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REPUBLICANS FOILED AGAIN: GOP lawmakers were anxious to hear the testimony of former Robert Mueller prosecutor Aaron Zelinsky on Wednesday. Zelinsky was called by House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler to accuse the Justice Department of trying to interfere in the case against Roger Stone. But Republicans were free to ask Zelinsky about anything they liked, and they believed he might give them some valuable information about the Mueller probe.
Turns out, the Justice Department had already thought of that. Zelinsky told the panel that DOJ severely limited the topics he might address in the hearing. Could he tell Democrats what they wanted to hear about Roger Stone? Of course. Could he answer Republican questions about the Mueller investigation? No way.
“The Department of Justice has given me permission today to discuss matters related to the Stone sentencing,” Zelinsky told the panel when Republican Rep. Ben Cline asked about Mueller. “They have not given me permission to discuss internal matters in the special counsel’s office that are outside the scope of the four corners of the special counsel office’s report.”
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On another occasion, Republican Rep. Guy Reschenthaler asked Zelinsky whether the Obama Justice Department used the defunct and never-successfully-prosecuted Logan Act to pursue former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.
“Congressman, I’m sorry to sound like a broken record,” Zelinsky said, “but I have been told by the Department of Justice that there are deliberative process concerns with the discussion of the special counsel’s office and what transpired there outside the confines of the report.”
So the short answer: Nothing from Zelinsky. Republicans had hoped that, since Zelinsky supervised the George Papadopoulos prosecution, for example, he might have been able to offer insights into that probe. Republicans were wrong. Zelinsky, again acting with the Department’s permission, shut up entirely.
The Mueller investigation is over. There is simply no reason for the Justice Department to continue to stonewall Congress on some of the key issues involved in the probe. The Department, along with the FBI, stonewalled Republicans in 2017 and 2018 when they first sought to find out the origins and contours of the Trump-Russia investigation. Now, the Department is still hiding.
THIS MONUMENT ATTACK HAS BEEN POSTPONED. On Wednesday, protesters in Washington DC promised to tear down the Emancipation Memorial, a historic statue on federal land in Lincoln Park. “Thursday at 7:00 p.m., we’re tearing this motherf–ker down,” one organizer vowed. But Thursday at 7:00 p.m. came and went, with the statue still standing.
It might shock some on the left, but it appears police work prevented the crime from taking place. Park Police and others installed concrete barriers and other fencing around the statue this week, and made clear they would protect the memorial. And guess what? The protesters got frustrated and did not try to bring the statue down. Imagine that. We’ll see what happens in coming nights.
