Muellers obstruction of justice case against Trump looks damning

[babylonsister]

Mueller’s obstruction of justice case against Trump looks damning
This should worry Trump even more than allegations of collusion.
By Zack Beauchamp@[e-mail]
Jan 10, 2018, 8:30am EST


Special counsel Robert Mueller is tasked with trying to find out whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia — and he’s made a lot of progress, fast.

He’s secured guilty pleas from former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, indicted former campaign manager Paul Manafort, and subpoenaed huge numbers of documents. There are indications that he is preparing to haul in the president for an interview.

There remains, however, a crucial hole in the case for collusion — at least, the part of it known to the public. We have not seen or heard any evidence that President Trump personally participated in some kind of illegal election hacking scheme in coordination with Russian agents.

But there’s another kind of case against the president — the argument that his various attempts to undermine the Russia investigation, like firing FBI Director James Comey, constitute criminal obstruction of justice. If Mueller feels he has enough evidence, then he could seek permission to indict and prosecute Trump. It’s not clear that charges can actually be brought against a sitting president, but Mueller’s findings could nevertheless be turned over to Congress — and serve as the centerpiece of any impeachment proceedings against Trump.

That means it’s obstruction, not collusion, that poses the biggest legal and political threat to President Trump.

“If Trump exercises his power — even his lawful power — with a corrupt motive of interfering with an investigation, that’s obstruction,” says Lisa Kern Griffin, an expert on criminal law at Duke University. “The attempt is sufficient, and it seems to be a matter of public record already.”

There are basically two reasons Griffin and other legal observers believe Mueller has such a good case obstruction case. First, the evidence of obstruction is, from what we know publicly, far stronger than the evidence that Trump himself was involved in with Russian efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. Second, the crime of obstruction is legally straightforward, whereas it’s not obvious which laws Trump would have violated by accepting Russian assistance during the election.

The public, obviously, doesn’t know everything Mueller does. It could be that the collusion case is a lot clearer, or the obstruction case a lot murkier, than it appears from the outside.

But what we do know suggests that Mueller is taking the obstruction charge seriously, and that his chances of making his case are quite good — unless Trump decides to fire him or his boss.

more...

https://www.vox.com/world/2018/1/10/16855518/trump-mueller-obstruction-case-strong

[dawg]

1. Yes, but none of that matters to a Republican Senate.

This is a country of men, not a country of laws.

[MineralMan]

2. Frankly, we do not know anything about what Mueller has or is doing.

We have no idea what he and his investigators are working toward. We might speculate on that, but there is no leakage from that investigation to give us an idea what we might expect at its conclusion.

All statements about what Mueller's team will come up with are pure speculation.

We will know when we know, and not before then. I am paying zero attention to anyone who is telling me what is going on internally with the investigation. It's all made-up bullshit so far.

[ProudMNDemocrat]

3. Having an iron clad case for Obstruction of Justice......

by Donald Trump and Mueller has evidence strong enough to bring forth to Congress, that will put Congress in such a bind that it will indeed bring on Constitutional crisis for themselves. The Republicans will have no choice but to impeach for crimes against the Country and its laws.

If Congress acts to protect Trump in the manner he wants, then our system of government is thereby null and void. We have no Government that chooses corruption over the rule of law. There will be riots in the streets and at Congressional Offices of every Republican in this country. THEY will not know a moment's peace and the Press will be all over this. They will be able to run away from their responsibility to the people, but they will not be able to hide.

Robert Mueller holds the cards and he will play them accordingly. I never knew Texas Hold Em was so exciting a game.

[L. Coyote]

4. It looked like a slam-dunk when Comey was fired.

Deja DU, May 11, 2017: Trump's New Impeachable Offenses: Obstruction of Justice, Conspiracy, Abuse of Power

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Kind of like Watergate. There was no evidence Nixon ordered the break-in,

but there was lots of evidence that he engineered the coverup, and bigly obstructed justice in the process.

[Jim__]

6. We know Flynn talked to Russia about sanctions.

We know Flynn was in contact with the transition team when he did that. I'm betting Flynn can incriminate Trump with regard to conspiring with Russia.