Trump Justice Department
August 28, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Like the enemies of the United States in the Chinese and Iranian regimes, American intelligence agencies are waiting out President Trump. In this case, they are waiting out Trump to suppress the evidence of their wrongdoing in the 2016 presidential campaign. At RealClearInvestigations, Paul Sperry reports in “U.S. Intel Gatekeeper Dragging Feet on Trump-Russia Files, Insiders Say.” The whole thing is worth reading, but the first section especially warrants the
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June 11, 2019 — Scott Johnson
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler wanted information about the investigation that Attorney General Barr has commissioned into the spying conducted by the FBI and others involved in the Trump-Russia probe. Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd responded to Nadler yesterday by letter (embedded below). Barr has named United States Attorney John Durham to conduct the investigation. Analyze this: the investigation is “broad in scope and multifaceted[.]” The investigation is to
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June 5, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the government to produce transcripts of recordings in the case against Michael Flynn, over which he is presiding. Before getting to the government’s excused defiance of this order, I want to reiterate a point that has consumed my interest because of its revelatory qualities. It is thanks to Judge Sullivan that we have the unedited transcript of Trump attorney John Dowd’s voicemail message to Flynn lawyer
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May 18, 2019 — Scott Johnson
FOX News has now posted Bill Hemmer’s entire interview with Attorney General William Barr in San Salvador (video below). In the course of this fantastic interview Hemmer asked a series of questions about Barr’s investigation of the Russia hoax. All of Barr’s answers throughout, including his discreet nonresponses and amused smiles, are of intense interest. Yesterday I quoted Barr: “What I will say is that I’ve been trying to get
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May 17, 2019 — Scott Johnson
The current conflict between John Brennan and James Comey — see Vivek Saxena’s compilation here — puts Saxena in mind of Mad Magazine’s long-running Spy Versus Spy feature. It puts me in mind of the Iran-Iraq war according to Henry Kissinger: “It’s a pity both sides can’t lose.” Well, maybe both sides can lose. Bill Hemmer sat down with Attorney General Barr in San Salvador yesterday. Hemmer took the opportunity
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April 19, 2019 — Scott Johnson
I was tied up all day yesterday attending the trial of Mohamed Noor. This morning I tracked down the FOX News video of Attorney General Barr’s press conference on the release of the Mueller report (full video below). Perhaps not surprisingly, it doesn’t quite conform to what I heard about it in the news on the radio coming home. I thought that readers who were also otherwise engaged yesterday might
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April 12, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Kim Strassel devotes her weekly Wall Street Journal column today — “Barr brings accountability” (behind the Journal’s column) — to the news that Attorney General William Barr is undertaking a review of the surveillance of the Trump presidential campaign conducted by the FBI and intelligence agencies under the Obama administration. As we have frequently observed, we weren’t meant to learn a blessed thing about this surveillance. Strassel picks up this
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April 11, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Democrats cannot handle the truth. We saw this yesterday in their uniform reaction to Attorney General Barr’s acknowledgment that “Spying did occur” on the Trump presidential campaign. The link is to today’s Wall Street Journal editorial (by Kim Strassel, I am quite sure, and behind the Journal’s paywall. Somewhere near the top of this post, however, I want to quote a sentence from Mollie Hemingway’s Federalist column on the Barr
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April 4, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
A House panel voted yesterday to authorize subpoenas to obtain Robert Mueller’s full report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The vote was strictly along party lines. Democrats aren’t going to issue the subpoena yet. First, they will negotiate with the Justice Department. But Democrats are holding a losing hand. This subpoena, like all the others House Democrats are thinking about issuing, cannot, in all likelihood, be effectively enforced.
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March 29, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
I wrote here about Jessie Liu, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and the Trump administration’s nominee for Associate Attorney General, the number three position at the Justice Department. Liu’s nomination concerned me because she was the Vice President of the National Association of Women Lawyers (NAWL) when that organization opposed and condemned the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. NAWL stated: [Alito] is not qualified
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March 22, 2019 — Paul Mirengoff
As Steve notes, special counsel Robert Mueller has submitted his report to attorney general William Barr. This completes the Mueller investigation, though not its outgrowth in the office of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Fox News reports that Mueller has not recommended any new indictments. Thus, President Trump will not be indicted based on the Mueller report. What we don’t know is why. Is it
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February 15, 2019 — Scott Johnson
Senator Amy Klobuchar — Minnesota’s own presidential candidate — proudly joined all but three of the Senate’s other Democrats to vote yesterday against the confirmation of William Barr as Attorney General. Her tweet below provides the short form of her stated rationale. My statement on AG nominee William Barr: pic.twitter.com/ghbg67uWX8 — Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) February 14, 2019 Klobuchar gave a speech on the floor of the Senate in which she
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September 21, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In the memoir Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds’ Hit List (written with Stephen Saltarelli), Howard Root tells the story of his experience as chief executive officer of Vascular Solutions caught in the crosshairs of the federal government when prosecutors sought to put his company out of business and to send him to the big house. Howard touched on one aspect of his story in
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September 9, 2018 — Scott Johnson
Andrew McCarthy’s weekly NR column poses this pointed question: “For precisely what federal crimes is the president of the United States under investigation by a special counsel appointed by the Justice Department?” He observes: “It is intolerable that, after more than two years of digging — the 16-month Mueller probe having been preceded by the blatantly suspect labors of the Obama Justice Department and FBI — we still do not
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September 1, 2018 — Scott Johnson
In “More Mueller madness” I mention today’s Wall Street Journal editorial decrying the wrong done to our friend Cleta Mitchell in connection with the Russia investigation(s). Cleta is the prominent Foley & Lardner partner and campaign finance expert. The Journal editorial is “Anatomy of a Fusion smear” (truncated but accessible here on Outline). That Fusion smear was planted in his accustomed style by Glenn Simpson with a few of his
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August 19, 2018 — Scott Johnson
The mind-boggling scandal of the Obama administration’s treatment of the Trump presidential campaign continues to unravel, but you’d never know from taking in your news via the mainstream media. Former Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr is scheduled to testify under oath this week before the House Judiciary and Oversight Committees on August 28. Ohr seems to have served as a conduit for Christopher Steele’s continued service to the FBI
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July 17, 2018 — Scott Johnson
NR posted Andrew McCarthy’s column on last week’s development in the Mueller probe under the bland headline “Mueller’s politicized indictments of twelve Russian intelligence officers.” I think it might more properly have been headed In which Andrew McCarthy unloads on Rod Rosenstein and Robert Mueller. Among several other salient points, McCarthy observes: “The only point of the new indictment is to justify Rosenstein’s decision and Mueller’s existence.” If you overlooked
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