Former prosecutor, Glenn Kirschner, calls for the establishment of a "Trump Crime Commission" to investigate the Trump Crime Syndicate.
January 18, 2020

Former federal prosecutor, Glenn Kirschner, joined the AM Joy panel on Saturday morning to discuss all things Trump, Barr, Ukraine and Lev Parnas. We all know that Trump has been able to get away with even more criming than we feared because Bill Barr is protecting, enabling, and possibly preventing witnesses from coming forward (see Jeffrey Epstein.) And the reality is, as Kirschner points out, that we will never know what is really going on until Trump leaves office — with a less corrupt administration, and the creation of a commission to conduct thorough investigations — a "Trump Crime Commission."

REID: And I'm glad you brought that up, because in the Trump's claim of a "perfect phone call" he says "talk to Rudy and talk to Bill Barr" and Bill Barr we know has mounted and instructed one of his underlings at DOJ to mount this investigation, supposedly, on his own, that seems to track with what Trump wanted done and meanwhile you're right. There's no way to dislodge him. We don't have an independent counsel statute, anymore. Normally, this sounds like the job for a special prosecutor. But you can't have a Mueller, because a Mueller-type prosecutor would report to Bill Barr, because the former Ken Starr-type prosecutor, I mean, that law, it's gone, it expired.

KIRSCHNER: And, I think what the founders envisioned is potentially a corrupt and criminal President. So, we have impeachment. Potentially, a corrupt and criminal Attorney General. There would be ways to deal with that if we had a law-abiding President. I don't think they ever envisioned a corrupt, criminal, abusive President supported by a corrupt, criminal, and abusive Attorney General. And that's why come January 2020, we need to wrestle this thing to the ground. We need to form a commission that is equal parts Nuremberg Trials and Truth and Reconciliation commission, and we need to hold all of these people accountable. I think "Trump Crime Commissions" has a nice ring to it. That needs to be done, because these corrupt men have exposed the flaws in our system.

REID: And I mean, a previous attorney has gone to jail. I think he should keep that in mind, William Barr. Here is another part of this interview in which Lev Parnas talks about being afraid of William Barr. Take a listen.

(clip)

PARNAS: Right now the scary part and that's what I keep mentioning and people don't understand there's a lot of Republicans that would go against him. The only reason, if you'll take a look and you know very well because you've been following, the difference between why Trump is so powerful now and he wasn't as powerful in '16 and '17. He became that powerful when he got William Barr. People are scared. Am I scared? Yes. Because I think i'm more scared of our own Justice Department than of these criminals right now.

(clip)

REID: We should note that the DOJ put out a statement saying this is 100% false. That's their statement. He has good reason to be afraid, right? This guy, William Barr has his fingers on so much of this. He controls the prosecutors that are prosecuting Parnas, he controls even — I mean, you look at the Jeffrey Epstein case, he controlled the prison. He controls so much and he has so much power and Trump as empowered him so much, and he's dealing with various Russian entities that we don't know, that are murky. This guy, he has good reason to be afraid, no?

KIRSCHNER: He does, because here is the Catch-22 for Lev Parnas. If he is actively involved with discussions with the prosecutors in New York to see whether he wants to come on board as a formal cooperator, all of those are secret, and those will remain secret for a very long time. So he wouldn't have been able to tell his story publicly. I think that must be part of the motivation as to why he went to Rachel, and is now getting his story out because think about it. If he had been dealing with the Southern District of New York prosecutors behind closed doors, giving up Bill Barr, Trump and others and all of a sudden something happened to him, like happened to Epstein, well, all of that information would then be put under wraps by Bill Barr, the same way we really haven't gotten to the bottom of what happened to Epstein. And so I think this was a smart move, and maybe for his own personal safety, this was Lev Parnas' only play to get the information out to the American people, so he doesn't get Epsteined.

It is clear that Lev Parnas is the man who can connect all the dots between Trump, Giuliani, Nunes, Pompeo, Barr and Pence. He has receipts in the form of emails and WhatsApp conversations. He has photos - so many photos. Seriously so many photos. Many, many photos. And he is rightfully afraid that Bill Barr will try to Epstein him, so he is coming forward now. He had an explosive two-part interview with Rachel Maddow last week that name dropped basically every single person in the Trump orbit, except Melania and Barron.

The impeachment trial starts next Tuesday, but there is a high chance that the GOP-led Senate will acquit without calling any witnesses, so the only way we will ever find out the true depths of the criminality of this administration will come after Trump is out of office. And this will require a full-throated commission to investigate, and hopefully charge, every single crook, cheat, and liar in this administration: A Trump Crime Commission.

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