#ProtectMueller
FRED WERTHEIMER’S WEEKLY NOTE | November 8, 2018
“In the end, it is up to us to ensure that the Mueller investigation proceeds without interference and that the rule of law prevails.”
I was in Washington working for Common Cause when the Saturday Night Massacre – President Nixon’s firing of Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox – occurred in October 1973. The firing came because Cox refused to accede to Nixon when Nixon tried to thwart the Watergate investigation.
Today, I am still in Washington and the organization I founded, Democracy 21, is part of a huge coalition of organizations that has been working for more than a year to protect Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s Russia/Trump investigation from any outside interference.
Yesterday, President Trump moved to take control of the Mueller investigation by appointing Matt Whitaker, a Trump loyalist, to oversee the investigation. Whitaker has been described as the “eyes and ears of the White House” in the Justice Department. In other words, Trump’s spy. He has publicly attacked the Mueller investigation in the past.
Trump is obviously out to cripple or kill the Mueller investigation, of which Trump himself is a subject. In doing so, Trump is thumbing his nose at the rule of law.
Shortly after Nixon fired Cox in 1973, he appointed a new Special Prosecutor, Leon Jaworski. The Acting Attorney General, Robert Bork, gave Jaworski strong protections against any interference with the Watergate investigation.
The appointment of Jaworski and those strong protections happened because the country immediately exploded following Cox’s firing. Citizens rose up to express their outrage and demand the investigation continue unimpeded.
A citizen uprising is what is called for now.
At protests taking place across the country today at 5pm, citizens will demand that Whitaker be removed from overseeing the Mueller investigation and that Congress act to protect the investigation. The Nobody is Above the Law coalition has been organizing for months to be ready for this nationwide protest. And this is just the beginning of citizens across the country demanding protection for the Mueller investigation.
In the end, it is up to us to ensure that the Mueller investigation proceeds without interference and that the rule of law prevails.
Archibald Cox said in 1973 after his firing, “Whether we shall continue to be a government of laws, and not of men, is now for Congress and ultimately the American people [to decide].”
The same holds true today.
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Fred Wertheimer is the Founder and President of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy and ensure the integrity and fairness of government decisions and elections. See previous Notes from Fred here.
