The Corner<\/p>\n
The one and only.<\/p>\n
by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In his efforts to refute Charles Cooke\u2019s recent expos\u00e9 of Jennifer Rubin, I was surprised to see David Frum, in passing, attack my Hoover colleague, legal scholar Peter Berkowitz (a \u201cSean Hannity\u2013style character assassination of James Comey and Special Counsel Robert Mueller\u201d), for suggesting, in a prescient October WSJ opinion column, that the Mueller investigation into Russian collusion may well be ethically compromised (in its zeal to go after those not accused of collusion)\u2014in even greater fashion than was the Comey investigation of Hillary Clinton (in its absence of zeal to indict for clear violations of U.S. intelligence law). <\/p>\n Perhaps the common tie in both cases was the 2016 election, and the politicization of the high echelons of both the FBI and the DOJ\u2014warped by obvious expectations that Hillary Clinton would rather easily win the presidency and thus career officials in government would then see their 2016 decisions post facto adjudicated in 2017 by Clinton or Obama hold-over appointees at DOJ and the FBI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Recent testimonies before the House Intelligence Committee and the stellar work of NRO\u2019s Andrew McCarthy I think have supported Berkowitz\u2019s worries of two months ago over the probity of both Comey\u2019s 2016 and, so far, Mueller\u2019s 2017 investigations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Far from character assassinating anyone, Berkowitz and others are worried about the strange network of relationships of supposedly disinterested officials involved in these recent investigations (Mueller\/Comey, Strzok\/Page; the McCabes, the Ohrs, Rhee, etc.) as well as the ever more mysterious touchstone Steele dossier\u2014the nature of its origins, payments revolving around its creation and dissemination, its 2016 handling by the DOJ and FBI, its Russian sources and suspect methodologies, its possible use in obtaining FISA warrants to surveille U.S. citizens, and quite conflicting testimonies from top FBI officials about its veracity.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the past, many of us have appreciated Frum\u2019s essays warning of legal overreach, especially in casting some doubt on the fairness of special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald\u2019s efforts to indict Scooter Libby (who may well have been hounded for a crime that did not exist, and, had it existed, that someone else committed), and Fitzgerald\u2019s later overreaching prosecution of Conrad Black.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From what we know now of both the Libby and Black cases, and in some instances subsequent appeals and efforts for commutations or pardons, Frum was perfectly justified to express worry from time to time about the trajectories and outcomes of those prosecutions. Certainly it would have been unfair for anyone to have accused him of assassinating the character of an over-zealous Patrick Fitzgerald, when Frum occasionally focused on legal contradictions, not personalities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Corner The one and only. by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review In his efforts to refute Charles Cooke\u2019s recent expos\u00e9 of Jennifer Rubin, I was surprised to see David Frum, in passing, attack my Hoover colleague, legal scholar Peter Berkowitz (a \u201cSean Hannity\u2013style character assassination of James Comey and Special Counsel Robert […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1145,1110,1092,1090,495,185,1],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2Pg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11012,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-paradoxes-of-the-mueller-investigation\/","url_meta":{"origin":10866,"position":0},"title":"The Paradoxes of the Mueller Investigation","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 22, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review They are numerous, and none of them are good news for President Trump\u2019s opponents. Special Counsel Robert Mueller has indicted 13 Russian nationals for allegedly conspiring to sow confusion in the 2016 presidential election. The chance of extraditing any of the accused from Vladimir\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Donald Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11050,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/swamp-things-in-the-russia-investigation\/","url_meta":{"origin":10866,"position":1},"title":"Swamp Things in the Russia Investigation","author":"victorhanson","date":"March 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness \"The Swamp\u201d usually refers to the vast federal bureaucratic machinery of mostly unelected top officials who exercise influence and power without worry about the appearance of conflicts of interest. They are often exempt from the consequences of the laws and regulations that affect others.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "James Comey"","block_context":{"text":"James Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/james-comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10353,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-progressive-boomerang\/","url_meta":{"origin":10866,"position":2},"title":"The Progressive Boomerang","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review \u00a0 Not only have progressives failed to take down the president, but they also haven\u2019t offered an alternative agenda. \u00a0 The progressive strategy of investigating President Donald Trump nonstop for Russian collusion or obstruction of justice or witness tampering so far has produced no\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comey"","block_context":{"text":"Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10165,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/comeys-overdue-departure\/","url_meta":{"origin":10866,"position":3},"title":"Comey\u2019s Overdue Departure","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"The Corner The one and only. \u00a0by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review If a FBI director is doing his job, we probably should neither see nor hear of him much on television. The FBI director by his very office holds enormous power. And like the IRS director, by definition he\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Comey"","block_context":{"text":"Comey","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/comey\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10941,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-ticking-memo\/","url_meta":{"origin":10866,"position":4},"title":"The Ticking Memo","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review The House Intelligence Committee memo is pretty simple. It should not have been classified and thus far withheld from the public. In fact, far more information now needs to be released. Despite the outcry, as Chairman Devin Nunes clarified, the memo can easily be\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "FBI"","block_context":{"text":"FBI","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/fbi\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11147,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/colluders-on-the-loose\/","url_meta":{"origin":10866,"position":5},"title":"Colluders on the Loose","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 17, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review Comey, McCabe, Clapper, Brennan, Lynch, Andrew Weissmann, Bruce and Nellie Ohr, Harry Reid, Samantha Power, Clinton attorney Jeannie Rhee . . . If collusion is the twin of conspiracy, then there are lots of colluders running around Washington. Robert Mueller was tasked to find\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Donald Trump"","block_context":{"text":"Donald Trump","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/donald-trump\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10867,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10866\/revisions\/10867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/p>\n