Donald Trump has occupied the White House for a grand total of 580 days. Apparently the president hasn’t discovered all the features and perks that come with the Oval Office. Take his tweets.
Early Friday morning the leader of the free world publicly shamed Jeff Sessions, asking his attorney general to open up the files of the Department of Justice so the public could peek at documents concerning everything from the Russia dossier to FISA applications. It would be quite the haul. It would dominate news cycles for months to come. It could happen tomorrow.
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“Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations.” Jeff, this is GREAT, what everyone wants, so look into all of the corruption on the “other side” including deleted Emails, Comey lies & leaks, Mueller conflicts, McCabe, Strzok, Page, Ohr……
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2018
….FISA abuse, Christopher Steele & his phony and corrupt Dossier, the Clinton Foundation, illegal surveillance of Trump Campaign, Russian collusion by Dems – and so much more. Open up the papers & documents without redaction? Come on Jeff, you can do it, the country is waiting!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 24, 2018
Trump has the power. As head of the executive branch, he can tell the Justice Department to jump and, in most cases, they are supposed to ask how high. The current leader of the free world prefers to pretend he doesn’t have the authority, however. Ever the victim, Trump would rather tweet than give orders that might require some painful political follow-through.
If this president was serious about transparency, and constitutional separation of powers for that matter, he would tell Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to declassify and release documents related to Russian meddling in 2016. Congress has asked and Justice has stonewalled for months. When they did turn over some of the papers in July, they were heavily redacted which is, of course, ridiculous.
The Justice Department works for the president. Congress works for the citizens. The DOJ should respect the oversight authority of the legislature and the head of the executive branch should help that lawyerly-class remember who they answer to, namely, the people.
Maybe this wouldn’t be as sexy as unearthing new details about old Clinton scandals. Possibly this would reveal uncomfortable facts with negative political ramifications for the Trump camp. But it would give a whole heck of a lot more credence to the current social media screeds. More than likely, though, Trump knows this. But he would rather bully his attorney general and shift blame.
