Tuesday, August 28, 2018

Justice Takes a Holiday


Attorney General Jeff Sessions gave us the raison d'etre of his term as AG the other day. Here it is in pertinent part.
While I am attorney general, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations … I demand the highest standards, and where they are not met, I take action …
Lots of people have responded with the egregious list of actions taken by General Sessions' own special prosecutor, Robert Mueller, not least of which was stacking his staff with some top-tier members of the Friends of Hillary Fan Club. But what does he make of the more recent actions of his attorneys in the Southern District of New York?  They obtained a guilty plea from one Michael Cohen, taxi cab magnate and general incorrigible, that he had violated the most sacred laws of this Republic, the federal election laws. And he did so with a script written verbatim by Jeff Sessions' Department of Justice (SDNY branch). And, wonder of wonders, Mr. Cohen's words contain information extraneous to his guilt, and those words just happen to repeat verbatim Democrat and Major Media talking points that Donald Trump violated election laws, too.

In the words of Bloomberg's Noah Feldman
In essence, by making Cohen say he acted at Trump’s direction, the Southern District declared war on the president.
In a normal case like this, in what context would the prosecution require that the defendant implicate others in his crime? Obviously, when they had further principals they wanted to prosecute. But in the first place, Mueller and others in the Sessions Justice Department have repeatedly assured the President that he is not a target in any of these investigations.  In the second place, the President cannot be a target of the Justice Department because, you know, the Constitution.

Impeachment is the method provided for any criminal conduct by the President, and as the indispensable Andy McCarthy has repeatedly told us, Impeachment is a political process, not legal.  If the Justice Department does not indulge in 'political considerations' as insisted by Jeff Sessions, then it has no role whatsoever in Impeachment.

But manifestly, the prosecutors of the Southern District of New York are engaged in laying the groundwork via forcing a particular plea out of Michael Cohen for an Impeachment of the President. And now, apparently, they are taking up with the New York AG an investigation into the Trump organization. What a coincidence! The Trump organization has been in business for more than 50 years, during which it has been very high-profile in the most high-profile city in the world, and our Justice Department decides it needs a little investigating - within a couple of years after its principal becomes President. Could this possibly be … a political decision? You decide.

So, what action is General Sessions prepared to take?


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