David Brooks: Let’s Not Get Carried Away (Brooks defends Trump?)

[Machiavelli]

David Brooks
The New York Times
June 20, 2017

I was the op-ed editor at The Wall Street Journal at the peak of the Whitewater scandal. We ran a series of investigative pieces “raising serious questions” (as we say in the scandal business) about the nefarious things the Clintons were thought to have done back in Arkansas...

In retrospect Whitewater seems overblown. And yet it has to be confessed that, at least so far, the Whitewater scandal was far more substantive than the Russia-collusion scandal now gripping Washington.

There may be a giant revelation still to come. But as the Trump-Russia story has evolved, it is striking how little evidence there is that any underlying crime occurred — that there was any actual collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and the Russians. Everything seems to be leaking out of this administration, but so far the leaks about actual collusion are meager...

Things are so bad that I’m going to have to give Trump the last word. On June 15 he tweeted, “They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story.” Unless there is some new revelation, that may turn out to be pretty accurate commentary.

Full article

[truth_seeker]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/alan-dershowitz-trump-should-not-be-subject-to-criminal-prosecution/article/2626355

6/19/2017

"Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, argued Monday that Trump should not face any criminal penalty just because he fired former FBI Director James Comey.

"The president of the United States should not be subject to criminal prosecution for merely exercising his constitutional authority," he said on CNN.

"In the absence of any statute to the contrary, the president has the authority fire the director of the FBI, and the president has the power tell the director of the FBI who to investigate, who not to investigate," he added."

snip

[Machiavelli]

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/alan-dershowitz-trump-should-not-be-subject-to-criminal-prosecution/article/2626355

6/19/2017

"Alan Dershowitz, professor emeritus at Harvard Law School, argued Monday that Trump should not face any criminal penalty just because he fired former FBI Director James Comey.

"The president of the United States should not be subject to criminal prosecution for merely exercising his constitutional authority," he said on CNN.

"In the absence of any statute to the contrary, the president has the authority fire the director of the FBI, and the president has the power tell the director of the FBI who to investigate, who not to investigate," he added."

snip

I heard about that. Good on Dersh.