"Jessie Liu, the current deputy general counsel for the Treasury Department who Trump tapped for that job , disclosed in her responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she met with the President as part of her interview process," Laura Jarrett reported on CNN.

"According to multiple former US attorneys and several law enforcement sources ... such a meeting with the President as part of the interview process would be virtually unheard of in past administrations," she reported.

"Of the first seven US attorney nominees that Trump selected in June, only Liu said that she met with Trump. Other nominees described only meeting with Justice Department officials, such as Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, in their submissions."

Barack Obama did not meet with his picks to lead the District's US attorney's office in 2009 and 2015 before their nomination.

"It's wrong, and the reason it's wrong is that it serves to undermine the rule of law," Joyce Vance, former US attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, told CNN.

"This goes to the independence of the Justice Department" and "any effort by any president to diminish that is problematic."

This is a big dang deal that should not get lost amid the even bigger stories. It raises a host of questions about what commitments Liu might or might not have made to the President and to what extent she would try to protect him once confirmed.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/worl...21-gxgff2.html


If Obama had done anything remotely like this, Fox "news" would collectively have had an aneurism.