But he lied to the American people!
Obstruction of Justice largely comes down on the question of intent. None of the 6 things are a crime, they’re simply demonstrative of an intent to shut down the investigation and/or suppress information from getting out.
Again, the proof of obstruction is by displaying a general intent / frame of mind of the President was to prevent the investigation from being able to proceed, not to show that there were specific acts that were obstructive.
And admitted to Lester Holt on national television what motivated him to do so.
But then, this only answers a very limited question: What act of obstruction of justice did Trump specifically do that he admitted to on national television?
Ty Cobb is out as Trump’s lead lawyer for dealing with the Mueller investigation. He’s being replaced by Emmet Flood, who was a special counsel during Bush 43’s administration, and worked on Bill Clinton’s defense team during his impeachment.
See my previous post as well, but I feel that I should make a second point.
I was once in a discussion of Jewish archeology, and pointed out 9 separate items of evidence, from different regions and times, that the Ancient Jews were polytheistic. A person argued against one of them, and then in a later post said something to the effect that, “There’s still no evidence that the Ancient Jews weren’t monotheistic.” His argument against 1 of the 9 items had magically dispelled the other 8 in his mind.
But that’s not how evidence works. If there’s a 10% chance that each of item does not mean what it seems to mean, but there are 9 different items of evidence, then the odds that none of them mean what they seem to mean is vanishingly small (0.0000001%).
Feel free to assign probabilities on each of the 6. We can check how likely, in your estimation, it is that Trump is not guilty even with 6 different items of evidence that his intent was to prevent the investigation from finding the truth.
Intent only counts if it’s attached to a specific act of obstruction. The fact that there’s overwhelming evidence that the guy wanted the investigation to end is meaningless in this context.
Cambridge Analytica is shutting down , cannot get any more work.
https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/02/politics/cambridge-analytica-closure/index.html
That’s it!? I thought you guys had something like destroying 30,000 emails like Hillary did. Now that’s obstruction of justice.
There are several legitimate reasons to fire Comey including leaking classified information and the fact he admits to making decisions based on Hillary’s anticipated win. The other issues involve Trump executing his duties as POTUS. In his mind and the minds of many reasonable people, this Russian probe is nothing more than government financed harassment.
Comey leaked classified information? Please, do tell.
On a side note, none of your “several” reasons to fire Comey are Trump’s stated reason. But I digress, more about this classified information leak, if you will.
And yet Trump tells Lester Holt he fired Comey because of “this Russia thing”. When somebody confesses to a crime, prosecutors tend to believe them.
If Comey has leaked classified information, why hasn’t he been charged?
It can’t be partisan politics: currently the heads of Justice are all Republicans, and both House and Senate are majority-Republican. The Supreme Court is majority-conservative. And of course the President is Republican.
So what could possibly be holding up charges against Comey?
You think that it’s fine that Russia interfered in our Presidential election?
Hillary’s supposed email loss was investigated by Comey. The investigation was re-opened right before the election. Hardly a partisan Democratic move. And oh a Republican leaning DOJ and Congress did not find anything worth pursuing. Again.
On the other hand Trump admitted to firing Comey (on national TV no less) because of his investigation in the ‘Russian Thing’. Or Trump and his ties to the Russian interference in the election.
You’re going to need a signed confession from Trump aren’t you.
I can’t see a guarantee that even that would convince his basest base.
There’s also this little conspiracy problem, which doesn’t require a crime to have been committed.
The only thing that would convince Trump’s basest base that he’s guilty and should be removed from the Presidency, is if Trump booked primetime to sit at his desk in front of the camera and say something like:
…our own Trump-defenders and all the other Trump-defenders would lose no time in calling for his immediate impeachment and trial.
“It’s a trick! Hillary and the Deep State Dummocrats are forcing him to say all of that. We’re still with you, Donald! MAGA! MAGA! MAGA!”
You’re right—they’d cling to their Beautiful Dream (of an overt racist in the White House, FINALLY!!!1!!) until dragged kicking and screaming to the nut bin closest to their physical location.
The comments below the YouTube video of him saying that would be “Fake news! He never said that, and you can’t find video of him saying it!”.
Google would make a mint selling their account info to marketers. Those selling Brooklyn Bridges and the like do tend to target their ads to people of that general IQ level, for obvious reasons.
If Trump said that, I’d be looking for cocoons and pods on the White House Lawn.
I was wrong earlier. Trump is Trump. He will drive it right into the wall. Nothing will sway his base.