Attention, Mueller and Sessions -- There's a Sea Change and It Favors Trump, America and the Rule of Law

A SEA CHANGE TOWARD TRUMP IN HIS BATTLE WITH THE DEEP STATE. The sea change is about Attorney General Jeff Sessions and special counsel Robert Mueller. • • • NUNES TAKES ON SESSIONS. As well he should, because Nunes represents one of the three co-equal branches of US constitutional government and Sessions represents another branch. So, when the legislative and executive branches disagree, the Constitution tells them to fight it out. This the way things should work. • What is at issue in the Nunes-Sessions fight? The Washington Times reported on Sunday that Representative Devin Nunes, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, says he’ll push to hold AG Sessions in contempt of Congress for not providing requested information and then not complying with a subpoena. Nunes told Fox News that he refuses to take the excuse that handing over the information would harm national security : “How many times have we heard that argument? This just can’t continue where we don’t get information in a timely manner.” • Nunes' committee is one of several congressional committees investigating the highly politicized probes by the Department of Justice and FBI concerning 2016 Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and allegations of collusion between President Donald Trump’s campaign and Russian interests. • As Chairman of the Intelligence Committee, Nunes sent Sessions a letter seeking specified documents two weeks ago, followed by a subpoena last week. Nunes said both requests were “ignored and not acknowledged” as “per usual.” Nunes says : "On Thursday, we discovered that they are not going to comply with our subpoena of very important information that we need. The only thing left to do is, we have to move quickly to hold the attorney general of the United States in contempt, and that is what I am going to press for this week.” Although the “very important” information requested from Sessions is “still classified,” Nunes says that top DOJ officials have been using national security concerns as an excuse to withhold from lawmakers information they are constitutionally entitled to see : "This is the problem with a lot of this investigation : Because of the way they conducted the investigation, most of this information is classified. But because this is so important, I'm not going to take any excuse to say, 'Oh, we're harming national security.' How many times have we heard that argument throughout this entire investigation? We've had to take people to court to get the information. So we're just not going to take this nonsense of every time we peel something back, every time we need information, we get ignored, we get stalled, we get stonewalled. And then, lo and behold, we get accused of 'we're going to destroy the nation's ability to keep it secure.' " Nunes says that "the next step" forward most likely will be going to court to enforce the subpoena. Nunes said his committee was in discussions over the weekend with the general counsel for the United States Congress, noting that lawmakers went through a similar process when they held former Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress in 2012. • The DOJ is fighting back. Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, said the DOJ sent a letter to Chairman Nunes on Thursday, which was the deadline for his subpoena. The letter, signed by Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd, said after evaluation of the Committee’s request by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the White House, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, it can’t comply with a request for information about a specific individual. The letter said the Justice Department is open to other ways to accommodate the Committee’s inquiry : “Disclosure of responsive information to such requests can risk severe consequences, including potential loss of human lives, damage to relationships with valued international partners, compromise of ongoing criminal investigations, and interference with intelligence activities,” according to the DOJ letter. • Doug Andres, a spokesperson for House Speaker Paul Ryan, told The Washington Times on Sunday that Chairman Nunes has not yet discussed the push to hold Sessions in contempt with the Speaker. • Highly respected investigtive reporter Sara Carter said of the letter : “It appears from the letter Nunes had asked for information on a specific individual, not yet named and considered by DOJ to be a very valuable person for a counterintelligence operation.” According to congressional sources who spoke to Sara Carter, the information requested is necessary for the House committees to thoroughly conduct their investigation. • So, this is a battle between co-equal branches of government. In this case, the executive branch is in the form of the Attorney General. That the Deep State FBI would agree with the DOJ in its decision to withhold information requested by Congress is to be expected. The interesting question concerns the White House. If the DOJ is accurate in its letter in saying that the White House agreed with its decision to withhold the requested information, then we have to wonder if the President was consulted or if the White House legal staff and senior advisors made the decision without involving President Trump. • • • IS THIS A STEP TOWARD ELIMINATING SESSIONS? If President Trump was involved in the decision, it could be a backdoor way of pressuring Sessions. David Abroms, businessman, CPA, founder of The American Remnant, and former Georgia GOP congressional candidate, wrote an opinion piece for the Daily Caller on Monday. Abroms suggests that firing Sessions would be a bad move for President Trump : "Let’s jump back to 2016, and remember why Trump won....Simply put, after eight years of the Obama administration, Georgians were tired of weakness. They saw it in our foreign policy. They saw it in social policy, where they perceived an undermining of the core American value of working hard to get ahead. They saw it in selling out to foreign adversaries and nefarious corporate interests, because taking them on was simply too difficult, or unpleasant. They saw a United States of America in decline that needed a tough guy, who could and would take all comers rather than have his staff and political appointees run interference to protect him from any criticism or scrutiny, in the White House. They voted for Trump not just because he wasn’t Hillary, but because he wasn’t a weakling." • This, according to Abroms, is the problem Trump faces in firing senior DOJ officials such as Mueller or Rosenstein or Sessions, and the reason why he probably will not : "Trump knows that if he did, he would look incredibly weak and would put his presidency in jeopardy by attacking the very foundation of our Republic : The rule of law. It is the rule of law and the independence of the Justice Department, in part, that has made America an exceptional country. It’s what separates us from banana republics, no matter the occupant of the Oval Office. Also, it would be politically foolish. Trump would also be giving liberals a big, fat, early 2020 Christmas gift, with a bow on top -- and he knows it." • Abroms reminds us in his opinion piece that the people who are egging Trump on to fire Sessions, Rosenstein or Mueller are the "Liberal Democrats, who would use it to fire up their base in November, retake the House and the Senate, immediately start impeachment proceedings, and probably propel a leftist firebrand like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders to the Democratic nomination and possibly the presidency. Firing any of these officials would amount to Trump inviting a true Socialist with a good shot at the White House to undertake a relatively easy presidential run." • Abroms is right in much of what he writes, but he is behind the curve when he says : "It is crucial to remember that the Mueller investigation has already brought results. Twelve Russians were indicted for trying to influence our elections and at least four Americans have either been indicted or plead guilty to charges stemming from the investigation. Representative Trey Gowdy provided some solid advice to the President, 'If you are innocent, act like it.'....It makes no sense politically, legally or morally for the President to interfere with this investigation." • Of course, Jeff Sessions is a Georgian, like Abroms, so it is easy to understand Abroms' defending him. But, that sea change I mentioned contradicts Abroms' statement that the Mueller investigation is either an example of the Rule of Law or that it has "brought results." • American Thinker's Michael Young wrote last Thursday : "It is staggering to witness the Justice Department go off the rails and barrel toward a showdown with our President over innuendo and manufactured misdeeds. From the beginning of the special counsel appointment and despite Jeff Sessions's recusal, I felt confident that Trump and Sessions had a behind-the-scenes plan to navigate this quagmire. Ridiculous was the notion that Trump's attorney general, Jeff Sessions, was not fully in his camp in light of the glaring double standards of justice demonstrated at every point from before the election to present day. I expected the AG to pursue other completely legitimate avenues that might create leverage and pressure on Rosenstein and by proxy, the special counsel, to gracefully withdraw their aggression against the President. And yet we sit here dumbfounded as the witch hunt lingers on. AG Sessions has rock-solid ground on which to rescind part if not all of his recusal. First of all, he and the rest of the nation were misled on the basis of the counterintelligence investigation, among many other things. As it was recently made public by House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes, the counterintelligence investigation was launched against Trump without any real intelligence or tangible evidence of a crime by any American. Next, consider the FISA and unmasking abuses and the Comey setup to get the Dossier into the news cycle and the list just keeps going on and on. It's a historic fraud....Wasn't his recusal expressly for Russia-Trump campaign collusion before the election? So why is he considered recused for the post-inaugural obstruction of justice portion that seems to be at the heart of the special counsel's investigation today? Earth to Jeff Sessions : Your President could use a hand. I agree with many who have strongly questioned the integrity of Sessions. Joe diGenova, Rudy Giuliani, Gregg Jarrett, and Mark Levin, just to name a few, have all used strong language in protest of his negligence. It's worth noting that some of these men are close personal friends of the AG. Nobody can understand what Sessions is thinking. It just doesn't add up. Sessions is AWOL in a moment of national crisis. What a shame, too, as many of us were so ecstatic by the appointment of Jeff Sessions....I couldn't think of a more honest and stalwart conservative appointment that Trump could have made. Sessions's behavior ever since has been a shocking disgrace....This charade was completely unnecessary. Its continued existence is a slap to the face of law-abiding citizens who voted Trump into office. AG Sessions could fire Rosenstein tomorrow on any number of grounds....I wouldn't even suggest that the AG shut down the special counsel. The political peril of doing so might be too great at this juncture. However, he could state his grounds for rescinding his obstruction-related recusal and, if need be, cite example after example of improper behavior by the DOJ and FBI as supporting justification. From there he could help orchestrate a soft landing to this mess. Let Mueller write his hyper-partisan report, and then let the Dems in Congress howl like banshees for 15 minutes....Sessions is trying to take the easy path and stay out of the fray, presumably for self-preservation's sake. What a fraud we got when the country needed a hero....Is Swamp survival motivating Sessions to just sit back and watch this train wreck unfold?" • Well, just maybe, the federal judiciary will do what Sessions refuses to do -- stop the Mueller witch hunt. • • • MUELLER & CO. ARE FEELING THE COLD STARE OF THE FEDERAL BENCH IN THE RUSSIAN CASE. InfoWars / Bizpac reported on Saturday that : "An attempt by special counselor Robert Mueller to harangue a number of Russian companies and individuals for allegedly interfering in the 2016 presidential election appears to be backfiring....On Friday the special counselor’s office sought to delay its first court hearing on the matter out of what appeared to be anxiety. When Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian entities in February, he assumed his foreign-based targets would simply ignore any future court proceedings since they clearly live outside his jurisdiction, according to Politico. He assumed wrong. Last month a team of Washington lawyers reportedly appeared out of nowhere and notified the court that they represent Concord Management and Consulting, one of the companies targeted by Mueller. The move was reportedly designed 'to force Mueller’s team to turn over relevant evidence to the Russian firm and perhaps even to bait prosecutors into an embarrassing dismissal in order to avoid disclosing sensitive information.' ” • Bizpac reported that the reason given by Mueller in seeking a delay in the case in court on Friday as that the Russian entities affected by his indictment had not yet received their summons because of, ironically enough, stonewalling by the Russian government : “The [US] government has attempted service of the summonses by delivering copies of them to the Office of the Prosecutor General of Russia, to be delivered to the defendants,” Mueller’s team reportedly said. “That office, however, declined to accept the summonses. The government has submitted service requests to the Russian government pursuant to a mutual legal assistance treaty. To the government’s knowledge, no further steps have been taken within Russia to effectuate service.” • The Mueller team request included the argument that Concord Management’s requests for relevant evidence should be delayed : “Until the Court has an opportunity to determine if Concord was properly served, it would be inadvisable to conduct an initial appearance and arraignment at which important rights will be communicated and a plea entertained. That is especially true in the context of this case, which involves a foreign corporate defendant, controlled by another, individual foreign defendant, that has already demanded production of sensitive intelligence gathering, national security, and foreign affairs information.” • What Mueller is really saying here is that he did not expect to have to plead his case or go to trial because he fully expected that no Russian response would occur. The surprise was that Concord Management lawyers showed up and catapulted Mueller into the reality that he might actually have to try this case -- at least up to a point, even if finally it is tossed out because if Russian sovereign rights are being violated. And, trying the case would cause all sorts of information to be demanded by the Russian defendants -- it was listed Friday by the Mueller team in its anxiety : "a foreign corporate defendant, controlled by another, individual foreign defendant, that has already demanded production of sensitive intelligence gathering, national security, and foreign affairs information.” • But, on Friday the federal judge in the Russian case, Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, rejected Mueller’s request to delay the first court hearing for the 13 Russian citizens accused of using social media to polarize the 2016 US election. Mueller is being trapped by the Russians, who will try to show that Mueller had no, or few, facts that indicated Russian "interference" in the 2016 election process. To do that, Concord Management lawyers are entitled to a discovery procedure to find out what the Mueller case is based on. • Are we back to No Evidence? You bet we are. And, Mueller is afraid he will face humiliation if the Russian case proceeds. • • • MUELLER & CO. ARE ALSO FEELING THE COLD STARE OF THE FEDERAL BENCH IN THE MANAFORT CASE. The Daily Caller says : "Federal Judge T.S. Ellis III, a Reagan appointee, could be the ultimate nightmare for Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who may lose his legal case against Paul Manafort, according to an extraordinary May 4 exchange in the US District Court for Eastern Virginia. A dismissal [although not likely] could be a major wrecking ball to Mueller’s overall case in his Russian collusion case against President Donald Trump. Last Friday, Judge Ellis challenged the special counsel’s attempt to drag an unrelated bank fraud case back in 2005 to indict Manafort. Those charges are well beyond Mueller’s original mandate to investigate alleged collusion with Russia in 2016 and had to be dismissed, the judge said, according to the hearing transcript : “If I look at the indictment, none of that information has anything to do with links or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Donald Trump,” he lectured Michael Dreeben, a Deputy Solicitor General and Mueller’s lawyer in the court room. “So I don’t see what relation this indictment has with anything the special prosecutor is authorized to investigate.” • The federal judge also was angry that Mueller redacted 75% of an August 2017 order from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, which further outlined the special counsel’s mandate, according to the transcript. Ellis has handled numerous espionage cases and enjoys among the highest level government clearances, the judge reminded the government’s lawyer. Judge Ellis hit the special counsel with the accusation his real intention was “to exert leverage on a defendant so that the defendant will turn and provide information on what is really the focus of the special prosecutor,” namely President Trump. Dreeben replied that their “investigatory scope” permitted them to include wrongs committed a decade before Trump declared his candidacy for President. But, Ellis was having none of it : “My question to you was, how does bank fraud and these other things that go back to 2005, 2007, how does that have anything to do with links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of Trump?” • The original May 2017 order setting up the special counsel’s office by Rosenstein permitted them to go after crimes beyond Russian collusion, Dreeben replied : “We are not limited in our prosecution authority to crimes that would fit within the precise description that was issued in this public order." Ellis cut to the heart of the matter, telling the special counsel their intention was really to get Mueller to “sing” to get Trump. “I’ve been here a long time. The vernacular is to sing,” he said. • Judge Ellis also admonished the special counsel for seeking “unfettered power” -- something the founding fathers fought against : “What we don’t want in this country is we don’t want anyone with unfettered power. So it’s unlikely you’re going to persuade me that the special prosecutor has unlimited powers to do anything he or she wants.” • When Dreeben followed up by saying that Mueller is following both the May and August 2017 orders from Rosenstein, who oversees Mueller, Ellis shot back that the order he was given had 75% of the August memo was redacted. Ellis asked Dreeben : “I have that right here, and I’m glad you raised it because 75% of it is blocked out, redacted. Why don’t I have a full copy?” Dreeben said : “The only paragraphs that are to Mr. Manafort are the ones that are pertinent are the ones contained in this record." Again, Ellis was not satisfied : “Well, let me use a phrase that I’m fond of that I used to use with my children,” the judge said, “I can’t use it with my wife, but I’ll be the judge of whether it relates to the others.” Dreeben finally agreed to consult with the intelligence community to see if the rest of the classified memo could be shared with the judge. That is when Ellis dropped his security clearance into the equqtion : “Yes, of course, you may do that. If any part of it is classified, it won’t surprise you to know that a district judge is fully cleared. In fact, I have several espionage trials underway." • Judge Ellis was brutally frank with Dreeben, laying Mueller’s nefarious plan bare : “You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud. You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump or lead to his prosecution or impeachment or whatever. That’s what you’re really interested in.” • When Ellis asked Dreeben if he had anything to add, Dreeben wisely said : “No thank you, Your Honor." And, an angry Judge Ellis got the last word : “Good choice on your part. Thank you for your arguments. They were entertaining.” Judge Ellis made no rulings on Friday and the court session resumes in two weeks. The trial is set to begin July 10." • • • AS MUELLER GETS MAULED IN COURT, GIULIANI TAKES HIM ON IN THE MEDIA. American Thinker's Gary Gindler put it this way on Monday : "I have great respect for the Deep State. All of its members are professionals in their field. Wherever you look, everywhere and everything is well thought out, down to the smallest detail. So why do they lose? Let's recall the main points." • Gindler outlines the Russia collusion farce with a scalpel : "Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein writes a memorandum to President Trump, in which he proves the necessity of dismissing FBI director Comey for numerous violations of the law. Trump fires Comey, and Rosenstein immediately appoints a special prosecutor, Mueller (friend and Comey and Rosenstein), to investigate whether Comey's dismissal was a violation of law by Trump in the form of obstruction of justice." Gindler says : "All this noise about collusion with the Russians is just a smokescreen created by the Deep State. There is ample evidence that Mueller disregards investigating Trump's collusion with the Kremlin. This was confirmed by Comey himself in his recently published book. He mentions that Trump personally asked him, as FBI director, to investigate the 'Russian Dossier' at least three times and to find out who exactly created these fakes. Comey already knew then that Hillary Clinton was behind the 'Russian dossier,' but he said nothing to Trump about this and did not comply with his request. Recently, new evidence emerged in the case of Paul Manafort. Mueller's team admitted that his investigation found no incriminating evidence of contacts by Manafort with any Russians. And all press reports over the past two years about such contacts are fictional and based on 'anonymous sources.' " • It is simple -- Mueller and the Deep State are after an impeachment verdict. • Then, there are the Mueller questions. Gindler thinks that the insipid questions were leaked to the media after Rudy Giuliani sanctioned the leak....The publication of these ridiculous questions is his first punch at Mueller : "Why did Rudy do this? Because Rudy is not only a lawyer, but also a politician, a former mayor of New York City. Rudy Giuliani correctly understands that the primary goal of Mueller is not jurisprudence, but politics. Therefore, the methods of countering Mueller should not be as much legal as they are political." • Gindler states the obvious : "Elections in November 2018 serve as the main goal of Mueller [because a Democrat-controlled Congress could perhaps impeach Trump]. After all, this is the only chance for the Deep State to dump Trump by legal means. Its members do not hide this -- all twenty prosecutors of Mueller's team are registered members of the Democratic (read: socialist) Party of the USA, with at least twelve of them having donated to various socialist candidates, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama." • Trump picked Giuliani because he is the perfect lawyer to go after Mueller on a political basis. So, don't worry about things Rudy says that seem hugely non-lawyerly -- they're not supposed to be Scalia-quality legal arguments. They are meant to flat-foot the lapdog ProgDem media and put Mueller in the worst light possible. Rudy Giuliani is the best possible lawyer to do that. As Gindler says : "The Democrats are already tired of waiting. When will Mueller finally do what he was instructed to do by the Deep State? Every month of the delay will bite them in November because the Democratic electorate will not have enough enthusiasm to come to the polls. Indeed, it is impossible to keep people in suspense for two whole years without giving anything. But Mueller-politician cannot afford to continue working against the President, whose favorable rating already exceeds 50%. Most likely, Mueller-prosecutor will turn down his investigation shortly -- just political business, nothing personal. Mueller's attack on subordinates of Trump is a sign of weakness. It is a sign that prosecutors have nothing against Trump. Rudy was one of the first to understand that offense is the best defense in this kind of situation, especially six months before the election." • • • THE SEA CHANGE IS REAL AND IT IS NOW. Another American Thinker analyst, David Prentice, wrote an article on Monday titled "On 'Russian Collusion,' Trump Will Win...Big Time." Prentice writes : "The winds of the special counsel are blowing hard. A big tempest is brewing, and it's not clear what is happening. Nobody really knows, other than perhaps Mueller and a few other insiders, one probably being Donald Trump and his counsel. One thing seems certain : there will be a lot of surprises in the end." Prentice states two possible scenarios -- "(1). Mueller is a tool of the Deep State, allied with Comey and the left, a black hat appointed by powerful people who won't stop this investigation until the removal or neutering of Trump. A lot of smart people are invested in this narrative. You can cite a lot of facts and informative stories that demonstrate the reality of this theory. Most, but not all, on the right believe some version of this Deep State plot. (2). This investigation is a well planned, quietly effective smokescreen to ferret out major groups of people in the Swamp and the Deep State. It targets people doing illegal and unethical things. This would include the Clintons and many of the leading players in the Obama-Clinton regime. There are a lot of known facts and indicators that point to this being the true narrative as well." • So, which scenario will it be? Prentice chooses (2) because "there is zero evidence, not a scintilla of proof that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia or did anything wrong. On the other hand, the evidence we do have shows that the side making the accusations did a lot of very wrong things. You can say it's a criminal conspiracy. McCabe has a criminal referral. The early IG report simply destroyed any hope of him escaping his wrongdoing, tipping its hat to what is coming. Comey has made an ass out of himself, with contradictions from interview to interview. Let's just say he will likely be spending his book profits on lawyers. Strzok, Ohr, and a lot of others are in peril as well, and if nothing else, these people no longer have power to do the Deep State take-down they had planned." • Thus, Prentice is betting that it will be the ProgDem cabal and the Clintons who are finally nailed by Mueller. He thinks the IG report due to come out should be "devastating." Prentice adds : "There are reports of multiple grand juries looking for multiple indictments. When the report comes out in full, we will finally know which theory has more of the truth." • • • DEAR READERS, the sea change is all about Trump gathering his legal team around him to play various roles in tandem to undercut Mueller. It is about trouncing the ProgDem cabal in the media, especially on Twitter, so that Trump's followers don't give up. It is about Mueller looking bad in court as his flimsy cases -- even of underlings and even when based on non-collusion fact sets -- fall apart. It is about Trump continuing his lovefest with America, reminding them why they elected him and citing the results of his first year in office to prove his good faith. It is about bringing Kim Jong-un to the table. It is about confronting the UN. It is about telling Iran that their golden days of Obama godfathering are over. It is about supporting Israel. It is about Trump's rising polls -- Breitbart reported Sunday that the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll was so favorable to President Trump that the polling team quarantined their data so that it won't 'contaminate' the rest of their data. The latest poll shows that Trump has 57% support on the economy, 60% support on employment and jobs, and 51% support on immigration, and an overall positive rating of 48% -- if anybody at Reuters actually listened to real Americans or paid attention to Trump's continuing rallies, they would understanad that these poll results are accurate -- and that they will continue to rise. • The Clintons -- unop longer able to sell political favors -- have lost their Foundation and their clout. Obama can collect youngsters to do his dirty work of trying to destroy Trump with Soros money, but America is now on to that and no longer believes anything Barack or Michelle "Forever First Lady" Obama say. • It is about America First and Making America Great Again -- and Congress, in GOP control, now actually seems to be getting it. • The ProgDems can't even get rid of Nancy Pelosi, how do they expect to get rid of the massive freight train that is Donald Trump and the Deplorables. It ain't gonna happen. • Prentice is insistent : "The leftists cannot execute their plan, nor pull off their 'insurance policy.' They simply do not have the power to do it....If they try, they will be destroyed. Trump holds the cards. Even if Mueller, Rosenstein, et al. are black hats, are they really dumb enough to try to impeach him, convict him, then try him and send him to jail? Hell, no. If you think that, please put a small deposit in my Nigerian bank account. And that's the worst case. It really is. The best case : A lot of leftists go to prison. Their power will slowly, and painfully, be cut off. They will be mistrusted for years to come. They will have failed miserably, stewing in their own hubris and wrongdoing....A lot of us on the center-right are angry (rightfully so) at what has been done by the left. Their evildoing is exposed for all to see and will not be easily forgotten....Trying Trump for such drivel would start a civil war they would quickly lose....They are toast." • Keep up your guard, but remember that we are, as of now, in charge and winning. That is THE SEA CHANGE.