The DOJ coup attempt against Trump

Carl Cannon:
Justice Department careerists, led by special counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, have now served notice that they are targeting the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

Not over his behavior regarding Russians, which was their legal rationale for rooting through the business dealings and personal lives of his campaign manager, lawyer, and family. No, prosecutors are seeking to criminalize Trump’s extracurricular activities with American women, two in particular: Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.

This would be laughable if people weren’t going to prison as a result, not to mention its subversion of democratic self-government. If it succeeds in driving Trump from office, it will set not merely a grim precedent for future elections. It will be a clear and present danger to every person in this country.

Stormy Daniels (real name Stephanie Clifford), the porn star with a problematic attorney, claimed a single sexual encounter with Donald Trump in 2006, before he entered politics. Trump apparently took up the same year with Karen McDougal, a former preschool teacher who posed nude for Playboy magazine. McDougal said she had a nine-month affair with the future president.

There is no reason to doubt either account, and in 2016, both women sensed an opportunity to profit from the experience. McDougal was paid $150,000 by Trump crony David Pecker, owner of the National Enquirer, the pro-Trump supermarket tabloid, which never ran her story. Daniels’ deal was more direct: She was given $130,000 to keep quiet.

Although both women took the money, as Trump became a viable presidential nominee, they decided they’d missed the art of the deal. Apparently thinking they’d settled for too little, they started singing. For his part, the president retreated to the wayward husband’s default position, which is to say, he lied. His lawyer, Michael Cohen, joined in these denials, notwithstanding that he was the bag man who paid the ladies off.

What, you ask, does this have to do with Russian interference in the 2016 election? Well, nothing, but there are people who care deeply about the technicalities of election spending. One of them, liberal activist Paul S. Ryan of Common Cause, complained to the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission that Trump had violated campaign finance laws by paying off Daniels. This constituted a campaign contribution, he said. If it came from Michael Cohen, it exceeded the legal limit of $2,300. Even it came from Trump, he added, under federal expenditure rules it should have been reported to the FEC because it was done to help a candidacy. Kind of defeats the purpose of non-disclosure agreements, doesn’t it?

Even if this was a violation, it could have, and should have, been handled by the FEC in a civil enforcement action, as violations of Barack Obama’s campaign were. But if you thought Mueller was going to ignore it and keep his eye on the ball – remember, he’s supposed to be looking at a possible conspiracy between the 2016 Trump campaign and Vladimir Putin – you don’t know his record.

As former FBI director, Mueller is the guy who personally botched the federal investigation into the 2001 anthrax attacks. Buckling to political pressure from Capitol Hill, Mueller focused on an innocent suspect. The Justice Department leaked his name, too, which added to the amount ($6.8 million) U.S. taxpayers shelled out when his name was finally cleared. Mueller’s comrade in that ill-fated caper was James Comey, the fired FBI director whose leaking and other sly machinations led to the appointment of a special counsel in the first place.
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There is more.

What we are seeing is a Soviet-style attempt to find a crime to remove someone from office rather than investigate a crime.  Mueller tactics have been to use his unlimited budget to financial ruin his targets and then blackmail them into confessing to "crimes" that appear manufactured to make political attacks.  It is a very sinister effort and Democrats will rue the day they embraced this unethical course.

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