RichardPainter

The most important issue is reforming our campaign finance system, so money does not buy access to elected officials and does not influence their decisions. We also need to strengthen our rules and enforcement policies with respect to personal financial conflicts of interest of elected officials as well as receipt of profits and benefits from dealings with foreign governments in violation of the emoluments clause of the constitution.

I met Robert Mueller when he was Director of the FBI and I was working in the White House. He is highly regarded by Republicans and Democrats, even though he has for years identified as a Republican. Allegations of partisanship against Robert Mueller are entirely without merit.

The Manafort lawsuit against Mueller is unprecedented and appears to be entirely without merit. Challenges to prosecutorial authority are rarely made by defendants, and when they are, such challenges are almost always made within the criminal proceeding, not in satellite litigation, as was done here.

The most difficult moral or ethical dilemmas in the Bush administration arose before I entered the White House. These included the decision to go to war in Iraq and decisions about interrogation of prisoners in the War on Terror. In the White House, I dealt mostly with financial conflicts of interest for cabinet members and other senior administration officials, and while some of these issues were challenging, the vast majority of them were resolved to my satisfaction.

At the rate he is going, President Trump has shown that he is not fit for office. I do not know how it will be resolved.