Trumps efforts to obstruct the Russia investigation may have finally gone too far
https://thinkprogress.org/trumps-efforts-to-obstruct-the-russia-investigation-may-have-finally-gone-too-far-1513e5d9f3a4#.94g6r696hTrump has made no secret of his disdain for efforts to investigate the role of Russia in the 2016 presidential election, including possible communication between his campaign and Russian operatives.
“It’s time for our country to move on to bigger and better things,” Trump said in December.
There is, however, an ongoing FBI investigation into potential contacts between top Trump advisers and Russian officials. CNN, citing “multiple current and former intelligence, law enforcement and administration officials,” reported that “[h]igh-level advisers close to then-presidential nominee Donald Trump were in constant communication during the campaign with Russians known to US intelligence.”
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Potential attempted obstruction of justice
In requesting a statement from the FBI that there were no contacts between Trump campaign officials and Russian operatives, Priebus was essentially demanding that the FBI publicly announce that an ongoing investigation was closed.
Depending on the exact nature of Priebus’ conversations and contacts, this could constitute attempted obstruction of justice under federal law, Larry Tribe, a law professor at Harvard University, told ThinkProgress.
“It could well be attempted obstruction of justice, and it’s certainly so unethical that it would be a firing offense for a chief of staff in any White House that respects the rule of law,” Tribe said.
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Priebus bragged about this last Sunday on the talk shows. He should quit or be fired, and anyone who gave him these orders. (Bannon or Trump).
= new reply since forum marked as read
priebus might -- might -- get the boot, but any damage would stop there.
republicans play by very different rules. sure, hillary would have been impeached if something like this happened were she president, but with republicans it's always a different story.
hell, aside from the massive lying to congress during the shrub administration, cheney divulged top secret information, burned a covert agent, killed and entire covert operation, and quite probably got a number of informants killed, or at least rendered them useless. and aside from a bit of bad press, nothing, really. libby was convicted for lying to investigators, though shrub commuted the sentence.
a republican chief of staff having a chat with the fbi head? this is nothing.
now, if bill clinton were to talk to someone like that, hoo boy, *that* would be a scandal....
