John Q. Barrett on Trump Administration Investigating Itself

The Trump administration faces multiple threats as it seeks to investigate itself
By Cathleen Decker
Los Angeles Times

Excerpts:
Ater six weeks spent scrambling to fend off chaos, the Trump White House has found itself in territory familiar to several past administrations: trying to pursue a sense of normality as it conducts an investigation into itself.

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“This isn’t and shouldn’t ever be political, much less civil war,” said John Q. Barrett, who served under independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh during the 1980s Iran-Contra investigation, which looked into efforts by Reagan administration officials to use proceeds from arms sales to Iran to finance rebels in Nicaragua. (Both the sales and the financing were barred at the time.)

“It should be law enforcement done in a high spotlight, high stakes process,” said Barrett, now a professor of law at St. John’s University in New York City. “There’s always a fever of the moment, and you hope for people on all sides who can sort of not succumb to that.”

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