Can ya fix it?
The Times (the other one, the New York one) has another one of those big articles, this one on Trump’s moves to obstruct justice. It starts with a bang.
As federal prosecutors in Manhattan gathered evidence late last year about President Trump’s role in silencing women with hush payments during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump called Matthew G. Whitaker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. He asked whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Trump ally, could be put in charge of the widening investigation, according to several American officials with direct knowledge of the call.
Ho yus, perfectly normal, a president asking an attorney general if they can put a friend in charge of an investigation into the president. What could possibly go corrupt?
We’re all familiar with the public obstruction, such as all those tweets; there is also a secret branch.
An examination by The New York Times reveals the extent of an even more sustained, more secretive assault by Mr. Trump on the machinery of federal law enforcement. Interviews with dozens of current and former government officials and others close to Mr. Trump, as well as a review of confidential White House documents, reveal numerous unreported episodes in a two-year drama.
The sewage rises, and rises, and rises.
Whitaker told Congress under oath that Trump had never pressured him over the investigations; Dems are now considering a perjury investigation.
That wasn’t pressure, heavens no! Just a friendly inquiry. Not even a favour or request. Just a little tiny question out of curiousity was all.
I wonder who those “officials familiar with the call” were? I can’t imagine there were a lot of people in the rooms at either end of the phone line. Kinda narrows down the number of possible sources. Assuming the leaks were from Trump’s end (which isn’t a certainty, of course), along with other, similar leaks, you’d think he’d remove, replace or fire the individual(s) involved. Unless of course he can’t. Or something. It’s a weird but lucky thing that these things keep coming out.
NPR aired an interview with Andrew McCabe this afternoon, and I learned:
• McCabe said that when Mueller was appointed head of the criminal investigation (that the public can see as the Special Counsel’s Office), Mueller was also appointed head of the FBI counterintelligence investigation (that the public cannot see). I wondered about that; now I know.
• McCabe said the investigation was approved by the bipartisan intelligence Gang of Eight senators and Congressional representatives, and I write “the investigation” to mean what Benjamin Wittes wrote about an umbrella investigation:
Now I feel more hopeful that the investigation has bipartisan support — in the intelligence Gang of Eight — and even if Trump replaced Mueller, and if a replacement tried to stop the investigation, then something about that chess move would not work.
Ohhh, interesting. I’ll listen to that later.
To refine my second bullet above:
• My link above to the bipartisan intelligence Gang of Eight says it includes Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Representative Devin Nunes (R-CA-22).
• My link above to the McCabe interview includes a transcript that clarifies, it’s not exactly that the Gang of Eight approved the investigation (with their signatures on something), but that McCabe ran the justification to open the investigation by them, and nobody said no.
I see this as chess moves, that once people briefed inside (to some layer) see the justifications to open the investigation, then they cannot justify making a move to stop the investigation.
Republicans McConnell and Nunes might decry the investigation to the public (outside), but it looks like they cannot say no to the investigation (inside).
Dave, I don’t think Nunes or McConnell can say no, can they? My understanding is that the Gang of Eight is kept informed, but as you note, they aren’t asked to approve anything, so they can’t veto it either. I suppose they can object in the sense of “I think this is a bad idea,” but that has no effect or consequence except to the extent the intelligence officials respect their judgment or fear that Congress will actually take action.
GOP officials like McConnell and Nunes are playing a little game. They hope to be around long after Trump and his crew are gone, and so they don’t want to poison their reputation with the intelligence community. So in private it’s nothing but support or silence. But they know they won’t get to survive Trump if they get primaried, so in public it’s rah-rah Trump, Mueller is a witchhunt, the real conspiracy is that Hilary isn’t in prison, etc. etc.