Jeff Sessions did what he could to curb illegal immigration in the two years that he served as Attorney General, but he was always crippled by his faulty decision to recuse himself from anything Russia related. Seeing how effective that recusal was, Democrats are already calling for AG nominee William Barr to recuse himself from, basically, everything that the Department of Justice is doing these days.
Silly question, but why are President Trump’s allies the only people who are supposed to recuse themselves from doing their jobs? Who made up that rule?
Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s conflicts in the Forever Russia investigation have been well documented here. Mueller was besties with James Comey when the two were mentored by Eric freaking Holder in the Clinton administration. Mueller went to a posh prep school and played on the same sports teams as Obama’s second Secretary of State, John Kerry. And Mueller’s crack detective agency looks like The Official Hillary Clinton Fan Club.
Jeff Sessions was ordered to recuse himself from anything Russia-related because he spoke with the Russian ambassador in his official duties as a US Senator. Yet Mueller gets a pass and doesn’t have to recuse himself from anything.
We’ve also pointed out frequently that James Comey worked as a private attorney for Lockheed Martin before he became Obama’s FBI Director – and Comey’s work entailed negotiating weapons contracts with the Hillary Clinton-run State Department. Comey became a multimillionaire because of this work and then ran the entire Hillary Clinton Email Exoneration charade in 2015 and 2016. No recusal.
Because of Jeff Sessions’ foolish recusal, Obama’s fellow Harvard Law Review editor Rod Rosenstein has been overseeing the Mueller witch hunt. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), hero of the Kavanaugh confirmation battle, sent a letter to Rosenstein back in June asking him why he hasn’t recused himself from the Russiagate coup.
Graham pointed out in his letter that Rosenstein authored the memo which recommended that President Trump fire James Comey. As soon as Trump fired James Comey – on Rosenstein’s recommendation – Rosenstein turned around and appointed Mueller as the Special Counsel. Sen. Graham correctly notes that since Rosenstein recommended the firing of Comey, and since Mueller was appointed to investigate possible “obstruction of justice” over this act as part of the Russia fraud, Rosenstein is therefore a material witness in the case.
Sen. Graham is absolutely right. How can Rosenstein be overseeing an investigation that was sparked by Rosenstein’s recommendation? Isn’t that enough of a conflict of interest to concern anyone at the Justice Department?
But even more importantly is the fact that Rod Rosenstein’s wife is a spook attorney who has worked on behalf of the Clintons and the Deep State for decades. Rosenstein’s wife is named Lisa Barsoomian. As Trump campaign advisor Roger Stone has pointed out:
“Lisa Barsoomian works for R. Craig Lawrence, an attorney who has represented Robert Mueller three times, James Comey five times, Barack Obama forty-five times, Kathleen Sebellius fifty-six times, Bill Clinton forty times, and Hillary Clinton seventeen times between 1991 and 2017.”
Er… what?
Sure enough, Barsoomian is a high-powered lawyer in the DC swamp. As an assistant US Attorney, Barsoomian was mentored by James Comey and Robert Mueller, and in turn represented them both during their stints as FBI Directors.
One of Barsoomian’s specialties is crushing FOIA requests for the FBI, CIA and NSA’s illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of Americans with mass warrants. The most recent news article about her details her efforts in August to squash a Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the FBI’s “Carnivore” spying tool.
Carnivore is apparently a gadget that the FBI can attach to the hardware at your Internet Service Provider’s location to spy on all incoming and outgoing information on your computer’s IP address. Combined with the secret government warrants that FBI Directors have given themselves the power to issue without a judge’s approval, Carnivore is obviously a tool that privacy hawks are concerned about. Barsoomian was sent in by the FBI to shut down efforts to learn more about this tool.
Although we know the number of times that Barsoomian has represented the Clintons, Mueller and Comey, the court documents at the DC Circuit have been curiously removed. It would be interesting to see which cases she worked on for the Clintons back in the 1990s, as they were being investigated (and ultimately exonerated) dozens of times.
But more importantly, isn’t her relationship to the Clintons and marriage to Rod Rosenstein grounds for Rosenstein’s recusal? Not in The Swamp, apparently.
