Ted Cruz rather effectively gave RR a choice, either he was complicit (which Cruz said he doesn’t believe is the case), or he is “grossly negligent”. RR did not vehemently disagree, and obviously took what was behind Door #2. The reason why is obvious: you can be a horses#it Deputy or Acting AG - you can even be “grossly negligent” in how you do certain aspects of your job, but you don’t get fired or lose your pension or face criminal charges for it. All that happens is maybe you look a little dumb and your public opinion ratings go down with people who don’t like you anyway. But it’s the safe way out.
Some have been critical of RR for not asking questions or probing into the facts presented to him for approval, and thereby putting the blame on him. OK, fair enough, the buck stops somewhere. But it’s pretty much moot, because again, it’s not illegal to be lousy at your job. And there is some truth in what he said, which is obvious to anyone who has experience with how executives work. And that’s what RR was, an executive who spent most of his time in meetings - not an investigator or researcher. The closest people like him come to doing what many would call “real work” is answering emails and taking phone calls they can’t delegate to anyone else.
Because of the levels of authority that are present in any large organization, he had to sign off on stuff that was prepared by his staff and others, and he said he counted on them having followed the law and done so properly. Again, you can call him a dope for taking that view but you’ll never get him charged with any crime because it’s not against any law. Same reason most corporate CEOs avoid personal accountability unless they really run the train off the tracks.
Feel free to disagree, and I’m not arguing hat color, just the realities of current laws and organizatonal norms that I have pointed out before.
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No, I agree. This is a guy who is constitutionally unable to participate in a conspiracy, unless it's a conspiracy to cover his own ass.
He is just a guy who rose up to a high level in a big organization by probably never rocking the boat, while successfully kissing up to the bosses.
He is a Harvard lawyer who has spent his entire career at the DoJ, except for a stint on Kenn Starr's worthless Whitewater investigation which failed to lay a glove on Clinton.
Basically, he kept rising through the ranks during the Clinton, Bush, Obama and finally Trump administrations.
"Organization man" we used to call such as him--except in RR's case we're talking government organizations, not corporations.
Swamp critter.
A couple things came out of today. The famous “boss” email. It was not a reference to Trump, it was a reference to Sessions.
The second thing was that RR had no choice but to call a special counsel. Trump had fired all the US attorneys and only three were still left to handle anything, all Obama leftovers on their way out.
-SB