Liberal Hypocrisy: White House & Don McGahn Attacked for Being Too Transparent

On Saturday, the New York Times published an expose on how White House Counsel and former Trump campaign counsel Don McGahn has been cooperating with the Mueller investigation and has given thirty hours of interviews.  Yet, instead of being praised for his cooperation and transparency, Mr. McGahn's character is being attacked by the "Gray Lady" in its ongoing efforts to undermine President Trump.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board responded, pointing out that Mr. McGahn could have only cooperated with President Trump's permission:

The thesis of the New York Times story is that Mr. McGahn cooperated in a way that could hurt Donald Trump in order to protect himself and because he doesn’t trust the President. This fits the media narrative that Mr. Trump is covering up his collusion with Russia and his obstruction of justice, and thus Mr. McGahn must be scrambling to save himself. 

Yet lost in the resulting tempest is a crucial fact that appears to contradict this spin: Mr. Trump had to waive executive privilege for Mr. McGahn to cooperate with Mr. Mueller. . . . But as White House counsel Mr. McGahn represents the Presidency. He is a careful enough lawyer to advise Mr. Trump that agreeing to answer Mr. Mueller’s questions would waive executive privilege. And the Times reports that Mr. McGahn’s attorney, William Burck, said on the record that Mr. McGahn cooperated only after Mr. Trump waived any privilege claim.

Executive privilege is held by the chief executive - the President - and as with other legal privileges, only the holder of the privilege can waive it.  Unlike President Clinton when investigated by Ken Starr or President Obama's administration when investigated by Congress, President Trump has nothing to hide and is cooperating with the Mueller investigation, despite its problems and failure to return any evidence of wrongdoing by the President or his campaign after over a year of investigation:

This isn’t what you’d expect if Mr. Trump is leading a coverup. . . . Yet when Mr. Trump doesn’t invoke privilege for his White House counsel, he gets no credit. . . . Keep in mind that Mr. Trump’s lawyers cooperated extensively with Mr. Mueller for months, turning over tens of thousands of documents—also without claiming executive privilege.

The Wall Street Journal's editorial board pointed to the heart of the problem in the Times' misleading report - the effort to portray the Trump White House as fractured.  Mr. McGahn has been loyal to the President throughout his cooperation with the Mueller investigation:

Mr. McGahn has been one of the President’s most effective advisers—notably on judicial nominations. But some in and outside the White House resent his influence and might want to portray him as undermining Mr. Trump. The bottom line is that readers should remain skeptical about what is reported about Mr. Mueller’s probe, waiting to see the evidence he actually produces.

To see the double standard here, one must only imagine what the news stories would be were the political parties reversed.  The mainstream media would lament the waste of taxpayer dollars spent on a lengthy, unnecessary investigation by the Republicans and either applaud a Democratic administration for cooperating with it for the good of the country or defend the administration for not cooperating.

President Trump's Superb First Year of Judicial Nominations

Ed Whelan writes about President Trump's superb judicial nominees during his first year in office in the January issue of National Review:

Trump’s most important achievement on the judicial front in 2017 was his appointment of Supreme Court justice Neil Gorsuch to fill the vacancy left by Antonin Scalia’s death in February 2016. That appointment consummated Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell’s strategy of keeping the vacancy open through the 2016 presidential election, and it resoundingly vindicated the wisdom of that strategy. . . .

In 2017, President Trump also appointed twelve federal appellate judges — a record for a president in his first year in office. . . . Beyond their number, Trump’s appellate appointees have, on the whole, outstanding credentials and are highly regarded in conservative legal circles. Indeed, six of the twelve have already earned their way onto Trump’s list of Supreme Court candidates. The twelve include three women [and] two Asian Americans . . . .

Three factors account for this remarkable success on federal appellate judges. First, the conservative legal movement has grown significantly over the past two decades. . . . Second, thank Harry Reid. In November 2013, the Democratic majority leader pushed to repeal the filibuster for lower-court (and executive-branch) nominees. His success meant that a steadfast minority of 41 or more senators could no longer block a judicial nomination. . . . Third, federal appellate nominations mattered deeply to the key players. Kudos to President Trump and White House counsel Don McGahn for selecting excellent nominees, and to Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley for placing a high priority on moving them through to confirmation.

But Mr. Whelan notes that, despite last year's successes, much work remains to be done, partly due to the huge number of vacancies that need to be filled and partly due to the obstruction of Senate Democrats at every step of the process:

Two big obstacles — one at the front end of the nomination process, the other at the back end — have caused these impasses and threaten to continue to stymie judicial confirmations. The front-end obstacle is the Senate Judiciary Committee’s so-called blue-slip privilege, which accords individual senators the opportunity to approve or disapprove of judicial nominees in their home states (and which derives its name from the piece of paper that senators once used to register their views). . . . Given the stark divide on judicial philosophy between the White House and Senate Democrats, not to mention the animosity between them, it’s no surprise that the consultations that the White House has undertaken on judicial nominations have yielded little fruit. . . . [The confirmation] line may prove long and slow because of the back-end obstacle that nominees face: the Senate’s arcane and cumbersome “cloture” process.

The entire article is well worth reading for a summary of the current status of federal judicial nominations.  As he notes, White House Counsel Don McGahn, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley have been instrumental to the success of President Trump's first year, and Americans owe them a debt of gratitude.

Don McGahn Summarizes Trump Administration's Work on Judicial Nominations and Regulatory Reform

This evening, White House Counsel and 2017 Ed Meese Award winner Don McGahn addressed the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention.  RNLA live-tweeted the speech, and all the tweets can be viewed here.  Mr. McGahn focused on the rule of law, due process, the administrative state, and the role of judges.  Here are some highlights:

WHC Don McGahn: Very fortunate to serve a President committed to nominating and confirming judges who are committed originalists and textualists. #FedSoc2017

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 17, 2017

WHC Don McGahn: The greatest threat to the rule of law in our modern society is the ever expanding administrative state and the most effective bulwark against that is a strong judiciary. #FedSoc2017

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 17, 2017

WHC Don McGahn: Regulatory reform and judicial selection are deeply connected and are the two greatest issues this administration will address. #FedSoc2017

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 17, 2017

WHC Don McGahn: No way for regular people in small businesses to keep up with the regulatory and sub-regulatory actions pouring out of the administrative state's spigot. #FedSoc2017

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 17, 2017

WHC Don McGahn: Modern regulatory system makes a mockery of the finely tuned system of checks and balances in the Constitution. When we tinker with the design, we tinker with our freedom. #FedSoc2017

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 17, 2017

WHC Don McGahn: This administration's mandate on judicial selection is clear: choose judges in the mold of Justice Scalia, Justice Thomas, and now Justice Gorsuch. #FedSoc2017

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 17, 2017

WHC Don McGahn: Interpretive principles articulated by Justice Scalia are the very bedrock of due process and the rule of law. Justice Thomas' opinions make clear these are missing in our administrative state. #FedSoc2017

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 17, 2017

WHC Don McGahn: Chairman Grassley and his team have done an outstanding job moving nominees through the Judiciary Committee. Majority Leader McConnell created this opportunity through his courage. #FedSoc2017

— RNLA (@TheRepLawyer) November 17, 2017

The entire speech can be viewed here.  We are deeply indebted to Mr. McGahn and his team in the White House Counsel's office for their vital work helping President Trump select excellent judicial nominees and to the Trump Administration for its efforts to roll back the regulatory overreach of the Obama administration and make the federal government more responsive to the people.

Former FEC Chairman Brad Smith: FEC's Weintraub Should Resign

Former FEC Chairman Brad Smith wrote today that it is time for FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub to resign, because her political attacks against President Trump and White House Counsel Don McGahn are jeopardizing the FEC's ability to perform its legitimate function:

These various examples show a trend, not of one-off slips of the tongue or misdirected zeal, but rather of a concerted messaging strategy whereby Commissioner Weintraub has intentionally aligned herself with those opposed to the President and his White House Counsel. Thus, while skirting along the edges of government ethics rules, Weintraub has placed herself in a position where any participation by her in a matter involving the Trump campaign could jeopardize any agency finding against the campaign. . . .

For some time now, Weintraub has apparently given up on the substantive work of the FEC in favor of pursuing her obsession with McGahn (who left the Commission nearly four years ago) and political grandstanding. On the latter front, her erratic behavior goes beyond criticizing McGahn and attempting to troll the President. In 2016, she appeared at a “Democracy Awakening” rally, leading the crowd in chants of “Hell No” and “Hell Yes,” while promoting a variety of liberal goals, and criticizing political donors for being overly “white” and “male.” In 2015, having lost a vote at the Commission to launch a new rulemaking, she pulled the stunt of petitioning her own agency to start such a rulemaking. When her colleagues refused to accept her petition, she accused them of denying that she was a “person” and used an open meeting of the Commission to make fatuous arguments about the FEC’s statute and commissioners’ eligibility to file a petition that would earn an “F” in any law school class on statutory construction — even at Harvard. 

If Commissioner Weintraub wishes to be an unserious, progressive martyr on the Commission, it is certainly within her rights to do so. Indeed, that may be her strategy to stay on the Commission, even though her term ended over a decade ago (she continues to serve as an “acting” commissioner). If she criticizes the President enough, she can spin to a ferociously anti-Trump press that any effort to replace her is an effort to silence the hunt for truth. The problem is that there is actual work to do at the FEC. When Commissioner Weintraub engages in ad hominem public attacks on the lawyers representing parties before her agency, repeatedly criticizes the President on matters outside her jurisdiction — or worse, within it — speaks publicly about pending MURs, and announces in advance her views on issues she will have to vote on, it is a problem, not just for her and the Agency she represents, but for the American public.

Prof. Smith detailed Weintraub's recent partisan excesses: how she used her FEC position and FEC resources to engage in partisan activity, namely criticizing President Trump; how she is engaged in a constant campaign of personal attacks against former FEC Commissioner and current White House Counsel Don McGahn; and how she seeks to expand the FEC's -- and therefore her -- jurisdiction to every aspect of federal elections.  Further, Prof. Smith details how just a few weeks ago, Weintraub's public comments may have jeopardized her impartiality on any matter regarding President Trump and his re-election and violated restrictions on FEC employees:

But Weintraub has pressed further. Also on May 23, she called for an investigation of whether Russian agents paid for Facebook ads designed to help then-candidate Trump in the 2016 campaign. Notably, given her criticisms of the President on voter fraud, she offered no evidence to support her allegation that “there is potential there for finding a violation.” More importantly, Weintraub again revealed her bias. Having made the allegation, Weintraub attempted to cover her tracks by adding, “I don’t want to suggest that I have prejudged anything that could potentially come before me.” . . . First, would any impartial observer take seriously her claim that she has not “prejudged anything,” particularly in light of her repeated rants against the President? . . . Second, even if one takes Commissioner Weintraub at her word, the first vote that the FEC takes on any enforcement matter is whether to open an investigation, which is based on whether there is “reason to believe” that an investigation is warranted. Weintraub has already publicly commented on precisely that question. . . . Finally, Weintraub may have violated the legal restrictions on FEC employees commenting on pending investigations.

We will continue to follow Commissioner Weintraub's partisan excesses and hope that she resigns soon so that a commissioner who takes his or her position at the FEC seriously can be appointed to replace her.

Important Work by Don McGahn as White House Counsel

Today, Politico profiled 2017 Ed Meese Award winner Don McGahn's important work as White House Counsel to President Trump:

McGahn’s . . . office of roughly 26 attorneys provides the administration with the intellectual underpinning for its most significant decisions, including the military strikes in Syria, the legality of the travel bans and immigration executive orders, the vetting of political appointees and the policing of conflicts of interest. . . . 

McGahn's friends and fellow lawyers say he’s well-equipped to play a leading role as a trusted legal and political adviser. 

“McGahn is involved in everything. I am not exaggerating,” said longtime friend Randy Evans, [former] chairman of the Republican National Lawyers Association. “When you prove to be a reliable voice, who not only gives good legal answers but also good political ones, that is increasingly what happens. You get called on more and more.” . . .  

On hiring, McGahn must approve every lawyer within each agency’s general counsel’s office, down to the most junior member. . . . Outside the executive branch, McGahn is moving to radically reshape the entire judicial system by hand selecting over 100 judges to fill lower court vacancies. . . . McGahn also shepherded Neil Gorsuch through the Supreme Court confirmation process, one of the longest-lasting policy moves a president can make and one of the few highlights of Trump’s first 100 days in office. . . . He’s also taken a leading role in pushing the administration’s efforts to examine and trim back the federal government’s broad array of regulations, according to Leonard Leo, executive vice president of the Federalist Society, who took a leave to advise Trump on the Supreme Court and worked closely with McGahn on the confirmation fight. “Every White House counsel has enormous influence, and Don McGahn is no exception to that,” Leo said.

Thank you, Don McGahn, for your important work serving President Trump and the country as White House Counsel.  You can watch Mr. McGahn's remarks from the 2017 National Policy Conference upon receiving the Ed Meese Award here (beginning at 35:25).

Left Attacks Don McGahn to "Settle Old Political Scores"

One of the most popular targets of attack in the Trump administration for the media, Democrats, and other liberals is White House Counsel Don McGahn.  As RNLA Vice President for Election Education David Warrington wrote last week:

Liberal media’s long knives are out for individual White House staffers, because in the spirit of Saul Alinsky, liberal objectives justify cutting individuals personally and driving them from the arena. In the last two weeks it’s been White House counsel Don McGahn’s turn at the cutting table. . . .

He restored due process for American citizens who appear before a federal agency run amok — the FEC. . . . Fortunately, McGahn restored agency functions to conform to the agency’s statutory mandate. Contrary to the impression in the hit pieces, it was McGahn who respected and enforced the law and democratic accountability to make presidentially appointed and Senate-confirmed officials responsible for agency actions. 

Of course, for liberals who believe in investing governmental power in unelected liberal bureaucrats — and they are indeed reliable to pursue liberal objectives with the power of government in their hands — McGahn defeated the kind of unaccountable agency power they desire. . . .  

Thus all of the manufactured worrying over McGahn’s role as White House counsel is misplaced.  

After the immense respect for individual rights, the rule of law, and due process that he demonstrated at the FEC, Americans should be reassured that Mr. McGahn is advising President Trump on legal matters.  
Mr. McGahn and the White House Counsel's office have an important role advising President Trump, and there are many talented, experienced lawyers working with Mr. McGahn in the Counsel's office, including former RNLA Board of Governors member Stefan Passantino: President Donald J. Trump Announces Key Additions to the Office of the White House Counsel.

As the Trump administration continues to introduce and implement its policy initiatives, Mr. McGahn will increasingly be in the media crosshairs for giving sound legal advice to President Trump.  Thank you, Don McGahn, for serving the President and our nation. 

The Left's Continuing Witch Hunt of Trump Administration Officials

This afternoon, David Warrington, RNLA's Vice President for Election Education, penned an op-ed for the Daily Caller, entitled: "The Witch Hunt Against Sessions Will Just Make Democrats Look Ridiculous." The article calls out and refutes any claims of "perjury" made by the left regarding Attorney General Jeff Sessions' testimony.

General Sessions did not commit perjury, either under the legal standard or the looser political standard, or intentionally mislead Congress or the American people.  Indeed, in the statements at issue, he responded as any skilled lawyer would—by actually answering the question that was asked. 

During his lengthy confirmation hearings, then-Senator Sessions was asked by Senator Al Franken about a news story regarding compromising information the Russians allegedly had about Donald Trump: “There was a continuing exchange of information during the campaign between Trump’s surrogates and intermediaries for the Russian government.’ . . . [I]f there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?”  Sessions responded: “Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have — did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”

Sessions responded, “No,” to Senator Patrick Leahy’s written interrogatory: “Have you been in contact with anyone connected to any part of the Russian government about the 2016 election, either before or after election day?”

The context of both of these questions make clear the Senators were asking, and Sessions was responding, about interactions with Russian officials with regard to the 2016 election.  Senator Franken’s question specified communications by persons affiliated with the campaign “in the course of this campaign” with a lengthy introduction describing a news story about an exchange of information between the campaign and the Russian government.  Senator Leahy’s question specified communication “about the 2016 election.”

Mr. Warrington continues by explaining that it is normal--in fact routine--for members of Congress to meet with foreign dignitaries.

House Speaker Paul Ryan attended a reception at the Capitol that had scores of ambassadors within the last year, he just met with the Indian Ambassador this week, and members of Congress meet with foreign ambassadors “all the time.”

Over just the last few years, news stories of members of Congress meeting with or working with foreign diplomats for a variety of reasons have regularly been in the news.  In late 2015, while the Senate was considering the Iran Deal and Treaty, many foreign ambassadors met with senators to lobby for the Iran Deal. This included top diplomats from Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China.

In 2014, leading up to the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, Senator Chuck Schumer launched a campaign and wrote to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak requesting yogurt from the United States be allowed into Russia for American Olympic athletes.  Also in 2014, Senators Dick Durbin and John McCain met with Ambassadors from Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, and even Russian Ambassador Kislyak to discuss Russian incursions into Crimea over a several week period.  Meanwhile in 2013, a bipartisan group of Senators met with Ambassador Kislyak to plead for the end of the ban on adoption ban in Russia by American parents. The meeting was organized by then-Senator Landrieu and attended by Senators Casey, Whitehouse, McCaskill, Klobuchar, Reed, Bozeman, Wicker, and others.

Not to mention that Senator McCaskill also met with the Russian Ambassador--but, forgot.

Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill declared on Twitter yesterday that as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, like former Senator Sessions, she had never met with the Russian Ambassador.  Yet, a quick search of her Twitter feed reveals at least two meetings with the Russian Ambassador in recent years.

In short, this is nothing new, but yet another witch hunt. However, we have seen this all before. This is just the latest tactic ripped from the left's playbook in an attempt to discredit, marginalize, and obstruct President Trump and his administration officials through personal attacks before they can even govern.

Just take a look at some recent stories that we have highlighted here and on Facebook:

• Different Ethical Standards for Republican and Democratic Lawyers? (Ethics complaint against Kellyanne Conway)
• Partisanship and Hypocrisy on Free Speech by FEC Democrats Should Concern Citizens

• Loss of Senate Decorum is Hurting America: Well-Qualified Candidates Opt Out Instead

• The Hill: Democrats, media are launching Alinskyesque attacks on McGahn

• Democrats Plan to Delay Trump's Nominees; Demanded Speedy Confirmations for Obama's