May 20, 2018

Trump’s Latest Tweet Just Crossed Another Bright Line

The president demands an investigation into the investigation of his campaign.

Kevin Dietsch/Zuma

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Still stewing from a flurry of new reports about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into his 2016 presidential campaign, President Donald Trump demanded Sunday that the Department of Justice investigate itself:

Trump was evidently referencing a Friday report by the New York Times that the FBI had used an informant in 2016 to talk to Trump advisors it believed “had suspicious contacts linked to Russia.” 

Maybe he’s just bored on a Sunday afternoon, but what Trump says he’s going to do is pretty remarkable—he wants to order a Justice Department investigation into a secret FBI source in order to interrupt an investigation into his own campaign. It’s the definition of a politically motivated investigation, and a textbook example of what the president isn’t supposed to do:

Your move, Attorney General Jeff Sessions. So far, Sessions has resisted congressional Republicans’ earlier call for a second special counsel to investigate the investigation into the president’s campaign. Yet despite his supposed recusal from all things Russia investigation-related, Sessions has already asked the DOJ inspector general to look into the FBI’s surveillance of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. 

Update: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein responded to Trump’s demand by directing the inspector general to include attempts to “infiltrate” the campaign in its ongoing probe:

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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.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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