President Trump will be slapped with obstruction of justice, predicts former Attorney General Eric Holder.
“You technically have an obstruction of justice case that already exists,” Holder, who served under then-President Obama, said on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” “I’ve known Bob Mueller for 20, 30 years; my guess is he’s just trying to make the case as good as he possibly can. So, I think that we have to be patient in that regard.”
The president’s foes point to Trump’s alleged interactions with former FBI Director James Comey leading up to his dismissal amid the agency’s ongoing investigation into potential ties between the Trump campaign and Russia – including a conversation in which Comey says Trump said “I hope you can let this go,” in regards to his investigation in to former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn.
Last May in an NBC interview with Lester Holt, Trump made clear he was frustrated that the Russia allegations had become “an excuse for having lost an election,” and that Comey was clearly on the chopping block:
HOLT: Monday you met with the Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
TRUMP: Right.
HOLT: Did you ask for a recommendation?
TRUMP: What I did is I was going to fire Comey. My decision. It was not…
HOLT: You had made the decision before they came into your office (ph).
TRUMP: I — I was going to fire Comey. I — there’s no good time to do it, by the way.
In December 2017, Trump told thje New York Times “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department.”
Holder has long suggested that an obstruction charge was possible – however, this is the first prediction he’s made that Mueller would actually bring the charge.
Meanwhile, liberal legal scholar Alan Dershowitz disagrees:
“You cannot charge a president with obstruction of justice for exercising his constitutional power to fire Comey and his constitutional authority to tell the Justice Department who to investigate, who not to investigate,” said Dershowitz last December. “That’s what Thomas Jefferson did, that’s what Lincoln did, that’s what Roosevelt did. We have precedents that clearly establish that.”
The controversy over whether or not Trump obstructed justice was one of the primary drivers behind Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s appointment of Robert Mueller as Special Counsel following Comey’s dismissal. Notably, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from all things related to the Russia investigation – frustrating many who say he’s simply been sitting on his hands while Mueller and his fleet of trump-hating Democrat investigators gun for the President.
“I don’t want to get into loyalty, but I will tell you that, I will say this: Holder protected President Obama. Totally protected him,” Trump told the New York Times. “When you look at the things that they did, and Holder protected the president. And I have great respect for that, I’ll be honest.”
Holder shot back fast and furiously on Real Time with Bill Maher – stating “The difference between me and Jeff Sessions is that I had a president I didn’t have to protect.” Perhaps he forgot about the selective targeting of conservative groups by the IRS, lying about the cause of Benghazi, Obama’s knowledge of Hillary’s private server, the Solyndra green energy and similar crony capitalism scams, spying on journalists, the Secret Service hooker scandal, and of course Fast and Furious.
Holder thinks Sessions should resign in the wake of President Trump openly criticizing him. “At some point, though, you would hope that you would have the intestinal fortitude or the pride to simply say, you know, ‘I wanted this job all my life, but it’s not worth it, and I’m not going to take that kind of abuse, and I’m simply going to tell you, you know, go screw yourself, and I’m out,’” Holder told Maher.
via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/2CZL9gt Tyler Durden