Benjamin Wittes of Lawfare describes the situation at the DoJ:
But what are these chains? They are not the stolid personality of Jim Comey. Trump managed to get rid of Comey. They are not Attorney General Jeff Sessions or Rosenstein, neither of whom has shrouded himself in glory. Both men have vacillated, rather, between honorable behavior and dishonorable behavior over their times in office. Both men have sometimes acted to protect the integrity of independent law enforcement—Sessions by recusing himself from the Russia matter and Rosenstein by appointing Robert Mueller and stalwartly protecting his investigation. But both men also facilitated the President’s firing of Comey. And they have both covered for Trump’s grotesque interactions with law enforcement even as Trump has humiliated them repeatedly. Rosenstein’s speech vouching for the President’s commitment to the rule of law is only the latest example. Neither of them has shown one tenth the backbone of the now-resigned head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Chuck Rosenberg.
So what are the chains then? The chains are the workaday women and men of federal law enforcement, and their expectations that the political echelon at the Justice Department will shield them from becoming the President’s janissaries and enforcers. Trump is menacing the norm of independent law enforcement. He is chomping at the bit to do violence to it. But at least for now, it is holding. It remains strong enough that Trump can fulminate all he wants about how the Justice Department should be investigating Hillary Clinton and he can spit fire about the fact that Sessions hasn’t done more to “protect” him. Yet Mueller grinds on and does his job. The FBI grinds on and does its job. And the Justice Department grinds on and does its job. And the President finds it the “saddest thing” that none of their jobs, as our democratic polity has determined them to be over a long period of time, includes fulfilling his undemocratic aspirations to loose investigators on people he doesn’t like or to have a Justice Department that protects him and his family and his campaign from scrutiny. The saddest thing indeed.
It’s a stunning statement of presidential constraint by the rule of law, if not a statement of belief in it: Trump actually declared this week that while he aspires to corruptly interfere with law enforcement, he just can’t pull it off.
And I suppose I should be reassured that the strong democracy built by Whigs and Republicans and Democrats over more than two centuries is standing up to the depradations of the unprincipled Trump.
But even granite can be worn away by the slow, relentless assault of water, and so I don’t think we can wait for Trump to simply run out his term. I think he should be impeached before he can do more official damage; and it would be good if he went out as the public embarrassment that he is, rather than some sort of martyr to the conservatives. But for that to happen, the right wing media would have to turn on him.
