As he alluded in his moody tweet following the end of special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, former FBI Director James Comey has some questions for Mueller.
Namely: Why didn’t he subpoena President Trump or make a decision on obstruction?
When asked during an interview with NBC Nightly News if Mueller’s decision to not make a call on the obstruction of justice portion of his investigation — which was partially ignited by Trump’s firing of Comey — surprised him, Comey said “it does.”
“The purpose of a special counsel is to make sure that the politicals — in this case the attorney general — doesn’t make the ultimate call on whether the subject of the investigation, the President of the United States, should be held criminally liable for activities that were under investigation,” he said. “And so the idea that a special counsel wouldn’t reach the question, and hand it to the political leadership, doesn’t make sense. I’m not prejudging it, I’m just saying it doesn’t make sense on its face. And so I have a lot of questions.”
“Do you ask yourself why Mueller did not subpoena President Trump?” NBC’s Lester Holt asked.
“Yes, I do,” Comey said. “And I don’t know the answer to that.”
There’s been a lot of misrepresentation of Democratic expectations for Mueller. Fringe figures aside, most people understood that Mueller could not be expected to bring down Trump like a superhero. But I think it was widely felt that he would proceed fearlessly and with a clear sense of the transnational crime and corruption syndicates that were involved. He gave a lecture on that very topic a few years back. We also were in the in unusual position of having personally witnessed the crimes being committed and felt that the facts spoke for themselves. So our expectations were and are rational.
It now seems increasingly apparent that Mueller backed off, big time. We don’t know why or to what extent. Comey is certainly taken aback. My own guess is that the GOP corruption has metastasized to such a degree that Mueller was overwhelmed and ultimately reluctant or incapable of doing his job. The NRA, the evangelical community, key GOP members of Congress, the White House, the AG himself,key Pentagon contractors like Blackstone: all are up to their necks in Russian money and ancillary lawlessness. Basically Mueller was faced with a can of worms that would reveal the total rot of his party and the people he’s associated with all his life. He backed off.
Methinks Whitaker will be making a return trip to Congress to explain, under oath, any and all decisions he made regarding the investigation and what discussions he had with Mueller.
Here’s the problem: if Whitaker lies, the remedy for Congress is to pass the matter to the DOJ. What then?
From what I’ve seen in the Trumpverse, lying to Congress often isn’t the first crime they’ve committed. The more layers of the onion that you pull back, the likelier you’ll find that they have lied to a number of government agencies, including some on the state level. Its not perfect, but it’s probably the only justice we’ll get while Trump/the GOP is in power.
To me, Barr is the culprit.