Good Day For America’s Checks And Balances Continues With Strong Rebuke To Donald Trump Wednesday Evening

Late Wednesday evening we witnessed another sign that our nation’s checks and balances continue to work. I take note of such events as they are lifting moments in our troubling times when we witness fascism rising while an autocrat makes threats about violence being unleashed in the nation if he is brought to justice.  

Throughout the day we saw the efforts of law and order rise up and make a clarion statement that this nation does not kneel to such blackmail. New York Attorney General Letitia James took action to bar Donald Trump and his children from ever again running a business in New York State. She filed a lawsuit that claims the Trump family and their business overvalued assets by billions of dollars and with the proof of Trump’s annual financial statements showcased at least a decade of absurd myth-making while defrauding banks and insurance companies.  

Late in the evening, a federal appeals court handed down a blistering ruling that unleashed the Justice Department so to rightly resume using documents marked as classified that were seized from Donald Trump in the FBI search. In so doing, the ruling undoes a lower court’s order that had strictly limited the investigation into Trump’s handling of highly classified government materials.  The 11th Circuit set aside key parts of an earlier order by a Florida federal judge that had kept the department from using about 100 files that Trump illegally retained. 

The three-judge panel wrote in their opinion, “For our part, we cannot discern why Plaintiff would have an individual interest in or need for any of the one-hundred documents with classification markings.” 

What strikes me of great interest is that the panel in this ruling found particularly unpersuasive the repeated suggestions by Trump’s legal team that he may have declassified the documents. But note that when earlier pressed by the special master, Raymond Dearie, those lawyers would not say very much in court if Trump had acted to declassify the materials in question.  They know better than to lie during a court proceeding.  

So tonight, the federal court lowered the boom on Trump.  “Plaintiff suggests that he may have declassified these documents when he was President. But the record contains no evidence that any of these records were declassified. And before the special master, Plaintiff resisted providing any evidence that he had declassified any of these documents,” the panel wrote. “In any event, at least for these purposes, the declassification argument is a red herring because declassifying an official document would not change its content or render it personal.” 

We have come to a point in our nation where the legal process and the application of the rule of law will be required to be used energetically to ensure the nation remains a democracy.  This blog has often opined on the drift away from our nation’s ideals and the Framers’ construct during the Trump term—our nation’s most embarrassing fiasco since the days of Richard Nixon. (And let us be frank and term Dick a piker in comparison.) Today, however, was a fine example of what the law can and will do to right the ship that has drifted and tilted dangerously.  In so doing, it allows us a strong ray of hope about the future of this country.

Angry White Male Nationalist Killed By FBI, Planned To Blow Up Hospital Near Kansas City

As if there is not enough angst and dismay in our nation comes news of another angry caucasian who could not muster the will to live his life in accordance with social norms. Very proud of the actions taken by the FBI.  Once again, law enforcement deserves all of our praise.

• Timothy Wilson, 36, was shot and killed by the FBI after he plotted to blow up a hospital in near Kansas City
• The FBI learn about the plot from Jarrett William Smith, a white supremacist who was an active duty member of the U.S. Army 
• Smith was arrested in 2019 when he ‘distributed information relating to explosives, destructive devices, and weapons of mass destruction,’ the FBI says 
• The FBI targeted Wilson who they say was a potentially violent extremist whose hatred was fueled by religion, racial animosity, and government distrust
• The FBI attempted to serve Wilson with a warrant as he was picking up what he believed to be a truck bomb but actually wasn’t
• Wilson was motived by religion, racial animosity, and distrust of the government, according to the FBI 
• Wilson wanted to inflict ‘severe harm and mass casualties’, according to the FBI
• Wilson was linked to the neo-Nazi groups National Socialist Movement (NSM) and Vorherrschaft Division (VSD) 
• On the social media site Telegram, he wrote  that coronavirus was an ‘excuse to destroy our people’ 
• He added, ‘Mark my words it’s coming I hope people are ready’ 
• Wilson’s wife had also filed divorce from him in 2019  

Did Donald Trump Work For The Russians? And Against America?

The news cycles never end.

James and I were out for dinner tonight and came home to more truly disturbing news about Donald Trump and our nation.

WOW!!

In the days after Donald Trump fired James Comey as FBI director in 2017, law enforcement officials became so concerned by his behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests, according to former law enforcement officials and others familiar with the investigation.

The inquiry carried explosive implications. Counterintelligence investigators had to consider whether the Trump’s own actions constituted a possible threat to national security. Agents also sought to determine whether Trump was knowingly working for Russia or had unwittingly fallen under Moscow’s influence.

The investigation the FBI opened into Trump also had a criminal aspect, which has long been publicly known: whether his firing of Comey constituted obstruction of justice.

Republican Congressman Chris Collins Opens Door And Has “Shock Of All Shocks”

I wonder if Congressman Collins had never read an account about how the knocking on a door plays out when the FBI pays a visit? 

“That was the shock of all shocks, to have two agents at your door at 6 a.m. saying they just want to talk,” Collins said of the visit he received from the FBI agents in April.

“It turns out, you know, they don’t read you your rights, they don’t tell you you can have an attorney, they don’t tell you why they’re there,” he said. “It’s just, ‘Oh, we’d like to talk.’”

Collins answered the door in his bathrobe and barefoot after just getting out of bed, he said in the interview. He invited the FBI agents in and chatted with them for “45 minutes or so” about his involvement in the trickle of information in the alleged insider trading scandal.

“I shared everything from A to Z,” Collins said.

But then, after talking for close to an hour, he said, the agents hit him with a bombshell.

“At the end of it all, they said, ‘Oh, by the way, we have a subpoena for you,’” Collins said.

Speaker Ryan has removed Collins from each of his committee assignments as the investigation continues. Collins will not run for re-election.

Well, his reaction is no shock to the rest of us.

John McCain Stands Up For FBI And Justice Department–Trump Needs To Stop Looking At Investigation Through Lens Of Politics

The words from Senator John McCain are worth reading in regards to Congressman Nunes’ attack on the FBI and Justice Department.

 

McCain didn’t pull any punches.

 

“In 2016, the Russian government engaged in an elaborate plot to interfere in an American election and undermine our democracy,” McCain said. “Russia employed the same tactics it has used to influence elections around the world, from France and Germany to Ukraine, Montenegro and beyond.”

 

McCain said Russia’s interference has, at best, sown political discord and succeeded in “dividing us from each other.” Attacking the intelligence community is not how to fix the discord, he said.

 

Ahead of its impending releases, the FBI took the extraordinary step of issuing a public statement to express its “grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”

 

“The latest attacks against the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests ― no party’s, no President’s, only Putin’s,” McCain added. “The American people deserve to know all the facts surrounding Russia’s ongoing efforts to subvert our democracy, which is why Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation must proceed unimpeded. Our nation’s elected officials, including the president, must stop looking at this investigation through the lens of politics and manufacturing political sideshows. If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him.”

Where I Stand Tonight

I am old-fashioned enough, and well-read enough, to still believe in the FBI, the Justice Department, and law and order.

I am on the side with those who defend our national foundations.  I am linked with those who grasp and understand the work done by the FBI in the pursuit of making sure our republic is not sullied, undermined, and corroded by foreign interests linked with sinister politicians and businessmen in the U.S.

 

CNN Correct To File Lawsuit For Comey Documents

CNN filed a lawsuit in federal court this week to force the FBI to turn over former director James Comey’s memos documenting his conversations with President Trump.

Producer Greg Wallace filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the FBI in May, but even after an order for expedited service, the feds failed to release documents or indicate the scope of what records they will produce within the statutory time limit. Now, the cable network is suing the FBI for the documents.  I applaud this move based on the right of the public to know this material.

The FBI has yet to make the memos available or give reason for not doing so.  The right of the press to fight for these documents so to be able to report on them, and alerting the citizenry to the facts, is an essential part of the democratic process.   I would expect other news operations to join the suit or start their own for these documents.

This all stems from Comey giving testimony on June 8th before the Senate Intel Committee.  He detailed the attempts by the president to blunt or halt the FBI’s probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn and Russia’s role in the 2016 election.

Laughter About Becket Comment From James Comey Surely Confused Donald Trump

The most laughter that erupted during what was really a rather serious exchange today between James Comey and Maine Senator Angus King without doubt left confusion over the ever-larger Donald Trump who is known to be putting on weight and also not a reader.  Or a deep thinker.

The former FBI Director was discussing what he has described as Trump’s “hope” that Comey could let go of the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. And thenb Comey referenced the murder of Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury, in 1170.

“Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” is the line Comey referred to. King, an independent  who caucuses with the Democrats, then filled in the blanks on the history about how King Henry II of England said as much of Becket, only to have him killed the next day. The scene was immortalized in pop culture in the 1964 movie “Becket,” starring Richard Burton as the doomed cleric and Peter O’Toole as the monarch. The play version is frequently staged as well.

It brought smiles and laughter and all knew that Trump would never be able to deliver such a line.