The Swamp, and Maybe Europe, Need a Second Special Counsel, Why Not Rudy Giuliani?

THE BEST IDEA OF THE DAY. On Monday, Robert Zaft wrote an article on American Thinker titled "Time for the New Untouchables." Zaft said : "Our law enforcement and intelligence agencies cannot be trusted to either enforce or observe the law. The now departed James Comey and Peter Strzok at the FBI. Andrew Weissman and Jennie Rhee on Robert Mueller's special counsel team. As yet undisclosed leakers at the NSA or CIA. These are just the tip of the iceberg. The DC swamp has become a criminal organization as widespread and deeply rooted as Capone's in Chicago. The solution then was a hand-picked team of 'Untouchables' operating outside normal channels. We should follow that example now." Zaft's choice is Rudy Giuliani, given his record against organized crime in New York City. Zaft says Giuliani should be appointed special counsel : "He could call upon former FBI agents and prosecutors from his anti-Mafia work to form an uncorrupted (and hopefully incorruptible) senior team with a brief to investigate the swamp as a network of criminal organizations not unlike the New York mob." THAT, as they say, sounds like a plan. Go for it, Mr. Sessions. • • • THERE'S A LOT TO INVESTIGATE : HOUSE CALLS FOR SECOND SPECIAL COUNSEL. TheHill reported on January 28 that 13 House Republicans are calling on Attorney General Jeff Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton. The lawmakers sent a letter to Sessions requesting that he appoint a special counsel to investigate the end of the Clinton email probe, the start of the investigation into Russia's election meddling and alleged surveillance abuses by the FBI. The letter reads, according to TheHill : "We acknowledge with immense gratitude that nearly every single man and woman in the [Department of Justice] and the FBI conduct themselves daily with integrity, independence, patriotism, objectivity, and commitment to the rule of law. That is why this Special Counsel is of utmost importance to ensure that these historic, legendary, and necessary agencies move forward more respected and effective than before." The letter was signed by GOP Represnetatives Lee Zeldin (N.Y.), Mark Meadows (N.C.), Jim Jordan (Ohio), Claudia Tenney (N.Y.), Francis Rooney (Fla.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Ted Budd (N.C.), Jody Hice (Ga.), Scott Perry (Pa.), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Andy Harris (Md.), Louie Gohmert (Texas) and Dave Brat (Va.). • Jordan and Meadows have been calling for a second special counsel since January after revelations surfaced that the FBI did not save five months worth of text messages between two FBI agents who have been accused of pro-Clinton and anti-Trump bias during the 2016 presidential race. Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee earlier this month released the Nunes Memo claiming that senior officials at the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) abused their powers to spy on members of the Trump campaign. The 13 lawmakers signed onto the letter that stated: “Evidence has come to light that raises serious concerns about decisions and activities by leadership at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation regarding how and why the Clinton probe ended and how and why the Trump-Russia probe began.” • We can now add to that impressive House list two more House leaders -- Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte and Oversight Committee chairman Trey Gowdy on Tuesday also demanded the appointment of a special counsel to investigate “conflicts of interest” and decisions “made and not made” by current and former Justice Department officials in 2016 and 2017, noting that “the public interest requires” the action. Gowdy and Goodlatte wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, stating : “Matters have arisen -- both recently and otherwise -- which necessitate the appointment of a Special Counsel. We do not make this observation and attendant request lightly." In an exclusive interview with Fox News, Gowdy and Goodlatte spoke about the discovery of new information as their reasoning behind calling for a second independent counsel. Gowdy said : “What changed for me was the knowledge that there are two dozen witnesses that Michael Horowitz, the [DOJ] Inspector General, would not have access to. When I counted up 24 witnesses that he would not be able to access were he to investigate it, yeah only one conclusion, that’s special counsel.” Gowdy confirmed that the list of witnesses includes former FBI director James Comey. Last week, Sessions announced that Horowitz would investigate allegations of government surveillance abuse in light of memos released on Capitol Hill by the House Intelligence Committee which suggested, at least on the Republican side, that the dossier compiled by ex-UK intelligence officer Christopher Steele was used to obtain a FISA warrant to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Gowdy told Fox News : “Absolutely, this whole FISA warrant was on Carter Page.” Goodlatte agreed stating that the case on which the warrant was built was “highly suspect.” The two House committee chairmen wrote : “There is evidence of bias, trending toward animus, among those charged with investigating serious cases. There is evidence political opposition research was used in court filings. There is evidence this political opposition research was neither vetted before it was used nor fully revealed to the relevant tribunal.” Godwy says the "fact pattern is unique and compelling and I think he really ought to consider it." Asked why a special counsel was needed, Gowdy told Fox News : “Congress doesn’t have the tools to investigate this...We leak like the Gossip Girls.” Gowdy and Goodlatte wrote in their letter that because the “decisions of both former and current Department of Justice and FBI officials are at issue,” they did not believe the DOJ was “capable” of investigating the “fact patterns in a fashion likely to garner public confidence.” President Trump attacked Sessions' decision to use Horowitz, saying he appointed an “Obama guy” to investigate “potentially massive FISA abuse.” Then there is the load Horowitz is shouldering -- he also is investigating former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, and whether he wanted to avoid taking action on new Clinton emails found on disgraced Democratic New York Represnetative Anthony Weiner’s laptop, reports said. According to records, McCabe knew about the emails belonging to Hillary Clinton in September 2016, but did not choose to brief former FBI Director James Comey until October 26, 2016 -- prompting the re-opening of the Clinton email investigation just one week before the presidential election. Gowdy and Goodlatte wrote in their letter : "While we have confidence in the Inspector General for the Department of Justice, the DOJ IG does not have the authority to investigate other governmental entities or former employees of the Department, the Bureau, or other agencies....Some have been reluctant to call for the appointment of a Special Counsel because such an appointment should be reserved for those unusual cases where existing investigative and prosecutorial entities cannot adequately discharge those duties. We believe this is just such a case.” Goodlatte wrote to Sessions in July 2017 and September 2017, calling for the appointment of a second special counsel, but he received only one response from the Justice Department, suggesting that Sessions had directed senior federal prosecutors to investigate matters involving the Clinton Foundation and the sale of Uranium One -- leaving the door open to consider whether “the matters merit the appointment of a Special Counsel.” • • • DELAYS IN WEINER LAPTOP PROBE. Another matter worthy of investigation by a second special counsel is the entire Weiner laptop issue. Fox News' Brooke Singman reported on March 2 that Republican Senator Ron Johnson is pressing for answers on why the FBI waited weeks to act after the 2016 discovery of thousands of emails on disgraced ex-Representative Anthony Weiner's laptop that potentially were relevant to the Hillary Clinton email investigation. Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Johnson fired off a letter last Thursday to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein asking about the timeline, citing texts between two key FBI investigators. Singman says : "The messages, first reported by The Wall Street Journal in late January, indicate that top bureau officials were aware of the discovery of thousands of emails from Weiner well before the FBI sought a search warrant in late October, and effectively revived the Clinton probe right before the election." Senator Johnson wrote to Rosenstein : "The cryptic and disjointed nature of the text messages, in addition to heavy redactions applied to other FBI documents, make it difficult to understand fully the sequence of events.” Johnson gave Rosenstein a deadline of March 15 to provide information to the committee. The text messages were between FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, who have since come under fire for their anti-Trump messages. The texts in the Johnson letter suggest that as of September 28, 2016, they and former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe were aware of new emails found on Weiner’s laptop during the criminal investigation into his relationship with a minor. Strzok wrote to Page : "Got called up to Andy’s earlier...hundreds of thousands of emails turned over by Weiner’s atty to sdny, includes a ton of material from spouse. Sending team up tomorrow to review...this will never end...” The “spouse” Strzok was referring to was Huma Abedin -- a longtime top aide and confidante of Clinton’s. Page asked : “Turned over to them why?” Strzok answered : “Apparently one of his recent texting partners may not have been 18...don’t have the details yet,” Strzok wrote. Page responded, noting that news reports said the young woman “was 15.” • But it wasn’t until October 27, 2016 that former FBI Director James Comey was briefed on the newly discovered emails. The Washington Post first reported in January that the Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is specifically investigating McCabe, and whether he wanted to avoid taking action on the laptop findings until after the presidential election. Singman wrote : "Federal law enforcement sources have complained to Fox News that FBI headquarters appeared to slow roll a review of classified Clinton emails found on the laptop computer shared by Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin...McCabe left the FBI in January after months of conflict-of-interest complaints from Republicans who long have questioned McCabe’s ties to the Democratic Party. His wife ran as a Democrat for a Virginia Senate seat in 2015, and got financial help from a group tied to Clinton family ally former Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe -- all while McCabe investigated Clinton’s emails. • The text messages -- and new testimony from top FBI officials -- provide further details about when and how those emails were discovered, and who at the FBI knew. Singman quotes "new testimony from an Office of Special Counsel interview with former Comey Chief of Staff James Rybicki, who said McCabe’s office did not notify him until the night of October 26, 2016, of the need to brief Comey on 'something related to mid-year exam,' the FBI’s case name for the Clinton email investigation. 'They found a lot of new emails right? So it’s kind of when people say we didn’t find anything, that’s not accurate,' Rybicki said in his testimony. 'We did find new stuff. But nothing that would change our view of the original conclusion in July. That’s the upshot.' ” • However, Comey announced on July 5, 2016 that he would not file charges against Clinton, saying that she was “extremely careless” in her handling of classified information on her private email server. Singman reports that : "The Office of Special Counsel also interviewed FBI’s deputy general counsel, Trisha Anderson, who testified that Comey was briefed on the material on Weiner’s laptop on Octobe 27, 2016. 'We had no search warrant at that point in time for purposes of the Clinton email server investigation so he was briefed on what we knew at the time,' Anderson said, noting that they had a discussion 'about what we should do going forward,' and mentioned 'whether we should seek a search warrant, how we should proceed to seek to obtain evidence.' Anderson noted that the director’s office decided the need to seek a search warrant 'urgently.' OSC investigators asked what the urgency was, to which Anderson replied : 'That given the significance of the matter um, uh, that we had to proceed quickly. It was just too, too explosive for us to sit on.' ” • On October 28, 2016, Comey sent a letter to Congress announcing the “recent developments” of the discovery of Clinton and Abedin communications found on Weiner’s laptop -- which he had been briefed on just the day before. That email reopened the Clinton probe, just a week before the election. Months later, in December 2016, Strzok and Page texted about the possibility that the FBI would conduct an interview with Abedin, and discussed her potential “immunity.” • • • DID THE FBI VIOLATE CRIMINAL STATUTES? Catherine Herridge of Fox News reported on March 1 that the FBI "may have violated criminal statutes, as well as its own strict internal procedures, by using unverified information during the 2016 election to obtain a surveillance warrant on onetime Trump campaign aide Carter Page, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee charged Thursday in a letter obtained by Fox News. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., wrote in his letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions that 'in this instance, it’s clear that basic operating guidance was violated.' Nunes cited the Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide (DIOG), which was created by the bureau and approved by the Justice Department, to say he believed the FBI violated procedures requiring verified and documented evidence in applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court." Herridge says that an October 2011 version of the Operations Guide states that the “accuracy of information contained within FISA applications is of utmost importance...Only documented and verified information may be used to support FBI applications to the court." The guidance also states that information in a FISA application must be “thoroughly vetted and confirmed.” • In his letter to Session, Nunes wrote : “Former and current DOJ and FBI leadership have confirmed to the committee that unverified information from the Steele dossier comprised an essential part of the FISA applications related to Carter Page.” Herridge states that : "Nunes listed five criminal statues that were possibly violated, including conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and contempt of court. It also cited statues that make it a crime to willfully deprive a person of a right protected by the Constitution and another preventing unauthorized electronic surveillance. In the letter, Nunes asked Sessions whether these protocols requiring verified information have changed, and if not, what steps the DOJ or FBI taken to hold officials behind the Page application accountable. The letter is carbon copied to FBI Director Christopher Wray and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.. The letter is available at < Letter is at < https://html2-f.scribdassets.com/1d4jzfashs6agppm/images/1-d5b9d732a8.jpg >. • Sessions acknowledged this week that Horowitz is probing the circumstances of the surveillance of Page." • Sessions told a news conference : “We believe the Department of Justice must adhere to the high standards in the FISA court. Yes it will be investigated. And I think that's just the appropriate thing the inspector general will take that as one of the matters he'll deal with.” That was the statement that led President Trump to refer to Horowitz as an “Obama guy” and call Sessions’ decision “disgraceful.” • In his June 2017 testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee, then-FBI Director Jim Comey said he still considered the Dossier “unverified” and “salacious” three months after the October 2016 surveillance warrant was granted. • Trey Gowdy has spoken to Fox News about the FBI surveillance warrant, asking a hypothetical question to the FBI : "If you had a bunch of other reasons to get a FISA warrant on Carter Page, why didn't you use it?" • We know the answer to that question, but it would be good to hear someone from the FBI finally and clearly admit that there was No Other Evidence and that the "evidence" in their FISA application was Fake. • • • DID MANAFORT PAY EU LEADERS TO LOBBY FOR UKRAINE. With all these fundamental issues that relate to the health and constitutionality of the Republic unresolved, do the FBI and DOJ and special lcounsel Mueller really have time for the ordinary white-collar criminality apparentlyu engaged in by Paul Manafort? Perhaps it is more a matter for Europe. Consider this. • Business Insider's Michael Kranz reported on February 25 that President Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort was charged by special counsel Robert Mueller on Friday with paying European leaders to lobby of behalf of Ukraine -- NOTE that it was long before he became part of the Trump campaign. The leaders, who include former leaders of Austria and Italy, have denied any wrongdoing. They were allegedly part of a lobbying group called the Hapsburg Group. • Kranz says : "Following special counsel Robert Mueller's newest indictment on Friday of President Donald Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, two former European leaders were shocked to find their names mentioned in the indictment documents, claiming they'd done nothing wrong, according to the New York Times. According to Mueller's indictment, two European politicians were secretly paid around €2 million by Manafort in order to 'take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying in the United States,' the Times reported. This money was paid during a period when former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was inching closer to Europe on several issues. He eventually changed course however, and was ousted in a pro-Western revolution in Ukraine in 2014." Although the indictment documents did not name the leaders, former prime minister of Italy Romano Prodi stated in an interview that he and former Austrian Chancellor Alfred Gusenbauer were the leaders mentioned. But Prodi said he was not aware that the funds Gusenbauer had paid him had come from Manafort, and were part of "normal private relations I had with him," and was "not any money from external sources. I tell you I have never been paid from any lobby group in America," Prodi added. • According to the NYT, Prodi and Gusenbauer had both long believed that closer ties between Ukraine and the European Union were a good thing. Gusenbauer told BBC : "I always had the point of view that it was important to move Ukraine closer to Europe. It would have been extremely positive if Ukraine could have agreed to closer ties. I was talking to EU and US politicians to make that point clear...I stopped this activity when I had the impression that Ukraine was moving in the wrong direction." • Business Insider calls the payments a "Transatlantic Charade." Mueller's documents claim that the group had strategized to "appear to be providing their independent assessments of Government of Ukraine actions, when in fact they were paid lobbyists for Ukraine," according to the NYT. Gusenbauer did admit that he had been paid for working on behalf of Ukraine, but did not divulge by whom. BI's Kranz says : "According to filings made by Mercury Public Affairs, a political strategy group contracted by Manafort, the former chancellor had met with several members of Congress in 2013 to lobby for Ukraine. The Podesta Group, a Washington lobbying firm formerly run by the brother of the former chairman of the 2016 Democratic presidential campaign John Podesta, also reportedly "arranged meetings and media opportunities" for a group of visiting European leaders working on the Ukraine issue that included Prodi and Gusenbauer. Prodi however has denied membership in this group, and stated that Gusenbauer headed it." • In Europe, Alice Cuddy of euronews.com reported : "Ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort secretly paid a group of former senior European politicians to covertly promote the interests of Ukraine’s previous pro-Russia government in Washington, according to a new indictment. The superseding indictment filed by special counsel Robert Mueller...says Manafort 'secretly retained' the ex-politicians, known as the 'Hapsburg group,' to lobby for Ukraine in 2012 and 2013....The indictment says Manafort earned tens of millions of dollars in income representing the interests of Ukraine, its political parties and leaders in a covert lobbying scheme....According to the indictment, acting on behalf of then-Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and his Party of Regions, Manafort in 2012 retained the so-called Hapsburg Group to 'take positions favorable to Ukraine, including by lobbying the United States.' The plan was for the group to 'appear to be providing their independent assessments of Government of Ukraine actions, when in fact they were paid lobbyists for Ukraine,' the indictment said. Manafort called the group 'SUPER VIP' in an 'EYES ONLY' memo created around June 2012, in which he explained that he wanted to 'assemble a group of high-level European highly influencial [sic] champions and politically credible friends who can act informally and without any visible relationship with the Government of Ukraine.' The indictment says the group was managed by a former European chancellor, who it names as Foreign Politician A, in coordination with Manafort. While the former chancellor is not named in the filing, the head of government in both Austria and Germany is known as the chancellor. In 2013, the former chancellor and other former politicians from the group lobbied US Members of Congress, officials in the Executive Branch and their staff in coordination with Manafort, the indictment says. According to the filing, Manafort paid the group more than 2 million euros in 2012 and 2013, wiring the money through at least four offshore accounts." • And, the EU observer's Nikolaj Nielsen wrote last week that : "Speculation is rising some former EU officials were paid a total of €2 million to lobby a Russian-backed government in Ukraine by Donald Trump's disgraced campaign chief Paul Manafort. The allegations were brought forward on Friday (24 February) in an indictment by US prosecutors probing Trump's entourage following accusations of Russian meddling in the US presidential race. The indictment says Manafort....is said to have paid the officials, or the so-called Hapsburg Group, in an effort to drum up support in 2012 and 2013 for the Moscow-backed president of Ukraine and Soviet-style leader Viktor Yanukovich. While people are not directly named, the Hapsburg Group is said to have involved and been led by a former chancellor, believed to be Austria's Alfred Gusenbauer. Gusenbauer has denied it all, according to the BBC, which quoted Gusenbauer : "I was not aware of the fact Mr Manafort was financing this activity and of course I was also not connected to his activities within the Ukraine." Gusenbauer said he had instead been working to secure better trade relations between Ukraine and Europe. Others reportedly include former Italina PM and European Commission president Romano Prodi, who was quoted in the New York Times as saying that he had "never been paid from any lobby group in America." Instead, he says he had been paid by Gusenbauer. The EU observer raised another EU name : "Pat Cox, the former president of the European parliament, has also denied any wrong doing, telling the Irish Times newspaper that he had worked at the time to secure the release of people imprisoned by Yanukovich. Yulia Tymoshenko, the leader of the Orange revolution, was among those jailed. Cox said he had never heard of the Hapsburg Group, had broadly opposed Yanukovich, and is willing to hand over records of his work to US authorities." • The EU observer stated that the EU at that time were pushing to deepen trade ties with Ukraine but were rebuffed by Yanukovich in late 2013, which helped trigger a popular uprising among pro-Western Ukrainians ahead of Russia's annexation of Crimea. Yanukovich fled to Russia three months later in 2014 after having presided over Ukraine since 2010. In regard to the Ukraine moving closer to the EU, Manafort is accused of hiding away the earnings from the lobbying in off-shore accounts and of failing to register his lobbying work for a foreign government. The EU observer says this is "casting a long shadow over any secret dealings he may have had with the Hapsburg Group. The group was allegedly hired by the Brussels-based European Centre for a Modern Ukraine, a think tank said to promote Yanukovych, according to Politico. • This part of the Manafort story is getting no mainstream media coverage in anti-Trump Europe, as we could imagine. • • • A DUTCH LAWYER ALSO CHARGED BY MUELLER. Fox News reported on February 20 that Mueller has charged Alex van der Zwaan with lying to investigators about his last communication with Rick Gates. Fox's chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge reports that : "A lawyer connected to former Trump campaign advisor Rick Gates pleaded guilty Tuesday to a charge of lying to investigators, as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. Alex Van Der Zwaan was charged by Mueller's team with making false statements to investigators in an interview about his time working for a law firm hired by the Ukraine Ministry of Justice in 2012, when he helped produce a report on the trial of Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko. According to the Washington Post, Van Der Zwaan is the son-in-law of Russian oligarch German Khan. That firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, told the Associated Press that it fired Van Der Zwaan last year and has been cooperating with authorities. The New York Times reported in September that the Justice Department had requested documents from the firm related to its work in Ukraine on behalf of the government of Russia-aligned President Viktor Yanukovych. The Times reported that the report the New York-based firm drafted was used to justify the jailing of Tymoshenko -- a political rival of Yanukovych. Van Der Zwaan is accused of lying about his last communication with Gates, who was indicted in October along with former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort on charges related to their work in Ukraine." Van Der Zwaan pleaded guilty to the charge and it was made clear in court that he had been cooperating with Mueller up to that point. Van Der Zwaan faces up to six months in prison and a fine of as much as $9,500. His sentencing is set for April 3. • The court document notes that Van Der Zwaan said he “did not know why an email between him and Person A in September 2016 was not produced to the special counsel’s Office” and that his last communication with Gates was in August 2016. It also says he claimed that his last communication with an unidentified “Person A” was in 2014. But Mueller's team said that Van Der Zwaan spoke with Gates and Person A in September 2016, and that he deleted "and otherwise did not produce emails" sought by Mueller’s office -- including an email between him and “Person A” in September 2016.The report that was produced by the firm was cited in the 12-count indictment against Manafort and Gates. That indictment accused the two men of acting as unregistered lobbyists in connection with the rollout of the report. According to the indictment, Manafort and Gates "used one of their offshore accounts to funnel $4 million to pay secretly for the report." • Fox journalist Adam Shaw, who wrote the Van Der Zwaan article, does not say whether Van Der Zwaan was connected to the Manafort-Habsburg Group arrangement. • • • DEAR READERS, it is fine that special counsel Mueller is cleaning up the Paul Manafort Ukraine act -- including revealing the European connections to Manafort's efforts to nudge pro-Russia Ukraine prime minister Viktor Yanukovich closer to the EU by paying them unreported fees of some €2 million for pretending that they were just older-brother friends of America when they were actually bought and paid for by Manafort with Ukraine money. It gives President Trump's distrust of Europe leaders an entirely different feel. But, cleaning up the cozy arrangements among the EU elites will take more than one or two plea bargains with EU players. It is a problem that the EU will have to clean up itself. Don't hold your breath. • But, for Americans, Mueller is straying far from his original mandate -- to find out if there was Trump-Russia collusion during the 2016 presidential campaign. Indicting Paul Manafort and Rick Gates for their lobbying activities in Ukraine may make Mueller and the Deep State feel good, but it does nothing to show that he has found any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion. That is because there is No Evidence -- No Evidence. It is time for Mueller to admit this and close his shop, so that the second special counsel can start investingating Mueller and all the other Swamp Creatures. After all, the FBI and DOJ re fully capable of dealing with Manafort, the shady Ukraine lobbyist. We did not need a special counsel for that. • And, the investigation America really needs is also not about Trump. It is about the Swamp. Talk to your friends and tell your Congressman that Robert Zaft is right when he says : "Our law enforcement and intelligence agencies cannot be trusted to either enforce or observe the law. The now departed James Comey and Peter Strzok at the FBI. Andrew Weissman and Jennie Rhee on Robert Mueller's special counsel team. As yet undisclosed leakers at the NSA or CIA. These are just the tip of the iceberg. The DC swamp has become a criminal organization as widespread and deeply rooted as Capone's in Chicago. The solution then was a hand-picked team of "Untouchables" operating outside normal channels. We should follow that example now." Zaft's choice of Rudy Giuliani, who understands criminal networks and conspiracies because of his record against organized crime in New York City, could not be better. The Swamp is a network of criminal organizations not unlike the New York mob." To say it one more time : That sounds like a plan. Mr. Sessions, GO FOR IT.