Trump's battle to destroy the Mueller investigation is officially doomed

[DonViejo]

By Paul Waldman
Opinion writer

November 16 at 2:26 PM

President Trump’s long struggle to destroy Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into the Russia scandal is officially over.

The president himself might not quite realize it yet, and he probably doesn’t 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 it’s 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/

[BigmanPigman]

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]

2. Exactly.. The Fraud publically hoisted himself

on his own petard..once again.

[lame54]

3. Thank you Al Franken

[OMGWTF]

4. We are lucky that Traitor Tot is stupid AF!

[bluescribbler]

5. His own worst enemy.

The best part is that he has no clue.

[Prof.Higgins]

6. Thanks for passing along this soundly reasoned analysis by Waldman. nt

[gratuitous]

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]

8. K&R