Lawmakers: Trump can't stop investigation of Clinton email case

[sabra]

Source: The Hill

A new inspector general (IG) investigation into the FBI’s conduct leading up the 2016 election is likely to continue after Inauguration Day, whether President-elect Donald Trump wants it or not.

Although the inspector general himself, Michael E. Horowitz, is a political appointee, everyone beneath him is a career official.

Trump could remove Horowitz, but lawmakers from both sides of the aisle say it’s unlikely that he would be able to halt the investigation.

The president “cannot shut down a probe, that’s the whole point of the IG,” House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said. “They’re supposed to be independent.”

Read more: http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/314110-lawmakers-trump-cant-stop-investigation-of-clinton-email-case

[Turbineguy]

1. No.

The repubs need all the distractions and waste they can muster.

[Hugin]

2. That headline freaks me out.

It has nothing to do with Clinton or email and everything to do with the conduct of the FBI.

[ananda]

4. Same here.

Our media is so dysfunctional and ugly.

[paleotn]

6. Me too.

My first reaction was oh f'ing hell! What now?!

[itsrobert]

7. Yup, many deplorables are confused they think the new investigation is about Clinton

they were celebrating the news. Well, they voted for Trump.

[yardwork]

11. Just makes me furious.

[MissKat]

16. I felt that choke at first, too

But maybe this is a good thing. If the deplorable think it's Clinton being investigated maybe they'll ignore what's going on until too late.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Jesus Christ. It's like teaching a child.

Where has Trump been for the last few decades of American History?

[Cryptoad]

17. Down at the Golden Showers Whore House?????? nt

[paleotn]

5. That's damn right.

..you can't just turn it off. Much of our government is set up that way for very, very important reasons. President's come and go, as do cabinet positions and various other political appointees. But the bulk of the machinery, career civil servants, doesn't change. They just change the picture on the wall at least every 8 years. I don't think tweetinfuhrer is smart enough to realize that, so he's in for a big surprise.

[Gothmog]

8. Agreed-trump will have a very hard time stopping this investigation

I saw this on the Washington Post https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/01/12/there-will-be-an-investigation-of-james-comeys-conduct-we-might-get-some-accountability-after-all/?utm_term=.25630ca46fd1

UPDATE: Amy Jeffress, a former senior Justice Department official and currently an attorney at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, emails more detail on whether this probe could be closed down under Trump:

The Inspector General Act authorizes the Attorney General to interfere with an IG investigation under certain exceptional circumstances, one of which relates to intelligence matters, which arguably could apply here. But the Attorney General would have to find that action is “necessary to prevent the significant impairment to the national interests of the United States” (and there are congressional notification requirements as well). I can’t think of any precedent for taking this step, and politically it would be hugely controversial, and therefore unlikely.

It may be harder that we think for Trump to block this investigation

BTW Comey is pond scum

[mtngirl47]

10. Good to know!

Now drag it out and make them testify on the nightly news!

[George II]

9. If he tries and fires Horowitz, it could wind up similar to Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre.

[renate]

12. Jeffrey Toobin disagrees

It is well within the realm of possibility that the Trump Administration will kill this investigation before it even begins. The President-elect clearly believes that all the recent attention paid to the hacking of the Clinton campaign’s e-mails, apparently by Russian forces, was contrived to deprive him of the legitimacy he so craves. It’s easy to imagine that he will view the investigation of Comey the same way, since so many people have attributed Trump’s election to that last-minute development, rather than to his campaign. The only thing standing in the way of his firing the inspector general is a political norm, and Trump has shown gleeful disdain for such standards. In a similar vein, Sessions (or his deputy) could decide to prohibit the inspector general from conducting this inquiry.

(Emphasis mine)

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-trump-could-kill-the-investigation-of-james-comeys-actions?intcid=mod-latest

[DK504]

13. WTH?

What the hell? I thought we had gotten past all this bullshit. You know all that collusion with Comey tanking the election for Hillary and there was NOTHING to investigate. WTF?????

Why are we still wasting money on this shit. So angry.

[Stonepounder]

14. The IG isn't investigating Hillary's email server, it is investigating Comey's handling of it.

[Demit]

15. Read more carefully: "investigation into the FBIs conduct"