we weren t fool sod we don t feel like we were deceived. the lie, however, remains a line, remains hugely improper for a president to do even if the president had already by then so trashed his reputation that no one was fooled for a moment. again, can i just say go ahead. sorry. the issue here is, of course none of us trust i mean, i don t trust president trump in the things he says, but the issue here is that they all came up with an alternative story. they were at least for a period trying to explain this, and to offer another explanation that wasn t illegal, that wouldn t have bought an obstruction of justice charge. the fact that don mcgann recognized that the skreed basically condemned the president tells us that his skreed was an issue, the special prosecuter should be obviously
examining as obstruction of justice. professor sugarman, what are the prosecuters looking for in that skreed that they now process and may have possessed for quite a while. for all of trump s lies, he s already confessed, as you showed with lester holt, to the basic he told the truth to lester holt, that he fired jim comey because of the russia investigation. that could be the nixon articles of impeachment there. he also said in his letter, explaining the firing of jim comey, he said while i appreciate you telling me on three separate times that i wasn t under investigation, i nevertheless am firing you. that s an amazing confession. the first part of that sentence explained what he was thinking about which is thanks for telling me i wasn t under investigation. now we find out what the letter, and this is what you re asking, lawrence, what mueller is looking at is the rest of the
skreed there which is president trump wanted jim comey to tell the public that trump was not under investigation and really what trump wanted was to stay not under investigation, and that s why he fired jim comey. that s pretty that s amazingly significant. i do also want to be clear, there s another news event today, or yesterday that president trump s lawyers had met with robert mueller and tried to make the argument that because a president has the power to fire an fbi director, this can t be obstruction of justice. that basic argument is so wrong that it shows why there s so little that the trump lawyers have to argue. a president has the power to order a military strike. but if the president is ordering that military strike with the intent of let s say killing someone who slept with his wife, that s still murder. a president can pardon someone, but if the president pardons someone because he received a million dollar describe, that s still a felony of bribery.
including vice president pence, and when that letter was read, it had, quote, the new york times talks about a skreed. it identified all these other connections to the russian probe for why trump decided to fire jim comey. then after this letter is edited, mike pence then tells the media that the comey firing was not connected to the russian probe and he said it was due to rod rosenstein s implications. it implicates menace in conspiracy to obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting obstruction of justice, and misprigs of a felony. that s 18 usc section 4. if one conceals knowledge of a felony and does not make it known to the legal authorities, one can be guilty.
welcome back. more on our politics lead. there was a time when false news stories were just e-mailed to you by your crazy uncle frank. a long skreed in all caps about how this politician was part of a crime family or secretly responsible for a terrorist attack or gay or a murderer. but today that crazy misinformation comes neatly packaged and professionally presented. places such as the denver guardian, breathlessly and falsely reporting, quote, fbi agent suspected in hillary e-mail leaks found dead in apparent murder-suicide. not true. didn t happen. and the denver guardian is not a real source of news. one cray cray story in the election suggested that first lady michelle obama was so concerned about a pending arrest of hillary clinton the first lady was scrubbing all references to clinton from her