In his appearance before the House Intelligence Committee, Attorney General Sessions refused to say whether Donald Trump had pressured him to obstruct the Russia investigation. As it turns out, the answer is that Trump pressured everyone to obstruct the Russia investigation.
President Trump over the summer repeatedly urged senior Senate Republicans, including the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to end the panel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election, according to a half dozen lawmakers and aides.
According to the New York Times, Trump made the rounds to put in requests to hurry the end of the investigation with McConnell, Senate Intelligence chair Richard Burr, along with many other Republicans on and off the Intelligence Committee. Trump even pinned down key Capitol Hill Renfield Roy Blunt aboard Air Force One and pressed him to make the Senate wrap this thing up.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who is a former chairwoman of the intelligence committee, said in an interview this week that Mr. Trump’s requests were “inappropriate” and represented a breach of the separation of powers.
But the Trump White House is waving this off as just the actions of a “political newcomer” and Senators are laughing that Trump is only someone who doesn’t know any better since he has “never been in government.” Because apparently they believe it’s fine for people outside of government to call up the folks investigating them for a crime and pressure them to stop.
Trump didn’t limit his efforts to wrap this up to leaning on members of the committees involved in the investigation. He also called other senators to get them to add their weight to making this go away.
Trump called McConnell several times to complain that the Senate leader wasn’t properly protecting him. But the list of those who received “save me” calls from Trump was apparently a long one.
Mr. Trump also called other lawmakers over the summer with requests that they push Mr. Burr to finish the inquiry, according to a Republican senator who requested anonymity to discuss his contact with the president.
This senator, who was alarmed upon hearing word of the president’s pleas, said Mr. Trump’s request to the other senators was clear: They should urge Mr. Burr to bring the Russia investigation to a close. The senator declined to reveal which colleagues Mr. Trump had contacted with the request.
Trump even called Bob Corker—before he turned around and made multiple snide comments about the Tennessee senator. Which makes it seem as if the rift between Corker and Trump may have been opened by what Trump saw as a lack of action on Corker’s part in helping to stop the investigation.
The excuse that Trump didn’t know what he was doing seems like an eye-roller considering the number of Senators on the receiving ends of these calls. If it was a matter of being unfamiliar with process, Burr or Blunt or McConnell could have simply told Trump that such attempts to end the investigation were not just unwelcome, but verging on obstruction. If they did so, he ignored that information. If they didn’t … why not?
And, of course, Trump wanted to throw some red meet to his red voters.
Another Republican senator said Mr. Trump had not urged him to help bring the Russia inquiry to a halt. Instead, the senator said, the president nudged him to begin an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s connection with the intelligence-gathering firm Fusion GPS, which produced a dossier of allegations about Mr. Trump’s ties to Moscow.
Most of Trump’s calls to Senators seem to have taken place over the summer. Which leads to the question … why did he stop? Clearly Trump wasn’t actually concerned about exerting undue influence. That was his goal. Maybe he took the news that the House Republicans were launching a three-committee pointless investigation into Uranium One as mission accomplished. Or maybe Ron DeSantis’ bill to clip Moore’s wings gave Trump the warm, protected feeling he was looking for.
Or maybe it was watching Manafort and Gates collect their paperwork.