Some people — notably American President Donald J. Trump — are surprised that Trump is being investigated regarding possible obstruction of justice by the Special Counsel Bob Mueller.
Good grief. Of course he’s being investigated for possible obstruction of justice. He attempted to obstruct justice before the eyes and ears of everyone on the planet in the past few weeks.
First, Trump asked FBI Director James Comey to “let Flynn go,” regarding the FBI investigation into the potentially illegal behavior of former National Security Advisor Gen. Michael Flynn, according to Comey’s testimony under oath. After this, Trump fired Comey.
Second, Trump told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey I. Kislyak in the Oval Office in May that he fired FBI Director James Comey the day before to take pressure off himself involving the FBI investigation into Russian influence in the American 2016 election. He said, “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”
Third, Trump told NBC News reporter and anchor Lester Holt that he was going to fire Comey and that he made that decision without any mention of Rosenstein’s letter. He had made the decision before Rosenstein’s recommendation, according to Trump during this interview with Holt. He also said that the dinner with Comey was Comey’s request, which completely contradicts Comey’s testimony under oath. Trump’s claim that he is not “under investigation” by the FBI seems to indicate that he doesn’t understand what being under investigation by the FBI really means.
Since July 2016, the FBI has been and continues to investigate interference in the American Presidential election of 2016 by members of the Russian government and key members of the Russian business community. Until his firing in May, Comey had led the FBI.
Trump’s asking Comey to stop the FBI investigation into Flynn may have been an attempt to disrupt and obstruct the investigation, which would constitute an obstruction of justice.
But the investigation goes beyond Trump. Why else would head of the National Security Agency Adm. Michael S. Rogers, and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and most recently Attorney General Jeff Sessions refuse to answer questions concerning their conversations with Trump? They all refused to answer questions during United States Congressional hearings in June.
They likely did not answer questions because they are trying to prevent Trump from perjuring himself if he is called to testify before any Congressional committees. Of course, they also refused to answer questions to avoid giving valuable information to legislators conducting their own investigation, information that could likely lead to their own obstruction of justice charges.
Recently, Trump has been tweeting. Of course he has been tweeting, railing against the media and the investigations into Russian government and business figures’ involvement in the US elections in November 2016.
Generally speaking, if someone is being accused of doing something wrong and he has in fact done nothing wrong, the best response is to say, “Investigate all you want. You won’t find anything.” But Trump’s tweets have been nothing like that. He has said that the Russia-interference-in-US-elections investigation is a “witch-hunt,” after his earlier claims that the Russia story was a “fake” story made up by Democrats who wish that Hillary Clinton had won the US Presidential election.
Unfortunately, that particular Trump claim holds no water since the first FBI investigation into Russian interference in US elections started in July of 2016, four months before the US election IN November.