Trump Leaves Himself One Way Out

James Comey.

President Donald Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday could be considered appropriate only in light of a candle’s flicker. Last year, Comey violated FBI practices and Justice Department rules in announcements about the FBI’s Hillary Clinton email investigation. On May 3, he made an error while testifying about Clinton emails before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

If Trump had turned on so much as a flashlight, his conflict of interest would have blinded him. The conflict disqualified him in every ethical way from firing the FBI director. Comey led the agency’s investigation into the possibility of Trump campaign dealings with officials in Russia.

Trump has only one way to push back the dense blanket of suspicion over his firing of Comey: Call for a special counsel, working with an independent staff, to investigate connections of Trump associates to Russia or any other impropriety.

If he could not keep himself from firing Comey, the president should have sought a special counsel simultaneously. He should do so now. Procrastination on this vital act of investigative independence would smother his presidency.

In terms that Trump might find familiar, a person confident of no wrongdoing would show strength by welcoming a tough, independent investigation. A person living in fear of loose ends would show weakness by firing the chief investigator.

Trump botched the firing from the beginning. Rather than tell the FBI director face-to-face, call him or even dispatch a message to him, the president blasted the news from the White House with no regard for anyone but himself. Comey, who was in Los Angeles speaking with a group of FBI agents, learned from a news report on a television playing in the background that he had been fired.

After talking with a small set of staff members Monday, Trump met with Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who took his newly confirmed position two weeks ago. Sessions and Rosenstein were working on other matters at the While House on Monday. Trump called them in, The New York Times reported. They expressed concerns about Comey, The Times said, and Trump told them to write recommendations to him.

CONDEMNATION

Sessions and Rosenstein, the No. 1 and No. 2 leaders in the Justice Department, submitted their summations to Trump on Tuesday.

Rosenstein delivered damnation. He wrote a memo, addressed to Sessions. The subject line: “Restoring public confidence in the FBI.”

He began by scorching Comey’s July 5 news conference. Comey announced that Clinton would not be prosecuted over a private email server she used for governmental purposes while secretary of state and that the practice had been “extremely careless.”

“I cannot defend the director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails,” Rosenstein wrote, “and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken.” Rosenstein included comments from former attorneys general. They criticized Comey’s course on Clinton.

“The director was wrong to usurp the attorney general’s authority on July 5, 2016, and announce his conclusion that the case should be closed without prosecution,” he wrote. “It is not the function of the director to make such an announcement. At most, the director should have said the FBI had completed its investigation and presented its findings to federal prosecutors.”

Rosenstein’s punch line: “The FBI is unlikely to regain public and congressional trust until it has a director who understands the gravity of the mistakes, and pledges never to repeat them. Having refused to admit his errors, the director cannot be expected to implement the necessary corrective actions.”

Two omissions mar Rosenstein’s memo:

• Comey’s error in telling the Senate Judiciary Committee on May 3 that Huma Abedin forwarded to her husband “hundreds and thousands” of emails rather than the correct “small number” of emails from Clinton, for whom Abedin was presidential campaign vice chair.
• Silence on Russia, the Trump campaign and Comey’s handling of the FBI investigation into them.

The former is an oddly missed opportunity to further discredit Comey. The latter is passive-aggressive concealment.

Sessions followed with a letter to Trump that cited Rosenstein’s memo to convict Comey.

With a salutation of “Dear Mr. President,” Sessions wrote: “The director of the FBI must be someone who follows faithfully the rules and principles of the Department of Justice, and who sets the right example of our law enforcement officials and others in the department. Therefore, I must recommend that you remove Director James B. Comey Jr.”

CONFLICT UPON CONFLICT

As Sessions was providing Trump the ammunition to shoot down Comey, he was under a self-imposed, necessary recusal on the FBI investigation into possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. The U.S. says Russia interfered with Clinton’s campaign.

Sessions recused himself March 2 following news reports that he met twice with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. while part of the Trump campaign. He did not tell the Senate about the meetings during his confirmation.

The attorney general fueled the firing even though Comey was working on the Trump campaign-Russia investigation as his top priority, Comey had asked Rosenstein for additional Justice Department resources for the investigation and Boston University public radio station WBUR reported on May 5 that Eric Trump told a golfing author in 2013 that a new Trump golf course was not funded by U.S. banks.

Author James Dodson said Eric Trump told him the reason, “We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” On May 8, Eric Trump denied the report, writing on Twitter, “This story is completely fabricated.”

With Russian matters putting himself and Trump at odds with Comey, Sessions ignored his and Trump’s conflicts of interest, and sent his Comey-condemnation letter to the president.

If these factors were not enough, Trump’s firing letter to Comey contained this odd-and-damning clause: “I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation.”

Conflict of interest was not enough for the dogged Trump and his staff. Action by action, they dug a deeper hole of indignity this week.

Thursday, Lester Holt interviewed Trump at the White House for “NBC Nightly News.”

Asked by Holt about the not-under-investigation clause in the firing, Trump said he asked Comey whether the FBI was investigating him. “I actually asked him,” Trump said. Comey told him he was not under investigation. He did so, Trump said, during a one-on-one White House dinner and during a pair of phone calls.

Also on Thursday, The New York Times reported that, during the dinner, which it said was a week after his inauguration, Trump twice asked Comey to pledge loyalty to him. In reply, The Times reported, Comey twice pledged honesty instead.

Being the one person who could fire the FBI director and being the head of a campaign under investigation to determine connections to Russia, Trump’s personal questions to Comey were unethical and improper.

Such a thought did not guide Trump as he threatened Comey on Friday. “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Trump wrote on Twitter.

Asked by Fox News on Friday if he uses recorders, Trump said: “Well, that I can’t talk about. I won’t talk about that.”

The practice was curtailed after President Richard Nixon taped conversations in the White House secretly during the time of Watergate. The tapes played a great part in his resignation.

James Comey better hope that there are no "tapes" of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 12, 2017

Presidents are supposed to have stopped routinely taping visitors without their knowledge when Nixon’s taping system was revealed in 1973.

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) May 12, 2017

Trump told Holt that Comey is “a showboat, he’s a grandstander. The FBI has been in turmoil.”

In an appearance before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday, Acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s rebuttal was stark.

“Director Comey enjoyed broad support within the FBI and still does to this day,” McCabe said.

He also said the Trump campaign-Russia investigation is “highly significant.”

Following the firing of Comey, Trump’s staff — and, prominently, Vice President Mike Pence — said the memo and letter from Rosenstein and Sessions were the basis for Trump’s decision.

Trump told Holt, “I was going to fire Comey — my decision,” adding, “I was going to fire, regardless of recommendation.”

Since he fired Comey, Trump repeatedly said he was having a top legal firm prepare a “certified letter” about his income from Russian sources. Friday, the White House released the letter.

The letter was written March 8 by two tax lawyers for the Washington branch of the firm Morgan Lewis of Philadelphia.

They said Trump received income from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant in Moscow, selling property in Florida to a Russian, and Russians’ and Russian companies’ payments to Trump companies for services such as condominium fees, hotel rooms and rounds of golf.

The letter was certified only in the sense of being sent as certified mail. If that distinction was insufficiently absurd, consider Trump’s decision to use a law firm that was named “by Chambers & Partners’ 2016 ‘Chambers Europe’ guide as Russia Law Firm of the Year,” as a Morgan Lewis news release put it. The firm has a Moscow branch.

If Trump would like to avoid a four-year term whose beginning, middle and end is spelled R-U-S-S-I-A, he will call for a special counsel immediately. He will invite the counsel to investigate even the slightest connection between his campaign, businesses or any other aspect of his life with Russia

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Hillary Clinton Needs a Headline Writer

Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton spoke Tuesday about reasons for her loss to Donald Trump in last year’s presidential campaign. She did so in response to questions from CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, the moderator for a talk during Women for Women International’s award luncheon in New York.

Clinton gave detailed explanations for several problems that affected her campaign.

None of the problems she elucidated was a failure to provide concise points summarizing her extensive policy positions.

Amanpour asked Clinton about lacking a “vote-for-me” summary in a sweeping question about her campaign: “Your supporters have said they’re devastated, some are angry, and some say, could it have been different, could the campaign have been better, could you have had a better rationale? He had one message, your opponent, and it was a successful message, ‘Make America great again.’ And where was your message? Do you take a personal responsibility?

Clinton ignored messaging, as she did while on the stump.

Nonetheless, what she said in response to Amanpour was enlightening. Notes: Clinton twice alludes to a book she is writing about the campaign, mentions FBI Director James Comey, gives the wrong date for the Nov. 8 election and reverses the name of the “Access Hollywood” television show.

“Oh, of course. I take absolute personal responsibility,” Clinton said. “I was the candidate. I was the person who was on the ballot and I am very aware of the challenges, the problems, the shortfalls that we had — again, I will write all this out for you — but I will say this, I’ve been in a lot of campaigns, and I’m very proud of the campaign we ran, and I’m very proud of the staff and the volunteers and the people who were out there day after day.

“It wasn’t a perfect campaign. There is no such thing. But I was on the way to winning until the combination of Jim Comey’s letter on Oct. 28 and Russian Wikileaks raised doubts in the minds of people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off. And the evidence for that intervening event is, I think, compelling, persuasive.

“We overcame a lot in the campaign. We overcame a barrage of negatively, of false equivalency and so much else.”

“We overcame a lot in the campaign. We overcame a barrage of negatively, of false equivalency and so much else, but, as Nate Silver, who doesn’t work for me — he’s an independent analyst, but one who’s considered to be very reliable — has concluded that if the election had been on Oct. 27, I’d be your president. And it wasn’t, it was on Oct. 28, and there was just a lot of funny business going on around that.

“Ask yourself this, within an hour or two of the ‘Hollywood Access’ tape being made public, the Russian theft of John Podesta’s emails hit Wikileaks. What a coincidence. You just can’t make this stuff up.

“Did we make mistakes, of course we did. Did I make mistakes, oh my God, yes. You’ll read my confession and my request for absolution. But the reason why I believe we lost were the intervening events in the last 10 days.

“I think you can see I was leading in the early vote. I had a very strong — and not just our polling and data analysis — but a very strong assessment going on across the country about where I was in terms of the necessary votes and electoral votes. And, remember, I did win more than 3 million votes than my opponent. So, it’s like, really?”

Clinton’s comments produced concise summaries in the form of headlines from many news organizations. From CNN, “Clinton: ‘If the election had been on Oct. 27, I would be your president.’” This was a representative summation of the sort that Clinton has shown herself incapable of producing.

The shame is that so many of Clinton’s campaign positions were thoughtful and thoroughly fleshed-out, unlike those of Trump — then or now.

Hearing a would-be president speak with a vocabulary greater than that of a grade-schooler was a pleasure. Unlike Trump, she does not stoop to repeatedly slapping double adjectives such as “very, very,” “beautiful, beautiful” or “many, many” on words he wishes to grant extra importance. Clinton speaks extemporaneously with ease.

However, if Clinton hopes for a future in which she influences outcomes within the nation or world, she needs a summarizer in chief. Better, she should take a course in headline writing at a journalism school.

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Trump, Sessions Fail in Court

U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson of Honolulu.

President Donald Trump has signed two executive orders banning citizens of some predominantly Muslim countries from entering the U.S. for 90 days.

A third executive order threatened to cut most federal funds to “sanctuary jurisdictions.” In those cities and counties, police and sheriff’s departments do not share immigration information with federal agencies.

States and local governments sued Trump over the orders. Federal judges found each order unconstitutional.

Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions are furious.

Rather than anger, their approach should be respect for rights ensured by the Constitution and care when wielding the presidency’s executive power.

In the case of “sanctuary cities” — the more common term for sanctuary jurisdictions — the city and county of San Francisco sued Trump over his Jan. 25 order, as did the county of Santa Clara, California.

Tuesday, U.S. District Judge William Orrick of San Francisco issued a nationwide preliminary injunction against Trump’s executive order on sanctuary cities and immigration laws.

“The counties have demonstrated that they are likely to succeed on the merits of their challenge,” Orrick said in his ruling against Trump’s order. He added that “they will suffer irreparable harm absent an injunction, and that the balance of harms and public interest weigh in their favor.”

Orrick said, “The Constitution vests the spending powers in Congress, not the president, so the order cannot constitutionally place new conditions on federal funds.”

On the issue of enforcing immigration laws, Orrick said, “Federal funding that bears no meaningful relationship to immigration enforcement cannot be threatened merely because a jurisdiction chooses an immigration enforcement strategy of which the president disapproves.”

Trump criticized Orrick’s decision. “First the 9th Circuit rules against the ban and now it hits again on sanctuary cities — both ridiculous rulings. See you in the Supreme Court!” he wrote Wednesday on Twitter.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco, covers nine Western states, including California, and two territories. Orrick presides in a separate court system, the Northern District of California, which is part of the U.S. District Court.

TRY AGAIN

On March 6, Trump nullified his Jan. 27 executive order banning travel by signing a replacement order.

The old executive order had been blocked Feb. 3 by a nationwide temporary restraining order issued by U.S. District Judge James Robart of Seattle. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Robart’s ruling.

Sessions said the new executive order was written to avoid the first order’s pitfalls.

It eliminated Iraq from a list of seven countries whose citizens were banned from traveling to the U.S. for 90 days. The remaining six countries are Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. The order also banned entry of refugees for 120 days.

One day after Trump signed the order, Hawaii sued to stop it.

On March 15, U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson of Honolulu ruled in favor of Hawaii. He issued a temporary restraining order against the executive order’s travel ban.

Watson said he found “evidence of a financial impact from the executive order on the university system.” Hawaii’s university system “recruits from the six affected countries,” he said.

On the question of whether the travel ban targets religion, Watson said “these six countries have overwhelmingly Muslim populations that range from 90.7 percent to 99.8 percent. It would therefore be no paradigmatic leap to conclude that targeting these countries likewise targets Islam.”

On March 29, Watson extended his ruling by making it a preliminary injunction. A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is scheduled to hear a government appeal May 15.

OFFICIAL OFFENSE

Sessions insulted Watson and Hawaii on April 18. “I really am amazed that a judge sitting on an island in the Pacific can issue an order that stops the president of the United States from what appears to be clearly his statutory and constitutional power,” Sessions said to Mark Levin on his talk radio show.

As attorney general and simply as a lawyer, Sessions should know that a federal judge’s ruling can be applied nationwide. Also, he should know that the U.S. District Court in Honolulu would hear a federal lawsuit filed by the state of Hawaii.

Sessions further demeaned himself Sunday when he tried to explain his slur by saying “nobody has a sense of humor anymore” on ABC-TV’s “This Week.”

Watson was not the only judge to make a nationwide ruling on the second travel ban.

On the same day as Watson, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang of Greenbelt, Maryland, ruled. From the court, which is just 11 miles northeast of the White House, Chuang issued a nationwide temporary restraining order on the portion of the executive order banning travel from citizens of six nations.

On May 8, the full U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, is scheduled to hear the government’s appeal of Chuang’s ruling. As many as 15 judges could take part.

In challenges to President Trump’s three executive orders on travel and immigration, the courts are carrying out the role assigned to them by the nation’s founders. They are applying the checks and balances built into the Constitution.

Trump should preside neither as a bully nor by bravado. Sessions should maintain decorum. Trump’s lawyers and the attorney general should hold themselves to the confines of the Constitution. They should encourage the president to do likewise.

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People Get Last Word on O'Reilly

Bill O'Reilly.

Fox News Channel, nearly untouchable, no matter how skewed or vile the reports and commentary on some of its programs, has met its match.

Wednesday, parent company 21st Century Fox dismissed Fox News’ biggest star, Bill O’Reilly.

Fox followed not devotees of the News Channel in making its decision against O’Reilly but the broad public — the people.

These regular folks buy the products of advertisers who left “The O’Reilly Factor.” They overwhelm O’Reilly watchers in number.

The advertisers acted as the people’s proxy by boycotting the show in protest over five cases accusing O’Reilly of sexual harassment or other foul action. The cases were settled with payments of about $13 million from O’Reilly and Fox, reports The New York Times.

Fox would have you believe that O’Reilly’s departure was a joint decision.

In a one-sentence statement Wednesday, 21st Century Fox said, “After a thorough and careful review of the allegations, the company and Bill O’Reilly have agreed that Bill O’Reilly will not be returning to the Fox News Channel.”

O’Reilly denies wrongdoing.

DAMNING REPORT

The people arose after an April 1 report by The New York Times. The article detailed accusations in each of the five cases.

Rachel Witlieb Bernstein was a Fox News junior producer. O’Reilly screamed at Bernstein, witnesses say. She left the network. Fox settled with Bernstein in 2002. The amount is not public.

Andrea Mackris was a producer for “The O’Reilly Factor.” She filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against O’Reilly. He settled with Mackris for about $9 million in 2004.

Rebecca Gomez Diamond was a Fox Business News host. She recorded conversations with O’Reilly. As a result, he settled with Diamond in 2011 for an amount that is not public.

Laurie Dhue was a Fox News anchor. She made sexual harassment claims against O’Reilly after she left the network in 2008. Fox settled with Dhue for more than $1 million.

Juliet Huddy presented and co-hosted various programs for Fox News. She accused O’Reilly of making sexual advancements in 2011. Fox settled with her for $1.6 million in September.

Two additional women have spoken about inappropriate behavior by O’Reilly, The Times reported in its April 1 article. They have not received settlements.

Wendy Walsh, who made guest appearances on “The O’Reilly Factor,” said O’Reilly made an advance and offered to arrange a Fox News job for her.

Andrea Tantaros accused O’Reilly of sexual harassment in a 2016 lawsuit against O’Reilly and former Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes. The lawsuit is ongoing.

Fox fired Ailes in July, following allegations of sexual harassment that led to a company investigation. Fox paid Ailes $40 million upon his departure.

Although Ailes and O’Reilly were forced out following complaints of a similar sort, the manner differed.

Even though Ailes was a founder of Fox News, he did not hold the popularity with viewers that O’Reilly did.

Fox had known about complaints against O’Reilly and had taken part in financial settlements with employees for more than a decade. Yet, for so long, the company took no action against its star commentator.

Only when advertisers left O’Reilly’s show out of concern over customer reaction, and protests sprang up among those beyond the Fox News faithful, did the company bear down on its No. 1 host.

In the end, the people drove 21st Century Fox to remove O’Reilly from Fox News Channel.

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Syria Strike: Big League Cost

The USS Porter launches Tomahawk cruise missiles April 6.

On the order of President Donald Trump, the Navy fired 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at Syria’s Shayrat Air Base last week. The missiles exploded their 1,000-pound bombs on buildings and airplanes at the base.

“On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians. Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children,” Trump said on the night of the April 6 strike.

The cost to replace each Tomahawk cruise missile is $1.869 million — a total of $110 million for the 59 missiles.

The president’s order to attack Syria stirred questions and discussion worldwide.

Trump’s decision demonstrated that the U.S. is willing to intervene when a country gasses its citizens. Bombing the air base from the launch site of Syria’s chemical weapon attack was appropriate.

On Aug. 21, 2013, Syria struck residents with chemical weapons. That gas attack was substantially larger than this month’s, with more victims. President Barack Obama considered military action.

Trump spoke strongly in opposition on Twitter.

On Aug. 29, 2013, Trump wrote: “Let the Arab League take care of Syria. Why are these rich Arab countries not paying us for the tremendous cost of such an attack?”

On Sept. 7, 2013, Trump wrote: “President Obama, do not attack Syria. There is no upside and tremendous downside. Save your ‘powder’ for another (and more important) day!”

Building an international coalition to oppose a heinous government by using isolation, political pressure and diplomacy is just as reasonable as a military strike.

BUSINESS CASE

One question has been mute: Was last week’s attack an efficient use of governmental funds?

This is important in light of Trump’s long campaign to reduce the cost of government.

Here is how he framed the issue in a 2000 interview: “I have made the tough decisions, always with an eye toward the bottom line. Perhaps it’s time America was run like a business.”

Was the cost of $110 million in cruise missiles — excluding the cost of operation and related materiel — a good deal?

Besides the air base limping back to use the day after the attack, the damage caused by 59 tons of precision-guided bombs showed the missiles’ limits.

In a Pentagon news conference Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis said, “I think it’s around 20 aircraft were taken out.” This corrected his Monday statement of 20 percent of Syrian Air Force craft.

Department of Defense photos above and below show bomb damage at Shayrat Air Base in Syria.

Photos released by the Department of Defense showed that a prime target of the cruise missiles was high-strength concrete aircraft shelters. Two airplanes can be berthed under each.

The annotated photos show that seven shelters were damaged and that only one was destroyed.

An independent analysis by ISI, a satellite-imaging company, said that bombs hit 13 aircraft shelters 23 times. Some targets were hit more than once.

Bombs hit 10 ammunition depots, ISI said, along with seven fuel depots, five workshops and five SA6 motorized missile launchers, one of which was destroyed.

Despite a total of 44 targets hit by bombs, ISI said, “it seems that the overall damage to the base is limited.”

Cruise missiles are unlike rocket-powered missiles that shoot upward, then dive to their targets. Tomahawks are maneuverable airplanes with small wings and tails, and powered by jet engines. They fly an evasive course, close to the ground, guided by GPS and have remote operators who can change direction.

The Tomahawk’s precision aiming is renowned. The 59 cruise missiles’ failure to knock out a modest Syrian base is a disappointment.

Bottom line, the decision to bomb Shayrat Air Base did not produce a businesslike gain.

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Secretary of Injustice

Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

A heavy hand of governmental law enforcement has pounded citizens needlessly in cities large and small. Death, injury and disenfranchisement have resulted.

Some police officers take the “force” in enforcement literally. Leaders of certain police departments do little to ensure equal application of the law.

The other side of oppression by law enforcement can be federal. U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions wields that heavy hand.

Sessions made his administrative glee apparent by having his office on Monday file a disruptive motion. It asked for a 90-day delay in a federal court public hearing that had been scheduled for Thursday in Baltimore.

The motion said the Justice Department has changed direction to “prioritize efforts at crime reduction, and cooperation with state and local law enforcement.”

PUBLIC VOICE

U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar approved the public hearing Feb. 15. The Justice Department and the city of Baltimore requested the hearing as they worked together on police reforms. The purpose was to hear from residents about their views on the reforms and a consent decree that would put them in place.

Baltimore opposed the delay. The city told the court it invited the Justice Department to investigate the Baltimore Police Department and develop a reform agreement “when the city was engulfed in unrest following the death of Freddie Gray while in police custody in April 2015, and the ensuing spike in homicide rates in Baltimore.”

In his ruling to move ahead with the hearing, Bredar noted how fellow judges canceled Thursday hearings in their courtrooms and court employees trained for special roles in the large public hearing, and how deputy U.S. marshals were redeployed and special security measures were put in place.

“To postpone the public hearing at the eleventh hour,” Bredar said in his ruling, “would be to unduly burden and inconvenience the court, the other parties, and, most importantly, the public.”

NO NONSENSE

Friday, Bredar approved the consent decree between the federal government and the city of Baltimore.

The judge accepted neither of the nonsensical delays proposed by Sessions’ attorneys this week. The Monday motion asked for 90 days. A request in court Thursday sought 30 days.

Bredar said a delay would not address core questions: “whether the parties proposed decree is fair, adequate, reasonable, legal, noncollusive and in the public interest.”

Sessions criticized Bredar’s decree approval.

“I have grave concerns that some provisions of this decree will reduce the lawful powers of the Police Department and result in a less-safe city,” Sessions said Friday.

“The time for negotiating the agreement is over,” Bredar said. “The only question now is whether the court needs more time to consider the proposed decree. It does not.”

“The public statements made in writing and during the recent hearing make clear that time is of the essence,” Bredar said. “Now, it is time to enter the decree and thereby require all involved to get to work.”

POLICE POWER-UP

The title of attorney general is an aberration among members of the presidential Cabinet, most being secretaries. Call Jeff Sessions the secretary of injustice.

Sessions seeks to halt a number of police-reform decrees similar to Baltimore’s.

“The safety and protection of the public is the paramount concern and duty of law enforcement officials,” Sessions wrote in a March 31 memo to his department heads and U.S. attorneys.

The second priority in Sessions’ memo is “Law enforcement officers perform uniquely dangerous tasks, and the department should help promote officer safety, officer morale and public respect for their work.”

Only third in Sessions’ listing is “Local law enforcement must protect and respect the civil rights of all members of the public.”

Nowhere is there a reminder that one is innocent until proved guilty and that one should be treated as such. Nowhere is reducing unnecessarily forceful treatment of suspects mentioned. Nowhere can a warning against racial profiling be found.

Sessions’ authoritarian objective is to pump up police officers and police departments to boost their power and esteem.

In his memo, Sessions ordered Justice Department leaders to “immediately review all department activities — including collaborative investigations and prosecutions, grant making, technical assistance and training, compliance reviews, existing or contemplated consent decrees, and task force participation.”

Sessions also wrote, “It is not the responsibility of the federal government to manage nonfederal law enforcement agencies.”

In short, Sessions hoped to use a Baltimore delay as a model for withdrawing from reform efforts in Chicago; Cleveland; New Orleans; Seattle; Ferguson, Missouri; and more than a dozen other cities.

In line with his criticism of Judge Bredar’s decision in Baltimore, expect Sessions to continue his misguided push to eliminate police reform in every city he can.

Justice means more than a criminal conviction, more than a prison sentence. It means being fair, correct and — in the United States — constitutional.

As attorney general, Jeff Sessions must ensure that these standards are upheld by every agency of law enforcement, whether local, state or federal.

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