The Nixon Resignation, the Democrat-Media Cabal, the Mueller Star Chamber and the Rule of Law

AUGUST 9, 1974. I still get an uncontrollable knot in my stomach and feel as if I can't breathe properly every time I see President Nixon, calm and dignified, speaking to the nation to announce his resignation. I will never forget that first injustice carried out in my lifetime, that first breaking of the law by those sworn to uphold it, that fiendish glee in the voices and eyes of those who had driven Richard Nixon out of office. I refused to bow to the lynch mob then, taking the taunts as a a sign justifying my support for the President. • And, today as we remember President Nixon and the evildoers who destroyed him, while I still get that knot in my stomach, I vow I will do everything I can to prevent such a travesty from happening again to the American Republic. • • • WATERGATE. Forty-three years ago, August 9, 1974, Richard Nixon resigned as the 37th President of the United States, becoming the only President in American history to do so. As Steve McCann put it in American Thinker : "His resignation was ostensibly due to his personal role in the lawful (as President), albeit unseemly, cover-up of the January 1972 Watergate break-in of the Democratic National Committee Office (of which he was unaware at the time). The reality is that Nixon’s demise was the culmination of the loathing by and determination of the media-Democratic Party cabal to find or fabricate anything to force him out of office and a feckless Republican Party who willingly and without a whimper abandoned him." • • • IRAN-CONTRA. The Nixon cabal succeeded so thoroughly that most Republicans ended up by agreeing that Nixon was a "crook" and had to go. What an error, because it only strengthened the determination of the Progressive anti-constitutional Left to take down every Republican elected to the presidency. President Reagan -- the most popular President of the 20th century and by far the most successful Republican -- was the subject of a witch hunt to find something to destroy not only his presidency but the man on a personal level. Iran-Contra -- the sale of arms to the rebels in Nicaragua in supposed contravention of the Boland Amendment as attached to various Appropriation Bills -- was the chosen vehicle. While the spineless Republicans controlled the Senate, they were woefully outnumbered in the House (272-163). Hearings were immediately convened and BOTH PARTIES agreed to the necessity of appointing of a Special Independent Counsel. A three-judge panel of the DC Court of Appeals appointed Lawrence Walsh. The anticipation of another Watergate triumph filled the media as Democrats provided the anti-Reagan soundbites. But, Reagan, and many of his subordinates, would not go quietly, and, relying on his popularity with the American people as well as the justice and validity of his administration’s actions, he aggressively withstood the onslaught and maintained his standing with American citizens. Walsh indicted and obtained convictions on obstruction of justice violations against a number of administration officials. However, many were later overturned by the courts and pardons issued by President George H. W. Bush. Their collusion with the media, Walsh and Democrats in Congress in their attempt to destroy Reagan and his legacy took 7 years (1986-1992) and cost the taxpayers in excess of $57.1 million ($107.6 million today). • • • MONICA AND BILL. The unexpected success by the Democrat-Media Cabal cast a long dark shadow over the political landscape. BUT, when the GOP tried to use the same tactic against President Clinton, who was unequivocally guilty of malfeasance, the Democrat-Media Cabal protected him to the end, justifying any Clinton behavior or falsehood. They labelled special prosecutor Kenneth Starr a deviant megalomaniac persecuting an innocent man for minor personal indiscretions. The irrefutable evidence of perjury in sworn and notarized testimony and physical evidence in the form of "the blue dress" was immaterial. The Republican House of Representatives impeached Clinton, but his Democrat Party in the Senate stood firm and refused to vote for a conviction and thus eviction from office. Unlike Nixon, Clinton had no intention of doing the honorable thing by resigning. • • • PRESIDENT BUSH. President Ronald Reagan and then George W. Bush, who in 2004, caved in to the incessant demands of the media and Democrats and James Comey, who was the acting Attorney General, and consented to the appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate the fake and irrelevant Valarie Plame affair -- a CIA employee whom the media claimed had been deliberately exposed by the White House as a covert agent. She was not a covert agent and the Special Counsel knew almost immediately who had leaked her name. Never mind the truth -- the investigation went on for two years with one minor conviction for alleged perjury. The Democrat-Media Cabal accomplished its goal, as the investigation helped cast a further pall over the Bush administration, eroding confidence with the American people and thus opening the door for the election of Barack Obama. • The failure to impeach Bill Clinton seemed to gut the GOP's energy in defending lawful government. President Obama, despite scandals galore -- Fast and Furious, the IRS, Benghazi and Hillary Clinton Emails -- never had to face a special counsel, and, of course, there was no outcry from the media to appoint one. • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP AND THE DEMOCRAT-MEDIA CABAL. All conservatives -- we who believe in government by law under the Constitution's precepts -- must have that uneasy knot forming deep inside us today. We remember the destruction of Richard Nixon and the attempt to destroy Ronald Reagan. Steve McCann in American Thinker set the tone : "Today, another Republican is in the White House and the nation is again subject to the daily and relentless onslaught of the Nixonian undermining and/or removal strategy. In the cross hairs is Donald Trump. Through the dubious machinations of James Comey, the incessant drumbeat of the media and the Democrats forcing recusals in the Department of Justice, another Special Counsel is standing astride the political world. Unlike previous occasions, where there was at least the fig leaf of criminal activity to justify a special prosecutor or counsel, there was no criminal activity alleged in the brief given to Robert Mueller as Special Counsel other than to investigate the alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election -- in essence a national security matter and not one for a special counsel who by statute is only supposed to investigate criminal matters. The fig leaf or justification to go after Nixon in Watergate was a criminal break-in, perjury and obstruction; in Iran-Contra, the violation of the Boland Amendment; with Bill Clinton, it was a fraudulent real estate scheme and perjury; and in the Plame affair, the outing of a CIA agent. But more importantly, these prosecutors had a mandate to investigate a specific criminal matter." • But, Mueller has been given Star Chamber powers -- the authorization to search for criminal acts of someone the powerful King (today, the Swamp elites) do not like and want to get rid of. Mueller is in charge of a criminal investigation looking for a crime. That makes it much worse than the investigations of the alleged abuses of Watergate or Iran-Contra. Steve McCann says : "Never in American history has a prosecutor with unlimited resources and manpower been turned loose on a President and his election campaign to function as a police detective and investigate anything he can claim is remotely tangential or marginally related to his apparent unconstrained mandate." There is little hope of constraining Mueller -- his Hillary-supporting lawyers will collect huge amounts of information, with no desire to keep it secret, as it should be. The Washington Swamp has such hatred for Donald Trump that the leaked information will be exploited by the Democrat-Media Cabal to undermine and destroy the Trump administration even if no criminal activity is found by Mueller. • • • MUELLER IS A DISGRACE TO HIMSELF AND TO THE LEGAL PROFESSION. On Tuesday, Patricia McCarthy wrote in American Thinker : "Mueller never should have been appointed as Special Counsel by Rod Rosenstein, the deputy AG, to investigate any Trump campaign 'collusion' with Russia. Rosenstein knew very well that Mueller was close to Comey and put virtually no restrictions on the scope of the investigation, despite what he said on Fox News Sunday. This fact alone should make Rosenstein's judgment questionable. Mueller, long-time best pal of Comey, should never have accepted the job as Special Counsel in this case. He and Comey have a long history of working in concert for their own ends. But Mueller did accept the job. This fact alone tells us he is not an honest broker. Then Mueller goes on to hire seventeen known leftist lawyers, Clinton and Obama donors all, to work on the 'case.' He is proud to insult the intelligence of all the Americans who voted for Trump; all those people who knew how corrupt and radical Hillary Clinton is. A fair and honest man would have seen to it that his legal team was bi-partisan. Mueller apparently feels so confident in his absolute power he is not ashamed to be blatantly partisan. He does not care about fair. He cares not a bit that if he and his henchmen find some crime to prosecute, millions of Americans will not find it credible. He is a certified member of the DC Swamp establishment. He thinks no one will question his authority, his honesty or credibility. But of course, millions of Americans will not find any such judgment credible. They already know this whole Russia collusion conspiracy is a put-up job, a sham invented by the Clintons, the real Russia colluders." • • • CRINGING GOP SWAMP CREATURES ARE SELLING OUT PRESIDENT TRUMP. This is what we are dealing with -- a Deputy Attorney General in Rod Rosenstein who followed the advice of the Democrat-Media Cabal and appointed a special counsel in Robert Mueller, who had already staked his career on his connections in the Swamp and in Swamp Creatures like Jim Comey. So, says McCarthy : "unless Mueller has hired all those liberal lawyers at tax-payer expense in order to vindicate Trump and prove the numerous facts of Clinton/Obama collusion with Russia, his legacy is one of cheating, lies, fakery, leaks, and as part of the Deep State coup to take down our democratically-elected President." • That, to paraphrase, is the Brooklyn Bridge that the Democrat Party, the Mainstream Media and the weak-sister Republicans deep in the Swamp are trying to sell to America. But, America is not buying the Bridge, or the Democrat-Media Cabal's hate game, or the despicable rush of #NeverTrump GOP fellow travellers to sell their own Party and its President for the measly 30 pieces of silver that they fondly label as "finding the truth." It is hard to grasp why a GOP already bitten by venomous snakes three times within 45 years would put out their arms to be bitten again. But, that -- and not their pitiable whimpers about getting to the truth -- is the truth that the GOP and its rank-and-file must face. The Swamp leaders of the Grand Old Party of Mr. Lincoln are selling their souls to a single-minded gang of thugs. They are content, or at least silent, while Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Chuck Schumer and the late-night comics become the face of their government. It is shameful to watch. But, it is more than that -- it is dangerous because it has exposed the irrelevance of law in American corridors of power. • • • A NATION OF LAWS. John Adams said : "We are a nation of laws, not of men." Much later, President Hoover said : "The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all law." And recently, Representative Trey Gowdy said : "The reason I like the criminal justice system is there aren't Republican or Democrat victims or police officers or prosecutors. It's about respect for the rule of law!" • Those quotes seem almost quaint in today's America. • John Linder wrote in The Blaze last September about John Adams and the rule of law, as David McCullough explained it in his great Adams biography. Linder wrote : "In a nation in which two-thirds of the people were either opposed to independence or indifferent, Adams drove the remaining one-third to create the most free and most generous nation in history. He advocated for Washington to be the leader of the revolution. He insisted that Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence. He said throughout his life that Jefferson would be remembered longer than most of the Founders because Jefferson was a better writer. Adams knew 240 years ago the power of the written word. John Adams also gave us the slogan that drove this free nation to such heights. 'We are a nation of laws, not of men.' ” • But, while Adams believed that ALL men are fallible, he would not recognize the nation he helped create. Linder uses the example of the private contractors from Platte River Networks who managed Hillary Clinton’s personal server, who, when subpoenaed to testify before Congress under oath, took the Fifth Amendment instead of answering the question posed by a congressional committee -- who instructed them to destroy emails in the Hillary server after Congress had ordered the emails to be preserved. We can only conclude that by speaking the truth under oath they would be admitting to a crime. The attorneys, the contractors and Mrs. Clinton ignored the law. At an earlier time this behavior would put people in jail. No more. During the hearing Justin Cooper, who set up the server, testified that he was given total access to the emails but admitted that he had no security clearance. At an earlier time this behavior would put people in jail. No more. One of the people subpoenaed to testify didn’t even show up. He chose to ignore the law and the subpoena. At an earlier time this behavior would put people in jail. No more. Linder also reminds us of Lois Lerner, who led an effort to use the power of the IRS to intimidate conservative groups and deny their applications for tax-exempt status. She took the 5th also. Congress voted her in contempt of Congress. She retired on full benefits. At an earlier time this behavior would put people in jail. No more. Former Attorney General Eric Holder perjured himself before Congress. He was also voted in contempt. At an earlier time he would have been impeached. Not today. President Obama decided to ignore immigration laws and bring hundreds of thousands of immigrants into the US illegally. A Texas judge ordered them to stop until a hearing could take place. They ignored the judge’s order and continued. At an earlier time he would have been impeached. Not today. • John Adams gave Americans another axiom to consider : “There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.” When the officials elected to enforce the law use that power to break the law, the world’s most shining example of liberty exists no longer. • • • DEAR READERS, Lavrentiy Beria is often quoted for saying : "Show me the man and I'll find you the crime." Beria, who was compared to Hitler's Heinrich Himmler, was Stalin's marshal of the Soviet Union and the ruthless head of the secret police. He rose quickly through the new Soviet Union's ranks via his violent methods and his flattery of Soviet leader Josef Stalin to achieve enormous power over the lives of Russians in the early Communist era. And, in 1953, after the death of Stalin, the hated Beria came to an understanding with Georgi Malenkov, an old ally, and was given the combined ministries of State Security and Internal Affairs, which put him in control of both the secret and the regular police as well as a small private army of infantry divisions. He then improbably began to urge an easing of Stalinism that went further than his colleagues were ready for. Many of them feared him almost as much as they had feared Stalin himself and a lethal plot was hatched against him. Accounts of what happened vary considerably, but it seems that Beria’s downfall was engineered by Nikita Khrushchev, secretary to the Party Central Committee, who quietly secured the support of other powerful figures, including Malenkov and a number of generals. On June 26, 1953, apparently, at a hastily convened meeting of the Presidium, Khrushchev launched a blistering attack on Beria, accusing him of being a cynical careerist, long in the pay of British intelligence, and no true Communist believer. Marshal Zhukov and a group of armed officers waiting in a nearby room burst in, seized Beria and manhandled him away. He was taken first to the Lefortovo Prison and subsequently to the headquarters of General Moskalenko, commander of Moscow District Air Defense, where he was imprisoned in an underground bunker. His arrest was kept as quiet as possible while his principal lieutenants were rounded up -- some were rumoured to have been shot out of hand -- and regular troops were moved into Moscow. R.A. Rudenko, an experienced prosecutor well known to Khrushchev, was appointed to make certain that the police chief was tried, condemned and executed with the maximum appearance of legality. Pravda announced Beria’s fall on July 10th, crediting it to the initiative of Comrade Malenkov and referring to Beria’s "criminal activities against the Party and the State." On December 17, Rudenko’s office announced that Beria and six accomplices, encouraged by foreign intelligence agencies, had been conspiring for many years to seize power in the Soviet Union in order to restore capitalism. A special tribunal was set up. The accused were allowed no representation and no appeal. When the death sentence was passed, according to General Moskalenko, Beria fell to the floor and begged on his knees for mercy. It was not a quality he had shown to others, and it was not now shown to him. He and his confederates were taken away and promptly shot. His wife and son were sent to a Siberian labor camp. • Why talk of Beria? Because he is perhaps the best example of living and dying in a society where there is no "rule of law." There was no rule of law in absolute monarchies with their Star Chambers. There is no rule of law in Iran today, where dissenters are beaten down and arrested for demanding non-rigged elections. There is no rule of law in Venezuela, where citizens are hauled off in the night wearing their pajamas because they dare to speak out against the dictator whose police-state policies are starving them and their children. Totalitarian states pretend to be lawful. They are not -- Beria was tried, condemned and executed "with the maximum appearance of legality." • Either the United States will continue as a nation of laws, not of men, or it will not. Today, the non-lawful usurpation of power by elites in Washington is a challenge to the continuation of the constitutional rule of law. President Trump is standing up for the Republic's rule of law, and he is having his skin slowly peeled away for his stance. There must be other officials in Washington who agree that what is happening under the bureaucrat Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and special counsel Robert Mueller is not lawful. Are they afraid to speak up because of Democrat-Media Cabal pressures -- that is one of the signs that the rule of law is slipping away. • What is to prevent a future unscrupulous attorney general, in league with a President, from appointing a special counsel to investigate a political opponent on specious but marginally valid grounds? The Mueller precedent of a special counsel with no alleged crime to investigate, but with broad powers to "find" a crime, makes such a future increasingly likely. Nothing -- unless Congress on a veto proof basis invalidates the current special counsel law -- will prevent it from happening. It does not matters whether one is fervently pro-Trump, aggressively anti-Trump or passionately #NeverTrump, the precedent this entire Mueller process has set is frightening. All Americans should be protesting its continuation to their Senators and Representatives. Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, should shut down the Special Counsel investigation or amend his mandate to Mueller to limit it to a set of fact-based allegations of criminal acts, like that of the Bill Clinton inquiry. The amended mandate should include not only a set of allegations of criminal acts of the Trump campaign in "colluding" (whatever that means -- it is not a legal term or a crime) with Russia, but also a set of fact-based alleged criminal actions of the Democratic Party in their undertakings with the Russians. Anything beyond that lawful corridor will trigger anger and resentment among the body politic that "may well eventuate into national chaos," as Steve McCann put it. The moment of decision for Rosenstein and Mueller is rapidly approaching. America is waiting and watching.