Fox News Hammers Trump For Demanding Op-Ed Writer Be Prosecuted

Fox News host Chris Wallace slammed President Donald Trump on Friday for demanding that U.S. Department of Justice prosecute the person who wrote the anonymous New York Times editorial.

Earlier during the day the Washington Post had reported:

“President Trump called Friday for the Justice Department to investigate the author of an op-ed depicting a “resistance” inside the government, as the White House mounted an all-out campaign to root out and discredit the anonymous senior official.”

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This led Wallace to go on Fox News and slam the president for using Twitter to threaten people, saying:

“There have been two e-mails this week, tweets this week, that shocked a lot of people. Even more disturbing was the tweet on Monday by the president, seems like 2 1/2 weeks ago, in which the president basically called out Jeff Sessions for the prosecution of two Democratic — rather Republican congressmen on charges of corruption.”

Wallace pointed out that several times Trump has demanded the arrest and imprisonment of his political enemies such as Hillary Clinton, James Comey, and now the author of the unsigned editorial, which is improper. He said that the president is using U.S. law enforcement agencies to further his own political agenda, while the people he wants to prosecute have committed no crimes.

“I’d like someone to point out what the violation of federal law is here,” Wallace said. “Clearly it’s embarrassing to the president, disturbing to the president, you can argue it’s anti-democratic, but I’m not sure that writing that essay was illegal.”

“”My guess is they ignore him on the prosecution of the two Republicans and not prosecuting or investigating the anonymous columnist,” Wallace added, before criticizing the anonymous author. “If you really think he’s doing a service, he or she, this anonymous insider, why wouldn’t you shut up and keep doing it? All you’ve done is inflame the president.”

During his comments aboard Air Force One Trump had said there was a national security reason to investigate, unmask and punish the person who wrote the op-ed piece for the Times.

“We’re going to take a look at what he had, what he gave, what he’s talking about, also where he is right now,” Trump said. Then he added that if the op-ed author “has a high-level security clearance and he goes into a high-level meeting concerning China or Russia or North Korea or something, I don’t want him in those meetings.”

Clearly Donald Trump is very rattled by what is going on in his White House, as he realizes that his own employees don’t like him or respect him and in fact are undermining him. As time goes in it is increasingly likely that he will do something rash and desperate, especially since he knows that Robert Mueller is also closing in on him.

These are dangerous times for Donald Trump, and also for our country. When Fox News starts to criticize Donald Trump for his actions, you know we are in trouble.

Leo Vidal

I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.