SECRETS AND LIES
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
FEBRUARY 20, 2019

THIS STORY ABOUT AN EXCEEDINGLY AMBITIOUS POLITICO SOME 600 YEARS AGO, THE WRITER OF A SIMILAR LETTER TO HIS HEAD OF STATE. THE TITLE OF THE BOOK IS “THE PRINCE.” IT SUGGESTED HIGHLY AMORAL DEEDS THAT THE PRINCE SHOULD DO TO MAINTAIN THE POWER OF HIS POSITION. KEY: NO DEED IS TOO EVIL IF YOU WIN. I WONDER HOW MANY PEOPLE WOULD ACTUALLY APPLY FOR A POSITION IN THIS WAY – POSSIBLY HUNDREDS OR THOUSANDS. INFLUENCE AND UNREGULATED PERSONAL SERVICE IN POLITICS WAS EVERYTHING IN THE RENAISSANCE. “PRINCES” DID EVEN ORDER THEIR ENEMIES MURDERED IN THOSE DAYS, JUST AS PUTIN IS SAID TO HAVE DONE (ONE CASE OUT OF MANY, I’M SURE.) SO, HERE WE ARE IN THE DARKNESS OF A MODERN-DAY KLEPTOCRACY. READ THIS STORY AND SEE IF YOU THINK THAT BARR IS DESERVING OF HIGH OFFICE IN THE US GOVERNMENT. ALSO CONSIDER, HOW CAN WE GET HIM OUT OF POWER? HE IS THREATENING THE ONE LIGHT ON THE RUSSIA PROBE THAT WE HAVE, AND HE COULD DO MUELLER A GREAT DEAL OF PERSONAL HARM. THERE'S A THREAT IN HERE OF TRYING TO IMPLICATE MUELLER IN A CRIMINAL SCHEME. IT ISN'T ABOUT WHO IS TRUTHFUL, WHO IS RIGHT OR WRONG, BUT WHO IS IN POWER.


DECEMBER 20, 2018

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/12/trump-william-barr-memo-mueller-obstruction-justice.html
THE NATIONAL INTEREST DEC. 20, 2018
Now We Know Trump Picked William Barr to Shut Down Mueller’s Investigation
By Jonathan Chait@jonathanchait

Photograph -- Attorney general nominee William Barr* Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Trump has repeatedly expressed his belief, in public and in private, that the attorney general should act as his personal capo*, pressing investigations against his enemies and ignoring violations by his allies. And yet his choice to fill the job (after his first pick infuriated him by refusing to violate clear ethical protocols) is a relatively mainstream choice: William Barr, who held the same position under George H.W. Bush.

A partial answer to the mystery is that Barr has publicly defended Trump on several of his pet issues. He endorsed the firing of James Comey, called for investigation of the Clinton Foundation, impugned the neutrality of Robert Mueller’s investigators, and defended Trump’s practice of demanding investigations of his enemies. Barr has a record as one of the members of the Republican legal Establishment most indulgent of Trump’s conspiratorial mafia ethos.

But a new report in the Wall Street Journal suggests a more complete answer. Earlier this year, Barr wrote a lengthy memo excoriating Mueller’s investigation of Trump for obstruction of justice. Mueller’s investigation was “grossly irresponsible,” had “potentially disastrous implications,” and other choice descriptions spread over 20 pages culled from public reports. This memo was completely unsolicited.

Exactly why he wrote it is a more curious question. According to the Journal’s account, based on people “familiar with the process,” submitted copies of his anti-Mueller memo to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and to “the top lawyer representing the White House in the Mueller probe.”

The story implies that Trump was not familiar with the memo when he chose Barr, but does not say so outright. The Journal reports “a second person familiar with the matter said the memo played no role in [Trump’s] decision to choose Mr. Barr.” And it also reports, “After Mr. Trump offered him the job, Mr. Barr briefly told the president that he had written a memo about aspects of the Russia probe that could spur questions during his confirmation hearing, according to a person familiar with the process.”

The story does not say who else the White House counsel shared Barr’s memo with, or whether Trump was ever told of it. It’s entirely possible — indeed, it seems quite likely — Trump was aware of the memo.

The assertion by the Journal source that the memo “played no role” in Trump’s selection of Barr is therefore extremely hard to accept at face value. We know Trump is obsessed with finding an attorney general who will suppress the Mueller investigation. His candidate wrote a memo attacking Mueller, and submitted it to Trump’s lawyer, who may or may not have informed others of the memo’s existence.

The worst-case scenario for Barr is that he opened a covert back channel to the administration and campaigned for the role of being Trump’s Roy Cohn*. The best-case scenario is that he merely created the appearance of impropriety. Barr, in this scenario, merely happens to be a fanatical proponent of executive power who expresses his passion for the issue by writing long memos in his spare time. Somehow word of this memo never reached Trump, who then learned of the strange coincidence that Barr had endorsed the very theories that Trump was looking for in the candidate.

Assume for the moment that this latter scenario is true. The most optimistic reading of the Trump administration is that the system has held, and a coterie of professionals have curtailed Trump’s gross autocratic instincts. In this case, then, giving the highest law-enforcement job in the country to an extreme advocate of executive authority, who defends the president’s right to obstruct justice and to demand his own investigations as a matter of abstract ideology would be a grave risk.

TAGS: POLITICS THE NATIONAL INTEREST TOP STPRY DONALD TRUMP MORE


JANUARY ISSUE, 2019 –

I GUESS THIS STORY WAS MEANT TO BE AN APPETIZER, HNNN? CONTINUE TO THE NEXT SEVERAL RELATED STORIES. WILL WE EVER SEE THE MEMO ITSELF? I HAVE AN IMPRESSION THAT TRUMP’S IDEAS OFTEN COME FROM UNUSUAL SOURCES (SUCH AS THE TV MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN BEING BOUND WITH TAPE AND TRANSPORTED ACROSS THE RIO GRANDE). ONE THING HE DOESN’T DO IS PAY ATTENTION AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE. WILL MUELLER BE FORCED FROM HIS POSITION AS SPECIAL COUNSEL? WILL THE WHITE HOUSE ATTEMPT TO CHARGE HIM WITH A CRIME? WHO WAS THE WALL STREET JOURNAL’S SOURCE?

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/01/william-barrs-secret-memo-attorney-general-department-justice-mueller.html
William Barr’s Secret Pro-Trump Memo Keeps Getting More Suspicious
By Jonathan Chait@jonathanchait
photograph -- William Barr, attorney general nominee. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

President Trump has repeatedly expressed his belief, in public and in private, that the attorney general should act as his personal capo*, pressing investigations against his enemies and ignoring violations by his allies. And yet his choice to fill the job (after his first pick infuriated him by refusing to violate clear ethical protocols) is a relatively mainstream choice: William Barr, who held the same position under George H.W. Bush.

A partial answer to the mystery is that Barr has publicly defended Trump on several of his pet issues. He endorsed the firing of James Comey, called for investigation of the Clinton Foundation, impugned the neutrality of Robert Mueller’s investigators, and defended Trump’s practice of demanding investigations of his enemies. Barr has a record as one of the members of the Republican legal Establishment most indulgent of Trump’s conspiratorial mafia ethos.

But a new report in the Wall Street Journal suggests a more complete answer. Earlier this year, Barr wrote a lengthy memo excoriating Mueller’s investigation of Trump for obstruction of justice. Mueller’s investigation was “grossly irresponsible,” had “potentially disastrous implications,” and other choice descriptions spread over 20 pages culled from public reports. This memo was completely unsolicited.

Exactly why he wrote it is a more curious question. According to the Journal’s account, based on people “familiar with the process,” submitted copies of his anti-Mueller memo to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and to “the top lawyer representing the White House in the Mueller probe.”

The story implies that Trump was not familiar with the memo when he chose Barr, but does not say so outright. The Journal reports “a second person familiar with the matter said the memo played no role in [Trump’s] decision to choose Mr. Barr.” And it also reports, “After Mr. Trump offered him the job, Mr. Barr briefly told the president that he had written a memo about aspects of the Russia probe that could spur questions during his confirmation hearing, according to a person familiar with the process.”

The story does not say who else the White House counsel shared Barr’s memo with, or whether Trump was ever told of it. It’s entirely possible — indeed, it seems quite likely — Trump was aware of the memo.

The assertion by the Journal source that the memo “played no role” in Trump’s selection of Barr is therefore extremely hard to accept at face value. We know Trump is obsessed with finding an attorney general who will suppress the Mueller investigation. His candidate wrote a memo attacking Mueller, and submitted it to Trump’s lawyer, who may or may not have informed others of the memo’s existence.

The worst-case scenario for Barr is that he opened a covert back channel to the administration and campaigned for the role of being Trump’s Roy Cohn*. The best-case scenario is that he merely created the appearance of impropriety. Barr, in this scenario, merely happens to be a fanatical proponent of executive power who expresses his passion for the issue by writing long memos in his spare time. Somehow word of this memo never reached Trump, who then learned of the strange coincidence that Barr had endorsed the very theories that Trump was looking for in the candidate.

Assume for the moment that this latter scenario is true. The most optimistic reading of the Trump administration is that the system has held, and a coterie of professionals have curtailed Trump’s gross autocratic instincts. In this case, then, giving the highest law-enforcement job in the country to an extreme advocate of executive authority, who defends the president’s right to obstruct justice and to demand his own investigations as a matter of abstract ideology would be a grave risk.

TAGS: POLITICS THE NATIONAL INTEREST TOP STPRY DONALD TRUMP MORE


Capo*
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Capo

NOTE: THIS IS A RUNDOWN IN MAFIA SPEAK OF THE CHAIN OF COMMAND. VERY INTERESTING. I WONDER IF “THE FAMILY” IN THIS ARTICLE IS A COINCIDENTAL COMPARISON TO THE TRUMP FAMILY, WHO ARE CERTAINLY LINKED TOGETHER IN LESS THAN LEGAL ACTIVITIES.

Literal translation into the American Language is "Captain". People have used and continue to use this term to characterize a Mafia family member to signify their relevance and importance to their family. A captain "orders" soldiers to do certain tasks needed. Capos get their orders from underbosses, who get them from the family Consigliere, who gets his from the boss.
"Ohhh Paulie, you hear that Giovanni became a Capo!?"
#capo#captain#mafia#cosa nostra#boss
by bada_bing0 April 02, 2008



IN PRAISE OF ROY COHN -- HOW REPUBLICANS THINK – LOOK AT TRUMP’S GROTESQUELY NAZI-LIKE HAND WAVE TO THE CROWD IN THIS PHOTOGRAPH, NOVEMBER 2018. THE WIKIPEDIA BIO OF COHN IS ALSO BELOW.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/11/matt-whitaker-is-trumps-corrupt-partisan-attorney-general.html
HE NATIONAL INTEREST NOV. 7, 2018
Trump Has Found His Roy Cohn in Matt Whitaker
By Jonathan Chait@jonathanchait

PHOTOGRAPH -- President Trump. Photo: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images

Before the forced resignation of Jeff Sessions as attorney general, it was possible, however optimistically, to dismiss Donald Trump’s authoritarianism as mere rhetoric and affect. It is not possible any longer. Sessions’s departure, and his replacement with Matt Whitaker, is Trump’s plan to corrupt the Department of Justice. It is the most dire threat to the republic since Trump’s election itself.

If you study literature of democratic backsliding, the frightening conclusion is that nobody has devised a system of laws comprehensive enough to guarantee the survival of a democratic government. Because there is always wiggle room in the execution and enforcement of the law, democracies rely on informal norms. One of those norms is the independence of federal law enforcement, without which, the ruling party could use the law as a weapon against its enemies while shielding itself.

Of course, presidents have the leeway to choose their own attorney general. It is mere tradition that dictates that the attorney general, once selected, operate at arm’s length from the president’s political interests. There is simply no doubt that Trump’s entire rationale for firing Sessions is his refusal to quash the Russia investigation, because he has not even bothered to conceal his motive. Trump has repeatedly lambasted Sessions for failing to “stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now.” Sessions is an original Trump loyalist, an unusually committed believer in and effective implementer of the president’s ethnonationalist agenda on immigration and crime. Sessions’s sole failure (in Trump’s eyes) was having to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, and refusing Trump’s demands to reverse the decision. Corruption is literally Trump’s only motive for turning against him.

What’s more, he has frequently expressed the overarching ethos with which the Department should operate. Trump told the New York Times that President Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, covered up what Trump claims to be multiple serious crimes by Obama and that this is the correct way for him to operate. “Holder protected the president,” he said. “And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest, I have great respect for that.” At other times, reaching for a more familiar example, he wished the attorney general would be “my Roy Cohn,” referring to the architect of Joe McCarthy’s notorious smears, who went on to mentor Trump.

Trump has every reason to believe that he has found his Roy Cohn in Whitaker. The archconservative new acting attorney general has run for office and appears to see his future in Republican politics. As a candidate, he publicly declared that judges should be “people of faith” who had “a biblical view of justice.” In practical terms, he has interpreted the biblical view of justice the way most of his fellow Christian conservatives do: a combination of stern, Old Testament punishments meted out to Democrats combined with New Testament forgiveness toward any sin by a Republican.

Whitaker has publicly attacked the FBI for failing to indict Hillary Clinton for using a personal email. He defended Donald Trump Jr.’s decision to meet with a Russian operative promising dirt on Hillary Clinton. He opposed the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russian election interference (“Hollow calls for independent prosecutors are just craven attempts to score cheap political points and serve the public in no measurable way.”) Whitaker has called on Rod Rosenstein to curb Mueller’s investigation, and specifically declared Trump’s finances (which include dealings with Russia) off-limits. He has urged Trump’s lawyers not to cooperate with Mueller’s “lynch mob”:

Worth a read. "Note to Trump's lawyer: Do not cooperate with Mueller lynch mob" https://t.co/a1YY9H94Ma via @phillydotcom

— Matt Whitaker 🇺🇸 (@MattWhitaker46) August 7, 2017

And he has publicly mused that a way to curb Mueller’s power might be to deprive him of resources. “I could see a scenario,” he said on CNN last year, “where Jeff Sessions is replaced, it would recess appointment and that attorney general doesn’t fire Bob Mueller but he just reduces his budget to so low that his investigations grinds to almost a halt.”

More recently, having been installed in the Department of Justice, Whitaker has reportedly operated as a kind of White House spy to keep tabs on officials who might be suspiciously independent of Trump. Trump’s Chief of Staff John Kelly “has privately described [Whitaker] as the West Wing’s ‘eyes and ears”’ in a department the president has long considered at war with him,” the New York Times reported two months ago.

At his press conference this morning, President Trump reveled in the defeat of several Republican House candidates who had declined his “embrace.” He warned the incoming House Democrats not to investigate him or his administration. He is demonstrating the confidence of a man who believes he can reduce every political question, however indisputably wrong or corrupt his own position, into a partisan conflict. And in such a conflict he has every reason to believe he commands the loyalty of the party base, and his own party will join his side.

The federal government has awesome and terrifying legal powers, which have been held in check since Richard Nixon nearly shook them from their moorings. Republicans have ignored every warning sign of Trump’s designs on these powers. The one thing we can know for certain is that he will not stop here.

TAGS: THE NATIONAL INTEREST POLITICS JEFF SESSIONS DONALD TRUMP MORE



ROY COHN BIO FROM WIKIPEDIA
HIS DEATH IN 1986 WAS FROM “COMPLICATIONS FROM AIDS.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Cohn
Roy Cohn
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roy Cohn
PHOTOGRAPH -- Roy Cohn.jpg
Roy Cohn in 1964
Born Roy Marcus Cohn
February 20, 1927
New York City, New York, U.S.
Died August 2, 1986 (aged 59)
Bethesda, Maryland, U.S.
Cause of death Complications from AIDS
Education Columbia University (BA, LLB)[1]
Occupation Lawyer
Known for
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg trial (1951)
Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel (1953–1954)
Donald Trump's attorney and mentor (1973–1985)
Parent(s)
Dora Marcus
Albert C. Cohn
Roy Marcus Cohn (/koʊn/; February 20, 1927 – August 2, 1986) was an American lawyer best known for being Senator Joseph McCarthy's chief counsel during the Army–McCarthy hearings, in 1954, for assisting with McCarthy's investigations of suspected Communists, and as a top political fixer.

Born in New York City and educated at Columbia University, Cohn rose to prominence as a U.S. Department of Justice prosecutor at the espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, which concluded with the Rosenbergs' executions in 1953. As McCarthy's chief counsel, Cohn came to be closely associated with McCarthyism and its downfall. He also represented and mentored Donald Trump during Trump's early business career.

Cohn was disbarred by the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court for unethical conduct in 1986,[2] and died five weeks later from AIDS-related complications.


PHOTOGRAPH -- Senator Joseph McCarthy (left) chats with Cohn at the Army–McCarthy hearings

Work with Joseph McCarthy
The Rosenberg trial brought the 24-year-old Cohn to the attention of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) director J. Edgar Hoover, who recommended him to Joseph McCarthy. McCarthy hired Cohn as his chief counsel, choosing him over Robert Kennedy. Cohn assisted McCarthy's work for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, becoming known for his aggressive questioning of suspected Communists. Cohn preferred not to hold hearings in open forums, which went well with McCarthy's preference for holding "executive sessions" and "off-the-record" sessions away from the Capitol in order to minimize public scrutiny and to question witnesses with relative impunity.[19] Cohn was given free rein in pursuit of many investigations, with McCarthy joining in only for the more publicized sessions.[20]

Cohn played a major role in McCarthy's crusade against Communism.[21] During the Lavender Scare, Cohn and McCarthy attempted to enhance anti-Communist fervor in the country by claiming that Communists overseas had convinced several closeted homosexuals employed by the US federal government to pass on important government secrets in exchange for keeping their sexuality secret.[21] Convinced that the employment of homosexuals was now a threat to national security, President Dwight Eisenhower signed an executive order on April 29, 1953, to ban homosexuals from working in the federal government.[21]

Cohn invited his friend G. David Schine, an anti-Communist propagandist, to join McCarthy's staff as a consultant. When Schine was drafted into the US Army in 1953, Cohn made repeated and extensive efforts to procure special treatment for Schine. He contacted military officials from the Secretary of the Army down to Schine's company commander and demanded that Schine be given light duties, extra leave, and exemption from an overseas assignment. At one point, Cohn is reported to have threatened to "wreck the Army" if his demands were not met.[22][23] That conflict, along with McCarthy's accusations of Communists in the defense department, led to the Army–McCarthy hearings of 1954, during which the Army charged Cohn and McCarthy with using improper pressure on Schine's behalf, and McCarthy and Cohn countercharged that the Army was holding Schine "hostage" in an attempt to squelch McCarthy's investigations into Communists in the Army. During the hearings, a photograph of Schine was introduced, and Joseph N. Welch, the Army's attorney in the hearings, accused Cohn of doctoring the image to show Schine alone with Army Secretary Robert T. Stevens.[22]

Although the findings of the hearings blamed Cohn, rather than McCarthy, they are widely considered an important element of McCarthy's disgrace. After the Army–McCarthy hearings, Cohn resigned from McCarthy's staff and went into private practice.[3][24]