Ex-Watergate prosecutor: Trump FBI attacks may amount to obstruction of justice
A former Watergate prosecutor said Tuesday that President Trump’s new attacks on the FBI could amount to obstruction of justice.
“It is also a possible obstruction of justice, witness intimidation, and it’s obstructing justice by saying to agents, ‘you better not dig too deep, you better not find anything because I will attack you,'” Jill Wine-Banks said during a segment on MSNBC.
“And this is the president of the United States, it is congressmen who have a national audience and can make people’s lives miserable.”{mosads}
Wine-Banks said if you’re interfering with an investigation by doing that, then that’s obstruction of justice.
“And I think it’s a serious threat to the investigation and to democracy,” she said.
She also said the evidence of obstruction of justice is starting to get clearer, citing the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, the threat to the FBI and the “possible firing or pushing out of McCabe.”
Trump in recent days has stepped up his attacks against the FBI.
On Saturday, Trump swiped at multiple agency officials in a string of tweets, in which he suggested FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe may have been compromised by political donations and ripped Comey as a leaker.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is conducting an investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The investigation is wide-ranging and Trump’s critics hope it will lead to obstruction of justice charges against the president.
Trump has called the Russia probe a “witch hunt” and has denied collusion between his campaign and Russia.
Wine-Banks served on the staff of special prosecutor Leon Jaworski during the Watergate scandal. In her role, she cross-examined former President Nixon’s secretary Rose Mary Woods.
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