The prosecutor now serving as FBI Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s top deputy sent an email in January gushing over then-Acting Attorney General Sally Yates’s refusal to enforce President Trump’s travel ban — the latest in a series of revelations likely to fuel concerns of anti-Trump bias on Mueller’s team.
“I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respects,” gushed Andrew Weissman in an email obtained by Judicial Watch in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
Yates became a darling of the anti-Trump left when she refused to implement Trump’s original executive order which limited immigration from a number of terror hot spots — including Somalia, Yemen, Libya, and Syria. Critics claimed it was a Muslim ban and therefore unconstitutional, as it discriminated on religious grounds.
Weissman was not the only official to breathlessly praise Yates — who would eventually be fired for her refusal to obey the president.
“You are my hero,” said then-U.S. Attorney for Maine Thomas Delahanty, according to emails obtained by the watchdog group.
“Thank you AG Yates. I’ve been in civil/appellate for 30 years and have never seen an administration with such contempt for democratic values and the rule of law,” wrote DOJ Civil Division Appellate Attorney Jeffrey Clair. “The President’s order is an unconstitutional embarrassment and I applaud you for taking a principled stand against defending it.”
Weissman’s email is the latest serious blow to the credibility of the Mueller probe. His office has been accused of bias since it was reported over the weekend that FBI investigator Peter Strzok was dismissed by Mueller after it emerged that he had sent anti-Trump text messages.
Strzok is reportedly the official who has not only played a key role in the Russia probe but also interviewed top Hillary Clinton aides during the investigation into Clinton’s email use under FBI Director James Comey. He is also reportedly behind the decision to soften language describing her handling of classified information from “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless.”
President Trump has declared the Strzok revelations to be evidence of a broader bias at the FBI — an agency about which he has been critical. On Monday he referenced the Strzok texts and tweeted: “Now it all starts to make sense!”
On Tuesday, Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton said the Weissman emails were more proof that the Mueller probe needs shutting down.
“This is an astonishing and disturbing find. Andrew Weissman, a key prosecutor on Robert Mueller’s team, praised Obama DOJ holdover Sally Yates after she lawlessly thwarted President Trump,” Fitton said. “How much more evidence do we need that the Mueller operation has been irredeemably compromised by anti-Trump partisans? Shut it down.”
Adam Shaw is a Breitbart News politics reporter based in New York. Follow Adam on Twitter: @AdamShawNY.
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