Trump wanted to order the Justice Dept. to prosecute Comey and Hillary Clinton
8 replies, posted
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/us/politics/president-trump-justice-department.html
WASHINGTON — President Trump told the White House counsel in the spring that he wanted to order the Justice Department to prosecute two of his political adversaries: his 2016
challenger, Hillary Clinton, and the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey, according to two people familiar with the conversation.
The lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. Mr. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too
could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, Mr. McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Mr. Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to
investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.
It is unclear whether Mr. Trump read Mr. McGahn’s memo or whether he pursued the prosecutions further. But the president has continued to privately discuss the matter, including the
possible appointment of a second special counsel to investigate both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Comey, according to two people who have spoken to Mr. Trump about the issue. He has also
repeatedly expressed disappointment in the F.B.I. director, Christopher A. Wray, for failing to more aggressively investigate Mrs. Clinton, calling him weak, one of the people said.
It is not clear which accusations Mr. Trump wanted prosecutors to pursue. He has accused Mr. Comey, without evidence, of illegally having classified information shared with The New
York Times in a memo that Mr. Comey wrote about his interactions with the president. The document contained no classified information.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers also privately asked the Justice Department last year to investigate Mr. Comey for mishandling sensitive government information and for his role in the Clinton
email investigation. Law enforcement officials declined their requests. Mr. Comey is a witness against the president in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III.
The lawyers laid out a series of consequences. For starters, Justice Department lawyers could refuse to follow Mr. Trump’s orders even before an investigation began, setting off
another political firestorm. If charges were brought, judges could dismiss them. And Congress, they added, could investigate the president’s role in a prosecution and begin
impeachment proceedings. Ultimately, the lawyers warned, Mr. Trump could be voted out of office if voters believed he had abused his power.
Mr. Trump once called his distance from law enforcement one of the “saddest” parts of being president. “I look at what’s happening with the Justice Department,” he said in a radio
interview a year ago. “Well, why aren’t they going after Hillary Clinton and her emails and with her, the dossier?” He added: “I am not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I
would love to be doing. And I am very frustrated.”
Donald Trump is a fucking tyrant and he deserves nothing less than life imprisonment for what he's done to our country. Fuck him and fuck his family. Treasonous wretches.
Well, considering that hasn't happened yet, I don't see why Trump has anything to worry about at this point
He would have done it if he could. That's the important thing here. The man wants to be a dictator.
Prosecute yourself
In a way, it's kind of a blessing we got him. It's showing just how robust the government our Founding Fathers created over 200 years ago truly is, that it can be this badly infested with corrupt powerhungry fucksticks and headed by a fucking despot yet still remain workable. So many other forms of government would have already collapsed into a dictatorship by now, yet ours remains as-is, even as the powers-that-be do everything they possibly can to shift it into a dictatorship.
Lady Liberty may not be the picture of health, but she's not on her death bed either. She'll pull through.
I agree with you on everything except this. Yes it's remarkable that our institutions have been able to weather so much damage, but we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking they're impregnable or that nothing is changing. Things are getting very bad very quickly and we all have a responsibility to defend democracy and the rule of law.
I came here to post something a little bit like this, but you beat me to it. Suffice it to say that as hilariously dumb as he might be sometimes, this president makes a great case study for the limits of executive power. Hopefully it will impart some wisdom onto the electorate for 2020.
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