Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Why does that make sense? I can see worrying about an investigation where someone with political power uses that power to influence an investigation. But in a case like this one, where Mueller worked for the President, not Congress, why should it matter what the other political party says? Mueller doesn't work for them.
A couple of days ago, you were bending over backwards to explain how Barr, a political appointee of Trump's, could be trusted to be fair as he explained to the public how Mueller had exonerated Trump. That was the AG, for whom Mueller worked. You had no concerns about Barr's politics. But today, you are concerned about political influence that even a single member of Congress in the minority might have by making a public statement.
Either you feel Trump needs more sympathy than he is getting from this board, or you are so worried about prosecutorial power that you are fine when politics discourages prosecution, just because, but don't want to see it go the other way.
It's like it has escaped your notice that DAs in this country are political actors who run on their record to get to office.
Your euphemism "leeway" is another way of saying that you are OK if the President breaks the law, if he is being criticized. You just don't want to acknowledge that.
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It matters because when a party politicizes an investigation, as the Democrats did here, it puts a President in a heads you lose, tails I win corner. He’s forced to fight the investigation which the other party can then claim is obstruction... All the while that party hyperbolizes about what the investigation will bring forth. It forces what the party sensationalizing the investigation can later label a cover-up, while the underlying investigation comes up with inadequate evidence to even find a criminally chargeable conspiracy.
I said I think Bill Clinton was licensed to lie where he did. I do not believe a political investigation is valid. Bill was above the law where the law was perverted by politicians to wrongly attack him. Trump is more complex. This investigation was valid and was later wrongly used by Democrats as a political device. His leeway, unlike Clinton’s, is limited. Also, to the extent he wrongly used an investigation of Hillary as a sword against her, his suffering the same fate seems equitable. I have a hard time putting him above the law in a limited sense as I did in the case of Bill. But my judgment there is immaterial. I’m just offering what I think resembles Barr’s rationale.
