Justice Department Criminal Probe into Mueller Investigation Reeks of Trump Authoritarianism

The investigation resulted in the indictment of 34 different individuals, including 12 Russian intelligence officers and 13 other Russian nationals.  Five of Trump's own associates pleaded guilty to federal crimes, and either spent time in jail, or are currently incarcerated for their crimes.  The investigation conclusively demonstrated that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, and tried to influence the outcome.  Moreover, the investigation served as a warning to be vigilant over foreign powers planting false stories in social media in order to influence voters and call into question the integrity of the U.S. electoral process.

By most accounts, the investigation conducted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller was a success, and a much needed warning to the American people.  Why, then, has Trump's Justice Department opened a criminal investigation looking into how that investigation was started?

The reason has much to do with President Donald Trump's warped perception of the investigation, and his narcissistic need to be praised and admired.

The investigation began not as a criminal investigation targeting Trump and his associates, but as a counterintelligence investigation based on warnings that Russia was attempting to influence the outcome of the election.  When the FBI learned that Russian intelligence officers were having contacts with Trump campaign officials, such as Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, the agency turned to the special court created pursuant to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 ("FISA") to apply for a warrant to permit domestic wire taps to determine exactly what Russian spies were doing.  Because the Russian spies contacted Trump campaign officials, those wire taps focused on the Trump campaign and Trump properties.  The original intention was not to target the Trump campaign for surveillance, but to learn what the Russians were up to and, if possible, thwart Russian intelligence operations in the United States.

Trump's ego, however, distorts his entire world perception, and therefore the reason behind the investigation.  To Trump, the the FISA court approval of wire taps of Trump Tower in New York must have meant that the Government was spying on him, not the Russians.  He thus saw the investigation into Russian meddling as an attack of him personally, and not on the Russian intelligence services.  Because he could not stand to be questioned and criticized, he attempted numerous times, as detailed in the final Mueller Report, to obstruct that investigation.  Indeed, because his first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the investigation, Trump attacked his Attorney General repeatedly for being disloyal and failing to be able to stop the investigation.  This is despite the fact that as an adviser to the Trump Campaign, Sessions met with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, and had legitimate reasons for the recusal.

Because Trump sees the investigation as an attack on the legitimacy of his presidency, he has been unable to accept its conclusions regarding Russian interference.  Trump has continually rejected the verdict, not only of the Mueller investigation, but of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia attempted to influence the outcome of the election, favoring Trump over his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

His compulsive opposition to the investigation of Russia shaped many of his decisions, including the firing of Attorney General Sessions, and the nomination of William Barr as the new Attorney General.  Barr was already an outspoken opponent of the Mueller investigation when Trump nominated him.  It therefore came as no surprise when, as Attorney General, Barr distorted the findings of the Mueller report, before releasing a redacted version to the public.  Through his summary of the report, Barr conveyed that the Mueller team had exonerated the President.  In reality, in the report Mueller and his team noted that there was insufficient evidence to conclude that a conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russians existed, but there was plenty of evidence of the President's multiple attempts to interfere in the investigation itself.

It is Trump's distorted view of the investigation that has, in part, led to the current impeach inquiry.  Despite his claims that he was exonerated by the Mueller report, Trump has obsessed over proving the illegitimacy of the investigation.  Throughout the investigation, he called it a witch hunt.  Indeed, he continues to refer to the Mueller investigation as a witch hunt to this day.  Trump latched onto a conspiracy theory that it was the Democratic Party that invited foreign interference into the 2016 election, which somehow involved Ukraine.  Part of that conspiracy theory is that the server of the Democratic National Committee, which was hacked during the 2016 campaign, somehow ended up in Ukraine.  Accordingly, part of the quid pro quo of releasing the congressional approved military aid to Ukraine was an announcement from the Zelensky Government that it was investigating where the DNC server ended up.  Trump's private attorney, Rudolph Guiliani, has been pressuring Ukrainian officials to open investigations, both of the Bidens and of the DNC server, for months.

Indeed, as part of his campaign to discredit the Mueller investigation, Trump has reached out to other foreign countries for help.  The Russian investigation began based on a warning from an Australian diplomat, Alexander Downer, who had a conversation with Trump campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos in London. Papadopoulos was bragging that the Russians had thousands of supposedly damaging emails from Hillary Clinton.  Trump has asked that Australia cooperate with Attorney General Barr in investigating whether Downer was spying on Papadopoulos.  As a result of the investigation into Russia, Papadopoulos served a fourteen day prison term after pleading guilty to lying to the FBI.  Trump has also reportedly sent Barr to Italy seeking information on whether a Maltese professor, Josef Misfud, who also spoke with Papadopoulos concerning Clinton's emails, was somehow connected to Italian intelligence operations.

Given the lengths to which Trump has gone to discredit the Mueller investigation, the fact that the Justice Department may have opened a criminal investigation into how the Russian probe got started should come as no surprise.  Trump is no stranger to intimidation tactics.  Using the Justice Department against those whom he perceives as disloyal or as part of the deep state opposition to his presidency would be in line with his autocratic tendencies.  Barr's demonstrated loyalty to Trump may indeed cause the Attorney General to permit the President to use the Justice Department as a tool to intimidate those who would oppose him.

The use of the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into how the probe of Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election started is troubling to say the least.  It raises serious concerns of Trump's willingness to use his office to retaliate against people he believes to be his enemies.  This is not the act of a leader dedicated to the principles of freedom and democracy.  It is more in line with a tactic of a despot attempting to quell opposition to his reign.  Let us hope the United States has not slid that far in the direction of autocracy.

By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.

Be Careful Not to Interpret Too Much Into the 2016 Elections

Let the misinterpretation of election results begin!

Many of my hard core Republican friends have been ecstatic this past week.  There are feelings of vindication, and outright joy in having beaten back the dragon that was Hillary Clinton.

I chose to vote Libertarian this time around, but I have to admit a certain relief that there will not be another Clinton in the White House.  Of course, that relief is tempered with the realization that we will have Donald Trump.

If you have been listening to talk radio this week, you cannot miss the elation in the voices of the likes of Rush Limbaugh.  What is more, Limbaugh is outright proclaiming this election to be a complete repudiation of President Obama's policies and the Democrats' liberal ideology.  He is outright warning Trump not to accommodate liberals in his administration.

Surely the more extreme wing of the Republican Party, the Tea Partiers, will see it that way too.  A victory like this, where Republicans not only won the White House, but retained the House of Representatives and the Senate, will only encourage their "no compromises" attitude.  Although there is no credible threat, you can almost hear the Tea Partiers' desire to oust House Speaker Paul Ryan, who failed to adhere strictly to complete support of Trump during the campaign.

Republicans, however, need to be very careful about reading too much into this election.  To be frank, this was far from an ideological landslide.  Trump may have won a majority of Electoral College votes, but let's be clear.  Hillary won a plurality of national popular votes.  The GOP may have retained the House and Senate.  But along the way, they lost about seven seats in the House and three, possibly four, seats in the Senate.  From these numbers alone, this was certainly not an election where the Republican presidential candidate was so popular that his coat tails swept in numerous new Republican legislators.

Exit poll numbers point to this being an election where the voters, or at least those who lived in battle ground states, rejected a candidate perceived as corrupt and dishonest.

A few numbers jumped out to me from the election results that support this conclusion.  First, Trump received fewer votes than Mitt Romney did in 2012.  Second, Hillary's margins of victory with African-American, Latino, Asian and Young voters were smaller than those of Barrack Obama from 2012.  What these numbers tell me is that the voters just did not show up for Hillary the way they did for Obama in 2012.  For whatever reasons, Hillary was just not as exciting a candidate as the current President.

This is not surprising given the atmosphere of the campaign.  This was by far an extremely negative campaign.  This was true of both sides.  From the beginning of September, the Clinton camp was running television ads emphasizing Trump's negatives.  And of course, Trump's campaign mantra was "Let's jail Hillary."  There was very little on display about issues or agendas.  This was totally a personality campaign.

Such campaigns traditionally result in low turn out.  Voters hear over and over again how this candidate is the next Satan, no the other candidate is the next Satan.  Many voters get so discouraged by the choice, that they simply choose not to vote.  Those who do vote choose mainly to vote against someone, and not for their chosen candidate.  In elections like this, it is usually the last bit of bad news released before the actual election that decides the winner.  Hillary drew the short straw, as the announcement of FBI Director James Comey eleven days before the election reminded many voters of her negatives.  By time Comey sounded the all clear two days before the election, on a Sunday when most Americans were watching football, it was too late.

The 2016 election can only be seen as more of a repudiation of a bad candidate than as a triumph of any particular ideology.  Republicans would do themselves a favor if they keep this in mind.  While they are poised to control the two policy making branches of government, and may have a heavy influence on the judicial branch for years to come, a sharp turn to the right could make this victory short-lived.  The House and Senate will stand for election again in just two years.  If there is a radical ideological shift in the government that proves unpopular, the GOP could find their slim majorities erased.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.

Republicans Are Real Good at Blaming Everyone for Election Losses . . . But Themselves

I just heard Sean Hannity's rant from yesterday's radio show. He really loses it over the possibility that Trump will lose Utah to an independent candidate, Evan McMullin. In fact, it's been humorous to watch Trump supporters seethe in anger over conservatives who cannot in good conscience support Donald Trump. Hannity is now threatening a "reckoning" on November 9th if Trump loses the election. 

One thing that fascinates me about this particular campaign is just how early Trump set up the narrative of blame if he loses. Almost immediately after the Republican Convention Trump claimed that the election was rigged. He targeted the media. He tagged the system as corrupt. It was almost as if he knew coming out of the convention that he was going to lose, and he had to begin blaming someone, something, anything but himself, for the impending loss. 

This is set up to be the third time in a row that the Republicans will lose a national election.  And yet the GOP fails to recognize that it has become its own worst enemy. 

The 2012 election should have served as a game changer for Republicans. The exit polls showed that the Republicans lost in every ethnic group, and in big numbers, except for white men. Rationally, this should have signaled the need to change directions. 

Initially, it appeared that the Republicans were going to do just that. One of the biggest indications of a willingness to change emerged in an effort to address immigration reform in a constructive manner. Finally. 

But something happened on the way to that place. One of the more radical wings of GOP voters, Tea Partiers, discovered just how much pull they now had in the party. 

Republicans, who control a majority of state legislatures, concentrated efforts on drawing congressional district lines to ensure a majority in the House of Representatives for years to come. That is, they used the map and demographic information to concentrate the number of likely Republican voters into safe congressional districts. It's a process known as gerrymandering, which had been around almost as long as the US republic itself. By concentrating conservative voters in a single district, however, Republican state legislatures wound up giving disproportionate power to the more radical wings of GOP voters, namely the Tea Partiers.  The result was that incumbent Republican Representatives had far more to fear about a more conservative challenger in the primaries than a Democrat in the general election. 

Republican leadership then began giving in to the Tea Party more frequently. The Tea Party found it had the power to shut down the Government over a budget fight to defund Obamacare.  With its new-found power, Tea Partiers could then concentrate on defeating any common sense approach to immigration reform, by labeling the proposals "amnesty."  

Tea Partiers got drunk with the power. Any Republican who didn't subscribe to their views completely received the dreaded designation of RINO (Republican in name only).  Suddenly, Republicans known for their conservative leanings, such as Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, found that they were not conservative enough for this constituency. Indeed the hallmark of the Tea Partiers has been the refusal to compromise on any issue. 

So, instead of learning from electoral defeats, the party regressed. Its desperate efforts to cling to a majority in the House only gave power to a group of voters all too happy to alienate the rest of the country. It is this group of voters, with their no compromises attitude, that led to the nomination of Donald Trump. 

And once again, instead of being introspective and examining what is wrong with the Republican Party that it fails to attract voters on a national level, the stage is set for post-election finger-pointing.  If there is to be a "reckoning," it should not be aimed at conscientious conservatives who refuse to support a boorishly flawed candidate like Donald Trump. It should be with that wing of the party that refuses to let go of its outdated and divisive attitude, and that fails to see how its message is driving voters away. 

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr. 

Could the Electoral College Save Us this Year?

Any middle schooler who pays attention in civics class can tell you that here in the United States, we do not directly elect our president.  Instead, we elect people to sit in the Electoral College, and it is the Electoral College who in turn selects our president.

Our Founding Fathers actually intended for the Electoral College to be an actual group of people, who would meet after the election, deliberate and vote on who they, the electors, wanted to be president.  It was meant to protect the process from demagoguery, and the passions of the masses.

But that is not how it works today.  In every state, except Maine and Nebraska, the candidate who wins the popular vote wins that state's Electoral College delegation.  So in effect, the U.S. presidential election becomes fifty-one separate elections (although the District of Columbia is not a state, it does get to participate in the Electoral College). 

Not all of those separate elections are equal.  Each state gets that same number of electors as the number of representatives that the state has in the House of Representatives, plus two to represent the state's Senate delegation.  The District of Columbia gets three electors.  States with large House delegations get more electors.  But since each state is guaranteed at least three electors, voters in smaller states, like Utah and Wyoming, wind up with a disproportionately large say in who our next president will be.

Every four years, we hear arguments that the Electoral College distorts the popular vote.  It is anti-democratic, and as such it should be eliminated in favor of direct election of the president.  Indeed, twice in U.S. history a candidate has won the popular vote but lost the Electoral College vote.

This year, there is an outside shot that no one will win a majority of the Electoral College vote, and that an independent candidate could become our president.

The Constitution provides that a person must win a majority of the Electoral College to win the presidency.  If no one wins a majority, the choice for the next president goes to the House of Representatives.  But, the House votes by state delegation, where each state gets one vote.  And, when each state votes, they can only select a person who has won at least one Electoral college vote.

For the most part, the United States has a two party system.  That is, when a person is voting for president, they are mostly voting for a Republican or a Democrat.  As long as only the candidates from the two parties receive votes in the Electoral College, then one of them will likely win a majority.  There are scenarios where the two major party candidates can tie in the Electoral College.  But those are unlikely scenarios.

However, the equation changes if a third party candidate were to win the popular vote in just one state.  If that were to happen, then it could be possible for none of the candidates to win a majority in the Electoral College, and therefore throw the race to the House.

This year, there are a lot of voters who are dissatisfied with both nominees from the major parties.  However, because the U.S. electoral system is rigged to favor Republicans and Democrats, most voters view third party candidates as a wasted vote.  Thus, even if they do not like either candidate, they choose the candidate they dislike more, and vote for the opponent.

But things are a little different this year.  In the latest polls an independent candidate, Evan McMullin, is leading both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the popular vote in Utah.  Thus, there is a realistic chance that for the first time in over a hundred years, a candidate who is neither a Democrat nor a Republican could win a state's entire delegation to the Electoral College.  If the math were to work out in the rest of the states, there is an outside chance that neither Clinton nor Trump will win a majority of the Electoral College.

All things being equal, this would normally favor the Republican candidate.  It would mean that the vote would go to the House, with each state getting one vote.  Even if the Republicans lose the House in the congressional elections, Democrats will likely be concentrated in the populous states, such as New York, California and Pennsylvania.  As far as state delegations are concerned, the majority will likely favor Republicans.

But, whether they say it publicly or not, Republican leadership does not like Donald Trump.  He was the outsider who cashed in on his name recognition and the popular discontent with politicians in general to win the Republican nomination.  His temperament and the perception of his chauvinism has made him a damaged candidate.  Indeed, after recordings of Trump's vile comments on women were released, some Republican candidates, including Speaker Paul Ryan, have refused to campaign for him.  Republican leadership may be eager to throw Trump under the bus if the opportunity were to come and choose a different candidate.

And there is where the Electoral College could save the republic.  If Evan McMullin were to win Utah, and if neither Trump nor Hillary won the majority of the Electoral College, it could give Republican leaders a real chance to reject the two major party candidates, viewed as severely flawed by many Americans, and make a more rational choice.  One could only hope.

By:  William J. Kovatch, Jr.

Paul Ryan Is in an Impossible Position

I feel for Paul Ryan. I really do. He's in an impossible position. He recognizes that fueled with angers voters in the Republican primaries were conned into voting for a bully and a buffoon disguised as a populist. 

Donald Trump has spent a lifetime perfecting the art of self-promotion. He tapped into the discontent of the Tea Party voters, who demand nothing but complete allegiance from their politicians, and convinced them that he was the outsider ready to take-on Hillary and the big government Democrats. Trump's boorish, crass and vulgar personality was no deterrent; it's what the Tea Party voters wanted. Cashing in on his name recognition, his reality TV experience and the wealth envy of many in the electorate,Trump was able to sweep in and steal the nomination from a GOP pool that was fractured and unfocused. 

Republican leaders knew who Trump was. But by time they realized that his candidacy was a serious threat, they failed to rally around a single, respectable candidate who could challenge him. 

When it became clear that Trump was going to win the nomination, the Republican leadership were not quick to embrace him. But faced with the prospect of a fractured party going into the convention, party leaders, like Ryan, had no choice but to accept and endorse Trump as the party's nominee. To do otherwise would endanger Republican efforts to hang on to the House and Senate. 

But Trump has never had to worry about working well with others. All of his career, he has been able to use his money to bully those around him. He never had to compromise, he never had to be considerate of others. So why should he start now?

And then the video of Trump's lewd and disgusting comments about how a star gets to treat women broke. Look, we all knew Trump was a chauvinist. We all knew Trump values women more for their looks than for their intelligence. We all knew he had no real respect for women. But as long as his chauvinism was disguised as mere comments about a woman's appearance, it could be dismissed. 

There was no disguising his comments to Billy Bish. Faced with this reprehensible attitude on how women could be treated, how he could use his celebrity status to engage in otherwise unwelcome behavior, Ryan took the steps to do the honorable thing and distance himself from Trump. 

Unfortunately, because of his position in the Republican leadership, he does not have the freedom to do what his former running mate, Mitt Romney, could do and completely denounce Trump. Like it or not, Trump is the standard bearer for the Republican Party. Realistically, Ryan cannot outwardly withdraw his endorsement of his party's nominee. 

So Ryan has done the best he could do under the circumstances and distance himself from Trump. His reward has been to find himself in the crosshairs of Trump's irresistible urge to spew his hatred through Twitter. His reward is to find the Tea Partiers hurling the worst insult they can think of at him: RINO (Republican in name only).

In truth, I pity Paul Ryan, a man who was thrust into the national spotlight only four short years ago to shore up the conservative credentials for Romney's candidacy. Now, the man once touted as a conservative policy wonk finds that he is the target of a vitriolic wing of his party's supporters which find him not conservative enough. In the end, when Trump's candidacy goes down in flames, Ryan will be made the scapegoat for daring to put civility and personal principles over voters' hatred of Hillary. 

By: William J. Kovatch, Jr.