His misstatements and accusations made it difficult to limit the special counsel’s scope.
.. Trump is the one who hired Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
- It is Rosenstein whose order appointing Robert Mueller fails to set limits on Mueller’s investigative jurisdiction, thereby authorizing the fishing expedition that has Trump so ballistic.
- Moreover, it was Trump’s own botching of the firing of FBI director James Comey that spooked Rosenstein, inducing him to appease furious Democrats by giving Mueller free rein.
.. Sessions’s overly broad recusal meant that there were no Trump appointees in the Justice Department to push back against then-director Comey’s desire to make sensational public disclosures about the Russia probe in his March 20 House testimony
.. The question was whether the FBI should make public comments about ongoing investigations.
.. I continue to believe that if the director had either said nothing (which would have been the right thing to do) or simply said publicly the same thing he was saying behind the scenes (which would have avoided creating a scandalous misimpression), he would still be FBI director.
.. I continue to believe that if the director had either said nothing (which would have been the right thing to do) or simply said publicly the same thing he was saying behind the scenes (which would have avoided creating a scandalous misimpression), he would still be FBI director.
.. Then, in a lapse of judgment that stands out even by Trump standards, the president decided to host Russian diplomats at the White House the day after firing Comey, and to berate the former director for the consumption of these agents of a hostile regime. In addition to describing the former director as “crazy, a real nut job,” Trump told Putin’s men that by getting rid of Comey, he had “taken off” the “great pressure” he faced “because of Russia.” Thus did the president, with both hands, feed the Democrats’ narrative that Comey had been removed in order to obstruct the FBI’s probe of Trump-campaign collusion in Putin’s election-meddling.
.. Thus the problem with the assignment Rosenstein has given Mueller: As we have repeatedly observed, a counterintelligence investigation has no discernible jurisdictional limits. Its purpose is to collect information, and from an investigator’s point of view, you can never have enough information. The reason the regulations controlling special-counsel appointments call for a criminal investigation is that crimes have knowable parameters; therefore, when the Justice Department specifies the crimes a special counsel is authorized to investigate, there are obvious jurisdictional limits.
.. I believe that Rosenstein, having been bitterly criticized by people whose opinions he cares deeply about, decided to make amends by giving Mueller free rein to take the investigation in any direction he chose to take it. Rosenstein wanted Mueller to be effectively independent of Justice Department control.
.. Sure, the regs instruct the Justice Department to set limits on a special counsel’s jurisdiction. Rosenstein, however, figured that if he followed the regs, Democrats would again inveigh against him for supposedly shielding Trump from an investigation. Under the regs, the special counsel is to be overseen by Justice Department superiors, reflecting the Constitution’s vesting of all executive power (including prosecutorial power) in the president — that’s why there is no such thing as an “independent” prosecutor. But Rosenstein determined that Mueller would be independent — as if he were a separate branch of government, outside executive control.
President Trump accomplished only one thing by railing at Attorney General Sessions: He added to the growing disinclination of quality people to work in his administration. No one with self-respect wants to work in a place where the boss not only won’t back you up when the going gets tough, but will turn on you with a vengeance — especially when there’s a need to divert attention from his own shortcomings.