Our reporting shows how an aide to AG Jeff Sessions asked a Hill staffer four days before Comey was fired whether staffer had derogatory information on Comey, as part of apparent effort to undercut FBI director’s credibility https://t.co/OxhitbBfg2
— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) January 5, 2018
***
Per article on Trump:
President Trump gave firm instructions in March to the White House’s top lawyer: stop the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, from recusing himself in the Justice Department’s investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s associates had helped a Russian campaign to disrupt the 2016 election.
Mr. McGahn was unsuccessful, and the president erupted in anger in front of numerous White House officials, saying he needed his attorney general to protect him.
Intent to obstruct? Hmm
***
Per article on Sessions:
Two days after Mr. Comey’s testimony, an aide to Mr. Sessions approached a Capitol Hill staff member asking whether the staffer had any derogatory information about the F.B.I. director. The attorney general wanted one negative article a day in the news media about Mr. Comey, according to a person with knowledge of the meeting.
Intent to obstruct? Hmm
***
On Mueller:
Mr. Mueller has also substantiated claims that Mr. Comey made in a series of memos describing troubling interactions with the president before he was fired in May.
Mueller may be closing in.
Resist!
*********
Supplementing with a Twitter thread from Seth Abramson
2/ That a White House lawyer lied to the president to keep him from firing Jim Comey confirms that legal experts in his employ, along with everyone else, considered it necessary to save the country from the president rather than permitting him to govern in his current condition.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) January 5, 2018
4/ This NYT story makes clear that Sessions, with the assistance of at least one aideâÂÂand was it Gordon or Dearborn, both implicated in the Russia probe?âÂÂwas trying to cover up what he knew as an attorney (much like Corallo knew) was a course of conduct constituting Obstruction.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) January 5, 2018
6/ As for Mueller needing proof the president instructed someone to lie for an Obstruction case, (a) no, you don’t, and (b) remember that a Flynn confidant told ABC that Flynn says Trump ordered him to negotiate with RussiaâÂÂthen tried to end the probe that would reveal that fact.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) January 5, 2018
8/ Remember too that the period during which Trump was trying to avoid firing Flynn, and then trying to get Comey to drop Flynn’s case, was also the period when the “blank check” job offer Trump gave George Papadopoulos was suddenly taken away. Trump knew justice was closing in.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) January 5, 2018
10/ So this is a good time to repeat what I’ve said on the subject of a future Special Counsel referral to the DOJ: Bob Mueller *will* refer at *least* one impeachable offense to Rod Rosenstein at DOJ, because he *will* refer Obstruction of Justice (i.e., recommend that charge).
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) January 5, 2018
PS/ Per NYT, the effort to fire Comey began the moment Comey refused to permanently exonerate Trump on TV. While a POTUS doesn’t need grounds to fire an FBI Director, firing him because he won’t swear never to charge youâÂÂwhen an investigation involving you is pendingâÂÂis a crime.
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) January 5, 2018
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