PLEASE DON'T BE LONG, PLEASE DON'T YOU BE VERY LONG

Thursday, May 17, will mark the first anniversary of Robert Mueller’s appointment as Special Counsel.  If you hear a Republican cite this as evidence that Mueller has no case and has nothing to show for the past twelve months, remind them of a few things.

First, mention the two special prosecutors who spent four years investigating Bill Clinton.  It started in January 1994, with Republican special prosecutor Robert Fiske, who investigated the so-called “Whitewater” scandal and the death of Vincent Foster.  Fiske couldn’t find anything to prosecute, but congressional Republicans weren’t satisfied.  They turned to Republican Ken Starr as Fiske’s replacement, and told him to keep looking until he found evidence of criminal activity.  It took him four years, but he unearthed the story of the Oval Office blow job, and that was enough for Republicans to try to impeach Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton has a lot to be ashamed of, but his sexual misdeeds pale in comparison to those of the current occupant of the Oval Office.  In truth, though, most Republicans don’t really object to Trump’s compulsive adultery.  It’s the kind of thing they’d probably do themselves if they thought they could get away with it.  Or actually do, on a smaller scale, and get away with routinely.  Republicans are shameless.

Speaking of shameless Republicans, they also spent four years trying to find something, anything, about the attack on the American embassy in Benghazi that they could use to indict Hillary Clinton.  Five different Republican-led House committees held hearings.  They all came up dry.  A terrible tragedy, yes.  Confused official accounts based on incomplete information in the early stages, yes.  But was there anything illegal or prosecutable?  No.

Poor Republicans.  They want so badly to put someone named Clinton in prison. 

They must be jealous that the first year of Robert Mueller’s investigation has produced five guilty pleas (most prominently Mike Flynn, Rick Gates, and George Papadopoulos) and over a dozen additional indictments (most prominently Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort).  Mueller has accomplished all this in the face of obstruction and lies from members of the Trump crime syndicate, from most of the Republican Party, and from the GOP’s enablers at Fox News. 

In fact, Mueller is so busy that he handed off the poster boy for inept corruption, Michael Cohen, to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.  Cohen’s goldmine of bribery, influence peddling, and money laundering will keep grand juries in SDNY busy for years. 

The legal race to bring down Donald Trump does seem to be gaining speed, thanks  to Stormy Daniels and her sharp attorney Michael Avenatti.  Avenatti has opened a third front against the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  He knows things about Trump’s outside women, and also about his dirty business deals.  Unlike Robert Mueller and the SDNY, he’s under no obligation to remain silent about what he knows. 

Avenatti’s current strategy seems to be to inflict death by a thousand cuts on Donald Trump, dropping clues (some of them bombshells) every few days to keep the press interested.  He’s engaging in asymmetric warfare,  giving Donald Trump a taste of his own medicine.

Avenatti has Trump is spooked.  How do we know?  Because Trump hasn’t attacked Avenatti on Twitter, Trump’s favorite battleground for insulting his enemies.

We don’t know what Avenatti knows, or what Robert Mueller knows.  But we know enough, and what we DO know is damning.  Below is a link to an article with a good summary of information on Trump-Russia that is a matter of public record.  It’s not in dispute.

Not that truth matters to Republicans.  They don’t care about a 3,500-year-old commandment against bearing false witness.  They’ll embrace any lie that will help them retain power. 

https://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2018/05/russia-crib-sheet.html