Trump's Constitutional Crisis | by David Cole | NYR Daily | The New York Review of Books
by Prof. David Cole (National Legal Director - ACLU)
James Comey is no saint. But thanks to Donald Trump, he is now a martyr. On May 9, in a twist that would have seemed far-fetched even on House of Cards, President Trump fired Comey as director of the FBI on the recommendation of Jeff Sessions, his attorney general. According to the administration, Trump did so not because Comey was investigating the possible collusion of Trump campaign officials with the Russian government but because of how Comey mishandled the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail server.
This nakedly concocted justification has caused deep alarm among leading members of both parties in Congress. If the president and his attorney general are firing the FBI director because of the FBI’s investigation into the campaign that got the president elected—a campaign in which the attorney general had a direct part—it amounts to an obstruction of justice and an attempt to place the president above the law.
This is a constitutional crisis. The only way forward is to ensure an independent and credible investigation—whether by a special prosecutor or a select congressional committee or both—into the Russian meddling and the administration’s efforts to obstruct the inquiry into the Trump campaign’s ties to it.
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