Matthew T. Mangino
GateHouse Media
February 2, 2018
The nation is on the verge of a constitutional crisis. The
White House authorized the release of an Intelligence Committee memo written by
Republican committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes.
Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution,
Caroline Fredrickson of the American Constitution Society and Noah Bookbinder
of the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington described President
Donald Trump’s action in Politico Magazine as ”(A) Saturday Night Massacre in
slow motion.”
The original Saturday Night Massacre came during the
Watergate investigation. Special prosecutor Archibald Cox was canned after
refusing President Richard Nixon’s offer to turn over some of the White House
tape recordings requested by Cox. Nixon ordered — through his chief of staff
Alexander Haig — Attorney General Elliot Richardson fire Cox.
Richardson refused, and resigned. Haig then ordered Deputy
Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox. Ruckelshaus also refused, and
resigned.
Haig finally convinced Solicitor General Robert Bork to fire
Cox.
FBI agents were sent to Cox’s office to prevent his staff
from removing files. After his firing, Cox said, “Whether ours shall continue
to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately
the American people.”
The current Congress, because of the reckless conduct of the
GOP members of the Intelligence Committee, has compromised its influence in
this matter of constitutional importance.
It appears that Trump supporters in Congress have launched
an all-out assault on the FBI and Department of Justice. The end game appears
to be to discredit the FBI, fire the Deputy Attorney General overseeing special
counsel Robert Mueller and install a new deputy attorney general who will fire
Mueller.
In December, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee
chose to protect President Trump — as columnist Dana Milbank suggested —” at
the cost of Americans’ faith in the justice system and the rule of law.”
When FBI Director Christopher A. Wray — appointed by Trump
after firing James Comey — appeared before the judiciary committee, where
according to the Washington Post, members charged that “Mueller’s probe and the
Clinton email probe have been tainted by ‘bias.’”
Committee members insisted that the FBI and Mueller have a
anti-Trump bias. Republican Rep. Ron DeSantis speculated that bias led the FBI
to conclude that Russia interfered in the U.S. election, and he went so far as
to threaten Wray, “I think you’re walking into contempt of Congress.”
The whole idea of bias by Mueller is baseless. According to
the Post, Mueller is a longtime Republican who was appointed FBI director by
President George W. Bush. He was named special counsel by Rosenstein, who was
appointed by Trump to be deputy attorney general. Comey, is a Republican who
served in Bush’s Justice Department, made political contributions to John
McCain, Mitt Romney and other Republicans. Wray is also a Republican who has
contributed to GOP candidates.
This struggle between the president, FBI and Department of
Justice is not a partisan political fight. It is about discrediting important
democratic institutions. The attacks are focused on planting seeds of distrust
in traditionally strong, apolitical government entities.
The last line of defense is FBI Director Wray. This week, he
told the White House he opposes release of the classified Nunes memo. A person
familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that Wray said the memo contains
inaccurate information and paints a false narrative. The FBI released a
statement that said, in part, the FBI has “grave concerns about material
omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy.”
Thursday, sources close to the President’s Chief of Staff
John Kelly told CNN that Kelly believes (Wray’s resignation) is a real
possibility and has been working on a way to avoid another departure from the
Trump administration.
Wray has a duty to his colleagues in the FBI and the
American people to walk away from an administration that defies his
admonishment and uses an ill-advised and politically motivated memo to
discredit a legitimate and much needed investigation by the special counsel and
his staff.
Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett,
Kelly & George P.C. His book The Executioner’s Toll, 2010 was released by
McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him
on Twitter @MatthewTMangino.
To visit the Column CLICK HERE
Posts
1 comment:
You somehow forgot to mention anywhere in your article that the DNC and Hillary campaign paid for the Steele dossier at the heart of the memo. That is how the FISA warrant was obtained. What has Nixon got to do with that?
Post a Comment