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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump's battle to destroy the Mueller investigation is officially doomed
By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer
November 16 at 2:26 PM
President Trumps long struggle to destroy Robert S. Mueller IIIs investigation into the Russia scandal is officially over.
The president himself might not quite realize it yet, and he probably doesnt understand why it happened. But he has lost that conflict, and the reason is simple: His attempts to fight Mueller were so ham-handed and so public that it made it impossible for him and his administration to shut Mueller down.
The president is simply incapable of subtlety and judges everything by how it plays out in the media. But in this case, the more attention he drew to his rage at Mueller, the greater the consequences of moving against Mueller became. And now its too late.
Look, for example, at the way he handled Attorney General Jeff Sessions. It was precisely because Trump complained publicly so many times that he was livid with Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia probe which made it clear that he wanted Sessions to oversee it so Sessions could shut it down that it became impossible to fire Sessions before the midterm elections. Those public statements created a situation where firing Sessions would create a backlash from Republican senators and a huge media scandal, since Trump himself had all but said it would be for the purpose of obstructing justice.
It was July 2017, sixteen months ago, when Trump told the New York Times that if he had known Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation he never never would have hired him. But it was that very statement that made it so much harder to do what what he wanted and fire Sessions. So months passed while Mueller was diligently working away amassing evidence, turning witnesses and handing down indictments and Trump could fire Sessions only after the midterms were over.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/11/16/trumps-battle-to-destroy-the-mueller-investigation-is-officially-doomed/
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Trump's battle to destroy the Mueller investigation is officially doomed (Original Post)
DonViejo
Nov 2018
OP
BigmanPigman
(51,627 posts)1. And who does he replace him with?
Rosenstein? No. An innocent, competent person with experience? No. Someone he never met before (as he said, he barely knows Whitaker)? No. Someone who publicly said he doesn't believe in the Mueller investigation? Yes. Is this additional obstruction? Yes.
Cha
(297,650 posts)2. Exactly.. The Fraud publically hoisted himself
on his own petard..once again.
lame54
(35,321 posts)3. Thank you Al Franken
OMGWTF
(3,975 posts)4. We are lucky that Traitor Tot is stupid AF!
bluescribbler
(2,122 posts)5. His own worst enemy.
The best part is that he has no clue.
Prof.Higgins
(194 posts)6. Thanks for passing along this soundly reasoned analysis by Waldman. nt
gratuitous
(82,849 posts)7. I like Waldman's conclusion
But his path for getting to his conclusion appears to depend on Trump having some kind of conscience or sense of shame or fear of backlash. I'm not sold on the notion that Trump feels bound at all by his previous public statements or the law or precedent or DOJ's guidelines.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)8. K&R