Jack Smith Adds Michael Dreeben of Russiagate Fame to His Team

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Special Counsel Jack Smith added a new investigator to his team – Michael Dreeben – who was deeply involved in the Mueller investigation and is an ally of the infamous Michael Weissman. He was deeply involved in the Mueller investigation and the Arthur Andersen case. He is the obstruction of justice “expert.”

Ethics does not necessarily govern him, but he knows how to use the law. He is the lawyer who won the argument that the special counsel could investigate his business dealings.

The notorious Mary McCord is a fan.

THE TWO TEAMS

Smith’s team is experienced in addressing the Supreme Court, but Trump’s legal defense is not. Trump has only three Missouri lawyers: D. John Sauer, Will Scharf, and Michael Talent. Sauer, a Rhodes Scholar and Harvard Law graduate who clerked for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has argued only once before the Supreme Court.

In the Russiagate case, Dreeben was “leading the special counsel’s defense each step of the way,” Politico wrote in 2018, putting him in the top 10 of its “power list.” Even though the Mueller team knew the Russiagate theory was false, Dreeben was able to set up a legal strategy.

Politico reported Dreeben is an institutionalist who spent three decades at the Justice Department defending the power of the executive branch to investigate and prosecute crimes — an experience that surely will be relevant as he backs Smith’s prosecution of Trump. Sauer, meanwhile, is a veteran of the conservative legal community who’s best known for his involvement in Republican-backed lawsuits that blocked Joe Biden’s student debt cancellation and accused the Biden administration of social media censorship.

He is experienced in manipulating the Supreme Court.

Trump’s team, especially Sauer, have effectively fought and beaten back leftist policies.

Michael Dreeben was one of the attorneys involved in the corrupt prosecution of Arthur Anderson with Michael Weissman. He was on Mueller’s Russia team and has a history of attempting to put an overly broad definition of obstruction of justice into case law at the expense of innocent people.

AN EXTREME INTERPRETATION OF OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

Michael Dreeben has argued for a ridiculously broad interpretation of obstruction of justice, one of the issues Trump was investigated for after Mueller’s friend Jim Comey said he thought there might be a case. Esteemed liberal Professor of law Jonathan Turley writes:

Dreeben’s background also contains an interesting item that bears directly on the potential case against President Donald Trump.  Dreeben argued in an unsuccessful appeal of the prosecution of Arthur Anderson where the Justice Department advanced a sweeping interpretation of obstruction of justice — an interpretation that I criticized as wildly overbroad.

The interpretation resulted in a unanimous rejection of the Supreme Court.  Given the call for a charge of obstruction against Trump (and the view of some of us that there remain considerable statutory barriers to such a charge), Dreeben’s addition should be a concern to the Trump defense team.

After Dreeben and his team relentlessly and unconstitutionally pursued Arthur Anderson, one of the biggest accounting firms in the nation at the time, the Supreme Court overturned the case, but by then, the company was ruined.

Trump is again accused of obstruction of justice and inciting an insurrection. Dreeben will be pulling the same stunts he has pulled before.


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