Scandal followed him to the White House.
The most consuming scandal of his time in office stemmed from the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. U.S. intelligence agencies determined that Russia sought to tip the contest to Mr. Trump.
Along the way, he escalated the matter by firing James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director leading the investigation into whether his campaign had any ties with the Russians, and then told visiting Russian officials the very next day that doing so had “taken off” what he called “great pressure.” Actually, it did not. Instead, it led to the appointment of Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel.
After nearly two years of investigating, Mr. Mueller concluded that the Russians did interfere on Mr. Trump’s behalf, and he uncovered a stunning array of contacts between people in the president’s orbit and Russian figures.
He outlined more than 10 instances where Mr. Trump might have committed obstruction of justice by trying to thwart the investigation — including the dismissal of Mr. Comey. Mr. Mueller said he did not decide if charges were warranted because Justice Department policy precluded prosecution of a sitting president.
During his four years in the White House Trump expanded the use of government power to target perceived enemies in ways not seen since Watergate. While other presidents shied away from giving the impression that they were wielding the authority of their office for political vengeance, Mr. Trump was open about going after his adversaries.
Time and again, he publicly pressed his attorneys general — first Jeff Sessions and then William P. Barr — to prosecute Democrats or government officials who angered him. At various times, he called for the prosecution of Mr. Biden, Ms. Clinton and former President Barack Obama and lashed out when advisers resisted.
Angered that Mr. Bolton had criticized him, Mr. Trump pressured the Justice Department to block his former aide from publishing his book. The decision to go to court to squelch a memoir prior to publication after it had been initially cleared for classified information by a career official was seen as so beyond the pale that the assistant attorney general who filed the suit on White House orders, Jody Hunt, immediately resigned.
Mr. Trump tried to put so many people who irritated him in the cross hairs of the legal system that it is hard to maintain a thorough list. He wanted prosecutors to investigate Mr. Comey as well as Andrew G. McCabe, his acting successor, and other F.B.I. officials who participated in the Russia investigation, including Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.
The president was so determined to revoke security clearances for John O. Brennan, the former C.I.A. director, and James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence, who both criticized him on television, that his chief of staff John F. Kelly estimated that Mr. Trump raised the matter between 50 and 75 times.
He also sought to use his power to help specific companies he favored and penalize those that angered him. He told aides to instruct the Justice Department to block the merger of Time Warner with AT&T, which would include the CNN network, one of the biggest thorns in his side.
monetized the presidency for himself, as his Trump International Hotel in Washington and other properties became magnets for money from people and institutions currying favor, including the governments of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines. Critics took him to court charging him with violating the emoluments clause of the Constitution barring the acceptance of gifts from “any king, prince, or foreign state,” although the Supreme Court threw out legal challenges.
Most notably, Mr. Trump sought to use his office to strong-arm another country to deliver dirt on Mr. Biden, a political rival. The president suspended military aid to Ukraine and leaned on its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to “do us a favor” by announcing an investigation into supposed corruption involving Mr. Biden and other Democrats.
Mr. Trump made prolific use of his presidential pardon power to help friends and political allies — and particularly figures who he might have had reason to fear would turn against him by talking with prosecutors if faced with prison time. Critics argued that dangling pardons amounted to an attempt to obstruct investigators.
Among others, Mr. Trump gave pardons or commutations to Paul Manafort, his onetime campaign chairman; Stephen K. Bannon, his former chief strategist; Roger J. Stone Jr., his friend and political adviser, all of whom had been in the cross hairs of prosecutors looking at Mr. Trump. In the final weeks of his presidency, he also used his clemency power to help convicted felons who paid people close to him to lobby for them.
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