President Trump wanted Hillary Clinton and James Comey prosecuted, and repeatedly asked Justice Department officials what progress was being made in that direction, the New York Times reported Tuesday. Read this story here.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump led “Lock her up!” chants at his rallies, and shortly after taking office he fired Comey, the FBI director, for not cooperating with his efforts to impede or shut down the investigation led by Robert Mueller of Russian interference in the election.
Don McGahn, then White House counsel, and other top officials told Trump he didn’t have authority to order prosecutions. Apparently that contained his impulses for the time being. CNN asserted later Tuesday night that had Trump succeeded in launching the prosecutions, “it could have spelled the end of his presidency, as a clear-cut abuse of power.” Read that article here.
Some Republicans in Congress still want to hold hearings on Clinton’s use of private mails for official business, which became an issue during the 2016 campaign after Wikileaks released emails obtained from Russian hackers, but that’s different from a president taking the law into his own hands.
Whether Clinton broke the law, which the FBI under Comey reviewed in 2016, then declined to bring charges, has nothing to do with it. Trump’s daughter Ivanka, who occupies a high-level White House adviser position, also has used private emails to conduct official business. He isn’t interested in the legality of those actions, only in going after his political enemies. With McGahn and many of the other officials now gone, and a loyalist in charge at the Justice Department, it’s an open question whether he will make fresh efforts to go after Clinton and Comey.
A president’s authority over federal law enforcement is limited to appointing the attorney general, FBI director, U.S. attorneys, and using the pardon power. Nothing in the Constitution or federal statutes empowers him to order prosecutions or interfere with investigations, and doing so is abuse of power and obstruction of justice. Nixon was impeached for both reasons.
However, the current crop of GOP senators are so attached to Trump, and afraid of his base, that it’s doubtful they would uphold impeachment charges against him on those or any other grounds. The reality is that constitutions and laws become useless paper if those in power won’t enforce them. Nixon’s abuses were stopped by the willingness of senators from his own party to remove him from office. But Mitch McConnell is no Barry Goldwater, and today’s Republican Party is no lover of democratic traditions. It’s hard to say where that leaves us.