Syndicated columnist Keith Raffel: Indicted for obstruction when out of office, Trump got away with it when in office
Even after a 37-count indictment against him was handed down two weeks ago, the Justice Department continues to investigate Donald Trump's actions since the 2020 presidential election. Why, then, has the department taken no action about his behavior in the months around the 2016 election - behavior already found potentially illegal by both the department and the courts?
In May 2017, former FBI Director Robert Mueller was appointed by the Trump administration's Justice Department as a special counsel to "ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election ... and any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."
Mueller's March 2019 report called out several cases of apparent obstruction of justice - a crime - committed by the sitting president. In one example, Trump had told FBI Director James Comey to "let this go" when it came to investigating his national security adviser General Michael Flynn. In another, Trump fired Comey when he failed to call off the Russian investigation as instructed.
Mueller believed himself limited in the actions he could recommend by a 50-year-old Justice Department policy that prohibits indictment of a sitting president. Thus, his report refused to take a stand on whether the president had committed any crimes but did say that it "does not exonerate him" either. Any decision on whether to seek an indictment ought to be postponed until after the president leaves office when any immunity from prosecution disappears.
Before the report itself was released, then-Attorney General William Barr indulged in political spin when he declared that "the actions of the President ... did not amount to obstruction as a matter of law." Trump followed this up with a tweet: "No collusion, no obstruction ... For the haters and the radical left Democrats ... Game Over."
Mueller declared in congressional testimony, "The president was not exculpated (found not guilty) for the acts that he allegedly committed." A federal judge found that "Attorney General Barr distorted the findings in the Mueller Report." This was far from the "complete and total exoneration" Trump claimed. And yet it's the first impression created by Barr and Trump that has persisted. A myth arose that despite the 30-plus indictments Mueller obtained and despite the convictions of a former Trump campaign manager and national security adviser, Mueller's work was a "witch hunt."
Obstructing an investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election seems at least as serious as conspiring to obstruct the return of classified documents taken from the White House in 2021. And yet the former is, in Shakespeare's words, "as dead as a doornail," while a tentative court date has already been set for the latter.
Trump's alleged obstruction is not his only potential crime from back in 2016-2017 the Justice Department has ignored. Before the November 2016 presidential election, Michael Cohen, a lawyer who worked for the Trump Organization, paid off two women who claimed to have had sexual relationships with then-presidential candidate Trump. Cohen made the secret payments at the behest of "Individual-1," later identified as Trump, for fear that disclosure would hurt his election chances. And yet, Cohen was sentenced to prison while the Justice Department set aside any plans to pursue Trump for the criminal action he had apparently ordered. It was left to a New York grand jury to issue a 34-count indictment for violations of state law in Trump's conduct. According to the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, Trump schemed to "bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects" by falsifying business records and thereby conceal criminal activities in violation of state and federal laws.
Michael Cohen was convicted of federal crimes. Why wasn't the person who conspired with him tried by a federal court, too? Where was the Department of Justice?
Before I start speculating, I should note that current Attorney General Merrick Garland and I were law school classmates, and I have the utmost respect for him.
OK, now on to speculating about the concerns that weighed against DOJ pursuit of Trump's actions in 2016-2017. Was the case for obstructing Mueller's Russian probe already lost in the court of public opinion? (The Republican majority in the House of Representatives voted this week to censure Democrat Adam Schiff for his role in investigating the relationship between Russia and the Trump campaign.) Did it make sense for the Biden administration's Justice Department to pursue the hush case further when the Trump administration's had let it drop?
Wouldn't reopening either case make it look as though a new administration was rendering the actions of the previous one criminal after the fact? Would the current Justice Department be seen as no more than a political arm of the administration? Would the United States indeed look like a "banana republic?" In contrast, Trump allegedly mishandled classified papers after leaving office.
Trump once said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue without adverse action taken against him. Apparently that was indeed the case when it came to the Department of Justice ... until this month.
© Creators, 2023