Day 487: Trump crosses red line: demands DOJ investigate themselves, FBI
In the U.S., the Justice Department and political arms of the executive office operate independently of one another as much as possible. This is for a good reason: when prosecutorial and investigatory decisions overlap with political motivations, a cloud of bias wafts over the entire justice system. Think of dictators investigating vanquished rivals or vocal opposition leaders: are they being jailed because of an actual crime or to consolidate a leader’s power and quell other voices?
Donald Trump has just crossed that line. Sunday afternoon, he demanded the DOJ investigate whether his campaign was surveilled or infiltrated by the FBI or DOJ and, if so, whether that was done at Barack Obama’s doing.
Trump is trying to paint the narrative as though his campaign was being watched to stop him from being elected. In reality, however, that’s not what anyone is reporting.
Multiple outlets reported late last week that the FBI sent a confidential source to speak with aides in Trump’s campaign about ties to Russia. In other words, the FBI was following leads and legitimately investigating Trump-Russia ties in 2016, and possibly even earlier. There’s no allegation that the FBI implanted an agent or source within Trump’s team to undercut his election chances, merely that someone spoke with aides about the goings-on.
Trump — in his biggest blurring of lines between the Justice department and the White House since the firing of FBI director James Comey — is trying to find more ways to taint Robert Mueller’s investigation while allowing himself to argue that he’s the one who is being politically wronged.
Trump’s methodologies aren’t just clunky, they aren’t done.
Legal experts said such a presidential intervention had little precedent, and could force a clash between the sitting president and his Justice Department that would be reminiscent of the one surrounding Richard M. Nixon during Watergate, when a string of top officials resigned rather than carry out his order to fire a special prosecutor investigating him.
While most presidents who have faced investigations have responded with increased discretion to avoid being seen as trying to influence the outcome, Mr. Trump has dispensed with any notion that he is not trying to do so. He and his aides have branded the investigation a witch hunt and a hoax, called for an end to it, and tried to set its boundaries, and now the president has ordered a review of how it was handled.
“I can’t think of a prior example of a sitting president ordering the Justice Department to conduct an investigation like this one,” said Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law. “That’s little more than a transparent effort to undermine an ongoing investigation.”
Trump is breaking all sorts of norms in an effort to sabotage an investigation which has led to numerous indictments and guilty pleas among his campaign team. If there’s truly nothing to hide within his campaign regarding Russia, why have so many aides already been ensnared in Robert Mueller’s probe, and why does Trump seem so concerned about the investigation?
Again, we’ll say it: innocent people don’t act like this.
487 days in, 975 to go
Follow us on Twitter at @TrumpTimer
