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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrumps rage at Sessions puts the president in serious danger
I say let Trampy Trump rage publicly on and on. It will help bring him.
Trumps rage at Sessions puts the president in serious danger
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/03/01/trumps-rage-at-sessions-puts-the-president-in-serious-danger/?utm_term=.a6ba17aba37e
by Greg Sargent March 1 at 10:01 AM
2:42
Opinion | Mr. President, Jeff Sessions is not your personal attorney
Jonathan Capehart, Fred Hiatt, Christine Emba and Molly Roberts of The Post Opinions section discuss Trump's attack on Jeff Sessions and democratic norms. (The Washington Post)
THE MORNING PLUM:
We often treat President Trumps demands for loyalty from law enforcement, and his open chafing at institutional constraints on his power, as the temperamental explosions of an out-of-control madman whose tyrannical tendencies are largely impulsive a Mad King. But what if they are driven by calculations that are deliberately designed to achieve a concrete end that he perceives to be the best of a range of possible outcomes for him?
In the case of Trumps efforts to hamstring the Russia probe, this is becoming increasingly clear. At the same time, those obstruction efforts are failing to bring him closer to his own apparent goals, and may arguably be putting him in greater danger. One might refer to this paradox as Trumps irrational instrumentalism.
The Post has a blockbuster report that tells us that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is scrutinizing Trumps efforts to push out Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the summer, to determine whether those efforts were part of a months-long pattern of attempted obstruction of justice, as The Post puts it:
In recent months, Muellers team has questioned witnesses in detail about Trumps 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, these people said. The thrust of the questions was to determine whether the presidents 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, these people said.......................
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At the time, a White House adviser told a Washington Post reporter that Trump was stunned that Sessions had not yet quit. The president, this adviser added, had been hoping the attorney general would be so embarrassed by Trumps scathing comments that he would leave.
As has been widely noted, Trumps assaults on Sessions, and his calls for prosecution of political opponents, reveal that he views law enforcement as little more than an instrument at his political service. Trump has raged at Sessions for failing to protect him from an investigation that began when he was a candidate, and was taken over by Mueller precisely because of Trumps own conduct in firing former FBI director James B. Comey. .....................................................................................................................
This isnt at all a stretch, because this desire on Trumps part to enlist help in constraining the Mueller probe has been documented by independent reporting repeatedly. .......................[lists some examples]
bunt homer
(88 posts)Rage on, Donnie!
bucolic_frolic
(42,675 posts)Did Russian trolling of social media cause razor slim margins in Michigan and Pennsylvania? How were all the polls wrong by 22%? How did the election outcome with a .3% chance of probability just happen to fall into Donnie's lap?
We're catching the crooks, but we're not getting to the bottom of illegitimacy and the caustic policies that has engendered.