Exploring issues that affect leaders in the U. S. And around the globe. Howard fineman, an nbc news analyst who spent his tuesday in judge ellis courtroom marveling at Paul Manaforts wardrobe. Anyway, mimi, let me start with you. Define Obstruction Of Justice and is it something that has to be done in secret for it to be a crime . Sure, chuck. I want to answer the second part first. It does not have to be done in secret. The definition of Obstruction Of Justice, there are different prongs of it, depending on whether youre trying to interfere with witnesses or tamper with evidence. Its basically trying to impede an investigation corruptly, with corrupt intent, which simply could mean youre trying to stop an investigation because you dont like that that investigation is zeroing in on you or your close friends, so it cant be it has to be for a bad purpose and those would be bad purposes. And thats why this tweet right now looks so incriminating because whats happening you believe its very
the opening day. not the playoffs yet, but regular season. it s opening day without the bunting, in both senses of the word. so i was watching everything very carefully, including the prosecution team. it s very interesting, because it s in the eastern district of virginia, the irascible famous judge, judge ellis, wanted somebody who had practiced before him to be the lead attorney. so it wasn t mueller s team, per se. oh, interesting. it was the local guy from the eastern district. and that showed shrewdness on the part of mueller and his team. you know, if that s what the judge wants, then give the judge what he wants. yeah. and then also they have so many charges across tax and banking and so forth. my sense of juries having covered a lot of trials is they will find a few. there s multiple, multiple, multiple charges. they re not going to buy everything the prosecution is going to lay out there.