Eventually a message came through, thinly veiled but quite clear, from federal prosecutors: the people responsible for the covert recordings needed to go, or charges might be filed. Why did they send me that signal, instead of just acting on their own? Was the intent to do me a favor, giving me a shot at resolving this quietly and helping my young administration without getting bogged down in the scandal of indictments just a few weeks after we got started? Maybe. Or perhaps they just understood the politics of all this before I did. Why should a U.S. attorney shoulder the responsibility of
...more
