Whoa: Former U.S. Attorney General, Longtime Clinton Confidante Both Call for End of Mueller Probe
It’s only Monday, and it has already been an eventful week on the Russia investigation front. We’ll get to the president’s tweets and the DOJ’s response in a moment, but let’s start with a fresh pair of op/eds urging the conclusion of Robert Mueller’s probe. Finding anti-Mueller commentary online isn’t exactly a challenge, but these pieces are noteworthy because of their authors. The first comes from a respected former US Attorney General who served during the last Republican administration, but isn’t known as a partisan fire-breather or bomb-thrower. The other comes from a longtime Democratic strategist with close ties to the Clintons. In an essay penned by Michael Mukasey for USA Today, the former top federal law enforcement officer contends that the current special counsel investigation is operating beyond the bounds of standard operating procedure — and questions its initial legal basis:
This, from a former attorney general, gets to the question of whether there was a proper basis for the Mueller investigation to even start. https://t.co/TOpQyXKf6a
— Brit Hume (@brithume) May 21, 2018
Because Attorney General Jeff Sessions had worked on the Trump campaign, he recused himself from the matter, and so the deputy — Rod Rosenstein — took the decision to appoint a special counsel. The regulations require that such an appointment recite the facts justifying the conclusion that a federal crime was committed, and specify the crime. However, the initial appointment of Robert Mueller did neither, referring instead to a national security investigation that a special counsel has no authority to pursue. Although Rosenstein apparently tried to correct his mistake in a new appointment memo, he has thus far refused to disclose, even to a federal judge, a complete copy of it. In other investigations supposedly implicating a president — Watergate and Whitewater come to mind — we were told what the crime was and what facts justified the investigation. Not here.
Nor have any of the charges filed in the Mueller investigation disclosed the Trump campaign’s criminal acceptance or solicitation of help from the Russians. The one indictment that relates to Russian criminality charges that the Russians hacked Democratic Party computers and committed other social media abuse, but says specifically that if the Trump campaign got the benefit of it, that was “unwitting” — i.e., without criminal intent…The ongoing investigation saps the resources and attention of the Trump administration. If the administration cannot function, the burden of this constantly shifting investigation will give rise to a narrative that any failure was due to the Mueller diversion — that the Trump administration was stabbed in the back. That is potentially more damaging to our politics than any salaciousness that might be tossed up by Robert Mueller. For both legal and political reasons, the end of this investigation is overdue.
In reality, the indictment to which Mukasey refers addresses *only* Russia's social media manipulation operation. We still don't know what Mueller has found or will conclude regarding whether anyone linked to the Trump campaign wittingly entered into the emails conspiracy. /end
— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) May 21, 2018
(Read more from “Whoa: Former U.S. Attorney General, Longtime Clinton Confidante Both Call for End of Mueller Probe” HERE)
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