Tag: Justice Department

Coup in slow motion

~ susie

Here we go — any day now, Trump will fire Rosenstein, and this stiff will fire Mueller.

‘You wake up one day and we’re in Venezuala’

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

FOX NEWS: Web of informant contacts with Trump campaign expands, fueling GOP pressure on FBI

President Donald Trump’s latest round of attacks on the FBI has left morale at the Justice Department at a new low, with officials bemoaning what they view as a full-frontal assault on their institution.

“It’s a deliberate campaign to delegitimize institutions where the people who are inside those institutions are professionals and giving up lots of money for the jobs that they’re doing and it’s extremely demoralizing,” said one current federal prosecutor.

“As my father used to say, history goes forward and backward. And things go backward when the trust in bedrock institutions—which are trustworthy, by the way—is diminished for the benefit of a few. It accelerates, and you wake up one day and we’re in Venezuela.”

Trump has been pushing a conspiracy theory that the FBI sicced a spy on his campaign during the election season. In reality, a longtime FBI informant—per numerous reports—spoke with several Trump campaign officials, including Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, and shared the information with FBI investigators. The Daily Caller reported the name of the person believed to be that informant.

Another one bites the dust

~ susie

US charges two Russian spies and two hackers in Yahoo data breach

Hmm. Lots of people quitting lately:

The woman leading the Justice Department’s investigation of foreign meddling into the 2016 election and possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia has told staff members she will leave the department in May.

Mary B. McCord has served at the highest levels in the national security unit, either as its leader or chief deputy, for the past three years. A longtime federal prosecutor based in Washington, McCord easily won the confidence of both career lawyers and her supervisors inside the Justice Department.

McCord did not offer a public reason for her departure. In a message to her staff earlier this week, she wrote that she did not make the decision easily, but she concluded “the time is now right for me to pursue new career opportunities.”

Her exit leaves a huge vacancy at one of the Justice Department’s most important divisions, at a time when the Trump administration is struggling to fill the ranks. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the only leader so far in the building to have secured Senate confirmation. His picks for deputy and associate attorney general await votes by the full Senate. The administration has not yet announced political appointees for other top posts.

I am so, so tired of winning!

Scarier than John Ashcroft

~ odd man out ~ 1 Comment

By Odd Man Out
Eric Holder might feel more at home in Vladimir Putin’s Justice Department than in the USA’s. Susie blogged about Charles Pierce’s take on the Attorney General the other day.

Yesterday, Jonathan Turley weighed in with his impressions:

…Democrats are largely silent in the face of a president claiming the right to unilaterally kill citizens.

Holder became particularly cryptic in his assurance of caution in the use of this power, insisting that they will kill citizens only with “the consent of the nation involved or after a determination that the nation is unable or unwilling to deal effectively with a threat to the United States.” What on earth does that mean?

This is precisely why the framers of the US constitution rejected the “trust me” approach to government, as discussed in this column. Since last year, US drones have killed three Americans overseas.

‘Yes He Can,’ but will he?

~ odd man out

Has Barack Obama ever acknowledged Robert Reich’s steady stream of criticism regarding Obama’s apparent lack of interest in putting the real economy back on track? He seems to have shunned the former Secretary of Labor, and to have ignored anyone urging accountability for Wall Street crooks.

Regardless, the accountability issues will be raised again today at “Yes He Can” events around the country, good opportunities to ask Obamabots why their man has shirked his responsibilities.

Footnote: In Philadelphia, MoveOn.org has arranged a protest at noon, at the Bank of America’s 16th Street and JFK Boulevard branch, followed by a march to Obama headquarters at 15th and Chestnut streets to deliver petitions demanding an investigation of the role played by banksters in the crash of the housing market.