Over the weekend, Trump’s outside lawyer John Dowd found himself in a rather awkward position.
With the Twitter clock ticking and Trump’s 44 million followers wondering why the President hadn’t yet taken to his favorite unfiltered social media forum to defend associate-turned-rat Michael Flynn, the commander in chief finally regaled the world with this opening salvo:
That was a mistake. Pretty much immediately, lawmakers, legal experts and pundits lit up the internet, noting that the President had just admitted to obstructing justice. See the thing is, if Trump knew Flynn had lied to the FBI when he pressured James Comey to drop the investigation into the disgraced former national security adviser on February 14, well then that’s obstruction. You can read our original post on that complete with all of the commentary here.
In a half-hearted effort to clean up the mess, John Dowd told ABC that he in fact wrote the tweet, a contention that raised more questions than it answered not the least of which is this: why would a lawyer put his client in legal jeopardy?
Well now, apparently realizing that this has opened new doors for Mueller, Dowd is trying something else. Specifically, he’s contending that it is impossible for Trump to obstruct justice. To wit, from Axios’ Mike Allen:
The “President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution’s Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case,” Dowd claims.
Dowd: “The tweet did not admit obstruction. That is an ignorant and arrogant assertion.”
Forgive me John, but the “ignorant and arrogant assertion” here is the one you just made. The President is not above the law. That’s not how things work in America.
This would appear to indicate that Trump’s legal team is digging in their heels after the Saturday boondoggle which, again, dozens of legal experts and multiple lawmakers still contend may amount to a tacit admission of obstruction.
“Trump’s legal team is clearly setting the stage to say the president cannot be charged with any of the core crimes discussed in the Russia probe: collusion and obstruction,” Axios goes on to note, adding that “presumably, you wouldn’t preemptively make these arguments unless you felt there was a chance charges are coming.”
Exactly.
Oh, and Dowd might want to rethink his “defense”, because after all…
Article I. Amen.
Now they just have to find a way to tie in Pence so they can abort this entire administration outright.
Careful what you wish for – then we get the Munster kid.
Dowd has confirmed he too is a fucking moron. In his attempt to cover for his client, he disclosed to the public the process by which he rendered legal services to his client by telling NBC News that he drafted the tweet and then **sent** it to the White House Social Media Director Dan Scavino to publish. Thereafter, NBC asked Dowd for the original email he sent to Scavino, and Dowd had to crawl that back and said he dictated it orally.
So, Dowd has called into question whether all of Trump’s tweets are authored or written or actually tweeted by Trump as the public has been led to believe. Mueller will want to know the answer to these questions. Dowd, Scavino, Kelly and others will be answering to Muller on these and related “tweet” questions.
Also, the question will arise as to whether Dowd has disclosed attorney client privileged communications he has had with Trump with Trump’s consent, thus waving the Trump’s attorney client privilege, thereby opening the door to Mueller having access to all of Dowd’s communications with Trump.
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On the question of whether a president is immune from Federal Crimes.
There is no immunity afforded a president from crimes unless there is an
express provision in the criminal statutes or any other statute
making the president so exempt. Dowd cannot show you any such
exemption or a case that says there is such an exemption. He is
only showing you how his ass speaks.
There are literally hundreds if not more federal laws that limit, restrict, direct and otherwise
command the president to act in a certaain manner, and if he fails to comply with the law
can give rise to court action which can order the president to comply. It needs no citation
of example or authority to make that point. The president is simply not above the law, he
is ruled by law and must comply with law and the constitution. A reading of
United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974), is reminder as to this point.
Nixon also reminds us as to why Jeff Sessions recent repeated invocation of executive
privilege and how it was invoked was spurious at best. What was worse than what he did,
was the apparent lack of immediate response or understanding by any senator or
congressperson as to how how the AG’s privilege objection was a fraud and requiring him
to make a proper record or be held in contempt).