Patterico's Pontifications

11/14/2017

Justice Dept Considering A Second Special Counsel

Filed under: General — Dana @ 11:05 am



[guest post by Dana]

All things Clinton:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions is entertaining the idea of appointing a second special counsel to investigate a host of Republican concerns — including alleged wrongdoing by the Clinton Foundation and the controversial sale of a uranium company to Russia — and has directed senior federal prosecutors to explore at least some of the matters and report back to him and his top deputy, according to a letter obtained by The Washington Post.

The revelation came in a response by the Justice Department to an inquiry from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who in July and again in September called for Sessions to appoint a second special counsel to investigate concerns he had related to the 2016 election and its aftermath

The list of matters he wanted probed was wide ranging but included the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, various dealings of the Clinton Foundation and several matters connected to the purchase of the Canadian mining company Uranium One by Russia’s nuclear energy agency. Goodlatte took particular aim at former FBI director James B. Comey, asking for the second special counsel to evaluate the leaks he directed about his conversations with President Trump, among Inflatable Pub Price other things.

In response, Assistant Attorney General Stephen E. Boyd wrote that Sessions had “directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate certain issues raised in your letters,” and that those prosecutors would “report directly to the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General, as appropriate, and will make recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened, whether any matters currently under investigation require further resources, or whether any matters merit the appointment of a Special Counsel.”

While the Justice Department is part of the executive branch — and the attorney general is appointed by and answers to the president — the White House generally provides input on broad policy goals and does not weigh in on criminal probes.

In that context, the letter is likely to be seen by some, especially on the left, as Sessions inappropriately bending to political pressure, perhaps to save his job. The possible reigniting of a probe of Clinton is likely to draw especially fierce criticism, even as it is welcomed by Trump’s supporters.

As a reminder, this is what President Trump said recently about the Justice Dept.:

I’m really not involved with the Justice Department — it should be able to run itself — but they should be looking at the Democrats. They should be looking at Podesta and all of that dishonesty. They should be looking at a lot of things, and a lot of people are disappointed in the Justice Dept. — including me.

(Cross-posted at The Jury Talks Back.)

–Dana

58 Responses to “Justice Dept Considering A Second Special Counsel”

  1. Hello.

    Dana (023079)

  2. Two words: Dinesh D’Souza.

    The difference between Trump and his predecessors is that Trump does things openly and the others did them secretly.

    Kevin M (752a26)

  3. The letter to the House Judiciary Committee said that some senior prosecutors will make recommendations as to whether any matters not currently under investigation should be opened up, and whether any matters that are under investigation need more people assigned to it, and whether any matters merit a special counsel. These senior prosecutors will report directly to the attorney general (Jeff Sessions) and the deputy attorney general (Rod J. Rosenstein), “as appropriate.”

    I think DOJ considers it unethical, or maybe inappropriate, to take advice and direction from the president on specific matters, but the same quasi-rule does not apply to Congress or members of Congress acting on the authority of the right committees.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e756e)

  4. Others know how to gin up investigations.

    On other maters, Tony Podesta quit his job, and then his lobbying firm announced it’s closing down. They had been paid by the same people who paid Manafort.

    Paul Manafort’s ex-son-in-law (he’s his ex-son-in-law because his wife, Paul Manafort’s daughter, filed for and obtained a divorce all in he space of a few months this year) is also being investigated by the US. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e756e)

  5. Gowdy is going to investigate the DOJ and Sessions. lmao at hurry up & fu## it up!

    mg (60b0f7)

  6. What difference – at this point – does it make?

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  7. “I think DOJ considers it unethical, or maybe inappropriate, to take advice and direction from the president on specific matters, but the same quasi-rule does not apply to Congress or members of Congress acting on the authority of the right committees.”

    Watching one instance after another during the Obama Years that would appear to refute this, i am left to surmise it had to be repetitive Vulcan mindmelding going on

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  8. Let’s all take a knee for UCLA’s men’s BB team. Great job guys!

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  9. Seriously… how dumb can you be. Not only are they large, black Americans who would stand out anywhere, they are in fricking China. For them not to realize all eyes would be on them takes either extreme chutzpah or sub-normal IQ levels.

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  10. Its like a,python sketch, coronello, we signed for the never pay insurance, like the vicar.

    narciso (e39588)

  11. Trump needs a second AG because Sessions is bound and gagged at the feet of the clinton.

    mg (60b0f7)

  12. No way those BLM hoods from UCLA can read or write.

    mg (60b0f7)

  13. Hasn’t this entertainment been the theater of the absurd for some time now?

    Reruns are ready for syndication.

    Ben burn (b3d5ab)

  14. Chinese are well known for hating tall people.

    Did Trump find a cheaper and better made AG in China? AL had a bad run of pine beetles that eat up all the Presidential Timber.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  15. Trump needs a second AG because Sessions is bound and gagged at the feet of the clinton.
    mg (60b0f7) — 11/14/2017 @ 1:41 pm

    Reminds me of Pulp Fiction

    “I’m pretty ******* far from OK.” Ving Rames

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  16. Re the UCLA hoods, it could be 2 things. The coach, Steve Alford is a former Bobby Knight player at IU and asking for the solid from a known Trumpian and 2, since black LA folk can be known to be closet Trump especially in immigration, it could be a long play

    urbanleftbehind (a69ce6)

  17. How about the nfl comish wanting 500 mil a year jet use for life and a lifetime family health-care plan. Who does he think he is, Bob Corker!!

    mg (60b0f7)

  18. Skin Him Back

    Well, beenburned’s waitin’ for somethin’
    Somethin’ to take him away from this blog
    Goin’ city to city, town to town
    Runnin’ around in the shoes of a clown
    And that desperate, no ‘count, leftwing dogma
    Sh*ts where he eats, his business on the lawn
    He’ll be shakin’ ’em down
    On old Patterico’s
    Sugar and spice, but also rats and snails
    He huffs and he blows, it’s nothin’ but wind in sails
    So it seems that the world keeps on turnin’, well so what
    We don’t doubt it, it just keeps on the move
    He’s a scream, and that’s all that we ask for
    So well now, we’re wonderin’ just how we gonna tell it to him
    He da Mook

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  19. Just to recap

    BC is a rapist

    GHWB is a molester

    W is a hero

    Trump is a traitor

    HRC is a grandma in tennis shoes

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  20. This spoiled brat of a President has no qualms and is looking more and more desperate all the time. And he thinks he’s being smart, but he’s as transparent as a sheet of Glad plastic wrap.

    Tillman (a95660)

  21. The original… https://youtu.be/LarsNu_s2KU

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  22. “the letter is likely to be seen by some, especially on the left, as Sessions inappropriately bending to political pressure”

    I’m no liberal but I believe that this is exactly what any rational person would conclude. And its why a President would be wise not to comment on individual cases especially those involving his former opponent or his predecessor. Duh.

    noel (b4d580)

  23. @21 Thanks Col.

    I’ve heard some Little Feat but not much. I’d have to describe that song as Country Steely Dan. Not quite Mowdown at the Hoedown but close.

    Pinandpuller (16b0b5)

  24. Self-parody is the highest form of self-disrespect, haiku-ka-choob.

    You are the walrus long-in-tooth.

    Ben burn (7eaa39)

  25. Banana Republicanism: red monkeys go ape sh-t.

    DCSCA (797bc0)

  26. It is practically impossible to convict a high ranking democrat official of anything,
    that state representative with tong ties is the exception that proves the rule.

    narciso (d1f714)

  27. Wow, an investigation for actual transgressions.

    Meanwhile keep an eye on Fuision GPS – the Dems are doing all they can to suppress the info on who paid.

    harkin (a9a478)

  28. Give them a listen, PandP, worth your time. Give this a try… live in a studio for a radio broadcast:

    https://youtu.be/5f0iZY_RSTI

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  29. “While the Justice Department is part of the executive branch — and the attorney general is appointed by and answers to the president — the White House generally provides input on broad policy goals and does not weigh in on criminal probes. ”

    Very interesting.

    So the lawyers, God rot them, have weaseled out from under the control of their CEO. Screw that noise. The president, even Trump is their boss, I hope he acts like it and starts firing some pimply legal arses out the window.

    Fred Z (05d938)

  30. How did Harper handle the better of a decade of politization by chretien and his predecessor? List la secretary stockwell day, had been the pinata of the liberals when he had run in part because of string chrusian convictions

    narciso (d1f714)

  31. https://youtu.be/5f0iZY_RSTI
    Colonel Haiku (993483) — 11/14/2017 @ 5:10 pm

    Good stuff thanks. That’s one thing I miss about 70’s AM radio, they played everything from Southern Rock to New Wave, it seemed like anyway.

    Pinandpuller (eb10e1)

  32. Good tunes in the a..m.
    Thanks, Col.

    mg (60b0f7)

  33. this looks kinda fun

    it was filmed here which is a secret special place

    happyfeet (28a91b)

  34. Trump saves knuckleheads from UCLA. They are being treated like children who don’t know right from wrong. “They’re just 21”

    Twenty one is the new thirteen. They should have paddled their bottoms.

    Ben burn (d9eacb)

  35. The Uranium One story debunked by, wait for it, none other than Fox News itself:
    https://www.yahoo.com/news/shep-smith-breaks-fox-news-130805515.html

    Tillman (a95660)

  36. 36, yeah but Shep doesnt count, being the designated ag-fay and not being a shrill Noo Yawka.

    urbanleftbehind (5eecdb)

  37. @36. He presents facts rather than accusations. This story, which originated from a Breitbart hack to begin with, is factually wrong. Can you do better than facts?

    Tillman (a95660)

  38. So the lawyers, God rot them, have weaseled out from under the control of their CEO. Screw that noise. The president, even Trump is their boss, I hope he acts like it and starts firing some pimply legal arses out the window.

    Yup. I always thought Obama missed a bet by not ordering the DOJ to indict Dubya on 2,977 counts of murder for 9/11.

    The President does not have a Constitutional right to either an Attorney General or a Department of Justice. They are created purely by acts of Congress, and their authority to pursue criminal investigations and prosecutions is circumscribed by statutes and by the Constitution.

    nk (dbc370)

  39. Remember 11/15/17… teh day Tillie used Fox News in a weak attempt to forestall the inevitable Fall of teh House of Clinton

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  40. 35. 37. 39. As someone sad here (I’m not sure who) The money wasn’t given to [Clinton Inc] in exchange for doing something concerning Uranium One – the Clintons were on retainer.

    There definitely was something that looks very much like a quid – and not just from Russia – the problem is we maybe haven’t figured out the quo, or that there wasn’t just one quo.

    But the sale could have been derailed by Hillary Clinton or maybe somebody else. Maybe the Department of Justice and the FBI was more important, because they an investigation going until 2014, and even then put the person who pleaded guilty under a gag order.

    The Uranium One sale was legally required to get permission but the reason for requiring it didn’t mean that there was the possibility of a great reduction in the availability of a strategic metal. I read a claim today (in some op-ed I think) that (while it owned 20% of uranium reserves it only was responsible for 2% of U.S. uranium production)

    Sammy Finkelman (8e756e)

  41. 39. I hope maybe the upheaval in Saudi Arabia could also lead to the truth coming out about the death of Vincent Foster. And there are other things too. You know, once the dam bursts…

    Sammy Finkelman (8e756e)

  42. The Uranium One situation is kind of like the Keystone Pipeline, which also needed to be approved by the State Department. Once that’s the case anything can be a grounds for not doing so.

    And it’s another example of a government decision where the State Department was involved, and could do more to derail it than to approve it, and where Clintons maybe made some money from:

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/hillary-clintons-boughtan_b_7489118.html (06/04/2015 12:05 pm ET Updated Jun 04, 2016)

    Hillary Clinton’s Bought-And-Paid-For Favors for Keystone XL Deal They show that, as the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton did a terrific job for TransCanada, and for the Koch brothers, the two men who are the biggest owners of Canadian tar-sands oil, and whose fortune might be doubled by Obama’s approving of the construction of this pipeline, which would enormously improve the market-competitive position of this environmentally super-bad oil as against cleaner oils, from other and cleaner sources.

    You can ignore the polemics about how bad the Keystone Pipeline was..

    If that was the quid, here was the quo:

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/31/hillary-clinton-speeches-keystone_n_7463108.html

    Two Canadian banks tightly connected to promoting the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in the United States either fully or partially paid for eight speeches made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the period not long before she announced her campaign for president. Those speeches put more than $1.6 million in the Democratic candidate’s pocket.

    This second (really first) article says it was Ron Brynaert who first reported that.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e756e)

  43. Sammy, apparently you didn’t bother to listen or read about it. I’ll help you out:

    …the deal required approval from an inter-agency committee known as “CFIUS,” made up of the heads of the nine cabinet-level departments.
    “The nine department heads all approved the sale of Uranium One,” Smith said. “It was unanimous, not a Hillary Clinton approval.”

    So Hillary went around and convinced / bribed / blackmailed 8 other agencies to push this deal through? Is that the claim? Unless there is evidence to back that up, and none has been forthcoming, then this is laughable.

    Tillman (a95660)

  44. Show some patience, Tillie. Your selective fog will disperse…

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  45. They will follow the money. The greed, avariciousness and lust for power always leaves a trail, even in the case of fiendishly clever rodents like the Clintons

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  46. It was all part of the peregruska, that included skulkovo village the high end tech center that involved military applications of high end computing

    narciso (d1f714)

  47. Now that the Clintons have outlived their usefulness, the Democrat longknives are out.

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  48. In nearly every respect.

    Colonel Haiku (993483)

  49. Notably some of the contributions came from laundries for magnitsky cash like prokhorovs renaissance capital, as opposed to deripaska who want involved at all.

    narciso (d1f714)

  50. 43. Tillman (a95660) — 11/15/2017 @ 10:07 am

    So Hillary went around and convinced / bribed / blackmailed 8 other agencies to push this deal through? Is that the claim?

    The claim is not too clear.

    My personal belief is that people trying to make a simple connection between the money and Uranium One are trying to making a much too simple connection. And it doesn’t work, you’re right of course, and I never believed that, in fact was annoyed by that claim.

    People doing that just have too few facts at their disposal. I said there was a quid but we don’t have a quo. (or don’t know what it was)

    Better is that the money was part of something bigger – she and Bill were on retainer as I think kishnevi has said.

    Or, if this had something to do with Uranium One, it was so that she would not derail the deal, which she had the power to do, or for inside information about what to say and what not to say when lobbying for approval.

    And if somebody was bought, somebody else else was bought too – perhaps though, the Clintons could help them make the connection, but it wouldn’t be because of Hilary was Secretary of State but because of personal political and legal connections to people in other departments, like DOJ.

    Sammy Finkelman (8e756e)

  51. @Tillman

    Now the same argument that Hillary couldn’t have been paid off applies also to the Keystone Pipeline. She did not have the power to approve it herself, though she did have the power to derail it, and she seems to have been paid off according to a writer for the Puffington Host:

    https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/31/hillary-clinton-speeches-keystone_n_7463108.html

    Two Canadian banks tightly connected to promoting the controversial Keystone XL pipeline in the United States either fully or partially paid for eight speeches made by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the period not long before she announced her campaign for president. Those speeches put more than $1.6 million in the Democratic candidate’s pocket.

    As we know, she was not an honest politician and she didn’t stay bought, and came out against the Keystone Pipeline during the presidential campaign.

    http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2015/oct/14/hillary-clinton/clinton-says-her-keystone-xl-position-isnt-flip-fl/

    Sammy Finkelman (8e756e)

  52. So Sammy, if Hillary is bought off by the banks, she’s bought off (gasp!), but if she is not bought off, she’s “not an honest politician” (gasp!)? ‘Got both basis covered there, don’t you?

    Tillman (a95660)

  53. *bases, not basis

    Tillman (a95660)

  54. 55. Tillman (a95660) — 11/15/2017 @ 1:23 pm

    So Sammy, if Hillary is bought off by the banks, she’s bought off (gasp!), but if she is not bought off, she’s “not an honest politician” (gasp!)? ‘Got both basis covered there, don’t you?

    https://www.forbes.com/quotes/8643/

    An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought.

    Simon Cameron

    Or maybe somebody else: (I always thought it came from a newspaper writer.)

    http://www.quotecounterquote.com/2010/01/honest-politician-is-one-who-when-hes.html

    A legendary quip that has long been linked to Cameron, though it appears that he never said it. In his excellent book, The Quote Verifier, quotation maven Ralph Keyes notes that there is no record of Cameron making any such remark. Keyes speculates that it was probably falsely attributed to Cameron by one of his many political enemies and over time was assumed to be an actual quote.

    tghe concept of someone bribed staying bought was already in the New York Times in 1856. The statement that an honest politician is someone who will stay bought comes from later.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)

  55. Exactly what is new about Uranium One? I’ve read lots of news, including about student loan collection policy that derpives people of jobs, but not this.

    Sammy Finkelman (02a146)


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