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Their new confrontation rekindled the mystery of their brief and disastrous relationship at the start of President Donald Trump's tenure, which plunged the administration into a crisis and led to the appointment of the special council. In retrospect, Trump's move into the Comey dismissal marked the beginning of a long-term power play that established the president's dominance over the judiciary.
Trump on Wednesday called Comey "a terrible guy" and criticized his FBI management team as "not clean, to say the least," in an interview with Fox News's "Hannity."
According to William Barr's statement quoting Mueller on Sunday, "the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign had conspired or coordinated with the Russian government as part of its electoral interference activities. "and the attorney general's personal determination that" the evidence produced during the investigation of the special council is not enough to establish "the obstruction of justice represented a huge political victory for the president.
But Comey was puzzled that Mueller had criticized the issue of obstruction, which was largely linked to his dismissal in May 2017. Trump had said on television that he was motivated to fire Comey for overseeing the Investigation conducted by the FBI director at the time.
"I'm not prejudging that, I'm just saying it does not make sense, so I have a lot of questions to ask," Comey said in an interview published Wednesday in NBC's "Nightly News."
At the time, Trump's sudden decision to dismiss Comey was widely regarded as the most disastrous political call of recent decades. But it now seems that the president will escape the payment of a lasting political consequence for a gesture that has considerably consolidated his own power.
Comey's shots are just one of the dramatic twists and turns in Russian drama that are starting to take on a new face. The late emergence of Barr, who quickly took over the investigation of Russia, is another turning point of this kind.
In the short term, Trump's dismissal of Comey rid him of a powerful and embarrassing personality who felt that the president wanted to convince him to become a patronage type relationship and cross ethical barriers between the House. -Blanche and the Ministry of Justice.
In the long run, by exploiting ill-defined norms governing the limits of executive power, Trump, by accident or choice, could have expanded the power of the presidency itself, creating a significant precedent for the future.
Presidents have the power to dismiss anyone from the executive – but the situation becomes constitutionally bleak if the move seems to be an effort to defeat a criminal investigation of their own behavior.
A future unscrupulous commander-at-large could use Trump's treatment of Comey as justification for harmful purposes.
"This could make it clear to future presidents that they could do it and get out of it, and I think it's a very disturbing possibility," said Jens David Ohlin, vice-dean of the Cornell Law School. "This seems to set a precedent: if a president does not like an investigation that is close to him, he can simply dismiss the Attorney General or the FBI director."
Comey takes
Comey was on an official trip to the West Coast in May 2017, when he learned that he had been fired on television. It was one of the first signs that Trump's impulsive leadership style and his willingness to test the outer limits of traditional behavior would follow him from the boardroom to the boardroom. West wing.
The president then told NBC that he had dismissed Comey because of the investigation into Russia, which had sparked a series of events that at one point appeared to put an end to his Presidency.
There were immediate warnings that Trump had not only hindered justice, but had aggravated his mistake by informing the nation on television.
The departure of Comey led to the appointment of Mueller a few days later and to two years of agony for the White House, which resulted in the prosecution and imprisonment of several Trump associates while subjecting the nation to a political nightmare.
Steve Bannon, who was once a Trump political guru, had declared on CBS's "60 Minutes" show in September 2017 that getting rid of Comey was probably the worst mistake of "political history perhaps." modern".
But 18 months later, there is another interpretation: Trump not only managed to get rid of an FBI director who immediately caused him an allergic reaction, but he also managed to isolate consequences potentially serious consequences of dismissal.
Power movement
History may consider that its conduct is not the fault of a flawed neophyte ignorant of constitutional norms, but of a president who has found a way to accumulate more power and avoid accountability.
There are more and more questions about Barr's role in the Mueller finale. His quick takeover of the investigation, which culminated in the synthesis of his report, provided a valuable political service to Trump.
His summary set out the political narrative allowing the president to falsely claim that he was totally exonerated and that his claims that the investigation was an unlawful attempt at murder were justified.
Despite Barr's summary, it is likely that when Americans see the report, it will be unflattering and perhaps unethical behavior on the part of the president, even if it does not. Not reach the level of criminal conspiracy.
After all, Barr quoted Mueller in his letter to Congress, noting that "although this report does not conclude that the president has committed a crime, he does not exonerate him either."
Barr said Wednesday to Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the Democrat House of Democrats at the Democrat House, frustrated, that it would not be months before the publication of a more complete version of the report. But the period between Mueller's initial verdict and full accounting will allow misconceptions about the report to expand further.
That is why the role of the Attorney General has led some Democrats and other critics to consider his appointment as another variant of a successful presidential defensive game and a transfer of power.
Trump 's bitter campaign against his first Attorney General, Jeff Sessions, was largely motivated by the challenge of the former Alabama senator after the investigation in Russia.
In his place, Trump was able to confirm Barr, with the help of a Republican-controlled Senate, who had drafted an unsolicited memo in June criticizing Mueller's obstruction case as "fatally". poorly designed ".
After eight months of rapid advance, Barr decided – after Mueller left unresolved the question of whether Trump was obstructing justice – that the evidence did not allow him to presume.
The motives of Barr in the honor
Suspicions about Barr's conduct could only be dispelled by the complete publication of the report and the underlying evidence of Mueller.
The case of obstruction should always be difficult to prove for Mueller, as it had to establish that the author had acted with intent to bribe. Another Attorney General might have arrived at the same conclusions as Barr.
"This is a matter of interpretation," said Tuesday the president's lawyer, Rudolph Giuliani, in CNN's "The Situation Room." "You know all the facts about the obstruction.You can interpret them in different ways, that's why the question was difficult."
In the case of Trump, the issue was even more complicated, as the allegedly obstructive behavior was largely a reality in public, on television and on Twitter. But it seems like a big coincidence if Trump found a permanent substitute for sessions that had an expanded view of the president's power to dismiss subordinates and how such action might relate to an obstruction case. .
In its June note, Barr argued that Trump 's removal of Comey and his request to discontinue Flynn were consistent with the authority of the President under Article II of the Constitution, which confers power to the executive power, of which the Department of Justice is a party.
There is a real legal debate about whether a president could always be guilty of obstructing justice if his use of his powers under Article II is rooted in a ground of corruption.
It will not be clear either until the report is released if Barr acted on his previous skepticism or if his decision on obstruction was purely based on Mueller's findings.
Democrats say that's why the full report and the evidence must be made public.
"We can not judge on the basis of an interpretation given by a hired man, because he believes that the president is above the law and wrote a 19-page note to demonstrate," said the Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi at her caucus. in a private meeting Tuesday, according to an assistant in the room.
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