Analysis: Trump’s demand for AG Jeff Sessions to investigate Hillary Clinton is an ethical minefield
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For the second day in a row, President Trump slammed Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and threw in old foe Hillary Clinton. Nathan Rousseau Smith (@fantasticmrnate) reports.
Buzz60
WASHINGTON – If President Trump was listening to the broadcast of Jeff Sessions’s contentious Senate confirmation hearing back in January, he would know why his demands this week for his attorney general to investigate Hillary Clinton crossed a bright ethical line.
“This country does not punish its political enemies,” Sessions told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He went on to acknowledge that his own critical remarks of Clinton during the 2016 presidential election disqualified him from launching such an inquiry.
“I believe the proper thing for me to do would be to recuse myself from any questions involving those kind of investigations that involve Secretary Clinton,” Sessions said.
Since Trump first publicly expressed frustration with his attorney general last week – specifically over his March decision to recuse himself from overseeing the widening Russia investigation – Sessions has said very little.Â
Yet the attorney general’s own remarks nearly eight months ago underscore the minefield of potential conflicts of interest inherent in Trump’s request to investigate a political opponent – and the president’s apparent disregard for the traditional independence of the Justice Department.
Trump’s continued insistence that Sessions reopen the Clinton inquiry into her use of a private email server, lawmakers and former federal prosecutors said Tuesday, represents a troubling and undisguised attempt to manipulate the criminal justice system.
“Prosecutorial decisions should be based on applying facts to the law without hint of political motivation,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “To do otherwise is to run away from the long-standing American tradition of separating the law from politics regardless of party.”
Others, however, saw even more serious implications in the recent series of Trump’s disparaging comments about Sessions, coupled with the calls for a renewed Clinton investigation.
“To make a demand like this in public, while implying that the attorney general’s job is in jeopardy, almost feels like an attempt at blackmail,” said Patrick Cotter, who has prosecuted high-profile organized crime figures. “It reeks of a crude mob deal that even most mobsters wouldn’t stoop to.Â
“I’m no fan of Attorney General Sessions, but I believe the president is threatening his own attorney general,” Cotter continued. “He’s essentially telling Sessions, ‘If you want to keep your job, you better start an investigation of Hillary Clinton.’ “
One day after describing his own attorney general as “beleaguered,” Trump fired off a series of tweets Tuesday morning criticizing Sessions for taking “a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes.” He also publicly questioned why Sessions was not pursuing reports from early this year that officials in Ukraine also sought to interfere in the election.Â
Later that day, at a White House press conference, Trump reasserted his “disappointment” with Sessions’ recusal from the current Justice Department inquiry into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russians who sought to influence the election. The decision was “unfair” to the presidency, he said.Â
Trump refused to answer questions, however, about whether he intended to dismiss the attorney general. “Time will tell,” Trump said.
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Yet Trump’s renewed focus on prosecuting Clinton – after spending a half-year in office – is notable also because it represents a departure from his own post-election statements in which he expressed little interest in pursuing further inquiries into his defeated campaign foe.
Less than two weeks after the election, Trump told the New York Times that he did not want to hurt the Clintons. Then-FBI Director James Comey, who was abruptly dismissed by Trump in May, formally closed the Clinton investigation just days before the November election without recommending criminal charges. Â
“I really don’t,” Trump said then. “She went through a lot and suffered greatly in many different ways.”Â
What’s more, Kellyanne Conway, now a White House adviser, was more definitive when she told MSNBC last year that Trump also hoped that Congress would forego further investigation into the former secretary of State’s activities.
“I think when the president-elect, who’s also the head of your party, tells you before he’s even inaugurated that he doesn’t wish to pursue these charges, it sends a very strong message, tone and content to members” of Congress,” Conway said then.
Now, Trump is sending a very different message by appearing to turn the case into a make-or-break issue for the continued tenure of his attorney general, analysts said.
William “Bill” Barr, who served as attorney general in the administration of George H.W. Bush, said there is nothing inherently illegal or unethical for a president to recommend an investigation.Â
“But in the current context,” Barr said, “it would be viewed as political.”
During the campaign, Trump and his surrogates used the Clinton case as a rallying cry all along the trail, often leading chants of “Lock her up!”
Now that he’s president, however, Trump’s continued pursuit of Clinton could easily be viewed not only as an attempt to punish a political rival – or exert undue influence on investigators.Â
Regardless of whether Trump convinces the Justice Department to take up an inquiry, Trump’s latest push on this front is “unprecedented,” said former federal prosecutor Scott Fredericksen.
“The suggestion that he wants to prosecute and imprison a political rival crosses a very bold and historical line that establishes the independence of the Justice Department,” Fredericksen said. “That line is what separates our American democracy from a third-world dictatorship. A very important line may have been crossed here.”
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