Schneiderman
非難を浴びせ続けるトランプと、トランプを追い詰める捜査当局
トランプは、基本的には自分以外の誰をも信用していない。彼が誰かをほめるときは
非常に短く、きまりきったほめ方である。「彼はまことに、まことに素晴らしい」的な
ほめ方である。しかし、自分の気に入らない行動を取った場合は、例のツイッターでこき下ろす態度に急展開する。彼が選んだ閣僚ないしはそれに近い人々は、これによりこれまで多数、辞任、もしくは解雇されている。
そしてこの姿勢は、彼が海外との接触においてもそのまま維持されている。基本的に
自分のビジネスにとって巨額の利益を生みそうな相手にたいしては、きわめて有効的態度をとる（サウジやロシアが典型）が、そうでない場合は、世界システムのなかでのアメリカという立場を考慮することはまったくといってない。
＊＊＊
現在、国内的にはオバマケアを廃案にして、グラハム＝カッシディ案を通過させることに
トランプは躍起となっているが、これは幸いなことに通過はきわめて難しい状況になっている。トランプはツィッターで、これに反対したマケインをこきおろしているが、トランプはこの法案が、ほとんどすべての医療関係者、それに保険会社からも反対されているという事実、さらに、ある調査機関の発表では1500万人が２年内に保険資格を失うとされている事実には、（共和党員とともに）目をつぶったままである。それに何よりも、この法案がまともに議会で議論される時間のないまま投票に入ろうとする有様である。
トランプの頭のなかには、これで浮く支出減で、もう１つ考えている減税案による収入減をまかなう、という思惑があり、そしてそれは超リッチなドナーからの強い要請によるものだと言われている。
＊＊＊
トランプのロシアによる選挙妨害活動への関与をめぐる捜査は、 特別検察官ミュラーによるものが最も強力である。 ミュラーは、 グランド・ジュリー（ 大陪審制度） の導入、 FB Iとの捜査協力、 さらにIRS (Internal Revenue Service) との協力関係を強化していることがよく知られている。 IRSは税調査のスペシャル集団で、 目的とするのは、 トランプおよびその周辺の黒い租税回避問題の徹底調査である。 トランプ自体、 Tax Return (所得税の納税申告) をのらりくらりとした発言を繰り返すばかりで公表していない。 ここに徹底的にメスを入れるということ（ そしてそれはロシアやウクライナのオリガルヒとの取引といった問題に及ぶことは必至である） 。
いま大きな問題になっているのは、マナフォートである。彼は長年にわたってウクライナの汚職まみれで有名な大統領（プーチンが支持していた）のこうした金融問題の担当者として活動していた人物であり、昨年、トランプの選挙本部長についていたが、すぐに辞任している。しかしその後もトランプとの付き合いは続いており、それらを含めて彼の周辺には盗聴器がしかけられ、多くの事実が調査当局にわたっている。そして今年の７月にミュラー・チームは予告なしのがさ入れに踏み込み、マナフォートのもつ大量の資料を押収したこと、その折りに、担当官は、マナフォートにたいし、「提訴」が予定されていることを伝えていること、が数日前に明らかにされているのである。
おまけに、７月に辞任に追い込まれた報道官スパイサーは、メモ魔として知られており、在任中に、多くの会議での状況をもれなく記録していたことが、公になっている。このノートの押収をミュラー側は考慮中であると言われている。
＊＊＊
トランプが罷免することができない人物がいる （ミュラーを罷免することは、制度的にはトランプは可能である。しかし、上記のようにミュラー陣営は多くの防御線を張っており今となってはきわめて難しい状況になっている）。ニューヨークのアターニー・ジェネラルのシュナイダーである。彼はトランプとは以前からかなり対立関係にあり、厳しくトランプの違法租税行動の調査を続けている。そしてミュラーとも連携関係にあるのである。
***
トランプの行動様式には、つぎのような著しい特徴がある。
・ツィッターで、大統領としての見解（そしてそれは、前日に閣僚と議論したこと
など関係ないことも平気で語られる。閣僚などのいうことは、大統領の自分のいうことの比ではない、というスタンスがきわめて顕著で、これはいまもそのままである。
・もう１つが、大衆を前にして、まるで選挙演説と同様のスタイルで扇動的な、というか自己陶酔的な演説活動である。彼にとっては、自分のいうことは、すべて真実であり、
気に入らない相手を名指しで非難する、ことは日常茶飯事である。昨日も、突然、ヒラリーが登場し、Crooked Hillary と叫んでいた。
トランプの「重要政策」に、例のメキシコとの国境に「壁」を作るというものがあるが、７月末に彼は、これを「シー・スルー」にすることを提案した。ガラス張りにして向こう側が見えるようにする。その理由は、麻薬グループが巨大な麻薬袋を投げ入れたら、向こう側にいる人間がそれに当たって一貫の終わりになる、と子供じみた、というか耄碌したというか、分からないがばかばかしいことを語っている。メキシコ側はまったく相手にしていない。しかし、これを今度の予算案で認可されなければ、民主党とのあいだで合意に達したとされるDACAの継続に関する話はなしにする、という話が出てきている。シューマーとペロシがしてやったりと思ったこの話は、突然、勝手に新たな条件がつくことになったのである。もう１つの彼の公約であった、中国製品への７０％の関税というのがあるが、あれについては、大統領に就任してから話題にすらされていない。イヴァンカの工場が中国にあるからかもしれないが、まず話にならない話である。
Trump
attacks McCain and other Republicans over healthcare failure
·
President says veteran Republican senator has ‘let Arizona down’
·
McCain seemed to have dashed GOP hopes of repealing Obamacare
·
Ben Jacobs in Hunstville,
Alabama
Donald Trump went on the attack on Twitter on Saturday morning over the
latest failure of the Republican-controlled Senate to pass healthcare reform.
'All hands on deck': protesters to target
healthcare bill at rallies across US
Read more
In a series of tweets starting at 6.42am, the president attacked Senator
John McCain, whom he said had “let Arizona down”; goaded wavering Republicans in an attempt to
persuade them to come on board; and praised Graham-Cassidy, the current and
controversial plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
On Friday, McCain seemed to quash
Republican hopes to push Graham-Cassidy through the Senate before a 30 September
deadline, after which it would require a 60-vote super-majority to pass, on the
way to making good on a seven-year promise to undo Barack Obama’s signature
domestic reform.
In a surprise statement, McCain, the 2008
Republican presidential nominee, said: “I cannot in good conscience vote for
the Graham-Cassidy proposal. I believe we could do better working together,
Republicans and Democrats, and have not yet really tried.”
McCain joined the Kentucky conservative Rand Paul in stating his intention
to vote against the bill. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska,
moderates who joined McCain in voting down the last attempt
at Senate reform, have not confirmed their position, although Collins said on Friday she
was “leaning against” it. Republican Senate
leadership can only afford to lose two votes to pass Graham-Cassidy before 30
September.
At a Friday night rally on behalf of
Alabama senator Luther Strange, who is facing a close primary runoff on
Tuesday, Trump said McCain’s opposition to the new bill was “totally
unexpected” and “terrible”.
“It was sad,” the president said. “We had a couple of other senators, but
at least we knew where they stood. That was really a horrible thing, honestly.
That was a horrible thing that happened to the Republican party.”
He amplified his criticism on Saturday, first tweeting: “John McCain never had
any intention of voting for this bill, which his Governor [Doug Ducey] loves.
He campaigned on Repeal & Replace. Let Arizona down!.”
Trump continued: “Arizona had a 116% increase in ObamaCare premiums last
year, with deductibles very high. [Senate minority leader] Chuck Schumer
sold John McCain a bill of goods. Sad.”
Referring to Graham-Cassidy’s proposed transfer of healthcare
administration away from the federal government, he added: “Large Block Grants
to States is a good thing to do. Better control & management. Great for
Arizona. McCain let his best friend LG down!”
“LG” was a reference to the South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, a close
friend of McCain and a co-sponsor of the new bill with Bill Cassidy of
Louisiana. The proposal would eliminate the expansion of Medicaid, the federal
program that provides access to healthcare for low-income Americans under the
ACA. It would also enable states to circumvent ACA requirements for coverage of
pre-existing conditions.
John McCain says he can't vote for
Republican plan to replace Obamacare
Read more
Trump targeted two other Republicans. “I know Rand Paul and I think he may
find a way to get there for the good of the party!” he wrote. The Kentucky
senator opposes Graham-Cassidy from the right, believing it leaves too much of
the ACA in place.
He also tried to win Murkowski round. “Alaska had a 200% plus increase in
premiums under Obama Care, worst in the country. Deductibles high, people
angry! Lisa M comes through,” Trump wrote.
Murkowski has been viewed as the GOP skeptic most likely to change her
vote. Republican leaders reportedly promised huge concessions
for Alaska.
Despite Trump’s tweets, efforts to pass Graham-Cassidy by the end of the
month have stalled. On Friday Senator Joni Ernst, of Iowa, admitted: “I’ll be honest, it
seems unlikely that we’ll be voting on this.”
The result is that any healthcare legislation in the near future is likely
to be far more modest in scope and will require bipartisan support to reach the
60-vote supermajority needed to avoid a filibuster. There are currently 52
Republican senators and 48 Democrats and allied independents.
＊＊＊
The Investigations
Trump Can’t Stop
Presidential pardons offer
no protection from state prosecutions
New York Attorney General
Eric Schneiderman has spearheaded several investigations into the financial
interests of Donald Trump and people close to him. (Courtesy Schneiderman’s
office)
Posted Jul 27, 2017 5:05
AM
President Donald Trump
might be able to pardon everyone he wants — possibly even himself. But that
would not end his legal troubles.
Trump already fired FBI
Director James B. Comey amid an investigation into allegations of collusion
between his campaign and Russia. He has attacked Attorney General Jeff Sessions, raising questions about whether
he intends to try to remove Robert S. Mueller III, the special
counsel appointed by the Justice Department to head the Russia probe.
The president and his
lawyers have also reportedly discussed whether he could pardon family members
and aides caught up in the Russia investigation.
But Trump has no
control over state and local-level probes looking into the financial interests
of his businesses, his family and his aides. And he can’t fire state and local
prosecutors or issue pardons for state crimes.
The state investigations
have been developing for months, largely overshadowed by probes
by Congress, the FBI and the Justice Department. If state and local
prosecutors lose confidence in their federal counterparts, they could become
more aggressive, legal experts say.
“If they think the federal
government is not enforcing the law, they will step in,” said Caroline
Fredrickson, president of the American Constitution Society, a
liberal legal organization.
Some conservative critics
suggest that such investigations are politically motivated. They point out
that most — if not all — of the probes so far have been
spearheaded by prosecutors who are Democrats. Some of the same
prosecutors have joined in challenges to Trump administration policies, such
as his ban on visitors to the United States from some predominantly Muslim
countries.
“It’s up to the attorneys
general who have been activists in many respects to explain why the sudden
interest in Mr. Trump, other than the fact that he is our president and he is
in the opposition party,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a
conservative watchdog group that has called on the Trump administration to
appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary Clinton.
Some legal scholars also
say investigations targeting Trump could create a dangerous
precedent.
“Central to the rule of law is the principle
that prosecutors may not employ their inquisitorial arsenal against political
adversaries,” Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri in
Columbia, wrote on Slate.com this week. “The ethos of
prosecutorial restraint protects us all. If liberals abandon it in pursuit of
Trump, they will have no ground of complaint if he, or some even less savory
successor, unleashes prosecutorial power against his political foes.”
However, other legal
experts and liberal groups say Trump’s myriad financial and business interests
pose legal questions unlike any president before, and that state and local
prosecutors are obligated to enforce the laws in their jurisdictions. Those
obligations would be compounded if Trump acted to quash the investigations on a
federal level.
Trump has pushed the
boundaries of what is acceptable, “and beyond that, he has really violated
constitutional norms,” Fredrickson of the American Constitution Society said.
“We have a vital need for
attorneys general to step up and enforce the rule of law,” she said. “I don’t
think any of this is political. It’s patriotic.”
Jed Shugerman, a Fordham
Law professor who has written about Trump’s various
legal entanglements, said the connections being made to foreign policy and political
decisions are “widespread and deep” — and unprecedented.
“This is not just money
corruption,” he said. “It is fair to ask questions about whether this degree of
entanglement of financial control, and potentially who knows what else they
have on him, destabilizes global security and enables the increasing power of
authoritarianism and dictatorship around the world.”
The Big Apple
Much of the action so far
has been centered in New York, where Trump has a long and rocky relationship
with the state’s Democratic attorney general, Eric Schneiderman.
The veteran prosecutor has
been the target of Trump’s caustic tweeting for many years.
New York attorneys general
have a history of striking out on their own in the face of federal inaction — a
legacy that a Schneiderman predecessor, Eliot Spitzer, contributed to by taking
on New York’s financial industry more than a decade ago.
The New York Office of the
Attorney General was the first to file a civil suit for alleged fraud by Trump University.
Trump agreed to a $25 million settlement in that case and two separate class
action suits related to the same allegations late last year, though he has
repeatedly denied culpability and claimed the case was politically motivated.
Since the November
election, Schneiderman’s office has reportedly beefed up its staff devoted to
investigating public corruption and fighting White House policies.
His new hires include
Howard Master, an assistant U.S. attorney who worked on public corruption cases
under former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara of the Southern District of New York.
The move was widely interpreted to signal that Schneiderman planned to pick up
on investigations Bharara started before he was controversially fired by
Trump in March.
Some congressional
Democrats have also prodded Schneiderman to take up investigations into
Kremlin connections to the Trump campaign, cases under his jurisdiction because
of Trump bank accounts and businesses that are located in New York.
The office has several
open investigations connected to Trump, Schneiderman spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick
confirmed this week. Those include probes into the Donald J. Trump Foundation,
the Eric Trump Foundation and Trump’s personal lawyer, Jay Sekulow. According
to media reports, prosecutors are looking into allegations that state laws
governing the use of charitable contributions may have been violated.
The office is also looking
into the activities of Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill also want to talk to Manafort about possible Russian
influence during the 2016 campaign, among other issues.
Manhattan District
Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. has also reportedly begun preliminary
investigations into Manafort’s real estate activities. A spokeswoman from
Vance’s office declined to comment.
More to come?
Legal experts say other
offices are likely considering whether they have jurisdiction to open
investigations of their own.
That could be done through
statutes that give states broad powers to investigate corporate wrongdoing,
said Shugerman, the Fordham Law professor.
And state civil lawsuits
against Trump or his associates might turn up material — such
as Trump’s income tax records — that could feed criminal
investigations, he said.
Already, the Democratic attorneys general in
Maryland and Virginia have filed a civil suit against Trump, saying that payments to
Trump’s businesses from foreign governments violate anti-corruption clauses in
the constitution.
“There are so many
different state statutes and state powers that come into play,” Shugerman
said.
***
IRS Internal Revenue Service
Donald Trump Jr. Meeting | The Last Word | MSNBC
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NBC News
reports Paul Manafort took notes in the Trump Tower meeting with the Russians,
and the notes include mention of political contributions next to
"RNC." Now Robert Mueller has those notes. Ken Dilanian, Betsy
Woodruff, & Mieke Eoyang join Lawrence O'Donnell. » Subscribe to MSNBC:
IRS
'Specialized, Secretive Investigative' Unit Aiding Robert Mueller | The Last
Word | MSNBC
2017/08/31 に公開
Robert Mueller has reportedly
enlisted the IRS criminal investigations unit in his Russia probe. Lawrence
O'Donnell explains the investigation could put Trump through the most intense
audit of his life. One error could result in big consequences for the president.
» Subscribe to MSNBC:
New Evidence About Russia Hotel Deal Raises Stakes In
Probe | The Last Word | MSNBC
2017/08/30
に公開
Jennifer
Rubin and Eugene Robinson talk with Lawrence O'Donnell about Trump's
relationship with Putin and new reports about Trump attorney Michael Cohen's
role in a business deal with Russia in 2015.
