Category Archives: Justice Department
Plenty of FBI Abuse to go Around In IG Report
Eli Lake at Bloomberg thinks the FBI is lucky, in a weird sort of way. That’s because the IG report shows the FBI abuse wasn’t just aimed at the Trump Campaign. The IG also found 39 other defective FISA applications.
In the twisted politics of the Trump Era, some of bureau’s defenders might actually view this report as good news: It shows that the investigation of the Trump campaign was not necessarily politically motivated. The bureau made the same kinds of mistakes with suspects who were not connected to the Trump campaign.
Weaponizing the Justice Department
President Trump is weaponizing the Justice Department. At least that’s what former insiders told Rachel Maddow.
And they thought Trump was a Russian asset. So the FBI used a phony dossier to get FISA court approval to spy on the 2016 Trump campaign. But when Special Counsel Mueller investigated Russian Collusion for 2 1/2 yers he came up empty handed.
Weaponizing Wing Man
So now AG Barr is investigating the investigators. And President Obama’s “wing man” Eric Holder calls that “unprecedented” behavior.
Trump Tweet Trips Barr
President Trump is driving his best Attorney General, who never recused himself, around the bend. So much so that A.G. Barr told ABC News that Trump is making it impossible to do his job.
Trump Tweet
Here’s why. When federal prosecutors recommended a 7-9 year sentence for the president’s odd associate, Roger Stone, Trump was moved to tweet:
“This is a horrible and very unfair situation. The real crimes were on the other side, and nothing happens to them. Cannot allow this miscarriage of justice!”
As it turns out, the Trump tweet may have been right. Barr’s Justice Department wasn’t going to allow “this miscarriage of justice.” They had already decided to ask the judge for a more lenient sentence.
But now it looked like Barr was just following Trump’s orders. So the original 4 prosecutors got mad, quit and hell broke loose.
White House Safe House
Accidental President
I got the idea of a the White House as a safe house from a Holman Jenkins column in the WSJ. He doesn’t think Trump expected to win.
Winning was his colossal if propitious miscalculation. Nobody would care about Stormy Daniels if he weren’t president. His decades-long pursuit of a Trump Tower in Moscow would be a non-story…
Unfortunately, it will also occur to Mr. Trump now that his best move is to cling to the White House at all costs. That’s because under Justice Department guidelines he can expect not to be indicted as long as he remains in office.
