Another morning, and another unhinged Twitter attack on the Mueller investigation by a President who claims the entire investigation is a “hoax” and “Fake News
In yet another morning Tweetstorm, President Trump took his most direct attack yet on Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Russia investigation:
WASHINGTON — President Trump called on Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Wednesday to end the special counsel investigation, an extraordinary appeal to the nation’s top law enforcement official to end an inquiry directly into the president.
The order immediately raised questions from some lawyers about whether it was an attempt to obstruct justice. The special counsel, appointed last year to oversee the government’s Russia investigation, is already looking into some of the president’s previous Twitter posts and public statements to determine whether they were intended to obstruct the inquiry into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election and any ties to the Trump campaign.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers quickly moved to contain the fallout, saying it was not an order to a member of his cabinet, but merely an opinion. An hour and a half after the tweet was posted, Mr. Trump’s lawyers contacted a reporter for The New York Times. In a subsequent telephone conversation, one of his lawyers, Rudolph W. Giuliani, dismissed the obstruction of justice concerns, calling it a “bizarre and novel theory of obstruction by tweet,” adding that it was “idiotic.”
Presidents typically do not weigh in on active Justice Department investigations, but Mr. Trump has been outspoken about his anger and frustration with the Russia inquiry. Mr. Trump has also said that he never would have made Mr. Sessions his attorney general if he had known Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from the inquiry.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
Mr. Sessions recused himself in early 2017 in part to avoid the kind of conflicts Mr. Trump proposed. Later, the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, was appointed to carry out the inquiry.
The president’s lawyers, Jay A. Sekulow and Mr. Giuliani, said in a telephone interview that Mr. Trump was not ordering the inquiry closed but simply expressing his opinion.
“It’s not a call to action,” Mr. Giuliani said, adding that it was a sentiment that Mr. Trump and his lawyers had previously expressed publicly and that it was a statement protected by the president’s constitutional right to free speech.
“He doesn’t feel that he has to intervene in the process, nor is he intervening,” Mr. Sekulow said.
The president wanted the legal process to play out, his lawyers said. “He’s expressing his opinion, but he’s not talking of his special powers he has” as president, Mr. Giuliani said.
(…)
Urging Mr. Sessions to end the inquiry was unprecedented and amounted to Mr. Trump asking Mr. Sessions to “subvert the law,” said Matthew S. Axelrod, a longtime prosecutor who served in top roles in the Obama Justice Department.
“What he’s saying here is that there’s no one who ought to be able to investigate his actions and, if necessary, hold him accountable for those actions,” Mr. Axelrod said.
Mr. Axelrod said this request of Mr. Sessions was part of a larger pattern — one in which Mr. Trump attacked the integrity of the special counsel, attacked the press and attacked the courts, “all institutions designed to provide checks on executive authority and executive overreach,” he said.
Mr. Trump gave the directive in a series of Twitter posts hitting familiar notes in his objections to the investigation and accusing an investigator of being “out to STOP THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP.” Some of his messages contained quotations the president attributed to a staunch supporter, the lawyer Alan Dershowitz.
Mr. Mueller and his team are also looking into whether some of Mr. Trump’s tweets about Mr. Sessions and the former F. B. I. director James B. Comey were intended to obstruct the inquiry.
Here are Trump’s tweets:
“FBI Agent Peter Strzok (on the Mueller team) should have recused himself on day one. He was out to STOP THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP. He needed an insurance policy. Those are illegal, improper goals, trying to influence the Election. He should never, ever been allowed to……..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1,2018
…..remain in the FBI while he himself was being investigated. This is a real issue. It won’t go into a Mueller Report because Mueller is going to protect these guys. Mueller has an interest in creating the illusion of objectivity around his investigation.” ALAN DERSHOWITZ….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1,2018
.. This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1,2018
Paul Manafort worked for Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other highly prominent and respected political leaders. He worked for me for a very short time. Why didn’t government tell me that he was under investigation. These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion – a Hoax!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1,2018
Russian Collusion with the Trump Campaign, one of the most successful in history, is a TOTAL HOAX. The Democrats paid for the phony and discredited Dossier which was, along with Comey, McCabe, Strzok and his lover, the lovely Lisa Page, used to begin the Witch Hunt. Disgraceful!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1,2018
Looking back on history, who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone, legendary mob boss, killer and “Public Enemy Number One,” or Paul Manafort, political operative & Reagan/Dole darling, now serving solitary confinement – although convicted of nothing? Where is the Russian Collusion?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1,2018
“We already have a smoking gun about a campaign getting dirt on their opponent, it was Hillary Clinton. How is it OK for Hillary Clinton to proactively seek dirt from the Russians but the Trump campaign met at the Russians request and that is bad?” Marc Thiessen, Washington Post
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1,2018
What some are taking as a demand directed at Sessions is, of course, largely ineffective. Since Sessions recused himself from any involvement in the Russia investigation months before Mueller was appointed, he does not have the authority under relevant Justice Department regulations to fire Mueller or to involve himself in the Russia investigation in any respect. The only person who has the authority to fire Mueller, or limit his investigation is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who is the one who brought Mueller on board as Special Counsel in the wake of the President’s decision to fire F. B. I. Director James Comey and the President’s admission just days after that decision that he did so because of the Russia investigation. Rosenstein, however, has made it clear in public statements and in testimony before Congress that he has seen no evidence that the Special Counsel has overstepped his bounds or that the investigation has gone off the rails. Further evidence of Rosenstein’s position and support for the ongoing investigation can be seen in the fact that it has been his office rather than Mueller’s that has announced the major indictments in this case, specifically including the indictment of more than a dozen Russians back in March and the indictment of a dozen Russian intelligence officials that was handed down just days before the President’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. With both his testimony and these actions, Rosenstein has made clear that he would resist any effort by the President to pressure him to fire Mueller or otherwise bring an end to the investigation, thus leaving Trump with the politically risky option of having to fire Rosenstein in order to get to Mueller.
