Coup, Coup, Coup

Three good reads today, all relating one way or another to the coup-coup crazy Dems' anti-constitutional efforts to seize total control since Trump's unapproved election victory.

Thomas Lifson leads off with a startling article on the Dem strategy, working off recent public statements by Pelosi and Hillary. As Lifson notes, those statements give the game away:

Dems no longer even bothering to hide their strategy to steal the election

The statements themselves could be termed 'unhinged', except that they unquestionably reflect thinking and strategy at the highest level of Dem organization. Here they are:

Hillary: “We’ve got to have a massive legal operation, I know the Biden campaign is working on that… Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances.”

Pelosi: "One thing I’ll say to the American people: Do not pay any attention to Donald Trump. It is his goal to scare people from voting, to intimidate them by saying he’s going to have law enforcement people at the polls, to welcome, in fact, Russian intervention into our election, ... the domestic enemies to our voting system and our honoring our Constitution are right at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., with their allies in the Congress of the United States ... enemies of the state."

That's right. Pelosi labeled the Trump and the entire GOP as "domestic enemies", "enemies of the state."

The President's Lawyers Speak

With Team Mueller shut down and the Barr summary public, President Trump's lawyers have been speaking out: John Dowd, Rudy Giuliani, Jay Sekulow (but not Emmett Flood, who I don't expect to speak publicly in the near future). John Dowd, Trump's first lawyer has spoken on a number of forums, perhaps most notably an hour long interview with Byron York.

Dowd's interview with York is a somewhat rambling affair, although it has its definite points of interest. Personally, I grew a bit impatient with Dowd's repeated protestations of respect for "Bob" (Mueller) and how "polite" and "considerate" everyone on Team Mueller was. I guess I know where Dowd is coming from, but I found it frankly tiresome--especially in view of some of what he revealed.

According to Dowd, Trump's first lawyer, the whole thing began with Rosenstein's announcement of the Special Counsel with no warning, no head's up. Sessions was actually speaking with Trump when the announcement came down, and Sessions immediately offered to resign. But, really, what was Trump supposed to do at that point? Dowd says that Rosenstein was a guy he "just didn't get."

Of course, the whole Russia Hoax was and is a political operation as much as--or maybe more than--a legal operation. From that standpoint, Dowd's strategy--approved by Trump at the time--of total cooperation and transparency can be said to have made sense. Dowd states that this strategy was based on discussions with "Bob" and the understanding that "Bob" would seek to wrap the whole thing up within a year. Right.

As it developed, by December, 2017, if not earlier, Dowd was completely convinced that Mueller had nothing on Trump, but "Bob" just kept working away. By early 2018 Dowd wrote a letter to Rosenstein asking for an explanation for why Team Mueller wasn't wrapping things up, given that there was no collusion. In response, says Dowd, Rosenstein simply "blew me off." At which point Dowd says he lost all respect for Rosenstein. But that, apparently, made no difference in Rosenstein's life, either.

Later, when "Bob" came to Dowd demanding that Trump submit to an interview or be subpoenaed, Dowd exploded. "Bob" acknowledged that Trump had "no exposure" (no prospect of criminal charges) but claimed he "needed to know what was in the president's mind". That told Dowd that it was really all about "obstruction." At that point he basically invited "Bob" to bring the subpoena on--the president's lawyers would welcome the opportunity to take it to court. "Bob" dropped it.

This episode, and the footdragging, really irked Dowd. He recounts that he repeatedly told "Bob" that the president needed to get this over with, because in negotiations with foreign leaders Trump would be asked: "But, Donald, will you still be here?" Somehow, considerations like that appear not to have impressed "Bob".

One other minor point. Dowd says there were two guys he "just didn't get." One, of course, was Rosenstein. The other was Comey. It's clear that Dowd regarded Comey as simply a very strange guy, possibly not fully in touch with reality. That would be one explanation. Another might be that Comey is a peculiarly malevolent and narcissistic personality.

Overall, and in hindsight, it's easy enough to see the possible benefits to Dowd's strategy, despite the obvious frustrations over the past years. Those benefits may become especially apparent when Barr releases the longer report, because Barr will probably find ways to emphasize the extreme cooperation and transparency of Trump to blunt the liberal PR offensive.

That said, however, you have to wonder whether it would have been better to have pursued a more legal and less political strategy. I've maintained for the past two years and more that there never was a basis for the Crossfire Hurricane investigation to start with--as Devin Nunes has recently stated. Andy McCarthy, NeverTrumper that he is, seems to agree. Would it not have been better--arguably--to have challenged the Special Counsel appointment in court for legal insufficiency, lack of authority, based on the clear lack of probable cause? That I think, is where the legal debate will go in the future.

Can Barr Simply Release Mueller's Report?

I can't recommend highly enough Victoria Toensing's article today: Why Mueller's report (no matter how much Dems clamor for it) must be kept confidential. Recall that Bill Barr's confirmation hearing testimony regarding release of Mueller's report was studiedly non-committal. On the one hand, he forthrightly stated that he favored releasing as much as possible but, on the other hand, he rightly refused to commit himself ...

Barr said he envisions two reports, and only one for congressional and public consumption. 

Barr has said he takes seriously the “shall be confidential” part of the regulations governing Mueller’s report. He has noted that department protocol says internal memos explaining charging decisions should not be released. 

During his confirmation hearing, Barr said that he will draft, after Mueller turns in his report, a second one for the chairman and ranking members of the House and Senate Judiciary committees. But here again, the regulations provide little guidance for what such a report would say. 

The attorney general is required only to say the investigation has concluded and describe or explain any times when he or Rosenstein decided an action Mueller proposed “was so inappropriate or unwarranted” that it should not be pursued.

Barr indicated that he expects to use his report to share the results of Mueller’s investigation with the public, which the regulations allow him to do. But he hedged on specifics and said his plans could change after speaking with Mueller and Rosenstein.

What Toensing does, brilliantly, is explain what's at play here.

First of all, there has been a fair amount of loose talk in the media about Mueller's "report to Congress." Ain't no such beast. That's how the old Independent Counsel statute worked, but the Independent Counsel statute expired and was replaced with the current Special Counsel regulations. The IC reporting requirement was always constitutionally problematic, because it blurred the fundamental "separation of powers" structure of the Constitution. As Toensing explains (and I alluded to here), the Special Counsel regulations correct that problem:

John Dowd Speaks Out

ABC News has done a bang up interview with former Trump attorney John Dowd. For anyone who doesn't know who John Dowd is, read his Wikipedia page: John Dowd. Big league player, attorney, big time experience both in the law and in Washington.

I've edited and condensed the transcript of the interview, boiled it down. Read the original for all the detail and the full context, uncondensed, listen to the audio. But it really speaks pretty much for itself. I've bolded what I thought jumps out. Here goes:


ABC NEWS' KYRA PHILLIPS: So, John, word is the Mueller report is going to drop within the next couple of weeks.

JOHN DOWD: I don't think there'll be a report. The rules of the department say, no report.

ABC NEWS' CHRIS VLASTO: So you don't think the public's gonna see anything. You think it's $40 million. Mueller investigated it. And that's it.

DOWD: The idea that you would take that information and make it public, you know, violates the whole concept of the grand jury. What's the grand jury for? To protect the innocent. ... Does that ever get reported? No.

PHILLIPS: Do you respect what Mueller is doing? I know you know Mueller well.

DOWD: Well, I respected it in the beginning. My style is I always trust the other side, until I didn't. In my opinion, on March 5th, we were done. He had everything. He said he had everything. He told me that no one had lied. He told me they had every document we asked for. He told me that it was nothing more. He told me that the president was not a target. That is, he did not have any exposure, that he was a witness subject, which is perfectly normal for someone's conduct you're looking at, but they don't have exposure. What people don't understand about the president is you have too much information in your life. I mean, the amount of information that he intakes every day, gets prepared for, is staggering. And in my questioning him or talking to him--you know, first question, easy. Second question, easy. Third question, he wasn't sure. And he doesn't like being unsure. So he'll guess. There's your trap, right there. It's not whether he lies or not.