2016 ELECTION/FBI/JUSTICE DEPARTMENT/OBAMA ADMIN/ROBERT MUELLER/RUSSIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump has wrenched the United States back to the brink of a constitutional showdown after a weekend of rage culminated in his demand for an investigation into claims that the Obama administration inserted a spy in his 2016 campaign. Trump’s power play injected fresh intensity into his escalating political offensive against the Justice Department and renewed worries he is barging across long-held boundaries between the judicial system and the Oval Office. It also raised potential scenarios that would threaten the integrity of US governance: first, that Trump could use his power to go after a political opponent and, second, that he means to derail or even end a criminal probe into his own conduct. His gambit Sunday [5-20-18] also fits into an effort by the White House, Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill and conservative media cheerleaders to muddy the reputations and any eventual findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team as well as to cement the President’s political base. Trump’s fury peaked with a tweet that coincided with cresting coverage on conservative media of the unproven claim that an FBI confidential source in the Russia investigation could have been a spy sent by Obama administration officials to damage Trump.”
-Stephen Collinson, “Trump unleashes new political earthquake with FBI spy charge,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, May 21, 2018 7:47 am