Democrats should be careful what they wish for: In calling for an independent commission, they could be making a terrible mistake.
Neither of those blue-ribbon investigations—especially the 9/11 Commission, most often cited by Schiff, Pelosi and their colleagues as a model for a Trump-Russia inquiry—offers much hope that an independent commission would accomplish the Democrats’ goals, at least not if those goals include getting to the bottom of this mess in a timely fashion and holding individuals accountable for their wrongdoing.
.. the investigation lasted 20 months, with its final report not issued until July 2004, more than two and a half years after the Twin Towers fell.
.. the 9/11 Commission achieved bipartisan agreement only because the panel abandoned any attempt at individual accountability.
.. I find it mindboggling that, despite blistering incompetence by government officials who ignored evidence throughout 2001 that should have allowed them to foil the attacks, none of those officials were fired or disciplined, let alone prosecuted. Several of the most incompetent and dishonest among them even got big promotions after the commission’s report, including a number still on the government’s payroll.
.. the 9/11 Commission failed on another key issue of accountability. The report was widely read as an exoneration of the government of Saudi Arabia .. despite compelling evidence that at least some low-level Saudi officials were part of a support network for the 9/11 hijackers while they lived in the United States before the attacks.
.. the Warren Commission is even less of a model for a Trump-Russia investigation, if only because it failed at its central mission of convincing the public of the truth about JFK’s murder. Opinion polls have shown consistently since the late 1960s that most Americans reject that panel’s finding that there was no conspiracy in the assassination.
.. That leaves one other likely route for an independent investigation: appointment of a special federal prosecutor, a move the Trump White House would probably see as the worst possible outcome.
.. Partisans in the House and Senate will want to keep their hands in the investigation
.. The Trump White House needs to brace itself for the possibility of multiple, competing investigations
GOP Lawmaker Devin Nunes Sparks New Battle Over Trump Spy Claim
.. Rep. Devin Nunes (R., Calif.), who is leading a congressional investigation into alleged Russian interference in U.S. elections, shared his information with the media and Mr. Trump before he gave it to other members of his committee. The move drew criticism from members of the committee in the House and Senate, and prompted the ranking Democrat on the panel to redouble his push for an independent investigator to take over the Russia probe.
.. Mr. Nunes, who offered little public evidence for his disclosures other than reports provided by sources he declined to name, said the surveillance of the incoming president’s team appeared to be due to what is called “incidental” collection, meaning that Trump transition officials whose information was intercepted weren’t the intended targets. He added it was “possible” the president himself had some of his communication intercepted, though he declined to elaborate on what sort of information the intelligence agencies collected and how it was collected.
What Happened to Jane Mayer When She Wrote About the Koch Brothers
Ms. Mayer began to take the rumored investigation seriously when she heard from her New Yorker editor that she was going to be accused — falsely — of plagiarism, stealing the work of other writers. A dossier of her supposed plagiarism had been provided to reporters at The New York Post and The Daily Caller, but the smears collapsed when the writers who were the purported victims made statements saying that it was nonsense, and that there had been no plagiarism whatsoever.
.. “The firm, it appears, was Vigilant Resources International, whose founder and chairman, Howard Safir, had been New York City’s police commissioner under the former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani,” she writes in “Dark Money.”
.. “As far as what we do, we don’t talk about clients, whether we have them or don’t have them. Even answering the question would violate the policy of our business.”