He has got his wish, averting an immediate crisis
EVEN from a man as indifferent to political norms as President Donald Trump, the tweet on the afternoon of May 20th was alarming. At the end of a string of messages complaining about a “witch hunt” against him, Mr Trump demanded: “that the Department of Justice look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled” his campaign at the behest of the previous administration.
It was no mere taunt. Mr Trump was referring to an investigation that eventually turned into a wide-ranging inquiry by Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign. In effect, the president was using the power of his office to demand that those investigating him and his associates be investigated. He did not so much broach as blow up a long-standing norm that presidents do not direct or involve themselves in specific criminal investigations.
Although an American intelligence source met three of Mr Trump’s advisers, there is no evidence that the FBI or the Department of Justice planted a permanent source inside his campaign team. Indeed, in July 2016, shortly after Mr Trump became the Republican nominee, senior FBI officials warned him that foreign adversaries including Russia would try to infiltrate, or at least spy on, his campaign. By that time Russians had already made contact with several members of the campaign.
Mr Trump’s Twitter threat quickly produced a result. Rod Rosenstein, the deputy attorney-general—who is overseeing Mr Mueller’s investigation because his boss recused himself—asked the Department of Justice’s inspector-general to look into Mr Trump’s accusation. He and Christopher Wray, the FBI director, met Mr Trump at the White House and agreed to convene two meetings on May 24th: one for two Republican congressmen friendly to the president, another for congressional leaders from both parties. They will review “highly classified” information about the FBI’s source and methods.
Mr Rosenstein’s decision to indulge the president is no less unfortunate for being understandable. He was in a difficult position. Refusing Mr Trump’s demand, or resigning on principle, could well have let the president install a more pliant overseer of Mr Mueller’s investigation. He has not agreed to surrender any documents—as Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and Mr Trump’s chief congressional henchman, has long demanded. Perhaps the appearance of capitulation will satisfy Mr Trump. The president has previously threatened crises, then stopped just short of provoking them.
Ideally, Congress would constrain a president bent on exercising his powers to protect himself. That is what equal branches of government are supposed to do. But most congressional Republicans are frightened of Mr Trump’s supporters and keen to hold the line against the Democrats, who are gunning for their jobs in the mid-term elections in November.
A recent poll showed that Americans are deeply divided on the question of whether Mr Mueller’s investigation is a “witch hunt”. Republican voters think it is; Democrats think it isn’t; independents are split. But almost all Americans believe that Mr Mueller should be allowed to finish the job. Firing him would be hugely risky. So Mr Trump, in Steve Bannon’s pungent phrase, “floods the zone with shit” by throwing out so many theories, lies and half-truths that Americans hardly know what to believe. Some will be persuaded that Mr Mueller’s investigation is not an attempt to find out how American democracy was assailed but part of a sprawling “deep state” conspiracy.
All this damages America’s institutions and its intelligence capacity. Perhaps the most worrying development is that an informant’s identity has been revealed—not directly by the White House or the House Intelligence Committee, but partly thanks to their fulminations and demands. In future, a person is likely to think twice before playing that dangerous but necessary role. As Mr Wray told a Senate committee, “The day that we can’t protect human sources is the day the American people start becoming less safe.”