Enough evidence to open obstruction of justice case against Trump: Bharara
Preet Bharara, the Indiaborn former top US federal prosecutor, has said that there was enough evidence to begin an obstruction of justice case against President Donald Trump over his alleged interference in the Russia probe.
Bharara also alleged that before firing him, Trump tried to cultivate relationship with him and that the pattern was similar to that of sacked FBI Director James Comey.
Bharara was one of the 45 attorneys who were asked to resign earlier this year by the Trump administration.
“I think there’s absolute evidence to begin a case (against Trump). I think it’s very important for all sorts of armchair speculators in the law to be clear that no one knows right now whether there is a provable case of obstruction,” Bharara told ABC News.
“It’s also true I think from based on what I see as a third party and out of government that there’s no basis to say there’s no obstruction,” he said in his first television interview after being fired by Trump.
Bharara’s remarks come after Comey testified on Thursday that Trump asked him to drop an investigation involving former national security adviser Michael Flynn as part of the probe into Russia’s alleged meddling in the 2016 US polls.
Trump said he is “100 per cent” willing to testify under oath on Comey meetings and tell the FBI Special Consul Robert Muller that he never asked FBI to stop investigating.
Bharara said, at this point, on whether the president has legal authority to fire or to direct an investigation, he does really get it.
“It’s a little silly to me. The fact that you have authority to remove someone from office doesn’t automatically immunise that act from criminal responsibility,” the 48-year-old attorney argued.
“And I’ll give you an example of something from a different context. If it were to be true, and this is all made up for the sake of argument... that Michael Flynn offered a million dollars to Donald Trump and said I’m going to give you this million dollars and I’m giving it to you because I want you to fire Jim Comey and then Donald Trump fired Jim Comey, which everyone agrees he has the absolute authorisation and authority to do, that would be an open and shut federal criminal case,” Bharara opined.