By Adam Mill, APRIL 25, 2019

There are rules against using the power and authority of a prosecutor to smear a defendant without giving him his day in court.

CNN recently published an article arguing that Special Counsel Robert Mueller should not have issued a report suggesting the president may have committed obstruction of justice without actually reaching this conclusion. CNN is obviously disappointed because inside the leftist echo chamber the obstruction case seems undisputable.

For example, the Mueller report suggests that the president committed some kind of sin for wanting to fire former FBI director James Comey for being a party to the plot to blackmail or frame the president. Some believe presidents should fire FBI chiefs who participate in hoaxes against their boss.

Mueller did no favor to CNN’s client Democrats, who now face three terrible choices: (1) Impeach President Trump using their majority in the House, which will lead to a self-destructive trial in the Senate; (2) Drop it and move on in defiance of a rabid get-Trump base; or (3) use their majority in the House to drag the country through a Mueller 2.0 investigation, which runs the risk of distracting from Democratic messaging in the upcoming 2020 election.

Like Aesop’s scorpion on the frog’s back, the partisans on Mueller’s team just couldn’t help themselves. The Mueller report poisons public opinion without bringing charges. It should have been written on a postcard, because the outcome of a criminal proceeding is binary: Guilty or not guilty. There’s no middle ground under constitutional principles. President Trump is not guilty until the Senate convicts him otherwise.

Do you remember why Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote that Comey should be fired? If Rosenstein is still capable of embarrassment, it must have been hard to stand behind the lectern as he did what he has told us prosecutors and cops should never do.

Let’s review his words about Comey: “the [FBI]Director ignored another longstanding principle: we do not hold press conferences to release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation. Derogatory information sometimes is disclosed in the course of criminal investigations and prosecutions, but we never release it gratuitously. The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial. It is a textbook example of what federal prosecutors and agents are taught not to do.”

Yet here we are, at the end of another highly political investigation with another public trashing of a target without indictment. People accused of “obstruction” or “collusion” (whatever that is) or any other crime are supposed to get their day in court. Prosecutors aren’t supposed to use the newspaper as a courtroom.

There are rules against using the power and authority of a prosecutor to smear a defendant without giving him his day in court. If Democrats impeach the president, he will receive a long-overdue opportunity to defend himself in the Senate. That is exactly why it will never happen.

Americans should be concerned about the conduct of the Mueller probe and its supervisor, Rosenstein. Let’s take a look at some of the basic law-and-order rules Mueller and Rosenstein broke during the probe of the Russia collusion hoax.

1. Using Leaks And Press Conferences to Trash Un-charged Targets
2. Using Their Power to Crush Client-Attorney Privilege
3. Prosecuting Despite Knowing They Can’t Prove Their Case
4. Special Counsels Aren’t Supposed to Be a Partisan Hit Squad
5. Rosenstein Used His Government Position to Protect Himself

[big, big snips above. I just recorded the five broken rules TM]

The get-Trump crowd has been carrying the scorpion of the Mueller investigation on their backs for nearly two years. The damage this has done to America may never be undone. The zealots claiming Trump to be a threat to the rule of law have proven themselves right by using their outrage to trample important constitutional principles such as the presumption of innocence, the right to defend oneself from criminal accusations, attorney-client privilege, and the right to be free from unreasonable searches.

None of that seemed important if we truly had a Russian agent occupying the White House. But we don’t. The anti-Trump zealots, not Trump, threatened these cherished principles that ensure equal treatment under the law for all Americans, even the president, regardless of political party.

https://thefederalist.com/2019/04/25/5-t...ensure-justice/