A witch hunt continues against the president with tremendous bias, no purpose and no end in sight,” Gaetz said.
The Hill
There was, [Fox News Host Jeanine Pirro said, “a criminal cabal” within federal law enforcement trying to undermine Donald Trump.
The Guardian: 'Kill the messenger': how Fox News cried 'coup' over the Trump-Russia inquiry
Fox News host Jesse Watters told viewers on Saturday night we may “have a coup on our hands in America.” ..
The Washington Post: A ‘coup in America?’ Fox News escalates anti-Mueller rhetoric.
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I know, you know. You’ve heard it all. We’ve become dull to it.
But, I need you to stand back for a moment with me and suck this in one more time, word by word, and think about the accusations here, and what they mean. These people are calling Robert Mueller a traitor, a threat to America, a coup-plotter, a man carrying out a vendetta, an enemy.
They are calling out this man in the most polarized political time in our history, and calling him out within a community armed to the fking teeth, rabid with hatred, vitriol, and abject fear that “their” way of life, their birthright to lord over you, and me, and everyone, is being unfairly taken away, for good.
And the man to which their hatred is directed doesn’t have an entire team of elite Secret Service agents plotting his moves days ahead of time. Worse, among his enemies may also be the world’s most ruthless dictator, who kills for money, and power, and outside of Russia.
Just who is this man? The “enemy of the patriots,” the leader of this coup? This traitor? I asked myself that last night as I went to bed, trying to imagine how he sleeps. I only knew what you know, and it’s too little. Now I know, and am mad. Mad enough to ...
****
He was a privileged kid, growing up outside Philadelphia. Like many a privileged kid, he got sent to a prestigious boarding school, St. Paul's in New Hampshire. His luck in birth surely got him there. But, once there, it must have taken some real skill, and real respect from the other privileged kids around him (including John Kerry), to not just MAKE the soccer, lacrosse and hockey teams, but to Captain all three of them.
I played sports through high school, and college hockey. I know this; the players vote on the Captain, and they don’t vote for guys they don't like, or respect. Jackasses don't become captain.
Given his prep schooling, it was pretty inevitable that he would go to Princeton, where he earned his degree in Political Science. He surely could have gone from there straight to Wall Street, and I'm willing to bet a huge fraction of his classmates from St. Paul’s and Princeton did just. He could’ve done as our president did, and get as much gold for himself as possible while avoiding jail. He didn't. He went to NYU and continued his studies, of people, of societies, in getting a Masters in International Relations.
Okay, now he’s set, right? Already in the city, got the credentials, got the schooling to deal with foreign governments, you can just hear the investment banks licking their lips to get a hold of this guy, the Captain, and really get it rolling.
****
Not this guy. Not this tyrant, coup plotter, threat to democracy. No, while our President* and damn near everyone like him was getting his “little Donald” X-rayed for for a bone spur eventually found on his heel, this threat to Jefferson, Washington, Madison went to Vietnam alongside the poor redneck kids, the black kids from the inner-city, and everyone else rounded up into that meat grinder of a war.
Stop right here. Stop out of respect to those who DIED in that war, stop out of respect to those maimed to this day, to those killed in any war, hurt in any war, to those serving today. Stop right here and ask yourself, which would you do? Get your bone spur and go get rich? Or go where you know that suffering is guaranteed, a life after, not. Let it sink in, when he said “I’ll go” he didn’t know he was coming back.
Out of respect for those who died, those who served and those who continue to serve, I won’t lie. I KNOW which choice I would’ve made, and yes, I feel the shame.
He didn’t JUST go. He went and fought, as a guy with a gun in the “ginder” (very un-St. Paul’s-like). He fought, received the Bronze Star, two Navy Commendation Medals, the Purple Heart and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry as an officer in the Marine Corps. He didn’t sit behind a desk — as I damn sure would’ve tried to do.
****
He comes home.
NOW it’s on to Wall Street, right?
No, MORE school. Law school at one of the country’s best, and perhaps THE best public law school, the University of Virginia. Having gone to one of the best, he was again one of the best of the best, serving on the Law Review. You have to go to law school to really know what that means, but just trust me on this to not belabor it, one doesn’t accidentally tumble onto the Law Review.
Now? Riches? At this point even we could say he could justly earn them? Now it’s on to some power-firm, right? Skadden? Latham? Piper?
No, Pillsbury in San Francisco. Nice.
But, just 3 years later he gets the job that he apparently wanted more than partner — one with the Northern District of California, PUBLIC SERVICE on a public service salary.the Department of Justice.
Perhaps he thought he wouldn’t make partner? Maybe. Sometimes people who don’t have the eye of the tiger for money at all costs do NOT make partner, in fact, they never do. Perhaps he would’ve, either way, the move to public service, in the San Francisco office of the DOJ was NOT a step down, except in pay.
He moves east to Boston, and by 1987, he is acting U.S. Attorney. Ten years into the DOJ, 13 years out of law school, he is the acting U.S. Attorney in a city of seemingly nothing but attorneys.
He spent a throwaway year at Hill and Barlowe.
We know it was a throwaway year because he quickly returned to his life calling in 1989 to return to DOJ and prosecute Manuel Noreiga. By 1990 he is head of the DOJ criminal division, and also heading up the Lockerbie bombing case, and starting the first cyber-crimes unit.
In 1993 he again returns to the private sector, partnership at Hale. But he could only take life with billable hours for 2 years, before he took a STEP DOWN in a career, and return to the DOJ as a low level HOMICIDE (not political crimes) job at the DOJ in D.C. Obviously he was too good to stay at that level, within a year he ran the homicide division. From there, he was named U.S. Attorney in San Francisco, and then in 2001 called up to be first, acting attorney general, then head of the FBI in 2001.
“The rewards of public service outweigh the periods of criticism that you will inevitably get.”
—Robert Mueller
Stop here, again.
I am an attorney.
Want to know the type of people who WANT to look through the evidence involved in murder scenes (and no movie will ever prepare you for looking at the evidence from a homicide scene)? The type who do that are the type of people who bond with the families of victims, and want to help. In other words, the type of people who want justice, they want it far more than money.
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There is a lot to say about the FBI, but whatever else one might say, like Law Review, one sure doesn’t stumble into the Director’s job. Also, to be appointed to the job by a Republican president, one generally must be a law and order Republican. Does anyone believe George Bush would appoint anyone but a staunch Republican?
He becomes Director of the FBI in 2001, September 4th, 2001, to be precise …
One can find a summary of his FBI service here
In the following months, Mueller acknowledged that the attacks might have been prevented had FBI headquarters followed through on tips from field offices. He then set about dramatically reorganizing the bureau, uprooting its domestic crime-fighting culture to install a high-tech global operation designed to head off terrorist threats.
The director pressed for expanded surveillance powers, but he also nearly quit over what he viewed as abuse of that power. In 2004, after Attorney General John Ashcroft was hospitalized, Bush administration officials attempted to override acting Attorney General James Comey to gain an extension for an illegal wiretapping program. Mueller, Ashcroft and Comey all intended to resign, before cooling down when a compromise was reached.
Again, say what one wants about the FBI, the Patriot Act, the espionage state, but THIS Republican was prepared to resign in protest against his Republican boss, over principles, ones rooted in the law, in justice, in what is right and what is wrong. He was the type of guy that a democrat like Obama (whom I greatly admire, though often disagreed with) asked to stay on for a 2 year extension of his term.
Let’s sum up his tenure as the head of the FBI this way: The man who oversaw the FBI as it undertook it’s most important investigation — ever — the 9-11 tragedy, was unanimously confirmed by the Senate for a 2 year extension.
****
Post FBI, he taught at Stanford, did a little private practice, but it took looking into the NFL's mishandling of Ray Rice beating his wife cold to get his adrenaline flowing again.
He's 73 now.
My god, I'm sure he'd much rather be on a golf course, we know he's an athlete, a competitor. We know his contemporaries at St. Pauls are either on the golf course or still have their nose pressed to the grindstone to crank out that last $100 million before they retire. Ironically, our President* is doing both.
But, in the single most polarized political climate since ….I really don't know. I wasn't around in the 50s and 60s, he was … his country called him again for what he HAD to know was going to be a job that either brought down the presidency (and be accused of being a panty-waisted liberal Democratic Hillary worshiping hack while at it), or be accused of being a Republican protecting a Republican. But, someone needed to take the job, just like someone needed to go to Vietnam. Someone needs to find out if the Russians control this country. Robert Mueller said “I’ll do it.”
****
I don’t know Robert Mueller. I know the type.
I have this fantasy that this harassed man has a staff member, a clerk, one of those socialist-commie-Obama-plants on his staff, one who will see this essay on Facebook or Dkos, and say; “Hey, boss, check this out.”
Because I'm going to say something FOR him:
To Fox Executives, the RNC, Jeannine “Joke-Judge" Perrino, Congressman Gohmert, King, Gaetz, and to YOU President* Vote-Loser Trump:
Fuck. You.
Just who the HELL do you think YOU are? Who are YOU when you go home?
Lay out where you've done. Go ahead, we're waiting. Is it 10% of what this man has done? Let me answer. No. It’s not.
Did any of your peers vote you captain of anything? (Trump, your “vote” doesn’t count, since you got fewer votes from the players).
Did you face fire with the American flag on your U.S. government issued military uniform? Or was your flag on your bone spur, or your term paper, you paper-tiger?
How many families of murder victims have you held? Promised them you’d see this through?
How many times did you turn down 7 figure jobs for much harder 5 to 6 figure jobs?
Did YOU lead the agency one week after 9-11, scared to death it might happen again on YOUR watch? Did YOU threaten to resign, spit in the POTUS’s (and CHENEY’s) face when YOU saw injustice? Even while knowing that YOU would take the blame if another terror attack hit???
Where do you plan to be at 73?
Yes. Fuck you. This man isn't running a “coup” nor a witchhunt, he is not a “threat" to America, he's the BEST of America. Thank god he’s doing what he’s always done: Working for 5% of what he otherwise could make, on behalf of possible victims of a crime, putting his life on the line, and maybe saving the world’s most promising democracy while at it.
Besides piss all over him, what’ve you done?
****
Authors have to eat, too, and sometimes grovel beyond shame. My novels are here, and infinitely deeper, funnier and more tender than this rant.
*** Post Script: An earlier edition of this diary said that Robert Mueller served as a private. Obviously that’s unlikely since his official bio notes he was honored as an officer in the Marine Corps.
It also makes his picture to the side here more than questionable, though it comes through google images, and quite frankly, I just don’t give a fuck. It’s a service member, he was a service member, and this is meant — in part — as an honor to all who served. I’m leaving it.
I would have made the changes sooner, but I published and went to Star Wars to get my mind off ...thank you for all the comments, I am blown away by the reception.