In an interview with Sean Hannity, President Trump’s man of the law, Rudy Giuliani, said that it was incumbent upon Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein to “redeem themselves” in the wake of the Inspector General’s report on the Hillary Clinton investigation. Holding up the report on the show, Giuliani said that the Department of Justice owed it to the president and the American people to put the Mueller investigation on pause so the DOJ has a chance to thoroughly consider the implications outlined in the report.
“I believe that Rod Rosenstein and Jeff Sessions have a chance to redeem themselves and that chance comes about tomorrow,” Giuliani said Thursday. “Tomorrow, Mueller should be suspended and honest people should be brought in, impartial people to investigate these people like [disgraced FBI agent Peter] Strzok. Strzok should be in jail by the end of next week.”
While the report handed down by the IG on Thursday was not the bombshell that the president’s defenders were hoping to see, there are significant issues to be addressed – not the least of which are newly-revealed text messages from the aforementioned Strzok, who at one point vowed to his intra-agency lover that they would “stop him,” meaning Donald Trump.
It’s beyond unlikely that either Sessions or Rosenstein will step up to take Giuliani’s suggestions, and if the president demands it, the firestorm will be epic. For now, it appears that Trump has no choice but to let this investigation reach its natural conclusion, at which point the American people will be the only jury that matters.
We have no problem with Mueller staying within his mandate: Determining the extent to which Russia interfered in the election and if/when/how any American citizens helped them achieve their goals. But when the investigation strays from that mandate, which it already has in multiple ways, we have a big problem. And it is a matter of known legal fact that any “obstruction” charge against the president is an absurdity in terms.
This report has already cast serious doubts as to the integrity of the senior FBI leadership and several members of the investigative team responsible for looking into both Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Trump/Russia collusion matter. That alone is enough to cause any responsible DOJ official – Sessions, Rosenstein – to take action against the special counsel. Everything he’s got from here on out may be fruit of the poisoned tree. If we’re to ever convince the American people to trust these agencies again, there must be a thorough and conclusive reckoning. Without it, any conclusions Mueller reaches will be nothing more than political fodder.
Comments are closed.