By now we’re accustomed to hearing President Donald Trump complain that the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation don’t do what he tells them.
The basis for his frustration is a serious mismatch between the U.S. Constitution as it’s written and the unwritten constitutional norms that Trump is blamed for breaking. The written Constitution puts the Justice Department and the FBI squarely under the president’s control. The unwritten, lower-case “c” constitution says that the president may not politicize criminal investigations and prosecutions.
As special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation focuses more on Trump’s handling of the Russia investigation than on the 2016 campaign itself, the mismatch between what the written Constitution says and what the unwritten rules demand might be the basis on which Trump’s presidency stands or falls.