There are rules against using the power and authority of a prosecutor to smear a defendant without giving him his day in court.
CNN recently published an article arguing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller should not have issued a report suggesting the president may have committed obstruction of justice without actually reaching this conclusion. CNN is obviously disappointed because inside the leftist echo chamber the obstruction case seems undisputable.
For example, the Mueller report suggests that the president committed some kind of sin for wanting to fire former FBI director James Comey for being a party to the plot to blackmail or frame the president. Some believe presidents should fire FBI chiefs who participate in hoaxes against their boss.
Mueller did no favor to CNN’s client Democrats, who now face three terrible choices: (1) Impeach President Trump using their majority in the House, which will lead to a self-destructive trial in the Senate; (2) Drop it and move on in defiance of a rabid get-Trump base; or (3) use their majority in the House to drag the country through a Mueller 2.0 investigation, which runs the risk of distracting from Democratic messaging in the upcoming 2020 election.
Like Aesop’s scorpion on the frog’s back, the partisans on Mueller’s team just couldn’t help themselves. The Mueller report poisons public opinion without bringing charges. It should have been written on a postcard, because the outcome of a criminal proceeding is binary: Guilty or not guilty. There’s no middle ground under constitutional principles. President Trump is not guilty until the Senate convicts him otherwise.
Do you remember why Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote that Comey should be fired? If Rosenstein is still capable of embarrassment, it must have been hard to stand behind the lectern as he did what he has told us prosecutors and cops should never do.
Let’s review his words about Comey: “the [FBI]Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously. The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.”
Yet here we are, at the end of another highly political investigation with another public trashing of a target without indictment. People accused of “obstruction” or “collusion” (whatever that is) or any other crime are supposed to get their day in court. Prosecutors aren’t supposed to use the newspaper as a courtroom.
There are rules against using the power and authority of a prosecutor to smear a defendant without giving him his day in court. If Democrats impeach the president, he will receive a long-overdue opportunity to defend himself in the Senate. That is exactly why it will never happen.
Americans should be concerned about the conduct of the Mueller probe and its supervisor, Rosenstein. Let’s take a look at some of the basic law-and-order rules Mueller and Rosenstein broke during the probe of the Russia collusion hoax.
1. Using Leaks And Press Conferences to Trash Un-charged Targets
Rule 3.8 of the American Bar Association’s rules of professional responsibility for prosecutors provides,
A prosecutor shall, except for statements that are necessary to inform the public of the nature and extent of the prosecutor’s action and that serve a legitimate law enforcement purpose, refrain from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused and exercise reasonable care to prevent investigators, law enforcement personnel, employees or other persons assisting or associated with the prosecutor in a criminal case from making an extrajudicial statement that the prosecutor would be prohibited from making under Rule 3.6 or this Rule.
Mueller’s team violated this rule from virtually day one, and their final report makes no effort to hide this fact. Footnotes 561-563 cite news accounts that the president was being investigated for obstruction of justice. The sources for those news accounts? Likely Mueller’s team.
Much of the “obstruction” evidence comes from the statements of White House counsel John McGahn. We’ve known since at least January of 2018 about McGahn’s statement from “four people told of the matter.” Who would four people be who would confirm what McGahn said? Again, likely the leaks came from Mueller’s team.
For a longer list of Mueller leaks, read here. In fact, the entire report relies heavily on news accounts and indictments, neither of which constitute evidence but do remain effective for public reputation smearing.
Rosenstein, always an excellent source of legal guidance he liberally violates, spectacularly failed to direct Mueller to adhere to this principle, ““The guidance I always gave my prosecutors and the agents I worked with during my tenure on the front lines of law enforcement were if we aren’t prepared to prove our case beyond a reasonable doubt in court, then we have no business making allegations against American citizens.”
So why didn’t he order Mueller to edit out the report’s innuendo and accusation that the team did not have the gumption to prosecute? Rosenstein understands the unfairness of what he did. And he did it anyway.
rest of story at https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/25/5-times-mueller-probe-broke-prosecutorial-rules-ensure-justice/