Trump’s DOJ meddling threw him under the bus 'he himself was driving'

A series of President Donald Trump’s latest attempts to “meddle” in the Department of Justice have backfired, not only torpedoing his own cases, but causing major problems for his administration. This is according to New York Times legal analyst Alan Feuer, who wrote on Monday how, immediately upon returning to office, Trump “muscled his way into the driver’s seat at the Justice Department, leaving tread marks on its time-honored independence from the White House by demanding, and sometimes directing, investigations into his enemies. But his tight grip on the steering wheel has often threatened to lead the department off a cliff.”

As Feuer explains, the past week has offered perfect examples of how Trump’s attempts to weaponize the DOJ have blown up in his face. Trump’s meddling “imperiled one criminal case, set the stage for sanctions in a second and gummed up the chances that his pick for attorney general will be confirmed by the Senate.”

Feuer says that Trump’s latest batch of DOJ problems began last week, when court documents in the case against former FBI Director James Comey — who is accused of threatening Trump’s assassination by posting a photo of seashells spelling out “86-47” — revealed that the president had orchestrated a plot with the Secret Service to track Comey’s phone in a way that was “legally questionable.” Trump had been following the effort to surveil Comey from Air Force One, and wanted to use the Secret Service agents’ notes in a media appearance later that night.

“The request for the notes was a shocking breach of the distance that most presidents have kept from the day-to-day oversight of criminal investigations and indicated the intensity of Mr. Trump’s personal involvement in the pursuit of Mr. Comey, one of his most reviled political adversaries,” writes Feuer. “But his insistence on interfering with the case could come back to haunt him. After all, Mr. Comey’s lawyers pointed to the episode as evidence that the Justice Department had indicted him — on charges of making threats against the president — only as an act of retribution. If that claim is proven true, it would result in the case being dismissed.”

Trump’s meddling may have also sunk his case against former Olympian David Hearn, who is accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool during the renovation debacle earlier in the summer. On Friday, however, the case fell apart “in a spectacular fashion” when U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro — an avid Trump loyalist — “in a court filing, suddenly acknowledged that new information from Mr. Trump’s Interior Department had made her realize that shoddy construction, not anything that Mr. Hearn had done, caused the problems with the pool’s lining.”

“But even that confession did not stop Mr. Trump from doubling down on the vandalism narrative,” writes Feuer. “On Saturday morning, he posted a message on social media saying that he disagreed entirely with Ms. Pirro, a veteran prosecutor and a friend of his for more than 40 years. ‘I don’t know what she was thinking?’ Mr. Trump wrote. While Mr. Hearn's lawyers have not disclosed what they might do next, the case’s collapse gives them an opening to argue that the president’s stubborn statements about the matter suggest the prosecution was vexatious, frivolous or brought in bad faith.”

What’s more, explains Feuer, “The president’s inability to keep his hands to himself also affected another important bit of business at the Justice Department: the effort to confirm Todd Blanche, Mr. Trump’s former personal lawyer, as attorney general.”

By last week, Blanche seemed to have removed the key obstacle to his appointment: appeasing Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Thom Tillis (R-NC), who were blocking his confirmation due to his unwillingness to commit to ending Trump’s “slush fund” in writing. But according to Feuer, “As the weekend neared, the president seemed to throw Mr. Blanche under the bus that he himself was driving, issuing a series of confusing and contradictory messages.”

Trump suddenly announced that he would withdraw Blanche’s nomination for confirmation and wait until the two lame duck senators left office, repeating his support for creating the fund, which Blanche had just claimed was dead. The next day, he threatened to revive the fund if Blanche wasn’t confirmed. Tillis was “baffled and dispirited” by all of this, saying, “It’s unfortunate that Todd Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, will not be confirmed because of this reversal."

While by Sunday, there appeared to have been a breakthrough that will allow Blanche’s confirmation, owing to what he described as “good faith discussions” with senators, “as of Monday morning, Mr. Trump had not yet weighed in on the plan,” which could very well still be torpedoed by the president’s meddling.