Demands for ouster to be investigated
WASHINGTON: Congressional Democrats yesterday demanded emergency hearings in the US House of Representatives to investigate President Donald Trump’s ouster of attorneygeneral Jeff Sessions, calling the move an effort to undermine a federal probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 US election.
Trump forced the resignation of Sessions on Thursday, a day after elections in which his fellow Republicans lost control of the House but increased their majority in the Senate.
In a letter saying the move placed the country ‘‘in the throes of a constitutional crisis’’, House judiciary committee Democrats demanded action from the panel’s Republican chairman, Bob Goodlatte, and called for bipartisan legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller from any effort to stymie the probe.
The Democrats said they also wanted the Justice Department to protect the integrity of Mueller’s investigation and to preserve relevant documents.
‘‘The president’s actions have plunged the country into peril,’’ they wrote. ‘‘By forcing the firing [of] the attorneygeneral, the president now threatens the rule of law itself.’’
A spokeswoman for Goodlatte had no comment on the letter.
Congressional Democrats, including newly elected members of the House, held a confer ence call yesterday during which they said they would try to include legislation protecting Mueller’s investigation in an appropriations Bill that Congress is due to consider later this year.
‘‘We are watching what appears to be continued obstruction by this White House,’’ Representative Mark Pocan told Reuters.
He said Democrats were concerned about what the Trump administration might do next about the probe. ‘‘Anyone writing even a dimestore novel knows what the next couple of steps are on this,’’ he said.
Asked to comment on the Democrats’ call for a special counsel protection Bill, a spokeswoman for the office of House Speaker Paul Ryan, a Republican, referred to past remarks by Ryan. He has said he does not believe there is a need for Congress to pass legislation aimed at protecting the special counsel from termination.
Trump has named Sessions’ chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker, as acting attorneygeneral, say ing he will soon nominate a permanent replacement. That has drawn criticism from Democrats because Whitaker, who will now take over responsibility for overseeing Mueller and his investigation, has been critical of the probe.
Whitaker is also a close friend of Trump’s 2016 election campaign cochairman, Sam Clovis.
Walter Shaub, who was director of the US Office of Government Ethics for four years before resigning in July 2017, said that friendship should disqualify Whitaker from supervising the investigation. ‘‘Whitaker has to recuse himself under DOJ’s regulation requiring recusal if you have a personal or political relationship with someone substantially involved in conduct that is the subject of the investigation or prosecution,’’ Shaub told Reuters.
Department of Justice spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores declined to comment. — Reuters
❛ Anyone writing even a dimestore novel knows what the next couple of steps are on
this