Former FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday that comments President Donald Trump made after firing him in 2017 made him think “that’s potentially obstruction of justice.”
“I thought, ‘That’s potentially obstruction of justice, and I hope somebody is going to look at that,’” Comey told NBC News’ Lester Holt in an interview clip released Wednesday. He added: “What he appears to be saying is, ‘I got rid of this guy to shut down an investigation that threatened me.'”
The former FBI director was referring to the interview Trump himself gave Holt two days after he fired Comey in May 2017, in which the President said of the firing: “When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made up story.”
On Tuesday, Comey said Mueller’s decision to punt on the question of whether Trump obstructed justice “really confusing.”
Former FBI Director James Comey on his firing: "I thought that's potentially obstruction of justice"
Watch his exclusive interview with @LesterHoltNBC tonight on @NBCNightlyNews at 6:30 p.m. ET / 5:30 p.m. CT. pic.twitter.com/Mp67d0UZyA
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) March 27, 2019
He’s right. It was.
I am not sure if any specific individual needs to speak out on this topic, but I think it’s useful for lots of people to be saying the same thing. Sort of analogous to the overton window. It should be a regular topic of conversation to ask whether Trump obstructed justice, and to comment that it sure looks like he did. That shouldn’t feel like a weird or outlandish thing to say or read.
So in a stochastic discourse sense, good on Comey. Even though I’ve mostly heard enough from Comey.
So is the Barr fable obstruction of obstruction of justice?
Everyone says that Mueller is an upstanding guy but he does not seem to have acted that way.
One of the best things about this era, is that James Comey ages thrice as fast, then the rest of us.