URGENT: Trump crossed a red line. Rally on Thursday!
To
Dear Friend,
Earlier today, Donald Trump installed a crony to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, crossing a red line in a brazen attempt to obstruct Mueller's work.1
By replacing Rod Rosenstein with just-named Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker as Mueller's boss overseeing the investigation, Trump has undercut the independence of the investigation. Whitaker has publicly outlined strategies to stifle the investigation, referred to Mueller's team as a "lynch mob," and cannot be allowed to remain in charge of it.2 This amounts to a direct assault on the independent Mueller probe which has already produced dozens of indictments, guilty pleas, and guilty verdicts.
That's why MoveOn and our allies are organizing emergency "Nobody Is Above the Law" rallies at 5 p.m. local time on Thursday, November 8. There are hundreds events scheduled across the country!
Can you attend a rapid-response rally?
(Please note that most events are at 5 p.m. local time, but in some cases local hosts may change the time. Find an event and RSVP to get the most up-to-date information on what to expect at the event.)
Rosenstein named Mueller as special counsel to get to the bottom of the Russian meddling in the 2016 election—and any ensuing effort to cover it up. This scope covers conflicts of interest within the Trump campaign, as well as possibly including Trump's own finances.
By replacing Rosenstein as Mueller's boss with Whitaker, Trump has enacted a plan he's mused about publicly to prevent the investigation from proceeding freely—he's triggered a full-fledged Constitutional crisis, asserting that he is above the law.3 The next few hours will determine whether he is proved right.
Congress has the constitutional authority and obligation to hold Trump accountable for this abuse of power. But we've seen the Republican Congress give Trump pass after pass every time he crosses another line.
If this isn't the moment they put country over party to hold Trump accountable, it's not clear whether it will ever happen. Let's show our lawmakers that we won't stand by while they allow Donald Trump to slide the U.S. into authoritarianism.
When Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox from the Watergate investigation, it became a tipping-point moment for lawmakers in his own party to finally decide that they had to act or risk forfeiting our democracy. It's up to us to make Trump's appointment of Whitaker into the moment when our lawmakers finally wake up and prevent Trump from putting himself above the law.
Thanks for all you do.
–David, Milan, Mark, Anna, and the rest of the team
Sources:
1. "DOJ: Acting AG to take over oversight of Russia probe," The Hill, November 7, 2018
2. "Matthew Whitaker, a Trump Loyalist, Is Seen as Ascendant Amid Rosenstein Chaos," The New York Times, September 28, 2018
3. "Trump may realize that firing Mueller would be bad, but firing Rosenstein might be worse," The Baltimore Sun, April 11, 2018
Want to support our work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it we need your support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?
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