PROTESTERS ACROSS THE US have called for the protection of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential coordination between Russia and President Donald Trump’s campaign.
Several hundred demonstrators gathered in New York’s Times Square yesterday and chanted slogans including “Hands off Mueller” and “Nobody’s above the law” before marching downtown.
In Chicago, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin joined several hundred protesters at Federal Plaza.
Large crowds – some in the thousands – also turned out at the White House and in Greensboro, North Carolina; Chattanooga, Tennessee; Portland, Oregon; Las Vegas and many other places.
Organisers said the naming of Matthew Whitaker as acting Attorney General is a “deliberate attempt to obstruct the special counsel’s investigation”.
Jeff Sessions
Trump asked for Jeff Sessions’ resignation earlier this week and replaced him with Whitaker, his chief of staff.
Sessions’ axing capped more than a year of bitter criticism by the president over his legal advisor’s decision to recuse himself from the probe into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election, paving the way for the appointment of Mueller.
Alarm bells
Whitaker’s appointment set off immediate alarm bells: Whitaker has been overtly critical of the broad scope granted to Mueller’s team to probe beyond allegations that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in 2016, into other ties between Trump, his family and aides, and Russia — an investigation the president has called a “witch hunt”.
Democrats, who regained control of the House of Representatives in Tuesday’s midterm elections, have sharply criticised the move.
“The rule of law is disappearing before our eyes,” tweeted Sally Yates, a deputy attorney general under Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama and briefly in the top job under Trump before he sacked her.
“He wants a political crony to protect him from the investigation of his own campaign,” she said.