In early 2017, Deputy Counsel to the President John Eisenberg pressed a senior Justice Department official to tell him whether anyone close to President Trump was the subject of electronic surveillance as part of a federal criminal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. That enquiry appears to have violated the Trump White House’s own official policy restricting its officials from discussing open criminal investigations with Justice officials, a policy written by White House Counsel Don McGahn only five weeks earlier. Remarkably, then, it was McGahn himself, acting on the president’s instructions, who asked Eisenberg to find out about the matter. This raises the possibility that actions taken by those party to Eisenberg’s effort could be an attempt to obstruct justice.
