TRUMP’S PROXY WAR WITH ROBERT MUELLER FINDS A NEW TARGET

The president is reportedly hoping to add another scalp to his pile.

BY

ABIGAIL TRACY

JANUARY 29, 2018 2:09 PM

ROSENSTEIN JUDICIARY — ***Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general, speaks during a House Judiciary Committee hearing in Washington, D.C., December 13, 2017.***

***By Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg/Getty Images.***

Although his continual interference with the Justice Department has been excused by some as mere naïveté, Donald Trump understands, at some level, that he would do well to leave Robert Mueller alone. “Why aren’t they going after Hillary Clinton with her e-mails and with her dossier?” he asked during a November interview, reportedly “frustrated” that the D.O.J. wasn’t investigating Clinton. “But, you know, as president, and I think you understand this—as a president, you’re not supposed to be involved in that process.” On another level, Trump surely understands that his influence campaign is yielding real results, even as they further entangle him in a potential obstruction case. On Monday, news broke that F.B.I Deputy Director Andrew McCabe would step down, adding another scalp to Trump’s pile. As the president appears to have learned, there are many ways in which he can weaken and undermine Mueller’s case without sacking the special counsel himself.

As The New York Times reported over the weekend, Trump’s shadow campaign against Mueller appears to have focused on how he can leverage a controversial memo, written by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, to pressure and potentially fire Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.According to the Times, the memo alleges that Rosenstein approved the surveillance of Carter Page, a former foreign-policy adviser to the Trump campaign, under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Trump allies argue that such an order constitutes an abuse of the program, and that if it did occur, “the American people should know”. They also argue that the order to surveil Page was based on the dossier compiled by ex-British spook Christopher Steele, which was, in turn, partially financed by the Democratic National Committee. (Democrats have roundly dismissed the report as misleading and part of a broader smear campaign against U.S. law enforcement.)

According to CNN, the president has privately “vented” about Rosenstein, who took over the Trump-Russia probe following Jeff Sessions’s recusal, making such comments as “let’s fire him, let’s get rid of him” before his advisers step in. “Everyone says, ‘That’s the death march. That’s not going to accomplish anything,’” a source familiar with the situation told CNN, alluding to the fact that firing Rosenstein would likely bolster Mueller’s obstruction case against Trump. The Washington Post reports that Trump periodically grows frustrated with the probe, and “has complained to confidants and aides in recent weeks that he does not understand why he cannot simply give orders to ‘my guys’ at what he sometimes calls the ‘Trump Justice Department,’” two sources said.

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The president is also at odds with his own D.O.J. over the release of Nunes’s memo. Despite a warning from Assistant Attorney General Stephen Boyd that publicizing the document would be “extraordinarily reckless,” White House Chief of Staff John Kelly informed Sessions that the president is all for releasing the report, according to the Post—a senior administration official said Trump believes the memo will “shed light,” and “help investigators come to a conclusion.”

Mueller, meanwhile, appears to be nearing a conclusion without the House Intelligence Committee’s help; in recent weeks, he has allegedly expressed interest in a series of incidents in which the president may have attempted to influence proceedings. Those episodes have included Trump’s decision to fire James Comey after the former F.B.I. director allegedly refused to pledge loyalty to the president; his efforts to prevent Sessions’s recusal and his subsequent castigations of the attorney general; a conversation with McCabe in which Trump reportedly asked the F.B.I. deputy director whom he voted for in 2016; and Trump’s rumored push to oust Mueller himself, which the president has refuted. “Their theory appears to be that he goes after people who are not loyal,” a person who has had contact with Mueller’s team told the Post. “He wants in place people who are loyal, to make sure he doesn’t get in trouble in the investigation.” Trump’s continued efforts to undermine Mueller’s probe may become evidence itself.

Regardless of Mueller’s eventual conclusions, such public skepticism of U.S. law-enforcement agencies may do lasting harm. “Look at the precedent,” Matthew Miller, an Obama-era D.O.J. spokesman, toldmy colleague Chris Smith. “A few decades ago, Republicans decided it was advantageous to start attacking the mainstream media, and they convinced Republican voters you didn’t have to believe anything you saw in the mainstream media. They then did the same thing with scientists, when they decided it was in their interest to say climate change was false . . . For the past year, they’ve had their sights firmly pointed on the Justice Department and the F.B.I. That is going to have a lasting effect.”