Radio America Online News Bureau

Dossier Plot Thickens, Trump’s New Twitter War, Bomber’s Family Upset

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America react to a new Fox News report showing another link between the Justice Department and Fusion GPS, the firm that compiled the campaign dossier on Donald Trump.  They also react to Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand insisting President Trump resign, Trump blasting Gillibrand on Twitter, and many on the left accusing Trump’s tweet of being sexual harassment.  Jim says the whole spectacle shows that Trump and Gillibrand deserve each other.  And they have little sympathy for the family of the Port Authority bomber, as they gripe about the aggressiveness of the investigation into the attempted terrorist attack.

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Court Rejects Transgender Military Ban

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A federal judge fully rejected the Trump administration’s proposed ban on transgender service in the military and also refused to delay the onset of transgender enlistment while the administration considers appealing the decision.

Back in October, federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly rejected much of the Trump administration policy on transgenders in the military.  On Monday, she ruled there was no compelling reason to for military to postpone enlistment of transgenders.

According to the Washington Post, Kollar-Kotelly said she “is not persuaded that defendants will be irreparably injured” by mandating that the Defense Department begin accepting applications on January 1.

“With only a brief hiatus, Defendants have had the opportunity to prepare for the accession of transgender individuals into the military for nearly one and a half years,” the judge added.

Family Research Council Senior Fellow Peter Sprigg says the judge’s decision is alarming on a number of fronts.

“I’m not terribly surprised given the obvious bias on the issue that she has shown.  She has simply shown herself determined to impose her will upon the executive branch and not show any respect for the constitutional prerogatives that the president and the Defense Department have for making decisions regarding military personnel policy,” said Sprigg.

While not an attorney, Sprigg says Kollar-Kotelly’s legal reasoning seems backwards when it comes to the burden of proof in this case.

“She apparently said that there’s no emergency for the government, that it’s not going to cause any irreparable harm to the military if they begin this process.

“The standard is supposed to be the question, ‘Is there irreparable harm to the plaintiffs?’  I think that it hasn’t been demonstrated that there will be irreparable harm, particularly with respect to this issue of new recruits,” said Sprigg.

Without the policy being implemented, Sprigg says no plaintiff could be suffering irreparable harm.

“Where is the irreparable harm if someone who has not joined the military perhaps has to delay for three more months?” asked Sprigg.

In a brief statement, the Justice Department disagreed with the decision and said it was considering which legal steps to take next.

Sprigg hopes the DOJ appeals soon.

“I hope that the Justice Department would appeal this to a higher court and that they would consider at least giving a delay in the implementation, particularly of this portion of the policy,” said Sprigg.

Sprigg says that without a delay until the legal dispute is resolved, Kollar-Kotelly could be the one inflicting damage to transgenders seeking to serve in the military.

“If they are allowed to join the military beginning on January 1 and then the ultimate disposition of the case is that in fact that they can be discharged, you could argue that they would be worse off than if they had never been permitted to join in the first place,” said Sprigg.

He insists the effort to prevent transgenders from joining the military is entirely a question of readiness.

“The reason for this policy is not because the president or the Defense Department just does not like transgender people.  It’s because they have a unique medical condition which make them ineligible for military service because they have limited deployability,” said Sprigg.

“To be fully deployable in military terms, you are supposed to be able to be sent anywhere in the world at any time without the need for specialized medical care.  People that are undergoing transgender hormone therapy or have undergone gender reassignment surgery inherently have a need for specialized medical care,” he added.

With the Army suggesting and then scrapping an effort to allow recruits with some history of mental illness to enlist, the military revealed that it is struggling to meet recruitment goals.  Sprigg says instead of pushing harder on a political agenda, recruiting numbers would probably improve.

“Perhaps if we moved away from these politically correct social engineering, then we would have an uptick in our overall recruiting picture,” said Sprigg.

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Terror Attack Fizzles, CNN’s Big Mistake, ‘Christmas’ Controversy

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America shudder at the attempted terrorist attack in New York City but are glad this particular ISIS sympathizer only injured himself.  They also slam CNN for not only failing to verify the information from its sources in its supposed Wikileaks bombshell but for failing to be the first to correct its mistakes and then saying its reporters did everything right.  And they roll their eyes as leftists get bent out of shape because U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley wished CNN’s Jake Tapper, who is Jewish, a Merry Christmas.

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‘I’ve Always Been Confident About the Case’

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The Supreme Court will probably not render a decision for months on the case of a Colorado baker being sued for refusing to bake and decorate a cake for a same-sex wedding, but the legal team representing the baker says the Constitution is clearly on their side and is encouraged by some of the comments of the justice likely to swing the outcome.

Alliance Defending Freedom, or ADF, represents Masterpiece Cakeshop Owner Jack Phillips and several other clients who contend their sincerely-held religious beliefs on marriage preclude them from providing services for a same-sex wedding.

Phillips points out that he willingly serves homosexual customers so long as they are not asking him to affirm same-sex marriage.  In addition, Phillips refuses to provide cakes for heterosexual bachelor and bachelorette parties or for weddings that constitute a second heterosexual marriage.

But David Mullins and Charlie Craig see it differently.  When Phillips refused to decorate a cake for their same-sex ceremony, they complained to state officials who filed suit against Masterpiece Cakeshop for refusing service to the men based on their sexual orientation.

Oral arguments in Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Right Commission took place Monday at the Supreme Court.  ADF Senior Counsel Jeremy Tedesco says his team went in expecting the justices to uphold the Constitution.

“Our assumption going in is that the right to be free from compelled speech, the right to have a situation in our country where the government doesn’t coerce – in this case artistic professionals – to create artistic expression that goes against their beliefs would be upheld,” said Tedesco.

He says the verdict in this case could have wide-ranging impact.

“The ruling in this case is ultimately going to bind other people.  It’s going to effect other people.  This time is may be a religious objector to same-sex marriage, but the next time it might be somebody who’s liberal, who’s objecting to something they don’t want to do,” said Tedesco.

Both sides are nervous about the outcome in this case.  Just two years ago, the court ruled 5-4 that there is a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.  Since then, the complexion of the court hasn’t changed much.  Conservative justice Antonin Scalia was replaced by Neil Gorsuch, who is believed to have similar views on religious freedom issues.

That leaves Anthony Kennedy as the likely swing vote.  Kennedy has authored three landmark decisions that sided with the LGBT lobby in 2003, 2013, and 2015.  However, some of his questions during Tuesday’s arguments give allies of Phillips hope and allies of Mullins and Craig reason for concern.

“[T]olerance is essential in a free society. And tolerance is most meaningful when it’s mutual. It seems to me that the state in its position here has been neither tolerant nor respectful of Mr. Phillips’ religious beliefs,” said Kennedy.

Tedesco says that quote was encouraging to him because it shows Kennedy understands their position.

“That’s ultimately what this case is about.  How do we live together in a pluralistic society like this, with deeply different beliefs about core issues like marriage and what that is.  We don’t live together peacefully when one side of the debate has the ability to use the government to silence and punish the other side,” said Tedesco.

Another Kennedy comment also raised eyebrows.  As an American Civil Liberties Union attorney tried to make the case that rejecting the message of Mullins and Craig was the same as rejecting them, Kennedy quipped, ‘It’s not their identity; it’s what they’re doing.’

Tedesco says that is a crucial point.

“That’s always been the distinction we’ve made and it’s the right distinction.  The Supreme Court has even recognized the distinction in past cases – all the way back to 20 years ago – that there’s a difference to objecting to the message than objecting to the person.  When you’re rejecting the message, you’re not considering the person’s protected characteristics,” said Tedesco.

“When you object to the message, you exercise your first amendment right to say there are certain messages, ideas, and events that I’m not going to promote through my artistic expression or speech.  That’s far different than saying, ‘I’m not going to serve you because of who you are,'” said Tedesco.

“The other side always tries to mischaracterize what these cases are about by analogizing them to class-based discrimination,” he added.

But Tedesco cautions that Kennedy was tough on everyone on Tuesday.

“Justice Kennedy asked difficult questions of both sides and made comments during argument from attorneys on both sides that were difficult questions and telling comments.  So it’s hard to say Justice Kennedy will lean our way and rule for us,” said Tedesco.

Tedesco knows these cases often get decided along ideological lines but he hopes all nine justices see the fundamental rights at stake for Phillips and all Americans.

“I’ve always been confident in the case because those kind of first principles are the things that make our society great.  We don’t want to see those rights and those privileges of living in this country be chipped away,” said Tedesco.

Nonetheless, Phillips lost earlier rounds in court and florists, artists, and videographers represented by ADF are also facing legal setbacks.  So if the constitutional principles are clear, why are the verdicts going the other way?

“My best explanation of it is that there have been times throughout American history where things that have seemed culturally imperative were used at least temporarily to overrun first amendment rights,” said Tedesco, noting that the Supreme Court once allowed states to mandate schoolchildren to recite the Pledge of Allegiance before later reversing course.

“I think what you’re seeing is there’s so much cultural, political, legal momentum related to same-sex marriage that some of these principles are getting muddied and mischaracterized and maybe overrun for maybe a temporary time by lower courts,” said Tedesco.

Tedesco says even people who strongly supported the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage are very uncomfortable with the idea of the government telling people what they have to do.

“It’s illiberal and it’s contrary to the best practices and traditions of our country.  It’s one thing to have same-sex marriage established as a constitutional right.  It’s a completely different thing to force people to agree with and promote that idea against their will and their convictions, especially when you’re dealing with people who, like the Supreme Court said, who have decent and honorable beliefs about what marriage is,” said Tedesco.

And for those adamantly opposed to ADF in this case, Tedesco says their rationale could one day put them in the same position as Phillips.

“That kind of rule can quickly be turned around and used to punish people on different issues.  You can’t take this ruling, if it’s against Jack Phillips, and just limit it to him and just same-sex marriage.  And that’s why I think ultimately, free speech and a free society, tolerance for different points of view will ultimately be the way this plays out.  We will ultimately prevail on that point,” said Tedesco.

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Moore and Slavery, French Ambassador and Pearl Harbor Day, Rep. Franks Resigns

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America unload on Roy Moore for answering a question about the last time America was great by discussing the family unity during the era of slavery.  They also discuss the bizarre tweet from the French ambassador to the United States, who used Pearl Harbor Day to rip the U.S. for not doing more to stop fascism in the 1930s.  And they discuss odd, emotional, and inappropriate details surrounding the resignation of Arizona Rep. Trent Franks for apparently asking two female staffers to carry his child while he and his wife experienced infertility.

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Bolton: Trump’s Jerusalem Move Sends Clear Message to the World

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Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton says President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a very good move that aids the pursuit of peace, does not concern our closest Arab allies and tells the world Mr. Trump will do what he says.

On Wednesday, Trump announced the United States was formally recognizing Jerusalem as the capital, noting it was simply a confirmation of reality.

Bolton agrees.

“We’ve been living in a delusion by not acknowledging the fact that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital,” said Bolton.  “Israel is probably the only country in the world where the American embassy is not in the capital city of the country to which our diplomats are accredited.  What Trump did was nothing more or nothing less than making Israel the same as every other country where we’ve got an ambassador.”

Bolton says in the seven decades of the modern Israeli state, it’s clear where the center of government is, but adds that Trump left room open for the Palestinians to still get some of what they want.

“West Jerusalem has been Israel’s capital ever since the creation of the new state.  Trump was very careful in his statement that putting the embassy in West Jerusalem, where it’s obviously going to be, doesn’t prejudice discussions about the borders of Jerusalem or the borders of Israel itself,” said Bolton.

Bolton says the fate of Jerusalem has been debated since the aftermath of World War II.  Originally, the United Nations wanted the city to be under its control and not part of a Jewish state or an Arab state.  The Arab nations rejected the deal, but ever since the status of Jerusalem was thought to be a major negotiating point towards a two-state solution.

Nonetheless, Trump is getting substantial blowback from Democrats, U.S. allies and the American foreign policy establishment, even though presidents and lawmakers from both parties have overwhelmingly endorsed recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital for decades.

So what’s changed now?

“Political talk is cheap and there’s a lot of cheap talk in Washington.  What Trump has done here is throw all of that into perspective.  He not only said he was going to do this on the campaign trail.  He has actually set it in motion,” said Bolton.

Bolton expects Trump to reap some domestic political benefit for keeping the promise, but suspects the greater impact will be other world leaders observing what Trump has done.

“This guy actually does what he says he’s going to do.  So when he says on North Korea, ‘My only acceptable result is denuclearization,” he may really mean it.  So I think it builds his credibility domestically and internationally and distinguishes him from his predecessors in the White House and a lot of other American politicians,” said Bolton.

But Bolton says it wasn’t just cheap talk that delayed this recognition for so long.  He says the U.S. was effectively bullied into never following through on the issue.

“What this has really boiled down to for a long time is the threat of using brute force to intimidate the United States not to acknowledge the reality of where Israel’s capital is.  Unfortunately, I think the lesson has been that the threat works.  The intimidation works.  We didn’t move the embassy to Jerusalem,” said Bolton.

In the wake of Trump’s announcement, Palestinian leaders have called for “days of rage” and the lead Palestinian negotiator says the goal of a two-state solution is now dead and only a one state solution is now viable.

Bolton is hopeful the protests will not be overly violent and says lashing out will not accomplish anything for the Palestinian cause.

“People, whether they’re Palestinians or citizens of other Middle East countries, or people around the world, ask yourselves what violence would do at this point that has any possibility of changing the situation,” said Bolton.

While the Palestinians and other Trump critics fear Wednesday’s actions could damage the peace process, Bolton says there’s not much of a peace process happening right now at all.

“The peace process was already in very difficult shape.  Honestly, if moving a building from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem end the peace process, then I have to say it was a pretty delicate snowflake to begin with,” said Bolton.

Conversely, Bolton believes the U.S. action could actually facilitate peace talks.

“Those who really want a durable, secure peace have to base it on realistic foundations.  You can’t base it on illusions.  And Trump’s decisions cleared away a lot of debris from the past.  When people calm down, and they will in a few days, they’ll see that it’s really a step toward a possible Middle East peace, not something that’s going to interfere with it,” said Bolton.

The timing of Trump’s action is also of concern to some, given the cooperative roles that Egypt, Jordan and increasingly Saudi Arabia play in our regional policy and the effort to prevent Iran from deploying nuclear weapons.  All of those nations urged Trump not to recognize Jerusalem, but Bolton is not worried that our relationships will fray as a result.

“They’re just as realistic in private as the president was in public.  They don’t have any interest in destructive demonstrations in their country.  The leaders understand Israel is a permanent fact of life in the Middle East, that it does have a capital and it’s in Jerusalem just as the president said,” said Bolton.

However, he says those same leaders will publicly condemn the move to achieve solidarity with their people while working behind the scenes to move on.

“There are always situations where politicians are playing to their domestic audiences.  So this move will be criticized in public.  But in private, I think the leaders will be doing everything they can to tamp down the demonstrations and hopefully do what they can to make sure they don’t turn violent,” said Bolton.

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Dems Turn on Franken, Dem Hypocrisy Over Jerusalem, U.S. Wavering on Olympics?

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America serve up all crazy martinis today.  First, they wonder why no Senate Democrats demanded Al Franken’s resignation after six allegations of misconduct but 33 suddenly decided that a seventh accuser was the last straw.  They also get a kick out of Democrats who have long called for the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital but are now outraged that President Trump actually did it.  And they scratch their heads as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says it is an “open question” as to whether the United States will participate in the Winter Olympics in South Korea next year due to security concerns.

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Israelis Cheer Trump Recognition of Jerusalem as Capital

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President Trump Wednesday became the first U.S. president to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced the process would begin to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a move hailed in Israel as a stepping stone to peace but fiercely condemned by the Palestinians.

“Today, we finally acknowledge the obvious, that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital.  This is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality,” said Trump during a White House statement Wednesday afternoon.

He also said recognizing Jerusalem as the capital means the U.S. will be moving its embassy there.

“Consistent with the Jerusalem Embassy Act, I am also directing the State Department to begin preparation to move the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,” said Trump.

Retired Israeli Brigadier General Elihu Ben-Onn is now a radio talk show host in Jerusalem.  He says Trump’s announcement is of great historical significance.

“For us, it’s a very important day,” said Ben-Onn.  “I’m very happy with the announcement of President Trump.  This is history after all.  Now, for the first time in 70 years, we hear that the President of the United States declaring that Jerusalem is the capital of of the state of Israel.”

Ben-Onn says Israeli claim on Jerusalem does not just date back to the creation of the modern state of Israel following World War II, but thousands of years.

“I live in Jerusalem.  I was born in Jerusalem, and all my family is in Jerusalem.  Also, I know that King David was here 3,000 years ago.  King David and the Jewish people were here for so many years, so many decades.  It is clear to everyone that Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Israel and the Jewish people,” said Ben-Onn.

The Old Testament dates the connection back several centuries before David, beginning with God’s call for Abraham to get up and go to the land of Canaan.

Given that historical connection, Ben-Onn hopes Trump’s decision will be followed by the decision of many other nations to move their embassies to Jerusalem.

“All Israelis believe that Jerusalem is our capital.  The government is here.  The parliament is here.  All the embassies are in Tel Aviv but they go every day to Jerusalem.  What kind of game is this?  Maybe today this game and this hypocrisy will end,” said Ben-Onn.

He says there were some embassies in Jerusalem decades ago.  However, following the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Ben-Onn served, pressure from Arab states compelled those nations to move their installations to Tel Aviv.

In his announcement, President Trump also argued that recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli capital is an important step in the peace process.  Ben-Onn agrees.

“If you do not recognize my capital city, how can you sign a peace treaty with the state of Israel.  Peace is like marriage.  It’s like a wedding.  The two sides have to recognize the rights of the other side for the right to exist,” said Ben-Onn.

“As long as the Palestinians and the Arabs before that didn’t recognize the state of Israel and the capital of Jerusalem, wee couldn’t go forward.  Now I believe President Trump opened a new direction for peace,” said Ben-Onn.

That’s not how the Palestinians see it.  Those leaders are calling for three “days of rage.”  Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas says this action eliminates the United States as a credible mediator in the peace process and will lead to “endless wars.”

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is taking it much further.  He tells Haaretz that Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem means the Palestinians are no longer seeking a two-state solution but a future in which Israel does not exist.

“President Trump has delivered a message to the Palestinian people: The two-state solution is over. Now is the time to transform the struggle to one of one state with equal rights for everyone living in historic Palestine, from the river to the sea,” said Erekat.

While concerned about the immediate reaction, Ben-Onn hopes the Arabs and Palestinians see Wednesday’s developments as a major opportunity.

‘I believe the Arab states will not do anything but maybe the radical Palestinian groups will try.  But I’m sure that they will stop because they have more to lose than to win if they start violence,” said Ben-Onn.

If a two-state solution is still on the table, how will Israel deal with the Palestinian demand that the capital of a Palestinian state be East Jerusalem?

Ben-Onn says with the compressed geography of the region, the Palestinian capital could be very close to Jerusalem.

“Jerusalem as the capital of Israel is a clear fact.  Everybody knows that.  Which part, North or South, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Abu Dis to the east, will be the future capital of the Palestinian state if they will agree to accept that,” said Ben-Onn, noting Bethlehem is just five minutes from Jerusalem and Ramallah is just over 10 minutes from the city.

Ben-Onn says both sides need to realize the conflict will never end until they try to reach common ground.

“We are not going to leave this area, and our neighbors, the Palestinians, are not going to leave this area.  The only solution is to go back to the negotiation table and framework and find solutions for the conflicts with the help of the United States and the rest of the world,” said Ben-Onn.  “I’m very optimistic.”

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Russians Banned from Olympics, Bannon vs. Romney, Flake Backs Alabama Dem

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Jim Geraghty of National Review and Greg Corombos of Radio America enjoy watching the Russians get barred from competing in the 2018 Winter Olympics because of an ongoing doping scandal, and they also get a kick out of the International Olympic Committee suddenly caring about corruption.  They also shake their heads as Steve Bannon tries to discredit Mitt Romney’s denunciation of Roy Moore by saying Moore served in Vietnam and Romney avoided it by “hiding behind his religion.”  And they scold Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake, who not only condemns Roy Moore but is contributing to liberal Democrat Doug Jones.

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McCarthy: No Underlying Conspiracy, Mueller Fishing

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Former federal prosecutor Andrew C. McCarthy says there is still no discernible evidence of any conspiracy between Russia and the Trump campaign, and he says special counsel Robert Mueller is effectively on a “fishing expedition” to find criminal behavior of some kind.

McCarthy is also explaining what a Trump attorney likely meant when suggesting the president cannot obstruct justice.

Mueller, a former FBI director, was originally tasked with an open-ended counterintelligence investigation to determine whether any outside forces interfered with the 2016 presidential campaign.  However, Mueller’s mandate from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein came with no formal limits.

McCarthy says Mueller’s task was the opposite of how prosecutions normally function.

“The usual thing in the United States is that there’s a crime so we assign a prosecutor.  Here, there’s no crime.  We assign a prosecutor .  We tell him to go find a crime,” said McCarthy.

And thus far, McCarthy says Mueller hasn’t found what he was hired to find.

“He’s gone about his investigation as a kind of broad fishing expedition within those very broad parameters.  If they had a crime that was the predicate for this investigation, it would have been conducted a different way.  But he wasn’t directed to investigate a crime.  He was given this very broad mandate,” said McCarthy.

The investigation is receiving enormous coverage in the wake of Mueller indicting former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn for making false statements to the FBI in January.

McCarthy says many people assume this is a sign that bigger charges are coming for the likes of Jared Kushner, Donald Trump, Jr., and possibly even the president himself for colluding with Russia.  He says that assumption is based on a flawed understanding of law.

“Collusion is kind of a loaded word.  All it means is concerted activity.  What prosecutors care about is conspiracy, not collusion.  Conspiracy is an agreement to violate a particular federal law.  In this case, the law that they’re most likely talking about is some form of espionage by the Russians targeting the 2016 election,” said McCarthy.

“I never thought they had a case on that.  I haven’t seen anything to suggest it.  What we’ve seen with the three sets of charges is quite the opposite,” said McCarthy.

He says from Paul Manafort and Rick Gates to George Papadopoulos and now Michael Flynn, there is still not a single charge related to the 2016 election.

“They’ve had charges against Manafort and an associate, Rick Gates, that had nothing to do with the 2016 election, and these two guys, Flynn and George Papadopoulos, who pleaded out to process crimes of lying to the FBI, charges not having anything to do with supposed collusion in the Russian effort against the 2016 election,” said McCarthy.

There were Trump campaign contacts with Russia, but McCarthy says the lack of any related charges is telling.  He says Papadopoulos only being charged with making false statements likely means there is no conspiracy case.

“With [the Papadopoulos indictment], Mueller files a 14-page statement of facts explaining the offense, and collusion pours off every page of it.  You have a meeting with people who say they are agents of the Russian government.  He meets with someone who represents herself, apparently falsely, to be Putin’s niece.  They’re talking about setting up meetings with the Russian regime, possibly setting up meetings between Trump and Putin themselves,” said McCarthy.

“Yet, after all of that, he pleads guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about when his first meeting with a Russian official was.  The case against him, even though it’s immersed in collusion, doesn’t have anything to do with collusion in the 2016 election.  That’s the sort of thing that’s led me to believe there’s no collusion case,” said McCarthy.

The Mueller prosecutors, however, are now coming under scrutiny.  Peter Strzok was tossed from the team after anti-Trump statements were made public.  Andrew Weissman is still on board despite a recently uncovered email in which Weissman praises then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates for refusing to enforce President Trump’s first travel ban.

McCarthy says we should not be shocked that federal employees are politically liberal.  He says that alone is not evidence of corruption, at least in this investigation.

“I need to see a lot more about Strzok before I jump to the conclusion that he let his political opinions – we all have them – interfere with the way he enforced the law.  But I think there are a lot of very questionable judgment calls that were made in the Hillary Clinton case,” said McCarthy.

Among those concerns are reports that Strzok changed former FBI Director James Comey’s language, so that Sec. Clinton was not labeled “grossly negligent” in the way she handled her emails as well as the FBI’s decision not to charge Clinton aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin for making false statements to the FBI during that probe.

As for the Russia investigation, other political and legal experts disagree with the argument that there is no whiff of a criminal conspiracy.  They specifically point to the June 2016 meeting involving Trump, Jr. and Manafort and Russians who said they represented the Russian government and promised damaging information on Hillary Clinton.

Even though no damaging information was turned over, the critics contend the Trump’s campaign’s willingness to engage with the Russians that way proves it was willing and eager to go down that path.

McCarthy says that sort of activity might be unseemly but it’s not criminal.

“What a prosecutor is interested in is not collusion.  A prosecutor is interested in conspiracy.  That means you have to have an agreement to violate a law, and there’s no against taking information from the Russians about your political opponents

“Is it something you should do?  No.  Is it something we should endorse?  No.  But the narrow question for Mueller as a prosecutor is not whether it’s unsavory behavior.  It’s whether it’s criminal behavior,” said McCarthy.

Democrats and the media are also actively wondering whether a recent Trump tweet suggests he knew about Flynn’s lies to the FBI before he fired Comey in May.  Some believe it amounts to obstruction of justice, leading Trump attorney John Dowd to declare that the president cannot obstruct justice.

“The ‘President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case,'” Dowd told Axios.

McCarthy says on one hand it it “absurd” to claim a president cannot obstruct justice, but he says the president can legally derail virtually any investigation he wants, including deciding who should be investigated and which executive branch officials ought to be fired.

He says the issue get complicated when a president exercises those powers for what is perceived to be a corrupt purpose.  But even then, McCarthy says the proper recourse is impeachment, not criminal prosecution, because a sitting president can always make it go away.

“Practically speaking, the president holds all of the Trump cards against being indicted.  He can pardon himself and everybody else, which stops the investigation in its tracks.  He can order the investigation to be dropped.  He can fire the prosecutor.  He can do all sorts of things to prevent him from ever being indicted,” said McCarthy.

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