I saw an article at Raw Story that got me thinking about something that had been going through my mind last night as I fell asleep. When I heard James Comey state during his testimony that he had asked a friend to release the unclassified memo to the press so a special counsel would be appointed I thought to myself, strange that Donald Trump’s nomination for Deputy Attorney General should pick the one person who James Comey probably wanted most in that role.
Nick Akerman, a former an assistant to the Watergate prosecutor, said that James Comey had planted the seeds of Donald Trump’s downfall. My question is, did those seeds accidentally fall in such a way that Robert Muller just happened to be selected as special counsel or was someone helping them fall in just the right place?
The political world is still reacting to former FBI Director James Comey’s blockbuster testimony on Capitol Hill Thursday, and one former Watergate prosecutor thinks that Comey effectively planted the seeds of President Donald Trump’s eventual downfall.
Appearing on MSNBC this week, former U.S. Attorney Nick Akerman — who served as an assistant special prosecutor in the Watergate case — said that Comey’s testimony had effectively established a case for obstruction of justice that special counsel Robert Mueller could pursue if he so chose.
That is certainly true. Comey’s testimony set up the case for whomever would have come along as Special Counsel to be able to pursue an obstruction of justice case should he or she feel that it was the right thing to do. Was it happenstance that Rosenstein selected Muller? Was it happenstance that the memo triggered Rosenstein’s appointment of a Special Counsel? Well, here is what we know:
- James Comey is a smart, experienced lawyer who has been a US Attorney, a US Deputy Attorney General, the Director of the FBI, and is a Washington player. He has worked with three presidents and knows his way around the block.
- Before Donald Trump nominated him as Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein had been working was the longest serving US Attorney. He had been working for the Department of Justice for over 25 years and in fact started his career in 1990 prosecuting public corruption cases Assistant Attorney General Robert S. Muller. We also know that Rosenstein did not let on to his boss or his boss’s boss that he was selecting a Special Counsel until the paperwork was done and the ink on his signature was dry.
- As far as Robert S. Muller is concerned, he was the Director of the FBI when Comey was the Deputy Attorney General for George W. Bush. We also know that Muller and Comey threatened to resign if Bush’s administration ignored the DOJ finding that it was unconstitutional to wiretap domestically without a warrant.
So, what we know is that these three men have a shared background, have worked together in the past, are experienced Washington insiders, in that they have been kicking around for over 25 years, and they appear to respect one another. We also know that they have all served under Democrats and Republicans.
While I don’t have any reason to think that these three men might have acted in tandem after Trump’s disgraceful firing of James Comey as the Director of the FBI, I did find it curious that Comey testified that he leaked the memo to ensure that a Special Counsel would be selected and badaboom his ideal choice for Special Counselor, Robert Muller, was selected by Comey’s ex-supervisor for the Russia investigation, Rod Rosenstein.
While I am most definitely not an alt-Right conspiracy theorist who believes in the Dark Government, and I applaud the choice of Robert Muller as the Special Counsel, I think it’s a bit curious that James Comey had a memo about his meeting with Trump leaked to trigger a special counsel and low and behold his deepest wish came true.
So, again my question is was it happenstance or plan that put Robert Muller in place to run this investigation?