New Jersey Senator Cory Booker sees himself as the natural successor to Il Duce Obama, and therefore the natural choice for the Democrat presidential nomination in 2020.  You have to admit the two do have a lot in common.  Both are African-American.  Both served as Senators from large Blue States.  Both Obama and Booker attended Ivy League law schools and never had any job not connected to the government, that is, in the real world.  Most importantly, both Booker and Obama are fake, phony frauds who are largely full of crap.  Like Obama, Cory Booker tries to stay on every side of every issue.  As David Harsanyi of the New York Post has noted, Cory Booker has posed as a friend of the Jews, who supports the move of the American embassy to Jerusalem and has said he was against the deal that propped up the Iranian terror regime of Holocaust deniers and warmongers.  The same Cory Booker also supported the same Iran deal and criticized moving the US embassy to the historic capital of the Jews.  Booker doesn’t consider this to be contradictory, preferring to characterize himself as “a truth teller.”  To paraphrase Slick Willie Clinton, I guess it depends what your definition of “truth” is.  Now, it’s true that most politicians are long on image and short on substance, but Cory Booker’s entire public life is all image and no substance.  Booker’s a guy who came up from the mean streets of Newark, right?  Wrong.  He was born to parents who both were corporate executives, and he grew up in Old Tappan, as well-to-do a community as any of the upscale towns in northern Bergen County.  Booker went to Stanford, was a Rhodes Scholar, and then went to Yale Law School.  Only then did he decide to enter Newark politics.  Cory Booker was called a carpetbagger and a Republican (not that!) – by other Democrats.  And since his political image was a complete fabrication, Cory Booker never has shied away from any opportunity to falsely enhance that image, even if he had to make stuff up.  As Mr. Harsanyi wrote in the Post,  during his time as a candidate in Newark, Booker conjured up “T-Bone,” a stereotypical urban street tough, drug peddler and central character of Booker’s founding myth.  “One moment T-Bone was threatening the life of the Mayor, and the next he was seeking Booker’s wise counsel, sharing the intimate details of his life story — and, no doubt, a few tears — while turning to him for inspiration and solace.”  Now, I spent more than four years supervising the Essex County Narcotics Task Force during those years, so I can attest that it’s not necessary to create imaginary drug dealers in Newark, there are plenty of real ones.  But that’s just what Booker did.  T-Bone was an imaginary person that Booker later claimed was a composite of a number of people he met in Newark.  I really wish I had known that during the summer of 2006, when I spent an entire real weekend in the office with a number of real NJ State Troopers who were busy trying to protect Mayor Booker from the imaginary drug dealer who he said was threatening his life.  Had I known the threat was not real, I would have stayed home, and simply imagined that I had been in the office.  The point is that Cory Booker, himself, is not real.  It’s all an act.  It always has been.  When he was Mayor, the Congressman from Newark died.  Someone suggested Booker might run for the House.  I said “no,” it wasn’t a large enough stage for the theatrical Mr. Booker.  Only the Senate would do.  And he’s really made his mark there.  Senator Booker became the first sitting senator to testify against another Senator when he testified against Attorney General nominee Jeff Sessions during his confirmation hearing.  Pure grandstanding.  Now that he’s Obama’s heir apparent, Booker has gone whole hog in on the Trump resistance. His performance at the hearings for Brett Kavanaugh hit a new low.  Democrats have been trying to delay the confirmation vote as long as possible.  Kavanaugh is uniquely qualified for the Supreme Court, so Democrats have resorted to paid protesters in the hearing room to continually interrupt the proceedings with shrill outbursts.  They also complained about not having enough of Kavanaugh’s papers from his days working in the GW Bush Administration.  It’s all a sham, because the Dems have yet to examine any of the hundreds of thousands of documents made available to them.  Enter Cory Booker, stage Left.  Booker announced that, Senate rules be damned,  he would illegally release confidential emails sent by the nominee in 2001 and 2002 concerning racial profiling — a topic that could potentially derail the president’s pick.  He then dared the Senate to expel him.  There were several factual problems with that.  First of all, the emails weren’t confidential, staffers having spent the entire night getting them released pursuant to a Democrat request.  Then, the documents merely demonstrated that Kavanaugh had expressed his opposition to using racial profiling in post-9/11 law enforcement screenings.  In other words, Kavanaugh advocated for obeying the law, and respecting the constitution.  No matter.  Booker insulted his Senate colleagues, disparaging their “sham rules,” and announced, “This is probably the closest in my life I’ll get to an ‘I am Spartacus’ moment.”  Perhaps he forgot that the guys who said, “I’m Spartacus” got crucified after they ran their mouths.  But that’s our Senator Booker.  In Texas, they say someone who’s a phony is “all hat and no cattle.”  Cory Booker is no hat, and no cattle, just bullshit.

Every time I think that the Left really knows that Donald Trump didn’t collude with Russia to rig the 2016 election, and they’re just saying that to raise money from their nutty donors, something comes along that proves the Leftists are just as insane as they sound.  This week it was a Newsweek (are they still in business?) article from one Robert Reich, entitled If Trump is Guilty, His Presidency Must be Annulled.   For those of you who may have forgotten, Robert Reich was Labor Secretary under Bill Clinton (which is a compromising position, now that I think about it).  Reich currently is a professor at Berkeley, so I guess he comes by his insanity honestly.  I was hoping that Reich was an economist or political scientist, and not a lawyer, but no such luck, he actually went to Yale Law School with Bill and Hillary Clinton.  Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal was a student there at the same time, either before or after he lied about serving in Vietnam.  Clarence Thomas and Michael Medved were fellow students as well, but I’m betting Reich didn’t spend too much time talking to them.   Reich is a dedicated Trump hater.  In  September 2015, he published a book,  Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few,  in which he warned that widening inequality would generate a blue-collar backlash that could take the form of a demagogue who blames immigrants and minorities for the growing economic stresses felt by the working class.  I wonder who he had in mind?  The crux of Reich’s Newsweek article is that, if there’s overwhelming evidence that Trump rigged the 2016 election, then impeachment isn’t an adequate remedy.  His presidency should be annulled.  Annulment is a term familiar to those seeking to undo marriages, though I’ve never come across it in constitutional law, but I guess you have to commend Reich for thinking out of the box, or maybe recommend that Reich be locked up in a padded box.  The age old consideration of “if” has delighted philosophers for centuries.  If angels danced on the heads of pins, or if your aunt had balls she’d be your uncle, or if she had wheels, she’d be a bicycle.  Reich’s “if” isn’t as plausible as any of those subjects.  He might as well have posited that Trump’s presidency should be annulled if The Simpson’s show space aliens Kang and Kodos took over the bodies of the 2016 candidates and installed Trump/Kodos as President.

Reich “reasons,” “Suppose, just suppose that Robert Mueller finds overwhelming and indisputable evidence that Trump conspired with Russian President Vladimir Putin to rig the 2016 election, and the rigging determined the election’s outcome.” How Putin might have accomplished such a thing is unclear, especially given the fact that the Obama CIA, FBI, Justice Department, and State Department did conspire to rig the election for Hillary and even they couldn’t pull that off.  Then, Reich concludes, Trump would not be the President under the constitution.  I’m glad Reich has heard of the “C” word, although even he concedes the constitution doesn’t cover such an eventuality or mention annulment.  Reich says that Trump is a conman, entertainer, demagogue who will sow confusion, as he did in Helsinki (by daring to meet a Russian, when everyone knows he’s guilty), Charlottesville (by daring to suggest that there might be two sides to a story he did not create and wasn’t involved in) and by locking children in cages (Uh, Obama actually did that in 2014).  Reich disagrees with other anti-Trump dreamers, who hope that Mueller will turn up the smoking gun evidence that somehow has to date eluded investigators for 2 years, and those who await evidence of obstruction of justice.  (By acting within  presidential authority, on advice from Rod Rosenstein, the man who, as a result of the firing he suggested, appointed Mueller to destroy his presidency).  Reich says impeachment is not enough and it won’t work.  He has reasons – 1) No President has ever been removed, and Republicans, who he says have the integrity of lizards, will not remove him.  (Unlike Democrats, if evidence of wrongdoing existed, Trump would be impeached by Republicans).   2)  Fox News, and the rest of the “right wing sleaze media,” would distort and cover up the evidence. (How?  Oh, maybe the way every news outlet other than Fox has done just that with all the positive achievements of the Trump Administration, and all of the evidence of the nefarious plot to depose Trump carried out by the Democrats).    3)  Trump will never resign.  He will lie and, like Nixon, will claim a conspiracy to remove him.  (I don’t remember Nixon ever claiming anything other than “I am not a crook.”  The only comparison between the two is that, not only is Donald Trump not a crook, this time there isn’t even a crime).   Reich argues that, for these reasons, Trump won’t be impeached and will probably win in 2020. (Well, we can agree on something).   I guess Reich thinks Mueller will still be investigating after 2020.  Then again, he might be right about that.  And if he loses in 2020, Reich says he’ll refuse to leave and will have to be carried out of the White House.  (Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real disease).  Anyhow, says Reich, impeachment will only leave Mike Pence to do Trump’s dirty work.  (There goes that damn Constitution again).  But, there’s another option, which even the demented Professor Reich admits is unlikely, but somehow believes is “entirely possible.”  Here it comes  –  Even if all parties agree Trump must go, then a simple impeachment isn’t enough.  Annulment would repeal all of Trump’s appointments, actions and records.  They used to do that in Ancient Rome.  After a leader was deposed, they would cut the heads off all his statues, and throw them in the Tiber.  “The constitution doesn’t specifically provide for annulment, but read as a whole the constitution leads to the logical conclusion that annulment is the appropriate remedy.”  Uh huh.  After that suggestion, I don’t think the Professor should be arguing logic.  All this may sound funny.  It isn’t.  Reich and the loony Leftists really believe this crap.  Pray for the Red Wave.

In Tennessee Williams’ play, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, Big Daddy asks, “Didn’t you notice a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity?”  In that same vein, there is a powerful and obnoxious odor emanating from the 2016 presidential election.  That elusive odor has been the subject of multiple investigations.  The CIA, the FBI, the media, the Senate, the House of Representatives, grand juries called by Special Counsel Mueller and various state grand juries all have been sniffing around in search of the source of the odor that befouled our election.  They haven’t found it because they are sniffing in the wrong place.  All the olfactory investigations have been directed at President Trump and the Trump campaign.  That’s not where the smell’s coming from.  It’s  coming from here-  C-L-I-N-T-O-N  What’s that spell?   What’s that smell?  Corruption, plain and simple.  More evidence piles up every day, demonstrating that Trump has been and is the victim of the most far-reaching political and legal frame job in history.  How did that happen?  Once again, the Clintons.  The dynamic duo of Bill and Hillary are the source of the overpowering stench of corruption.  In point of fact, these two truly have corrupted everything and everyone they have ever come into contact with in public life.   The Clintons’ Arkansas Whitewater land deal left their friend James McDougal convicted of 18 counts of fraud.  He died in prison.  McDougal’s wife Susan was convicted of fraud in connection with obtaining a $300,000 federally-backed small business loan.  She refused to answer grand jury questions in the Whitewater affair and was held in contempt of court, spending 18 months in jail.  Bill Clinton pardoned her before he left the White House in early 2001.  Clinton’s successor as Arkansas governor, Jim Lee Howell also wound up in prison.  Clinton White House counsel Vince Foster died of a gunshot wound to the head, ruled a suicide.  Kathy Ferguson, ex-wife of Arkansas Trooper Danny Ferguson, was found dead in May 1994, in her living room with a gunshot to her head.  It was ruled a suicide even though there were several packed suitcases, as if she were going somewhere.   Her husband was a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in the Paula Jones lawsuit.  Kathy Ferguson was a possible corroborating witness for Paula Jones.  President Bill Clinton carried on an affair with young White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, then later denied having “sexual relations” with her.  Clinton was one of the first suspects convicted by DNA evidence.  Poor Monica became a dirty joke.  Her life was ruined, but the Clintons sailed on.  A myriad of other women accused Slick Willie of sexual abuses, including rape.  In the less complicated times before the “Me Too” movement, Bill Clinton not only got away with his crimes, but his henchmen defamed the characters of the women and ruined their lives.  At least it was for a good cause.  Today’s Democrats accuse Donald Trump of perverting the presidential pardon because he pardoned Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, after his decades of public service, and Dinesh D’Souza, who was railroaded by the Obama “Justice” Department.  Of course, they never complained once when Bill Clinton sold a pardon to Mark Rich, an out and out criminal who evaded taxes and flaunted the law by illegally trading arms and other restricted goods to North Korea, South Africa and Iran.  Rich had one virtue, he and his wife contributed millions to the Clintons and made a multi-million dollar contribution to the Clinton Foundation.  And let’s get to the Foundation.  The Clintons managed to corrupt their so-called charity, and cast doubt on the validity of all charitable foundations by taking billions from representatives of foreign governments while and after Hillary was Secretary of State.  Hillary did a fine job as Secretary, though, withholding aid to the embattled Americans in the Benghazi, Libya consulate, resulting in the deaths of the ambassador and three other brave men.  She made up for it though, by repeatedly lying about the attack, blaming and imprisoning an innocent man for provoking the attack, and refusing to answer questions about the scandal.  After all that, Hillary was perfectly positioned to run for president.  She had to become president, because she and Bill owed too many rich people in and out of the United States, after having taken their money.  And she had plenty of help.  The denizens of the Deep State were embedded in the bureaucracy after eight years of Il Duce Obama.  All of them wanted  to keep their  phony-baloney jobs.  How to do it?  Help elect Hillary.  Unfortunately, many of these denizens occupied the Justice Department, the CIA and the FBI.  Now I don’t think for a minute they all these denizens were overcome by an irresistible impulse to go rogue and run amok.  They did what they were ordered to do by Il Duce Obama, Loretta Lynch, John Brennan, James Comey and others, who were only too happy to ignore Hillary’s real crimes, and frame Donald Trump for imaginary crimes.  Along the way, for the sake of the Clintons, the CIA committed crimes, the FBI perverted justice and destroyed a reputation built over 80 years, and the Justice Department crippled an Attorney General, hobbled a President, defiled its own reputation, and shamelessly twisted the laws it had sworn to uphold, along the way leaving a trail of human destruction, from the shattered lives of the good men and women it chewed up in order to cover their own tracks.  Their tracks never would have had to be covered, of course, but for the powerful and obnoxious odor of corruption emanating from everything Clinton.  What’s that smell, it’s Bill and Hill.

Last week President Trump revoked the security clearance of former Obama CIA Director John Brennan.  The revocation sparked criticism from many quarters, most of it ridiculous cries that taking away Brennan’s clearance was an attempt to curtail his First Amendment right to speak out against the President.  Nonsense.  The frantic complaints ignore the most basic and most important reality – John Brennan’s conduct, at and since leaving the CIA has demonstrated that he can’t be trusted with a security clearance.  Brennan is the charter member, perhaps more precisely, the creator of the Trump Resistance movement.  That is, Brennan decided in early 2016 that he would use his office at CIA to prevent Donald Trump from being elected President.  That’s what is known in other countries as a coup.  He had several potential motivations for his hatred of Trump.  Perhaps, as a convert to Islam, he recoiled at Trump’s proposal that immigration from Islamic nations be curtailed until immigrants could be properly vetted.  Clearly, Brennan wanted to keep his job as CIA Director, and the only way that could happen was for Hillary to win.  Whatever the motivation, Brennan had the CIA make contact with Carter Page and George Papadopolous, to plant the information that would be the basis of the FISA warrants, along with the phony dossier that Christopher Steele says was written by Russian intelligence sources.  Brennan leaked the dossier to the media.  Brennan hand carried his investigation to the FBI, and supervised a multi-agency working group at CIA that ran the domestic investigation.  Every step of the way, Brennan tried to stop Trump’s election, and since his victory, he has been working to get Trump impeached.  Along the way, the former CIA Director became a member of the media, working for CNN, and constantly appeared there, and on MSNBC, to trash the President.  Brennan bashed the President with comments such as:  he was “deeply saddened and angered” by President Donald Trump’s “despicable display of self-aggrandizement;” called him “unstable, inept, inexperienced, and also unethical;” accused President Trump of political corruption; “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history”… “You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but will not destroy America … America will triumph over you;” “Your simple minded policies — imposition of tariffs — have the potential to seriously damage our future prosperity;” he said Trump’s meeting with Vladimir Putin was “nothing short of treasonous.” (He later strangely argued that calling Trump nothing short of treasonous didn’t mean he was a traitor).  There was a time when Democrats were unalterably opposed to the notion of anyone from the CIA trying to affect a U.S. election.  Hell, Democrats used to be unalterably opposed to the CIA even doing its job overseas.  But now, so long as it might hurt Donald Trump, Democrats not only are willing to accept the facts that the CIA manufactured fake evidence, meddled in a presidential election, illegally conducted an investigation of Americans on U.S. soil, and then tried to stage a coup, indeed they are absolutely giddy about it.  So overpowering is their hatred of Trump, that the Democrats wholeheartedly support Brennan’s corruption of the CIA, the corruption of the FBI, where some 26 high ranking officials have either been fired, quit or were demoted, and the corruption of the Justice Department, which perverted the law to clear Hillary, then twisted it again to frame Trump.  Hillary mishandled classified documents, lied about it, destroyed subpoenaed evidence, lied about that, paid foreign intelligence operatives to concoct a phony dossier on Trump, and got her operatives in the Justice Department to use it to spy on the Trump campaign, and Democrats don’t care – nothing to see there.  Meanwhile, as I write this, the Left is trying to impeach President Trump for paying money to former girlfriends for non-disclosure agreements, which are legal contracts.  But I digress.  Former government officials get to keep their security clearances for the convenience of the government, not for their own convenience.  A former CIA Director going to work for the media ought to be enough to get your clearance revoked.  CIA regulations say a former official can keep his clearance in retirement if he conducts himself as a current CIA employee is required to act.  CIA Directors are not in the habit of going on the air, much less of accusing the President of treason.  Former officials keep clearances so that, if the new Administration wants to consult and get advice, they can share new classified data.  Brennan has proven himself too unhinged to be a source of reasonable advice, and he’s the last person the Trump Administration would want to consult.  Times have changed.  In the 1950’s Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance was revoked, principally because he opposed building hydrogen bombs, on the unproven pretext that his opposition might be motivated by a desire to help Russia.  Obama installed Brennan as CIA Director although he previously voted for the Communist Party.  Brennan regards the loss of his clearance as political retaliation to silence him.  It’s understandable.  Brennan practiced such retaliation against the heroes who tried to save our ambassador to Libya during the Benghazi attack, when Obama, Hillary and Brennan left everyone to die.  Brennan stripped the surviving Navy Seals of their clearances to keep them quiet.  He is a ruthless prick, who’s trying to destroy the President before his own crimes are exposed.  This is really a simple proposition.  If you broke numerous laws while at the CIA, and are actively trying to overthrow the legitimately elected government, you don’t deserve a clearance.  The lack of a clearance doesn’t stop Brennan from running his mouth, but he deserves nothing from the government he’s trying to overthrow.

Lawyers are supposed to operate under ethical guidelines.  These ethics rules exist to to protect the public, and to ensure the integrity of the justice system.  In other words, the guiding principle underpinning the rules of ethics is to ensure that those who come into contact with the justice system can get a fair shake, and just as vital, that the system itself is is recognized and regarded as being fair.  For these reasons, the ethics rules prohibit lawyers from engaging in conduct which is improper, or which may be perceived as improper.  That’s the most important concern, the appearance of impropriety.  That is, the risk that some action or condition, although it may be perfectly legitimate, may be cause many to question its propriety.  I’ll give examples.  I was a prosecutor for 25 years.  In that time, I prosecuted hundreds of defendants, some for major crimes, and some for minor offenses.  I now do criminal defense work.  If a criminal defendant comes to me, and it turns out that I was the prosecutor on his case in say, 1987, I can’t represent that defendant.  It’s not because I bear him any ill will.  I probably didn’t even remember his name, and, without doing research, I surely couldn’t tell you what his previous case was about, or how it ended.  No matter.  Absent the consent of the defendant, I can’t represent him due to the appearance of impropriety.  Same thing goes for a judge who represented, or prosecuted, a person as a client in practice, and then went on the bench.  That judge can’t hear the case of the former client (or defendant).  Now, the judge may have no ax to grind, may not remember the person, and indeed, the former contact might even be in some respects a positive thing.  It doesn’t matter.  The appearance of impropriety rules.  These ethical rules are enforced throughout the justice system, at all levels, and in all cases, except for one case – that of the eternal investigation of Donald Trump.  While other defendants are accorded a presumption of innocence, the President is presumed to be guilty.  While presidents other than Donald Trump enjoy the privilege of the executive to exercise his constitutional powers without interference from the legislature or judiciary, Donald Trump does not.  His every action is deemed illegal.  While every other litigant or suspect is protected from the prejudice of actual bias or conflict, and the taint of perceived bias or conflict, President Trump is condemned to play the role of a permanent punching bag for the Left, and its co-conspirators, the decrepit never-Trumpers and the greedy establishment swamp-things.  Case in point, the investigation being conducted by Robert Mueller.  In a fair world, lawyers working for a special counsel would be expected to comply with the rules of ethics regarding impropriety.  We don’t live in a fair world.  But let’s back up.  Before you even get to an independent counsel, the rules of the Justice Department require probable cause to believe that some crime has been committed.  In Trump’s case, there was, and is, no crime to investigate.  Instead, the Stalinist method was used, “You show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”  Here’s what happened.  The CIA conducted an investigation of Trump staffers abroad, and then illegally extended its investigation to the U.S., passing it on to the FBI, specifically one Peter Strozk.  Of course, Strozk is the guy we now now to be an anti-Trump partisan.  Impropriety?  A task force including CIA, FBI, DIA, Justice, State, and Treasury investigated Trump, leading to four surveillance warrants authorizing wiretapping.  Not a criminal investigation, mind you, but foreign intelligence.  They found nothing.  Then Trump fired Comey, based principally on a Memo from Rod Rosenstein.  Comey, you will recall, exonerated Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified documents, then himself illegally took classified documents from the FBI.  Impropriety?  Rosenstein is friendly with Mueller, used to work for him.  Rosenstein takes Mueller to Trump as a replacement for Comey.  Impropriety?  Given what we now know about the FBI and Justice attempts to deny Congress documents, we can understand why Rosenstein wanted Mueller.  Trump refused to appoint Mueller, and the next day, Rosenstein appointed Mueller as independent counsel, to investigate Trump.  Impropriety?  Mueller than hired 17 lawyers, all of whom, are biased against Trump.  Impropriety?  Then the Justice Department Inspector General released his report of extensive wrongdoing inside the FBI.  One might even call it impropriety.  This led to the firings of McCabe and now Strozk, the departure of Lisa Page, and the demotions of other high-ranking FBI officials.  The Inspector General said this “cast a cloud over the FBI investigations to which these employees were assigned.”  Such improper conduct by investigators, would result in the dismissal of criminal charges brought against any anonymous criminal defendant.  I’ll give an example.  I was involved in the clean-up of a situation in which police officers coerced a consent to search from a suspect.  The defendant’s charges were dismissed, he received a monetary settlement, and the police officers went to prison.  Apparently, President Trump is not entitled to the same protections that we afford any nameless, faceless suspect.  The Mueller investigation is tainted, at the most by actual bias, and at the least by a perception of impropriety, which extends far beyond the ability to purge the taint.  Conflicts come up all the time in prosecutor’s offices.  They generally can be managed by walling off those who are conflicted, and permitting non-conflicted people to carry out the investigation.  That won’t work here.  Mueller’s witch hunt is fatally tainted.  He’s found no wrongdoing by the President.  At this point, no matter what he finds is irrelevant.  Whatever he announces will be denounced as the product of bias.