An item that has not received a lot of press lately is House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerry Nadler’s attempt to unseal the grand jury testimony collected by the Special Counsel. The Special Counsel found no evidence of any crimes involving the reason for the existence of the Special Counsel. That is, there was no collusion between anyone in the Trump campaign and Russia or Russian actors. There was also no obstruction charged.
On the contrary, as is slowly being revealed in the General Michael Flynn case, there appears to be significant evidence of criminal wrongdoing within the Special Counsel’s staff. It appears that they tried to entrap Flynn and, when that failed, they doctored transcripts of his testimony to make it appear that he lied to Federal investigators. How far and how widespread this illicit conduct goes is unclear at this time. Sydney Powell, Flynn’s attorney, is apparently about to file a motion to dismiss the Flynn case “due to egregious misconduct” on the part of the government.
This practice of altering transcripts is not limited to members of the Special Counsel’s staff. It was reported over at the NYTimes that Alexander Vindman, the Trump-hating NatSec official who showed up to Schiff’s impeachment inquisition in military dress, actually tried to alter the transcript of Trump’s phone call with Zelensky. However, the electronic records system blocked his attempt. The secure system was put in place because Trump and his attorneys know they are surrounded by leakers and liars.
The standard protocol with grand jury testimony is that it remains sealed when no crimes are charged. AG Barr and DAG Rosenstein affirmed this with the Special Counsel’s report when they determined that no crimes had occurred and they prevented the release of such testimony.
Nadler wants to go on a fishing expedition to see if he can find something, anything that he can twist into a statement to sway public opinion that PDJT needs to be impeached. This is why Nadler wants access to the grand jury testimony. It is quite likely that he already knows what is in the testimony. Nadler just cannot use it since it remains under seal.
Nadler had a quite different opinion on grand jury testimony in 1998.
“It’s grand jury material. It represents statements which may or may not be true by various witnesses. Salacious material. All kinds of material that it would be unfair to release.”
The real goal here for the Democrats is to try to build a case for obstruction of justice against the President. This is what the Special Counsel’s staff spent almost all of their time trying to do. They knew there was no collusion with Russia. They were trying to trap the President into an obstruction charge.
Nadler got some support for his quest to obtain the grand jury testimony from a Federal judge recently. Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama appointee, ordered the grand jury material released essentially immediately. Her actions have since been blocked by a higher court. Her actions contravened a ruling just this past April at the appeals court level.
In her opinion the judge noted,
“The White House’s stated policy of non-cooperation with the impeachment inquiry weighs heavily in favor of disclosure. Congress’s need to access grand jury material relevant to potential impeachable conduct by a President is heightened when the Executive Branch willfully obstructs channels for accessing other relevant evidence.”
In other words the judge is saying that fact that the President defends himself from baseless charges is all the proof needed to release secret grand jury testimony. That certainly shows what a scam this whole process is. Almost anything innocent people do to defend themselves against false accusations can be made to look like obstruction.
This is also true with the Ukrainian hoax. Any fair-minded person reading the transcript of the conversation can see that there is no wrongdoing there. The whistleblower made up stuff from things he supposedly heard. The Democrats know this but they want to continue to try for an obstruction charge.
Adam Schiff inadvertently let everyone know this is the Democrats’ strategy recently. Schiff outlined how his impeachment team views President Trump defending himself against baseless accusations.
The president continues to target public servants, including those who have served their country in combat, with baseless attacks.
Efforts to intimidate or threaten witnesses will further build the case for obstruction, itself an impeachable offense. https://t.co/InoxFCEEAb
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) November 3, 2019
This shows the same process developing within Schiff’s phony Ukraine quid-pro-quo investigation. There’s no validity to the originating premise, so the investigative effort shifts toward building an “obstruction” impeachment charge.
The Democratic strategy is becoming clearer every day. It is to make up some story about a supposedly impeachable offense (Russia collusion, Ukraine quid pro quo, etc.) and then spread false stories about it. Speaker Pelosi has already gone on record about the need to expand their investigations. Leak selected sound bites to try to sway public opinion. Ignore all testimony which does not support their position. When the President defends himself from these baseless charges, state that he is guilty of obstruction of justice for defending himself.
Are there any fair-minded Democrats left? All but two Democrats in the House voted to support this sham process last week. All but two are in support of impeaching a President simply because he beat them in an election in 2016. All but two displayed their intention to remove the duly elected President of the United States from office by force rather than by an election.
Most us deal with the consequences of our actions and inactions. Isn’t it high time that Congress should get that same wonderful experience? It is high time that those who waste the taxpayer’s money on personal vendettas should be sent home.