Dec. 4, 2017, Fairfax, Va.—Americans for Limited Government President Rick Manning today issued the following statement echoing Trump attorney John Dowd’s statement that the “President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case”:
“The President is the chief officer of the Executive Branch, whose duty under Article II of the Constitution is to implement and enforce the law. He is only officer in the Constitution that has this job. Not the Attorney General. Not the FBI. Not the Justice Department. The President can lead investigations, order investigations and stop investigations, just like any prosecutor with discretion. To deny that, is to deny the very nature of executive power.
“Given that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn pled guilty to lying to the FBI about lawful activities and nothing else, it is reasonable for the President to have said that Flynn really didn’t do anything wrong. Robert Mueller himself exercised the same discretion when he accepted Flynn’s plea deal. James Comey himself exercised far broader prosecutorial discretion when he whitewashed Hillary Clinton’s email server scandal by declaring it not to be a crime.
“I find it incredible that those who conferred on former President Obama nearly unlimited executive powers seek to undermine the exercising of even the most basic constitutional authority by President Trump. This partisan approach to constitutional governance and the powers delineated therein is dangerous.
“The greatest danger to representative government is an unaccountable administrative state operating outside of presidential and Congressional purview. It is time to rein in this witch hunt, which calls into question the amount of discretion that has been put into the hands of unelected officials.”
Attachments:
“No obstruction of justice by Trump in Comey testimony,” By Robert Romano, June 8, 2017 at http://netrightdaily.com/2017/06/no-obstruction-justice-trump-comey-testimony/
“Flynn had no reason to lie about speaking to the Russian ambassador,” Statement by Rick Manning, Dec. 1, 2017 at https://getliberty.org/2017/12/flynn-had-no-reason-to-lie-about-speaking-to-the-russian-ambassador/
Interview Availability: Please contact Americans for Limited Government at 703-383-0880 ext. 100 or at media@limitgov.org to arrange an interview with ALG experts.
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