This is an excellent article addressing the stagnate American wage from a slightly different perspective. Although I think the problem has multiple causes, this piece articulates one that I have long thought an issue, but is not often considered publicly.
If you were a delivery van driver searching for a new job any time between the years of 2010 and 2013, chances are, you wouldn’t have found many businesses competing for your services. In Selma, Alabama, there was, on average, just one company posting help wanted ads for those drivers on the nation’s biggest job board. In all of Orlando, Florida, there were about nine. Nationwide the average was about two.
The situation for telemarketers wasn’t great either. In any given city or town, approximately three companies were trying to hire for their services. Accountants only had it a little better: Roughly four businesses were posting jobs for them.
A lack of competition among employers gives businesses outsize power over workers, including the ability to tamp down on pay.
Those numbers are based on the findings of a new research paper that may help unlock the mystery of why Americans can’t seem to get a decent raise. Economists have struggled over that question for years now, as wage growth has stagnated and more of the nation’s income has shifted from the pockets of workers into the bank accounts of business owners. Since 1979, inflation-adjusted hourly pay is up just 3.41 percent for the middle 20 percent of Americans while labor’s overall share of national income has declined sharply since the early 2000s. There are lots of possible explanations for why this is, from long-term factors like the rise of automation and decline of organized labor, to short-term ones, such as the lingering weakness in the job market left over from the great recession. But a recent study by a group of labor economists introduces an interesting theory into the mix: Workers’ pay may be lagging because the U.S. is suffering from a shortage of employers.
The paper—written by José Azar of IESE Business School at the University of Navarra, Ioana Marinescu of the University of Pennsylvania, and Marshall Steinbaum of the Roosevelt Institute—argues that, across different cities and different fields, hiring is concentrated among a relatively small number of businesses, which may have given managers the ability to keep wages lower than if there were more companies vying for talent. This is not the same as saying there are simply too many job hunters chasing too few openings—the paper, which is still in an early draft form, is designed to rule out that possibility. Instead, its authors argue that the labor market may be plagued by what economists call a monopsony problem, where a lack of competition among employers gives businesses outsize power over workers, including the ability to tamp down on pay. If the researchers are right, it could have important implications for how we think about antitrust, unions, and the minimum wage.
Monopsony is essentially monopoly’s quieter, less appreciated twin sibling. A monopolist can fix prices because it’s the only seller in the market. The one hospital in a sprawling rural county can charge insurers whatever it likes for emergency room services, for instance, because patients can’t go elsewhere. A monopsonist, on the other hand, can pay whatever it likes for labor or supplies, because it’s the only company buying or hiring. …..
Only four businesses were looking for accountants? It was either a very small town or that is completely unbelievable. Any business of any size needs at least one in-house accountant. Then there are the scores of CPA firms in every city plus the government entities and non-profits that hire accountants.
As just one tiny example, you can bet Mr. Mueller has forensic accountants working for him.
One of my sons has a degree in accounting (so does husband for that matter) and can’t find work in the field where he lives in Colorado.
I thought the article was interesting because it brought up the issue of monopsony which is rarely discussed. The article suggests the usual Democratic solution of increased minimum wage. While I agree that it’s fine to have a federal minimum wage, I don’t think increasing it is a good answer to the issue of low wages in general. Monopsonies are a problem caused by ‘the big’. When companies merge there are fewer employers. And the larger the companies that merge, the greater their effect can be on wages. Add to that the temp employment agencies that are routinely used to shield large employers from federal employment laws, and you have a serious market distortion for wages.
“The FBI “failed to preserve” five months worth of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI employees who made pro-Clinton and anti-Trump comments while working on the Clinton email and the Russia collusion investigations.
The disclosure was made Friday in a letter sent by the Justice Department to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).
“The Department wants to bring to your attention that the FBI’s technical system for retaining text messages sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text messages for Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page,” Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs at the Justice Department, wrote to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of HSGAC.
He said that texts are missing for the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.”
“Newly-released messages between two FBI agents who were then working on the Hillary Clinton email investigation show that they and possibly then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch knew in advance that no charges would be recommended by then-FBI Director James Comey. The FBI has further admitted to “losing” five months worth of texts between these same FBI agents.
On July 5, 2016, then-FBI Director Comey issued a statement about the FBI’s investigation into the Hillary Clinton email scandal. This was the statement that effectively laid out the case against Hillary while simultaneously killing any chance that Hillary would be charged with any crimes because Comey did not see any “intent.”
At the beginning of this July 5th statement, Comey stated, “I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say.”
Text messages between FBI agents working on the Hillary email investigation have since been released that show these two agents knew—on July 1st—that Hillary would be exonerated. Not only did they know this on July 1st, but they discuss then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch being aware of the FBI’s decision on July 1st, days before Comey’s July 5th official recommendation to the DOJ.”
———————–
I doubted it was possible, but Dems have actually lost a shutdown fight. Schumer has agreed to end the filibuster in exchange for practically nothing. Make no mistake: Schumer & Dems caved. What a political fiasco.
“Senate Democrats say they are accepting a deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for an immigration vote, clearing the way for passage of a bill to reopen the federal government.
McConnell, early Monday, promised to take up an immigration bill that would protect an estimated 800,000 “Dreamers” from deportation, under an open amendment process, if Democrats would agree to end the government shutdown.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) said that pledge was enough for his caucus to accept a three-week government funding bill, which is now set to pass at noon.
“After several discussions, offers and counteroffers, the Republican leader and I have come to an arrangement. We will vote today to reopen the government to continue negotiating a global agreement,” Schumer said.
Schumer said McConnell has committed that if negotiators fail to reach an immigration deal before the stopgap spending measure expires on Feb. 8 “the Senate will immediately proceed to consideration of legislation” to protect “Dreamers.”
He said McConnell has promised that immigration debate “will be neutral and fair to all sides.”
“Now there is a real pathway to get a bill on the floor and through the Senate. It is a good solution, and I will vote for it,” Schumer said.”
—————————-
“The text message gap spans the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017, according to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of HSGAC.
That’s a crucial timespan in the FBI’s Russia investigation, which Strzok was picked to oversee in July 2016.
During that period, the infamous Steele dossier was published, Strzok interviewed then-national security adviser Michael Flynn about contacts he had with Russia’s ambassador (he pleaded guilty in December to lying during that interview), and James Comey was fired as FBI director. On the final day of the five-month gap, Robert Mueller was appointed to serve as special counsel on the Russia investigation.
Strzok was a member of that team until July, when the Justice Department’s inspector general found his anti-Trump exchanges with Page, his mistress.
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Johnson called the gap “concerning.”
Jordan, who serves on the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees, sees parallels to the Lerner investigation, which he helped steer as a member of the Oversight panel. That committee battled tooth and nail with the IRS and the Obama White House over records related to Lerner’s targeting of conservative non-profit groups who had applied for tax exempt status.
After months of investigation, IRS officials claimed that thousands of Lerner emails from before April 2011 had been lost due to a crash of her email system. The snafu occurred in June 2011, just days after the House Ways and Means Committee requested IRS documents, including emails from Lerner’s division.
In a fiery exchange in Sept. 2016, Jordan forced then-IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to acknowledge that he made inaccurate statements about the destruction of Lerner’s emails.
Jordan said Sunday that he was not surprised by the IRS’s Lerner mess. But he has different thoughts about the new FBI revelations.
“Everybody knows the IRS is incompetent,” Jordan told TheDC on Sunday. “But we’re talking about the FBI here.”
“If this is true, they lost the text messages from the guy who was deputy head of counterintelligence? I mean, come on. If this actually happened this is unbelievable, and it’s why we would need to investigate it.””
“The Trump administration is overturning Obama-era advisories aimed at preventing states from cutting Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood.
The administration is rescinding an April 2016 letter that the Obama administration sent to states warning them that restricting Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood could violate federal law. Administration officials said Friday it is rescinding the guidance to give states more flexibility over how they manage Medicaid.
“States who run Medicaid jointly have had a say in whether providers in borders eligible to participate in Medicaid program,” said Charmaine Yoest, assistant secretary for public affairs at Health and Human Services.
The Obama administration sent the 2016 letter after 10 states moved to end Medicaid funding to the women’s health and abortion provider. States targeted Planned Parenthood in response to a series of undercover videos from an anti-abortion activist that showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing the donation and harvesting of aborted fetal tissue.
It is against the law to profit off the sale of aborted fetal tissue and Planned Parenthood charged that it was only reimbursed for transportation by research facilities receiving the tissue.
Courts have blocked efforts by states to defund Planned Parenthood.
A senior administration official said that the new guidance only goes back to appropriate legal standards before the 2016 letter.
It also provides state flexibility without the federal government “putting a thumb on the scale,” the official said.”
————————–
The irony here is that Pro-choicers won’t like states actually having a choice. 🙂
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Johnson called the gap “concerning.”
I’ve always considered my vocabulary or sense of proper diction or whatever was at least average, and for the life of me, I don’t recall seeing the word “concerning” used in this sense, where it indicates something is troubling to the speaker, until about ten years ago, when is seems like everyone started using it this way. Is that anyone else’s experience? I’d always thought the word to use in that sentence should be “disconcerting,” and have wondered if the rough similarity of sound and meaning in the terms accounts for the misuse (?) of “concerning” in that context. I do see a couple online dictionaries list “concerning” in the adjectival way that Christopher Wray uses it here, but I wonder if that’s a relatively recent evolution of the word. Anyone?
I’ve heard it used that way before, Solar, but I confess, I don’t find it all that disconcertabobulating. Then again, I voted for Bush and Trump, so no one thinks that highly of my grammar. ;–)
61% of Americans say they now have a favorable view of George W. Bush in the latest CNN poll, nearly double the 33% who gave him a favorable mark when he left the White House in 2009 https://t.co/feMNbsURWe
Yeah, Debra, I’ve seen it a lot the last few years, but don’t remember seeing it at all before the George W administration, and he said nukular, so maybe he started the slide in diction.
“The latest news that five months’ worth of text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and DOJ attorney Lisa Page is sure to make supporters of President Donald Trump continue to claim that the Russia investigation is a politically-motivated scheme. More importantly, however, Trump’s lawyers will now be able to do the same.
Strzok has already been outed as anti-Trump, leading to his dismissal from the probe, and his past communications with Page showed a potential Justice Department bias towards Hillary Clinton. The fact that now nearly half a year’s worth of text messages between Strzok and Page during the time leading up to Robert Mueller‘s appointment as Special Counsel weren’t preserved by the Justice Department will surely fuel motions from Team Trump’s lawyers against the investigation.
Months of text messages don’t just accidentally disappear. One past conversation between Strzok and Page indicated that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch knew there would be no charges filed against Clinton well before that investigation ended. Given the significant evidence of impropriety in the Clinton case, a foregone conclusion of innocence before the FBI wrapped up their investigation looks shady at best. Trump’s lawyers will surely argue that after those messages came to light, the DOJ intentionally “lost” those five months’ worth of other messages.
Look for Paul Manafort to jump all over this. He’s already fighting his indictment, claiming that Mueller is overstepping his authority and shouldn’t be running the investigation. Throw in this evidence that the investigation may have been tainted before Mueller even took over, and that the DOJ could be covering up damaging information, and a motion to dismiss alleging prosecutorial misconduct is a near certainty. FBI Agent Strzok was reportedly heading up the Manafort investigation before he was taken off the Mueller probe. Manafort’s attorney might try to say that the missing text messages could contain exculpatory evidence (or evidence favorable to the defendant) and therefore the court should get to the bottom of what the two said. However, two former federal prosecutors who spoke to Law&Crime both contend it would be difficult to get the entire indictment dismissed based on the text messages alone.
“It depends on what FBI’s retention policy is for text messages. It does certainly raise questions as to how these five months came up missing,” explained Bill Thomas, a former federal prosecutor. “However, the court is not going to just dismiss the case. If it comes to it, the judge may hold a hearing to get to that information through calling witnesses. Dismissal is the nuclear option, it would have to be something very very egregious for a court to dismiss the case.””
————————-
I would think a soft-coup, like the one we’ve been witnessing for a year, would suffice as egregious.
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions is pushing FBI director Christopher Wray to replace deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and former FBI general counsel James Baker.
President Donald Trump has accused McCabe of putting his thumb on the scale of the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s 2016 rival, former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are targeting Baker as they investigate his contacts with the reporter who first broke the story about the explosive Trump-Russia dossier.
Former FBI director James Comey apprised both McCabe and Baker of his private conversations with Trump. Those conversations make up the basis of special counsel Robert Mueller’s obstruction-of-justice investigation. ”
—————————
““This weekend we met to discuss the text messages and possible next steps in our oversight of these agencies. The contents of these text messages between top FBI officials are extremely troubling in terms of when certain key decisions were made by the Department of Justice and the FBI, by whom these decisions were made, and the evident bias exhibited by those in charge of the investigation. The omission of text messages between December 2016 and May 2017, a critical gap encompassing the FBI’s Russia investigation, is equally concerning. Rather than clearing up prior FBI and DOJ actions, these recently produced documents cause us to further question the credibility and objectivity of certain officials at the FBI.””
————————–
Unreal. We've been asking for the remaining text messages between anti-Trump FBI agents (and former Mueller team members), Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. The FBI now says the texts are "missing."
If it wasn't already clear we need a second special counsel, it's abundantly clear now https://t.co/nvpNY4s4QV
Wandering Views 
This is an excellent article addressing the stagnate American wage from a slightly different perspective. Although I think the problem has multiple causes, this piece articulates one that I have long thought an issue, but is not often considered publicly.
https://slate.com/business/2018/01/a-new-theory-for-why-americans-cant-get-a-raise.html
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Only four businesses were looking for accountants? It was either a very small town or that is completely unbelievable. Any business of any size needs at least one in-house accountant. Then there are the scores of CPA firms in every city plus the government entities and non-profits that hire accountants.
As just one tiny example, you can bet Mr. Mueller has forensic accountants working for him.
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apparently Mueller needs a good IT guy
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One of my sons has a degree in accounting (so does husband for that matter) and can’t find work in the field where he lives in Colorado.
I thought the article was interesting because it brought up the issue of monopsony which is rarely discussed. The article suggests the usual Democratic solution of increased minimum wage. While I agree that it’s fine to have a federal minimum wage, I don’t think increasing it is a good answer to the issue of low wages in general. Monopsonies are a problem caused by ‘the big’. When companies merge there are fewer employers. And the larger the companies that merge, the greater their effect can be on wages. Add to that the temp employment agencies that are routinely used to shield large employers from federal employment laws, and you have a serious market distortion for wages.
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Solar @ 9:40
What they need is a house cleaning.
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“apparently Mueller needs a good IT guy”
So does the FBI, though I suspect this was intentional, and the most damaging to the FBI, Comey, Mueller, and company.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/21/fbi-failed-preserve-anti-trump-texts/
“The FBI “failed to preserve” five months worth of text messages exchanged between Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI employees who made pro-Clinton and anti-Trump comments while working on the Clinton email and the Russia collusion investigations.
The disclosure was made Friday in a letter sent by the Justice Department to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC).
“The Department wants to bring to your attention that the FBI’s technical system for retaining text messages sent and received on FBI mobile devices failed to preserve text messages for Mr. Strzok and Ms. Page,” Stephen Boyd, the assistant attorney general for legislative affairs at the Justice Department, wrote to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of HSGAC.
He said that texts are missing for the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017.”
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And look, Comey wasn’t the only one involved in the Hillary “fix”.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/01/report-fbi-agents-texts-suggest-loretta-lynch-knew-outcome-of-fbi-hillary-probe-in-advance/#more-240041
“Newly-released messages between two FBI agents who were then working on the Hillary Clinton email investigation show that they and possibly then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch knew in advance that no charges would be recommended by then-FBI Director James Comey. The FBI has further admitted to “losing” five months worth of texts between these same FBI agents.
On July 5, 2016, then-FBI Director Comey issued a statement about the FBI’s investigation into the Hillary Clinton email scandal. This was the statement that effectively laid out the case against Hillary while simultaneously killing any chance that Hillary would be charged with any crimes because Comey did not see any “intent.”
At the beginning of this July 5th statement, Comey stated, “I have not coordinated or reviewed this statement in any way with the Department of Justice or any other part of the government. They do not know what I am about to say.”
Text messages between FBI agents working on the Hillary email investigation have since been released that show these two agents knew—on July 1st—that Hillary would be exonerated. Not only did they know this on July 1st, but they discuss then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch being aware of the FBI’s decision on July 1st, days before Comey’s July 5th official recommendation to the DOJ.”
———————–
And now we have further proof, Comey is a liar.
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Democrats Caved. 🙂
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For some reason, I have a hankerin’ for waffles…….. 🙂
http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/370107-dems-take-deal-clearing-way-to-end-shutdown?__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true&__twitter_impression=true
“Senate Democrats say they are accepting a deal with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for an immigration vote, clearing the way for passage of a bill to reopen the federal government.
McConnell, early Monday, promised to take up an immigration bill that would protect an estimated 800,000 “Dreamers” from deportation, under an open amendment process, if Democrats would agree to end the government shutdown.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y) said that pledge was enough for his caucus to accept a three-week government funding bill, which is now set to pass at noon.
“After several discussions, offers and counteroffers, the Republican leader and I have come to an arrangement. We will vote today to reopen the government to continue negotiating a global agreement,” Schumer said.
Schumer said McConnell has committed that if negotiators fail to reach an immigration deal before the stopgap spending measure expires on Feb. 8 “the Senate will immediately proceed to consideration of legislation” to protect “Dreamers.”
He said McConnell has promised that immigration debate “will be neutral and fair to all sides.”
“Now there is a real pathway to get a bill on the floor and through the Senate. It is a good solution, and I will vote for it,” Schumer said.”
—————————-
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It’s almost like there’s a pattern….. 🙄
http://dailycaller.com/2018/01/21/fbi-agents-missing-texts-lois-lerner-email-scandal/
“The text message gap spans the period between Dec. 14, 2016 and May 17, 2017, according to Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, the chairman of HSGAC.
That’s a crucial timespan in the FBI’s Russia investigation, which Strzok was picked to oversee in July 2016.
During that period, the infamous Steele dossier was published, Strzok interviewed then-national security adviser Michael Flynn about contacts he had with Russia’s ambassador (he pleaded guilty in December to lying during that interview), and James Comey was fired as FBI director. On the final day of the five-month gap, Robert Mueller was appointed to serve as special counsel on the Russia investigation.
Strzok was a member of that team until July, when the Justice Department’s inspector general found his anti-Trump exchanges with Page, his mistress.
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Johnson called the gap “concerning.”
Jordan, who serves on the House Judiciary and House Oversight Committees, sees parallels to the Lerner investigation, which he helped steer as a member of the Oversight panel. That committee battled tooth and nail with the IRS and the Obama White House over records related to Lerner’s targeting of conservative non-profit groups who had applied for tax exempt status.
After months of investigation, IRS officials claimed that thousands of Lerner emails from before April 2011 had been lost due to a crash of her email system. The snafu occurred in June 2011, just days after the House Ways and Means Committee requested IRS documents, including emails from Lerner’s division.
In a fiery exchange in Sept. 2016, Jordan forced then-IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to acknowledge that he made inaccurate statements about the destruction of Lerner’s emails.
Jordan said Sunday that he was not surprised by the IRS’s Lerner mess. But he has different thoughts about the new FBI revelations.
“Everybody knows the IRS is incompetent,” Jordan told TheDC on Sunday. “But we’re talking about the FBI here.”
“If this is true, they lost the text messages from the guy who was deputy head of counterintelligence? I mean, come on. If this actually happened this is unbelievable, and it’s why we would need to investigate it.””
LikeLiked by 1 person
Comey may yet rue the day he precipitated this fiasco. What a mess…an expensive distracting mess.
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Well if he’s kind enough to hold the door, I know several states who will walk thru it. 🙂
And then kill it dead financially.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/trump-opens-door-for-states-to-defund-planned-parenthood/article/2646442
“The Trump administration is overturning Obama-era advisories aimed at preventing states from cutting Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood.
The administration is rescinding an April 2016 letter that the Obama administration sent to states warning them that restricting Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood could violate federal law. Administration officials said Friday it is rescinding the guidance to give states more flexibility over how they manage Medicaid.
“States who run Medicaid jointly have had a say in whether providers in borders eligible to participate in Medicaid program,” said Charmaine Yoest, assistant secretary for public affairs at Health and Human Services.
The Obama administration sent the 2016 letter after 10 states moved to end Medicaid funding to the women’s health and abortion provider. States targeted Planned Parenthood in response to a series of undercover videos from an anti-abortion activist that showed Planned Parenthood officials discussing the donation and harvesting of aborted fetal tissue.
It is against the law to profit off the sale of aborted fetal tissue and Planned Parenthood charged that it was only reimbursed for transportation by research facilities receiving the tissue.
Courts have blocked efforts by states to defund Planned Parenthood.
A senior administration official said that the new guidance only goes back to appropriate legal standards before the 2016 letter.
It also provides state flexibility without the federal government “putting a thumb on the scale,” the official said.”
————————–
The irony here is that Pro-choicers won’t like states actually having a choice. 🙂
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Libertarians should be pleased:
https://twitter.com/bensmithdc/status/955500064369270785
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Off topic…
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, Johnson called the gap “concerning.”
I’ve always considered my vocabulary or sense of proper diction or whatever was at least average, and for the life of me, I don’t recall seeing the word “concerning” used in this sense, where it indicates something is troubling to the speaker, until about ten years ago, when is seems like everyone started using it this way. Is that anyone else’s experience? I’d always thought the word to use in that sentence should be “disconcerting,” and have wondered if the rough similarity of sound and meaning in the terms accounts for the misuse (?) of “concerning” in that context. I do see a couple online dictionaries list “concerning” in the adjectival way that Christopher Wray uses it here, but I wonder if that’s a relatively recent evolution of the word. Anyone?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ve heard it used that way before, Solar, but I confess, I don’t find it all that disconcertabobulating. Then again, I voted for Bush and Trump, so no one thinks that highly of my grammar. ;–)
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Yeah, Debra, I’ve seen it a lot the last few years, but don’t remember seeing it at all before the George W administration, and he said nukular, so maybe he started the slide in diction.
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DJ 4:04 …. because the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence where you know you will never ever have to mow it.
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Government agencies do not “lose data”.
They just don’t .
Something going on here. I don’t believe that any data was “lost”.
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Chas, you definitely wouldn’t believe it if you saw all of the data and security training we need to take every year just to keep our clearances.
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Exactly Chas and Linda.
And they may have shot Mueller in the butt as well.
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/lost-fbi-texts-could-form-basis-for-motion-to-dismiss-in-trump-team-fight-against-russia-probe/
“The latest news that five months’ worth of text messages between FBI agent Peter Strzok and DOJ attorney Lisa Page is sure to make supporters of President Donald Trump continue to claim that the Russia investigation is a politically-motivated scheme. More importantly, however, Trump’s lawyers will now be able to do the same.
Strzok has already been outed as anti-Trump, leading to his dismissal from the probe, and his past communications with Page showed a potential Justice Department bias towards Hillary Clinton. The fact that now nearly half a year’s worth of text messages between Strzok and Page during the time leading up to Robert Mueller‘s appointment as Special Counsel weren’t preserved by the Justice Department will surely fuel motions from Team Trump’s lawyers against the investigation.
Months of text messages don’t just accidentally disappear. One past conversation between Strzok and Page indicated that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch knew there would be no charges filed against Clinton well before that investigation ended. Given the significant evidence of impropriety in the Clinton case, a foregone conclusion of innocence before the FBI wrapped up their investigation looks shady at best. Trump’s lawyers will surely argue that after those messages came to light, the DOJ intentionally “lost” those five months’ worth of other messages.
Look for Paul Manafort to jump all over this. He’s already fighting his indictment, claiming that Mueller is overstepping his authority and shouldn’t be running the investigation. Throw in this evidence that the investigation may have been tainted before Mueller even took over, and that the DOJ could be covering up damaging information, and a motion to dismiss alleging prosecutorial misconduct is a near certainty. FBI Agent Strzok was reportedly heading up the Manafort investigation before he was taken off the Mueller probe. Manafort’s attorney might try to say that the missing text messages could contain exculpatory evidence (or evidence favorable to the defendant) and therefore the court should get to the bottom of what the two said. However, two former federal prosecutors who spoke to Law&Crime both contend it would be difficult to get the entire indictment dismissed based on the text messages alone.
“It depends on what FBI’s retention policy is for text messages. It does certainly raise questions as to how these five months came up missing,” explained Bill Thomas, a former federal prosecutor. “However, the court is not going to just dismiss the case. If it comes to it, the judge may hold a hearing to get to that information through calling witnesses. Dismissal is the nuclear option, it would have to be something very very egregious for a court to dismiss the case.””
————————-
I would think a soft-coup, like the one we’ve been witnessing for a year, would suffice as egregious.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-congress-seeks-answers-after-fbi-claims-texts-missing-in-trump-russia-probe/article/2646644
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SP, Carter said nukular too, and I have heard (in what context I am not quite sure) that those who work with nuclear stuff often do.
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Good. If he won’t clean house, then he goes too.
http://www.businessinsider.com/jeff-sessions-chris-wray-andrew-mccabe-james-baker-fbi-comey-russia-mueller-2018-1?op=1
“Attorney General Jeff Sessions is pushing FBI director Christopher Wray to replace deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe and former FBI general counsel James Baker.
President Donald Trump has accused McCabe of putting his thumb on the scale of the FBI’s investigation into Trump’s 2016 rival, former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
Meanwhile, congressional Republicans are targeting Baker as they investigate his contacts with the reporter who first broke the story about the explosive Trump-Russia dossier.
Former FBI director James Comey apprised both McCabe and Baker of his private conversations with Trump. Those conversations make up the basis of special counsel Robert Mueller’s obstruction-of-justice investigation. ”
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https://twitter.com/RepRatcliffe/status/955599629206335488
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Firing may be the least of his worries.
https://intelligence.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=852
““This weekend we met to discuss the text messages and possible next steps in our oversight of these agencies. The contents of these text messages between top FBI officials are extremely troubling in terms of when certain key decisions were made by the Department of Justice and the FBI, by whom these decisions were made, and the evident bias exhibited by those in charge of the investigation. The omission of text messages between December 2016 and May 2017, a critical gap encompassing the FBI’s Russia investigation, is equally concerning. Rather than clearing up prior FBI and DOJ actions, these recently produced documents cause us to further question the credibility and objectivity of certain officials at the FBI.””
————————–
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/01/22/questions-grow-over-fbis-missing-strzok-page-text-messages.html
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