A day after voters left no doubt they want a check on his authority, President Donald Trump rid himself of a good soldier whose only sin was understanding the U.S. Department of Justice must enforce the law without fear or favor, rather than doing the bidding of the man sitting in the Oval Office.
The replacement of Jeff Sessions with Trump loyalist Matthew Whitaker, who has parroted the president in calling Robert Mueller's special counsel investigation a "witch hunt" and speculated about how an AG might effectively kill the probe by starving it of funds, brings the country to the cusp of an emergency.
Should Mueller's investigation now be suffocated in order to protect the president, the former FBI director must be prepared to hand all his files to uncompromised prosecutors, or to House and Senate investigators and the press.
Installed without Senate advise-and-consent, Whitaker, who inherits oversight of Mueller's investigation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, has stated that "The Trump Organization's business dealings are plainly not within the scope of the investigation, nor should they be." With Trump's wink and nod, if not explicit directions, he seems ready to use this as a rationale to end the probe.
There is absolutely no evidence that Mueller has strayed beyond his brief. He has thus far run an efficient, productive investigation, winning plea deals of or filing indictments against 35 individuals.
The letter authorizing the special counsel investigation charges him to pursue "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the (Trump) campaign," "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation" and "any other matters within the scope of" federal law pertaining to obstruction of justice and related crimes.
Trump, obviously petrified of an independent law enforcer going where the evidence leads, is on the verge of obstructing justice in broad daylight. Dare he take the plunge?
