Politics is not illegal
Clinton tried to discredit Starr, too
President Donald Trump last week took to Twitter to vent his frustration about the ongoing investigation into whether his 2016 campaign colluded with the Russian government. He wrote, “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!”
The White House press office was forced to clarify that the president was not ordering the attorney general to fire special counsel Robert Mueller. He was, rather, merely expressing his opinion. Meanwhile, according to The New York Times, Mr. Mueller is investigating Mr. Trump’s Twitter account as part of a wide-ranging examination of whether the president obstructedthe Russia inquiry.
Although he may very well know something about these tweets that is not on the public record, Mr. Mueller seems to me to be barking up the wrong tree. If anything, Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed is an indication that he is powerless to halt or sidetrack the investigation. Rather, his only hope is tomove public opinion against it.
Constitutionally speaking, the president has vast authority over the executive branch — including the power to fire Mr. Sessions, as well as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has direct authority over the investigation (since Mr. Sessions recused himself). If Mr. Trump wanted to end this investigation, all he would have to do is fire one of them and replace him with somebody willingto shut it down.
This would not be unprecedented. When President Andrew Jackson wanted to remove deposits from the Bank of the United States in 1833, Treasury Secretary William Duane refused. So Jackson fired him and replaced him with Roger Taney. The depositswere swiftly removed.
Mr. Trump could do likewise, constitutionally speaking. But practically speaking, he cannot. Terminating the Russia investigation before it is completed would smack of obstruction of justice, push Democrats toward impeachment and provoke sharp denunciations from many Republicansin Congress.
The fact is, Mr. Trump is still paying the price for his heedless actions when he entered office. Former FBI Director James Comey may have been the most unpopular person in Washington, D.C., in January 2017. If Mr. Trump had been smart, he could have gotten rid of him — perhaps by consulting with reasonable Senate Democrats like Dianne Feinstein on an alternative. But he was foolish. He terminated Mr. Comey without input from Congress, roped Mr. Rosenstein into writing a justification and then proceeded to give varying explanations. The result? The president looked like a crook, Mr. Comey looked like a hero, and Mr. Rosenstein felt obliged to hand the investigation off to Mr. Mueller.
Mr. Trump cannot dare to clean house at Justice again, otherwise he will pay a steep political price. I’d wager that Messrs. Sessions, Rosenstein and Mueller all know this and pay no heedto his complaints.
The president angrily tweets about the probe precisely because he cannot stop it. But his are no idle rantings. What Mr. Trump has clearly decided to do instead is try to delegitimize the investigation — arguing that it is hopelessly biased and its final result will be untrustworthy. In other words, Mr. Trump is playing politics withMr. Mueller’s inquiry.
This is not unprecedented, either. When Bill Clinton was under investigation for the Monica Lewinsky scandal, he rightly understood that impeachment is the only way to remove a sitting president and that, because impeachment is run by Congress, it is fundamentally a political matter. So he played politics with the investigation, sending his spokesmen out to attack independent counsel Kenneth Starr for conducting a witch hunt. It worked. Mr. Starr presented to Congress findings that he thought amounted to impeachable offenses, butthe Senate refused to convict.
Mr. Trump is trying to do likewise. He cannot stop Mr. Mueller, just like Mr. Clinton could not stop Mr. Starr, so he is trying to taint the eventual product of the investigation. This is not obstruction of justice. It is politics.