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Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, having diligently performed his duty under the Constitution by investigating the Russian intervention in the 2016 election and whether Trump and his campaign criminally conspired to assist them, followed precedent in not indicting a sitting President. At the end of the day the laid back respected civil servant didn’t deliver to the legislators an out right injunction to set into motion an impeachment process, thereby leaving them to work it out. Unlike Kenneth Starr who had delivered for the Congress in the Clinton affair with a referral for impeachment, Mueller having delivered the factual goods, deferred indirectly inviting Congress to enact its constitutional obligation.
Many wished that Rod Rosenstein had recalled Starr to be the investigator because he got his man one way or another. He relied on lies about sex to nail his quarry - and heavens knows there is enough of that with Trump.
MUELLER, BARR AND TRUMP
Bob Mueller is being congratulated for his consummate professional behavior in producing a devastating comprehensive report, albeit redacted by Attorney General Barr, that details the successful campaign the Russians perpetrated in subverting American democracy in assisting in the election of Donald Trump. (A fact that the POTUS has not accepted to this day, having maintained, “Vladimir Putin was extremely strong in his denials. I have a President Putin. He just said it is not Russia. I will say this - I don’t see that it would be”.)
Trump who doesn’t read books should listen to the Volume 1 of the audiobook of the redacted Mueller report. He would learn what his newest best friend Vladimir executed and how he and his campaign went along, welcomed and encouraged good old Vlad.Then in Volume 2 the meticulous civil servant went to colossal pains in rolling out in exquisite detail all the stratagems the 46th President utilized in an attempt to prevent the aforementioned from being exposed, even though he argued that it had never happened. Mueller in fact found “collusion” but it was just short of criminal conspiracy which was what the pedantic analyst was researching.
For all the other citizens that are too busy to wade through the gory treasonous behavior of Trump and his campaign just read the executive summaries that Barr initially withheld in favor of his disgusting spin.
Trump and his man Barr displayed great satisfaction that although there was abundant evidence that Trump’s campaign, liked, encouraged, held meetings with Russian operatives dishing out internal polling figures and collecting dirt on Hillary in return, did not rise to a criminal conspiracy. Barr spun it as “ no collusion” even after the report had specifically said that collusion was not the legal rubric that they had conducted the investigation under.
Barr found Trump not guilty of Obstruction of Justice within two days of receiving the two year long investigation. He then took three weeks to actually read it so he could redact some of it. Then before handing it over to Congress, which had unanimously demanded the whole lot, he gave another interpretation of the contents in order to set the narrative. Once again he spun it in terms of the Trump talking points and when asked by the media why he hadn’t brought Mueller along to present the Mueller report, he snapped back, “It is my report”, just in case anyone didn’t know. In the interim he had once again made a spirited rendition of the POTUS’S two year long disinformation effort by backing up his conspiracy theory that Obama had spied on him and reassuring Lindsey Graham that he would look into investigating the investigators.
It was patently obvious that the Democrats wished that old Rod Rosenstein had not called upon a committed patriot to do the work of the people who just wouldn’t do their political job and call out loud for impeachment. Instead they might have preferred a political hack like Kenneth Starr.
WOULD STARR HAVE AVOIDED THE DISASTARR OF THE DILEMMA FACING THE DEMOCRATS?
Kenneth Starr who was the Special Prosecutor in the Clinton Whitewater land deal and the allegation that the Clintons murdered Vince Foster could find no evidence, zilch, of wrongdoing on those two charges. Undeterred at his failure, he decided, according to former 7th Circuit Appellate Chief Justice Posner, to execute prosecutorial misconduct by colluding with lawyers in an unrelated litigation on sexual harassment, to entrap the President into lying about a consensual affair with an intern, Monica Lewinsky. Now Clinton’s lying under oath subsequently led to Starr submitting a 445 page unredacted report to Congress with 11 grounds for impeaching William Jefferson Clinton.
Assuming that the Clinton Special Prosecutor had been appointed to investigate the 46th POTUS and that he was just as zealous at getting his man as he was in the case of the 42nd then the way to go would have been to forget about Russia, “are you listening”, and go for the sex - and already he had a case, good old Stormy Daniels and a ton of other related stuff to go on.
Trump had already been named as a coconspirator in a case where his former lawyer is going to jail. It was outright alleged that he instructed his attorney to pay to quash the story of the porn star’s affair with him. With the “collusion” of his friend David Pecker, the boss of The National Enquirer, he would ensure that the story would never see the light of day. Trump lied up the ying yang on every aspect of the matter.
The conniving ex Special Counsel, Starr, wouldn’t worry about campaign finance law violations because his strong suit is smut. In addition to Stormy there is another lady, former Playgirl, Karen McDougal, out is there in the public domain that The Donald paid off.
The Donald, as a result of several other related behaviors is affectionately referred to as “The Porn Star, pardon the pun, President”, would provide ample material for Starr to work on. (Full disclosure, as Jay H. Ell will explain later, Ken Starr is probably the biggest legal hypocrite to opine on the Mueller investigation, but for the moment, let the case proceed).
THE NUB OF THE STARR REPORT ON CLINTON - SEX DESCRIBED IN PORNOGRAPHIC DETAIL
Starr, unlike Mueller, would not rest till he had the 42nd President give evidence before the Grand Jury. This was on videotape which Starr showed to the world. Starr, unlike Barr, went to a Federal Judge to allow that testimony to become public. (The slick Barr who has happily and unashamedly taken on the role of Trump’s attorney dismissed, with contempt, the suggestion that he would get Grand Jury material unredacted. He knew it would further shame his fairy tale rendition of the Mueller report).
Starr then interrogated Monica Lewinsky who had the sordid interlude with Clinton, threatening her with indictments if she didn’t cooperate. In this political frenzy to bring down Clinton the Special Prosecutor ruined the young intern’s life.
Lying under oath, obstruction of justice, perjury, abuse of power and other related stuff relating to Clinton’s denial, “that he did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky”, was the reason for the Starr impeachment referral. What was spelt out in graphic detail were the seven “encounters” Clinton had with Lewinsky. (The voyeur Starr was joined by that other paragon of sexual propriety, Associate Judge of the Supreme Court Brett Kavanaugh, who spurred Starr not to spare a detail and to stick it to that lecher Clinton). This hard porn picture guaranteed a record viewership.
Each sexual moment was recorded in detail whether Lewinsky took off her bra, had her breasts fondled, was masturbated, whether Clinton ejaculated or not, the oral sex, the occasion he ejaculated on her blue dress, phone sex and the notorious occasion that he inserted a cigar into her vagina.
The Special Prosecutor was fastidious in backing up Ms. Lewisnky’s dates of the events by interviewing special agents and anyone who would have corroborated her story.
So with Starr at the helm none of the 445 pages of the investigation would be wasted on the Russians who attacked American democracy, the meetings that the Trump campaign had with the Russian operatives and the efforts Trump made to stop the investigation into these activities. It would be all about Trump lying about his sexual encounters.
SO ONTO STORMY DANIELS AND THE REST.
Good old Stormy has already written a book. She didn’t have a dress as proof of her liaison with G-d’s gift to women but she could describe Trump’s penis in detail. It was smaller than average but “not freakishly small". She gets even more detailed, “He knows he has an unusual penis. It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool…”. Now Starr demanded that Clinton give a blood sample to prove that the semen on the dress was his. Likewise he would demand and even subpoena an examination of the 46th POTUS to confirm or deny Stormy’s observation.
Stormy would not be enough for our legal scholar. He would go to the ends the earth to get more smut just like he did with Clinton. Starr would lock up women who refused to go along with his narrative as he did with Susan McDougal. The latter rejected the opportunity to give evidence to him because she claimed that if she denied an affair with Clinton he would charge her with perjury. A jury took the rare step of nullifying Starr’s attempt to keep her in jail. Susan McDougal was proved spot on when he charged a Ms Julia Hatt Steele with perjury when she refused to back up a Katherine Wiley claim that corroborated Wiley’s allegation that Clinton assaulted her. The case was chucked out and Steele subsequently charged Starr with prosecutorial misconduct.
So if Starr had gotten the job the next order of the day would have been to subpoena Karen McDougal, (no relation to Susan), who was also paid $150,000 to have the story of her affair killed by team Donald. Karen had a consensual affair with Trump. The liaison lasted nine months with Trump flying her around the country for the indabas. Now of course Trump has lied about the payment for the affair but Michael Cohen taped him discussing the pay off. Starr could have had a field day with Ms. McDougal as she told Anderson Cooper that she had sex with Trump dozens of times. She would have been dragged before the Grand Jury and the intimate details of her encounters would have been included in Starr’s referral for impeachment.
HAVE NO FEAR STARR IS JUST A PARTY HACK - ROSENSTEIN MADE THE RIGHT CALL
But Starr had obviosly changed his modus operandi about such Presidential probes. He earlier warned Mueller not to go on a fishing expedition. Then he greeted the Mueller report echoing the Trump/Barr script. Speaking on Fox News he opined with that smug sickly cynical smile that has not changed in decades, “Great news”, arguing that the country has to be relieved that there was no “collusion” with Russia. Starr slickly warbled on that he was “glad Bill Barr made the call that there was no obstruction of justice". The Clinton Special Counsel said that Mueller’s detailing of all Trump’s obstruction attempts “was unfortunate” as it was an invitation for the Democrats to impeach. Starr reassured the Fox interviewer that “Bill Barr was a very honest guy” and that the investigators will be investigated. Ken Starr repeated that. “I hope that we don’t march down impeachment road as that leads to a cul de sac”.
Following the Barr playbook when discussing the Obstruction of Justice charges Starr claimed that the President was “very angry and felt victimized” and none of the acts rose to the level of obstruction of justice. “Impeachment” he argued, “Is about very serious offenses” which presumably meeting with Russians and handing over polling data isn’t while lying about an affair is, Clinton's not Trump's that is. Like Barr, Fox’s legal interviewee, ruled that because the President had cooperated with Mueller he could not have obstructed justice. Also he agreed that if there was no criminal conspiracy, there can be no obstruction. For someone who aspired to be on the Supreme Court and was a Dean of a Law School he knows that is nonsense.
AT THE END OF THE DAY
So Rod Rosenstein made the right call after all and the Democrats are going to have to live with their problem. The dilemma they face is that the Fox echo chamber reflects the alternative universe that Trump’s forty percent base live in. The Murdoch Empire is not in the business of exposing the hypocrisy of Starr and that slew of Republicans who believed that lying about an affair and all that followed was an impeachable offense in 1998 and in 2019 the President is unimpeachable for outrageous “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, including Jay H. Ell may add, their criterion, lying about sexual relationships with women.
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