Agreeing with — sometimes insufferably paleo-conservative — Pat Buchanan

© 2018 Peter Free

 

04 May 2018

 

 

Fairmindedness can turn adversaries into friends

 

Rockheaded conservative Pat Buchanan and I would probably disagree about almost anything.

 

Yet today, I found myself supporting his politico-legal advice to President Trump:

 

 

If Donald Trump does not wish to collaborate in the destruction of his presidency, he will refuse to be questioned by the FBI, or by a grand jury, or by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and his malevolent minions.

 

Should Mueller subpoena him, as he has threatened to do, Trump should ignore the subpoena and frame it for viewing in Trump Tower.

 

If Mueller goes to the Supreme Court and wins an order for Trump to comply and testify before a grand jury, Trump should defy the Court.

 

The only institution that is empowered to prosecute a president is Congress. If charges against Trump are to be brought, this is the arena, this is the forum, where the battle should be fought and the fate and future of the Trump presidency decided.

 

© 2018 Patrick J. Buchanan, Memo to Trump: Defy Robert Mueller, The American Conservative (04 May 2018)

 

 

Exactly.

 

And I say that as an attorney with Constitutional expertise.

 

 

Why so?

 

Robert Mueller's special counselship grew out of a Democratic Party scheme to discredit the validity of Donald Trump's election to the presidency.

 

Fellow schemers, distributed among the Deep State — but probably predominantly residing in its intelligence and security-oriented bureaucracies — climbed aboard.

 

The most grating outcome to this impromptu pseudo-cabal was Mueller's appointment. He was supposed to unveil the Administration's made-up collaboration with the Russian Federation.

 

In essence, the conspirers twisted existing law, so as to:

 

 

(a) unseat the Office of the Trump Presidency from

 

(b) the protection of the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine —

 

via

 

(c) a Machiavellian tilting of the Executive Branch against itself.

 

 

Politically clever, but unethical and illegal.

 

Especially so, in view of the fact that anyone who knows our System recognizes that a handful of clumsy Russians could not possibly have swung enough votes to shift the election's outcome.

 

For his part, Mueller, evidently not afraid of unlawfully expanding upon his limited mandate, turned over evidence — the substance of which appears not to have had anything to do with collusion or the election tally — to the Department of Justice.

 

This transferal resulted in (among other things) the anticipated prosecution of the President's un-clever lawyer, Michael Cohen.

 

Apparently for Mr. Mueller — all is fair in love, war and the vigorous exercise of Constitution-defying partisanship.

 

 

The moral? — Pat Buchanan is correct

 

As much as I loathe the Imperial Presidency's un-Constitutional excess of power, I am not inclined to permit a bunch of conspiracists to shred the document further.

 

If their vote-reversing ploy succeeds, the future will see many more such cabalist tinkerings with elected outcomes. That would not be good for anyone reasonably virtuous.

 

In this adamant perspective, I imagine many millions of (alleged nutcase) Trump supporters will join. That is curious company for a self-admitted Leftist. But there you have it.

 

Perhaps this is called reaching across the aisle on the basis of principle.