Thursday, April 18, 2019

Mueller's bogus obstruction claims

Mueller cites a few things that he thinks could be obstruction but it's clear none of them are.

1) Trump asked Comey to go easy on Flynn: First note that just months before Comey had said that even though Hillary had intentionally placed highly classified information on an insecure server in direct violation of multiple laws she shouldn't be prosecuted.  He clearly "went easy" on Hillary.

Trump asked Comey to give a US hero similar treatment not over anything significant but over his supposedly lying to the FBI.  Given that the agents who ambushed him--they didn't tell him it was an interrogation, he thought it was a coordination meeting--didn't think he lied it's clear that leniency was warranted.

Note that Trump didn't order Comey to drop the charges which he could do as President. So clearly this isn't obstruction in any rational sense.

2) Trump asked Comey to lift the cloud of suspicion: Comey had told Trump that he wasn't under investigation. But the #FakeNews media was saying he was.  How can asking Comey to repeat in public what he'd said in private be obstruction?

The real obstruction was Comey acting in a way to make Trump look guilty when Comey knew the Trump wasn't under investigation.

3)Firing Comey:  Mueller admits that Trump wanted to fire Comey because Comey refused to acknowledge what he'd told Trump; that Trump wasn't under investigation.  To argue that a President firing an FBI head who was deliberately misleading the public in an attempt to attack the President is obstruction is amazingly dishonest.

Imagine if Obama's FBI head had told Obama that they were investigating the IRS scandal but that they weren't investigating Obama in private but when the media started saying that Obama was being investigated that FBI head wouldn't tell them that in fact they weren't investigating Obama.  The same people who are attacking Trump for obstruction would be supporting Obama firing that clearly dishonest FBI leader.

4)Trump wanted Sessions to curtail the Mueller investigation:  Once again note that Trump didn't order anything.  But more importantly Trump knew that he didn't collude with Russia so that he knew that there was nothing to investigate. Further he knew that the whole Mueller probe was based on lies.  Hence it makes sense for him to tell his AG to quit wasting the public's time and using tax payer dollars to advance the Democrat cause.

Given that Mueller has now concluded that in fact Trump didn't collude everything Trump said is now prove to be true. There was no need for the investigation and it was just a deep state ploy to hurt his presidency.

Stopping politically motivated witch hunts is not obstructing justice it's upholding justice.

4) Concealing emails about the infamous Trump Tower meeting:  First thing to note even if the Democrats were right about the Trump Tower meeting all it would mean is that Trump Jr. listened to a Russian peddling dirt on Hillary.  Given that it's a matter of public record that Hillary paid Russians for dirt on Trump, via Steele, it's unclear how that could be a bad thing if we assume that the rules apply equally to all Americans.

But of course when the Russian said she didn't have any dirt Trump Jr. left the meeting.

So basically Mueller is saying that hiding emails about an embarrassing event is obstruction. Note that it's perfectly legal to hide emails until a search warrant is produced, it's that pesky 4th Amendment that says people can't be randomly searched by the government, and there is no indication that Trump continued to conceal those emails from Mueller.

Given that Hillary deleted 30,000 emails and no one thought that was obstruction arguing that what Trump's team did was obstruction is dishonest at best.

5) Trump asked Sessions to retake control of the Justice Department:  Trump told Sessions: "I'm not going to do anything or direct you to do anything."  Essentially Mueller is arguing that Trump expressing his concern about what we now know was a baseless investigation--and remember that Trump knew for sure that he hadn't colluded--but not ordering Sessions to do anything is obstruction.

But somehow Bill Clinton meeting with Lorreta Lynch while Hillary was under investigation isn't obstruction.

6) Efforts to have Mueller removed for conflicts of interest:  Mueller was a good friend of Comey's, Mueller was a big fan of the FBI, Mueller was probably very mad about Comey being fired; all good reasons that he shouldn't be leading an investigation which started with Comey illegally leaking information to the press.

Note that removing Mueller wouldn't stop the investigation.  What's interesting is that Trump ordered McGhan to remove Mueller but McGhan said no.  And then Trump did nothing.  Wow if that's obstruction then what isn't?

Further Trump publicly declared that he wanted Mueller removed and replaced with someone who would conduct the investigation fairly even though that would draw out the investigation.  Clearly and unequivocally Trump said that replacing Mueller wasn't the same as ending the investigation.

To call this obstruction one has to ignore the valid basis for Trump's concerns and believe that only Mueller could get to the truth.

7) Asking Flynn if he had information that would hurt Trump and praising Manafort:  Flynn and True had a joint legal defense agreement which Flynn ended.  Trump's lawyers asked Flynn's lawyers to give them a heads up if Flynn was saying anything harmful about Trump to Mueller.

Note once again that Trump knew he was innocent and hence anything Flynn was saying that disputed that was incorrect.  So basically Trump's lawyers were asking Flynn to give them a heads up if he started lying to protect his own skin.  Note Trump's lawyers conveyed Trump's support for Flynn and in no way suggested that Flynn conceal the truth or lie.

Asking for information pertinent to their legal defense of the President can hardly be considered obstruction.

As to Manafort Mueller is claiming that Trump's saying nice things about him was obstruction.  While Hillary was under investigation Obama said nice things about her.  Yet no one called that obstruction.

8) Trump stopped being nice to Cohen after Cohen attacked him: This is really insane.  According to Mueller the fact that once Cohen started attacking Trump Trump called him a "rat" was obstruction.

This is one more example of Mueller attempting to declare that Trump making any comment on the investigation while the #FakeNews media was peddling lie after lie based on leaks from Mueller's team was obstruction. Essentially what Mueller is saying is that Trump should have sat back and not responded to the unending stream of propaganda his investigation was intentionally creating.

Not one of these can be construed by an honest person as obstruction.

Especially when, under Obama, many government organizations deliberately refused to supply information requested by Congress and no one was charged with obstruction.

Note that if Trump's comments were driven by frustration and anger at being lied about they don't meet the legal definition of obstruction.  It's clear that Trump didn't want to end an honest investigation into Russian interference but he did want to end a politicized witch hunt.

It's clear from these examples that Mueller is desperate to criminalize Trump defending himself in any way from a baseless witch hunt.

But that's the left's way. If the truth is on the table leftists will never win an argument and if people can defend themselves from the left's baseless charges the left won't be able to railroad them.  That's why the left is constantly working to hide the truth and prevent people from defending themselves.


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