Durbin declares Trump ‘ dangerous’
WASHINGTON — Sen. Dick Durbin, D- Ill., called President Donald Trump “dangerous” on Friday in the wake of Trump suggesting in a Twitter post that he taped a conversation with fired FBI Director James Comey.
“It’s just another one of his fantasies that he is putting out before the public,” Durbin said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“I think we ought to get to the bottom line here: President Trump is dangerous. Dangerous because hemay be obstructing justice, in terms of the investigation that really goes to the heart of our democracy — the accountability of the president, and the people around him, to the rule of law — protecting our democracy from an invasion— acyber-invasionbythe Russians,” Durbin said.
Durbin added, “His credibility has been destroyed.”
Durbin was responding to a question from MSNBC’s Willie Geist, who asked him to react to Trump’s earlymorning Twitter post issuing a threat of sorts, stating, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘ tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
Trump, in the same early morning Twitter stream, also suggested he may cancel White House press briefings and said it was “not possible” for his “surrogates” to speak at the briefing podium with accuracy because he is “a very active president.”
Trump used a letter from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein critical of Comey for his handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe as a reason for firing Comey.
Durbin said Rosenstein, “Right now, he has two very stark and important options. The first is to appoint a special prosecutor so that we can get to the heart of this with an independent person outside the government with no political label. Really initiating and continuing this investigation. The second thing is to resign,” he said.
Durbin also said on MSNBC, referring to Trump’s interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, “I believe he [ Rosenstein] was duped into writing this fictitious reason for the dismissal of Comey when as the president blurted out last night to [ Holt] the real reason was the Russia investigation.”