So what's wrong with soliciting dirt on an opponent from a foreign government.

10/18/19:  Nick Mulvaney said yes the US denies aid all of the time to influence foreign policy and politics are always involved, but yes aid was withheld to get Ukraine to investigate the theory that Ukraine hacked the DNC emails in 2016, not the Russians.  Oops. Use of military aid was used to force Ukraine to act to help Trump politically.  So what's wrong?" Just get over it", Mulvaney said.
( 10/12/19 revision of a form posting asking So What's wrong with getting dirt on an election opponent  from a foreign government?)
Here is your Colorado Senator Cory Gardner  (R) at work. Gardner is no profile in courage. When a Channel 9 KUSA reporter asked Cory Gardner, ' would  (it) be appropriate for a president to ask a foreign government to investigate an opponent, Gardner did not give a "yes" or "no" answer. 

'The Senate Intelligence Committee is starting an investigation, a bi-partisan investigation. Unfortunately, though, what we've seen is a very political process take over,' he said." https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/next/sen-cory-gardner-interaction-with-the-press/73-e72b2587-5057-403f-80f1-42f93f562a83?fbclid=IwAR2QUKAl-f2

When asked a  question of a matter of principle with a yes or no answer, Gardner responded with an answer that implied that the answer depended upon whether the Senate Intelligence Committee agreed or not with impeachment charges that asking foreign governments to find dirt on a political opponent.  He added a swipe that it is a partisan matter. So much for standing on principle. So what's wrong with the President soliciting help from a foreign government to help him get elected? The easiest answers: it is illegal and it endangers US political independence from foreign control of our own governance.

While the reporter's question was simple,  to answer yes would have put Gardner in hot water with a President who threatens to primary any GOP member of Congress disloyal to him. To answer no would put him in the category of a pure Trump loyalist in a state that has turned blue and bluer.  He is up for re-election in 2020 and his opponent will be very moderate former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper.
 The correct answer to the Channel 9 reporter should have been " No".  Why? 
1. It's a crime, Mr. President and Senator Gardner
Federal Election Commission (FEC) Chairwoman Ellen Weintraub said after President Trump publicly stated he would accept foreign intelligence on opponents and saw no problem with that.."Let me make something 100 percent clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election." 
FYI: impeachment does not require proof a crime was committed to be an article of impeachment.  The definition of high crimes and misdemeanors is left up to the impeachers to define.

2. If the foreign country agrees and produces something that would help a candidate get elected, that candidate finds himself obligated to them in the future even though the foreign country, like Russia, has their own agenda that is not ours and in fact may harm national security.  The Declaration of Independence was just about that: freedom from a foreign power, the British.  Foreign interference was one of the basic fears of the writers of our Constitution, too. The early and later Federalist papers were consumed with the fear that England would try to retake their former colonies. During the Articles of Confederation period before the Constitutional Convention, they noted many attempts by foreign governments to bribe leaders in the former colonies so they laced the Constitution with provisions like the emoluments clause against bribery  and when they could not crack the Constitution and loyalty to the new republic, it took it a step farther invading in the war of 1812.

3. A foreign power getting dirt on a US candidate's opponent is both a thing of value and an element of collusion.  Trump crowed loudly Special Counsel Robert  Mueller's report exonerated him of collusion. He knew collusion was impeachable. However, now Trump himself actively demanded a foreign government to collude. As attorney Ari Melber on MSNBC commented in soliciting dirt on an election opponent from a foreign government, as Trump has done,  is "going from no collusion to pro collusion".As Special Counsel Mueller noted, “[a] foreign entity that engaged in such research and provided resulting information to a campaign could exert a greater effect on an election, and a greater tendency to ingratiate the donor to the candidate, than a gift of money or tangible things of value.” 

_______________________________________________________________________________

 This question stands alone in importance even if there was no quid pro quo of conditioning military aid to Ukraine if their president did not do Trump the favor of re-opening an investigation into Joe Biden and his son for business dealings in Ukraine and in shifting the 2016 foreign interference in the 2016 election from Russia to Ukraine.  Both of these "asks" are based on conspiracy theories with plenty of evidence to debunk them, but promoted by Trump media. Just soliciting, accepting or receiving something of value from a foreign government in an election campaign is against the law.
The president has been on media openly welcoming, from "Russia are you listening? Find Hillary's missing emails",  the July 25 telephone call, Oct. 3, urges China to dig up on the Bidens. (The Chinese declined). The Mueller report spent pains to find no collusion with Russia in 2016; now soliciting the collusion is in the open or as Ari Melber on MSNBC  put it succinctly:  "Trump has gone from no collusion to pro collusion". On June 13, 2019, in an interview with George Stephanopoulos, Trump was asked if he considered accepting "oppo research" from a foreign country broke election laws, he replied: "It's not an interference, they have information -- I think I'd take it," Trump said. "If I thought there was something wrong, I'd go maybe to the FBI -- if I thought there was something wrong. ..... congressman, they all do it, they always have, and that's the way it is. It's called oppo research." It was during the time of the Stephanopoulos interview that Trump's "personal lawyer" was in the midst of trying to convince the newly elected President of Ukraine to re-open the Biden investigation and play ball. It was in vain until a month later that Donald Trump froze military aid to Ukraine to help that country to  beat back a Russian territorial hot war grab followed by the infamous July 25 telephone conversation in which Ukraine's president said he was ready to buy the aid Trump had frozen Trump said he had a favor to ask "though"  and stated the asks: investigate  Bidens' corruption  and for Ukraine to  take the blame for election interference in 2016 .

https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/

More: https://campaignlegal.org/update/yes-president-trump-violated-campaign-finance-law-asking-ukraine-favor

Tweetable quote: By directly requesting or suggesting that President Zelensky use Ukraine’s resources to help his reelection efforts, Trump violated campaign finance law.

(More technically, Trump asked Ukraine to make an “expenditure” by spending resources for the purpose of influencing the 2020 election. An “expenditure” that is coordinated with a candidate is a campaign contribution; “coordinated” means made at the “request or suggestion” of a candidate. So Trump requesting that Ukraine make an expenditure means that he solicited a contribution.)

Hamilton on emoluments from the Muftic Forum Blog 6/24/17: Alexander Hamilton did not even trust the voters or elected officials to stop such attempts. Hamilton expressed his fears in his Federalist Paper 22 “.One of the weak sides of republics..., is that they afford trust too easy an inlet to foreign corruption. ...In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust...”  Because of Hamilton’s reasoning  the writers of the Constitution included  the emoluments clause to head off such abuses…” no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.” Note Congress' responsibility in these matters.

https://www.apnews.com/d7440cffba4940f5b85cd3dfa3500fb2

https://www.heritage.org/constitution/#!/articles/1/essays/68/emoluments-clause

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/10/03/may-ukrainian-oligarch-said-giuliani-was-orchestrating-clear-conspiracy-against-biden/

https://www.justsecurity.org/66277/the-quid-is-a-crime-no-need-to-prove-pro-quo-in-ukrainegate/

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/464227-fec-chairwoman-reiterates-illegality-of-soliciting-campaign-help-from
https://www.thedailybeast.com/meet-the-eastern-european-mystery-donors-behind-the-trump-allied-super-pac

https://www.wsj.com/articles/two-foreign-born-men-who-helped-giuliani-on-ukraine-arrested-on-campaign-finance-charges-11570714188

https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/next/sen-cory-gardner-interaction-with-the-press/73-e72b2587-5057-403f-80f1-42f93f562a83?fbclid=IwAR2QUKAl-f2

So what's so wrong with colluding with the Russians?

A version was published in the Sky Hi News, June 17, 2019
https://www.skyhinews.com/opinion/opinion-muftic-so-whats-so-wrong-with-colluding-with-the-russians/

So what's wrong with collusion? President Trump just spent two and a half years afraid he would be accused of colluding with the Russians to help him get elected. Trump must have assumed " to collude "was against the law earlier, but after crowing he was cleared of collusion by special counsel Robert Mueller, Trump threw his gears in reverse to claim there was nothing wrong with collusion and he would do it again in 2020. In effect, he laid out the welcome mat for foreign interference from any foreign adversary in future American elections. If he tries to do what he did in 2016 inviting Russian interference and receiving dirt on opponents, he could be accused of a crime, whether or not he conspired or colluded.

Also for the past two and a half years. Donald Trump has been endeavoring to subvert the investigation by firing and attempting to fire the investigators and impugning the integrity of the FBI as some deep state out to get him. Per the Mueller report, there were a dozen incidents of obstructing the investigation, including recruiting subordinates and supporters to fire Mueller, and Mueller could not find evidence to clear him of obstruction. Because of the Department of Justice rules, he also could not indict a sitting president for the crime of obstruction of justice. Trump has continued with his oft-repeated line:" no collusion, no obstruction" and his supporters believe him.

The collusion reference defends on a definition or by whom or by what law defines it. He was pointedly not cleared (exonerated) of obstruction by Robert Mueller.
"Collusion" was not investigated by Special Counsel Mueller. Collusion is a broad, popular term. However, "conspiracy", the actual criminal act named in the criminal code Mueller did investigate. Here is how Mueller defined it in his report: "In evaluating whether evidence about collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of collusion...Collusion is not a specific offense ..found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law..taking actions that were informed by or responsive to the other's actions or interests" in election interference. Mueller then cleared Trump of violating his (Mueller's) narrow definition of the "conspiracy" statutes for lack of evidence.

Trump's then tried narrowing the definition of legal collusion was just receiving dirt, opposition research, from anyone (foreign or not) on an opponent. and that was OK. It is not and there was much more contained in the definition of such activities. Oops, President Trump. “It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election.” per the Federal election laws. Now you know, Mr. President, so if you intend to accept dirt from Russia or anything else of value in 2020, you are committing a crime.

 Certainly, dirt about a political opponent is of value to a candidate. In fact, if it is intentional, it can be referred to the FBI for criminal prosecution. If it is by accident or unaware of the law, the penalty can be fines.

When Donald Trump on the stump at a campaign rally famously called on the Russians to find Clinton's missing emails, "Russians, are you listening if you can find Hillary's emails", he was soliciting Russia to get him something of value. If he would have accepted the missing emails, which did not happen, he would have also broken the law by receiving something of value from the Russians, but being a political novice, his ignorance of the law could be excused. After this flap last week, he is no longer ignorant of the law.

Why object to foreigners influencing American elections? Foreign interference in elections harms the sovereignty of the nation, shaping American citizens' opinion and hacking and controlling election results so that citizens are discouraged from voting or being registered or actually changing the votes. in 2016, Russians demonstrated they could hack election tallies in a few counties though there was no evidence they changed voters votes. In 2016 those Russian measures were geared to electing a president who had better and kinder views of their foreign government's policies than Hillary Clinton, even though Trump's policies might be contrary to American national interests. In the case of Russia, candidate Trump favored lifting sanctions, called NATO's mutual defense clauses obsolete, and generally admired Putin so ardently, his relationship with Putin was termed a "bromance". Russia's use of social media was targeted to hurt Hillary Clinton and help Donald Trump, per Mueller. How and who did it was also laid out in detail in Vol 1 of the Mueller report. In fact, twenty-five Russian spies, hackers, and GRU military intelligence operatives, and two Russian companies were indicted by the Grand Jury and the vivid details of how they did it were laid out in the Mueller report and in earlier court filings of indictments. In short, Americans who fell for the bots, ads, and social media postings that intensified mistrust and hatred of Clinton while extolling the virtues of Bernie Sanders, and the Green Party, stayed home or voted Green with an "I don't like either Trump or Clinton" rationale. Post-2016 studies by PEW concluded that the non-voters in the key industrial states actually were decided by potential Clinton voters who did not vote.

In retrospect, many marveled of how sophisticated the Russians were in targeting their social media to suppress the particular potential Clinton voters. In the Mueller report, we learned that campaign manager Paul Manafort had been sharing Trump internal campaign polling data with a business associate in Ukraine, Konstantin Kilimnik, who had training by Russian intelligence and had close connections with Oleg Deripaska,. an oligarch and friend of Putin, one of many oligarchs the Obama administration had sanctioned in 2014 for Russian incursions into eastern Ukraine.

Trump and the FBI got into a quarrel last week about whether in a political campaign, any foreign national attempting to influence an election had contacts with a campaign had to be reported to the FBI. Mueller in over 100 pages of his report had documented over 272 contacts by Trump or his campaign associates with Russians during the campaign. To clarify the requirement, Sen.Mark Warner (D-Va) immediately introduced a bill requiring such reporting which was immediately blocked by the GOP in the Senate.

_______________________________________________________________________

Mueller came to the conclusion that Donald Trump Jr was unaware of the law so he did not intend to break it when he was lured to the Trump Tower to meet with some Russians who, in a chain of emails with him, hinted they had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Trump from Air Force One lied when asked about it, saying he thought the meeting was about Russian adoptions.

This is what set off this recent firestorm.

"Asked by ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos in the Oval Office on Wednesday whether his campaign would accept such information from foreigners -- such as China or Russia -- or hand it over the FBI, Trump said, "I think maybe you do both." "I think you might want to listen, there isn't anything wrong with listening," Trump continued. "If somebody called from a country, Norway, [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent' -- oh, I think I'd want to hear it."  FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress that a candidate should offer that kind of information to the agency, but Trump responded: “The FBI director is wrong.”https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/id-exclusive-interview-trump-listen-foreigners-offered-dirt/story?id=63669304

https://www.hstoday.us/federal-pages/doj/from-concept-of-collusion-to-obstruction-questions-highlights-from-the-mueller-report/ https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-04-19/mueller-report-did-trump-commit-conspiracy-no-collusion-maybe

https://app.getpocket.com/read/2626633751

https://www.vox.com/2019/6/14/18677631/trump-campaign-finance-law-fec-illegal-fbi

. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/id-exclusive-interview-trump-listen-foreigners-offered-dirt/story?id=63669304

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/paul-manafort-shared-2016-polling-data-with-russian-employee-according-to-court-filing/2019/01/08/3f562ad8-12b0-11e9-803c-4ef28312c8b9_story.html?utm_term=.3b6e2a102999

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/paul-manafort-shared-2016-polling-data-with-russian-employee-according-to-court-filing/2019/01/08/3f562ad8-12b0-11e9-803c-4ef28312c8b9_story.html?utm_term=.3b6e2a102999

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/05/trump-declines-to-affirm-natos-article-5/528129/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2019/01/31/the-strange-places-trump-gets-his-intelligence-from/#ee93b17312a9


https://www.npr.org/2017/07/11/536670194/donald-trump-jr-s-emails-about-meeting-with-russian-lawyer-annotated

Trump at Helsinki: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44852812

GOP and Democrats switch roles in the Trump era

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News, June 5, 2019
https://www.skyhinews.com/opinion/democrats-and-gop-switch-roles-in-the-trump-era/


Watching an interview with the new Democratic Congressman Jason Crow from Colorado's 6th, a Denver suburban district that flipped from red to blue in 2018, brought home how strange life has become in the Trump era. The Democrats and the GOP have reversed their traditional roles in many ways.

  Crow,  an army ranger combat veteran who rose from a private to a captain with multi tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan is no oddity in the Democratic House caucus. Now, Congress has many Democrats, ten of the 67 elected in 2018,  men and women, who have had combat experience or who were intelligence officers, and who have brought their views to Congress of respect of the military and wisdom about war.  Once respect for the military was a GOP patriotic thing, salute the flag, patriotism,  and honoring those who sacrificed their lives to keep America free. All of those traits were a  guaranteed flag waiver.  Democrats after Viet Nam were less supportive of the military and were skeptical of sentiments hyper-patriotism.   The generals who had joined the administration's White House staff are long gone after daring to advise the President in ways that were contrary to his misconceptions.   However, Democrats have been the ones who now have their ranks including military veterans and who often cite departing, disillusioned military advisors like the ones who represented forces keeping the President's worst impulses in check.   How times have changed as Democrats view military brass and veterans as forces for good as Trump sheds or fires his military White House advisers.

Once upon a time not so long ago Conservatives and the GOP were seen as defenders of the original intent of our founders in writing the constitution. The executive powers were checked and balanced by the legislature and the Supreme Court in sheer fear some future politician would rise to be King not subject to the same laws as those he governed, free to undermine and trample and interpret laws to promote his retaining power.  Now the Trump administration is the one advocating a "strong" leader and stonewalling and subverting the attempts of Congress to hold him accountable. Through appointments of federal and supreme court judges and an attorney general who has a record of advocating the supremacy of the presidency, the Trump administration is proclaiming its power to be above the law and above the ability of Congress to hold the president accountable. On the other hand, it is the Democrats who have become the champion of the original intent of our founders and the constraints on the executive branch as they interpret the meaning of the provisions of the Constitution. It is the Democrats who are supporting the mantra that no one is above the law and upholding the separation of powers as they rail against Trump's tendency to act like an imperial president.

Once upon a time, the FBI was seen as the ultimate law and order enforcer in the US, admired as macho heroes who went after terrorists and mob bosses with dogged devotion to acting on behalf of the rule of law and order, saving our freedom from the USSR aggression. Now, the integrity of the FBI is under attack by the President, who is engineering a special counsel to investigate the investigators, claiming their Republican-affiliated staff leaders were out to get him. The FBI was the GOP's good guys in the months leading up to the 2016 campaign when they announced on again and off again criminal investigations into Clinton's alleged misuse of emails and possibly disclosing classified information.  Their actions may have been the ultimate factors in her defeat though Russian interference that painted Clinton in a bad light via bots and disinformation may have played an equal role. That GOP love affair with the FBI went south in 2017 when it became common knowledge the FBI was looking into the Russian connections of Trump and his campaign associated and Donald Trump fired James Comey, the former admired FBI chief whose actions helped Trump get elected.  The Democrats emerged as the champion of the FBI and US intelligence services and the rule of law.

Upside down and changing places are partisan attitudes toward Russia. The FBI and our intelligence services kept us safe from the Soviets in the Cold War, when Russians were viewed as our sworn enemies.  The Democrats are now the ones viewing Russia as an enemy and the GOP is either in denial the Russians interfered with the 2016 elections or asking, so what is wrong with that?  In spite of the post-Soviet era thaw, the rise of former KGB operative Vladimir Putin to near dictatorial control of Russia and looking to reassemble the former Soviet influence in East European border states, has resulted in the US intelligence agencies considering Russia an adversary. On the other hand,  Donald Trump sees Russians as a trusted ally with their foreign policy goals worthy of his support. Trump in Helsinki publicly has proclaimed he trusted Putin and Russian intelligence services over our own and after other secret meetings with Putin, he took Putin's word for it that denied Russians interfered in the 2016 elections. Trump has taken actions to lift sanctions on Russians for their expansion into Ukraine, Crimea, and interference in the 2016 elections and advocated measures to weaken NATO's mutual defense function that is keeping Russians from advancing their control of NATO members. Turning a blind eye to any evidence of Russian interference presented by Mueller, the GOP seems not to care that Russians attempted to twist the minds of US voters with their use of social media and advertising, subverting US democracy's purpose of our freedom to reflect the will of our own citizens and to destroy our trust in democratic processes.


____________________________________________________________________________

Donald Trump's strategy to protect his presidential power is to investigate the investigators.  His goal is to destroy the credibility of the Mueller report without having to provide evidence refuting its findings. He wants voters to consider the motivation of the investigators as disloyal to him and to ignore the facts and conclusions. To rationalize his goal, his view is that law and order mean whether the enforcers and the intelligence services are loyal to him instead of whether they are loyal to the United States and to the Constitution to which they swore to defend when they took office. These intelligence and law enforcement agents did not pledge allegiance to the president,  or the institution of the presidency.  A dictator demands loyalty to himself, not to the impartial rule of law.  Once the GOP were the law, order, and strict  Constitution folks. How times have changed with Democrats as the ones citing the original intent of the Constitution, assuming the mantle of defenders of the rule of law, and opposing the expansion of executive powers over the legislative branch.

 Last week Trump accused those investigating him as committing "treason" against him.  He has claimed the FBI was engineering a coup against his presidency.  He believes he is the person to whom we pledge allegiance, not the United States and the democracy for which it stands. He is above the law, he thinks. Those are the words and thoughts worthy of a dictator. Treason is an accusation Trump has recently been throwing around as a way to charge his enemies with not pledging allegiance to him. Treason has two elements: working with a foreign enemy against the interests of the United States with a foreign power with which we are at war. .That definition does not include working against the interests of the president in power.

 Even more frightening, Trump is ordering all of the US intelligence services and federal law enforcement to cooperate with an investigation to see if "treason" was committed against him by beginning the investigation into Russian interference in 2016. Trump's loyal Attorney General Bill Barr has appointed a special counsel to investigate the investigators and the president granted him powers to declassify classified information, possibly exposing to our adversaries sources and methods. At the same time, the Trump administration is stonewalling sharing with Congress all of Mueller's underlying evidence and the unredacted version of the redacted report and forbidding across the board any of his administration testifying before House committees.  Last week two separate federal judges ruled against Trump's stonewalling tactics, as the conflict between Trump and the House now moves to the courts.

 Since Mueller found no evidence beyond a reasonable doubt the Trump campaign intentionally coordinated or conspired with the Russians to fix the 2016 campaign, Trump himself was exonerated of criminal conspiracy. The service to US security the Mueller report and the text of indictments provided was to lay out measures the Russians conducted to shape the 2016 election to serve their national interests, not ours.

  However, Robert Mueller cited ten examples with evidence Trump endeavored to obstruct justice ( aka the investigation) including ordering his subordinates to lie and cover-up.  Mueller also wrote he could not indict a sitting president of a crime per department rules and he plainly wrote he did not exonerate him of those violations. Trump's lawyers tried to contend that Trump failed in executing obstruction so he committed not a crime, but federal statutes only require that he ""endeavored, not that he had to succeed.   Trump's loyal AG Barr tried to deceive the public by claiming Trump was exonerated of "collusion". Mueller never looked at the more passive campaign actions of publicly encouraging, ignoring or denying, aiding and abetting,  and receiving information and intelligence, popularly called "collusion", because there is no such term in the criminal code or a provision to prosecute collusion as a crime.

 ________________________________________________________________________________
More on treason From the US Federal code: "Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason".  If there were suspicions anyone was working on behalf of a foreign government, it was Trump himself and the over one hundred contacts of his campaign and White House associates had with the Russians.  Little did Donald Trump know until later that the FBI had launched a  secret counterintelligence investigation a July 31, 2016, alarmed by the frequent contacts Trump's campaign staff had with Russian operatives and evidence of advance information a campaign official had of Russian hacking.   All of the upper echelons of the FBI were registered  Republicans and of the law and order traditions, and many were veterans of the Cold War, aware that Russia was an adversary, not a friend, of the United States. In early January 2017, US intelligence agencies warned Trump of Russian activities in the 2016 election, which he questioned and then ignored. That was even before Trump demanded loyalty from FBI Director Comey and fired him over "this Russian thing", later firing Flynn.  Trump even fired Sally Yates, the acting attorney general who warned him of the  Russian connections of Mike Flynn, his national security advisor, who was vulnerable of blackmail. Flynn later "resigned" and pled guilty of lying to the FBI. That was even before Trump demanded loyalty from FBI Director Comey and fired him over "this Russian thing".



________________________________________________________________________________

18 U.S. Code § 2381.Treason "Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(2)(J), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)

https://www.npr.org/2018/04/03/599120190/madeleine-albright-warns-dont-let-fascism-go-unnoticed-until-its-too-late?

fbclid=IwAR35fL5KyaCKmm12Y1TFgdMsNGQstMobekUoHIp0xqCAFdrkb4oM2jT2GZA

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/acting-attorney-general-fired-trump-set-testify-russias/story?id=47263460

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/06/us/politics/russia-hack-report.html

__________________________________________________________________________________
           .

.

AG Bill Barr's slick lawyer's tricks on collusion will haunt him.

Updated May 26, 2019, to include comments on treason.
A version of this was published in  the SkyhidailyNews.com May 30, 2019



AG Bill Barr's slick lawyer's tricks on collusion will haunt him. Trump's loyal Attorney General Bill Barr was very deceptive and fooling the American public when he screened the Mueller Report before it was released to the public, giving him a chance to spin his tale and trick the voters. 

Now, the President has granted the same Bill Barr access to all classified findings of any US intelligence agency, the FBI and the CIA,  and the power to declassify them if he wishes,  as his newly appointed special counsel conducts an investigation of the investigators. So now we are supposed to believe the same AG Barr in the future who now has a proven track record of deception. Barr will now be able to screen any classified findings by any of our intelligence agencies, the CIA, and the FBI and then cherry pick which phrases that make his point, regardless of the context or the qualifiers and once again spin another tale.

Barr has lost his credibility. We have been down that road with his slick lawyer trick of claiming his client, the president, is exonerated of" collusion" which Mueller did not even investigate. Mueller exonerated Trump of conspiracy, which is quite a different thing, requiring much more convincing proof and, unlike collusion, is a crime named in the criminal statutes. Conspiracy and collusion are not the same. Conspiracy  is the same as intentionally getting together,  planning actively with Russians. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is required in convicting someone of a crime. Collusion is .just aiding and abetting and receiving information. without actively conspiring and planning. Collusion could still be an article of impeachment since the House can define what is meant by high crimes and misdemeanors. To be impeached, the president does not have to have been indicted or found guilty of a crime first.

 Here is Mueller from the report:
"In evaluating whether evidence about the collective action of multiple individuals constituted a crime, we applied the framework of conspiracy law, not the concept of “collusion.” In so doing, the Office recognized that the word “collud[e]”…has frequently been invoked in public reporting about the investigation. But collusion is not a specific offense or theory of liability found in the United States Code, nor is it a term of art in federal criminal law. For those reasons, the Office’s focus in analyzing questions of joint criminal liability was on conspiracy as defined in federal law."

Barr's client, the President, has his own view of the investigators who investigated him. Barr will have a heck of a time trying to defend and spin Trump's newest charge that those who investigated him committed treason or that the Mueller investigation was an illegitimate "coup".  Last week Trump accused those investigating him of committing "treason" against him and he called them out by name. Those are the words and thoughts worthy of the dictators Trump so admires. Treason laws are designed to protect his power and longevity in office, he thinks. 

Trump has charged the FBI with engineering a coup against himself. As he claimed in his angry and defiant rant last week,  the FBI was working against the "wrong person". This is the same person who meets Putin in secret with whom he shares classified information,  and whose campaign associates had over 200 contacts with Russians, eight of whom have been indicted and some in jail,. This is a person whose fondest dream before and while a candidate is to do the biggest business deal of his life in Russia.  He believes he is the person to whom we pledge allegiance, not to the United States and the democracy, its laws, and national security interests. 

Here is why Donald Trump's bluster and threats against those on his enemy list will go nowhere. Treason has two elements in the Constitution and federal statutes. : 1.working against the interests of the United States 2.with a foreign power with which we are at war. .That definition does not include working against the interests of the president himself.   We have not declared war against Russia, though we consider them our adversary working actively to undermine our democracy and to shape our foreign policy to suit their national interests which are contrary to ours.

 Barr has appointed a special counsel to investigate the investigators to discover whatt led to the Mueller investigation. His challenges are many.in this new investigation.  If claiming the Mueller report and investigation was a "coup", a hoax,  and an illegal witch hunt undertaken by  FBI agents  "out to get him" and not loyal to the president  (other Trump attack lines),   a federal appeals court  in the Roger Stone trial already ruled that the special counsel's appointment was legitimate.  If there was smoke, fire was found. Russian interference in the 2016 election was laid out in vivid detail in the Mueller Report, resulting in numerous indictments of spies and GRU operatives. Five of Trump's campaign associates and three others have already pleaded guilty, mostly for lies and cover-ups of Russian and foreign contacts (including national security advisor Lt.Gen. Mike Flynn),  but also for witness tampering.and bank fraud ( Trump's campaign manager Paul Manafort) and a Russian operative Maria Butina for spying.. Trump himself was conspirator person number one in another case of election finance violations which landed his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, in prison for three years.

18 U.S. Code § 2381. Treason "Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-doesn-t-understand-what-treason-means-n1009636

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/special-counsel-robert-muellers-appointment-is-valid-federal-appeals-court-rules/2019/02/26/5c28505c-fd5a-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html?utm_term=.d353d22560f9

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/31/fox-news-viewer-surprised-that-mueller-hadnt-exonerated-trump-obstruction/?utm_term=.696a8646a726

Barking up the wrong tree

Update: evening May 20 2019

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-financial-subpoena-court-upholds-house-subpoena-president-trump-financial-records-live-updates-2019-05-20/



Link to Judge Mehta's opinion text
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/20/politics/mehta-opinion-trump-subpoena-case/index.html

The House demanding the Trump records from an accounting firm landed in court and the Trump argument that it was for political purposes was tossed out by the judge as he ruled against the White House.  This is important because it reaffirms the oversight function of Congress and its subpoena powers, implying that impeachment is not necessary for Congress to get subpoenas obeyed. The ruling was also very quick as such process goes and the Trump strategy to try to drag out the court process until after 2020 may not work. Chances are further court cases like this may meet the same fate. This is a victory for the rule of law and the oversight powers of Congress with or without having to begin impeachment. Trump hopes to keep away from voters any evidence of wrongdoing, piously saying leave it up to the voters in 2020. How can either voters or Congress make a decision if the facts are hidden from them?

A version of the following was published in the Sky Hi News, 5 22 2019
https://www.skyhinews.com/opinion/opinion-muftic-investigating-the-investigators/

The Special Counsel's report into Russian interference in the 2016 elections is continuing to dog President Trump in spite of proclamations by his cohorts in the Senate and himself that the case was closed. See, he says,  it was all a hoax and a witch hunt anyway.  This is in spite of five of Trump's campaign and White House associates, and three others pleading guilty of Mueller's findings, two of which are already sitting in jail.. The Trump administration's real feelings expressed in their actions suggest otherwise.  The Trump administration is diverting voters' attention away from the Mueller findings and instead is urging them to bark up another tree: investigate the investigators.

 So afraid of House hearings and talks of beginning the impeachment process, Trump and his Senate supporters are acting as if they fear the voters might get a more vivid picture of the report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller when witnesses testify before the House committees and the words they speak themselves are carried on national TV. The bulkiness of the  448 pages of the report makes it nearly impossible for the public to sort the most important trees from such a dense forest of words just by reading it.  In response, the Trump strategy is to keep as many key witnesses from responding to subpoenas to testify, using executive privilege and excuses politics are being played and to keep any underlying evidence or an unredacted report from seeing the light of day. Trump is now refusing to let the former White House Counsel, Don Mcgahn, appear, telling him to ignore the subpoena.  Barr is already facing contempt of Congress charges for refusing to release the full unredacted Mueller report.

 AG Bill Barr last week appointed a special prosecutor to determine if the investigators spied on the Administration or were politically motivated. The administration had already tried to argue that the appointment of  Mueller was illegal but that argument was shot down by a federal appeals court earlier in a case involving Roger Stone. This new special counsel investigation is a sideshow to the main event. It is obviously designed to divert voters' attention from the more consequential tree, the substance, and veracity of the Mueller Report, and discovery of more damning information not included in the redacted report itself.  The pressure to appoint this new counsel came from Trump supporters.  The Administration has not offered an effective counter-response to the detailed evidence, sworn testimony, and substance of the Mueller report.  Instead, the administration is trying to attack the whole report's credibility based on its origins and motivations of the investigators.

There was no hoax when it came to what the Russians did in 2016. The Russian witches were flying in full regalia on the broomstick of modern media throughout  Volume I of the Mueller report.  The Russians were not exonerated of their active measures to try to twist the minds of voters. In fact, their spies and GRU operatives were indicted.  That is a different finding when it came to the President, who was exonerated of conspiring, coordinating and plotting with the Russians. Trump was not exonerated of obstruction of justice but the Department of Justice rules kept him from being indicted. The Trump appointed Attorney General Bill Barr deceived the public when he asserted the President was exonerated by Mueller for "collusion".  In his redacted report, Mueller wrote he did not even investigate the President for "collusion"; he investigated the criminal charge of conspiring which requires evidence of intent and active coordination with the Russians. There was not enough evidence to prove a conspiracy. They may have welcomed Russian actions, provided polling data, and encouraged Russia to act ("Russia if you are listening, find Hillary's missing emails"), tried to establish back-channel communications, and met with Russian officials and operatives more than a hundred times,  and promoted Russian foreign policy regarding Ukraine and sanctions,  but that was not enough  evidence of  "conspiracy" as defined by criminal statutes.

What is at stake in the House investigations is more than just educating the public, embarrassing the President,  and impacting public opinion for 2020 presidential elections. It is about recommending changes to the Special Counsel legislation and shaping and funding elections to be protected from foreign interference in the future. The legislation is already in the works to limit the President's power to dangle pardons to influence testifiers and giving greater access to tax returns.

 Yet to be discovered by the House is whatever happened to the counterintelligence investigation that was launched July 31, 2016,  and to learn if the Russians had evidence that they could hold over the President to force him to act in Russia's interest.  These findings were not included in the Mueller report and they still need to be pursued.  The House is hoping Trump's tax reports release could shed light on to whom he owed money and the Administration is fighting that release of tax reports tooth and nail.

Also at issue is even more than just a power struggle between two branches of government. It is getting at the truth by seeing the entire unredacted version of the Mueller report, its underlying evidence, and the grand jury findings.  Some of this cannot be discovered unless formal impeachment proceedings are begun, a process that empowers Congress greater ability to access the information. In the meantime, the action or slow action moves to the courts, which Trump hopes will draw out any decisions until after 2020. Congress can only fine (and unlikely imprison) those who refuse to honor subpoenas.  Charging contempt of Congress carries no real penalties other than to expose to the public bad behavior by officials.

 The only branch with any power to force the Administration to abide by the subpoenas is the Courts, which is where the real fight will now take place. The Courts do have power to jail and fine for contempt of their orders. The argument the Administration gives for stonewalling Congressional subpoenas is that Congress wants the information for political reasons only.   If case law coming from the Nixon impeachment era stand,  those arguments will not hold water. Two articles of impeachment charged against Nixon were stonewalling subpoenas from Congress and by endeavoring to obstruct justice. Similar charges could be at play in any Trump impeachment process.




________________________________________________________________________________

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/06/01/spying-treason-and-politics-trump-raises-stakes-russia-investigation/3769752002/?csp=chromepush

https://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/396307-Did-FBI-get-bamboozled-by-multiple-versions-of-Trump-dossier%3F

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/21/donald-trump-distraction-technique-media

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/special-counsel-robert-muellers-appointm

http://time.com/5585946/william-barr-contempt-congress-consequences/

https://www.justsecurity.org/63838/guide-to-the-mueller-reports-findings-on-collusion/

Impeachment? Not so fast

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News Dec. 11-12, 2018
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/opinion/opinion-muftic-impeachment-not-so-fast/

Immediately last Friday after Michael Cohen’s sentencing memo was filed, President Trump crowed he was cleared and the opposition media claimed there were grounds for impeachment because the President was in effect an unindicted co-conspirator of a crime, which was closer to reality. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s court filings regarding Paul Manafort were either redacted or sealed, revealing little.

Often cited are precedents set by both the impeachment of Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.   Neither Nixon nor Clinton was found guilty or was removed from office by Congressional votes. A simple majority in the House can vote to impeach,  but  two-thirds of the Senate must  agree to find him guilty and remove him from office.

 Impeachment is not so much a matter of law  as it is a political action. Voters’ opinions can  give members of Congress political backbones: Clinton’s public  job approval ratings polled  during the impeachment/trial remained over 70% and 66% were against removing him from office over the issue of lying and coverup of sexual misconduct.   Nixon, after release of the tapes, dropped from winning the prior election to  a 31%  job approval with 43% opposing removal from office.  During Nixon’s threatened impeachment, Democrats , the opposition party, controlled both House and Senate with significant majorities. Republican Nixon  resigned before the House could vote  to impeach because tapes were made public that confirmed his guilt. Like Nixon, Clinton's  opposition party, Republicans,  controlled both the Senate and the House though the vote even in the GOP controlled Senate fell short of the two thirds needed and he was acquitted. In Donald Trump's case, the House will be in the hands of Democrats ; the Senate's majority party is Trump's.

The current  public mood  should give the GOP shudders. It is similar to Nixon’s. The key public voter question is whether the actions of the President as charged by Congress  justifies his removal from office , which is the end result of a Senate conviction.  Trump’s  current job approval is around 40% with 42% opposed to his removal from office per a June 2018 poll.  This is  before we know much of what  Special Counsel Robert Mueller has found.

 That Democrats gained a decisive majority in the House of Representatives in  November means they have the simple majority  of votes  needed to impeach Trump  without any GOP help  At this moment it is a debatable intra party question of whether impeachment is an effective political strategy, distracting from promoting their public policy  agenda.  GOP control of the Senate would block removal of the president  at this time in any case. 

So far, public knowledge of facts implicating Trump is thin. Recently filed  court documents do indicate  business financial gain could have been his motivation to commit crimes of conspiracy/collusion and obstruction of justice.  The closest to fingering Donald Trump himself came  last week in the Michael Cohen case filings in which Cohen claimed he was instructed by the President  to break campaign finance  laws.  That  the President intended  to pay for silence of women with whom he had affairs was to protect family peace, not campaign purposes as Cohen claims, could be a reasonable  defense.   Whether the public would think lying and coverup of sexual misdeeds  alone justifies  removing  him from office is  very questionable.    It makes sense to wait for Mueller’s report and findings of Democratic dominated House  committees.
______________________________________________________________________________
https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/22/politics/impeach-trump-nixon-support-bill-clinton-poll/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_process_against_Richard_Nixon
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/29/politics/michael-cohen-guilty-plea-misleading-congress/index.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-tower-moscow-it-was-the-end-of-a-long-failed-push-to-invest-in-russia-1543532455

Footnotes: On Friday, December 7, 2018  the Southern District of New York's sentencing memo regarding Michael Cohen repeated the charge that Cohen committed a crime by arranging a method to pay off two women who knew of Trump's immoral and unfaithful conduct  for the principal purpose  that they would remain silent during the campaign. Significantly, the SDNY filing said that Cohen committed the crime under the direction of the president.  This could be very damning for the president, though he cannot be indicted for doing it. Any punishment would have to be through the impeachment process. Trump claimed immediately he was "totally cleared". .  The SDNY filings regarding Cohen said that he had been helpful, but not fully. The Mueller fillings said Coehn had been helpful on  the Russian conncection and that Cohen's jail term could be served at the same time as the judge ruled in the SDNY case.
Both the Clinton impeachment case and the Michael Cohen/Trump charges involved lying and covering up sexual misconduct.  Some Republicans voted not to convict Clinton, and all Democrats stood by their man.  Later public opinion polls showed 57% the public did not want Clinton to lose his job over the issue and they considered the impeachment harmful to the country (Gallup via Wikipedia summary)
The Mueller filings regarding Manafort pointed to lies  to the Special Counsel about his coordination with the White  House in 2018 and lies about his contacts with Konstantin Kilimnik, his associate, who had ties with Russian military intelligence, the DNC hackers.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/07/politics/michael-cohen-robert-mueller-donald-trump/index.html

Also see the prior blog posting 12/3/2018. The tangled web of Trump-Russian deceit.

If sexual misconduct, lying and coverup did not reach the "time does not fit the crime" in the Cllinton case , i.e. the offense was not the reason for the Senate to convict because it was not serious enough and the administration's ability to conduct business (high job approval rating), then the "high crimes" needed to be something worse.  Worse could be  treason, bribery and a serious high crime...definition is up to the House to say what it is. What would be "high" enough to warrant a Senate conviction?  Look for  proof beyond reasonable doubt of treason  (collusion, conspire) to work against US, bribery..a tit for tat like: Russia will help Trump win if he gets sanctions against Russians lifted; money lauundering, emoluments clause violations, tax evasion, and whatever else the House defines.   Another nagging problem is can a President be impeached for what he did before he took office?  The other problem: the DOJ has its own rules that a sitting president cannot be indicted for a crime, but nothing in the Constitution forbids this. If the offenses took place before the President was sworn in, he could be indicted after he left office and prosecuted, though. 

Abuse of power: another article of impeachment?

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News, June 13-14, 2018
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-abuse-of-power-another-article-of-impeachment/

A new term is creeping into the impeachment vocabulary thanks to recent media focus.  It is abuse of power , the  second article of impeachment against Nixon in the Watergate scandal. Reminders of this are  good reasons to  take a  deeper dive into where we stand today on impeachment and what articles of impeachment could be brought  if Donald Trump were to be the subject.

 First, impeachment of Trump is unlikely but possible. What is different from Watergate  is that Democrats held the majority In both House and Senate and  controlled the House impeachment process when GOP Nixon was president.  Today, President Trump’s party is the majority in both House and Senate. Even then, it would take a vote of 2/3 of the Senate to convict even if  the  House of Representatives  turns blue in 2018 and begins the impeachment process.  Chances are slim  that Donald Trump would be impeached while the Senate is likely to be still  too closely divided to convict. The House or Senate  could gain a Democratic majority in 2018, and do damage to the GOP/Trump in 2020 by holding hearings, though.   A  damning report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller or Trump’s firing of the investigators investigating him  might even  give a GOP Congress  enough of  a backbone to proceed. So far Trump has been told by Mueller  he is a subject, but not the target of his criminal  investigations, yet. Impeachment articles are as the House defines them.  Much could  fall under the Constitution’s   high crimes and misdemeanors clause.

 Nixon resigned  before impeachment.  We still have the articles of impeachment to compare and contrast.  The  first article of impeachment against Nixon was obstruction of justice. White House tapes showed he lied about his part in the coverup.  In Trump’s case , Mueller must show  Donald Trump’s criminal intent was to obstruct the Russian investigation when he fired  FBI Director James Comey. Impeachment articles do not need  a prosecution’s criminal findings, though.  In December Trump wanted to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the chief investigator investigating him, and Mueller’s boss, Rod Rosenstein, before they have made their final report. He claims often they are on a witch hunt. He has  backed off when GOP senators said that would be obvious evidence of  intent to obstruct  justice. Some witches have been found already in Trumps immediate circle and some are  Russians. Many  are under Mueller’s gun, some  already charged, indicted,  pleaded, out on bond,  or in jail

 Other possible impeachment articles authorized  in the Constitution are bribery and   treason, neither in Nixon’s articles. Treason could  be  more politely defined  as (collusion)  conspiring with a foreign government (Russia)  to help his  election and their national interests, a major focus of the Mueller investigation.  Connections between the Trump business organization and Trump himself benefiting from recent real estate loan deals with China coinciding with lifting sanctions on a Chinese telecom are raising eyebrows, not to mention violation of Constitutional emoluments clauses.

  In the Nixon case the abuse of power charge was based on his ordering  the IRS  to go after those on his enemies list, including the LA Times and their owners.  Trump’s repeated  demands  of  the semi autonomous  postmaster  to increase postal rates on Amazon, is suspected abuse  because its owner, Jeff Bezos, also owns the Washington Post, Trump’ chief media critic. Trump  has tried to argue Amazon pays   too low  postal rates which causes USPS deficits, but obvious evidence is  that deficit is caused by pension funding. Trump’s role in the denial of the Time Warner ATT merger that would have helped CNN is once again under scrutiny.  To be subject to impeachment and  prosecution,  the threat does not need to be carried out. Update June 12, 2018  Courts OK Time Warner ATT merger:https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/12/att-time-warner-merger-approved-642333

___________________________________________________________________________________

 To write this blog, I drew on so many source and documents, and my own research for prior posts on the impeachment procedure,  there are too many to list. However, I am particularly indebted for MSNBC’s  Rachel Maddow’s calling thoroughly documented  attention to the history of the Nixon impeachment’s article 2 in a recent broadcast and the implication of Trump’s demand on the US Postal Service

An update: Trump refuses to provide information about how he has  persoally profited during his tenure...another example of both abuse of power and thumbing his nose at the emoluments clause:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/05/trumps-company-isnt-tracking-all-the-money-it-gets-from-foreign-governments

http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/15/media/trump-jessica-rosenworcel-nbc-license/index.html

http://fortune.com/2018/05/12/rudy-giuliani-trump-att-time-warner-merger/

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-11/trump-threatens-nbc-tv-licenses-after-story-on-nuclear-buildup

BBC reports Cohen took Ukraine bribe money to arrange meeting with Trump http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44215656

https://www.yahoo.com/news/anything-stop-foreign-government-favors-trump-043850542.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/10/us/politics/trump-sought-to-fire-mueller-in-december.html

https://criminal-law.freeadvice.com/criminal-law/violent_crimes/criminal-threats.htm

Articles of impeachment against Nixon regarding abuse of power: . ”repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice in the conduct of lawful inquiries, of contravening the law of governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposes of these agencies. ...”   

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/02/trump-amazon-jeff-bezos-stock-value-495803

As I noted in a prior Facebook posting that this threat against Amazon shipping rates  is really  stupid  on Trump’s part. Amazon can switch to Fed Ex and UPS with which they already have contracts avoiding the Post Office and this will spur Amazon’s stated plans to short cut all of these services by moving up the time line in establishing their own delivery service, already in the works. The only people punished by this will be us consumers and million customers of Amazon who will pay higher shipping rates or they will be absorbed by Amazon until their own service is on line or they use UPS and Fed Ex instead.  The financial loss will be USPS’.

  Full disclosure: I am the owner of a small cosmetic company which is an Amazon seller and I am a customer, too.  I live  an hour and a half way from major retailers so I depend on ecommerce.  Even when my own web ecommerce site sells the same items at a lower price also  including shipping, customers prefer to order the same ones offered  on Amazon because they trust their guarantees and policies made to Prime customers and prefer  the user friendliness  of their technology.  I imagine  Donald Trump is neither an Amazon  seller nor a customer so he has no clue other than  thinking this is a way to punish a media outlet owner by trying to damage his  other business’ investors’ stock prices. This action if implemented  is likely to end up in civil court anyway over  contract matters.

Trump and the GOP Congress are who Madison warned us about

A version of this was published in the Sky Hi News, June 5, 2018
https://www.skyhinews.com/news/muftic-trump-and-the-gop-congress-madison-warned-us/


“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”

― James Madison, Federalist Papers

What we are witnessing now is the very thing  founding father Madison warned our new country about.  The writers of our constitution divided the power centers of government into three, executive, legislative, and judicial, each with a check  on the other. Madison warned there was a way to undermine these checks and balances. What was not yet formed when he wrote this were political parties, but he described them as “accumulation of all powers in ...the same hands”, " of many or a few."  The "few" today is one party, the Republicans, in control of all three branches of government with members unwilling to check actions of the president. Worse, they have taken advantage of their party’s control  to protect the President , actively attacking  the credibility  of the investigators and their findings, and obstructing  the investigation into  Russian meddling. They are knocking the props out of our three legged  stool of checks and balances, and separation of powers.. 

Donald Trump's  defense is that the FBI is a "deep state" full of Obama people out to get him just as they were in the 2016 election. That is worthy of a belly laugh, since while the FBI was keeping secret their investigation into Trump during the campaign, Comey  twice announced to public they had Clinton and her emails under investigation , which played into her defeat, causing her  polls to crash each time. Furthermore,   every major player on the FBI, Mueller probe, and  judges approving surveillance warrants,  are also registered Republicans. 

The GOP dominated Congress is a profile in cowardice.  GOP congress members  fear that the findings of Special Counsel Robert Mueller would damage  their control of Congress and loss of the White House in 2020, or cause  early removal of the president.  Mueller is investigating whether the President or members of his close circle conspired or  wanted to coordinate activities with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election on Donald Trump’s behalf as well as whether he or his circle  obstructed justice, and/or  engaged in financial crimes.

The GOP Congress  has done more than just nothing. They have become  Trump's active partners in his attempt to obstruct   Mueller's criminal  investigation of Trump, a subject of the investigation,  by demanding investigations of the investigators and  unmasking of FBI informants, Now  Mueller's boss, Assistant Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, is  under a threat of  firing,  or contempt of Congress unless evidence Mueller found to date be turned over to Trump and the GOP to help with  Trump's self serving defense . Rosenstein agreed to brief them but only GOP Congress people were invited, excluding Democrats., That makes this so ultra partisan and deck stacking Trump supportive, it  is more than making a  joke  of the House  Intelligence Committee's bi partisan oversight purpose for which it was established,  or  violating the established  rules of discovery in a criminal case. It is clearly obstruction of justice by the President for his own benefit, and  of GOP Congresspeople obstructing justice as well.. 

The  House Intelligence Committee headed by a GOP Trump loyalist, Rep. Devin Nunes, cut short their investigation, refused to call key witnesses, and announced there was no there, there. A Senate committee  showed more spunk, concluding  there was some “there there”, that Russians did interfere in the 2016 elections to support Trump. Duh. Their findings were issued after the text of Mueller's  indictments of thirteen Russians provided the evidence and public release of thousands of Facebook ads   engineered and paid for by Russians ,  and after a report issued  by US intelligence agencies in January 2017.

 In the meantime, the GOP  Senate is attempting to control  an independent judiciary for future years,  fast tracking approval of nominees to 140  lifetime positions as judges in federal courts who  pass GOP ideological public policy litmus tests instead of  showing a devotion to interpretations  based on independent judgment and legal precedent. 
______________________________________________________________________

https://www.yahoo.com/news/watchdog-report-fault-fbi-clinton-probe-delay-171219936--
politics.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/vote-against-the-gop-this-november/2018/06/22/a6378306-
7575-11e8-b4b7-308400242c2e_story.html?utm_term=.909de71be9e7

https://www.justice.gov/file/1035477/download

https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/4/27/17290628/russia-meddling-final-report-house-intel

https://democrats-intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/20180411_-_final_-_hpsci_minority_views_on_majority_report.pdf

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/what-when-the-prosecution-must-disclose.html

https://www.axios.com/russia-facebook-ads-political-race-election-85b9ad01-5606-4c66-ba21-ead811895dc7.html