Andrew McCarthy sets out to answer in today's Washington Post: "is special counsel Robert S.
Mueller III running an impartial investigation?" But like everyone else Andrew is skipping past the original sin
that establishes the entire enterprise as highly criminal and proves already
that Rosenstein and Mueller are the founding criminal conspirators. That
original sin is the wording of the investigatory charge that Rosenstein
authored and Mueller accepted. It is an unconstitutional open warrant of
precisely the kind that the Fourth Amendment was written to bar. It is Star
Chamber.
The order starts out okay. Mueller was appointed not as a
prosecutor but as a special investigator, and the purpose is stated without
prejudice: “to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian
government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.”
Under a “full and thorough” investigation either Hillary (already known to have taken $145m from
the Russians in Uranium One) or Trump
might be found to have illegally colluded with Russia. Russia might or might not
have been involved in WikiLeaks. Cloudstrike might or might not have been lying about
Russian fingerprints on the DNC hack/leak, etcetera. The FBI might or might not have used a known-to-be-phony Russia-sourced anti-Trump dossier to mislead the FISA court into allowing the agency to spy on Trump. All would be proper
subjects for investigation. Wherever the “Russia” story goes.
But the specifics of the order narrow the target of the
investigation to one man:
(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian
government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald
Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the
investigation
This is the inverse analog to Comey and Strozk finding
Hillary innocent of criminal wrongdoing with her private email server before
conducting an investigation. Here Rosenstein limited who the supposed
investigation into Russian interference could focus on before the “full and
thorough” investigation had even begun.
The illegality is that the naming of Trump as target (not
upon probable cause, or supported by oath or affirmation, or particularly
describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized)
turns the investigatory powers delegated to Mueller into an unconstitutional
open warrant.
A subpoena is a form of warrant and using it in prosecutorial fashion certainly activates Fourth Amendment protections
A subpoena is form of warrant. The targets are required to
provide information. That is a seizure. They themselves are compelled/seized to
appear before the special counsel, all of which would be acceptable as
investigation. The problem is that the limitation of the investigation to one
man turns the special investigator into a special prosecutor operating with no
probable cause and no other Fourth Amendment limitations.
That is blatantly illegal, and the easily predictable likely
consequence is the gravest imaginable: the successful suppression of the voting
rights of the winning electoral coalition in the last presidential election.
This is the highest of high crimes — usurpation — and Rosenstein and Mueller both have a highest
obligation, their oath to protect the Constitution, to protect against such
criminality. Instead they both whole-heartedly engaged in it, personally shaped
it (Rosenstein) and carried it forward with the most blatant bunch of democracy
haters imaginable (Mueller).
To think that this was not all fully intentional is
ludicrous but the illegality of the order and of Mueller’s acceptance of it
does not depend on intentions. An open warrant against the president is highly
illegal and of utmost importance to defend against whether the perpetrators
understand the wrong of it or not.
Real Russia collusion has been uncovered
Of course we now know, thanks to investigations by Congress, that there was a very ambitious and
illegal collusion with the Russians to influence the 2016 election, not by Trump
but by Hillary Clinton, who paid the Russians for the phony anti-Trump dossier.
It now seems that the DOJ and the FBI were also involved in this illegality,
using the phony dossier to mislead the FISA court into letting them spy on
Trump, which is a whole further crime in itself, but there is no indication that Mueller is investigating any of this.
FBI/DOJ must have known about Hillary paying the Russians
for the phony dossier because of what has come out about the many incestuous
relationships between The FBI and GPS Fusion, which acted as Hillary’s bag man
with the Russians, and all of them have
deep ties to Hillary. Mueller and Rosenstein were both deeply involved in these
webs of personal relationships. The actual Russia conspirators who are rapidly being uncovered by Congress seem to all now be working for Mueller!
Mueller cannot plead ignorance of who these
people were. They have been his “right hand men,” marking the whole crew, starting with Rosenstein and Mueller, as one
big gang of co-conspirators, committing the most monstrous criminal act in the
history of the nation.
Much of this criminality can only be pinned down by amassing
numerous key particulars but the criminality of the original sin — the blatant
unconstitutionality of Rosenstein’s open warrant against the president and
Mueller’s acceptance of if — is 100% proven by its mere existence.
The GOP establishment won't let Trump end Mueller's investigation but he can and must modify Mueller's order so that it is no longer unconstitutional
The threat of the “establishment GOP” harridans to back
Democrats in impeaching Trump if he touches Mueller ties Trump’s hands in many
ways. He can’t just terminate the monstrous criminal plot against him, even
though it is fully within his inherent powers to do so, but what he can do is
condemn the illegal nature of Mueller’s open warrant and demand that the special
investigator’s orders be reformulated so that they no longer violate the
Constitution, meaning they cannot name the president himself as the designated target but
must order Mueller to investigate improper Russian election influence and
collusion with Russia to influence our election by whatever parties may be
found to have engaged in such activities.
Mueller should also be instructed to follow not just
whatever leads may be uncovered by his own investigation but to also consider
evidence of Russian influence and Russian collusion uncovered by Congressional
investigations and by inspectors general. As written now Mueller is actually
required to ignore all of Congress’ work in uncovering Hillary’s election
collusion with the Russians. Under provision ii he can only follow what he
himself uncovers.
Certainly he can take a cue from Congress about what to look
into so he can repeat their discoveries for himself, if he wants to, but as things stand he can also
use provision ii of the order to studiously ignore other findings if he wants
to. That needs to be changed. The writing of the desired
conclusion into the order itself is highly illegal and must end.
(Written as a WAPO comment this afternoon. Still needs some links to documentation, but the substance here is the argument.)