Prez isn’t above law of the land
It’s a convenient theory: The notion that a sitting president of the United States cannot commit obstruction of justice, as President Trump’s attorney John Dowd claimed yesterday.
But unfortunately for Trump and his legal team, it’s one with little actual support in law, history or common sense.
Trump “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,”
Dowd told Axios Media yesterday, echoing a sentiment expressed by Harvard Law School professor and Trump defender
Alan Dershowitz.
This explanation came after a series of very unfortunate recent events for him that brought special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation closer to Trump than ever — beginning with his former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s agreement to flip and cooperate.
That news was exacerbated by reports that Flynn acted in consultation with key Trump transition officials, including the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, in his communications with Russian officials during the transition.
Things got worse with a Saturday tweet from Trump’s account: “I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies.”
Of course, if Trump knew that Flynn lied to the FBI at the time he fired him — before he asked then-FBI Director James Comey to let the investigation into Flynn go — that could amount to obstruction of justice.
So in an apparent effort to save him, Dowd claimed to have authored the tweet. I have yet to find anyone in Washington or elsewhere who believes that.
But more problematic is last night’s CNN report that Trump was told by White House counsel Donald McGahn in January that Flynn lied to the FBI — weeks before Trump fired Flynn, and also before his infamous request to Comey.
No one but Mueller knows what potential obstruction evidence he has against Trump, but none of these revelations bode well.
The one factor in Trump’s favor is the fact that no court has had to decide whether a president can be charged with obstruction. But given the fact that both Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon faced obstruction charges in the articles of impeachment drafted against them, I wouldn’t bet Dowd is right.
After all, the whole reason that the FBI and special counsels are given the independence they have is so that they can conduct investigations free of presidential influence — benign or nefarious.