May 20, 2018

Trump’s Latest Tweet Just Crossed Another Bright Line

The president demands an investigation into the investigation of his campaign.

Kevin Dietsch/Zuma

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Still stewing from a flurry of new reports about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump demanded Sunday that the Department of Justice investigate itself:

Trump was evidently referencing a Friday report by the New York Times that the FBI had used an informant in 2016 to talk to Trump advisors it believed “had suspicious contacts linked to Russia.” 

Maybe he’s just bored on a Sunday afternoon, but what Trump says he’s going to do is pretty remarkable—he wants to order a Justice Department investigation into a secret FBI source in order to interrupt an investigation into his own campaign. It’s the definition of a politically motivated investigation, and a textbook example of what the president isn’t supposed to do:

Your move, Attorney General Jeff Sessions. So far, Sessions has resisted congressional Republicans’ earlier call for a second special counsel to investigate the investigation into the president’s campaign. Yet despite his supposed recusal from all things Russia investigation-related, Sessions has already asked the DOJ inspector general to look into the FBI’s surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. 

Update: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein responded to Trump’s demand by directing the inspector general to include attempts to “infiltrate” the campaign in its ongoing probe:

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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