Time to Appoint a Second Special Counsel
With Mueller’s investigation becoming increasingly free-ranging and politicized, Trump can fight fire with fire.
John C. Eastman, Founding Director of the Claremont Institute’s Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence, and a man who has represented 17 parties before the Supreme Court, has some advice for President Donald Trump: fight fire with fire.
“Perhaps it is time to make good on that old pledge to appoint a special prosecutor to look into the Clinton ‘matters’ after all,” he writes. “And while you’re at it, add in referrals to the grand jury for the contempt of Congress committed by the IRS’s Lois Lerner and former Attorney General Eric Holder, an FBI investigation of the destruction of government documents and servers in the midst of the IRS scandal, an investigation into alleged perjury committed by IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in testimony about those matters given under oath to Congress, an ‘obstruction of justice’ investigation against former Attorney General Eric Holder and others (and related perjury charges against Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez) for allegedly ordering that an egregious voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party be dropped shortly before a default judgment was about to be entered in the government’s favor, etc., etc., etc.”
Eastman’s ire is driven by the appointment of Robert Mueller and the broad latitude he has been given to conduct his investigation. Latitude Eastman likens to a “writ of assistance” and the power to exercise a “general warrant” against Trump, his family, his business associates and his campaign and transition teams, “to see if any crime can be found (or worse, manufactured by luring someone into making a conflicting statement at some point),” he explains.
“That is the very kind of thing our Fourth Amendment was adopted to prevent,” he adds. “Indeed, the issuance of general warrants and writs of assistance is quite arguably the spark that ignited America’s war for independence.”
Like many others, including President Trump himself, Eastman agrees the unconstitutional issuance of a search warrant absent not only a crime but probable cause is the essence of a “witch hunt.”
And an ostensibly “impartial” Robert Mueller has added considerable weight to that assertion, hiring an army of attorneys. Andrew McCarthy puts that army in perspective, explaining he prosecuted a major narcotics case involving 22 defendants, hundreds of witnesses and more than 2,400 wiretap conversations — with a total of five attorneys. He also prosecuted the 12 Blind Sheikh jihadists who bombed World Trade Center in 1993, a case that involved hundreds of witnesses and intercepted conversations — with four attorneys.
Number of attorneys hired by Mueller? Fourteen — and counting.
Moreover, some are transparently partisan, such as James Quarles, who gave campaign donations to Al Gore, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton; Jeannie Rhee, who donated to Obama and Clinton, and represented the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton herself; Andrew Weissmann, who gave six separate donations to a Obama PAC; Michael R. Dreeben, whose overreaching assertion police could conduct warrantless searches of digital cellphones was rejected 9-0 by the Supreme Court; and Elizabeth Preloga, who donated to the Clinton and Obama campaigns, and clerked for Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Elena Kagan.
Mueller also hired attorney Aaron Zebley who previously represented Hillary Clinton aide Justin Cooper, a senior advisor at the Clinton Foundation who managed the set up and operation of Hillary’s private email server — and destroyed Clinton’s old cell phones with a hammer.
McCarthy also offered “fight fire with fire” advice to the Trump administration. First, he believes the DOJ should appoint a special counsel to “investigate the potential abuse of government surveillance powers for the purposes of political spying and leaks to the media,” he writes. “The investigation should scrutinize all unmasking of Americans to determine whether it conformed to court-ordered restrictions.”
That may be a heavy lift. Last week it was revealed that “career officials” at the National Security Council are “slow walking” subpoenaed records of former National Security Advisor Susan Rice’s unmasking efforts. Mid-level NSC managers asserted those records were transferred to Obama’s Presidential Library and could “remain closed to the public for five years” based on the Presidential Records Act.
The discovery of that transfer was made when Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information request rejected by NSC Access Management Director John Powers on May 23. The House Intelligence Committee issued its subpoena approximately a week later. Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said, “Having to subpoena this information indicates the insanity of the situation when the nation’s top intelligence agencies are withholding information — basic information — that could bring to an end the controversy raging across this country.”
Insanity — or wholesale corruption?
Thus, McCarthy’s additional suggestion, that “appropriate committees of Congress should convene hearings on whether the Obama Justice Department sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 election, and whether it colluded with the Clinton campaign toward that end,” is problematic, if the evidence is buried in Obama’s Presidential Library. Fitton asserts Trump can access that evidence “because they are executive branch records.”
That remains to be seen. In the meantime, McCarthy’s final suggestion, a thorough investigation of the Clintons’ potential collusion with Russia, is an idea whose time has come.
“Those who counseled President Trump to not prosecute Hillary Clinton said a Clinton investigation would distract the White House from furthering Trump’s positive agenda,” writes Karin McQuillan at American Thinker. “That was a strong argument — then. But as Professor Eastman points out, it backfired. Perhaps Trump’s civility was taken as a sign of weakness. Hillary launched the lie that the Russians made her lose the election. Democrats instigated this phony Russian collusion investigation of Trump, precisely in an effort to distract the White House and halt the Trump agenda. The best defense is to return to offense.”
Not offense. Rule of Law. Thus, when Eastman speaks about engendering a second investigation as a means of getting Democrats to “accept olive branches of civility,” he completely misses the mark. Americans are disgusted by ruling class horse-trading, whereby tainted politicians are completely insulated from the criminal justice standards that apply to everyone else.
They also resent a seemingly endless Narrative promulgated by a thoroughly corrupt Leftmedia, whereby an investigation of “Russian collusion,” that has allegedly morphed into an “obstruction of justice” investigation focused solely on Trump and his associates — while Obama administration officials seemingly remain hermetically sealed off from scrutiny.
How sealed off? Fusion GPS, which promulgated the ridiculous story provided by former British spy Christopher Steele about Trump hiring hookers to urinate on a bed the Obamas slept in at the Moscow Ritz-Carlton is “stonewalling congressional investigators trying to learn more about its connections to the Democratic Party,” New York Post columnist Paul Sperry reveals.
Incredibly, the FBI, who allegedly paid Steele $50,000 to help corroborate Trump’s takedown, is also refusing to cooperate, a disturbing reality that Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley warns “raises substantial questions about the independence” of the bureau’s Trump investigation.
So by all means, fight fire with fire, Mr. President. Because the massive corruption and collusion evinced by members of the Obama administration and the “deep state” leakers, all invested in removing you from office — even if it takes committing felonies to do — can be summed up in three words:
“Target rich environment.”
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- Donald Trump
- Robert Mueller
- Russia