Trump: Sessions should end Mueller’s investigation right now

Well. This train long ago left the station, but the Mueller investigation never should have happened in the first place. Jeff Sessions never should have recused himself over a perfectly innocuous meeting with a Russian official that took place while he was a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Rod Rosenstein never should have appointed Mueller on the grounds that the firing of James Comey necessitated it. And the FBI should never have followed the lead of James Clapper and Harry Reid in ramping up this investigation in the first place.

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But these are all fait accomplis now, and Trump knows perfectly well that Sessions can’t do anything about it because his recusal stands. Trump should also know that, if he waits it out, the result of the Mueller investigation will probably be favorable to him because it will confirm what he’s been saying all along about their never being any collusion. And yet, Trump gives us bluster like this:

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now,” the president wrote in a post on Twitter. “Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!” The tweet comes as Trump’s ex-campaign chief Paul Manafort, who was indicted by the special counsel last fall, faces trial for the second day in federal court in Virginia. Sessions, who endorsed Trump’s presidential bid during the 2016 campaign, recused himself from the Russia investigation last March, before Mueller was appointed. The investigation is being overseen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has defended Mueller against critics in Congress. The president has criticized Sessions for his recusal. In June, the president wrote in a post on Twitter that Mueller was continuing to investigate “all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself.” “I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined…and Sessions knew better than most that there was No Collusion,” the president wrote.

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I’m not saying Trump has no reason to feel this way. As happens with all independent counsel investigations, the whole thing quickly becomes a never-ending quest to find someone to hang, and some reason to justify the whole probe in the first place. Going through Trump’s tweets in the hope of finding obstruction of justice smacks of desperation on Mueller’s part. Indeed, when you can’t find evidence of an underlying crime, these guys often turn their focus on trying to make the case that the target “obstructed” the investigation, and thus deserves to be charged even if the originally suspected crime itself never happened. What needs to happen is that Rosenstein needs to tell Mueller to either charge someone with collusion or wrap this thing up. There’s no need to follow every stray trail on every conceivable violation just to keep collecting your special counsel paycheck. Do what you were appointed to do and then be done with it. But Rosenstein shows no inclination to do that, and apparently no one can hold Rod Rosenstein accountable for any decision he makes – not Trump, not Congress and certainly not Jeff Sessions. There’s your real problem. Mueller can do whatever he wants because Rosenstein, who can also do whatever he wants, refuses to put any real limits on him. Jeff Sessions is impotent, which I think is Trump’s real point, and it’s a valid one. But publicly demanding that Sessions do something you know he can’t do will not get you anywhere.

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