Donald Trump’s glaring lack of experience upon assuming the office of president is truly coming back to haunt him. As he’s come to learn, no matter how desperately he tries to make it otherwise, while in the Oval Office, he can’t act like the freewheeling businessman he’s been his entire life. His actions have consequences.
The full extent of those consequences remains to be seen, but Special Counsel Robert Mueller is among those continuing to explore the issue. Now, The Washington Post has a report about yet another not yet explored aspect to Mueller’s investigation, something connected to events that took place after his appointment. In other words, Trump is continuing to dig the hole that he’s in deeper and deeper.
According to The Post, Mueller is investigating the president’s intent behind his attempts to pressure Attorney General Jeff Sessions to resign last summer.
The paper reports:
‘In recent months, Mueller’s team has questioned witnesses in detail about Trump’s private comments and state of mind in late July and early August of last year, around the time he issued a series of tweets belittling his “beleaguered” attorney general… The thrust of the questions was to determine whether the president’s goal was to oust Sessions in order to pick a replacement who would exercise control over the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and Trump associates during the 2016 election.’
As the publication notes, it is fully within the president’s authority to fire Cabinet secretaries, but if the president’s intent behind his pressure placed on Sessions was to alter the course of the Russia investigation, then that is a different issue entirely.
Sessions personally recused himself from the Russia investigation early last year, having done so after it came out that he himself could be considered a subject of the investigation for having concealed meetings with the now former Russian ambassador to the United States.
It was after Sessions recused himself that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who eventually appointed Special Counsel Mueller, took over the Russia investigation.
The president has long bemoaned the fact that Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, having even suggested at one point that he would have appointed someone else to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer if he’d known Sessions would recuse himself.
Now, Mueller apparently wants to know if the president posted a series of tweets against Sessions last summer with that concern of his in mind. Were he to replace Sessions, that new appointee could theoretically take control of the Russia investigation back from Rosenstein and mold its outcome more towards the president’s liking.
Among the posts in question is one from July 24 of last year, when the president posed the question:
‘So why aren’t the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations?’
Trump has consistently tried to deflect blame for the appearance of collusion with Russia onto the Democrats, and he has also long maintained that Hillary Clinton should have been prosecuted in some capacity for her usage of a private email server while secretary of state.
Through all of this, the fact remains that it is not normal in the slightest for the president of the United States to meddle with the nation’s justice system as Trump has.
More recently, Trump went after Sessions again, writing early Wednesday on Twitter:
‘Why is A.G. Jeff Sessions asking the Inspector General to investigate potentially massive FISA abuse. Will take forever, has no prosecutorial power and already late with reports on Comey etc. Isn’t the I.G. an Obama guy? Why not use Justice Department lawyers? DISGRACEFUL!’
Even as the president continues to dig the hole that he’s in deeper and deeper, he continues to maintain that the Russia investigation and its concurrent arms consist of little more than a witch hunt.
Featured Image via Chris Kleponis-Pool/Getty Images
