Callan: Obstruction of justice case just took quantum leap
Story highlights
- Paul Callan: Potential obstruction of justice case against President Trump just took quantum leap in strength and legal sustainability
- Dark clouds are gathering over the President and his new administration, Callan writes
Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, a former New York homicide prosecutor and currently is of counsel at the New York law firm of Edelman & Edelman PC, focusing on wrongful conviction and civil rights cases. Follow him on Twitter @paulcallan. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.
(CNN)On
Friday the potential for an obstruction of justice case against
President Donald Trump took a quantum leap in strength and legal
sustainability when the New York Times reported that Trump had advised
two of the investigation's targets that the Russia "pressure" was off
and that Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey, who he described as a
"nut."
It
was shocking enough that the President had invited two of the targets
of an ongoing FBI counter intelligence investigation -- Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak
-- to a special Oval Office meeting May 10, just a day after firing
Comey, and that he excluded the American press while including the
Russian press, including a photographer.
NYT: Trump bragged to Russians about Comey 02:08
The
meeting also triggered a major controversy when it was revealed that
the President disclosed classified information to the two Russians in
what seemed to be a spontaneous and careless manner (though Trump later
asserted, correctly, that he has a right to declassify information as he
sees fit).
But according to the Times report Friday, the President also advised Lavrov and Kislyak that:
"I
just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job." The
Times account also noted that the President observed that "I faced great
pressure because of Russia. That's taken off."
The
statement may well be viewed by the newly appointed Department of
Justice special counsel, Robert Mueller, as placing a bright spotlight
on the President's true intent in firing Mr. Comey: deliberate
interference with the progress of the Russia probe.
This
could constitute an obstruction of justice and a possible impeachable
offense under US law, if the President fired Comey with the specific
intent of impeding the due administration of justice in the Russian
investigation.
James Comey to give public Senate testimony 01:41
Mueller
has been directed to investigate the possibility of collusion between
the Trump campaign and the Russians, who were actively attempting to
influence the American presidential election.
In
an obstruction of justice case, it is usually easy to prove that a
potential defendant engaged in a number of suspicious acts. What is hard
to prove is that the acts were performed with a specific criminal --
rather than an innocent -- intent.
Trump's
position on the Comey firing has shifted several times over the past
few days from a claim that the firing was motivated by a critical memo
prepared by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (a claim Rosenstein
denies) to the President's current assertion that he intended to fire
Comey before Rosenstein even wrote his memo.
Trump
has variously asserted that Comey was incompetent, that morale was low
in the FBI and that Comey was a "showboater." These claims would supply
an innocent motive to the firing, though Trump's loyalty demands and
his alleged request that Comey lay off his former national security
adviser have caused many to suspect an improper and possibly criminal
motivation, even before Friday's startling developments.
Toobin: NYT report close to a confession 00:47
Now
they can add to the growing stack of motive evidence these accounts of
explicit statements to the Russians that the Russia investigation
"pressure" was off and the FBI "nut" was out of the way.
Trump
supporters will assert that this was just an honest expression of
Trump's legitimate foreign policy objective, a peaceful alliance with
the Russians and the elimination of an incompetent FBI director. This is
becoming an increasingly difficult concept to sell as dark clouds
gather over the President and his new administration.
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