Flake says president ‘probing’ to see how far he can push
Democrats fret about rule of law and targeting Mueller probe
Donald Trump’s regular attacks on the U.S. Justice Department, including accusations that the FBI spied on his campaign, strike some critics as “boiling the frog” — seeing how far he can push his fight against a federal investigation ensnaring his administration.
Trump’s taken a series of provocative steps since Special Counsel Robert Mueller began a probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election a year ago, from accusing the investigators of being politically motivated, to declaring that a spy was embedded in his campaign for political reasons and demanding an investigation.
He keeps up the pressure almost daily, tweeting on Sunday, for example, about “13 Angry Democrats” working on Mueller’s team, and a “Rigged Investigation!”
Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, who’s been at odds with Trump for months, and compared with president with Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in a Senate floor speech, said there’s “a lot of alarm” about the president’s tactics, even among members of his own party, and that Republicans in Congress must do more to stand up to him.
“I’ve been concerned that we haven’t spoken up loudly enough and told the president, ‘You simply can’t go there,”’ Flake said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “And he’s obviously probing the edges as much as he can to see how far Congress will go, and we’ve got to push back harder than we have.”
Raising the Heat
Sally Yates, an Obama administration holdover fired by Trump as acting attorney general after she defied his refugee ban, described the approach as “boiling the frog slowly” — increasing the heat incrementally so it’s not noticed until too late.
“I can remember a time when he would issue a tweet or directive and the reports would be, ‘In an unprecedented act, the president did X or Y,”’ Yates said May 21 on MSNBC. “It’s not so unprecedented anymore, and oftentimes it doesn’t even make it through the full 24-hour news cycle.”
Mueller has already secured guilty pleas from five people and filed charges against 14 others and three companies. The far-reaching investigation has reached people close to Trump and his businesses, including Michael Cohen, his personal lawyer and “fixer.”
Trump’s barrage of tweets and comments are backed up by allies such as Rudy Giuliani, who was brought onto the president’s legal team in mid-April. The former New York mayor has echoed Trump in declaring the probe a “witch hunt” led by angry Democrats, and repeatedly attacking the Justice Department he once served as a U.S. Attorney.
