woodguru

This guy he has in mind for AG? He has been all over the media with his ideas of how to shut Mueller down. He has made it 100% clear that he puts loyalty to Trump before loyalty to the justice system. He has espoused truly moronic legal conceptual opinions that have nothing to do with established laws. He has opined on things that he doesn't see as a problem that are illegal.

The Attorney General has a huge role in shaping laws and how the law is carried out. It is his job to decide how the justice department responds to the most important constitutional and civil rights cases and issues that we face as a country. The AG sets the tone for police departments across the country.

The DOJ operates as a separate and equal entity to the president (executive branch) It actually is not acceptable for Trump to have private meetings with the AG. The AG does not work under Trump per se. It is not his job to run interference for him, to have his back as Trump has explained is what he wants. When Trump has or is, or intends to do something wrong it is the AG's job to work with the white house attorneys (who also work for the government, not Trump. It is these entities jobs to protect the country against a president that is violating the constitution. Working "with" Trump in the way Trump wants as far as the investigation is concerned is setting new obstruction into motion. This Whittaker clown clearly opposes the investigation and would undermine the job the FBI does in an array of ways, including hiding and suppressing Mueller's evidence.

The new house intelligence committee is going to want to see what Mueller has

Lonewolf

Trump wants the good old days in NY working with mob bosses. He does not want a real AG he wants his own hitman!

Airforceone

Trump supporters do not understand separate and equal. Once the president appoints an AG and confirmed by the Senate. That’s it Mr. President hands off.

Also the Justice Department has a division called a the ethics department that are career professional that investigate politically appointed people for conflict of interest issues and determine what issue a political appointee must recuse himself from certain investigation.

The Justice Department takes this very serious and that’s why Session recused himself.

Dispite what Trump tells you the Justice Department operates under secrecy while doing investigations. Trump feels as though he is above the rule of law and as we can see he fires anybody that is invovled or were invovled with anything that pertains to him or his crime family. I just wonder if Whitaker understands if he does anything to block this investigation he is in legal jeopardy and if Trump interferes with Whitaker which he certainly is. Whitaker will be sent to jail for obstruction. Whitaker can fire Rosenstein and Muellar which will create a major investigation in the House come Jan.

So if Whitaker fires Muellar or defunds the investigation he will be called before congress along with Muellar and Rosenstein and be required to testify under oath. If Trump had anything to do with Whitaker actions both are toast.

The worst Job in the federal government under Trump is the AG. Because he cannot keep his hands off the Justice Department because we have US laws and then there’s Trump laws.

Now that we have a Democratic House Trump laws are dead and US law kicks in.

nwtk2007 Loc: Texas

You have a link to your info regarding the replacement??

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

First of all we don't know what guy you're talking about?

Secondly, your ignorance of the structure of our federal government is appalling.

The DOJ is a department WITHIN the president's cabinet, it is in the Executive Branch. The president chooses his Attorney General, nominates him to head the DOJ, and his nominee must then be confirmed by the senate. The AG has the same ranking as the SecState, SecDef, and all other cabinet officers. The DOJ IS NOT a "separate and equal entity to the president". The AG, Deputy AG and all US Attorneys work under the POTUS. IOW, the POTUS is the AG's boss. The president can meet privately with anyone or group of anyones he wants. Every POTUS in history has expected loyalty from those he chooses to help him run the government.

FYI: The AG and the DOJ, of which the FBI is an agency, is responsible for enforcing law, not "shaping" them, that is the job of the Legislative Branch (congress).

The Attorney General represents the United States in legal matters generally and gives advice and opinions to the President and to the heads of the executive departments of the Government when so requested. In matters of exceptional gravity or importance the Attorney General appears in person before the Supreme Court.

When the Chief Executive of an organization hires officers to manage departments within the organization, he hires men and women who will work with him in carrying out the goals of the organization. It would be very foolish for a Chief Executive to hire someone who was hostile to him, or who would work against the good of the organization.

Obama didn't hire Eric Holder or Loretta Lynch to run the DOJ because they were hostile to him. They did his bidding at every turn, they had Obama's back, they ran interference for him.

Your ignorance of matters such as this essentially destroys any credibility you think you may have.

Trooper745 Loc: Carolina

Blade, you're fighting ignorance with intelligence, but those you are trying to educate, are both, too ignorant to understand the facts, and too politically biased to ever listen to t***h and facts.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Yeah, I'm well aware of that, Trooper, however, it never hurts to post the facts on the bulletin board. Somebody might actually read and understand them.

If I ever encountered a hard-core progressive like the ones that hang out here who had a real education, I'd throw a kegger.

Trooper745 Loc: Carolina

You find a progressive that smart, and I'll go halves on the kegger.

pafret Loc: Northeast

You simply are ignorant of what the Office of Attorney General was created for and what its purpose has been throughout our history. It is not a separate but equal branch of government, it is an employee controlled by the Executive branch, a subordinate. It was originally created as an advisory position for the President, George Washington, on legal matters. As such it is not only appropriate to confer, it is necessary, to fulfill the original mandate for the DOJ.

This concept that Cabinet members and major agency heads are free to run their own fiefdom, without regard for what directions are given by the Executive branch is part of the insanity that makes Washington ungovernable.

The Attorney General has no role in shaping laws. This is the province of the Congress and the Executive Branch. The Judicial branch similarly does not shape laws even though they have taken to legislating from the bench. The courts can only find that a law is not consistent with the constitution, when it is challenged. The Attorney General has refused to take action as when Holder declared he would not support DOMA. Holder should have been dismissed and would have been except that his superior was in agreement and did nothing to correct this situation. Both should have been held accountable for misfeasance.

Opposing an illegal muck-raking investigation sounds like high praise to me. It has been demonstrated that Muller's existence as a special prosecutor before there was any evidence that a crime had been committed, was a carefully executed plot, by criminals to destroy a Presidency and at this time it should be seriously looked at with a view to ending the travesty.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

What's your favorite beer? C****a sound good?

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

I 'splained that already. Reckon it won't hurt to repeat it.

Mueller's Real Mandate
By Jared E. Peterson

The Washington D.C. nomenklatura advanced forward last week with its slow-moving c**p d’état against America’s constitutionally elected President.

But even after the federal bureaucracy’s further progress toward undoing the 2016 e******n, I confess to a faint hope that Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III -- supposed embodiment of upper class, non-partisan, lawyerly virtue -- might actually conduct a fair, focused and swift inquiry into the matter assigned him.

In the end, though, the sensible old lawyer’s voice in my head whispers that this hope is more pipedream than prediction of events.

Here’s the latest state of affairs, no doubt soon to be out of date:

After staffing up during the week preceding last with heavy Democrat contributing lawyers of dubious objectivity, last week Mr. Mueller appeared to abandon, or at least heavily downgrade, the alleged raison d’etre for his office -- investigating the Russia collusion fantasy. Now, per the Washington Post -- always eager to provide a stage for someone leaking ill about the President -- Mr. Mueller will focus on whether the President “obstructed justice” and on the business dealings of the President’s close advisor and son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

So already, almost before his army of lawyers has swung into battle, the Special Counsel’s inquiry has metastasized from its original focus -- sleuthing out whether President Trump or his campaign “colluded” with the Russian government during the e******n -- into entirely new subjects.

Keep in mind the language of Mr. Mueller’s assignment, as articulated on May 17 by Rod Rosenstein: To investigate:

“any links and/or coordination between Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump, and any matters that arose or may arise directly from that investigation.”

The new subjects of Mueller’s inquiry are not only remote from that recent but apparently forgotten assignment, but they begin to sketch the outline of a lawyer who is stocking up on matters of inquiry for a long-haul investigation.

In sum, as each week passed following Mr. Mueller’s May 17 appointment, the man has behaved less like an independent counsel and more like the designated agent for America’s Trump-despising Washington-New York would-be rulers -- like someone who knows he is charged with providing a colorable legal predicate for a long-ago decision by America’s elites to destroy the President and prevent him from serving out the term he was accorded by America’s e*****rate and Constitution.

As of, today, Monday June 19, 2017, here is where matters stand for the President of the United States:

Though constitutionally and decisively elected to office, President Trump must carry out his duties -- that include sole responsibility for protecting the American homeland in a world where North Korea fires missiles every month and Islamic fanatics commit atrocities on a near daily basis -- while a former FBI Director, unrestrained by budget, personnel, duration of authority, or substantive area of inquiry, deliberately harasses, hounds, and distracts him and his appointed officials while attempting to find something -- after last week, apparently anything -- that could be twisted into a warrant for the President’s impeachment and removal from office.

Mr. Mueller could at least partially rebut the growing belief that he is the agent of those who despise the President, his agenda, and his supporters, by making a clear public statement that reaffirms his commitment to the inquiry he was assigned, and to its speedy completion. But without such a prompt reaffirmation -- directly from Mr. Mueller -- the belief will harden and become widespread among those who elected President Trump that Mr. Mueller is nothing but the Washington-New York corridor’s designated legal hit man. Were that to occur, the Special Counsel’s findings and recommendations would have no legitimacy; and were Congress to act adverse to the President on them, doing so would plunge the nation into chaos.

How did the American Republic come to this ridiculously self-destructive pass?

In brief summary:

Desperate to deflect blame for his failed efforts after the 2016 e******n, Clinton campaign Chair John Podesta, risibly and with neither specificity nor evidence, accused President-elect Trump of “colluding” with the Russian government to bring about Trump’s e******n.

From the time of Podesta’s tirade right up through today not a shred of evidence has emerged to support the claim of Russian collusion. This gaping void is all the more damning for the “Russia collusion” fantasists, given that Congress has investigated the claim for at least six months and the FBI for over nine months.

Given the ubiquitous atmosphere of anti-Trump leaking in Washington, if any such evidence had been discovered, by Congress or by the FBI, it’s a certainty that by now it would have been leaked and be widely known

A side question: How many FBI agents spent how much time over the last nine months on this groundless smear, and how many potential Islamic terrorists could those agents have identified and neutralized if they had dev**ed their energies and sk**ls to that rather more pressing concern? Just wondering.

So, in the total evidentiary vacuum for the “Russia collusion” allegation, how did America move from John Podesta’s non-specific and unsupported claim of such collusion, to Robert Mueller’s appointment to investigate that claim?

Enter, stage left, America’s corporate media.

On a daily basis since the e******n, the New York Times and Washington Post, followed in lock step by all the corporate television news networks, have breathlessly written and talked about Trump’s “alleged Russia collusion,” on page one or on the nightly “news” --and without any specificity as to what allegedly was done, who the alleged “allegers “are, or evidence to support the charge.

Our corporate media’s performance was an amazing feat of “Journalism,” keeping the “Russia collusion allegation” on page one, and on the nightly news, every day without letup, all the months since the e******n -- always unsourced as to who was alleging, unspecified as to the conduct alleged, and, of course, without identifying a shred of proof.

But that kind of news story is not evidence, a bright little child might observe.

“Maybe not to you kid, but it was good enough for Rod Rosenstein.”

Because repeated “news” stories in the corporate media about allegations by unnamed persons … about unspecified conduct … for which there was no evidence, were all Rosenstein had to justify appointing a Special Counsel.

Special Counsel Mueller should not have been appointed at all.

Even in a country whose legal system has been as debased by politics as ours, it’s simple prosecutorial ethics that a massive and in itself damaging investigation into an allegation should be turned loose only when the charges are specific and after at least some evidentiary cause to believe they are true has been adduced.

Both specificity and evidence were completely absent at the time of the Rosenstein appointment.

Now that Mr. Mueller has been improvidently appointed, he has a slender chance to save his own reputation for professional integrity, and the nation from further political disintegration -- by sticking to his assignment and rapidly and fairly concluding his work.

We will soon learn whether he has any interest in such an approach to his duties.

Jared Peterson is a graduate of the Harvard Law School and has been a practicing attorney in California for over forty years.

Trooper745 Loc: Carolina

Usually Heineken, .... but the quality of the people I'm enjoying the beer with is more important than the beer brand.

pafret Loc: Northeast

You explained what Muller is doing just fine but Woodguru and Airforce1 need an explanation of how our government works because they spout a lot of nonsense about that.

Blade_Runner Loc: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Scroll up this page, I explained the structure of the Executive Branch.

pafret Loc: Northeast

Got it. We are in 100% agreement. Too bad Woodenhead will not get either of our messages. What ever happened to civics courses in high school?