{"id":50511,"date":"2017-11-04T05:17:48","date_gmt":"2017-11-04T05:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=50511"},"modified":"2017-11-04T05:17:48","modified_gmt":"2017-11-04T05:17:48","slug":"very-frustrated-trump-becomes-top-critic-of-law-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/very-frustrated-trump-becomes-top-critic-of-law-enforcement.html","title":{"rendered":"Very Frustrated Trump Becomes Top Critic of Law Enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Very Frustrated Trump Becomes Top Critic of Law Enforcement<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

One of President Trump\u2019s biggest disappointments in office, by his own account, was discovering that he is not supposed to personally direct law enforcement decisions by the Justice Department and the F.B.I. So, instead, he has made himself into perhaps the most vocal critic of America\u2019s system of justice ever to occupy the Oval Office.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just this week, he denounced the criminal justice system as \u201ca joke\u201d and \u201ca laughingstock.\u201d He demanded that the suspect in the New York terrorist attack be executed. He spent Friday berating the Justice Department and F.B.I. for not investigating his political opponents. He then turned to the military justice system and called a court-martial decision \u201ca complete and total disgrace.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The repeated assaults on law enforcement cross lines that presidents have largely observed since the Watergate era, raising questions about the separation of politics and the law. But as extraordinary as Mr. Trump\u2019s broadsides are, perhaps more striking is that investigators and prosecutors are so far ignoring the head of the executive branch in which they serve while military judges and juries are for the most part disregarding the opinions of their commander in chief.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, the saddest thing is that because I\u2019m the president of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department,\u201d Mr. Trump said in a radio interview on Thursday on the \u201cLarry O\u2019Connor Show.\u201d \u201cI am not supposed to be involved with the F.B.I. I\u2019m not supposed to be doing the kind of things that I would love to be doing. And I\u2019m very frustrated by it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

That frustration has been fueled particularly by Mr. Trump\u2019s inability to control the special counsel investigation into whether his campaign coordinated with Russia during last year\u2019s election, an investigation that unveiled its first criminal charges this week against Mr. Trump\u2019s former campaign chairman and two other advisers.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump has made clear that he sees the attorney general and the F.B.I. director as his personal agents rather than independent figures, lashing out at both for not protecting him from the Russia investigation.<\/span><\/p>\n

In May, he fired the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, who later testified that he had refused Mr. Trump\u2019s demands that he pledge loyalty and publicly declare that the president was not personally under investigation. In July, Mr. Trump told The New York Times that he would never have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known that Mr. Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the investigation.<\/span><\/p>\n

While his lawyers have for now persuaded Mr. Trump not to publicly attack Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, the president has not ruled out firing him, a scenario that other presidents facing special prosecutors considered virtually unthinkable. Asked on Friday whether he might fire Mr. Sessions if the attorney general does not investigate Democrats, Mr. Trump left open the prospect: \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The president\u2019s Twitter posts and comments drew rebukes from Democrats and some Republicans. Former Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., who served for six years under President Barack Obama, said Mr. Trump\u2019s comments make the job of law enforcement officials more difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCombined with his improper attempts to influence Department of Justice actions, this demonstrates that he is a president who is willing to flout those norms that protect the rule of law,\u201d Mr. Holder said in an interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, a Republican who has broken with Mr. Trump, said the Justice Department should be free of political interference.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s pressuring of the Justice Department and F.B.I. to pursue cases against his adversaries and calling for punishment before trials take place are totally inappropriate and not only undermine our justice system but erode the American people\u2019s confidence in our institutions,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some conservatives defended Mr. Trump\u2019s right to exercise oversight of the country\u2019s law enforcement agencies, saying that it would be dangerous to have an attorney general and an F.B.I. director who were not answerable to elected leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe notion that law enforcement, in particular, is somehow to be insulated from political influences and therefore inevitably insulated from political accountability is a horribly dangerous idea from the standpoint of civil liberty,\u201d said David B. Rivkin Jr., a White House and Justice Department lawyer under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Mr. Rivkin added, \u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean you exercise your authority to direct those things in a crude and obscene fashion. You have to exercise some politesse about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Other presidents have been criticized for political intervention when they spoke out about continuing criminal cases. Peter J. Wallison, who was the White House counsel under Reagan, said his president at times spoke out on cases of interest, including the investigation of Reagan\u2019s onetime adviser Michael K. Deaver.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI would try to discourage him, for all the good reasons people in the White House are probably trying to discourage Trump, but it was to no avail,\u201d Mr. Wallison said. \u201cTrump is doing the same, except to a greater extent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Wallison noted that Mr. Obama at times commented on investigations, recalling statements denying wrongdoing by the Internal Revenue Service when conservative groups found their tax exemptions targeted for scrutiny. \u201cPresidents say these things because they are human beings and have emotions,\u201d he said. \u201cNevertheless, there is little evidence that public statements have any effect on outcomes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Before Watergate, presidents were less reluctant to intervene in law enforcement. The administrations of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson had the F.B.I. wiretap the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. President Richard M. Nixon had the bureau eavesdrop on the telephone calls of reporters.<\/span><\/p>\n

But in the past four decades, no president has sought to publicly pressure law enforcement as much as Mr. Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a barrage of a dozen tweets on Thursday night and early Friday, Mr. Trump railed at law enforcement agencies for not investigating Democrats. He cited Tony Podesta \u2014 the brother of Hillary Clinton\u2019s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta \u2014 who stepped down from his firm this week amid scrutiny of his lobbying business by Mr. Mueller. And he cited a book excerpt by Donna Brazile, the former interim Democratic National Committee chairwoman, who wrote that last year\u2019s primaries were tilted by a fund-raising agreement that the committee made with Mrs. Clinton.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really not involved with the Justice Department,\u201d Mr. Trump told reporters before leaving on a 12-day trip to Asia. \u201cI\u2019d like to let it run itself. But honestly, they should be looking at the Democrats. They should be looking at Podesta and all of that dishonesty. They should be looking at a lot of things. And a lot of people are disappointed in the Justice Department, including me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump tweeted that Mrs. Clinton \u201cstole the Democratic Primary\u201d from Bernie Sanders and asserted that there was \u201cmajor violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAt some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper,\u201d Mr. Trump wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn\u2019t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems,\u201d he also tweeted.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s interest in directing law enforcement decisions extends beyond his political opposition but carries its own risk. The president\u2019s support for capital punishment for the New York terrorism suspect, Sayfullo Saipov \u2014 \u201cSHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY,\u201d he tweeted \u2014 could pose problems for prosecutors and help defense lawyers who could argue that their client cannot get a fair trial.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump also weighed in again on Friday on the case of Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who pleaded guilty to desertion and endangering other troops by walking away from his base in Afghanistan and getting captured by the Taliban. Mr. Trump, who last year called Sergeant Bergdahl a \u201cdirty rotten traitor\u201d who should be executed, expressed outrage when a military judge on Friday gave the sergeant a dishonorable discharge but no jail time.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision on Sergeant Bergdahl is a complete and total disgrace to our Country and to our Military,\u201d Mr. Trump tweeted.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Mr. Trump\u2019s own outspokenness may have helped lead to the very result he was condemning. The judge did not explain his reasoning on Friday but last week said he would consider the president\u2019s past comments as evidence for a lighter sentence.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/11\/03\/us\/politics\/trump-says-justice-dept-and-fbi-must-do-what-is-right-and-investigate-democrats.html<\/span><\/p>\n

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