New York Times reporter Jonathan Swan pressed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday on whether President Donald Trump committed an “abuse of power” by his own standards when he ordered the Justice Department to investigate his former cybersecurity appointee.
The president faced some bipartisan backlash after he signed an executive order targeting Chris Krebs, who oversaw the security of the 2020 presidential election as a cybersecurity official. In a memo, Trump revoked Krebs’s security clearance and ordered “a review of Krebs’ activities as a government employee, including his leadership of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).”
Trump has on occasion acknowledged he lost the 2020 election, but he’s continued to insist fraudulence was behind his loss.
Swan noted at a Tuesday White House press conference that Trump himself had said it was an “abuse of power” for a president to direct the Justice Department to investigate him.
“The president has long said it would be an abuse of power for the president to direct prosecutors to investigate him. Last week, President Trump exclusively directed the Justice Department to scrutinize Chris Krebs to see if it can find any evidence of criminal wrongdoing. How is that not an abuse of power? To direct the Justice Department to look into an individual, a named individual?” the reporter asked.
Leavitt did not address Trump’s past “abuse of power” statement, but insisted he has the authority to direct investigations into individuals before she moved on.
“Look, the president signed the executive order,” she said. “It’s the position of the president and this White House well within his authority to do it. Otherwise, he would not sign it but he signed it and he signed it and that’s his policy.”
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