Sunday, February 18, 2018

Trump’s All-Out Attack on the Rule of Law

https://www.thenation.com/article/trumps-all-out-attack-on-the-rule-of-law/
"This is part of a broader pattern. Since taking office, Trump has targeted investigators, and other law-enforcement officials. He fired Acting Attorney General Sally Yates, who had informed him of Gen. Mike Flynn’s vulnerability to potential Russian blackmail. He ousted US Attorney Preet Bharara in New York (along with all the other Obama-appointed US Attorneys), who had overseen New York real-estate fraud and money-laundering investigations. He demanded FBI Director James Comey’s political loyalty, asked Comey to go easy on Flynn, and then fired Comey over, as Trump famously said on national television, “this Russia thing with Trump and Russia.” He made inappropriate requests of CIA Director Mike Pompeo, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and NSA Director Mike Rogers, seeking their help in winding down the FBI investigation. He pressured his own attorney general, Jeff Sessions, not to recuse himself from the Russia inquiry, sharply criticized Sessions when he did, and then repeatedly slammed Sessions via Twitter and in media interviews, at one point indicating that he wanted Sessions gone. He repeatedly attacked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has overseen the Russia inquiry since Sessions’s recusal. Last week, reports surfaced that Trump wants to get rid of Rosenstein, too. And Trump has explicitly attacked the entire FBI, saying that it’s “in tatters”—which received strong pushback from the man Trump himself appointed to lead the bureau, Director Christopher Wray. Wray himself threatened to resign over Trump’s uncalled-for attacks against the now-departed Deputy Director McCabe. To most observers, Trump’s actions amount to a massive campaign to obstruct justice, one of the counts that Mueller is charged with looking into."