Liars, Leakers, and Liberals: The Case Against the Anti-Trump Conspiracy Read online

  Most importantly, Rod Rosenstein himself stated during his news conference announcing the indictment, “Now, there is no allegation in this indictment that any American was a knowing participant in this illegal activity. There is no allegation in the indictment that the charged conduct altered the outcome of the 2016 election.”6

  As with all these “reveals,” this was timed perfectly. This announcement was on less than forty-five minutes notice. Now, for the special counsel, especially in a case of enormous political and national interest, to alert the press that in less than forty-five minutes they were holding a press conference for an indictment like this is more than unusual.

  So, they indict thirteen Russians whom they know will never stand trial, let alone be extradited, arraigned, or even arrested. Putin will never allow them to be sent here to be part of Robert Mueller’s sideshow. The special prosecutor’s office admits that even this has nothing to do with the Trump campaign or administration. There is no evidence any American, much less anyone in the Trump campaign, knowingly participated in any of this.

  Now, as a prosecutor deciding whether to continue to pursue a case, you weigh priorities, resources, and interest. The interest here is high, I’m not sure what the priorities are, but the expenses don’t matter. And there is no time limit. They can go on investigating and spending forever, even though in this case there is no little blue dress, no cigar, no love book, nothing.

  There’s No “There” There

  Regardless of all the hysterical Fake News trying to rev up American voters, the investigators, by their own admission, have found no evidence of collusion or any related crime committed by anyone associated with the Trump campaign or administration. There’s just nothing there. But still, Adam Schiff comes on television every other day repeating, like some kind of wind-up robot, “It’s there, it’s there,” without being able to say what it is. He wants us to believe Mueller can’t say what it is. But it’s there.

  Is he kidding? Everything gets leaked in Washington. It’s the city of leaks, and we haven’t heard a thing.

  The year 2018 is halfway over. Most of the key players from the Trump campaign were interviewed by the Mueller team in 2017. Jeff Sessions was interviewed in January 2018. With all the power of the federal government behind them, the most intensive investigation one can imagine, and grand juries at their disposal, they would have something by now if there was something to have. At some point, call it a day, guys.

  But that’s not their mission. Their mission is to find anything they can on Trump. These people are investigating an individual named Donald Trump and trying to attach any crime they can to him. It’s disgusting. It’s coming from the haters who can’t believe he’s president. And they’re joined by the Establishment who would rather he not be president.

  Mueller is supposedly restricted to investigating crimes defined in the attorney general’s order appointing him special counsel.7 Remember, because Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from the investigation, the order was signed by Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein. The order empowers the special counsel to investigate “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and any other matters within the scope of 28 CFR § 600.4(a).”

  The statute section referred to says that every special counsel investigation will have a defined scope, but that the special counsel also has “the authority to investigate and prosecute federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, the special counsel’s investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses; and to conduct appeals arising out of the matter being investigated and/or prosecuted.”8 That means the special counsel can investigate whether the subject of the investigation committed any crimes in reaction to the investigation, such as obstruction of justice.

  According to the latest reporting, it appears that’s where Mueller is going.9 If true, it suggests there is no evidence of a Trump-Russia collusion. He is specifically interested in questioning the president on the firings of Jim Comey and Michael Flynn. And it appears Rosenstein amended the special counsel mandate to allow Mueller to continue.

  Although Comey repeatedly said the president was not under investigation, he decided he should be after Trump fired him. Enter Special Counsel Bob Mueller. Comey testified under oath before a Congressional panel that he leaked memos (for which he is now under investigation) to a friend to leak to the New York Times to get a special counsel to investigate the president. His pettiness, evident throughout his book, seems to know no bounds. Since Rod Rosenstein convinced Sessions to recuse himself from anything campaign related, Comey’s dream came true with the appointment of his friend and fellow Deep Stater Bob Mueller, who ironically is now in the position of assessing his own friend’s truthfulness.

  They have a few people who have taken pleas. In any case where the government is going after a “big fish,” and have someone low on the totem pole that did something wrong and is being offered his freedom, they can usually get some damaging testimony. When you’re trying to incriminate a president, then there are plenty of people who would step up to do it, especially to save their own behinds. And let’s not forget the immortal words of former chief judge of the New York State Court of Appeals, Sol Wachtler, who said, “A grand jury could indict a ham sandwich.” Despite the later behavior of the source, the observation is nevertheless an accurate one.

  It’s up to the prosecutor to exercise good judgment to ensure the evidence he or she has justifies an indictment. If they want to charge the president with something, they’ll be able to do it.

  We saw that when the special counsel referred information they dug up on President Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen, to the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. Mueller’s team did this to provide a veneer of propriety to what they were doing, which was using the power given them to investigate Russian interference in the election to find anything and everything they could possibly hang on the president, including guilt by association for anything improper his lawyer may have done.

  Not only does this prove the president has been right to call Mueller’s investigation a witch hunt all along, but it represents a threat to a fundamental protection against prosecutorial abuse.

  Attorney-Client Privilege and Abuse of Its Exceptions

  Attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine are vital. These privileges encourage persons, without fear of legal jeopardy, to consult openly, frankly, and freely with counsel of their choosing. Both privileges are generally of paramount importance and safeguarded by the courts and “promote broader public interests in the observance of law and administration of justice.”10

  There are a couple of exceptions. As for example when the client relays the information to third parties or divulges the communication in the presence of any person other than the attorney. The most relevant exception is the “crime fraud” exception, where a communication between a client and an attorney is made with an intent to “further a crime, fraud or other misconduct.” In that situation, this privilege is lost.11

  The Russia collusion investigation seemed far off in the rearview mirror when the feds received a search warrant for the attorney-client communications between Michael Cohen and the president. Mueller, no fool, had to make it look as if he had nothing to do with the seizure of these records since they were not Russia-related. He would lose support from Republican lawmakers, in particular Senator Grassley, if it looked like the raids on Cohen’s law office and hotel room were his doing. So, Mueller sends materials that he received voluntarily from Cohen, to the US attorney for the Southern District of New York. To his misfortune, the president’s effort to cooperate with Mueller included information about the payment to Stormy Daniels. With that information, the Southern District of New York applied for a search warrant to have Cohen’s atto
rney-client records seized.

  But requests for attorney-client records must be approved by the assistant attorney general or the deputy assistant attorney general of the Criminal Division. Don’t forget the assistant attorney general is our old friend, Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mueller. The plot gets even thicker.

  Rosenstein would have had to decide if the information sought was privileged; whether other attempts were made to get the information; whether there were grounds to believe a crime had been committed; and whether the need for the information outweighed the risk that the attorney may be disqualified from representing his client. So, how does this evaluation take place? Right in the DOJ itself! In other words, the very people who make the assessment are the people looking for the information. A bit of a conflict, you think?

  Once the records are seized the DOJ has everything between attorney and client. The risk to the client of course, without getting into specifics, is that they can use that info to form the basis of a new investigation.

  Guess what? There was, surprise, surprise, no outcry from the ACLU or the leftist liberal groups. But if this had been an attorney representing Obama or Hillary, there would’ve been hell to pay. Civil libertarians only want justice for some, not all.

  So now the US attorney for the Southern District of New York will be able to ask Michael Cohen:

  Who were the sources for each of the specific factual representations made by Cohen that the government contends were false or misleading;

  What did the source tell the attorney about specific factual representations;

  When and how did the attorney receive communications from his client, source, or other purveyors of information;

  Regarding the factual representations that the government claims were false and misleading, did the client raise any questions or corrections?

  Did the witness review with his client any or all the written submissions forwarded to a governmental agency?

  So, the Mueller investigation is not only investigating a phony conspiracy theory cooked up for purely political reasons, it’s also inadvertently threatening our basic freedoms. When you look at all the wrongdoings of Hillary Clinton, with the emails, destroying evidence, deleting evidence, and not even a grand jury was impaneled—all they had to do with Hillary was ask her one simple question: Did you put classified emails on a personal server? If she said yes, she’d have admitted to a crime. If she said no, she would be committing perjury by lying to an FBI agent.

  But they didn’t want to indict her, which is why they didn’t ask her the question.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Real Trump Presidency

  My Friend the President

  It would be hard for anyone who believes even half of the anti-Trump propaganda put out by the liberal media to support the president. But once you see through the dishonesty, once you understand the agenda that propels this trash, orchestrated by dishonest people who aren’t interested in your well-being; you know the country couldn’t be in better hands than those of Donald J. Trump.

  As I mentioned earlier, I’m a friend of the president. I first met Donald Trump in the ’90s when my then-husband, Al Pirro, was Donald Trump’s legal representative on many of his real estate deals. During that time, Al’s famous client would call our house at all hours. Although I thought it strange at first, I would later come to know that Donald Trump never stops working. I started to look forward to his calls. He was always polite and made me laugh. I guess it’s natural for people to think, because he’s so rich, that Donald Trump is out of touch with regular people. Nothing could be further from the truth. He loves to interact with everybody: cops, construction workers, the guys selling hot dogs on the sidewalks. People love him, and he loves them right back.

  Still, back then all I knew about him was what I had read in the magazines and newspapers. I knew he was very wealthy, I knew he built amazing apartment buildings and hotels, and I knew he was quite a character.

  Then one day Al came home and told me that Donald had offered to fly us to Florida on his plane since we had just bought a house in Palm Beach. Donald also had a home in Palm Beach. You might have heard of the place.

  I think that Marjorie Merriweather Post, the cereal heiress who built and lived in the mansion as a summer home, would have been thrilled that Donald Trump bought Mar-a-Lago. Both saw life in its grandest form. It took 600 workers to construct the 110,000 square foot, 58-bedroom, 33-bath estate complete with gold bathroom fixtures. It has a 75-foot tower that offers breathtaking views. Ms. Post, who was then married to the financier, E. F. Hutton, hired Joséph Urban to do much of the design of the home. Urban had been the scenic designer for the Ziegfeld Follies and the Metropolitan Opera. After they finished construction, Hutton reportedly remarked: “You know, Marjorie said she was going to build a little cottage by the sea. Look what we got!”

  Along with being kindred spirits, there was another reason Ms. Post would have been happy to have Donald Trump own her home.

  In 1972, at the end of her life, she donated the property to the US government with a specific wish in mind. Though the government accepted Post’s gift, it did little to fulfill her desire for Mar-a-Lago. In fact, by the time Jimmy Carter was in office, plans were in the works to give the mansion back to the Post family, which the government did in 1981. Donald Trump bought the mansion in 1985. Thirty years later, in November 2016, Marjorie Merriweather Post’s dream of Mar-a-Lago becoming the Winter White House had come true.

  One year, Donald invited us for Thanksgiving dinner at Mar-a-Lago. He hadn’t had the place long and it wasn’t fully furnished yet, but he set up a large, round table with a white linen cloth in the middle of the expansive dining room.

  The Thanksgiving dinner invite was sort of a last-minute thing, and I remember being nervous about what to wear. After all, furnished or not, Mar-a-Lago is one of the most glamorous properties in the entire world. I went to Saks and spent more money than I should have on a black cashmere shawl. The wrap was worth every penny—perfect for the evening and I felt great in it.

  I still have that shawl. Every time I see it in my closet, a distinct, vivid memory of that evening at Mar-a-Lago returns. It was an exciting time. Al and I had worked long and hard, and it seemed the whole world was opening up to us. And Donald made us feel so welcomed.

  Of course, we had our children, Kiki and Alex, with us, and Ivanka, Donald Jr., and Eric were there. We had a traditional turkey dinner and somehow it was both intimate and grand.

  At the time, Donald was married to Marla Maples. While we waited for dessert, Marla took me on a tour of the massive kitchen. Ms. Post was known for entertaining guests (she once had the Ringling Bros. Circus perform at Mar-a-Lago), and especially for her lavish dinner parties and her prized collection of tableware and china.

  I love dishes and Ms. Post’s collection lined the pantry in the kitchen. It was spectacular. There were ladders on wheels you could climb up. I climbed up on one and Marla pushed me down the row on it. There were dishes of every theme and style: all the different holidays, summer dishes, winter dishes, antique crystal, glass, some made of gold, some ornamented with real coral. Marla and I had a ball in that pantry.

  When Mar-a-Lago opened as a private club, we became members and for years we’d fly back and forth with Donald and his family on most weekends.

  I loved those trips on Donald’s jet. A lot of times we’d all watch a movie together and I’d make popcorn for everyone. When I’d bring it out, Donald would say, “Jeanine, did you see any meatloaf in the kitchen back there? Could you heat some up for me?”

  We were like an average American family, except we were miles in the sky. That’s what makes Donald special. Though he takes his wealth seriously, it doesn’t define him. I know they’ll be people who’ll scoff at that last line. But I’m telling you it’s true.

  One Sunday afternoon aboard the plane coming home, I got it in my head that I wanted to fly the plane since I’d been taking flying lessons i
n a Cessna 152. The guys flying the jet were real sweethearts. The captain let me into the cockpit, and the copilot gave me his seat. After being at the controls for a few minutes, Donald knocked on the cockpit door.

  “Jeanine,” he said, “Eric’s feeling a little sick. It’s a little bumpy.”

  “Okay, Donald, I’ll give up the controls. I guess my horizon wasn’t level.”

  For some reason, that particular trip sticks out in my mind and for reasons other than my short-lived jet pilot career. I remember that Donald was reading an issue of the New York Times magazine. I’d already read it. There was a particularly nasty letter to the editor about Trump in it. The particulars of the story are less important than the tone, which was thoroughly mean spirited.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Donald as he flipped through the magazine. I saw him get to the page and begin to read. He didn’t even flinch. His demeanor didn’t change in the slightest. He could have been reading Family Circle for all he cared. He put the magazine down and called for the kids.

  “Write down everything you need for school; we’re going to Kmart later on to get supplies.”

  Kmart?!

  Though I must admit, the image of Donald Trump pushing one of those big Kmart carts still shocks me a bit. That moment was telling. Here he was getting called all sorts of names in the New York Times and he cared only about his kids. Out of all things in Michael Wolff’s book that made me angry, what really popped my cork was when he called Donald an “absentee father.” He knows nothing about Donald Trump. Like many in the United States, the Trump children had parents who were divorced. Notwithstanding, the president respected and preserved his children’s relationship with their mother. Though Donald has always been surrounded by the press, he kept his children away from the spotlight until they were adults. It was Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric’s decision to join their dad on the campaign trail. And Donald welcomed them aboard.