracy?
If this nation is to ever recover from the devastating consequences of the Russia Hoax conspiracy, AG Barr and USAtty Durham and IG Horowitz and Senator Graham and Representative Nunes and their colleagues must stay strong and stalwart and follow their investigations to their logical conclusions, wherever they lead. Getting to the full truth is critically important.
Our national soul depends upon it.
Excellently well put. This is what Toensing, diGenova, and Powell were all getting at, but don't want to say out loud quite yet. There's no doubt in my mind about any of this.
DeleteBut let me quibble, briefly, with your choice of words. :-( "Foot soldiers." Directors of agencies and departments are only "foot soldiers" in relation to the POTUS. They are major players in our government, fully capable of resisting a POTUS in such matters as these. So, my quibble goes to the enormity of what was perpetrated. This wasn't a POTUS or wannabe POTUS directing "foot soldiers" to commit some minor infraction. This was a POTUS is league with the top legal and NatSec echelon of this country, seeking to overthrow an election.
Yes. When I was drafting I meant to say 'lieutenants' and foot soldiers and didn't.
DeleteAnd, as we have learned and are learning, the powers of the administrative state -- the Deep State -- even compared to the elected state -- are awesome in their own right.
I completely agree with you, Mark.
In a way the events and conditions of 2008-2016 were a perfect storm of opportunity for evil.
I wasn't criticizing--really just using that as a jumping off place to hammer at a particular point.
DeleteOn the other hand, it is evident that the Resistance is not remotely concerned with the niceties of discovery of a corrupt police state conspiracy orchestrated by the leaders of the Democrat Party and shadowy figures of the Deep State, compared to its deep and unabiding hatred of Donald Trump.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at this op-ed in today's New York Times (if you can get behind the paywall) and then glance through the reader comments. The fact that a totally false and fabricated Russian interference narrative preceded the Mueller 'investigation' and resulting obstruction allegations is absolutely lost on the haters. Take a look at the reader comments!
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/24/opinion/robert-mueller-trump-obstruction.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage
It is painfully obvious that Nadler et al will not give up. We are in for some ride between now and November 2020.
I'm going to be working a bit later on a blog that will probably address some of what you're talking about here (haven't read the article), and maybe a bit beyond.
Delete