April 7, 2019
Mueller Express Fails to Deliver, Democrats Head for the Abyss
By Clarice Feldman
As the long-running Mueller Witch Hunt pulled into the station empty, the one thing that held together the disparate factions of the Democratic Party -- the thought that Mueller would hand them grounds for impeachment -- was lost and a “Gadarene stampede” (in Conrad Black’s fine phrase, descriptive of a pack of crazed swine heading for the abyss) has followed.
To be sure, those who believed Mueller would save them from the Trump revolution didn’t give up entirely. Tom Maguire had some fun at the expense of the diehards:
The Walls Are Closing In On Trump Again!
After a brief respite the media is back to Waiting For The Mueller Report: sources NOT on Mueller's now-disbanded team tell the Times that some of the team think the Barr summary went too easy on Trump. This is impressive 'sources say other sources say' journalism. High school -- the wonder years! As in, I wonder why Times reporters never outgrew that.
Whatever. Mueller ran a tight ship for two years but now his gang is dispersed. Some are back in private practice and no one is worried that Mueller will fire them for chatting a bit. We'll see the report soon enough. Another week or two of staring down their rabbit hole won't hurt the Democrats any.
Victor Davis Hanson sets the historical background:
[A]n investigation that for two years had reconciled the irreconcilable serves no longer as a source of Democratic unity.
We are going to see hard-left Democrats and socialists force their mostly unpopular agenda on politicians and candidates from their own party. And they are now putting their identity-politics money where their mouth is by openly discouraging candidates on the basis of their race and gender.[snip] With the end of the Mueller investigation, thousands of government documents, mostly unredacted, will be released. The result may be that the hunters of Trump soon become hunted by federal prosecutors. Sworn statements of Obama administration officials in the Justice Department, CIA, FBI and other bureaucracies will contradict newly released documents.
To escape punishment, all of these players in the Russian collusion delusion may now begin to turn on one another after being so united in going after Donald Trump.
The media sensationalism and optics will play out in reverse as the "noose tightens" and "the walls close in" on people such as former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
There will also be more infighting over the collective embarrassment of the Russian collusion hoax.
It’s impossible to disagree with Conrad Black’s description of the present wreck of the Democratic party with 18 announced candidates , not counting Joe Biden:
It is uproariously entertaining to see the scurryings of the innumerable host of Democratic presidential candidates in what is already more of a lottery than a quest for the nomination of a great party to the world’s greatest office.
The Gadarene stampede to (and over) the edge of the abyss of all who advocate open borders, 70 percent income taxes, the green terror, socialized medicine, legalized infanticide, reparations to native and African-Americans, packing the Supreme Court, and vacation of the Electoral College, has finally elicited, in a Churchillian expression, a tiny mouse of dissent. [snip] The Democrats temporarily have become a hopeless party. As the Russian collusion fraud vanished, so did any possible argument that there isn’t really a crisis on the southern border. The Trump tax and deregulation reform, which Speaker Pelosi called “the worst disaster in history” (no “constructive Trumpian hyperbole” here), maintains a full employment, noninflationary economy with rising family purchasing power and a growing workforce.
The Democrats haven’t got the message, but those who aren’t punch-drunk out of their senses will decode the political message the night of the election in November 2020. Then, when they have dug out from under the rubble of their fantasies, they can start to rebuild.
To be sure the Congressional Democrats are floating a series of moves with more public relations impact than likely success.
The planned subpoena of an unredacted Mueller report is unlikely to yield results.
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.
The normal enforcement mechanism for a subpoena is to cite for contempt the party that refuses to comply. But it’s up to the Justice Department to prosecute that case. The DOJ isn’t going to prosecute its head.
There’s precedent for not prosecuting in these circumstances. The Justice Department declined to prosecute when then-Attorney General Eric Holder refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking documents related to the “Fast and Furious” scandal. Indeed, the Justice Department is most unlikely to bring an action for contempt against any part of the Executive branch.
Congress can proceed without the Justice Department by bringing its own action in federal court to compel compliance. But the judicial process doesn’t move quickly enough for this option to bring about the result Democrats desire.
For example, Holder refused to comply in 2012. It wasn’t until 2016 that a district court ruled in favor of Congress. Holder was out of office by then. The parties proceeded to settle the dispute (though it still hasn’t fully been resolved). Had they not settled, the matter would have dragged on through the appellate process.
Continued....
Mueller Express Fails to Deliver, Democrats Head for the Abyss
By Clarice Feldman
As the long-running Mueller Witch Hunt pulled into the station empty, the one thing that held together the disparate factions of the Democratic Party -- the thought that Mueller would hand them grounds for impeachment -- was lost and a “Gadarene stampede” (in Conrad Black’s fine phrase, descriptive of a pack of crazed swine heading for the abyss) has followed.
To be sure, those who believed Mueller would save them from the Trump revolution didn’t give up entirely. Tom Maguire had some fun at the expense of the diehards:
The Walls Are Closing In On Trump Again!
After a brief respite the media is back to Waiting For The Mueller Report: sources NOT on Mueller's now-disbanded team tell the Times that some of the team think the Barr summary went too easy on Trump. This is impressive 'sources say other sources say' journalism. High school -- the wonder years! As in, I wonder why Times reporters never outgrew that.
Whatever. Mueller ran a tight ship for two years but now his gang is dispersed. Some are back in private practice and no one is worried that Mueller will fire them for chatting a bit. We'll see the report soon enough. Another week or two of staring down their rabbit hole won't hurt the Democrats any.
Victor Davis Hanson sets the historical background:
[A]n investigation that for two years had reconciled the irreconcilable serves no longer as a source of Democratic unity.
We are going to see hard-left Democrats and socialists force their mostly unpopular agenda on politicians and candidates from their own party. And they are now putting their identity-politics money where their mouth is by openly discouraging candidates on the basis of their race and gender.[snip] With the end of the Mueller investigation, thousands of government documents, mostly unredacted, will be released. The result may be that the hunters of Trump soon become hunted by federal prosecutors. Sworn statements of Obama administration officials in the Justice Department, CIA, FBI and other bureaucracies will contradict newly released documents.
To escape punishment, all of these players in the Russian collusion delusion may now begin to turn on one another after being so united in going after Donald Trump.
The media sensationalism and optics will play out in reverse as the "noose tightens" and "the walls close in" on people such as former CIA Director John Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.
There will also be more infighting over the collective embarrassment of the Russian collusion hoax.
It’s impossible to disagree with Conrad Black’s description of the present wreck of the Democratic party with 18 announced candidates , not counting Joe Biden:
It is uproariously entertaining to see the scurryings of the innumerable host of Democratic presidential candidates in what is already more of a lottery than a quest for the nomination of a great party to the world’s greatest office.
The Gadarene stampede to (and over) the edge of the abyss of all who advocate open borders, 70 percent income taxes, the green terror, socialized medicine, legalized infanticide, reparations to native and African-Americans, packing the Supreme Court, and vacation of the Electoral College, has finally elicited, in a Churchillian expression, a tiny mouse of dissent. [snip] The Democrats temporarily have become a hopeless party. As the Russian collusion fraud vanished, so did any possible argument that there isn’t really a crisis on the southern border. The Trump tax and deregulation reform, which Speaker Pelosi called “the worst disaster in history” (no “constructive Trumpian hyperbole” here), maintains a full employment, noninflationary economy with rising family purchasing power and a growing workforce.
The Democrats haven’t got the message, but those who aren’t punch-drunk out of their senses will decode the political message the night of the election in November 2020. Then, when they have dug out from under the rubble of their fantasies, they can start to rebuild.
To be sure the Congressional Democrats are floating a series of moves with more public relations impact than likely success.
The planned subpoena of an unredacted Mueller report is unlikely to yield results.
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.
The normal enforcement mechanism for a subpoena is to cite for contempt the party that refuses to comply. But it’s up to the Justice Department to prosecute that case. The DOJ isn’t going to prosecute its head.
There’s precedent for not prosecuting in these circumstances. The Justice Department declined to prosecute when then-Attorney General Eric Holder refused to comply with a congressional subpoena seeking documents related to the “Fast and Furious” scandal. Indeed, the Justice Department is most unlikely to bring an action for contempt against any part of the Executive branch.
Congress can proceed without the Justice Department by bringing its own action in federal court to compel compliance. But the judicial process doesn’t move quickly enough for this option to bring about the result Democrats desire.
For example, Holder refused to comply in 2012. It wasn’t until 2016 that a district court ruled in favor of Congress. Holder was out of office by then. The parties proceeded to settle the dispute (though it still hasn’t fully been resolved). Had they not settled, the matter would have dragged on through the appellate process.
Continued....
