Klamath Falls, OR— John Dowd, President Donald Trump's outside attorney, introduced a puzzling defense of the Russia investigation: the president cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice.
President Donald Trump's personal attorney, John Dowd, said Monday the President cannot be guilty of obstructing justice. "(The) President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under (the Constitution's Article II) and has every right to express his view of any case," according to Donald Trump's personal attorney, John Dowd.
While Article II vests the executive power to the office of the president and makes him or her the chief law enforcement officer in the country, “that doesn't permit him to impede or interfere with a criminal investigation with 'corrupt intent'; that's the definition of obstruction of justice under the federal statute,” Paul Schiff Berman, a professor of Law at The George Washington University said.
Berman insisted that there's “little if any” constitutional basis for Dowd's comments, citing the articles of impeachment voted against both Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. Both former commanders in chief faced charges of obstruction of justice as a violation of the president's constitutional obligation to “take care that laws are faithfully executed,” a requirement of Section 3 of Article II.
“Trump has essentially confessed three times to his corrupt intent in firing Comey: on May 10 in the Oval Office, on May 11 to NBC's Lester Holt, and then in his tweet on Saturday revealing his awareness that Flynn had committed a crime,” Berman argued. “Interfering with a criminal investigation with corrupt intent would surely violate that Article II obligation.”
The White House's chief lawyer told President Donald Trump in January he believed then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled the FBI and lied to Vice President Mike Pence and should be fired, a source familiar with the matter said Monday.
The description of the conversation raises new questions about what Trump knew about Flynn's situation when he urged then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn and whether anyone in the White House, including the President himself, attempted to obstruct justice. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians, a probe led by Comey until Trump fired him.
White House counsel Donald McGahn told Trump that based on his conversation with then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates, he believed Flynn had not told the truth in his interview with the FBI or to Pence, the source said. McGahn did not tell the President that Flynn had violated the law in his FBI interview or was under criminal investigation, the source said.
Dowd had earlier said that he wrote a weekend tweet from Trump's account after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador to the US during the presidential transition.
"I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI," the Saturday tweet reads. "He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!"
Former FBI Director James Comey testified in June before Congress that Trump asked him to "let this go" — drop the FBI's investigation of Flynn in connection with his false statements about his conversations with Russia's then-Ambassador Sergey Kislyak in December.
The special counsel's office announced Friday that Flynn pleaded guilty to one count of lying to the FBI about his negotiations with Kislyak before Trump assumed office.
Special counsel Robert Mueller and his team have been investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and possible ties between Russia and Trump campaign associates since May.
No president is above the law, including Trump.
By James Garland of Tulelake News
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