Don's Tuesday Column

             THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News   5/08/2018

         Corrupt motives, process, goals

While perusing news, issues and articles for the column, I happened upon a calendar informing me that it is just 6 months until the November election. It still seems better than hope-and-prayer odds that Republicans will hold the House and gain seats in the Senate. I know that will shock the political senses of Democrats to a “You must be joking” level, but the so-called “generic polls” have shown a decided decrease in the Democrat advantage. That’s when a poll asks a national sample of voters which party they prefer to vote for, for Congress.

As you may not know, there has to be a nearly double-digit cushion for Democrats to have confidence that the over-weighted “blue state” respondents will translate to candidates prevailing district-by-district. Due to liberal migration to heavily populated urban/suburban (mainly Democrat-run) metropolises, their political fortunes compare unfavorably to the more numerous (but more sparsely populated) ex-urban, rural and Republican-run states. The bottom line is that, in addition to the fact that the most compelling issues and news events haven’t even happened yet, that single-digit generic lead doesn’t provide much hope for a Speaker Pelosi.

Most news media and analysts—together with their liberal consumers-of-opinion who eat, drink, breath and think in a Trump-hating cesspool of bias—don’t have a clue that the hyperbole and vitriol they spew turns more voters for President Trump than against him.

If you doubt me, look up, by title, “Democrats’ Dangerous Case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” by Michael Barone. He cites Trump’s rising approval that indicates the same bifurcation among many voters that sustained Bill Clinton into reelection—they separate the man, his foibles and flaws from the reality of perceived improvements in America’s economic strength and stature in the world. “So what if his dalliances sully the man,” many say. It has long ago become apparent that our leaders are flawed and sin, hidden or not. In Trump’s case they never involved rape, unwanted groping, exposing himself or being orally “serviced” by an intern (all by Bill Clinton). Trump’s accusers have yet to prove their claims, unlike Clinton’s victims.

 Readers may apply their own standards of corruption to the following items: “We can’t know the precise motivations behind the Justice Department’s and FBI’s refusal to make key information public…(Is it) out of real concern over declassification or a desire to protect the institutions from embarrassment…?” (Kimberley Strassel, WSJ.com) The way I see it, after the repeated, deceptive and superfluous redactions from documents—necessary and rightfully demanded by Congress in its constitutional role of oversight of the DOJ/FBI—they have lost the benefit of the doubt. Hiding corrupt, partisan abuse of the vast powers of prosecution is evident.

That last statement is substantiated by a side-by-side comparison of some documents that reveals the fact that the original redactions existed solely to protect people and hide evidence of the corrupt, shameful legal attack on former Trump national security advisor Michael Flynn. “The most recent unclassified version of the House Intel Committee’s report exposes how DOJ and FBI improperly use redactions to protect people like James Comey from public scrutiny. The before/after versions show what dirty pool (they) were playing.

“It’s clear that DOJ/FBI demanded significant redactions not to protect national security or sources/methods, but to protect potentially corrupt officials from accountability for their actions before and after Trump’s election” (The Federalist’s Sean Davis). To summarize the reports and testimony, agents that interviewed Flynn, Andrew McCabe, and James Comey all believed and stated their conclusions that Flynn didn’t lie. Comey now lies to any and all who ask him about those facts; it is clear that trumped up charges and legal threats were used to place Flynn in an untenable position, inducing him to plead guilty, go broke and/or turn on Trump.

 To put it in ugly perspective, consider what former Trump campaign aide Michael Caputo has gone through, as told to both Tucker Carlson and Anderson Cooper (Look up “Caputo debriefed” by Powerlineblog.com’s Scott Johnson). He raged at the Democrats on the Senate Intelligence committee (telling them to go straight to blazes) over the devastation inflicted on him, his business, his children and reputation by having to spend over $120,000—simply to protect himself from Mueller’s investigators—as a witness. Not as a subject or target of charges, just as a witness.

“I certainly didn’t sign up for this when I went to work for the Trump campaign and I will never, ever work on another Republican campaign for as long as I live…and I think that’s part of this, Tucker. This is a punishment strategy. I think they want to destroy the president, his family his businesses, his friends so that no billionaire, say, in 15 years wakes up and tells his wife, you know what, the country’s broken and only I can fix it…His wife will say, ‘Are you crazy? Did you see what happened to Donald Trump?’ That’s what this is about.

“Clearly these lawsuits after the fact are the new Democratic strategy. When you lose, you still win. I don’t think anyone should work on a Republican campaign again unless you’re legally indemnified…or you’re crazy. I was in the Senate talking with their investigators on Tuesday and they were still fishing around. It reminded me of net fishing. They’re just out there throwing things out there hoping that they can get something in…I’d say the Mueller team is spearfishing.”

Judge Tim Ellis, among other judges, has rebuked Mueller’s team for high-handed abuse of their “unfettered power,” saying “I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with anything the special counsel is authorized to investigate…You don’t really care about Mr. Manafort’s bank fraud” but only as a means to Trump’s “prosecution or impeachment.” We are in truly perilous times. (“Judge Ellis is on the case,” by Powerlineblog.com’s Paul Mirengoff is a must read.)