Post by Old Badger on Jul 10, 2023 23:52:18 GMT -5
With all the whining from right-wingers and Republicans in general, not to mention the Loony-Tunes Gym Jordan Show "investigation" on Capitol Hill, you might not realize that the President who actually tried to "weaponize" the US Government was on Donald J. Trump. And we know that because so many of the officials he appointed are telling us he did it, as reported by Aaron Blake in the Washington Post:
Kelly is quoted as saying, “He was always telling me that we need to use the FBI and IRS to go after people; it was constant and obsessive and is just what he’s claiming is being done to him now.” The same story comes from such officials as Berman, Barr, and former national security adviser John Bolton.
Trump is the guy who wanted to turn the agencies of the US Government into his personal vendetta machine. That's what Jordan and Comer should be investigating. But that wouldn't help the GOP in the 2024 elections, so instead they're holding "show trial" hearings on the Biden Administration, a classic act of deflection. Of course, as their "witnesses" turn out to be liars-for-pay, criminal defendants, or missing persons their case becomes more burlesque than serious drama. I can't wait from Jordan to be indicted over January 6.
- Trump’s former White House chief of staff John F. Kelly said in a sworn statement that Trump had floated having the IRS investigate two key figures in the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election. This, of course, was hailed by Trump and his allies as being proof positive that the Russia investigation was politically motivated — the original “weaponization” of the government against Trump. But neither the Justice Department inspector general nor special counsel John Durham found evidence that these private sentiments amounted to politically tainting the investigation.
- Trump also wanted the IRS to investigate former FBI director James B. Comey and former deputy director Andrew McCabe, along with Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state and Trump’s presidential challenger, and other perceived foes, Kelly said last year. Comey and McCabe were audited, the odds of which happening randomly is infinitesimal. (An inspector general report last year found no connection between Trump and the audits, but raised concerns that warranted further investigation.)
- Trump publicly and repeatedly pushed for McCabe’s firing before McCabe was due to receive full retirement benefits, ultimately succeeding mere hours before that would have taken place.
- Trump told his White House counsel that he wanted to order probes of Clinton and Comey, per the Times. (His press secretary in late 2017 also said prosecuting Comey was “something that certainly should be looked at” at the Justice Department.)
- Trump said publicly in late 2020 that former president Barack Obama and former vice president Joe Biden should be indicted and indicated he had made such a case to his attorney general, William P. Barr.
- He said in 2019 that it would be “appropriate” for him to ask for an investigation of Biden.
- He withheld security assistance from Ukraine while seeking to have the country say it was opening an investigation involving Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, releasing the aid only when the situation became public. Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney effectively confirmed this was the arrangement before backing off those comments. Trump was impeached for this, and many Republicans acknowledged it was at least improper. A key figure — European Union Ambassador Gordon Sondland — indicated it was probably illegal.
- A Justice Department office was tasked with investigating former secretary of state John F. Kerry in 2018, two days after Trump tweeted about Kerry’s “possibly illegal” activities and the same day Trump said Kerry “should be prosecuted,” according to former U.S. attorney Geoffrey Berman’s book.
- A Trump political appointee in 2018 asked Berman to prosecute a prominent Democratic lawyer, Gregory Craig, and to do so before the midterms, Berman also said. (When Berman declined, it was prosecuted in Washington, where the jury acquitted Craig of lying to the Justice Department.)
- Berman recalled several other examples of political influence seeping into the Justice Department. “Throughout my tenure as U.S. attorney,” Berman wrote, “Trump’s Justice Department kept demanding that I use my office to aid them politically, and I kept declining — in ways just tactful enough to keep me from being fired.”
- Trump repeatedly applied public pressure on the Justice Department to take it easy on his allies, prompting Barr to remark that Trump’s comments “make it impossible for me to do my job.”
- Trump’s pardoning of political allies at a historic rate.
Kelly is quoted as saying, “He was always telling me that we need to use the FBI and IRS to go after people; it was constant and obsessive and is just what he’s claiming is being done to him now.” The same story comes from such officials as Berman, Barr, and former national security adviser John Bolton.
Trump is the guy who wanted to turn the agencies of the US Government into his personal vendetta machine. That's what Jordan and Comer should be investigating. But that wouldn't help the GOP in the 2024 elections, so instead they're holding "show trial" hearings on the Biden Administration, a classic act of deflection. Of course, as their "witnesses" turn out to be liars-for-pay, criminal defendants, or missing persons their case becomes more burlesque than serious drama. I can't wait from Jordan to be indicted over January 6.
