Trump eyed Justice Dept. to go after foes
Counsel told him he had no authority to order prosecutions
President Donald Trump was told by his White House counsel that he didn’t have the authority to order prosecution of his political adversaries — Hillary Clinton and fomer FBI Director James Comey.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016 challenger, Hillary Clinton, and former FBI Director James Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
The lawyer, Donald McGahn, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.
The encounter was one of the most blatant examples yet of how Trump views the typically independent Justice Department as a tool to be wielded against his political enemies. It took on additional significance in recent weeks when McGahn left the White House and Trump appointed a relatively inexperienced political loyalist, Matthew Whitaker, as the acting attorney general.
Disappointed in FBI chief
It is unclear whether Trump read McGahn’s memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further. But the president has continued to privately discuss the matter, including the possible appointment of a second special counsel to investigate both Clinton and Comey, according to two people who have spoken to Trump about the issue. He has also repeatedly expressed disappointment in the FBI director, Christopher Wray, for failing to more aggressively investigate Clinton, calling him weak, one of the people said.
A White House spokesman declined to comment. A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment on the president’s criticism of Wray, whom he appointed last year after firing Comey.
It is not clear which accusations Trump wanted prosecutors to pursue. He has accused Comey, without evidence, of illegally having classified information shared with The New York Times in a memo that Comey wrote about his interactions with the president. The document contained no classified information.
Trump’s lawyers also privately asked the Justice Department last year to investigate Comey for mishandling sensitive government information and for his role in the Clinton email investigation. Law enforcement officials declined their requests. Comey is a witness against the president in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.
Trump has grown frustrated with Wray for what the president sees as his failure to investigate Clinton’s role in the Obama administration’s decision to allow the Russian nuclear agency to buy a uranium mining company.
In his conversation with McGahn, the president asked what stopped him from ordering the Justice Department to investigate Comey and Clinton, the two people familiar with the conversation said. He did have the authority to ask the Justice Department to investigate, McGahn said, but warned that making such a request could create a series of problems.
Warned of impeachment
McGahn promised to write a memo outlining the president’s authorities. In the days that followed, lawyers in the White House counsel’s office wrote a severalpage document in which they strongly cautioned Trump against asking the Justice Department to investigate anyone.
The lawyers laid out a series of consequences. For starters, Justice Department lawyers could refuse to follow Trump’s orders even before an investigation began, setting off another political firestorm.
If charges were brought, judges could dismiss them. And Congress, they added, could investigate the president’s role in a prosecution and begin impeachment proceedings.
Trump stoked his enmity for Clinton during the campaign, suggesting during a presidential debate that he would prosecute her if he was elected president. “If I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation,” Trump said.
Two weeks after his surprise victory, Trump backed off. “I don’t want to hurt the Clintons, I really don’t,” Trump said in an interview with The Times. “She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways, and I am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious.”
Nonetheless, he revisited the idea both publicly and privately after taking office. Some of his more vocal supporters stirred his anger, including Fox News commentator Jeanine Pirro, who has railed repeatedly on her weekly show that the president is being ill-served by the Justice Department.