Analysis: Watergate and White House interference at DOJ
Watergate and White House interference at DOJ
(CNN)A
few years after President Richard Nixon resigned, Attorney General
Griffin Bell gathered Justice Department lawyers in the department's
elaborate Great Hall to address their independence in the post-Watergate
world.
"The
partisan activities of some attorneys general ... combined with the
unfortunate legacy of Watergate, have given rise to the understandable
public concern that some decisions at Justice may be the products of
favor, or pressure, or politics," he said in the September 6, 1978 address.
Resulting
Justice Department rules limited White House involvement with law
enforcement decisions. The reforms emerged from Nixon's use of the
department to conceal his administration's involvement in the break-in
at the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate building.
Those decades-old reforms were invoked again on Friday, after news that President Donald Trump personally intervened to try to lift a gag order
on an undercover FBI informant sought by Republican members of Congress
in an investigation of Russian nuclear industry efforts to gain
influence in the United States during the Obama administration.
It
was only the latest chapter in ongoing controversy over White House
intervention at DOJ since Trump took office. He has routinely injected
himself in politically charged law enforcement matters, including those
related to the probe of the Russian government's influence in the 2016
presidential election and potential ties to his campaign.
Speaking
on CNN's "New Day" Friday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut,
deemed the recent disclosure part of a pattern of intervention and
"politicization," which included the May firing of FBI Director James
Comey, who was overseeing the investigation into Russia's election
interference.
"There were rules in
the wake of ... the Nixon improprieties that presidents would not
interfere or intervene in ongoing investigations," Blumenthal said.
"Those norms seem to be violated."
Former
Sen. Rick Santorum, a Pennsylvania Republican, countered on CNN's
"Newsroom," "Donald Trump has every right as President of the United
States to advise the Justice Department as to his opinion on these
things. I don't have a problem with this at all. It's about providing
more information, not less. And I think that's a good thing."
Separately
on Friday, White House adviser Kellyanne Conway told "New Day," "He
believes, as many others do, frankly, that the FBI informant should be
free to say what he knows."
CNN
reported Thursday that Trump told his staff to work with the Justice
Department to allow a former undercover FBI informant to testify.
Republicans on Capitol Hill are investigating the circumstances
surrounding the sale of a uranium mining company to Russia's Atomic
Energy Agency, Rosatom. The deal was approved by the Committee on
Foreign Investment in the United States, a panel composed of
representatives from several US government agencies, including the State
Department, which at the time was led by Hillary Clinton.
A
source familiar with the matter told CNN that the DOJ move to allow the
informant to speak to members of Congress was made independent of any
communications from Trump.
Trump's
constant interactions with the Justice Department, FBI and US attorneys
-- against the backdrop of special prosecutor Robert Mueller's Russia
investigation -- cannot help but recall the Watergate era. Nixon
Attorney General John Mitchell was convicted and served time in prison
for his role in the scandal.
Bell,
in his 1978 speech, said he worked for almost two years to develop rules
to make DOJ "a neutral zone," with the foundation being that the White
House should steer clear of law enforcement decisions and the daily
operations of the career staff involved in investigations and
prosecutions.
Bell, who served in
the Jimmy Carter administration and died in 2009, noted that under the
Constitution, the attorney general is responsible to the president and
the president to the public. So, he said, "true institutional
independence is therefore impossible." But he emphasized, "the president
is best served if the attorney general and the lawyers who assist him
are free to exercise their professional judgments."
To
be sure, not all interactions between the attorney general and
president since then have been true to that principle. But at least it
has been the ideal. "What must be avoided, in fact and in appearance,"
Bell said, "is pressure from any source that is intended to influence
our legal judgment."
As he began
his address nearly four decades ago, Bell told the audience he was using
a prepared text, "because it's an important subject, something that I
hope will be left here for years to come."
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