August 25, 2018

President Trump Just Issued a Disturbing Threat Against the FBI

“At some point I may have to get involved!”

Alex Brandon/AP

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Donald Trump, still reeling from a week of legal blows to his former campaign chair and lawyer, who has implicated the president in allegations of campaign finance violations, lashed out on Saturday at the Justice Department, returning to one of his favorite topics: Hillary Clinton’s emails. But his early Saturday morning missives also included a disturbing threat, that at some point he “may have to get involved” in the investigation.

The tweets come days after Trump’s onetime campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted of eight counts of financial crimes, and after his former personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to bank, tax, and campaign finance charges. Cohen said Trump had “directed” him to break campaign finance rules for the “principal purpose of influencing [the] election.”

For months, Trump has described special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election as a “witch hunt” and accused the FBI of failing to properly look into Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was working as secretary of state. The case against Cohen began, in part, on a referral from the special counsel. 

On Saturday, Trump also continued to escalate his feud with Attorney General Jeff Sessions. After recent attacks on the attorney general for recusing himself from the Russia investigation, Sessions on Friday defended his decision. “While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations,” he said. 

The fight between Trump and Sessions has led to speculation by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and others that the president may be weighing firing his attorney general after the November midterm elections.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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