The New York Gang, apparently again not so transparent since Kushner, Manafort and Trump Junior are all having their Senate Hearings behind closed doors!

 

If ever President Trump complains about former FBI director James Comey or Attorney General Jeff Sessions, know that they had the courage and the capacity to be asked in public about their acts and their meetings that was involving the Russian Probe. Not that Sessions said much or could recall anything, at least he could sit there and take it like a man. I respect that part, not that I like the AG Sessions, but give credit where it is due.

On the other hand, the rest of the New York Gang, who had the famous June 2016 meeting are this week been called for public hearings and questioned by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Where Senator Grassley sadly has accepted that Jared Kushner, he is the man who can solve all crisis, Donald Trump Junior, the current chief of Trump Organization, and former Campaign Manager Paul Manafort will testify behind closed doors! They cannot be perceived as transparent ever again, they cannot even tell the truth under oath on C-Span.

What a weak brigade of gangsters, who cannot even take their plausible interactions with foreign officials and questions about their possible lies and ever changing stories into the public sphere. It is as if they got too much to hide and has only dropped a few tears, and not the whole bucket of water, but that is just how me sensei see it!

Not like the Trump Organization or the President likes transparency, if not he would have showed the world when running as nominee or even as Presidential Candidate the IRS Tax Returns, for himself and his business. However, with the shady backdrop of business transactions of the so-called empire. It would be more believable if it was not just a spreadsheet of possible values as been given ever since.

It is not like the son-in-law Kushner has all truthful in the paper-trial on the revised forms; there are always coming new loans and estates, businesses and people that he met. However, he still have security clearance and possibility to do as he please. The same has been done by AG Sessions, he did not disclose meeting with foreign officials when sworn-in. Therefore, the New York Gang is not about the transparency, not the one in the Presidents eye, Trump Junior who is so transparent, had to revise his story three times over the weekend about the Russian meeting, as more people connected became news.

So that these people are now behind closed doors and not sworn-in under oath as Jack Tapper reported yesterday is insane and show how little integrity and pride for the Republic the New York Gang, if they had nothing to hide. Why not release all call-logs, e-mail chains and all sort of data in combination with the questionable meetings with Sergey Kislyak and other Russian during the Trump Campaign. Why not release the documentation for instance on the financial transactions in/with Russia? That is if, you want to be up-front and has nothing to hide, but clearly you do, since you have no interest doing so in the past and neither today.

That is why the President blames both democrats and republicans on Capitol Hill for not supporting him. As if it is their issue, that the President has not been truthful and knows what troubles he is in. The Presidency might be powerful, but is not all-powerful. The President is neither a monarch nor God. Therefore, it times to drink the Kool-Aid and revise, maybe even come forward. It will cost, cost so much and the efforts to undermine the democracy and state should go. Not that they will, since they have it and they will not let it go.

We will not know what sort of intelligence or information that comes out of the closed-doors meeting in the senate. That will come later in reports, if not in drip-drops like everything in this matter. I hope that Robert Mueller, the Special Investigator into the case will find some insights and can dig deeper in the New York Gang. Therefore, the truth and the most likely collusion can come forward with all of the federal charges that the Trump Organization might have committed. Since it has been all hidden, until he took public office and were scrutinized.

We know of some dealings and some shady practices, some lacking payments of contractors, of salaries and even being behold to agreements. That has been shown, also that the Trump Tower was helped by mafia to withhold the work force in the midst of strikes. In addition, the frauds like Trump University and others, where the striking salesperson Trump used his name to trick people to buy into the “get-rich-scheme”. He cannot use the gig now in the same manner and a person like Mueller has fried bigger fish than him. I cannot wait to read his reports and his investigation documents. When they are released, whenever that might be, the whole operation and the details will shed light on the dark secrets the New York Gang has so desperately hidden. Peace.

South Sudan: Have little faith in reviving ARCSS or the Peace-Agreement 2015, which is the new effort started by IGAD in Juba today!

It’s been a while since the ‘Compromise Peace Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan’ on the date 26th August 2015, where the different parts of the South Sudanese conflict together with Ethiopian diplomats and IGAD secretariat made an inclusive agreement for all parties. This peace-agreement was short lived, as the stay of Dr. Riek Machar and his SPLM-IO wasn’t long in Juba. The months after the IGAD-Plus mediation after the Peace-Agreement fall apart in 2016. He came back in July 2016 to implement the Peace Agreement with the SPLA/M and President Salva Kiir Mayardiit. It was the same month the fires between Kiir’s guards and Machar’s guards that flared the skirmishes and the whole civil war between these war-lords.

The moments of peace in the new Republic has been short… nearly glimpse of hope of a new journey as a nation. The IGAD, JMEC and UNMISS have all been involved together with Troika of Norway, United States of America and United Kingdom, they have all set their provisions and their mandates to make the place better. Still, with all these organizations, multi-national organization, all sort of dialogue and extra-ordinary meetings in Ethiopia, Ugandan and in Kenya. Still, the measures haven’t added-up.

SPLM-IO is split in two fractions, different opposition rebellious groups tied down to bring down SPLA/M, the SPLM-IG, the President Kiir fraction by force and by will of the guns. That wasn’t there when the latest Peace Agreement in 2015 was signed and supposed to be implemented in 2016. Still, the IGAD are meeting today and tomorrow for yet another extraordinary meeting in Juba. Its like the Ethiopian and IGAD Secretariat tries to make themselves important and revive a dead agreement. It is sad to say the 2015 Agreement gone to the wind, but the blazing rifles and massive amounts of refugees should be powerful statement of misguided policies towards the Nation. It might have been done in good-will and with good-purposes. However, the War-Lords have not put the guns and tactics of the bush-wars.

The deserters and opposition forces are maneuvering, while the National Dialogue meetings are not for anything more than making more people loyal to the President. Since it is not involving all parties or all parts of the SPLM. That shows the intent of the Ugandan President Museveni who knows how war-games and shadow games work in politics. Therefore when I read statement from the Ethiopian government on the meeting, I am not hopeful:

Dr Workneh Gebeyehu arrives at Juba Airport, South Sudan in the afternoon for talks on revitalization of the Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS) as per the decesion reached by the 57th extraordinary Session of IGAD Council of Ministers. Up on arrival Foreign Minister of the Republic of South Sudan Deng Alor Kuol warmly recieved his Ethiopian counterpart. Ambassador Fisseha Shawol and Staff members of Ethiopian Embassy in Juba also joined the occassion. Foreign Ministers of the Sudan and Djibouti are also in the Republic of South Sudan for the revitalization talk. The delegation led by Dr Workneh included State Minister Mrs. Hirut Zemene and Ambassador Shamebo Fitamo among others. IGAD led by Dr Workneh will meet the president of South Sudan and will have discussion with AU, UN, EU, Troika and other partners on the revitalization process of the peace accord” (The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, 23.07.2017).

So now two years after the 2015 agreement they want to breath life into the dead and after three days Jesus came-up from the dead, he walked out of the grave and walk into the desert. Well, the same will not happen for ARCSS, the rebels will not accept the power-structure and the possible interference from President Kiir. Seems like the foul play that has been done. Not that this only be the answer, all of the parties are not at the meeting in Juba. The foreign partners of the legit government SPLM-IG are sitting drinking coffee and tea, discussion provision and possible amendments passing the minutes and trying to figure out the troubling affairs. As the villages has been burned, the famines has hit areas and even corridors of food supplies has to come across the borders through Sudan to feed the hungry. This proves the volatile situation.

The IGAD meetings now, is in good spirit, but out of bound. Out of reach and doesn’t have the focus, just like the National Dialogue meetings at the Okello State in Entebbe, Uganda. They are with good intentions, but when all parties aren’t present, when all voices aren’t included and the rebels are running large, when the new groups are appearing will to risk it all to get rid of the Central Government. When reports that civilians are running and fleeing when government forces are coming, but giving food to rebels. Because the rebels shows more mercy than the forces supported by the President in Juba. You should know the are certain approaches and certain roads not taken…

There been many bridges burned, lot of water under the same bridge and even more more huts put on fire. The reality is these talks are not sincere, and will not been seen as honest efforts. When you have not engaged the whole specter of forces or voices, who uses guns and tactics to overthrow Kiir. There are not like in 2015, about SPLM-IG and SPLM-IO, now the situation are more complex and grown more dire. It isn’t just two elephants fighting and hurting the grass. So I am less than hopeful for the efforts done by IGAD, IGAD-Plus or any sort of body trying to intervene. Not because I don’t want peace.

If there is supposed to be real peace, there needs to be talk between all the ones who is hurt, all the ones who is someone and also the leadership of the rebels, armies and whatnot involved in the battles, done in the states, towns and villages. These ones cannot be silenced because the IGAD doesn’t recognize their effort to undermine international contribution, neither can National Dialogue if it is a sincere way of generating hope not include the SPLM-IO, but they don’t. It show lack of will and also wish of total control. Hope that the ones with biggest army and biggest fund will be able to sustain the warfare longer than the rebels. Peace.

Pardon me Trump, you are not above the law Part II

I have to continue since you are so persistent in your belief that you are greater and grander than the law. It should be insulting the American people and the Constitution to have such a President like you Trump. Who has the audacity to put himself on the pedestal and think he could do anything to anyone and then get away it with it. It is insulting and beneath the office and beneath the possible position your are holding at the moment. Donald J. Trump, you act like thief and act like disgrace in the White House. If you we’re innocent and your family we’re the same? Why need to be pardoned. If the Trump Campaign and the Trump Organization was clean of guilt, why need the pardon? Do you think the American people are that ignorant and stupid, to not see this. The whole world see it and how you are eaten inside by the guilt of your association and use of Russian questionable financial transaction to keep yourself afloat.

Because of this and your continues allegations and attacks on peers. Your misuse of power and your wish to undermine the American democracy and institutions. It is time to again. Go back in time, last time it was the advice Richard Nixon asked for days before his impeachment for obstruction against justice. The same sort of acts President Trump is currently doing and undermining the law as much as he can. Therefore I have to go back to a document based in 1998, when Law Professor Rotunda are writing to Judge Kenneth Starr on indictment. This was on the matter of then President Bill Clinton. But worth noting certain fragments of document to show the capacity President Trump has under current legislation. Not that he understands it, unless it 140 words or explained to him on ‘Fox and Friends’. Still, worth noting though!

For Example, if the President in a moment of passion slugs an irritating heckler, he has committed a criminal battery. But no one would suggest that the President should be removed from office simply because of an assault. Yet the President has no right to assault hecklers. If there is no recourse against the President, if he cannot be prosecuted for violating the criminal laws, he will be above the law. Clinton vs. Jones rejected such an immunity; instead, it emphatically agreed with the Eight Circuit that: “the President, like other officials, is subject to the same laws that apply to all citizens”. The “rational for official immunity is inapposite where only personal, private conduct by a President is a issue”. The President has no immunity in such a case. If the Constitution prevents the President from being indicted for violations of one or more federal crime statutes, even if those statutory violations are not impeachable offences, then the Constitution authorizes the President to be above the law. But the Constitution creates an Executive Branch with the President under sworn obligation to faithfully executive the law. The Constitution does not create an absolute Monarch above the law” (Rotunda, P: 5, 1998).

As Nixon vs. Sirica carefully noted: “Because impeachment is available against all ‘civil officers of the United States’ not merely against the President, it is difficult to understand how many immunites peculiar to the President can emanate by implication from the fact of impeachability”. Moreover, it would be anomalous and aberrant to interpret the Impeachment Clause to immunize the President for alleged criminal acts, some which occurred prior to the time he assumed the Presidency and all far removed from any of the President’s enumerated duties: witness tampering, destruction of documents, subornation of perjury perjury, illegal pay-offs” (Rotunda, P: 7, 1998).

Later, in Clinton v. Jones, the Court rejected any notion of Presidential immunity (even a temporary immunity) for the President who is sued by a private civil litigant for damages involving acts not within his Presidential duties. In that case, President Clinton’s “strongest argument” supporting his claim for immunity on a temporary basis, the Court said, was the claim that the President occupies a “unique office” and burdening him with litigation would violate the constitutional separation of powers and unduly interfere with the President’s performance of his official duties” (Rotunda, P: 36, 1998).

These factors all buttress and lead to the same conclusion: it is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting President for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the President’s official duties. In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law” (Rotunda, P: 55, 1998).

This conclusion does not imply that a President must be required to serve an actual prison term before he leaves office. The defendant President could remain free pending his trial, and the trial court could defer any prison sentence until he leaves office. The defendant-President may petition the courts to exercise its discretion in appropriate cases. It is one thing for the President to petition the court to exercise its discretion; it is quite another for the President to announce that he is above the law and immune from criminal prosecution” (Rotunda, P: 55, 1998).

This letter of Law Professor Rotunda states very clearly the provisions and special place within the Republic the President has and the laws that needs to be extended to prosecute him/her. So with this in mind, no one not even President Clinton was above the law. The same scenario remains today with President Trump. That Nixon tried to find ways to pardon himself is clear, the same does now President Trump.

The possible collusion and collaboration with foreign officials and entities will be more clear as the investigation and drops of information leaks to the press. The more meetings, lack of disclosure from the Trump Organization and the Trump Campaign. The same is it his family and associates, as long as the narrative still exists and there are plot-lines to define. The story will live on and the investigators will look into the possible breaches. The Office of Special Council Robert Mueller has lots of power. Something, President Trump cannot stop. Therefore, Tucker Carlson and others trying to gain leverage and saying the investigation makes everything in Mosciw illegal, like buying cigarettes in Moscow. That show’s the disrespect of a criminal investigation by the Trump Friendly Press like Fox News and Sinclair Media.

While that goes on, the 1998 letter show’s that the President can be prosecuted and is not a person who cannot be put on trial. What is different unless there is a special court and trial, the criminal offenses done before his Presidential Term and his sentencing has to be served after his term. That because of the Executive Branch and the august role of government the President are. Certainly, ironic writing that while describing Trump.

This will be lines from the letter, that says the most for me, because the criminal offenses before the Presidential Term: “it would be anomalous and aberrant to interpret the Impeachment Clause to immunize the President for alleged criminal acts, some which occurred prior to the time he assumed the Presidency and all far removed from any of the President’s enumerated duties: witness tampering, destruction of documents, subornation of perjury perjury, illegal pay-offs” (Rotunda, 1998).

So obstruction of justice, which is witness tampering and destruction of documents are likely things that people knows Trump has done or wanting to do. That is why Special Investigator Mueller has asked the government and White House to keep their documents relating to Russian affairs and the known meetings with Russians. So the investigation looks into the possible crimes of the Presidency before and also, within, but the impeachment would happen with a federal grand jury, where the President is sentenced for crimes, which is not in the President’s Office duties. So, the possible grand jury are there as much as it was for Nixon and was for Clinton. No difference for Trump, unless the House of Representatives and Senators at the Congress are spineless individuals who are all loyal to Moscow and Russians like Trump. Peace.

Reference:

Ronald R. Rotunda letter to Judge Kenneth W. Starr – ‘Re: Indictability of the President’ (13.05.1998)

Kenya: NASA Condems Plans for Military Involvement in Election (23.07.2017)

Troika and EU Joint Statement on South Sudan (21.07.2017)

The text of the following statement was issued jointly by the Governments of the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Norway, and the European Union.

LONDON, United Kingdom, July 21, 2017 – The members of the Troika (Norway, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and the European Union condemn the continuing violence in South Sudan, especially the Government of South Sudan’s current offensive against SPLM-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) forces near Pagak, as well as ongoing road ambushes and attacks by the SPLM-IO. The Pagak offensive is a clear violation of the unilateral ceasefire declared by President Salva Kiir on May 22, and calls into question the government’s commitment to reach peace through the National Dialogue, notwithstanding the sincere efforts undertaken by the leaders of the Steering Committee.

The Troika and EU repeat and endorse the June 12 call by the leaders of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) for President Kiir to ensure that his forces respect the unilateral ceasefire, for the armed opposition groups to reciprocate the ceasefire, and for all groups to allow the unfettered delivery of humanitarian assistance to all those in need. We also welcome IGAD’s announcement of a High-Level Revitalization Forum for the South Sudan peace process. We call upon IGAD to expeditiously convene the Forum, and to include the current principal parties to the conflict. Likewise, we urge all parties to fully participate in the Forum. The Troika and EU agree with IGAD that the Forum should focus on achieving a ceasefire and resuming political dialogue that focuses on updating the agreement’s timelines and other provisions that are now obsolete in light of the expansion of conflict since 2015.

The proliferation of violence, displacement, and food insecurity renders any discussion of elections in the foreseeable future as an unnecessary diversion from the primary goals of achieving peace and reconciliation. South Sudan’s leaders, neighbors, and regional and international partners must first focus on achieving peace in order to create the conditions needed to hold credible elections. To achieve these urgent goals, we look forward to the prompt revitalization of an inclusive and credible peace process by IGAD; such progress would be required in order for the Troika and EU to commit further resources to institutions designed to implement the agreement.

United State Senate – Committee of the Judiciary letter to Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP requesting documents relating to the Russian Probe (19.07.2017)

United States Senate – Committee of the Judiciary letter to the Trump Organization requesting documents relating to the Russian Probe (19.07.2017)

United States Senate – Committee of the Judiciary letter to Donald Trump Junior requesting documents relating to the Russian Probe (19.07.2017)

United States Senate – Committe of the Judiciary letter to Paul Manafort requesting documents relating to the Russian Probe (19.07.2017)

RDC: Declaration Politique des Deputes Nationaux du Grand-Nord sur la Situation Securitaire Deficitaire (20.07.2017)