Then I remembered my own advice, and realized that maybe he had just taken it.
Well then, nice job, Mr. President. Keep doing what I say and the country (and you) will be much better off.
But I don't want him to only use Twitter to bring the deep state to heel. Sometimes because of civil service protections and so forth that will be the only thing he can do. But I don't see how that applies here. Attorney General Jeff Sessions was appointed by Trump. Trump is his boss. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's boss is Sessions, whose boss is Donald Trump.
According to the Constitution, the chief law enforcement officer of the United States is the president. Not the attorney general. Not the FBI director. The president.
Donald Trump.
So it's really Trump's decision whether Huma Abedin is investigated. If there's evidence she committed a felony - and apparently there's a lot of it, which we know about thanks to Judicial Watch - then it's Trump's job to make sure she's investigated.
I get the impression Trump thinks he can't give this order for a couple of reasons. One is political - the concern that ordering an investigation of Hillary's trusted deputy will be portrayed as a blatant attempt to criminalize political differences. Liberals already tried this argument when Trump was first elected, insisting that any investigation of Hillary's misdeeds would constitute Trump going after a political opponent sheerly for political purposes, which I guess would mean all you have to do to get away with federal crimes is run against Donald Trump, because then his administration couldn't investigate you no matter how much evidence there was of your wrongdoing.
The other reason I think Trump believes he can't do this is the sense that the DOJ doesn't really answer to him. In a strictly technical sense they do, of course. But if they believe in practice that they can defy Trump, and that it's too politically dicey for him to fire them for it, then the DOJ is essentially a rogue agency. Jeff Sessions is apparently little more than a figurehead, having recused himself from the Russia investigation for virtually no reason, and having apparently no ability to give directives to his own deputies or to the FBI.
And needless to say, Robert Mueller answers to absolutely no one.
All this may be true, but President Trump needs to remember something: The Constitution gives him the authority to issue these directives, regardless of what the political dynamics may suggest. And it's his job to see that the laws of the country are enforced. I know the DOJ and the FBI don't want to investigate Huma, let alone Hillary. But if their boss doesn't direct them to do so, why is it on them and not on him?
It's not. Trump's tweet is 100 percent right, but it's not enough. He needs to direct Jeff Sessions to commence a full investigation of Huma Abedin's gross negligence in the handling of classified information. If he doesn't, it won't be the DOJ that failed. It will be Donald Trump.
I held forth yesterday about the need for President Trump to use his Twitter feed less for personal feuds, and more for the informing of the American people about the intransigence of the deep state.
So when Rob posted earlier about Trump's tweet demanding that the "deep state Justice Department" investigate Huma Abedin, my first reaction was, darn it, you're their boss. Quit screwing around on Twitter and order them to do it!
