Tenuous Tenure of Rod Rosenstein

Sean Hannity and other rightwing talking heads  have strongly counseled President Trump not to fall into a Democratic trap by firing Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at this time. The apparent concern of these "counselors" is that the discharge of Mr. Rosenstein, in and of itself, would adversely affect Republican chances of holding the House in the midterm election.

While I agree that the object of this advice is to safeguard Republican election prospects, I believe that the underlying fear of Hannity and the others is that firing Rosenstein now would force the hand of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. His release of a  report prior to the November election, for fear that a Rosenstein replacement would likely kill the investigation and block publication of the report, would, undoubtedly damage Republican candidates.

Leaks About Rosenstein

The NY Times has broken a story that is likely to result in the firing of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and, thus, put at risk the completion of the investigation by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into obstruction of justice by President Donald Trump and collusion between the Trump administration and Russia to affect the 2016 election.

The sources of the NY Times story apparently are persons within the Justice Department and/or the FBI among whose number, undoubtedly, are Trump supporters. I submit that those persons have used the NY Times to advance an agenda that includes discrediting and ending the Mueller probe. That inference is supported by recent predictions made on air by rightwing Fox commentators that Rosenstein would soon be in deep trouble.

The leaked information may well be true, that Rosenstein questioned the president's competence, raised the possibility of invoking the 25th Amendment and considered recording his conversations with Trump. That does not justify its publication by the Times given the damage it likely will cause an investigation relied upon to expose the grave threat to our democracy and to hold accountable those responsible. Newspaper publishers in the past have distinguished themselves by refraining from printing news obviously harmful to national security. This was another such opportunity which, regrettably, has been lost.

How to Determine Whether Kavanaugh is Fit for Confirmation

A highly credentialed, professional woman has, reluctantly and out of a professed sense of civic duty, made serious allegations concerning the moral makeup and fitness for office of Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh. Judge Kavanaugh has denied the accusation and multiple prior background checks have unearthed no evidence of wrongdoing. At least one senator, Hatch of Utah, has suggested that the accuser must be mistaken as to the identity of her assailant.

Many question how such a "he said, she said" issue can fairly be determined given the passage of time, the apparent absence of tangible evidence and the dearth of corroborating witnesses. In fact, it is not uncommon for investigators to confront this conundrum and there exists a standard protocol for attempting to arrive at the truth. The triers of fact must consider, among other factors, the following circumstances. 

Is the narrative of the victim credible, does it have the ring of truth? How well did the accuser know the accused? Whether a friend or a stranger obviously bears upon the victim's ability to recognize and identify the perpetrator. Was the condition of the young woman impaired in any way that might have affected her ability accurately to observe and remember? Does the accuser have any motive to be untruthful? Are there other persons who may have witnessed some part of the event and what do they recall? Do there exist any earlier accounts of the assault given by the accuser before it became politicized and were those accounts consistent with what is now alleged?

These are but a few of the avenues the senators should pursue in making the momentous judgment on whether to approve or reject the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.

Pardons Off the Table Until After Investigation

In the guise of allaying the public's alarm, President Trump and his attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, have signaled potential "flippers" that they should keep their silence, secure in the knowledge that a pardon will be forthcoming before any jail term has to be served. Made to appear that the president and his team will not interfere in the Mueller investigation, the opposite is plainly their intent and their message is clear.

This maneuver is of a piece with the recently promoted notion that the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions will be held in abeyance until after the November election, another signal that before Mueller can conclude his investigation a new Attorney General may fire him or, at least, handcuff his ability to enforce or report any findings of illegality.

Manafort Aide Attacked as Liar

As a retired judge who handled many criminal court trials, I am deeply disturbed by the behavior of federal judge T.S. Ellis III as he presides at the trial of Paul Manafort. His constant berating of the prosecutors might be excused as a function of an irascible personality, not a prized quality in a jurist, or as a by- product of his pursuit of a speedy trial.

However, Judge Ellis' interruptions of examination of witnesses and his own frequent questioning of witnesses, sometimes accompanied by remarks that suggest the judge's disbelief of the witness' credibility or his disapproval of the witness' behavior, constitute unacceptable and improper judicial demeanor. A trial judge must be sensitive to the influence his perceived views and behavior carry with jurors who often take the judge's apparent perspective as a guidepost for their own deliberations. A judge must not convey his private assessment of a case or a witness to the jurors who are the ultimate deciders of the facts.

I believe the prosecutors should request that Judge Ellis give a curative instruction to the jury advising that they must not draw any inferences or conclusions from the court's interpositions and assure the jurors that he does not have an opinion of the credibility of any witness nor of the guilt or innocence of the defendant.

Jay Sekulow's Bad Information

Now that it has been established that Donald Trump dictated the statement issued by his son, Donald Jr., falsely asserting that the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians was about adoptions, the president's lawyer, Jay Sekulow, says he had "bad information" when he made erroneous statements on behalf of the president denying any involvement by the president in the drafting of the false statement.

Mr. Sekulow has to know that any ethical attorney would first ask his client about the facts before issuing a statement on the client's behalf. So the conclusion is inevitable; one of four possibilities occurred. 1. Mr. Sekulow violated his ethical duty to question his client, or 2. his client lied to him, or 3. his client told him the truth and Mr. Sekulow lied to the public and the press and his client did not contradict him, or 4. perhaps most likely, Mr. Sekulow and Donald Trump conspired to put out a false statement. Under any of these options, Donald Trump is proven a liar and under all but one of the options, Mr. Sekulow merits the same condemnation.

Corporate Profits Soar as Wages Lag

Not surprisingly, as  the NYTimes has reported, corporate profits swell but laborers see no relief (7/14/18, A1). Even though there is a serious shortage of workers, which one would expect to result in higher wages, an increasing share of this country's wealth goes to investors and corporate executives while the pay and benefits of working people shrink.

Although several factors influence this trend, including automation and cheap foreign labor, the overriding reason for Labor's sorry lot is the decline in bargaining power represented by the ever diminishing size and power of labor unions. Unions, at their height, used the power of collective bargaining to end sweatshops and other abuses and gain living wages and benefits for a large swarth of our population. Now, unions are the victims of a "right to work" philosophy stealthily promoted by corporate interests and of the rulings of conservative courts which sanction laws and practices calculated to weaken or destroy unions.