Impeach Trump Now!

Yes, impeach the guy. Here are the facts.

Joe Biden/Obama set US policy as follows: the Ukraine shall not be permitted to investigate corruption in a company within its borders that has Joe Biden's son on the Board. If they insist on doing so, then we will withhold up to a billion dollars in aid.

Donald Trump canceled that policy, reinstating the policy that was in effect prior to the Obama administration, and communicated this new policy direction to the President of the Ukraine, to wit, the US encourages the Ukraine to prosecute all corruption without regard to whether it would hurt or harm the son of a powerful US politician. The stated rational for this policy is that corruption in the Ukraine has been a major sticking point in foreign relations going back decades.

The impeachable part arises because Joe Biden is running for President, and the prosecution of his son for corruption might harm his chances of winning. Actually, it might or might not - perhaps old Joe could just distance himself from his son's activities in the Ukraine, like John Kerry's son did. Or perhaps he could just deflect the matter to some 'woke' issue that the media likes to report on and cruise right on to the victory that all the polls are predicting. Or perhaps …

Well, all that doesn't matter, because this is impeachable. Just look in the Constitution and its right there, or if not, I seem to recall something in Madison's notes from the Constitutional Convention about it. So, Original Intent! as you right-wingers like to drone on about.

Irrefutable conclusion: impeach him now!

Or, here's an idea: let the President run his foreign policy as he sees fit. This idea has the added advantage that it is actually in the Constitution. Look it up; our founding document is written in English and not that long.

The Predication Game

But, Easy, even assuming that Barr is sincere and intends to follow through, my concern is that I suspect he will find predication for the investigation. I think this because the intelligence and investigative agencies of our government are quite aware of what the 4th Amendment and Justice Department regs require before they can use the powerful tools at their command. And as I go over all the events of the last three years, it seems obvious to me that we are seeing a very sophisticated scheme to create a predicate and justification for an investigation. In fact, the scheme was so sophisticated that it beggars belief that this is the first time the FBI et al sought to begin an investigation in such a manner. This was obviously something approaching standard practice that the FBI et al had honed to near perfection for many years.

Consider: they want to investigate the Trump campaign to find collusion with Russia, but they have no evidence of such. What to do? Well, find a member of the Trump campaign and plant him with insider information about Russian involvement in the American election process, e.g. hacking Hillary's emails. Then, cover your tracks by having a seemingly independent source 'discover' that campaign member to have insider connections with Russia, and voila! You have the reasonable grounds you need to begin an investigation of the Trump campaign.

And this is clearly what happened with George Papadopolous. He tells them in early 2016 that he is joining the Trump campaign, and in the course of a few days - a few days! - they are able to put together a global initiative - global initiative! - to set him up as the 'evidence' that the Trump campaign had nefarious contacts with Russia. There is evidence that the highest levels of the Italian intelligence agency introduce him to the mysterious Maltese academic, Joseph Mifsud, who gives Papadopolous the information that Russia has 30,000 of Hillary's emails. Then the highest levels of British intelligence along with long time CIA assets introduce him in London to an ostensibly innocent bystander, Alexander Downer, an Ambassador from Australia, where Papadopolous is induced to pass on the information he got from Joseph Mifsud about the Russians having Hillary's emails. It is then Alexander Downer who passes on the 'information' that Papadopolous, a member of the Trump campaign, apparently has insider knowledge about Russia and Russian interference in the American electoral process.

At this point, the loop is closed and the FBI et al has the 'independent' evidence from the Australian Ambassador that will permit them to begin a full boat investigation of the Trump campaign.

Stated like this, it's all an obvious subterfuge to skirt the 4th Amendment and public policy prohibitions against turning the tools of the government against an opposing political party. But that does not take into account the sophistication and expertise of our high government officials in 'laying a predicate' for an investigation. As I said, a troubling aspect of all of this is that this looks like a practiced operation that has been honed to perfection by the FBI et al for many years. So, I suspect that Barr will find enough of a 'predicate' such that all the parties stayed just over the 'right' side of the line in beginning this investigation, even though the overall circumstances point to corruption.

Compare, Barr's recent decision not to prosecute James Comey for leaking classified and other information. James Comey is a smart, experienced guy, and he knew exactly what the rules and regs required vis a vis internal investigative information. So he fashioned 7 memos with particular attention to the type of information contained in each, and then meticulously distributed them in such a way that he would always stay just shy of the line of a violation - or at least, a violation concrete enough to warrrant prosecution. As a result, Barr had to pass on prosecution, and Comey skates.

Put simply, I suspect Barr will be similarly powerless to do anything about the corruption he finds in his "predicate" investigation, except by instituting new rules and regs to hopefully prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Which is a good thing, a very good thing - but far from a satisfying conclusion to this whole tawdry affair.

The Predication Game

I am a weird guy; I get excited over predication. No, no, not the grammatical variety, but the legal.

Finally, after more than three years and multiple investigations by the CIA, the NSA, the DOJ, the FBI, and multiple Congressional committees, someone in Washington has come up with the clear and concise issue that has been staring us all in the face like a grim spectre.

Attorney General William Barr tells us that he is investigating whether the FBI had a 'proper predicate' for opening and conducting an investigation against then candidate Trump and his campaign way back in 2016, and/or perhaps as early as 2015. And with simple clarity, a clarity in short supply these days in Washington, he stated that he needs to know the predicate for the investigation because it is an extraordinary fact that there was surreptitious surveillance (aka 'spying') by the highest levels of the US government against the campaign of an opposing party during a Presidential election contest.

This is not a complicated issue. Presidential election or not, the government cannot investigate anyone without an appropriate reason to believe a crime has been committed. This is basic 4th Amendment jurisprudence, and not controversial in any respect. But when the 'target' for an investigation is the candidate and campaign of a Presidential election, then the standard becomes even more stringent - because not only is the 4th Amendment in play, but also the integrity of our fundamental system of government. This is why the DOJ has numerous existing rules and regulations covering investigations and prosecutions that might interfere with elections at all levels of government.

What has obscured this otherwise obvious issue for the last 3 years (and counting)? It's basically been a studied disambiguation in support of a particular narrative, that Trump colluded with Russia. It was definitely a fact that Russia meddled in our election;  since the time of Lenin, they always have and there was no particular reason they didn't this time. But that is not evidence Trump or anyone colluded. Despite that, the FBI et al commenced an investigation, and covered their tracks publicly, with media complicity, by muddling Russian meddling with Trump collusion to give the impression that they had reasonable grounds to investigate Trump, when all they had were reasons to investigate Russia. And the fact that all of this was designated national security allowed the FBI et al to insinuate they had grounds to suspect Trump, but never have to actually show us anything.

But Mueller has now spoken that there was no evidence of collusion, and the real, serious issue is finally getting the hearing it deserves: what was the evidence that started the investigation, and was it a proper ground for an extraordinary, secret investigation of a Presidential campaign?

Here's hoping that AG Barr is serious about all of this. If not, it won't be the first time we've seen the Washington insiders deep six a matter of public importance. But let's wait and see.