Hatred Turns To Madness

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Jerry Nadler has declared a constitutional crisis.

The proximate cause is a couple of redacted lines, including one footnote, in a 400-page report. Let’s be glad for the sake of the republic that an entire page wasn’t withheld.

To review the plot: Robert Mueller conducted what was in effect an impeachment inquiry from within the executive branch for two years. In defiance of the spirit of the special-counsel regulations, he wrote a long, detailed narrative account of what his investigation found, even though he didn’t accuse the president of a crime (he did, however, “not exonerate” the president on obstruction, a bastard concept hitherto unknown to American law).

Nothing in the regulations required Attorney General Bill Barr to release any of the report, let alone release it in its entirety. He did anyway with minimal, entirely defensible redactions that the DOJ worked through with Mueller. He then testified for hours in public before a Senate committee about his handling of the report, while declining to appear for more voluntary testimony before a House committee the next day over a process issue (the committee wanted a counsel to question Barr; the attorney general objected, likely because he didn’t like the optics).

Collectively, then, and often working at cross-purposes, the Trump administration has done Congress an enormous favor the last two years. It appointed a special counsel; not only let him finish his work, but cooperated with him (despite Trump’s ineffectual scheming against the investigation); didn’t object to his writing a narrative for public and especially congressional consumption; and with only a brief delay handed the full report, signed, sealed, and delivered, over to Congress to potentially to use as a roadmap for impeachment. (And, oh yeah, the report has been published as a book and is being sold on Amazon.) Most of Jerry Nadler’s work has been done for him.

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See Also:

(1) Against the Persecution of Bill Barr

(2) He’s Clearly Not Losing Any Sleep Over This: AG Barr Jokes About Dem Contempt Threats

(3) That’s Hillary Clinton’s angry ghost stalking the election of 2020

(4) Foggy Bottom should be investigated too, for actions overseas

(5) The Government Spied on Me. You Could Be Next.