GOP Sen. Jeff Flake (Ariz.) railed against President Trump on Wednesday over a recent tweet in which he criticized Attorney General Jeff Sessions for investigations into two GOP lawmakers, comparing the comments to “slander.”
Flake encouraged Sessions to “stand firm,” characterizing his actions to “safeguard the independence of the Justice Department” as “heroic,” while also urging his Republican colleagues to more forcefully curb Trump’s “destructive impulses.”
“I appeal to the leadership of this body to speak out. … When the president so blatantly calls for the Department of Justice to act as an arm of the Republican Party, then the leaders of the Republican Party in this body need to stand and say that the president is out of bounds,” Flake said in a speech from the Senate floor on Wednesday evening.
Flake added that if senators are silent “then we’ve become accomplices with the destruction of these democratic norms.”
“The United States Senate is not the place to come for deniability. We must do what we can to curb the destructive impulses of this White House. We must encourage the administration of justice,” he continued.
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“The president is projecting a vision unto the system of American Justice that is both bizarre and, more important, destructive,” he said. “[This] particular president seems to have a profound unease with both justice and truth and so has been at unrelenting war with both, virtually since the moment he swore the oath.”
Flake suggested that Trump is consciously deciding who is allowed to be investigated and questioned, behavior which could be interpreted as laying the ground work ahead of an effort to interfere in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into possible collusion between Russia and Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
“It seems to be a deliberate program by which he intends to weaken the institution of American justice, threaten its independence, and perhaps set the stage for some future assault on it — the firing of the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, and perhaps even the special counsel,” Flake said.
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During his speech, Flake suggested that senators could stand up to Trump by passing legislation that would protect Mueller against being fired.
“We must also say in no uncertain terms that to call this investigation a witch hunt is wrong. To call Mr. Mueller’s team thugs is wrong. Relentlessly slandering the attorney general of the United States is wrong. It is a travesty. And it is unbecoming of the office of the presidency,” Flake said.
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Flake rails against Trump, demands GOP leaders say he is "out of bounds" https://t.co/iMplmpLaAF pic.twitter.com/WGwGiEgVO2
— The Hill (@thehill) September 13, 2018
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