Trump Unleashes On Mueller, McCabe, And Others In Twitter Storm

I have previously criticized President Donald Trump for his continuing use of Twitter to comment on pending litigation and attack the Special Counsel investigation.  This weekend, Trump unleashed a torrent of criticism on Mueller, McCabe, and others.  Trump not only raised the political affiliation of the Mueller team members, but celebrated the firing of Andrew McCabe.  I found the McCabe comments to be particularly objectionable. No matter how one feels about McCabe’s conduct (and we still have not read the Inspector General’s report), the man was just fired after a highly accomplished career as a public servant. The tweet felt more like a taunt against a man who just experienced a crushing loss.

On Friday night, Trump celebrated the firing while taking a swipe at “sanctimonious” former FBI Director James Comey.

While I believed that Sessions would fire McCabe given the unprecedented recommendation of career officials in the Office of Professional Responsibility, I do not view it as a “great day for Democracy.”  It was a sad day to witness such a fall from grace.

President Trump also attacked James Comey.  Again, I have been very local in my own criticism of Comey but the President should not be attacking (let alone name calling) individuals who are part of the investigation into his own conduct.

The most concerning tweets however came on Sunday when the President again attacked the Mueller investigation.  He lashed out as the news story that McCabe kept memos on his meetings with Trump: “Spent very little time with Andrew McCabe, but he never took notes when he was with me. I don’t believe he made memos except to help his own agenda, probably at a later date. Same with lying James Comey. Can we call them Fake Memos?”  Again, Trump is publicly discussing a matter under investigation and a matter that he may be asked to address in interviews with the Mueller team.  If he ultimately declined to be interviewed and faces a subpoena, Mueller is likely to point the Court to the continuing discussion that he has had on these issues in public. It undermines his case to refuse an interview on the record.

Trump also attacked Mueller’s staff as biased. “Why does the Mueller team have 13 hardened Democrats, some big Crooked Hillary supporters, and Zero Republicans? Another Dem recently added…does anyone think this is fair? And yet, there is NO COLLUSION!”

The political affiliation of these lawyers has not bearing on their integrity — any more than Mueller’s Republican association undermines his independence.  I have previously written that I felt that Mueller was a poor choice by Rod Rosenstein. However, I support his completion of his investigation and I have never questioned his integrity in carrying out the investigation.  Trump’s attack has led Republicans like Speaker Ryan to support Mueller.

As state before, these tweets are harming the President’s case and undermining legitimate objections to the conduct of some of these individuals.

 

What do you think?