step back and think about intent. the law cares as much about why people do things as it cares about what they did. if you re mopping the floor and somebody slips and breaks their arms, that might be very sad, but it s not a crime of battery. but if you put the same soapy water on the floor with a plan to make someone slip and hurt themselves, that intent could make the same situation the crime of battery. so think about that applied here to this more complex scenario. if trump s intent was to fire comey to obstruct justice, or if new evidence shows that it was part of some larger plot to impede an investigation, then, yes, the same firing could support an obstruction case. now here is how a former pentagon counsel explains the concept. if trump orchestrated the decision to fire the fbi director to subvert or undermine the integrity of the investigations into the trump campaign s possible coordination with russia, it may amount to an obstruction of justice. that takes more words than t