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Saturday, October 28, 2017

The Mueller Investigation Is Politically Motivated


The former FBI directors tend to investigate Republicans far more zealously than Democrats and come up empty. Is there a reason?

By Peter Berkowitz

The Wall Street Journal
October 23, 2017

News broke last week about possible Russian wrongdoing in the U.S., and it didn’t involve the Trump campaign. 

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The FBI kept that information from Congress and the l, the Hill reported, even as Hillary Clinton’s State Department in 2010 approved a deal that transferred control of more than 20% of America’s uranium supply to a Russian company. The Hill also reported the FBI had documents showing that during this period Russia engineered the transmission of millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation.

The FBI director at the time: Robert Mueller, now special counsel in charge of investigating “Russian interference with the 2016 presidential election and related matters.” The revelations can only heighten anxieties about Mr. Mueller, the FBI and the rule of law.

The special counsel’s open-ended mandate covers not only “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump” but also “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.”
Because Mr. Mueller has interpreted his mandate expansively, his effort may become the most politically disruptive federal investigation of our young century—more than the FBI’s investigation of Mrs. Clinton’s private email server and mishandling of classified information, more than Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the 2003 disclosure of CIA employee Valerie Plame’s identity.

All three investigations have one important characteristic in common: James Comey, Mr. Mueller’s successor as FBI director, played a dubious role in each.

In December 2003, after Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the Plame matter, then-Deputy Attorney General Comey named Mr. Fitzgerald—a close friend who was godfather to one of Mr. Comey’s children—as special counsel to head the Justice Department’s “investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure” of Ms. Plame’s employment.

Unknown to the public then, and still not widely known, that potential crime had already been solved. By early fall 2003, the CIA had determined that revealing Ms. Plame’s identity caused no injury to national security, while the FBI knew it was not a White House official—as many Democrats and liberal pundits ardently believed—but rather Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who was columnist Robert Novak’s source for the original Plame story.

Mr. Fitzgerald declined to prosecute Mr. Armitage, but he played hardball with the Bush White House. Over several years, Mr. Fitzgerald inflicted severe damage by feeding the false accusation that the president had lied the nation into the Iraq war. 

The only criminal charges he prosecuted were generated by his investigation. He won a 2007 conviction of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, for obstruction of justice, false statements and perjury. 

The conviction was based on small inconsistencies Mr. Fitzgerald discovered in (or created from) more than 20 hours of Mr. Libby’s FBI interrogation and grand-jury testimony. Star prosecution witness Judith Miller wrote in her 2015 memoir that Mr. Fitzgerald had withheld crucial information and manipulated her memory, inducing her to testify falsely against Mr. Libby.

In contrast, then-FBI Director Comey played softball with the 2015-16 Hillary Clinton investigation. Despite the gravity of the matter—military service members can be court-martialed and discharged for sending classified information on nonsecure systems—Mr. Comey mostly avoided issuing subpoenas and cooperated with the Obama Justice Department in obscuring the investigation’s criminal character. 

He permitted Mrs. Clinton and her team to destroy evidence and granted generous immunity deals to her advisers. He drafted a statement exonerating Mrs. Clinton months before the FBI interviewed her. And his FBI neither recorded the interview nor compelled her to answer questions under oath.

In addition, in a July 2016 press conference, Mr. Comey usurped the authority of Justice Department prosecutors by publicly exonerating Mrs. Clinton. In the process, he confused the pertinent legal issue by asserting she did not intend to violate the law. But intent wasn’t a necessary condition for a crime. Federal law criminalizes “gross negligence” in mishandling classified information. By Mr. Comey’s own account, Mrs. Clinton had been “extremely careless.”

With Mr. Trump, by contrast, Mr. Comey is playing hardball even after leaving government. In May, shortly after President Trump fired him, Mr. Comey—possibly in conflict with FBI policy—leaked notes of an Oval Office meeting with the president. His purpose, Mr. Comey publicly acknowledged, was to “prompt the appointment of a special counsel.”

Mr. Mueller is playing hardball too. Unlike the Clinton investigation into narrowly defined allegations, his mandate authorizes pursuit of unspecified crimes. That invites casting a wide net, which Mr. Mueller has done, exploring conduct that long predated the 2016 presidential campaign. 

He has assembled a huge team that includes, in addition to FBI agents, 16 seasoned prosecutors, at least seven of whom have contributed money to Democratic candidates

He might have extended his investigation to Mr. Trump’s business interests. And he is working with agents from the Internal Revenue Service’s criminal investigation unit, raising the possibility that he has obtained Mr. Trump’s tax returns.

Mr. Mueller has adopted scorched-earth tactics in pursuit of Paul Manafort, who ran Trump’s presidential campaign from June to August 2016. The special counsel’s team has reached back more than a decade into Mr. Manafort’s financial affairs and conducted a predawn, guns-drawn raid on his home on a day he was scheduled to testify before Congress as a cooperating witness.

One crucial difference distinguishes the probe of Mrs. Clinton from the two Comey-instigated special-counsel investigations of Republican administrations. Mr. Fitzgerald’s multiyear investigation of the Bush administration and Mr. Mueller’s ever-widening scrutiny of the Trump campaign exhibit a tenacious and nearly unconstrained search for persons and crimes to prosecute. In contrast, Mr. Comey’s investigation of Mrs. Clinton reflects a determination not to prosecute systematic and obvious unlawful conduct.

Both excesses threaten the rule of law—but the dogged search for persons and crimes to prosecute poses the graver threat to constitutional government.

Mr. Berkowitz is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

PC Warriors Attack George Washington Without Understanding His Positions

George Washington’s Church Removing Plaque Honoring Him: Want ‘Welcoming’ Worship Space

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Christ Church in Alexandria, Virginia, where George Washington worshiped and served as a vestryman, announced plans this week to remove a plaque honoring its most famous congregant and the nation’s first president.
In a letter to parishioners, the vestry for the Episcopal congregation explained it had spent the month of September conducting listening sessions and communicating with members through emails and phone calls before coming to the unanimous decision.
“Many in our congregation feel a strong need for the church to stand clearly on the side of ‘All are welcome — no exceptions,’” the letter explained.
“Because the sanctuary is a worship space, not a museum, there is no appropriate way to inform visitors about the history of the plaques or to provide additional context except for the in-person tours provided by our docents.”
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The leaders recounted that the plaque was placed in 1870 at the same time one for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee was added in the sanctuary.
The church recognized Washington and Lee lived in different times and were, “like all of us, a child of God,” nonetheless, “Today, the legacy of slavery and of the Confederacy is understood differently than it was in 1870.”
“For some, Lee symbolizes the attempt to overthrow the Union and to preserve slavery. Today our country is trying once again to come to grips with the history of slavery and the subsequent disenfranchisement of people of color,” the vestry said.
The leaders promised the plaques would not be destroyed or placed in storage, “Rather, they will remain in the church until they can be relocated to a place of respectful prominence where they will be fully visible to parishioners and tourists alike.”
“And ultimately, they will be incorporated into a more complete presentation of our long and many-faceted history,” they stated.
While Washington was a slave holder his entire life, he appeared to grow increasingly awarethat the institution was wrong and needed to end.
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In response to a letter from the Marquis de La Fayette after the Revolutionary War in 1786 asking why the slaves could not be freed, the former commander in chief of the Continental Army wrote, “Would to God a like spirit (to liberate the slaves) would diffuse itself generally into the minds of the people of this country; but I despair seeing it.”
Washington noted that bills had been introduced in the Virginia legislature, but they could barely get a reading.
The retired general felt that if all the slaves were set free at once a chaotic situation would be created, leading to “much inconvenience and mischief” (probably referring to homelessness, poverty, and crime due to the newly released slaves’ dire circumstances).
Instead, Washington believed that a gradual plan, like those implemented in northern states, would best allow the former slaves to assimilate into society.
That same year, Washington also wrote Pennsylvania legislator and signer of the Declaration of Independence Robert Morris, stating, “There is not a man living who wishes more sincerely than I do, to see a plan adopted for the abolition of it; but there is only one effectual mode by which it can be accomplished, and that by Legislative authority; and this as far as my suffrage is concerned will never be wanting.”
Following the war, Washington decided never to purchase a slave again. Then, the general concluded that the whole idea of marketing human beings was wrong and chose not to sell slaves anymore. This resolve cost him in later life, as the slave families on his plantation grew in numbers beyond what the plantation could support.
In his will, Washington freed his slaves, and he included provisions in the will for those who wanted to learn a trade and those who were infirm or too old to work.
In August, following the riots in Charlottesville surrounding the removal of a statue of Lee, President Donald Trump questioned whether calls to remove Washington statues would soon follow.
“This week it’s Robert E. Lee,” he said, according to The Hill. “I noticed that Stonewall Jackson is coming down. I wonder is it George Washington next week and is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop?”
What do you think? 

Friday, October 27, 2017

Lies Work Like That

An Example Of The False Hateful Left

I was recently invited to present the liberal case for Israel at Berkeley. In my remarks I advocated the establishment of a Palestinian state and a negotiated end of the conflict. I encouraged hostile questions from protestors and answered all of them. The audience responded positively to the dialogue.
Then immediately after my address, a poster was plastered outside Berkeley Law School with a swastika drawn on my face.


The Dean of Berkeley Law School, Erwin Cherwinsky, sent a letter condemning the swastika: "Several of our students expressed their disagreement with him [Dershowitz] and did so in a completely appropriate way that led to discussion and dialogue. I was pleased to hear of how this went, but then shocked to learn of the swastika drawn on a flyer that someone had posted about him."
Shortly after, The Daily Californian – Berkeley's student newspaper – published an anti-Semitic cartoon, depicting an ugly caricature of me sticking my head through a cardboard cut-out. Behind the cardboard I am portrayed stomping on a Palestinian child with my foot, while holding in my hand an Israeli soldier who is shooting an unarmed Palestinian youth. Above the cardboard cut-out the title of my speech – The Liberal Case for Israel – is scrawled in capital letters.


In a Letter to the Editor, the university's Chancellor, Carol Christ, wrote the following:
"Your recent editorial cartoon targeting Alan Dershowitz was offensive, appalling and deeply disappointing. I condemn its publication. Are you aware that its anti-Semitic imagery connects directly to the centuries-old "blood libel" that falsely accused Jews of engaging in ritual murder? I cannot recall anything similar in the Daily Cal, and I call on the paper's editors to reflect on whether they would sanction a similar assault on other ethnic or religious groups. We cannot build a campus community where everyone feels safe, respected and welcome if hatred and the perpetuation of harmful stereotypes become an acceptable part of our discourse."
It is shocking that this vile caricature – which would fit comfortably in a Nazi publication – was published in "the official paper of record of the City of Berkeley" (according to the Editor.) The cartoon resembles the grotesque anti-Semitic blood libel propaganda splashed across Der Sturmer in the 1930's, which depicted Jews drinking the blood of gentile children. Canards about Jews as predators – prominently promulgated by the Tzarist forgery, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – were anti-Semitic back then and are still anti-Semitic today, whether espoused by the extreme left or the extreme right.
This sequence of events – by hard-left students who originally protested my right to speak at Berkeley– confirmed what I've long believed: that there is very little difference between the Nazis of the hard right and the anti-Semites of the hard left. There is little doubt that this abhorrent caricature was a hard-left Neo-Nazi expression.
These anti-Semitic displays against me were in reaction to a speech in which I advocated a Palestinian state; an end to the occupation and opposition to Israeli settlement policies. Many on the hard-left refuse to acknowledge this sort of nuanced positioning. That is because their hostility towards Israel does not stem from any particular Israeli actions or policies. Even if Israel were to withdraw from the West Bank, destroy the security barrier, and recognize Hamas as a legitimate political organization, it would still not be enough. For these radicals, it is not about what Israel does; it is about what Israel is: the nation state of the Jewish people. To many on the hard left, Israel is an imperialistic, apartheid, genocidal, and colonialist enterprise that must be destroyed.
Nonetheless, just as I defended the rights of Nazis to march in Skokie, I defend the right of hard-left bigots to produce this sort of anti-Semitic material, despite it being hate speech. Those who condemn hate speech when it comes from the Right should also speak up when hate speech comes from the Left. The silence from those on the Left is steeped in hypocrisy. It reflects the old adage: free speech for me but not for thee.
To be sure, the students had the right to publish this cartoon, but they also had the right not to publish it. I am confident that if the shoe were on the other foot – if a cartoon of comparable hate directed against women, gays, blacks or Muslims were proposed – they would not have published it. There is one word for this double standard. It's called bigotry.
The best response to bigotry is the opposite of censorship: it is exposure and shaming in the court of public opinion. The offensive cartoon should not be removed, as some have suggested. It should be widely circulated along with the names prominently displayed of the anti-Semite who drew it and the bigoted editors who decided to publish it. Every potential employer or admissions officer should ask them to justify their bigotry.
Joel Mayorga is the anti-Semitic cartoonist. Karim Doumar (Editor in Chief and President), Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks (Managing Editor) and Suhauna Hussain (Opinion Editor) head the editorial board that oversaw the decision to publish it. They must be held accountable for their reprehensible actions. I challenge them to justify their bigotry. It will not be enough to hide behind the shield of freedom of speech, because that freedom also entails the right not to publish anti-Semitic expression, if they would refuse to publish other bigoted expression.
After I submitted my op-ed, the Daily Cal tried to censor my piece in a self-serving way by omitting my characterization of the cartoonist as an anti-Semite. As far as I know they did not edit the offending cartoon. Also, the editor claimed that the intent of the cartoon was to expose the "hypocrisy" of my talk. Yet, the newspaper never even reported on the content of my talk and I don't know whether the cartoonist was even at my talk. The cartoon was clearly based on a stereotype not on the content of my talk.
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Thursday, October 26, 2017

The Gun Nazis Will Steal Guns Anyway They Can

Man Arrested for Unsecured Gun in His Home

A Los Angeles man is set to be arraigned Monday on one count of not properly storing a gun after officers found an unsecured shotgun in his home — a violation of the city’s safe storage requirements.
City Attorney Mike Feuer announced earlier this month that Angelo Rocca, 43, was charged by his Gun Violence Prevention Unit over how Rocca had his shotgun stored.
According to Feuer, a 10-year-old child in Rocca’s home showed a visiting friend the shotgun, which was located in a closet. The friend later told school officials about the gun, which resulted in the LAPD visiting Rocca’s home where they found the shotgun loaded and accessible.
“Locking up guns saves lives,” Feuer said in a statement. “It also prevents crime: Lost or stolen guns are the major source of crime guns in Los Angeles. We have to hold adults accountable for safely storing their firearms.”
In 2015, the city adopted the current storage scheme, which goes further than state gun safety requirements, mandating that firearms be stored in a locked container or disabled with a trigger lock that has been approved by the California Department of Justice.
The legislation was drawn up by Feuer, the inaugural co-chair of Prosecutors Against Gun Violence, and was based on a controversial 2007 ordinance in San Francisco that has been challenged all the way to the Supreme Court by the National Rifle Association.
Rocca faces six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

The Newsmedia Continues To Show Its Bias

There Are More Questions Than Answers In the Las Vegas Shootings. Scary That We Cannot Get The Truth

Tucker Reveals Las Vegas Security Guard Left The Country Days After Shooting [VIDEO]

Fox News host Tucker Carlson dropped a huge new detail on the days following the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history in Las Vegas Wednesday.
WATCH:
According to a document from a confidential source, Tucker revealed that Mandalay Bay security guard Jesus Campos left the United States to go to Mexico just days after being an eyewitness to the Las Vegas mass shooting committed by Stephen Paddock.


Promoted by booking.com
Carlson said that he has a “customs and border patrol form that shows Jesus Campos entering the United States from Mexico at the San Ysidro border crossing in San Diego county almost exactly one week after the Las Vegas shooting. The document does not reveal how long Campos had been in Mexico.”
He continued, “Our source told us that Campos entered the United States at the same crossing in January of this year. At that time, he was driving his own vehicle, with Nevada plates. And yet in this document from a little over two weeks ago, Campos was driving what appears to be a rental car with California plates.”
Carlson said, “Jesus Campos is the only eyewitness to the biggest mass shooting in modern American history. At the time he was in Mexico, the press was reporting that investigators thought Paddock may have had an accomplice. Why did authorities allow him to leave the country just days after it occurred, while the investigation was still chaotic?”
The Daily Caller co-founder raised a number of questions, asking, “How did Campos, who reportedly had a gunshot wound to the leg from a high-powered rifle round, manage to travel to Mexico? Did he fly? Did he drive? Was his employer aware that he left the country? Were investigators? Did they facilitate the trip? What day did Campos get to Mexico? How was he able to drive back, for hundreds of miles, from the San Diego border to Nevada? Why did he take a rental car instead of his own? The union that represents Campos told us that they were aware he left the country. Why did it take a government leak for the rest of us to find out?”
Carlson also asked, “Had [Campos] ever had previous contact with Stephen Paddock?”
“We could go on. The point is, this story gets murkier by the day. That’s the opposite of what’s supposed to happen. It’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on with the Vegas shooting investigation. But it’s obvious there’s lying and incompetence at the heart of it,” he concluded.