Susan Wright on the Right
Either Donald Trump will go down as one of the most corrupt, inept presidents to ever disgrace this young republic, or he’ll go down as some sort of evil genius.
It is a never ending source of bewilderment how Trump and his associates will step in something awful, lie to cover it up, immediately confess to everything they’d previously lied about, then attempt to justify the original offense.
Usually, it’s done in a way that points back to those who discovered the original offense or the cover-up, and suggests they’re the ones in the wrong, for pointing it out.
This weekend saw the leak of a 20 page letter written by members of President Trump’s legal team, Jay Sekulow and John Dowd (who departed the team several months ago). It had been hand-delivered to special counsel Robert Mueller’s office in January and the New York Times obtained a copy of it.
Some of the more interesting angles addressed in the letter involved what they felt was the president’s broad, constitutional powers, that made it impossible for him to “obstruct” any investigation. The reason stated was that as president, he had all authority over all investigations.
Then there was an admission that may prove to be of particular interest to the investigation.
In the letter, they admitted that the statement given by Donald Trump Jr. about the June 2016 Trump Tower with the Russian attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, where he thought he’d be given damaging information on Hillary Clinton, had been dictated to him by the president.
“Jay Sekulow said time and time again directly into the faces of the American people on television — Sarah [Huckabee] Sanders did the same thing, and said in no uncertain terms … they said the president had nothing to do with that statement by Donald Trump Jr. and didn’t draft it, didn’t sign off on it,” former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“And it turns out that is completely untrue,” he said.
Bharara was fired three months into Trump’s term and has since been a vocal critic, but putting partisanship aside and considering what he’s saying here, he’s right. For months, Trump and his legal team have denied that President Trump was responsible for crafting the statement given by his oldest son – a statement that was proven to be a lie, by the way.
Bharara further pointed out the legal jeopardy the Trump team may be setting themselves up for.
“You have the lawyer of the president of the United States, Jay Sekulow — and, on separate occasions, you have had Rudy Giuliani do this — basically lie to the American people repeatedly,” Bharara said.
“And if you are going to take the position, like they do in the sweeping letter about executive authority, that the president is in a special position in various ways, then I think the lawyers to the president have a special responsibility not to come on television and lie.”
They do have a responsibility not to lie.
It might be considered of particular interest, given that they lied, then admitted in a letter that they had lied, while also discussing their theory on the president’s sweeping control over federal investigations.
What are they actually getting at?
Nobody really wants to say, so we’re going to have to assume this is some sort of 20th degree of underwater, upside down chess.
At least, that’s how the loyalists will frame it.
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