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| Andrew McCarthy: Debunking BuzzFeed and the Wages of Investigative Secrecy |
| 2019-01-20 |
| [National Review] BuzzFeed published an explosive allegation that the president of the United States ordered his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, to lie to congressional committees investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. Specifically, in a news story sourced to two anonymous law-enforcement officials said to be "involved in an investigation of the matter," the site reported that Special Counsel Robert Mueller had learned, though multiple witnesses and documents, of President Trump’s alleged instruction to Cohen; subsequently, upon being confronted by prosecutors, Cohen had supposedly admitted that Trump gave the order. As a rule, Mueller does not comment on press reports about his probe. Yet, in a highly unusual move Friday night, the prosecutor refuted the story by reporters Jason Leopold and Anthony Cormier. Through a spokesman, Mueller asserted: BuzzFeed’s description of specific statements to the special counsel’s office, and characterization of documents and testimony obtained by this office, regarding Michael Cohen’s congressional testimony are not accurate. Clearly, Mueller did the right thing. The reporting had triggered a frenzy of commentary by Trump critics that impeachment was imminent, and even many chagrined Trump supporters conceded that, if the report was true, the presidency was in grave peril. Had Mueller stood idly by, the administration, and thus the governance of the nation, would have been engulfed in a ruinous storm of suspicion. It is not the special counsel’s job to correct bad reporting, but it would have been irresponsible to stay mum in these circumstances if the story was false. Nevertheless, this incident highlights how investigative secrecy has wrongly been given pride of place. In the Mueller probe, the desire of prosecutors to go about their business in stealth ‐ to attempt to build a case on undisclosed crimes based on unknown evidence; to prevent witnesses from gaming their testimony and evidence from being tampered with ‐ has been prioritized over the president’s ability to govern the country. Even in the rare situation when they are actually necessary, special-prosecutor investigations against a president are bad for the country. When the president is the subject of a criminal investigation, when the specter of impeachment hovers, it wounds the executive branch. The political bleeding makes it difficult for the president to deal with Congress, foreign governments, and myriad challenges of governance. The administration finds it ever harder to recruit talented people for jobs in which we desperately need talented people ‐ no worthy person wants to leave safe, professionally rewarding, and financially lucrative opportunities in the private sector to come serve the country if it may mean having to hire lawyers and go through the anxiety of investigations. The president is not above the law. Consequently, we must tolerate these challenges when there is evidence of a president’s involvement in a serious crime. But that’s why we should be told exactly what the serious crime is and what evidence allegedly implicates the president. |
| Posted by:Besoeker |