Opinion: Did Trump actually listen to us about not firing Mueller?
Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, Jan. 27, 2018. Let’s take a look back at the week in Opinion.
In light of the New York Times’ bombshell report Thursday night that President Trump ordered the firing of Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III in June only to reconsider when his White House counsel threatened to quit, it’s chilling to reread all the commentary on the topic over the last several months knowing that the president had already tried to do exactly what those writers were warning against. It’s like learning of all the times in history when the Cold War almost became a nuclear conflict, and knowing what you were doing as a child at the precise moment Soviet and American military commanders were preparing to annihilate you.
One of those voices was that of The Times Editorial Board, which warned Trump of the catastrophic consequences to his presidency if he were to attempt another version of the “Saturday Night Massacre” that doomed Richard Nixon. In looking back, deputy editorial page editor Jon Healey wonders whether Trump took the board’s advice:
We on The Times’ editorial board asked a question seven months ago that seemed almost inconceivable. “Only a few days before the 45th anniversary of the Watergate break-in,” the board wrote, “could President Trump really be contemplating a reenactment of one of the most notorious episodes of that scandal: President Richard M. Nixon’s firing of Archibald Cox, the special prosecutor who was investigating the cover-up of that ‘third-rate burglary,’ a power play that also cost the president his attorney general and deputy attorney general?”
The board went on to say that Trump would be “nuts” to fire special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. Yet according to the New York Times’ Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman, that’s just what the president was trying to do at the time. The deeply sourced pair reported that Trump ordered Mueller’s firing last June, only to drop the demand when he read The Times’ editorial. No, actually, Schmidt and Haberman reported that Trump reversed course after top White House lawyer Don McGahn threatened to resign over it.
Maybe McGahn read our words of advice. They’re available free online, after all.
OK, probably not.
“Mr. President, you are a target for obstruction of justice charges.” Those words will likely be spoken to Trump when, during a possible deposition, his lawyer asks Mueller whether the president is the “target” of an obstruction investigation, writes UCLA law professor Harry Litman. Previously, Litman wrote (in September) that someone of Trump’s temperament would surely try to fire the man who poses the biggest threat to his presidency, and that Congress’ holiday recess provided the ideal window for Trump to make his move on Mueller.
This isn’t the kind of policing Metro needs. Forcibly removing unruly teenagers off trains — which a Los Angeles Police Department sergeant was videotaped doing after an 18-year-old woman refused to remove her feet from a seat and, later, did not comply with his order to leave a Red Line train — won’t get more people to take transit, writes The Times Editorial Board. L.A. Times
Wrong. This is exactly the kind of transit policing we need. L.A. Times readers unanimously disagree with the editorial board and praise the police officer for enforcing the rules meant to keep trains and buses in good working order and the public comfortable with taking transit. “I wholeheartedly support the action of the Los Angeles Police Department sergeant who was videotaped forcibly removing a young woman from a Metro Red Line train,” says one reader. “I would probably ride the trains more frequently if I saw the rules being enforced effectively.” L.A. Times
Ho hum, another mass shooting at a school. Editorial writer Scott Martelle sums up the disturbing reality: “A 15-year-old sophomore in the small village of Benton, Ky., walked onto his high school campus Tuesday morning and opened fire with a handgun, killing two fellow students and wounding 14 more, according to authorities. It’s a measure of how inured this nation has become to school shootings, let alone mass shootings, that a murderous incident in rural Kentucky barely rippled the national consciousness.” L.A. Times
On interviewing the strange person we call our governor: It isn’t easy, says New York Times reporter Adam Nagourney, as Jerry Brown almost surely knows more about any given issue than you. And he’s impatient — just in general, and especially with questions about his legacy after 45 years in public service. Despite his prickliness, the governor can still talk. And talk: “For all of Mr. Brown’s protestations about a long interview as we sat down, it was pretty clear by the end that the soon-to-retire governor of California would have been delighted to keep talking into the night.” New York Times
Evolve, Mr. President, or you won’t get anything on immigration. Trump’s chief of staff said in an interview that during the campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump had been uninformed about what it would take to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and that his thinking since had evolved. The president shot back on Twitter: “The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it.” But, says columnist Jonah Goldberg, the president would be wise to take his chief of staff’s advice, “evolve” in his thinking and use the border wall as a negotiating tool. L.A. Times
Reach me: paul.thornton@latimes.com
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