"...like dropping a bomb on Trump's front porch."
Aides said they viewed Trump’s late-afternoon comments to reporters as a necessary venting session. He had been grousing privately about Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a Trump appointee who oversees the Mueller investigation because of Sessions’s recusal.
He complained about Rosenstein again Monday in private, a White House adviser said, and stewed all afternoon about the warrant to seize Cohen’s records, at times raising his voice. Trump said that Rosenstein approved the warrant, that he wished Rosenstein was not in the job and there was no one making the prosecutors follow the rules, the adviser said. Trump complained sharply about Sessions and Mueller and asked detailed questions about who was behind the move — and said that people would be more critical of such a warrant if it wasn’t intended to damage the president.
Aides said they viewed Trump’s late-afternoon comments to reporters as a necessary venting session. He had been grousing privately about Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a Trump appointee who oversees the Mueller investigation because of Sessions’s recusal.
He complained about Rosenstein again Monday in private, a White House adviser said, and stewed all afternoon about the warrant to seize Cohen’s records, at times raising his voice. Trump said that Rosenstein approved the warrant, that he wished Rosenstein was not in the job and there was no one making the prosecutors follow the rules, the adviser said. Trump complained sharply about Sessions and Mueller and asked detailed questions about who was behind the move — and said that people would be more critical of such a warrant if it wasn’t intended to damage the president.
45* bitching about somebody not following the rules is like 45* bitching about somebody not following the rules.
The guy depends on everybody else following the rules (legal, ethical, moral) because that's what makes it relatively easy for him to find the Smarm Space, where he can weasel through a loophole - one of his own imagination sometimes - and turn the whole thing to his advantage.
The US Presidency operates within a fairly loose framework; one that largely depends on the office holder's sense of honor; and duty; and public service. POTUS has to know there are things you do and things you don't do. And there's no need for rationale beyond the fact that it's either the right thing to do, or it's the wrong thing to do - kinda like what your mom tried to teach you.
Of course, all that Boy-Scout-y-sounding stuff can get a little sideways when political considerations are factored in, but if you have a relatively clear idea of where the lines have to be drawn, there's a better-than-even chance that we all don't end up dead just because the Prez got to feeling a little peckish.
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