Homer residents joined communities across the nation Thursday night to protest the outsting of U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Fifty people rallied at the Wisdom, Knowledge, Faith and Love Park in downtown Homer a day after President Trump pushed the attorney general out and replaced him with his former chief of staff, Matthew Whitaker. It’s a move they fear will compromise the integrity of special council’s Russia investigation.
Art Koeninger hosted the local protest and said that special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation should be free from interference.
“It should be independent, it should not be subject to political pressure, especially from one of the people who's being investigated,” he said. “So there's the constitutional concern that the president should not have the power to stop an investigation into himself.”
Koeninger said the progressive website MoveOn anticipated that President Trump might attempt to jeopardize Mueller’s investigation, and created a plan for local communities to respond immediately if it happened.
That lead Koeninger to start organizing a rally and making signs several months ago. Once President Trump fired Jeff Sessions, MoveOn and other advocacy groups organized a national movement called “Nobody is Above the Law” to send a message.
“Whitaker should recuse himself or be recused, and the Mueller investigation should move forward and hopefully the results, the report will be made public, so that's not buried somewhere,” he said.
Protestors held signs with slogans such as “Do the Investigation,” “Protect Mueller” and simply “Recuse.”
Ole Andersson’s sign said “Dear Bob Mueller, Please Hurry!”
“Any sitting president shouldn't try to maneuver an investigation about themselves to make it come out the way they want,” he said. “And I'm not just talking about the current president but Nixon and Clinton, they had to suffer through investigations so no one should really be above the law in our country.”
Others protestors such as Bernie Person said her concerns are bigger than Mueller and she’s afraid of where the country is headed.
“The investigation is just a small representation of how far we've fallen and hopefully we'll be able to at least see that through,” she said. “But to have Sessions resign like that, that's unheard of. I mean this is some scary stuff and I think that we’re sort of asleep at the wheel here in America.”
She wants others to take action but said hers she keeping her hopes in check.
“I don't expect miracles,” she said. “I'd just like for Mueller to be able to finish this investigation for us all to know what the truth is or what has been uncovered and maybe it'll be good news for Trump. I don't know. I mean maybe he will be exonerated as he said he was. If that's the case, then let it continue.”
MoveOn shows that more than 900 similar protests were organized across the nation.
Clarification: Language has been changed in this article to clarify the ousting of Jeff Sessions.
