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Tuesday, May 12, 2020

What Will Barr Do About Rosenstein?

It's no secret that Rod Rosenstein is one of the chief villains in the unraveling of truth, justice, and the American Way that we call The Russia Hoax. But for Rod Rosenstein's despicable conduct, his betrayal of the nation, virtually none of this would have gotten past square one.

I was pleased to read Michael Goodwin's article today--Piecing together the ‘phony’ case against Michael Flynn--and to see that he devoted the last part of a fine article to the important issue of Barr's unfinished business with Rosenstein. I assume that Rosenstein is cooperating, having turned on those he enabled in the first place. Goodwin nicely summarizes the effects of Rosenstein's perfidy:

Barr also must resolve the conduct of former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. When former AG Jeff Sessions recused himself, Rosenstein took over the Russia probe and appointed Mueller as special counsel. 
A highly questionable move then, it now looks far more sinister, given the misconduct by Mueller’s team on the Flynn case and other issues. 
Moreover, Rosenstein himself was involved in the FISA court abuse, having signed an extension of the Page warrant without admitting that the FBI failed to verify the Steele dossier or that Clinton’s campaign commissioned it. 
Any of these was sufficient reason to pull the plug on Mueller by early 2018. Yet Rosenstein allowed the probe to continue into 2019. 
The impact was enormous. It is possible, for example, that Dems would not have taken the House if voters knew by the fall of 2018 that the collusion charge was false. 
In that case, Nancy Pelosi would not have become Speaker and Schiff would not have had the power to conceal the 2017 testimonies. 
Flynn would not have lost two more years of his life and there would have been no phony Ukraine impeachment last year. In short, America would have been a very different place politically. 
So as the hunt for pieces of the puzzle continues, add Rosenstein to the list of those who have some serious explaining to do.

16 comments:

  1. I have always thought of RR as a character much like Claude Rains' "Capt. Renault" in the classic film "Casablanca" -- both RR and Capt Renault are corrupt officials willing to go along to get along, except that RR lacks the charm, wit, feeble sense of principles, and screen presence of Captain Renault.

    As Capt. Renault says at one point in the film:

    “I have no convictions … I blow with the wind, and the prevailing wind happens to be from Vichy.” but later switches sides and conspires with Rick Blaine in the after-the-fact cover-up of Blaine's murder of the Nazi officer.

    And so it was for RR -- when the coup plotters were in control, and appeared to be likely to succeed, RR played his role, appointing the Mueller Special Counsel probe, and expanding its investigatory boundaries for over 2 years, but when it became clear that the coup plotters had failed to destroy Trump, he suddenly rushed to the WH and takes a long ride on AF1 with Trump, to save his job and retirement benefits, presumably by ratting out the coup plotters to some extent.

    RR is the quintessential Deep State gill-breathing Swamp Creature, unctuously slithering around the Federal bureaucracy, doing what he must to align with the prevailing winds of fortune, his foremost objective being looking out for his OWN interests.

    Alas, with out the charm and wit of Rains' Capt. Renault character, RR is nothing more than a petty flaccid spineless self-serving corrupt official, playing the role of wind sock, frantically flapping in different directions, as the winds of fortune change.

    How pathetic a figure he cuts.

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  2. I'm an old fashion kinda Boomer Rube so I vote for swinging from a cage in front of the Hoover building until the crows have plucked off the last morsel from the rotting carcass they think they can stomach.
    But then again it's Tuesday and I always lean merciful on Tuesdays.
    Tom S.

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    1. Thank you for the laugh, Mr. Merciful. It was my deepest one of the day ;^>

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    2. I fancy myself to be a pretty decent carpenter and would love to donate the National Gallows.

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  3. An honest comment from me here (not that all my comments aren't honest). Could anyone other than Donald J. Trump have withstood all the abuse and scorn heaped on him? What a man of steel he is. I am not ashamed to say that I love him. I will have his back come hell or high water.

    P.S. I am not the first M.I.H. commenter to make the statement that only DJT could've withstood what he has. Credit to others where it's due.

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    1. Indeed, and apparently squeaky clean too.

      I have to shake my head when I read that SCOTUS has to waste time sorting out if Trump has to show his tax records. A person would have to be a total moron to not know that Lois Lehner's IRS went through the Trump records with fine tooth comb before the Russia Hoax was a glimmer in John Brennan's eye and any impropriety would have been leaked long ago.
      This is pure lawfare in it's rawest form.
      Tom S.

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    2. It's incredible how clean he must be, given the scrutiny he's been under.

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    3. Especially considering a lifetime in real estate development; which, between corrupt politicians, corrupt unions, and organized crime (but I repeat myself repeatedly), is renowned for shady dealings.
      On reflection it would seem most of the slander against him is based solely on the company he has been forced to keep, especially when you add in "celebrities" (looking at the Scarboroughs, Robert De Niro, et.al.).
      Tom S.

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    4. @Tom S

      "A person would have to be a total moron to not know that Lois Lehner's IRS went through the Trump records with fine tooth comb before the Russia Hoax was a glimmer in John Brennan's eye and any impropriety would have been leaked long ago."

      Which is not to say that the Dems won't have a slime fest dissecting Trump's returns if they ever are released.

      No taxable income? He's a tax cheat. Taxable income? He's a capitalist pig.

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  4. Tom S.

    Even crows have standards. We need to let the vultures do the cleaning off of the carcasses.

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    1. Send in the Murder Hornets!

      ;-)

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    2. I passed on the vultures because I thought the Democrat Caucus was still out of town. They're welcome to participate when ever they can tear themselves away from the $12 a pint icecream.
      Oh! Wait, I've confused skunks with vultures. My bad. The former work at the big white building at the north end of the Mall. The latter on K St.
      Tom S.

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  5. RR at first acted like he had no care in the wold. Not long after, he looked like he knew he was effed.

    He is effed, but maybe gets to use a plea bargain ... if he cooperated.

    - TexasDude

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  6. He stayed bad all the way till the end. When Ratcliffe was up the first time, RR sent a Tweet mentioning Burr, Warner et al, advising them not to take Ratcliffe, and to keep Sue Gordon instead.

    It's possible he switched, and is role playing for his Lawfare buddies sake, but unlikely.

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    1. Very interesting. I would have thought by summer 2019 RR would have been skating on very thin ice. From every description Barr has given of the Durham investigation, i.e., that what happened after the election was worse than what happened before, it's clear that RR is at the very center of how the real Russia Hoax has played out.

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