When you come for the king, your best not miss. That’s the message Donald Trump and his cronies are sending. Consider Corey Lewandowski’s performance on Fox Business last Thursday night.
Here’s the full transcript of that exchange:
GREGG JARRETT (GUEST HOST): The distraction, as you call it, I think is driven by fear. They fear what is about to happen, the inspector general report is going to come out. And I suspect it’s going to be devastating about corruption in the Obama administration, under his leadership at the FBI and the Department of Justice. How they used their positions in law enforcement to target Americans for political reasons, which is a clear abuse of power and a myriad of other crimes: lying to a FISA court, which would not only be perjury, but obstruction of justice as well. And I think they fear what Bill Barr is doing, investigating the investigators. What do you think?
COREY LEWANDOWSKI (FORMER TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER): They should be fearful. And I will tell you why, the person who has gotten a pass on this so far is Joe Biden. Because I believe that the investigation, which was launched, came from somewhere inside the White House to green light [James] Clapper, [James] Comey, and [John] Brennan to start this investigation into Donald Trump for no valid reason. We now know the State Department — we’ve seen the contemporaneous emails that were put in place after Victoria Nuland did a meeting with Christopher Steele. They notified the FBI this person had no credibility, but it continued because it came from the highest levels of the government and Joe Biden has not answered what he knew and when he knew it of how this investigation began.
And when Attorney General Barr and Mr. [Michael] Horowitz release that report in approximately a month, I think we are going to see additional criminal referrals with [Andrew] McCabe getting another referral, Comey a referral, [Peter] Strzok and [Lisa] Page, James Baker, possibly Bruce Ohr and other people who we haven’t even meant as household names yet will have criminal referrals. And I think what we’re going to see, Gregg, is in March or April of next year, James Comey, Andy McCabe, Strzok and Paige will be on trial for the crimes they committed against the Fourth Amendment and against this president. But we can’t wait.
This is what I was talking about in my “Things Are So Tense That It’s All Gonna Blow piece.
In a chilling appearance before the press, the president not only accused James Comey and Andrew McCabe of treason but didn’t disagree that the appropriate punishment for treason is death. He said that they came after the wrong person and suggested that they’d be paying a severe price. I can’t remember witnessing a more ominous performance by an American president.
For reference, Michael Horowitz is the inspector general of the Department of Justice and he’s been charged with investigating the “‘allegations of misconduct’ regarding FBI Director James B. Comey’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices and whether Justice Department employees leaked information improperly during the run-up to the 2016 United States presidential election.” The fever swamps of the right are placing great hopes in his work in the expectation that it will lead to the arrest and possible execution of Trump’s detractors in the intelligence community. Clearly the president is one of those fever swamp denizens.
Robert Mueller can continue to resist testifying in public in the hope that his reputation will remain intact if he keeps his head down, but he may look around soon and discover that a lot of his colleagues are missing their heads.
If you find evidence of criminal behavior by the president, you can’t just submit a meek report, have it mischaracterized by the attorney general and then only agree to testify in private.
That is shooting and missing. That’s a mistake you can’t make with a person like Donald Trump.
Yet that is exactly what they will all do, and trust in Mueller was always a mistake.
Nothing will happen to Comey or the rest. No jail, no execution, no trial. No impeachment vote.
And Trump will be 50/50 going into the election.
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He may be 50/50 going into the election but that will only confirm that fifty percent of our society has their head up their asses. I was never in favor of conflict but this tolerating Russian interference is getting too much to stomach.
How in hell can they allow Mueller to hide? Even if he has nothing, nothing at all, he must sit in open testimony. No hiding behind Nadler’s skirt. And while I am at it, why the hell have they not opened an inquiry so there is no doubt where congress is headed. Win or lose, I want the shit out there and there is plenty of shit including his pay offs and asking the Russians out loud to help him.
I don’t know what kind of sham investigation they are running. Imagine giving Barr access to top secret information and the damage that can cause to our operatives and our allies. This is itself criminal IMO, a high crime just like calling the Russians to help him. I want to see how Mueller answers that. He is attacking our security and this too is an impeachable act. Imagine that, wide open tell your enemies all you know of them? They should lock him up a long time.
And Nancy doesn’t want to open an inquiry? Let’s die in battle not this way.
Why die in battle at all? The point of engaging in battle is to defeat your opponent. (I think it was Gen. Patton who said something like, “Men, you’re not here to die for your country; you’re here to make some other poor SOB die for his country.”
House Dems should (imho) take a hard line on Trump and his people, hold lots of hearings in public, and use every tactic available to them to drive the public narrative about Trump’s corrupt and illegal behavior.
True enough but the Dems are fearful that impeaching Trump will make him more powerful. That must be overcome or we get nothing as in nothing ventured nothing gained. So, yes, they need to take a hard line and take the risk. Open up an impeachment inquiry.
Well, if that’s what they’re afraid of, they’re missing the point. This is a situation where the wisdom of popular educators like Paolo Freire and Myles Horton applies: we make the road by walking.
House Democrats don’t have to impeach Trump now. Their job right now is to use the powers they have to investigate, and to educate the public. Do that, and the question of whether to impeach or not will take care of itself.
I don’t understand the premises of this discussion. What else could Mueller do under the circumstances? His report is quite devastating. And the report is far from all. It’s thanks to Mueller that many investigations and court cases are proceeding in relative safety. It doesn’t matter if he testifies in private, in fact it’s preferable. They will get what they need and it will be relatively free of the distractions of the media/political circus.The republicans are getting extremely vicious now but that’s not Mueller’s fault, in fact it’s a tribute to his effectiveness. They are scared shitless. They are bluffing like crazy, and it’s having its effect, but it’s still bluffing.
What I’m really worried about is not so much Trump, who is as much of an idiot as ever, but Barr, who turns out to be a REAL piece of work and far from stupid. But I think they are all getting their instructions straight from Moscow.
The Democrats have plenty of more witnesses to choose from, that will require no subpoenas to educate the public.