Richard Eber, Exclusive to the California Political News and Views
One of my earliest memories of understanding the nuances of politics came in seeing the 1964 documentary Point of Order. This film unmasked the fraudulent activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy (R-Wisconsin) during Senate hearings a decade before.
During the course of this movie McCarthy’s tactics were exposed including holding up a blank piece of paper which he said were names of individuals who he said were communists that had infiltrated into positions of prominence in American society. In the process of destroying his advisories during the cold war with Russia, this man proved to be an enemy of democracy with his “red scare” ruse.
One would think McCarthyism, as it is known, would be dead and buried in the foot notes of high school history books. Apparently this is not the case. Most notably several members of Congress led by Adam Schiff (D-California) have been using the same playbook to smear Donald Trump as having conspired with the Russian Government to win the Presidential election in 2016.
Even prior to when Special Counsel Robert Mueller was appointed to look into Russian collusion working with Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton, Schiff was saying he had hard evidence of conspiracy between the two groups. He continued this narrative during the close to two years of Mueller’s investigations frequently citing unknown sources to support his allegations.
Following Schiff’s lead, much of the news media including the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and MSNBC, used similar strategies to indict President Trump in the court of public opinion for being an alleged pawn of Russian President Putin. Schiff’s colleague in the House Representative Maxine Waters, went a step further calling for the President to be impeached prior to when he took office. This pressure from the left has continued unabated to the present.
In the end wishful thinking of Schiff and a good part of the national media were foiled when the summary of the Mueller Report reported there in fact was no conspiracy on Trump’s part or any of his people working with the Russian government to win the Presidency.
After this crushing defeat, the best Trump haters could conjure up are allegations that his associates were guilty of obstruction of justice in defending themselves during Mueller’s exhaustive investigation. Almost two years later, all Mueller could do to implicate the President was mentioning improvable Obstruction of Justice charges. The Special Counsel concluded there was no case as the burden of proof was so great since there was no crime to cover-up in the first place.
Despite this fact, prominent Democrats are working on damage control demanding the full Mueller Report be made available to them. They are asking for access to interviews with confidential sources and protected grand Jury testimony that they know is unreachable by law.
Of course such facts are of little consequence to the “transparency for lunch bunch”. Naturally Adam Schiff, with massive amounts of egg on his face, has refused to admit the informed sources based disclosures he has been disseminating to Congress and the presses were mostly fiction. Now as head of the House Intelligence Committee he intends to continue the investigation of Mueller’s on Russian collusion along with looking into personal and business activities of President Trump prior to winning the election in 2016.
As might be expected, Republican’s who comprise the minority contingent in Schiff’s committee, are understandably upset with the California Democrat’s leadership trying to find grounds to impeach the President. Mike Turner, who serves on the Intelligence committee with Schiff, has called on him to resign his post. The GOP Representative from Ohio stated “This is a personal vendetta from Adam Schiff at this point. I do believe he needs to step aside.”
Instead the Congressman put out an email which read:
The Constitution gives the president the power to grant pardons, and while that power can be used to correct an injustice or give a second chance, there are disturbing indications that President Trump could use it to obstruct investigations involving him and his family.
With so many of his close associates facing jail time, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, there’s a real risk the President could try to protect himself by dangling, promising or issuing pardons.
That’s why I just introduced the Abuse of the Pardon Prevention Act, legislation to prevent this president, or any president, from abusing the pardon for their own personal benefit or to obstruct justice. My bill would ensure that if the president issued a pardon in a case involving him or his family, the entire investigative files would be turned over to Congress, so that a cover-up wouldn’t succeed.
“Excuse me while I kiss the sky”, but it would appear that rather admitting he made gross errors implicating the President with Russian interference in the 2016 election, Schiff is now trying to change his focus introducing legislation pertaining to future convictions of alleged crimes that have not even been investigated involving Trump.
This is crazy stuff that might earn the designation of “Comrade” for Schiff in the old Soviet Union. Due process is being ignored by many Democrats, Radical leftists in Congress are trying to bring impeachment proceedings against the President based upon their hatred of the man. If these tactics do not remind one of Joe Mc Carthy’s exploits in the 1950’s, than nothing should.
Nancy Pelosi, who finds herself trying to hold together her perilous coalition to remain as House Majority Leader, has given tacit support to Schiff without demanding his hearings into Trump’s alleged collusion with Russia cease. As a veteran politician, she realizes continuing similar investigations of the President by Congress can have negative effects in the 2020 elections
This might explain why House Majority Whip James Clyburn said Tuesday Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion represents a “closed chapter,” while health care is a “new chapter.” “I believe that the Mueller report has been done. It’s a chapter that’s closed.”
It is pretty much known that the concept of “double jeopardy” is not welcomed by most Americans except when game show host Alex Trebek, might be involved. If Robert Mueller could not indict the President, how effective can a partisan ideologue-hack like Schiff succeed in using the same evidence?
Somewhere along the line he needs to be told, “The show is over Adam. Your 15 minutes of fame has passed”. Unfortunately, people like Schiff and Joe McCarthy rarely get this message. Such is the way with demagogues.
Richard Eber studied journalism at the University of Oregon. He writes about politics, culture, education restaurants, and was former city and sports editor of UCSB Daily. Richard is president of Amerasa Rapid Transit, a specialized freight forwarder.
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