By DemocracyRules
Obama promised a self-review of his staff's communications with Blago about the vacant Senate seat. Prior to the release, Obama spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said, "We have a report... It's been ready for release for a week. We've held off at the request of the U.S. Attorney's office and that continues to be the case, though we expect to be able to release the report shortly."
What she did not mention is that U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald and his staff were interviewing Obama and his staff about their involvement in the Blago scandal.
In the post immediately below, I critiqued the "review," but I wasted my time. The "review" is not even remotely credible.
The “review” was conducted by Greg Craig, who has defended many assassins, terrorists and genocidal murderers. The only praise I could offer him is at least he lost many of those cases. More about Mr. Craig here.
Normally a review like this requires an independent, impartial, arms-length legal and ethics expert with unimpeachable credentials. Instead, Greg Craig has already been named as the new White House Chief Counsel, which places him in direct conflict of interest. If the “review” in any way implicated Obama or any of his senior staff, Craig could have been denied his new job.
This is like asking the busboy to conduct a performance review of the restaurant manager. It's an absurd exercise, because the busboy could not afford to be impartial.
Craig should have absented himself from this investigation, because he could not be considered an independent impartial arbiter. In most jurisdictions, allowing oneself to be in conflict of interest is a breach of the ethical codes of conduct for barristers and solicitors. Craig made three egregious mistakes. (1) He took on the task when he must have known his impartiality would be questioned. (2) He knew he was in conflict of interest. (3) He did not declare his conflict of interest anywhere in the attached document.
How Craig thought he was going to get away with this I have no idea, since I found the conflict of interest with one Yahoo search for “Greg Craig” and Obama. Even if Craig were to claim that he has no memory of the code of ethics of his own profession, he should have withdrawn. He needs immediate treatment for dementia.
As it is, this “review” should be labeled an abstruse type of existentialist humor, in the style of Franz Kafka. There is no point in reading a single word of it. If Greg Craig told me the sky is blue, I would have to go outside and check.
If Obama set out to destroy his own Presidential credibility as fast as possible, he could not do worse. He is emulating a Dauntless dive bomber, screaming down to a carrier deck, with no idea how to pull up, or even how to verify if the carrier is friend or foe.
Apparently Emanuel has fled to Africa.
Pro Patria
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