Wednesday 1 August 2018

The tweet king should watch his step

Donald Trump knows, because we all now know, that Robert Mueller, special counsel or "witch hunter supremo" in the president's mind, is currently investigating the Trump tweets to see whether any of them represent an obstruction of justice. But then up pops Trump and in one of his many tweets today he calls in no uncertain terms on the Attorney General, the much besieged Jeff Sessions, to sack Mueller and stop the investigation into collusion with Russia. Trump says there was no collusion between his campaign team and Moscow and that's that. So sack Mueller, says Trump. Well, the White House hastily said the president was NOT ordering Sessions to fire Mueller, he just wanted Mueller gone because the whole thing was rubbish fake news. But if Mueller has turned his attention to whether the president is guilty of obstruction of justice, Trump's latest tweet was a godsend. But I'm not sure why Mueller is examining the Trump tweets. First of all, it will take him days if not weeks to go through them all and second, what has this got to do with the allegations of collusion with Moscow? Perhaps Rod Rosenstein, deputy attorney general and in overall charge at the Justice Department of the Mueller inquiry, should tell the former FBI director to narrow his lines of inquiry and stick to the main theme. For example, much is being made of the trial of Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman, but he has not been charged with a single offence that relates in any way to the collusion affair. He is charged with money laundering and other offences. That doesn't mean he should be let off, he is accused of a serious federal crime. But Mueller's first scalp sent for trial is unrelated to the issue which he was supposed to be investigating. Shouldn't someone else in the FBI be involved in dealing with stuff like this? Mueller is getting bogged down in a mass of legal investigations when he should be focused on the one story. Did Trump and co do a deal with the Russians to undermine Hillary Clinton's chances of winning the White House? That's all we and the American voters want to know, surely. It's time you delivered your report, Mueller.

No comments:

Post a Comment