Trump's lawyers were really reaching

President Trump’s lawyers have for months quietly waged a campaign to keep the special counsel from trying to force him to answer questions in the investigation into whether he obstructed justice, asserting that he cannot be compelled to testify and arguing in a confidential letter [written by two of the president’s lawyers at the time, John M. Dowd and Jay A. Sekulow] that he could not possibly have committed obstruction because he has unfettered authority over all federal investigations.

In a brash assertion of presidential power, the 20-page letter — sent to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and obtained by The New York Times — contends that the president cannot illegally obstruct any aspect of the investigation into Russia’s election meddling because the Constitution empowers him to, “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”

  NYT

He can't be guilty of breaking any laws because as the president, he is above the law. See?

Apparently the letter (written in January 2018) wasn't so confidential that the Times couldn't get hold of it. Here again, don't imagine that it's the Mueller team leaking. It's bound to be Trump's lawyers, hoping that the public will buy this ridiculous argument. They're now trying to stave off impeachment.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers fear that if he answers questions, either voluntarily or in front of a grand jury, he risks exposing himself to accusations of lying to investigators, a potential crime or impeachable offense.

So they do have some sense.

“We don’t know what the law is on the intersection between the obstruction statutes and the president exercising his constitutional power to supervise an investigation in the Justice Department,” said Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard Law School professor who oversaw the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration. “It’s an open question.”

Oh, come on. Are we expected to believe that a president can legally control an investigation of himself? Why didn't Bill Clinton think of that?  Or Dick Nixon?

The attempt to dissuade Mr. Mueller from seeking a grand jury subpoena is one of two fronts on which Mr. Trump’s lawyers are fighting. In recent weeks, they have also begun a public-relations campaign to discredit the investigation and in part to pre-empt a potentially damaging special counsel report that could prompt impeachment proceedings.

[...]

Mr. Trump complained on Twitter on Saturday before this article was published that the disclosure of the letter was a damaging leak to the news media and asked whether the “expensive Witch Hunt Hoax” would ever end.

As if his team didn't leak it themselves.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers are gambling that Mr. Mueller may not want to risk an attempt to forge new legal ground by bringing a grand jury subpoena against a sitting president into a criminal proceeding.

“Ensuring that the office remains sacred and above the fray of shifting political winds and gamesmanship is of critical importance,” they wrote.

Yeah, only the president gets to play that hand.  (The office of the special prosecutor is sacred?)

They argued that the president holds a special position in the government and is busy running the country, making it difficult for him to prepare and sit for an interview. They said that because of those demands on Mr. Trump’s time, the special counsel’s office should have to clear a higher bar to get him to talk.

That's funny. He has plenty of "executive" time in the mornings to watch TV and tweet.

“The president’s prime function as the chief executive ought not be hampered by requests for interview,” they wrote. “Having him testify demeans the office of the president before the world.”

Yeah, I don't need to say it, do I?

Because of the authority the Constitution gives him, it is impossible for him to obstruct justice by shutting down a case or firing a subordinate, no matter his motivation, they said.

Are these attorneys or clowns we're talking about?

“Every action that the president took was taken with full constitutional authority pursuant to Article II of the United States Constitution,” they wrote of the part of the Constitution that created the executive branch. “As such, these actions cannot constitute obstruction, whether viewed separately or even as a totality.”

Why didn't Dick Nixon's lawyers think of that? Actually, Dick did: If the president does it, it's not illegal, he said. Pretty sure Nixon didn't serve out his term.

“Of course, the president of the United States is not above the law, but just as obvious and equally as true is the fact that the president should not be subjected to strained readings and forced applications of clearly irrelevant statutes,” Mr. Dowd and Mr. Sekulow wrote.

But the lawyers based those arguments on an outdated statute, without mentioning that Congress passed a broader law in 2002 that makes it a crime to obstruct proceedings that have not yet started.

Samuel W. Buell, a Duke Law School professor and white-collar criminal law specialist who was a lead prosecutor for the Justice Department’s Enron task force, said the real issue was whether Mr. Trump obstructed a potential grand jury investigation or trial — which do count as proceedings — even if the F.B.I. investigation had not yet developed into one of those. He called it inexplicable why the president’s legal team was making arguments that were focused on the wrong obstruction-of-justice statute.

Clowns will do anything for a laugh.

Now, here's where the letter gets really good, for me:

The lawyers acknowledged that Mr. Trump dictated a statement to The Times about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting between some of his top advisers and Russians who were said to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton. Though the statement is misleading — in it, the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., said he met with Russians “primarily” to discuss adoption issues — the lawyers call it “short but accurate.”

How many times did they deny publicly that Trump dictated that statement Junior gave The Times?*

So, did Don Jr lie to the House Intel Committee last December about Daddy dictating his statement? I need to do some research.

The president’s lawyers argued that the statement is a matter between the president and The Times — and the president’s White House and legal advisers have said for the past year that misleading journalists is not a crime.

But "misleading" federal investigators is. At least his lawyers knew that much.  Ergo, this letter to Mueller.

And here's this little bit of info I hadn't considered (it's too damned hard to keep it all in mind with shit happening daily):

I'm not even sure what that means, but it is oddly coincidental.  That suspicious talk with Putin was during that G20 dinner where Trump got up from the table and went to talk to Putin with no American interpreter, only a Russian one.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers also try to untangle another potential piece of evidence in the obstruction investigation: his assertion, during an interview with Lester Holt of NBC two days after Mr. Comey was fired, that he was thinking while he weighed the dismissal that “this Russia thing” had no validity. Mr. Mueller’s investigators view that statement as damning, according to people familiar with the investigation.

But the lawyers say that news accounts seized on only part of his comments and that his full remarks show that the president was aware that firing Mr. Comey would lengthen the investigation and dismissed him anyway.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

Say, if it's not a crime to "mislead" a journalist, why worry about "untangling" that piece of evidence?

Want confirmation that the Trump team leaked this letter?  Here's Trump's tweet this morning before the Times story came out:






Here's more:



They're so fucking obvious.  I don't know if that's because they don't know any better or if they know Trump's base doesn't know any better, and that's all they're concerned about since they know the GOP won't hold them accountable for anything.  Maybe it's both.







I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see that as an actual Trump tweet in the morning.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.


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