Lean Left

Day 112. 

All through the campaign and the transition we have had a lot of lying and “fact checking” about what is said.  Yes, I know that a lot of people think that all politicians lie, but there really is a difference between knowingly spreading false information, and saying what your think you audience wants to hear.

The problem we are facing in the country today is one that is based on integrity.  That is something that should never become a problem.  I don’t care if you tell little leis to get elected, but you cannot make lying part of your standard operating procedures.

Senator Jeff Sessions during his hearings to become the Attorney General was asked a specific question by Senator Franken.  Franken asked:

CNN just published a story alleging that the intelligence community provided documents to the president-elect last week, that included information that “Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump.” These documents also allegedly say “there was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.” Again, I’m telling you this as it’s coming out, so, you know.

But if it’s true, it’s obviously extremely serious, and if there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?

You will notice that at no point in this question did Franken ask about anyone communicating with the Russians about the campaign, but only if anyone in the campaign had communications with Russian government during the campaign.  Nor, did Franken ask Sessions if he personally had communicated with Russians during the campaign.

Sessions answered:

Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.

Again, please note that Sessions offered information about himself that was not asked.  he said “I did not have communications with the Russians”.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) sent Sessions a lengthy letter asking about Russia (and a number of other things).

Several of the President-Elect’s nominees or senior advisers have Russian ties. Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after Election Day?

RESPONSE: No.

Here, you will notice that Sessions was asked directly about whether or not he had contact with the Russians about the 2016 election.  That was far more direct than the question Franken asked.

Last night it was reported by the Washington Post that Sessions did in fact have contact with the Russian government.  As a matter of fact, that person was the Russian Ambassador to the U.S.

Sessions has not refuted that report.  He said:

I have not met with any Russians at any time to discuss any political campaign and those remarks are unbelievable to me and are false.  And I don’t have anything else to say about that.

Now we are being forced to listen to a “semantics” game about what he said and what he meant.  If you are talking about the Attorney General of the Unites States that is an argument that should rightly fall on deaf ears.

This man is supposed to be our country’s “top cop” and ensure that the laws of the land are followed by everyone.  As Sessions himself said during Clinton’s impeachment process “no one is above the law”. Do we not deserve to have an Attorney General whose words can be taken at face value and not have to play games about what he said and what he meant?

These problems surrounding the Russia involvement into our elections is continuing because no one in the administration is willing to tell the absolute truth.  The reason given for the Flynn firing was not that he had contacts with the Russian Ambassador, but that he lied about them.  What is the difference between that situation and this one?

Since Sessions volunteered that he did not speak to the Russians during the campaign, that cannot be considered anything but a lie.  What would have stopped him from saying that “I did have a couple of meetings with the Russian Ambassador, but that was in my duties connected with the committee I sit on and no politics were ever discussed.”

Instead, he simply said “I did not have any contact with the Russians”.  That was untrue, and Sessions knew it was untrue when he said it.  That gives the impression that he is hiding something.  That is the real point.  Just like I asked about Flynn, if there is nothing there, why lie about it?  What makes it so easy for this administration to lie just about every time they open their mouths?

I am not going to get into the argument about perjury.  I am not a lawyer and I don’t know all of the requirements needed to prove perjury and lying to Congress.  This is about honesty and integrity.  This is about transparency.  This is about being able to believe and rely on our officials, especially someone with the power of the Attorney General behind him.

If the Attorney General cannot be honest, straightforward, and transparent with his words, he cannot be trusted to uphold the laws of our country.  We cannot trust him when he says he will defend all minorities and anyone else.  That is a very disturbing problem.  That is the beginning of the breakdown of our Judicial system.

All of the arguments about the semantics of his answer are nothing but smokescreens.  They do not point to the fact that Sessions knew he was telling an untruth and he did nothing to correct the record which he could have easily done, as have others in history.  But, he let it stand on the record and was unconcerned that he lied.

Jeff Sessions has broken faith with the American People.  He has lied openly and now says he did “nothing wrong”.  Sorry, that is inexcusable for an Attorney General to say or believe.

As my readers know, I was always against Jeff Sessions becoming our Attorney General.  Those reasons were spelled out very clearly.  However, this situation is above and beyond all of that.  This is a separate issue that Sessions has brought upon himself.

Even Republicans are now calling on Sessions to recuse himself from any investigation into this Russian matter.  Something that he has not yet done.  He says he will recuse himself it becomes necessary.  That isn’t good enough.

Jeff Sessions has broken faith with the American People.  The man who became our Attorney General lied during his hearings to be certified qualified to fill the position.  The Attorney General is supposed to prosecute those who commit perjury.  How can we be sure he will do so if he is guilty of perjury before Congress?

No, Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the investigation into the Russian issue is not good enough.  He has shown a total disregard for honesty, integrity, and dignity.  He must recuse himself from being Attorney General.  Since he has shown he cannot be trusted, he must resign now.

The precedent has been set by trump.  If Flynn lost his job for lying, Sessions must also lose his job for lying.  Otherwise, the shirts will keep marching along.

Day 106. 

The third step in dismantling democracy and establishing your authoritarian government is to control your Justice Department.  If that department isn’t doing what you want, interfere and make sure they comply with your wishes.

If anyone cares to remember back when Richard Nixon was impeached, the first Article of Impeachment was “Obstruction of Justice”.  This was because when the break-in at the Watergate was first reported, Nixon and his administration tried to stop the investigation.

After that incident, it was decided by the Department of Justice that they would no longer allow such actions.  As such they put in place rules as to whom could be contacted by any investigation agency, like the FBI, at the White House.  There were four positions on that list.  The President, the Vice President, The White House Counsel, and the White House Counsel Deputy.

And then, that contact could only be made if it was necessary in order to help the President do his job in matters of national security.  In other words, the Justice Department was not to discuss ongoing investigations with the White House.

Even in the George W. Bush administration, violation of these rules resulted in an Attorney General and a White House Chief of Staff being forced to resign.  So, even though these “rules” aren’t really laws, they are set precedent and are intended to make sure the Justice Department remains independent from White House Influence.

We have already seen instances where trump and his staff ignore rules.  This is no exception.  The New York Times has reported that the trump campaign staff was in “constant contact with Russian officials” throughout the campaign.  Naturally, the White House has denied these allegations even though Russian Officials have said they were true.

Although we don’t know for sure, it has been reported that the FBI has three different investigations on the Russian Hacking and interfering with our election process.  One of them the report of constant contact between Russia and the trump campaign.

We have an Attorney General who was part of that trump campaign staff.  He refuses to recuse himself from any investigation involving trump or his campaign.  That is bad enough.  Anyone with any amount of ethics would quickly recuse themselves from such investigations.  However, no one ever accused Jeff Sessions of having any ethics.

But, here is where it gets more interesting, and more dangerous.  It has been reported by several agencies, including CNN, that “a white house official asked the FBI to tap down the Times story about the contact between Russia and Trump’s campaign”.  The FBI refused.

All fingers are now pointing to Reince Priebus as the “White House official” who made that contact.  According to new reporting, Priebus reached out to Deputy Director McCabe.  When McCabe turned him down, he then called Director Comey who also turned him down.

But that didn’t stop Priebus.  He went on Fox News on Sunday to blast the reports as “total baloney”.  Then in another interview he went further.  He said:

The top levels of the intelligence community have assured me that that story is not only inaccurate, but it’s grossly overstated and it was wrong. And there’s nothing to it.

In another interview he stated that he “knew what the FBI told Congress in their briefing on this subject.  I spoke to the FBI.  I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know the facts.  And, I have been cleared to say this.”

That raises a whole lot of red flags.  The Chief of Staff is not on the list of people who can be contacted about an ongoing investigation.  So, how could Priebus know what the FBI told Congress?  Who “cleared him to say this”?

Former Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem blasted Priebus’ reported actions as “so wrong” and “so desperate.” Another Justice Department alum, Matthew Miller, called the interaction “beyond inappropriate,” adding that it “veers dangerously close to tampering with an investigation.”

Avoiding the possibility of the White House “tampering with an investigation” is what these rules are all about.  They are intended to keep the investigation quiet and away from political influence.

The trump campaign made a lot of hay out of the former Attorney General meeting Bill Clinton on her plane while the FBI was investigating Hillary.  But, they don’t seem to think this is such a big deal.  Only it is.

House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers probably said it best:

The need for an independent, bipartisan investigation into these matters has never been more clear.  The Trump team has clear ties to the Russian government—and we ignore those ties at our own peril.

Yet, the House Republican Leadership still remains very silent about anything to do with Russian interference in the election.  That outstanding public figure whose committee’s responsibility is to use Oversight over such matters is also very quiet.  Oh, he finally decided to “investigate something” but it isn’t anything to do with Russia.

He intends to investigate a tweet from a State Park in Utah welcoming the new National Parks to the family the day after President Obama made that announcement.  Chaffetz thinks they had previous knowledge of the decision and wants to know how they got it.  That is really critical in his job to oversee the Government.

See, this is just another step in order to dismantle our democracy.  At the “tin-hat” convention known as CPAC yesterday, Steve Bannon basically said that was the goal of the administration.  Only he used different words like “dismantling the administrative government”.  When you also put that in context with his statements about “our culture” you understand what he means.

“Our culture” is white supremacist speak for White Culture.  And, since Bannon is a favorite of the white supremacists there was no doubt what he was referring to when he used those words.

Under an administration who is willing to defend our democracy Reince Priebus would be forced to resign, today!  But, since no one at the White House thinks that is necessary, we can only argue that they are not interested in defending our democracy.

If an administration can control what the investigating agencies actually investigate, then they have more control over the people and the government.  They can get those agencies like the FBI to stop investigating them, and focus more on “protesters” and “leaks” and “reporters” in an effort to make their words the only ones that matter.

If the Justice Department remains independent and follows the rules that keep it independent, then our democracy stands a chance of surviving.  That is because we can count on the FBI to let an investigation go wherever it leads them.

Under normal circumstances, I would think that if trump and his cronies are so sure that they are innocent of contacting Russians during the election, they would be thrilled to have the investigation go forward to prove their case.  The only reason they would try to “tap down” a story if it scares them to death.

If they would keep away from the FBI in this matter and it turns out the story is not true, they would be able to move forward.  However, since they insist on keeping their fingers on the scale, it would be impossible for reasonable people to believe a report that they did not contact the Russians during the campaign.

There will be doubts if Sessions or the White House influenced the investigation to have a positive outcome.  Does anybody in that administration have any brains at all?  Are they that devoid of the ability of rational thought?

This is simply how it works.  You put in place an Attorney General with no ethics and who worked for your campaign.  You then ignore all protocols and rules in order to sway the FBI to say what you want them to say.   Then you deny the reports on this attempt, and when you finally say it did happen you blame the FBI as the one who “reached out”.

If it is true that Priebus knows what the FBI told Congress, then we really do have a serious problem because that means that someone in the FBI gave him a briefing on an ongoing investigation about his boss.

That would be like the FBI calling in the head of a Mafia Family to give him a briefing on an ongoing investigation into his family about their criminal activities.  That would cause heads to roll and this issue should too.

The first Article of Impeachment of Richard Nixon was “Obstruction of Justice”.  Rules were put in place to prevent that from happening again.  This administration has shown us just what they think of rules.  They don’t like them so they ignore them.

You cannot control the Justice Department if you follow rules.  And, you cannot control investigations unless you control the Justice Department.  That is step three in dismantling our democracy.

And, the shirts keep marching along!