The Justice Department official overseeing the investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia insisted on Tuesday that he wouldn’t be intimidated by suggestions from conservative Republican lawmakers that he be impeached for defying requests for congressional oversight.
“There have been people that have been making threats, publicly and privately, against me for quite some time, and I think they should understand by now: The Department of Justice is not going to be extorted,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said during an appearance at the Newseum in Washington. “Any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job. We have a responsibility and we take an oath. That’s the whole point.”
... During the question-and-answer session on Tuesday marking “Law Day,” the mild-mannered Rosenstein could not resist a swipe at whoever on Capitol Hill was behind a version of proposed articles of impeachment against him being circulated by GOP lawmakers and published in The Washington Post.
“They can’t even resist leaking their own drafts,” the deputy attorney general said. “I saw that draft. I mean, I don’t know who wrote it. It really does illustrate, though, a really important distinction between the way we operate in the Department of Justice — if we’re going to accuse somebody of wrongdoing, we have to have admissible evidence and credible witnesses. We need to be prepared to prove our case in court. … We have people who are accountable. And so I just don’t have anything to say about documents like that that nobody has the courage to put their name on.”
... The articles drafted by Rep. Mark Meadows of North Carolina and other Freedom Caucus allies accuse Rosenstein of multiple transgressions, including failure to follow surveillance laws, remove staff with conflicts of interest and produce documents to Congress in a timely way....
He graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, with a B.S. in economics, summa cum laude in 1986. He earned his J.D. degree cum laude in 1989 from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He then served as a law clerk to Judge Douglas H. Ginsburg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. He was a Wasserstein Fellow at Harvard Law School in 1997-98.
He worked for Daddy Shrub, Ken Starr on the Whitewater investigation, and Baby Shrub who also nominated Rosenstein to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Then:
President Donald Trump nominated Rosenstein to serve as Deputy Attorney General for the United States Department of Justice on January 13, 2017. He was one of the 46 United States Attorneys ordered on March 10, 2017, to resign by Attorney General Jeff Sessions; Trump declined his resignation. Rosenstein was confirmed by the Senate on April 25, 2017, by a vote of 94–6.
Asshole Meadows is my US Rep.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.
Meanwhile, Trump’s Presidential Inaugural Committee collected donations totaling $106.7 million, more than double that collected by President Obama’s $53.2 million for his 2008 inauguration, a much larger and more star-studded affair than Trump’s. fortune.com/… Among those with ties to the Russian government who gave to the Inaugural Committee are Alexander Shustorovich, who gave $1 million, Leonard Blavatnik, a Ukrainian-born billionaire who holds American and British citizenship, who also gave $1 million, Russian-born oil executive Simon Kukes, Viktor Vekselberg, one of the richest men in Russia, and his Russian-American cousin, Andrew Intrater. Oddly, neither Intrater nor Kukes had a history of giving political donations.
Little happened at the Trump Inauguration for which anybody would have had to be paid very much. There were few celebrities. Rachel Maddow of MSNBC had reported this oddity for a year or more. Where did all that money go?
[…]
What happened to the other $25 million paid to Ms. Wolkoff’s LLC remains a mystery.
That is the exact amount needed to pay the Trump University students forming the plaintiff class in Judge Curiel’s court.
[…]
Well, then, if my speculation is correct, the Russians again paid money to relieve Trump’s personal debt. What did the Russians get for it? Relief from sanctions, which Trump refused to impose even after a law of Congress required him to do so. That smells like a bribe to me. It is probably also taxable income to Trump.
This is the Putin's Agent Orange team admitting illegal obstruction of justice by their Dear Leader, something that ovine Trumpettes have shrieked their denial of for over a year.
It also makes me wonder if the January letter from President* Trump's lawyers to Mueller wasn't just leaked by President* Trump's team since it includes the ridiculous claim that a POTUS can't obstruct justice. The timing seems more than coincidental.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.
This is the Putin's Agent Orange team admitting illegal obstruction of justice by their Dear Leader, something that ovine Trumpettes have shrieked their denial of for over a year.
It also makes me wonder if the January letter from President* Trump's lawyers to Mueller wasn't just leaked by President* Trump's team since it includes the ridiculous claim that a POTUS can't obstruct justice. The timing seems more than coincidental.
I can't recall a single leak from Mueller's team and as Agent Orange's Whitehouse leaks like a sieve...yuh huh!
Eamus Catuli~AC 000000000101010202020303010304 020405....Ahhhh, forget it, it's gonna be a while.
I can't recall a single leak from Mueller's team and as Agent Orange's Whitehouse leaks like a sieve...yuh huh!
True, though there's a first time for everything.
Possible that someone outside of Mueller's team and the Whitehouse had a copy?
If the Whitehouse, done to help or hurt President* Trump?
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.
This is the Putin's Agent Orange team admitting illegal obstruction of justice by their Dear Leader, something that ovine Trumpettes have shrieked their denial of for over a year.
It also makes me wonder if the January letter from President* Trump's lawyers to Mueller wasn't just leaked by President* Trump's team since it includes the ridiculous claim that a POTUS can't obstruct justice. The timing seems more than coincidental.
My bad, I guess the admission of the illegal obstruction of justice was in the January letter. So, likely deliberate that they were mentioned at the same time.
I can't recall a single leak from Mueller's team and as Agent Orange's Whitehouse leaks like a sieve...yuh huh!
True, though there's a first time for everything.
Possible that someone outside of Mueller's team and the Whitehouse had a copy?
If the Whitehouse, done to help or hurt President* Trump?
I guess DoJ also had access to the letter, not sure which offices in it.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.
They're not going to.
I saw the best comments about those who don't waver in their support of Trump no matter what - so true.
1. To them, Trump's destructive behaviour, rudeness, lack of experience and lack of competence are all features, not bugs.
2. They don't care if they end up living in a cardboard box roasting a sparrow on a coat hanger as long as the groups they hate don't have a sparrow.
The only cure is to vote out every Republican you can find.
So, the idiot POSPOTUS thinks Russia should be invited back to the G6/7/8.
When, oh when, does the GOP rebel against this asshole?
Some will pretend to be independent of President* Trump between July and Nov., largely in dramatic but meaningless ways. Then, the survivors will bend over again for President* Trump and his Trumpettes.
Always be yourself! Unless you can be a goat, then always be a goat.
-- the interweb, paraphrased
1312. ETTD.