Probe must be protected
From firing top law enforcers to co-opting members of the House Intelligence Committee, President Trump’s determination to obstruct any investigation of his relationship with Russia has hardly been cloaked in mystery. Now he has warned Congress that his assault on those who would seek truth and enforce the law might extend to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, presaging a confrontation with echoes of Watergate.
Trump explicitly attacked Mueller, his team and his investigation for the first time in a weekend Twitter outburst that closely followed his lawyer’s call to end the special counsel’s probe. He also heaped further derision on the FBI’s former director and deputy director, James Comey and Andrew McCabe, a day after McCabe’s vindictive dismissal hours shy of retirement eligibility.
It was Comey’s firing last year, and Trump’s acknowledgment of his pique over the Russia inquiry, that precipitated Mueller’s appointment by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Firing Mueller, which Trump has reportedly considered before, could mean getting rid of Rosenstein — and possibly others — in a reprise of Richard Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre.
Perhaps to lay the groundwork for such a desperate course, Trump is smearing the investigators as partisan witch-hunters. In fact, Mueller, Comey and McCabe are all Republicans, and the internal investigation used as a pretext to can McCabe concerned disclosure to the press of details about the FBI’s Clinton Foundation probe. Likewise, Comey’s damaging campaign-season revelations about the federal inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s emails belie Trump’s narrative of a conspiracy against him.
It is reassuring that several prominent Republican lawmakers have warned Trump away from Mueller but less so that they have neglected legislation to protect the probe. Judging by the president’s words and deeds so far, Congress can either act to head off a constitutional crisis or wait for one to unfold.