Working to block more than 20 separate probes

[struggle4progress]

By Rachael Bade and Seung Min Kim
May 11 at 7:44 PM

President Trump and his allies are working to block more than 20 separate investigations by Democrats into his actions as president, his personal finances and his administration’s policies, ... the most expansive White House obstruction effort in decades ...

The president is blocking aides from testifying, refusing entire document requests from some committees, filing lawsuits against corporations to bar them from responding to subpoenas and asserting executive privilege to keep information about the special counsel’s Russia investigation from public view. One such case will come to a head in court on Tuesday, when a federal judge is expected to rule on whether Trump can quash a House Oversight Committee subpoena demanding financial records from his personal accounting firm ...

Kerry W. Kircher, who served as House counsel for the last GOP majority, said the standoff marks “a complete breakdown and complete obstruction of Congress’s role” ...Trump officials barred McGahn from turning over subpoenaed information related to Mueller’s investigation, potentially opening him up to legal peril and a contempt of Congress charge. McGahn was a central witness in several of 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice identified in the Mueller report.

... Trump officials barred McGahn from turning over subpoenaed information related to Mueller’s investigation, potentially opening him up to legal peril and a contempt of Congress charge. McGahn was a central witness in several of 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice identified in the Mueller report ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-his-allies-are-blocking-more-than-20-separate-democratic-probes-in-an-all-out-war-with-congress/2019/05/11/4d972274-733a-11e9-9eb4-0828f5389013_story.html?utm_term=.96a6247ee7af

[struggle4progress]

1. The Dangerous Ideas of Bill Barr

The attorney general’s theory of executive power places presidents above the law.
MAY 2, 2019

... Barr is no flunky. He is a hardened ideologue who believes that the president he serves is largely above the law. Barr seems genuinely committed to defending the imperial prerogatives of the office against shortsighted liberals who would weaken the presidency in a delusional quest to remove a Republican from office. As he put it in his 2017 memo attacking the special counsel’s investigation, “crediting” the belief that the president could have committed obstruction by his official acts “would have grave consequences far beyond the immediate confines of this case and would do lasting damage to the Presidency and to the administration of law within the Executive branch” ...

Nixon famously declared in 1977, in an interview with the reporter David Frost, that “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” That was not mere sophistry, but ideology, and it is an ideological strain that has run through nearly every Republican administration since Nixon.

Barr’s involvement in the Iran-Contra scandal helps illuminate his conduct today. The administration of President Ronald Reagan defied federal law by selling arms to Iran in order to fund right-wing guerrillas in Central America, a scandal that led to the appointment of an independent counsel and the convictions of several high-ranking administration officials. When George H. W. Bush took office, he pardoned six officials implicated by the investigation at Barr’s urging ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/05/bill-barr-is-a-fanatic/588580/

[struggle4progress]

2. Ex-federal prosecutor: Trump deserved obstruction charge and here's why

Ann Marie Tracey, Opinion contributor
Published 10:18 a.m. ET May 10, 2019

This past week over 500 former federal prosecutors asserted that contrary to Attorney General William Barr’s finding, the Mueller Report sufficiently laid out a prosecutable case against President Donald Trump for obstruction of justice. I was a signatory and here is why.

The oaths public servants take require upholding the U.S. Constitution and the laws of the United States. Implicit in these pillars is safeguarding the rule of law. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the U.S. dispatched judges to the newly independent former republics to preach the rule of law; any course on the law or our Constitution embrace it as the backbone of our society.

This rule requires that all people are subject and accountable to law that is applied and enforced fairly. (In explaining it to Ukranian judges, my interpreter could not translate "fair.&quot It means people of import or wealth should not receive special favor or treatment. It appears that AG Barr discarded this principle in declaring there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the president.

It is important to address why the AG’s action is untenable. Department of Justice policy asks three questions for determining an indictable offense: 1) Is the conduct a crime? 2) Is admissible evidence likely to obtain and sustain a conviction? 3) Would prosecution serve a substantial federal interest not otherwise adequately protected? ...

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/opinion/2019/05/10/trump-obstruction-charge-mueller-report-barr-prosecutor/1162761001/

[struggle4progress]

3. Barr names acting deputy attorney general

By Alex Pappas | Fox News

Attorney General Bill Barr on Friday said he named Ed O’Callaghan to temporarily serve as acting deputy attorney general in the wake of Rod Rosenstein’s departure from the Justice Department ...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/barr-names-acting-deputy-attorney-general-in-wake-of-rosenstein-departure

[emmaverybo]

6. Thank you for posting all. nt

[struggle4progress]

4. Ed O'Callaghan and Troopergate

McCain’s Troopergate Scandal

Palin claims she wants more accountability in Washington. So why is the McCain campaign stonewalling the Troopergate investigation?
By John Nichols
SEPTEMBER 24, 2008

On day one of the Republican National Convention, NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell breathlessly reported from the floor of the session that “there are Republican lawyers right now up in Alaska doing a deeper vet on Sarah Palin.” Mitchell was both right and wrong. A “jump team” of top lawyers and communications operatives had indeed decamped to Anchorage. But the dozen McCain campaign fixers–led by a veteran of the Bush v. Gore Florida recount fight of 2000–did not head north to perform a post-selection vetting of vice presidential pick Palin. The hired guns were on the Last Frontier to manage a mess: the prospect that the state-sanctioned investigation of an abuse-of-power scandal involving Palin would destroy the governor’s credibility as a reformer–and with it the argument that their new No. 2’s relative inexperience was mitigated by her able leadership ...

.... the Troopergate scandal .. really had the McCain camp spooked. With its intimations that the governor dismissed Alaska’s top cop because he refused to fire Palin’s former brother-in-law–a state trooper with whom she and her husband were feuding–the controversy threatened Palin’s carefully manufactured image. Weeks before she joined the ticket, her ethics counselor, Wevley Shea, a former US Attorney for Alaska, had warned her with regard to Troopergate that “the situation is now grave.” Despite statements to the contrary, the decision by top McCain campaign adviser Steve Schmidt to send a strike force, and the relentless focus on Troopergate by its members, like former Justice Department prosecutor Ed O’Callaghan, leaves no doubt that the McCain camp shared Shea’s assessment ...

The most politically volatile conclusion–an election-season determination that Palin had abused her authority in a manner that could lead to official sanctions, perhaps even impeachment–was not something the McCain camp was willing to leave to chance. Top aides parachuted into Anchorage on a two-tier mission. On the ground in Alaska, they initiated a series of stalling schemes designed to prevent a damaging report from being released before the November 4 election. At the same time, McCain acolytes, led by former New York mayor and presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani, appeared on national television to spin the story that the bipartisan inquiry was a partisan witch hunt. In so doing, McCain’s aides provided vivid illustration of precisely what can happen when a determined presidential campaign is willing to do anything to maintain the carefully crafted image of a running mate who has become essential to its electoral prospects.

The rewrite proceeded rapidly. By the time the GOP national convention opened–three days after Palin’s selection–the McCain team, led by veteran Bush/Cheney aide Taylor Griffin and reporting directly to campaign adviser Schmidt, had established a command center in Anchorage and conducted conference calls with Alaska GOP legislators, conservative leaders and associates of Palin to instruct them on how to say “supportive things,” according to an Alaska Republican who was in on the calls but spoke to media on condition of anonymity. “All I keep hearing is, ‘Why don’t you toe the line?'” said Rick Rydell, a conservative Anchorage radio host. Many Republicans did just that; former Alaska House Speaker Gail Phillips, who initially complained to reporters about McCain’s failure to vet Palin, suddenly stopped giving interviews. Calls to Palin’s office by national reporters started being routed to McCain campaign operatives. And Anchorage news cycles came to be dominated by denunciations of the probe from top GOP officials ...

Report finds Palin violated ethics laws

"The truth was revealed there in that report that showed there was no unlawful or unethical activity on my part."
— Sarah Palin on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 in an interview with reporters

By Robert Farley on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 at 12:00 a.m.

... Alaska State Trooper Mike Wooten was involved in a messy divorce from Palin’s sister, and opponents claimed that Palin went so far as to fire the state’s top cop, Walt Monegan, in July because he refused to fire Wooten.

Alaska's 12-member Legislative Council — which has a Republican majority — decided to look into the matter, and in early August, they tapped independent investigator Stephen Branchflower to lead the probe.

Branchflower’s report , released Oct. 10, concluded that while Palin was within her rights to fire Monegan, she "abused her power" and ran afoul of state ethics laws in seeking to settle a score with Wooten ...
"Finding Number One" of the report is "that Governor Sarah Palin abused her power by violating Alaska Statute 39.52.110(a) of the Alaska Branch Ethics Act " ...

[struggle4progress]

5. Bottom line: the top two slots in Justice are now political operatives with cover-up experience

[duforsure]

7. trump with the help of the gop in Congress

Are now obstructing justice openly , and with the full support of an installed corrupt AG willing to do anything he's told to put the president and themselves above the rule of law because of their corruption. They know they couldn't win without the help from putin , and took it , and lots of money to help them in Congress. The problem is now will we have a fair election again? The American people spoke with retaking over control of the House, and soon the Senate and the presidency, unless they corrupt this upcoming election too. trump will turn on the gop in time and try to hurt them like he does to everyone else. He's no republican, and his supporters will realize that , and i hope its in time, and before its too late to stop him. No president is above the law, or AG either, or political group, period. Justice will prevail, or we'll be under the trump rule of law where anyone who doesn't support him is made a criminal.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

8. The more they resisit

The guiltier they look.