The president is attempting to dismantle the rule of law, destroy the time-honored independence of the Justice Department, and undermine the career men and women who are devoted to seeking justice day in and day out, regardless of which political party is in power.
.. President Trump claims that it is very “unfair” that Mr. Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, a recusal indisputably necessary given Mr. Sessions’ role in the campaign that is now under investigation. At its core, the president’s complaint is that he doesn’t have a political ally at the Justice Department to protect him from the Russia investigation. And he is apparently trying to bully Mr. Sessions into resigning so that he can put someone in place who will.
The president hasn’t stopped there. He has also tried to goad Mr. Sessions into re-initiating a closed investigation of the president’s former political rival. And all of this takes place in the wake of the president’s attempts to persuade the former F.B.I. director James Comey to back off the Michael Flynn investigation, and then firing Mr. Comey when he didn’t.
President Trump’s actions appear aimed at destroying the fundamental independence of the Justice Department. All the while, he’s ripping the blindfold off Lady Justice and attempting to turn the department into a sword to seek vengeance against his perceived enemies and a shield to protect himself and his allies.
.. In short, no one at the White House should have anything to do with any decisions about whom or what to investigate or prosecute. Period.
We must do more than rubberneck as we drive past this car crash. We all have a responsibility to protect our Justice Department’s ability to do its job free from interference. The very foundation of our justice system — the rule of law — depends on it.
Trump’s lawyer says Comey violated executive privilege. He’s wrong.
The privilege serves as a powerful protection against compelled disclosures of internal, confidential executive branch communications — whether in response to court orders, congressional subpoenas or both.
..Executive privilege is an important shield to protect the president’s power. It is not a sword
.. So where a current or former government employee wants to cooperate and turn over the requested information, the privilege itself won’t — and can’t — stop him or her.
.. Federal law proscribes certain unauthorized disclosures, including of “information relating to the national defense” or information that has pecuniary value to the United States.
.. No one is making an argument that the material in Comey’s memos was classified, or that information about a conversation could have the kind of monetary value required to trigger the federal conversion statute.
.. But it’s also worth stressing that Trump would not have had a valid basis for invoking executive privilege in any event. From his own public statements and tweets about his conversations with Comey, Trump has almost certainly waived any potential privilege claim, since he has acknowledged both the existence and substance of the discussions.
.. And even if the president has not waived the privilege here, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Nixon that “The President’s broad interest in confidentiality of communications will not be vitiated by disclosure of a limited number of conversations preliminarily shown to have some bearing on the pending criminal cases.”
.. none of this means that Comey acted “appropriately” in orchestrating the leak of his memos. Not for the first time, it appears that Comey took it upon himself to breach important norms governing the conduct of senior law enforcement officials