Attorney General

Putin’s puppet and his fellow traveler enablers in Congress attack federal law enforcement, undermining the rule of law and obstructing justice in defense of ‘Dear Leader’

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Not since the Army-McCarthy “red scare” hearings in 1954 (with Donald Trump’s future lawyer Roy Cohn alongside Sen. Joe McCarthy) has there been such an abusive congressional hearing that went so completely off the rails as yesterday’s joint House Judiciary and Oversight Committees hearing kangaroo court show trial “to investigate the investigators,” featuring the FBI’s counter-intelligence chief Peter Strzok, the subject of right-wing media’s wild conspiracy theories, in order to assassinate his character and attempt to discredit the FBI and the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation in defense of their “Dear Leader.”

As Rick Wilson writes at The Daily Beast, Republicans Thought Peter Strzok Would Be a Punching Bag. He Just Knocked Them Out.

Those who forget the lessons of televised congressional hearings are doomed to repeat them, which is why the morning segment of the Capitol Hill show trial of veteran FBI agent and former head of the Bureau’s Counterespionage division Peter Strzok turned into a disaster for Republicans.

Donald Trump’s congressional enablers, sycophants, and political suck-ups wanted a punching bag, but Strzok instead delivered one of the rarest of moments: the full Joseph N. Welch.

Welch, the chief counsel for the U.S. Army during the infamous McCarthy hearings in 1954, had reached a breaking point. After McCarthy’s tendentious badgering reached a fever pitch, Welch delivered a famous rejoinder that ended the Wisconsin senator’s career. Watched by millions on live television, Welch went full beast-mode.

“If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty I would do so,” said Welch. “I like to think I am a gentleman, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me… You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

This morning, it was Strzok’s turn. After an hour of drama-queen badgering from Trey “Benghazi” Gowdy and Bob Goodlatte, Strzok issued two passionate statements that will be the takeaways from an otherwise disorganized and contentious shitshow of a hearing before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees.

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Senate Tea-Publicans abdicate their duty in favor of GOP tribalism

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This is inexcusable and indefensible. Senate Tea-Publicans have abdicated their constitutional duty in favor of GOP tribalism to confirm Brian A. Benczkowski to lead the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and oversee the government’s career prosecutors, including those investigating President Trump.

Benczkowski, who has never tried a case in court and who was hired by Alfa Bank — a Russian bank under scrutiny by the Special Counsel over reports of a communications link to the Trump campaign, Was a Trump Server Communicating With Russia? — to prepare a report exonerating the bank, is not qualified for this position.

Benczkowski is now in the line of succession at DOJ, should Trump decide to engage in a “Saturday night massacre” at the Justice Department. He is a Trump loyalist who will play the role of Robert Bork in the Watergate scandal.

The New York Times reports, Justice Dept. Nominee Who Drew Scrutiny for Russian Bank Work Is Confirmed:

Democrats fought the nomination of the former staff member, Brian A. Benczkowski, raising questions about his qualifications. Mr. Benczkowski has never tried a case in court and was also scrutinized over private-sector work for one of Russia’s largest banks.

The 51-to-48 vote was along party lines, with only Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, joining Republicans to confirm Mr. Benczkowski.

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Judge Brett Kavanaugh on Independent Counsels (Part 1)

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There has been a lot of commentary about Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s law review articles on the investigation, indictment and prosecution of a president, but I believe you should see selected excerpts from his writings for yourself.

Here is a link to his 1998 article in the Georgetown Law Journal. THE PRESIDENT AND THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL, 86 Geo. L.J. 2133, Copyright (c) 1998 by the Georgetown Law Journal Association; Brett M. Kavanaugh (selected excerpts):

The conflicts of interest under which the Attorney General labors in the investigation and prosecution of executive branch officials, particularly high-level executive branch officials, historically have necessitated a statutory mechanism for the appointment of some kind of outside prosecutor for certain sensitive investigations and cases. As the Watergate Special Prosecution Task Force stated in its report, “the Justice Department has difficulty investigating and prosecuting high officials,” and “an independent prosecutor is freer to act according to politically neutral principles of fairness and justice.” This article agrees that some mechanism for the appointment of an outside prosecutor is necessary in some cases.

Kavanaugh makes six proposals to amend the independent counsel statute. The independent counsel statute was allowed to expire on June 30, 1999. Kavanaugh’s recommendations were ignored and were never enacted.

Whether the Constitution allows indictment of a sitting President is debatable (thus, Congress would not have the authority to establish definitively that a sitting President is subject to indictment). Removing that uncertainty by providing that the President is not subject to indictment would expedite investigations in which the President is involved (Watergate, Iran-Contra, and Whitewater) and would ensure that the ultimate judgment on the President’s conduct (inevitably wrapped up in its political effects) is made where all great national political judgments ultimately must be made—in the Congress of the United States. [Inferring by Impeachment.]

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Federal courts deliver a pounding to the Trump administration’s immigration policies (updated)

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At the end of June, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who has jurisdiction over the child immigrants being separated from their parents and held in detention centers, testified before the Senate Finance Committee that he can find separated migrant kids ‘within seconds’:

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Tuesday he could find any child separated from their migrant parents “within seconds.”

“There is no reason why any parent would not know where their child is located,” Azar told the Senate Finance Committee. “I could at the stroke of keystrokes … within seconds could find any child within our care for any parent.”

Azar pushed back on reports that parents and children forcibly separated at the Mexican border under President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy can’t find each other. He said that by using his computer “portal” through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, he could easily locate the kids.

Azar’s testimony was under oath. The Senate must now consider charging him with perjury or lying to Congress.

Late last week, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in Ms. L v. ICE, Case No.: 18cv0428 DMS (MDD), U.S. District Court Southern District of California, denied the Trump administration’s request to extend the deadline to reunite families that had been separated at the border — not so simple as “the stroke of keystrokes … within seconds could find any child within our care for any parent,” is it? Judge insists timeline be met to reunite children at border:

A judge insisted on Friday the Trump administration stick to a deadline to reunite children separated from their parents at the border, instead acknowledging that more time may be justified only in specific cases.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered the administration to share a list of the 101 children with the American Civil Liberties Union, which successfully sued to force the reunions, by Saturday afternoon. The two sides will try to determine over the weekend which cases merit a delay in an effort to present a unified front in court on Monday morning.

“The government must reunite them,” the judge said. “It must comply with the time frame unless there is an articulable reason.”

The administration said it needed more time to reunite 101 children under 5 years old to ensure the children’s safety and to confirm their parental relationships.

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GOP collaborators in Congress aid and abet Trump’s obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation

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While the news media was fixated on yet another mass shooting yesterday (“If it bleeds it leads“),  a more significant act of terrorism was occurring just miles away in the House Judiciary Committee, where Trumpkins in the ironically named House GOP Freedom Caucus (they are actually authoritarians who want an autocracy), were collaborating with the Trump legal defense team to defame the Department of Justice and the FBI, and aiding and abetting  Trump’s conspiracy to obstruct justice in the Russia investigation.

These authoritarian Trumpkins are requesting to see the prosecutor’s evidence in an active ongoing criminal investigation of  the president and his associates, information they are not entitled to receive in the oversight function, so they can then turn that evidence over to Trump’s legal team and to selectively leak it to the GOPropagandists at FAUX News aka “Trump TV,” as they have already done with information the DOJ has previously inappropriately turned over to the committee under unprecedented threats from these authoritarian Trumpkins.

If the DOJ appropriately and lawfully refuses to turn over prosecutorial evidence in response to this improper subpoena, these authoritarian Trumpkins have set in motion a scenario in which Rod Rosenstein can be removed as Deputy AG, to allow Trump to appoint a loyalist stooge as Deputy AG, who will then terminate the Special Counsel’s Russia investigation.

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