Count Me In...

[Lord Jim]

So much depresses me about this , (particularly the spinelessness of the GOP leadership on The Hill, which plays straight in the hands of Trump's obstruction co-conspirators in Congress) it was heartening to see some folks coming together to fight the good fight...I've chipped in a modest contribution:

Just in time: A new Republican group seeks to protect Mueller

Their timing could not be better. A day after reports surfaced that President Trump wanted to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III in December (in addition to an earlier effort in June), five veteran Republicans have formed a new organization, Republicans for the Rule of Law, seeking to restrain the president from doing exactly that.

Bill Kristol (editor at large for the Weekly Standard), Mona Charen (a veteran of the Ronald Reagan administration who recently made a splash at the Conservative Political Action Conference), Linda Chavez (another Reagan administration veteran), Sarah Longwell (a longtime GOP consultant and chairman of the Log Cabin Republicans) and Andy Zwick (executive director of the Foundation for Constitutional Government) launched the group. The following ad touting Mueller’s background and GOP ties aired on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe“:



The group also released a Web ad quoting President Ronald Reagan extolling the rule of law.



The group is concerned about protecting Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, too. Trump reportedly was ruminating about firing him, a move that would be just as alarming as firing Mueller. Rosenstein’s replacement, at the behest of Trump, might seek to limit the scope of Mueller’s investigation or force it to wrap up prematurely.

Longwell tells me, “Any attempt to interfere in the special counsel’s investigation by firing a key official —whether Mueller, Rosenstein, or [Attorney General] Jeff Sessions — would be extremely damaging and not only to the rule of law, but also to the Republican Party and to Trump’s presidency.” She adds, “Such a move would further imperil vulnerable Republicans in November and completely derail the Republican policy agenda for the rest of 2018.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ri ... 35f25d4cb5

Here's the link to the group's website:

https://www.ruleoflawrepublicans.com/

[Big RR]

Jim--while I understand their position and concur with it, I am not sure they could do much if Trump chose to fire him. As I understand it, the special counsel serves at the "pleasure" of the president (or the AG) and I would think Trump could do what Nixon did and keep firing DOJ employees until someone did fire him. I imagine they could appoint him as a congressional Committee investigator and give him subpoena power, but do you know of anything else they could do to prevent the firing?

[Crackpot]

Stop? Not if trump is set on shooting himself in the foot. It does set in place a vocal (right aligned) opposition group to the destruction of the party by the thin skinned wanna be dictator and his allies and enablers. (A move long overdue IMNHAAO). Those who stand for American values have long been cowed to silence by party politics and speaking up from within is long overdue throughout the US political class and outright critical when facing such an internal existential threat. It serves as a reminder to those we allow power that We are still bigger than them and that there will be consequences for ignoring “us”.

[Big RR]

Perhaps, but I'd be more optimistic if the group included republican congressmen and senators.

[Crackpot]

It has to start somewhere.

[Lord Jim]

I am not sure they could do much if Trump chose to fire him.

Big RR, there are two bills with bi-partisan sponsorship designed to protect Mueller from politically motivated dismissal that have been sitting in the Senate since last summer, (one would require approval from a 3 judge panel for him to be dismissed, the other would provide him with an automatic appeal for re-in statement to the same sort of panel)

The GOP leadership keeps repeating support for Mueller and opposition to his being fired, but they have thus far failed to schedule a vote on either of these bills or something like them (which would pass by veto proof margins in both Houses if they reached the floor...practically all Democrats would vote for it and at least half the Republicans)

The stated reason for not bringing a bill like this to a vote has been the repeated claim that they don't believe there's any real threat that Trump will fire Comey, but it seems clear to me that the real reason is that they just haven't wanted to piss Trump off...

It appears that at long last, there may finally be some movement on this legislation:

Bipartisan Bill to Protect Mueller Headed for Judiciary Markup

A bipartisan group of senators unveiled a compromise bill Wednesday to give Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III job protections, as renewed criticism from President Donald Trump adds more fuel to speculation that he plans to fire the man tapped to investigate connections between his campaign and Russian operatives.

Trump on Wednesday dubbed Mueller’s probe the “Fake Corrupt Russia Investigation” on Twitter, the latest in a series of statements sparked by the FBI’s search Monday of the office of his personal lawyer Michael Cohen. It is one of several times since June that Trump’s statements have prompted discussion that Mueller’s job was at risk.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, on a conference call with Midwest reporters, said the new bill would probably be on the committee’s agenda Thursday but might not get a vote until next week.

Still, there was no immediate sign that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., planned to bring such legislation to the floor, or that such a bill could pass in the Republican-controlled House. [If Ryan finds the balls to put it on the floor, it will pass bigly. ]

The new bill would turn into law the current Justice Department regulations that ensure a special counsel can only be fired for cause by a senior department official who puts the reasons in writing. Passing such legislation would address some concerns that Trump could repeal the regulations as one path to remove Mueller.

The proposal also would give a special counsel 10 days to ask a federal judge to review whether a removal was for good cause, and if not, allow the special counsel to stay in the job. It would also require staffing, documents and materials of the investigation to be preserved.

The measure combined two bills, first introduced eight months ago amid one of the first instances Trump’s words caused concern that he would fire Mueller. The senators behind those bills, Republicans Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Democrats Chris Coons of Delaware and Cory Booker of New Jersey, combined their efforts for the measure released Wednesday.

“This is a time when all of us — Republicans and Democrats — need to stand up and make it clear that we are committed to the rule of law in this country,” [Here, Here ] Coons said in a news release. “We need to ensure not only that Special Counsel Mueller can complete his work without interference, but that special counsels in future investigations can, too.”

McConnell and other Senate Republicans told reporters Tuesday that such a law isn’t needed and that they don’t think Trump will fire Mueller.

“I haven’t seen a clear indication yet that we needed to pass something to keep him from being removed because I don’t think that’s going to happen, and that remains my view,” McConnell said.[Oh come on, give it up Mitch...You're like a guy looking at a man pouring gasoline all over the living room with a lit match in his hand, saying, "I don't think he's going to set the house on fire"... if you wait until he tosses the match, it will be too late.]

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, when asked Tuesday if Trump has the authority to fire Mueller, said that “we’ve been advised that the president certainly has the power to make that decision.”

Democratic lawmakers have warned that Trump could spark a constitutional crisis or risk impeachment if he fires Mueller, or Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Trump has called out Rosenstein by name because he oversees the Mueller probe and legal experts say he is the official who can fire Mueller under current DOJ regulations.

“Why not pass this legislation now and avoid a constitutional crisis?” Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the floor Wednesday. “Why not avoid an injury to the body of this great country and then try to stitch it up? That’s what we should be doing. Let’s not wait until it’s too late.”

https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/ ... ary-markup

I'd be more optimistic if the group included republican congressmen and senators.

It has to start somewhere.

It's my understanding that part of the goal of this group is to start bringing pressure on GOP lawmakers from rank and file Republican voters (which makes sense; these guys and gals will be far more worried about that than pressure they get from people who will never vote for them anyway.)

[Lord Jim]

We need a lot more of this:

‘Spare me’: Tillis draws GOP fire with pro-Mueller push

Thom Tillis isn’t the kind of Republican who typically challenges Donald Trump.

The North Carolina senator backs the president’s agenda and holds his tongue when it comes to the tweets. As others abandoned Trump after the “Access Hollywood” tape emerged, Tillis stood by his endorsement.

But now, he’s a lead sponsor of a bill to protect special counsel Robert Mueller from interference by Trump — enraging conservatives and potentially risking the president's ire. It’s the biggest gamble Tillis has taken as a Republican senator, but one he believes is philosophically consistent with how the GOP would approach the situation if the president were a Democrat.

Tillis doesn't think Trump will ultimately fire Mueller even as the president rages over the expanding Russia probe. But he has an impassioned response for his conservative critics nonetheless: "Spare me."

“Courage is when you know you’re going to do something that’s going to anger your base,” Tillis said in an interview in his Senate office.

“The same people who would criticize me for filing this bill would be absolutely angry if I wasn’t pounding the table for this bill if we were dealing with Hillary Clinton,” he argued. “So spare me your righteous indignation.”


The effort has not yet caught fire with most in his party. Many Republicans tell Tillis that the president will never sign it, so his is a fruitless endeavor.[I disagree; just as with the Russian sanctions bill that Trump opposed, I believe that if a bipartisan bill protecting Mueller were to reach the floor it would pass by a veto-proof margin. Especially with polls showing that even a majority of GOP voters want Mueller to be able to complete his investigation.] Democrats, however, believe it amounts to a stern warning to the president even if the bill never becomes law.

More:

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/04/ ... ump-522088

[rubato]

Perhaps, but I'd be more optimistic if the group included republican congressmen and senators
toadies and ass-kissers. .

Fixed.


yrs,
rubato

[Darren]

Trump's not going to fire Mueller. Rosenstein's the one looking at termination.

[Darren]

Looks like McCabe's the first one in the barrel. Sucks to be him. Cue the Let's Make a Deal theme song.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/19/politics ... index.html

[Burning Petard]

Looks to me as it Comey has also thrown McCabe under the bus.

snailgate

[Lord Jim]

Some more good work from those fine patriotic Americans at Republicans For The Rule Of Law:

Republican group runs “protect Mueller” ad on Trump’s favorite show

Republicans for the Rule of Law ran an ad on Fox & Friends demanding Matthew Whitaker’s recusal.



Viewers of President Donald Trump’s favorite cable news network were in for a surprise on Wednesday morning. A Republican group aired what amounted to a negative Trump commercial — one that urged viewers to demand that the president’s openly anti-Mueller attorney general recuse himself from overseeing the Russia investigation.

“We need an attorney general who doesn’t play politics,” the ad’s narrator says, urging viewers to call their members of Congress and “tell them that [acting attorney general Matthew] Whitaker must recuse himself from the Mueller investigation.”

Republicans for the Rule of Law, a political nonprofit, paid for the ad to run in Washington, DC, and New York City during Fox & Friends — a show the president regularly live-tweets.

Trump’s decision to install Whitaker as the head of the Department of Justice presents an unusual moment where some Republicans are breaking off from the president, fearing that his decision to appoint an anti-Mueller partisan to oversee Mueller sets the stage for a constitutional crisis.

“Obviously [Whitaker’s] there because he’s a political ally of the president, not because he’s qualified,” said Sarah Longwell, director of Republicans for the Rule of Law. Her group hopes to persuade Trump supporters that this is a special case, that “firing Mueller or Rosenstein would put us in that constitutional crisis area that would hurt the Republican Party.”

More:

https://www.vox.com/2018/11/14/18094886 ... er-mueller


And...

A new group organized by George "Yes, the couch is quite comfortable" Conway:

Top lawyers in the Federalist Society are trying to rally fellow conservatives to speak out against Trump

The Federalist Society's annual convention has been called the "Super Bowl" for lawyers.

This year, following the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, yet another member of the group's ranks sent to the highest court in the land, it might have been expected to be a celebration of Kavanaugh and the president who appointed him.

But just days before the convention is set to begin at The Mayflower Hotel in Washington, some of its most prominent members have banded together to form "Checks and Balances," a slate of like-minded attorneys who are encouraging their fellow conservatives to speak out against what they see as President Donald Trump's undermining of the rule of law.

In a mission statement dated Tuesday, the group said it stands for "the rule of law, the power of truth, the independence of the criminal justice system, the imperative of individual rights, and the necessity of civil discourse."

The group includes more than a dozen conservative and libertarian lawyers, many of whom who have held high-profile positions in Republican presidential administrations. The group's members have been influential in shaping conservative legal thought.

Among its founding signatories are Tom Ridge, the former Pennsylvania governor who served as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under George W. Bush; George Conway, a conservative attorney who is married to Trump's senior counselor Kellyanne Conway; Peter Keisler, the former head of the Department of Justice's Civil Division; and Lori Meyer, an attorney married to Eugene Meyer, the president of the Federalist Society.

Neither the White House nor the Federalist Society immediately responded to a requests for comment.

In interviews Wednesday, members of the group expressed the hope that more conservatives would join them. They said that they hoped to lower the barriers to doing so by attaching their names, in public, to a declaration sticking up for the rule of law.

"We felt the need to be more activist, and what that activism will be is the expression of our views, when asked, and when able, to get like-minded people to join us in an attempt to influence a government that claims to be conservative," said Stuart Gerson, an attorney who held senior roles in the George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations and as a transition advisor to George W. Bush.

Marisa Maleck, a former law clerk to conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, said she was dismayed by the lack of criticism the president received from members of his own party during his first two years in office.

Maleck cited the president's firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his decision to strip the press pass from CNN's chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta as recent actions she opposed.

"The president is taking on more and more power, and people don't know any better if you don't have legal experts speaking up and saying: This is entirely unconstitutional, and you can't do that," she said.

Some members of the group have staked out positions at odds with the president.

Conway has been vocal on Twitter and in the media, recently writing an opinion article in The New York Times, co-bylined by the liberal attorney Neal Katyal, arguing that Trump's appointment of Matthew Whitaker as acting attorney general is unconstitutional. (The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel signed off on Whitaker's appointment.)

John Bellinger, another member of the group and a former top National Security Council lawyer, was one of the first former Republican administration officials to publicly denounce Trump.

The creation of Checks and Balances, and the prominence of its members, is expected to cause a bit of a ruckus at this weekend's gathering of the conservative movement's top legal minds.

"These and other names will turn heads," Benjamin Wittes, co-founder of the national security blog Lawfare and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, wrote in a post on Twitter Wednesday.

That's the point, its members say. Jonathan Adler, the director of Case Western Law School's Center for Business Law and Regulation, said he hoped the group would "create space" for conservatives who were reluctant to criticize the administration to do so.

"Our hope and belief is that there are a lot more people who share these concerns than thus far have been known to raise them publicly," he said. "When lots of people who generally share the same legal philosophy about the Constitution are gathering, that's an obvious time to encourage people to be more vocal and more active."

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/14/top-law ... trump.html

[RayThom]

Lord Dampnut answered all the questions "by myself" and only snapped two crayons while completing the form. White House insiders said he was such a good boy that he was allowed to name the game played at recess.

Lie = Perjury... Truth?? = Collusion (++) I bet "lies" win.

http://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-hou ... YoP5Kc7PaM

[Joe Guy]

Note that after all of his claiming to have completed the answers himself, at :48 the Trumpster said, "I haven't submitted them yet, we... I just finished them."

GOTCHA TRUMP!!! (lying sack of excreted fecal matter)

[Lord Jim]

Lord Dampnut answered all the questions "by myself" and only snapped two crayons while completing the form.

I understand he got very frustrated again when he couldn't find Waldo....

[liberty]

Does anyone remember this? The president can fire anyone he wants :


The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson occurred in 1868, when the United States House of Representatives resolved to impeach U.S. President Andrew Johnson, adopting eleven articles of impeachment detailing his "high crimes and misdemeanors", in accordance with Article Two of the United States Constitution. The House's primary charge against Johnson was violation of the Tenure of Office Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in March 1867, over the President's veto. Specifically, he had removed from office Edwin McMasters Stanton, the Secretary of War—whom the Act was largely designed to protect—and attempted to replace him with Brevet Major General Lorenzo Thomas. (Earlier, while the Congress was not in session, Johnson had suspended Stanton and appointed General Ulysses S. Grant as Secretary of War ad interim.)

The House approved the articles of impeachment on March 2–3, 1868, and forwarded them to the Senate. The trial in the Senate began three days later, with Chief Justice of the United States Salmon P. Chase presiding. On May 16, the Senate failed to convict Johnson on one of the articles, with the 35–19 vote in favor of conviction falling short of the necessary two-thirds majority by a single vote. A ten-day recess was called before attempting to convict him on additional articles. The delay did not change the outcome, however, as on May 26, it failed to convict the President on two articles, both by the same margin; after which the trial was adjourned.

This was the first impeachment of a President since creation of the office in 1789. The culmination of a lengthy political battle between Johnson, a lifelong Democrat and the Republican majority in Congress over how best to deal with the defeated Southern states following the conclusion of the American Civil War, the impeachment, and the subsequent trial (and acquittal) of Johnson were among the most dramatic events in the political life of the nation during the Reconstruction Era. Together, they have gained a historical reputation as an act of political expedience, rather than necessity, which was based on Johnson's defiance of an unconstitutional piece of legislation, and which was conducted with little regard for the will of a general public which, despite the unpopularity of Johnson, opposed the impeachment.

Johnson is one of only three presidents against whom articles of impeachment have been reported to the full House for consideration. In 1974, during the Watergate scandal, the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon, who resigned from office, rather than face certain impeachment and the prospect of being convicted at trial and removed from office. In 1998, Bill Clinton was impeached; he, like Johnson, was acquitted of all charges following a Senate trial.

[RayThom]

Help Lord Dampnut find Waldo.

[Lord Jim]

The president can fire anyone he wants

Yeah, and the Congress can choose to impeach, and the Senate can vote to remove, based on any grounds they want...

And firing someone in order to try to obstruct a criminal investigation into yourself, your family, and your cronies (as Trump blatantly did when he fired Sessions and replaced him with Muscle Head) would constitute splendid grounds...

I haven't looked at the Impeachment Articles drawn up against Andrew Johnson lately, but if you look at the ones adopted by the House Judiciary Committee against both Nixon and Clinton, you'll find that obstruction of justice is numero uno in both cases...

Of course you've made very clear that you don't give a rat's patootie (despite all your repeated claims that you care strongly about the Constitution) about a President who on a nearly daily basis demonstrates his complete contempt for the Constitution, the rule of law, and all the institutions designed to prevent him from carrying out his publicly expressed intentions to subvert them...

No, you're too busy worrying about really important things like a guy getting arrested for harassing someone for wearing a pro-Puerto Rico tee shirt, a fantasy war with Russia in the Arctic Circle and a mondo bizarro theory about Ruth Bader Ginsburg offing Antonin Scalia...

For the guy who is currently and actively trying to subvert the Constitution, (who also has the most power to accomplish that objective) you have not one word of criticism...

[liberty]

The president can fire anyone he wants

Yeah, and the Congress can choose to impeach, and the Senate can vote to remove, based on any grounds they want...

.

No Jim they can’t do it that would violate separation of powers. There can’t be three separate and co-equal branches of government if one branch can arbitrarily remove members of the other two branches without cause. The cause is laid out in the constitution: Treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors have to be provable to remove a president from office. To do otherwise would risk making the constitution irrelevant. But that would not bother liberals they are so filled with hatred for Trump and his supporters that they would destroy the country to get him.

Bill Clinton was clearly guilty of perjury the proof the of the blue dress was irrefutable, but democrats would not convict. As liberals see it there is two standard of justice one for them and one for everyone else, hypocrites.

[ex-khobar Andy]

If you had been paying attention at the time, you would have known that the perjury charge against Clinton was nothing to do with the blue dress. Nothing. I'm not defending Clinton's conduct. Note also that I do not think that if Trump wanted to have sex with Stormy Daniels, or anyone else for that matter if it were consensual, it is relevant to his (mis)conduct in office.