Page 6 - Florida Sentinel 5-8-18

White House And Political News
Austin Perine, 4, wears his red cape when he passes out sand- wiches to the homeless.
Why Trump Will Not Testify If He Can Help It
Super Hero, 4, Wears Cape As He Feeds Homeless
A toddler in Birmingham, Alabama, is changing the world by using his al- lowance for good.
Austin Perine asked his parents one day if he could use his allowance to buy food for the homeless in his city. The 4-year-old was in- spired to help the less fortu- nate after watching a nature documentary with his fa- ther, where he saw a mother panda abandon her child. It was on that day that he learned what it meant to be homeless.
"He says, 'What's home- less?' I said, 'It's when you don't have a home and sometimes you don't have mom or dad around,'" TJ Perine, Austin's father, told CBS News.
So, the preschool student stepped into action. Austin
put on his red cape, took on the superhero name "Pres- ident Austin" and used his allowance money to buy sandwiches to feed people in need.
The toddler believes that a president of the United States should give back to people.
"That's his idea of what the president is supposed to do," said his dad. "I was like, buddy, you have no idea, but hey, I'm going along with it.”
Every time Austin and his dad pass out food, the aspiring president tells those he helped:
"Don't forget to show love.”
He's often met with hugs and praise in his attempts to bring some joy to those who need it most.
President Trump Tweets Threats
By Earl Ofari Hutchinson
On Wednesday, May 2, Trump defiantly tweeted that the four dozen ques- tions Special Counsel Robert Mueller wants to ask him are “a setup & trap.” This was in sharp contrast to his tweet back in January, “I’m looking forward to it.” The “it” was testifying before Mueller. Just what changed in the five months to cause Trump to dig in his heels? In a word, noth- ing.
The January tweet was nothing but another big smokescreen from a man who has practically rewrit- ten the script on how to duck, dodge, obfuscate, and flat out lie on the Mueller probe. Trump will do everything legally possible not to testify. He’ll accom- pany that with a well-tuned media and public barrage of acid words and slurs at Mueller and anyone and anything connected with the probe.
Trump is not stupid. He didn’t need his ever-chang- ing pack of attorneys to tell him that anything he said to Mueller is fraught with mountainous legal perils for him. He also didn’t need to see the leaked questions to know that. Why else, months after Mueller pub- licly declared he wanted to talk to Trump there is no date set for him to testify, or timetable for setting one. There still isn’t.
From day one, the prospect of him testifying set off a mad legal scramble be- hind the scenes by him, and his attorneys to weasel out of giving any testimony. In the months before Trump’s public boast about testify- ing, Mueller laid the groundwork for what, if any case, could be made against him for collusion by pecking away around the edges. He indicted several key Trump campaign and administra- tion associates. He indicted 13 Russian nationals, and in the process blew open the details of how Russia pulled off its elaborate, and wide- ranging presidential election scam. He then followed that up by wringing a guilty plea to lying to investigators from a top-notch New York attor- ney about his work for a Ukrainian firm knee deep in
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP
the election scam. This guaranteed the likelihood of more plea deals from, and indictments of, those in- volved in some way in the scam. However, these ma- neuvers were just the legal and public warm-up act to the main event. That was getting Trump to talk.
The Mueller probe has always had one publicly stated official purpose and one privately unstated pur- pose. The official purpose is to determine if, and how, Russia meddled in the 2016 election. The FBI, CIA, and NSA in separate reports in January 2017 firmly estab- lished that it had. Then President Obama fol- lowed that up by ordering an investigation into the extent of Russian election med- dling. The indictment of the 13 Russian nationals a year later simply fleshed out the details of the meddling.
Even Trump in between lambasting the investigation as a “hoax’ and shouting “no collusion,” “no collusion,” was careful to add that he had never said that the Rus- sians “or someone” hadn’t put their dirty fingers in the 2016 presidential election. So, there was little left to say about that part of the probe.
The unstated purpose for the probe is to determine if Trump, or someone operat- ing at his behest, knowingly or unknowingly, had their hands in the Russian scheme. This is the thorny issue that has hung over the probe from the start. It is clearly established that the Russians set up their elabo- rate election fraud campaign to wreck Hillary Clinton’s campaign. It did a pretty masterful job at it by spread-
ing malicious gossip, lies, and hit pieces all over the public and media landscape about her. The aim was to ensure that Trump got in the Oval Office.
If that could be proven, then the question would be would Mueller bring charges against him? Legal experts have been furiously debating that point. The Nixon-Watergate and Clin- ton cases are cited to show that he could be indicted. Watergate prosecutors ar- gued that Nixon could have been indicted for his role in the Watergate break-in. There was evidence that in- dependent counsel Ken- neth Starr did prepare a memo that then President Clinton could be indicted on issues involving the Lewinsky scandal. The greatest shield Trump would have beyond the con- stitutional quibble over in- dictment was precedent. No sitting president has ever been indicted, simply be- cause it would cause monu- mental political and legal havoc and paralyze the chief executive and by extension the government. That didn’t mean, however, it couldn’t happen; even traditions can be broken.
Trump is very much aware of that potential dan- ger. This is the major reason he’s employed every legal dodge not to give face-to- face testimony to Mueller. He’s dredged up the “bad precedent” argument to make the claim that a sitting president talking to a prose- cutor in a potential criminal case could hamstring the presidency. The only valid point about this is that Mueller is a prosecutor and sitting down with him to tes- tify would be adversarial and for a president, embarrass- ing. And since, Trump is an unabashed liar and story- changer to suit his purposes, there’s the added danger that Mueller could nail him for lying to a federal prose- cutor.
Trump will move heaven and earth to make sure that doesn’t happen. This means saying no to a sit-down with Mueller every way he can and every
chance he gets.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political an- alyst.
Of Possible Legal Action Against
Members Of Mueller’s Team
According to CNN, Presi- dent Donald Trump sug- gested on Monday that "angry Democrats" on special counsel Robert Mueller's team could face legal action over alleged "conflicts of interest."
"The 13 Angry Democrats in charge of the Russian Witch Hunt are starting to find out that there is a Court System in place that actually protects peo- ple from injustice...and just wait 'till the Courts get to see your unrevealed Conflicts of In- terest!" Trump said.
The president did not provide proof of the alleged conflicts. It’s been reported that several members of Mueller's team have donated to Democrats.
Mueller is a Republican. The President also denied Monday that he's obstructed
President Donald Trump is on his heels, now threatening to sue Mueller’s investigators.
the Russia investigation, in- stead defending his actions and rhetoric as "fighting back" against "the Russia Witch Hunt."
PAGE 6 FLORIDA SENTINEL BULLETIN PUBLISHED EVERY TUESDAY AND FRIDAY TUESDAY, MAY 8, 2018