Trump claims he can do whatever he wants with the Justice Department

In an impromptu, sit-down interview with the New York Times' Michael Schmidt at his Mar-a-Lago Grill Room during lunch hour, President Donald Trump made one of the most alarming statements of his presidency.

“I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department, . . .  He added -- perhaps because this was said in the context of the Mueller investigation -- ". . . But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter.” [referring to the Russian interference in our election].

Of course, he's right in a sense.   He has hiring and firing powers of the Attorney General who is the cabinet member in charge of the Justice Department and is the chief law enforcement officer in our federal government.  And Trump is his boss.

But by long-standing custom and agreement -- at least since Nixon's Watergate -- it is considered appropriate and only right that the president give the Justice Department a wide berth of independence.   The president must remain uninvolved in all investigations;  and it would be unthinkable for him to interfere when he himself might be under scrutiny.  That could be obstruction of justice -- a high crime.

The remedy, of course, if he violates that unwritten agreement egregiously, would be impeachment, which the Constitution grants to Congress as the remedy for "high crimes and misdemeanors" by the president.

But such a bald-faced and untempered statement is pure Donald Trump:    boldly assert his power -- and never mind the niceties of protocol, tradition, or plain political good sense.

Let's see how his lawyers and handlers walk this one back.   Will John Dowd claim that he wrote it for Trump?   Will Jay Sekulow go on tv and claim that we didn't hear what we heard?   Will Ty Cobb try to spin it as really being a means of cooperating with Mueller?  Will Kellyanne Conway invent a new form of verbal contortion -- as she parodies SNL's Kate McKinnon doing a parody of her own verbal gymnasticw?   Will Gen. Kelly just shrug and mutter, "I can't control what the president says."?

Ralph