As the public has seen too often, President Donald Trump and too many people in his administration lack the ability to handle important things smoothly.
The first travel ban is one example, and a more recent one is the attorney general’s request for the resignation of 46 U.S. attorneys.
The forced departures, including both who worked in Mississippi, are certainly news, but it’s a puzzle why there was so much breathless coverage of it.
U.S. attorneys change every time a new president takes office. It took little time for the last three presidents, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, to replace most or all of the country’s 93 U.S. attorneys.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ announcement last weekend that he had asked for the resignations was no surprise to anyone familiar with civics. The Justice Department is part of the executive branch, and Sessions’ boss, the president, has every right to staff these important posts with lawyers of his choosing.
The best guess is that this made multiple news cycles because one of the U.S. attorneys, Preet Bharara of New York, refused to resign. So Trump fired him.
Bharara’s dismissal is more interesting than most because, according to news reports immediately after the November election, Trump asked him to stay on the job. But two months in, the president changed his mind.
One reason may be that Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., got credit for encouraging Trump to keep Bharara. Now that Schumer is a regular Trump critic, the president may have found an opportunity to get even.
The plot twist is that Bharara’s office was investigating all sorts of white-collar crime, including one involving Fox News and the multiple sexual harassment allegations against the cable channel. As Trump is a big Fox News fan, it’s easy for conspiracy theorists to surmise that the president is doing his TV buddies a favor. Maybe so. But maybe not. It certainly will be interesting to see whether Bharara’s successor continues the investigation.
The president and the attorney general perhaps could have handled the situation better. Nevertheless, the outcry over the dismissals, which are made by every president, is ridiculous.
