The following article by James Hohmann with Breanne Deppisch was posted on the Washington Post website May 18, 2017:
THE BIG IDEA: The White House tried hard last night to downplay the significance of the Justice Department appointing a special counsel to investigate possible coordination between President Trump’s associates and Russian officials. Robert S. Mueller III, who spent 12 years as FBI director, will lead the probe.
In their account, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein called up White House Counsel Don McGahn at 5:30 p.m. to give him a head’s up that he was going to make the announcement half an hour later. A senior administration official told reporters that Trump was “unbelievably calm and measured.” The press office then put out this statement under the president’s name: “A thorough investigation will confirm what we already know — there was no collusion between my campaign and any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding quickly.”
Undercutting the party line a little, though, the president took to Twitter this morning to express frustration about the mounting investigation and once against present himself as the victim of a witch hunt:
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— Remember: There would be no special prosecutor if Trump had not fired James Comey (allegedly after asking him to end the FBI’s investigation into Michael Flynn) and then confessed that he did so with Russia on his mind. This is yet another reminder of just how badly the inexperienced president’s impulsive decision and its bungled rollout has backfired on him.
— In the short-term, politically, this newest development might give Republicans and the White House a little bit of breathing room. They can offer support for the special counsel to deflect many of the difficult and important questions that remain unanswered. But, in truth, the long-term danger to Trump’s presidency from the Russia scandal is greater today than it was yesterday.
As long as Mueller’s probe drags on, a huge dark cloud will hang over the White House. Who knows just how high up this investigation might go? Or, very hypothetically at this point, who in the Trump orbit might turn state’s witness if offered a deal to avoid jailtime? And Mueller is respected enough (more on that below) that any attempt to neuter him, or even just rein him in, could lead to a Constitutional crisis. In that way, Trump just lost a little more control over the fate of his presidency.
— How aggressive the Russia investigation will become is now up to Mueller. Rosentein’s order charges Mueller with investigating “any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump,” as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.” Mueller is also empowered to probe possible attempts to stymie his investigation. That language gives him leeway to interpret his mandate broadly if he chooses. It also might mean he goes after people who leaked classified information related to the bureau’s Russia investigation. He can continue his work however long he wants, and he is broadly “authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation.”
— That means this could last for years – potentially through the president’s 2020 reelection campaign. Philip Bump explored how long the work of previous special prosecutors/counsels took:
— The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, primarily concerned with advancing conservative tax reform though Congress, says Rosenstein made a “mistake” by “bending to political pressure” and worries it will hinder the GOP agenda: “These expeditions rarely end well for anyone … It opens up years of political risk to the Trump Administration … The manner of (Mueller’s) appointment and the subject he’s investigating make him de facto untouchable even if he becomes an abusive Javert like Patrick Fitzgerald … Mueller will be under pressure to bring criminal indictments of some kind to justify his existence. He’ll also no doubt bring on young attorneys who will savor the opportunity to make their reputation on such a high-profile investigation. … He is highly attuned to the political winds. As they say in Washington, lawyer up.”
— Pete Wehner, a former senior aide to Bush 43 who was called to testify before a grand jury during the investigation into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity, told Politico: “There’s always a mood in a White House. If you have a special prosecutor, that can dampen the spirit. It just changes things. It makes life more complicated (even) for people who are completely innocent. If you’re guilty, obviously it makes it much more difficult. People are fearful whatever they’ve done and transgression they’ve committed is going to be revealed.”
“The risk is that you lose control of your agenda,” added Robert Luskin, a Washington white-collar attorney who represented Karl Rove in the Plame investigation, as well as a pair of Clinton senior officials during Whitewater. “It’s an enormous distraction. It’s an energy suck. As long as the clouds hang over a presidency it becomes much more difficult to get anything else done.”
This is why White House officials and GOP leaders in Congress have so strongly resisted a special counsel until now.
Flashback:
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— Empowering Mueller is unlikely to contain the fallout from Trump firing Comey or stop the ongoing congressional investigations.
The leaders of the Senate and House committees conducting their own inquiries pledged last night to move forward, setting up a complex landscape of potentially conflicting investigations — and competing goals. From Sean Sullivan, Ed O’Keefe, Elise Viebeck and Mike DeBonis: “Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.), whose panel is conducting one of five congressional probes that are directly or indirectly looking into Russian activity, was among those who hailed the news while also declaring that ‘our task hasn’t changed.’” The Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees also both asked the FBI for documents related to Comey, who was closely overseeing the Russia investigation until Trump fired him.
Democrats cheered the news, but many also said that there still needs to be an independent investigation. “An independent commission doesn’t govern the FBI investigation, an independent commission doesn’t make charging decisions,” said Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “I think they’re complementary, not in competition with each other.”
The Washington Post Editorial Board says the special counsel should not let Congress off the hook and makes an important point about what an independent investigation can do that Mueller cannot: “The special counsel’s job is only to look for criminal behavior and, if he finds any, to prosecute the wrongdoers. His job is not to inform the public or to pass judgment on actions that may have been unwise, inappropriate or unethical — but did not violate the law. … A full accounting is likely to emerge only if Congress appoints a special commission like the one that investigated the 9/11 attacks.”
— A frequently asked question: What’s the difference between a “special counsel” and an “independent counsel”? Matt Zapotosky explains: “The independent counsel was a position established by a law that has expired, in part because of dissatisfaction over the independent investigations of Bill Clinton. Unlike the special counsel, the independent counsel was formally appointed by a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and those judges oversaw the independent counsel’s work. … A special counsel has been appointed like this only one other time — when Attorney General Janet Reno named former senator (Jack) Danforth to review the events surrounding the law enforcement assault on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex., in 1993.” (Fitzgerald remained U.S. attorney for Chicago during the Plame investigation, so he wasn’t totally outside of DOJ.)
IF YOU DON’T KNOW MUELLER:
— He brings to this role a proven willingness to take on a sitting president. From a nicely-turned profile by Matea Gold, Rosalind Helderman and Tom Hamburger: “In a high-drama episode in 2004, he and then-Deputy Attorney General Comey [who remains his friend] were preparing to resign from their positions if President Bush reauthorized the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretap program without changes. Bush backed down. Former colleagues said the ex-Marine Corps officer and former U.S. attorney, who was sworn in as FBI director a week before the 2001 terrorist attacks, is uniquely suited to the task. A former deputy attorney general who later did a stint prosecuting homicide cases in Washington, Mueller is a known as a no-nonsense, relentless prosecutor with a deep reverence for the rule of law. ‘The most devastating thing that can happen to an institution is that people begin to shade and dissemble,’ he told Washingtonian magazine in 2008.”
The former director has demonstrated an impressive, lifelong commitment to public service. Some quick biographical details: “Mueller grew up in Philadelphia and went to St. Paul’s School, the elite prep school in New Hampshire, where he played hockey with John F. Kerry … At Princeton, he was inspired to join the Marine Corps by a former student who died in Vietnam … He led a rifle platoon in Vietnam, eventually receiving numerous commendations, including the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star. After graduating from the University of Virginia Law School, Mueller worked for a dozen years as an assistant U.S. attorney in San Francisco and Boston. Mueller succeeded William Weld as U.S. attorney in Boston and then went to Washington in 1989 as an assistant to Attorney General Richard L. Thornburgh, eventually rising to be chief of the criminal division. During his tenure, he worked on high-profile cases such as the prosecution of former Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega and the terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.”
Mueller cares more about making his community safer than making a buck: “After a stint at a private law firm, Mueller took a big pay cut to work as a homicide prosecutor in Washington for U.S. Attorney Eric H. Holder Jr. — a move that friends said showed how much prosecuting was in his blood. Holder told The Post that Mueller called him and explained he was ‘shaken’ by killings in the city and wanted a chance to be a line prosecutor and do something about it. Holder called the conversation ‘one of the most extraordinary calls I’ve ever gotten.’ Holder later tapped Mueller to serve as U.S. attorney in San Francisco…
“As a partner at WilmerHale, which Mueller joined in 2014, he was frequently tapped by major corporations and institutions to conduct complex, sensitive internal investigations. Among his recent clients was the defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, which hired him to review the company’s security procedures after one of its employees was charged with stealing classified data from the NSA. Another was the National Football League, which tapped Mueller to examine how the league handled a domestic abuse case involving former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice.”
View the post here.