Tag: Trump attack on FBI

Sessions Silent as Trump Attacks His Department, Risking Independence and Morale

The following article by Katie Benner was posted on the New York Times website February 4, 2018:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, left, in Washington last week with his top leaders, Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, and Rachel Brand, the associate attorney general. Credit Aaron P. Bernstein/Reuters

WASHINGTON — As President Trump hammers away at the Justice Department’s credibility, one voice has been notably absent in the department’s defense: the one at the top.

The attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has been largely quiet and even yielding as the president leads the most public and prolonged political attack on the department in history, a silence that breaks with a long tradition of attorneys general protecting the institution from such interference.

“What is unusual is the F.B.I. and the Justice Department being attacked, the president leading the charge and the attorney general missing in action,” said Jack L. Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor who headed the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush. “Why isn’t he sticking up for the department?” Continue reading “Sessions Silent as Trump Attacks His Department, Risking Independence and Morale”

President Trump claims the FBI is tainted and its reputation in tatters. This graph shows he’s wrong.

The following article by David Lewis was posted ont he Washington Post website December 16, 2017:

President Trump said on Dec. 14 that the FBI is “a very sad thing to watch,” but pledged to rebuild the agency to make it “bigger and better than ever.” (The Washington Post)

“It’s a shame what’s happened with the FBI,” President Trump told reporters yesterday, calling the bureau’s conduct “really, really disgraceful.” He was building on criticisms he’d levied earlier this month, when he labeled the Federal Bureau of Investigation “tainted” and said its reputation was “in tatters.” The president claimed that ideological bias was behind the FBI’s decisions about criminal investigations involving Hillary Clinton and Robert S. Mueller III’s ongoing special counsel investigation. Continue reading “President Trump claims the FBI is tainted and its reputation in tatters. This graph shows he’s wrong.”