Thursday, June 8, 2017

Trump, Comey and Obstruction of Justice: A Primer - New York Times

Trump, Comey and Obstruction of Justice: A Primer

By CHARLIE SAVAGE
JUNE 8, 2017
WASHINGTON — The testimony by the former F.B.I. director James B. Comey that, before firing him last month, President Trump demanded loyalty, urged him to drop the investigation into his former national security adviser and pressed him to “lift the cloud” of the Russia inquiry is fueling accusations that the president obstructed justice.
Mr. Comey’s prepared testimony, which the Senate Intelligence Committee released on Wednesday, corroborates prior reports by The New York Times about how Mr. Comey’s strained relationship with the president evolved, which had already prompted Democrats to raise the specter of the obstruction crime.
Moreover, Mr. Trump himself told NBC News last month that when he fired Mr. Comey, he had been thinking about the F.B.I.’s investigation into whether his associates coordinated with Russia in its interference in the 2016 election. The Times has reported that the day after the firing, Mr. Trump told Russian diplomats in the Oval Office that firing Mr. Comey had relieved “great pressure because of Russia.”
In a statement last month after The Times’ report about the conversation over Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser, the White House said, “The president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end any investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn.”
“The president has the utmost respect for our law enforcement agencies, and all investigations,” the White House statement said. “This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.”

What is obstruction of justice?
Several federal statutes criminalize actions that impede official investigations. While some examples of illegal ways to thwart the justice system are specific — like killing a witness or destroying evidence — the law also includes broad, catchall prohibitions. For example, Sections 1503, 1505 and 1512 of Title 18 have variants of language making it a crime if someone corruptly “obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding.”
Could that cover asking the F.B.I. director to drop part of an investigation, and later firing him?
In theory, yes. Such statutes were broadly drafted. Julie O’Sullivan, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches white-collar criminal law at Georgetown University, says the power relationship between a president and the F.B.I. director could elevate a request to shut down a case into an act that amounts to impeding an official investigation.
“He really needs a lawyer,” Ms. O’Sullivan said of Mr. Trump in May. “He is building a beautiful case against himself.”
Did Trump have lawful authority to fire Comey?
Yes. But courts have ruled that otherwise lawful acts can constitute obstruction of justice if done with corrupt intentions. In a 1998 case, for example, a federal appeals court upheld the conviction of a lawyer who had filed legal complaints and related motions against a government agent who was investigating an illegal gambling operation. The court ruled that the defendant’s “nominally litigation-related conduct” was unlawful because his real motive was “to safeguard his personal financial interests” in the corrupt enterprise.
What would such a case entail, in theory?
Obstruction of justice cases often come down to whether prosecutors can prove defendants’ mental state when they committed the act, legal specialists said. It is not enough to show that a defendant knew the act would have a side consequence of impeding an investigation; achieving that obstruction has to have been the specific intention.
Samuel Buell, a former federal prosecutor who led the Justice Department’s Enron task force and now teaches criminal law at Duke University, was initially skeptical about whether the mere firing of Mr. Comey could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Trump had an improper mental state. But subsequent revelations, he said, made the evidence much more robust.

“The evidence of improper purpose has gotten much stronger since the day of Comey’s firing,” Mr. Buell said. “Trump has made admissions about that. And we now have evidence that he may have indicated an improper purpose previously in his communications with Comey about the Russia investigation.”
What impediments would there be to charging Trump?
Ms. O’Sullivan said it was not realistic to expect the Justice Department to charge the sitting president.
What about impeachment?
“Asking FBI to drop an investigation is obstruction of justice,” Representative Ted Deutch, Democrat of Florida, wrote on Twitter on after the initial report of the Oval Office conversation about Mr. Flynn. “Obstruction of justice is an impeachable offense.”
Both American presidents who were subjected to impeachment proceedings in the last century — Bill Clinton in 1998 and Richard M. Nixon in 1974 — were accused of obstruction of justice.
While it can be a murky task in court to interpret the obstruction statutes, said David Sklansky, a former federal prosecutor who teaches at Stanford, impeachment proceedings are different. They are a “quasi-judicial, quasi-political process,” he noted; the House and the Senate determine for themselves whether the standards are met.
In other words, as a practical matter, the Constitution’s standards for impeachment and removal of a president — if he has committed “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors” — are met by anything that a majority of the House and two-thirds of the Senate are willing to vote for.

That makes prognostication an exercise in vote counting, not legal analysis.
Follow Charlie Savage on Twitter at @charlie_savage.




Senate intelligence committee hearing of former FBI Director James Comey - CNN

Washington (CNN) - The Senate intelligence committee hearing of former FBI Director James Comey was already going to be a blockbuster before it even started -- with Comey stating in pre-written testimony Wednesday that President Donald Trump urged him to drop his investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
But while it may seem that Comey's decision to release his testimony a day early actually upstages his own appearance, in reality he gave senators a running start to come up with more pointed, probing questions for him when they all take the national stage Thursday morning.
Here are five things to watch for Thursday:
1. The former FBI director will testify under oath that the President asked him to drop an investigation into one of his top allies
It's impossible to lose sight of the most important items to emerge from the Russia investigations thus far: Trump asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn.
If you're a Democrat, that sounds like obstruction of justice (and possible grounds for impeachment.) If you're a Republican, it may sound like a political novice asking his aide to help one of his friends. But it is one of the most important, and prominent, developments in the sprawling web of the Russia investigations.
And Comey is poised Thursday to take that fact out of the realm of anonymous (and accurate) reporting and formally place it in the record publicly, under threat of perjury if it's not true.
Comey, in detail, relays how Trump asked all of his top advisers to leave a February 14 meeting in the Oval Office -- one by one -- until he was alone with Comey. After explaining that he wanted to talk about Flynn, Trump said he wanted Comey to "let this go."
Comey writes, "He then said, 'I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.'"
2. But is it obstruction of justice?
Watch for a battle between Democrats and Republicans over how to characterize Trump's request of Comey -- as well as Trump's other requests, like his repeatedly asking Comey for his loyalty.
Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee were mum Tuesday, as they left a classified briefing after Comey's testimony went public. But their counterparts on the House Russia investigation clearly thought the testimony could prove obstruction of justice by Trump.
Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee were mum Tuesday, as they left a classified briefing after Comey's testimony went public. But their counterparts on the House Russia investigation clearly thought the testimony could prove obstruction of justice by Trump.
"Congress must now determine whether the Director's refusal to do either -- or any other motivation to interfere with or obstruct any part of the Russia investigation -- led ultimately to Comey's firing," Schiff said in a statement.
Senate intelligence committee Chairman Richad Burr, who has taken a firm and methodical stance leading the Russia investigation, said Tuesday that his quick reading of Comey's testimony showed no wrongdoing, but that could change.
"I don't think from what I've read there's any evidence of wrongdoing," Burr told reporters. "I will match that against his verbal testimony and weigh that against the evidence to date."
3. 'Trump was right'
That was the comment from the Republican National Committee after Comey's testimony was released and, for one very key point, it is dead on: Trump is correct that Comey told him multiple times the FBI was not investigating him personally.
The first (and only) comment from Trump's newly appointed spokesman and lawyer on all things involving Russia, Marc Kasowitz, hammered home that they feel "totally vindicated."
"The President is pleased that Mr. Comey has finally publicly confirmed his private reports that the President was not under investigation in any Russian probe. The President feels completely and totally vindicated. He is eager to continue to move forward with his agenda," Kasowitz said in a statement.
That fact is only one tree in a Siberian forest that is filled with bad news for Trump. But it's still a glimmer of good news in the story that has cast an omnipresent cloud over Trump's administration.
4. Can senators extract more from Comey in public?
Comey is a veteran at testifying before Congress -- having filled the role now held by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein more than a decade ago and testified regularly as the FBI director. He has frequently offered up important nuggets -- but also has a plethora of ways to say, ever so politely, that he will not answer a question.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a veteran member of the Senate Intelligence Committee and former chairwoman of the panel, hinted at this in an interview with CNN's Dana Bash Tuesday.
"It's seven pages of very fine print and what it describes is a professional law enforcement person, who is Jim Comey, who comes up against a president who knows no limits in terms of a proper relationship," Feinstein said Tuesday of Comey's testimony. "It was really pretty remarkable that he put this in writing (the night before the hearing.) We will see how much he's prepared to do verbally."
Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the committee, meanwhile was scheduled to spend Wednesday afternoon and early evening preparing his questions for Comey.
5. Other Comey surprises
Comey's recent hearings on the Hill -- before he was fired -- had offered some very stunning revelations.
On March 20, he revealed publicly that the FBI had been investigating the Trump campaign since last July -- in a House hearing which prefaced the House investigation almost spiraling out of control.
And just a week before he was fired -- Comey told the Senate Judiciary Committee that he decided to publicly announce his findings in the Clinton email investigation after watching Bill Clinton board a plane with then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch. (However, later reporting revealed that Comey actually acted based on Russian misinformation alleging collusion between the Clinton campaign and the Obama Justice Department.)
In short: Comey's public hearings tend to be explosive news-fests.

CNN News

North Korea blasts Trump as 'silly,' 'ignorant' over Paris Accord withdrawal - ABC News

North Korea blasts Trump as 'silly,' 'ignorant' over Paris Accord withdrawal
  • By CONOR FINNEGAN 
Jun 7, 2017, 7:17 PM ET
WATCH How will withdrawing from the Paris Accord affect Trump?
Short-sighted, silly, selfish, and dangerous.
That's how President Trump's decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord is being described -- but not by the European leaders who urged Trump to stay in the agreement or the Pacific island nationsthat are demanding action as rising sea levels threaten their coastlines.

Those are the words of North Korea.
The regime in Pyongyang issued a scorching statement through its official news agency KCNA on Tuesday, blasting Trump's decision that, it said, comes "at the cost of the entire planet."
"The selfish act of the U.S. does not only have grave consequences for the international efforts to protect the environment, but poses great danger to other areas as well," said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The statement goes on to criticize Trump's "America first" foreign policy, and calls the withdrawal, "the height of egoism and moral vacuum seeking only their own well-being ... a short-sighted and silly decision ignorant of the fact that the protection of the global environment is in their own interests."
While the White House has refused to say whether or not Trump believes that climate change is real, Kim Jong Un's regime makes clear its position.

"Global warming is one of the gravest challenges the humankind is facing today," it said.

North Korea signed the historic accord, and in withdrawing, the U.S. joins only two other countries who stand outside it -- Nicaragua, which refused because it believed the agreement did not go far enough, and the only country that may be more isolated diplomatically than North Korea: Syria.