Wants to fire special counsel, deputy attorney general
PRESIDENT Donald Trump is now personally being investigated by the team of Special Counsel Robert Mueller for a possible criminal case of “obstruction of justice” after he fired FBI Director James Comey, according to reports by the Washington Post.
This is a significant development in the year-long probe on the alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign because this time, the president is now the subject of a criminal investigation and not just the Trump campaign.
Mueller has been appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to head the Russia probe on behalf of the Office of the Attorney General, as AG Jeff Sessions has recused himself from any investigation related to Russia. Session himself has been under fire for his alleged secret communications with Russian officials as a surrogate for Trump during the 2016 U.S. presidential elections.
Fired FBI Director James Comey, Robert Mueller (who was the former FBI director during the Bush and Obama eras), and Rosenstein share things in common: Trump wants to fire them. This is all after the president and his supporters initially spoke highly of them, until they all became key players in pushing the investigation against Trump and his campaign.
At the core of the allegation of obstruction of justice against Trump is his supposed abuse of executive power in using his position and influence to try to make officials in the U.S. intelligence community drop the case against Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn with reference to the Trump campaign’s Russia connection.
Comey’s testimony — given under oath before the Senate Intelligence Committee — could be material to Mueller’s determination if indeed, Trump could be held criminally liable for obstruction of justice. Mueller’s team has also invited other intelligence officials to give their testimonies so the special counsel could rule if there is a solid case against Trump.
Trump fired back via Twitter on Thursday, June 15 to denigrate the people investigating, saying:
“They made up a phony collusion with the Russians story, found zero proof, so now they go for obstruction of justice on the phony story. Nice”
“You are witnessing the single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history — led by some very bad and conflicted people.”
When news about Trump wanting to fire Mueller came out, it had been discussed that the president could not fire Mueller as the law mandates that it would only be the Office of the Attorney General that could appoint and fire Mueller, but only for a very good cause. Rosenstein issued a statement expressing confidence in Mueller.
On Friday, Trump’s tweet appeared to be alluding to Rosenstein:
“I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch hunt”
This tweet, of course, is based on Trump’s narrative about the “memo” supposedly written by Rosenstein recommending the FBI director’s firing because Comey had been unfair to Clinton by announcing the investigation into her email account just a week before the election.
This argument by Trump, however, had been subject to questions because of statements and actions made by him. He said in a TV interview that he already decided to fire Comey even before the “memo” submitted by Rosenstein because he had the Russian investigation in his mind.
This was followed by Trump’s bragging to the Russian officials he met in the Oval Office. “I just fired the head of the FBI he was crazy, real nut job…I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off,” Trump said, according to the document read to the New York Times by an American official.
Comey was reportedly fired because despite Trump asking him to drop the Russian probe of Flynn, the FBI director still moved forward with the investigation.
Political analysts say it would be suicidal for Trump to fire Mueller and Rosenstein because this would just make a stronger case of obstruction of justice against him.
Next week, we will talk about these legal terms: obstruction of justice, perjury, etc. so we can better understand and appreciate the case we all should be following as responsible citizens of America.
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Gel Santos Relos is the anchor of TFC’s “Balitang America.” Views and opinions expressed by the author in this column are solely those of the author and not of Asian Journal and ABS-CBN-TFC. For comments, go to www.TheFil-AmPerspective.com, https://www.facebook.com/Gel.Santos.Relos
