Hey, Is This Obstruction Of Justice? How About THIS? And THESE? And That ...

Oy vey.

LOVE THE SMELL OF OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE IN THE MORNING! President Fuckbonkers passed a therapeutic Executive Time scream tweeting abuse at Michael Cohen and praising Roger Stone for refusing to testify to the grand jury. How long before he starts straight up tweeting out pardons?

Speaking of "guts," did Trump just shit his pants in fear? Did someone finally tell him that, once he leaves office, he can be prosecuted for all the obstruction of justice, witness tampering, and perjury he committed as president? Because that Tweet right there would be prime facie witness tampering. As in, that is a crime ON ITS FACE.

Right Kellyanne's husband?

George is right. This is genuinely looking like witness tampering. DOJ (at least with a nonfake AG) prosecutes case… https: //t.co/5u44MbtjpS

— Neal Katyal (@Neal Katyal) 1543853776.0 

Why yes, he is referring to federal witness tampering statutes.

It's not even the first time in the past week the president has announced his intention to break all the laws . Trump sat down on Wednesday with the New York Post to tell them about all the obstruction of justice he plans to do when Democrats take back the House in November.

"If they go down the presidential harassment track, if they want go and harass the president and the administration, I think that would be the best thing that would happen to me. I'm a counter-puncher and I will hit them so hard they'd never been hit like that," he said during a 36-minute Oval Office sitdown.

The commander-in-chief said he could declassify FISA warrant applications and other documents from Robert Mueller's probe — and predicted the disclosure would expose the FBI, the Justice Department and the Clinton campaign as being in cahoots to set him up.

And, hey bonus, it will even goose his reelection campaign. KA-CHING! Because when you're weaponizing the declassification process to hurt your political enemies, timing is everything. 

"I think that would help my campaign. If they want to play tough, I will do it. They will see how devastating those pages are."

But Trump told The Post he wanted to save the documents until they were needed. "It's much more powerful if I do it then," Trump said, "because if we had done it already, it would already be yesterday's news."

Also, EMMET FLOOD, CALL YOUR LAWYER.

Trump added Wednesday that his lawyer Emmet Flood thought it would be better politically to wait.

"He didn't want me to do it yet, because I can save it," Trump said.

A formerly respected lawyer who works in the White House is counseling the president on when to declassify FISA documents so they'll have maximum political effect? Wow, that's not very cool. Nor is it very legal. And whatever privilege (attorney-client, executive, deliberative process) might once have attached, it's likely waived because your client discussed it publicly. So enjoy splaining to the House Judiciary Committee how an officer of the court came to advise his client on how best to break the law to benefit his own campaign. Mazal Tov!

Law nerds may note that the Justice Department is also furiously backpedaling on Trump's dump tweets as well. Several media organizations have filed suit to get access to the unredacted Carter Page FISA documents, reasoning that the president's constant tweeting about them and ordering their declassification as he did in September (right after Manafort flipped, coincidentally) means that they are no longer classified.

Which forces the DOJ into the awkward position of having to assert that Commander Dumbass doesn't know what the hell he's talking about.

The President's quotation of media reporting cannot be assumed to be his confirmation of the media reporting based on government information, and it is not evidence of government misconduct in this case. See James Madison Project, 302 F. Supp. 3d at 34 ("the President's statements may very well be based on media reports or his own personal knowledge, or could simply be viewed as political statements intended to counter media accounts about the Russia investigation, rather than assertions of pure fact."

Also, too, pay no attention to the fact that the leader of the free world live-tweets Fox. LOL, it's better that he should park his ass on the couch than to actually govern, right?

Plaintiffs ignore the opening quotation mark included in the tweet, as well as the President's reference to himself in the third person, and assume this is a statement directly from the President. In fact, it appears to be a (partially condensed) quotation from Tom Fitton of Judicial Watch, who was simultaneously appearing on television that morning to promote further declassification of the documents (and its lawsuit seeking these documents). [Citation omitted] The President's quotation of media reporting cannot be assumed to be his confirmation of the media reporting based on government information, and it is not evidence of government misconduct in this case.

In sum, the Justice Department argues that Donald Trump is a giant fucking idiot who is totally full of shit, so nothing he says can have any legal effect, criminal, civil, or otherwise. AND THEY'RE HALF RIGHT ABOUT THAT.

[ New York Post / DOJ Opposition Memorandum ]

 Follow your FDF on Twitter! 

You liking these lawsplainers? Please click here to fund 'em!