Former Watergate prober says Trump has used Presidential power to escape the law….

The commutation last week of Roger Stone’s sentence is the latest of multiple, brazen efforts to make the fulfillment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation all but impossible.

The efforts by President Trump have amounted to a cover-up — and they were often made possible by his ability to control the Justice Department and by the lack of independence of the Mueller investigation. It demands a renewed look at how we empower independent counsels — regrettably, history has shown us that, under extraordinary circumstances, they are needed to conduct proper oversight of abuse by the executive branch.

That is a big difference from my experience in the Watergate prosecution: Established in 1973 by the Justice Department, our investigation was functionally independent from it and the executive branch. We did not answer to the attorney general. We were not restricted from investigating or prosecuting Nixon, nor were we governed by any internal Justice Department rule that prohibited prosecuting a sitting president.

And as the efforts by the attorney general, Bill Barr, and Mr. Trump’s commuting of the Stone sentence make clear, that lack of independence has made a big difference.

From the start, Mr. Mueller was restrained by Justice Department regulations. He was barred, for example, from looking into the broader relationship between Mr. Trump and Russia through a review of Mr. Trump’s financial records and tax returns. Furthermore, according to the Mueller report, Mr. Trump made multiple attempts to fire the special counsel, and it is difficult, if not almost impossible, to conduct an investigation under those circumstances….

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A member of the Mueller team is coming out with book in September that reports that his boss COULD have done more…

A top prosecutor in former special counsel Robert Mueller‘s investigation of President Trump‘s campaign and Russia is planning a new book that examines what he calls a “hard truth” about the probe; namely, that it was not as successful as it could have been.

Andrew Weissman, the former head of the Justice Department’s criminal fraud division, said he plans to release a memoir on Sept. 29 that details the Mueller team’s efforts to investigate figures close to the Trump campaign and its battles with the White House, according to The Associated Press.

“I am deeply proud of the work we did and of the unprecedented number of people we indicted and convicted — and in record speed. But the hard truth is that we made mistakes. We could have done more. ‘Where Law Ends’ documents the choices we made, good and bad, for all to see and judge and learn from,” Weissman told the news service.

“This is the story of our investigation into how our democracy was attacked by Russia and how those who condoned and ignored that assault undermined our ability to uncover the truth,” he continued. “My obligation as a prosecutor was to follow the facts where they led, using all available tools and undeterred by the onslaught of the president’s unique powers to undermine our work.”…

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