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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Wharf Rat who wrote (1020245)	6/9/2017 11:37:23 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1587847

Trump’s lawyer makes things worse for his client By Jennifer Rubin June 9 at 11:16 AM NBC News reports that a “source close to the president’s outside legal team” says President Trump’s lawyer Marc Kasowitz is threatening to bring a complaint against former FBI director and key witness James B. Comey with the Justice Department’s inspector general and the Senate Judiciary Committee for leaking his memos documenting his interactions with the president. This is beyond screwy. To begin with, leaking information that is neither privileged nor covered by executive privilege is perfectly legal and entirely protected by the First Amendment. Second, Comey did this after he left Justice; neither the Justice Department nor the Senate has any business looking into this. It’s the sort of thing someone who has no idea how Washington, D.C., or the Constitution works would do. Kasowitz, doubling down on his widely panned performance yesterday, demonstrates with tactics such as this that he is in over his head. Trump has chosen a familiar figure but someone entirely unschooled in the issues at hand. Trump’s aversion to dealing with new people has prompted him to retain an unqualified attorney to represent him in a matter that may lead to impeachment and/or criminal prosecution. What’s more, Kasowitz’s ham-handed effort to intimidate witness Comey raises legal problems. As with nearly everything surrounding this drama, definitive legal judgments need to wait until all the facts are in. However, Kasowitz seems to be playing with fire, unaware of the implications of his bullying. “It is true that abusive official authority can constitute as a legal matter obstruction or witness intimidation,” says ethics guru Norman Eisen. “There can also be bar penalties for abuse of process.” We get to abuse of process when a lawyer brings an utterly spurious claim. As for Comey’s conduct, no serious case can be made that he broke any law, rule or protocol. “The conversation was not classified, and neither was the memo about it,” Eisen explains. “DOJ rules do not prohibit the disclosure of such information. The conversation was not subject to the attorney-client privilege or other privileges since Comey was obviously not acting as Trump’s lawyer.” He adds that “if any privileges did apply, Trump waived them by disclosing the contents of his conversations with Comey. There is also a crime/fraud exception to privileges that would apply here because Trump was arguably obstructing justice.” He concludes that “the disclosure was strongly in the public interest.” Even if not illegal, Kasowitz’s latest move only reiterates the gravamen of Comey’s testimony: Trump is a bully who has no regard for the independent administration of justice. That the president of the United States, who has sworn to uphold the law, should through his attorney threaten to bring some bogus legal matter to retaliate against Comey is powerful evidence of his mentality. If he would threaten Comey with some sort of complaint and with revelation of purported tapes, the likelihood increases that he would improperly lean on the FBI director at the time to lay off Michael Flynn. We have one more bit of evidence for the Congress to consider when and if it decides Trump’s fate. Trump repeatedly has demonstrated unfitness for office insofar as he is incapable of adhering to his oath of office and ensuring the fair and impartial administration of justice. There is a name for that: abuse of power. We cannot have a president who acts as if the Oval Office is a protection racket.